Game Title: Claire Extended Cut
Developer: Hailstorm Games
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Game Type: Vita
Download: 303 MB
NA Availability: Digital Download
EU Availability: Digital Download
PSTV Support: Yes

Have you ever theorized about a horror movie or game’s storyline after you play or watch it? I’m talking about an experience that you got into so much that it really hit home to the point that you want to know more, past what was shown. Where you start thinking about the events of the storyline and start making your own theories to try to explain what happened and what the characters were thinking, feeling, and more.

This doesn’t happen to me very often, but a little indie horror title did that this week. Claire is a name in the horror genre that is normally associated with hit franchise, Resident Evil. However, an indie originally released on Steam came to PlayStation this week, and I’m very glad it it. Now, I can share the experience with you and tell you my thoughts. Here is my review of the PS Vita version of Claire: Extended Cut!

Story

Claire is about a young woman named Claire, whom often visits and looks after her sick mother. While searching the hospital for coffee one night, strange things start to happen. Dark visions, twisted halls, and demonic creatures fill her entire world.  You follow Claire in her journey through these hellish versions of very-real places in her life.

I found the story to be particularly touching for a couple reasons.  First and foremost is that her past, tragedy, and journey are realistic and relatable.  Although the journey seems anything but realistic, when all is said and done, you can really relate to her and her sad history.  That’s one thing that kept me playing.

Gameplay

Claire is a side-scrolling survival horror adventure game with puzzle elements. In your journey through the game, you will be running through 2D environments while avoiding enemies, maintaining health and mental health with items, and solving puzzles in order to keep going in the game.

The game is a one-time journey, meaning that this isn’t a mission-based experience. You’ll be put into an area, tasked with unlocking story events which will lead you to the next objective. Reaching objectives will progress the story further until the story takes over and pushes forward.

Reaching those objectives, however, is a matter of puzzle-solving, exploration, and running like hell. First is exploration.  Many rooms are locked or blocked by barricades.  A lot of your time will be spent finding alternate paths to your current objective.

That’s also where puzzles come in. The game has puzzles with optional and required prizes.  Problem is, you don’t know which is which, so doing all puzzles is a necessity.  Solving them is like solving them in games like Silent Hill.  There are vague hints around the area, but no clear hand-holding direction.  It requires a good amount of thinking to solve each one.

But no horror game is true horror without tension and suspsense.  In many areas, you’ll be chased through dark corridors by enemies you cannot fight.  Your only choice is to run and these sequences are very tense and creepy.  Despite being a 2D game, these areas gave me a big sense of paranoia.  One factor that helps is that the enemies follow you through doors and don’t always appear in the same area.

This all comes together pretty well, overall. It can be a bit mind-boggling to find the right path or solve the puzzles, but the way the story is constantly being shown is a good encouragement to help  you push forward.

Anyone who played the Steam version of Claire will note that it was a buggy mess there.  Extended Cut does have a lot of the Steam bugs removed, but there are a few lingering issues.  Some design bugs are there as well as a crashing issue around one of the key items in the School area.  You can bypass this by dashing as you collect it, but it’s still there and definitely an issue.

Now, length.  Claire isn’t a long game with a normal walkthrough taking roughly 3-5 hours.  Past that is the replay value.  There are several different endings, as well as one true ending that can only be obtained with New Game Plus.

Controls

Bringing the horror to not only the handheld world but also the console world, this game is compatible with the PlayStation TV. The only major difference when playing on the micro-console is that the L/R functions for bringing up the menu is done with L2 and R2 instead of L1 and R1.

Controlling the game isn’t too hard to do. Moving Claire around each area is done with the D-Pad and Left Analog Stick. The L and R triggers pull up the menu to look through Notes, the Map, and Item Inventory. X is used for interacting with objects and doors and Square is used for dashing/running. Triangle is used for jumping, and Circle is used for cancelling options in the menu. There are other control schemes as well.

Presentation

Visually, the game fits the 2D side-scrolling design. If you look really closely, you’ll notice that there are a few jagged edges here and there. However, there has been an upgrade since the original release on Steam to add more 2.5D effects to the game. Not only is this in the PS4 version, but it’s also in the Vita version.

Aside from the bugs mentioned in the gameplay section, the game plays nicely. Some of the load times can get close to the 6-7 second mark, but that’s passable for a PS Vita game. It’s just when load times exceed 10-15 seconds that I start having problems.

Game Title: Hatsune Miku Project Diva X
Developer: Crypton, Sega
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Game Type: Vita
Download: 2.5 GB
NA Availability: Retail | Digital Download
EU Availability: Digital Download
PSTV Support: Yes

Vocaloid has been around for a long time now, so it’s starting to get to the point of being widely known in the West along with Japan. If you go into any Hot Topic store in the United States, you’re going to see lots of Hatsune Miku merchandise: bracelets, tote bags, vinyl figures, T-shirts, and more. The virtual diva has become well-known outside of the gaming scene, where she first began on PC with the first Vocaloid synthesizer software.

I began my journey with Hatsune Miku back before any of the console video games were made, and I’ve been along for the ride with all of the Project Diva games, starting from the original games on the PSP that never graced western shores. Now the series is well into its 7th year, and much polishing and evolution has been done.

I mention polish and evolution because of the game I’m about to review for you. The newest adventure for Miku and Vocaloid fans alike, here is my review of the Vita version of Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X!

Story

The story of Project Diva X takes place in a virtual world, where digital singers perform to produce voltage that keeps their world going. However, everyone has lost the ability to sing and the world is in a state of ruin. The young singer Hatsune Miku hopes to solve this by calling out to the real world. She pulls you, The Player, into their world to assist in restoring their world by helping them sing.

The plot is one of the biggest aspects of the game because Miku games have never had a story before, let alone one that is constantly developing. Nearly every couple songs you perform in Story Mode will spawn new story scenes to showcase the singers talking with you as well as growing to learn new kinds of performances. It’s a very cute story that fits Vocaloid well and is a nice change of pace compared to previous games.

Gameplay

At its core, Project Diva X is a music game just as its predecessors were. While you progress through the story and do other tasks, you’ll be performing songs in a music game format with matching button prompts that pop up on the screen.

When you boot the game up, you’ll have two Main Menus to choose through, Main and Sub. Main is for the plot and major portion of the game, while Sub is more for Free Play, Options, and editing concerts. The Sub menu is very similar to how most of previous games had all of their game modes, with Free Play for playing songs, seeing records, and changing game options.

The Main Menu has a lot more to go into. Cloud Requests is how you unlock new songs and play through the story. Event Requests are also for the story, but more for special requests like festivals. Then you have customization options, from Gifts and Friendships made for getting to know the singers to Remodel and Customize that allows you to change character outfits/accessories and change the theme of the room displayed on the Main Menu. Finally, Albums is used for looking at unlocked videos and artwork.

You’re going to be spending most of your time with Cloud Requests and Events. Cloud Requests are the story mode with songs organized into 5 different “Clouds” you can enter, with a certain theme about it like Elegance or Quirky. What you will do is play all of the songs within that Cloud until a “Main Event” song unlocks which lets you clear it and move onto the next one.

Main Event songs are also a new feature for the series. These are hybrid songs that will take portions of different songs and play them in succession. You may start a Main Event with a fast-paced rock song, but suddenly turn to a slower dance piece right in the middle of it. They’re meant to stand out, as if the entire cloud were a performance with the beginning songs just being a warm-up towards the “Main Event”.

Festivals/Events are like this as well, but a little different. When you get Festival Requests, you make a selection of songs and stage and perform each song in succession without a break. These are much more customizable than Main Events since you can choose what songs and stages you wish to use, rather than the game having those pre-determined.

The way you play parts of the music game have also been changed. Project Diva X focuses on a Voltage system and puts more emphasis on Chance Time that happens in a certain part of a song for a bigger point reward. Every song has a “Request”, kind of like an objective or goal. Not only do you have to do well in the song and not fail out to succeed, but you also have to meet or exceed the Voltage Request. If you do well, but are shy of the request, you still fail.

Making this process easier is where modules and accessories come in. Modules are other costumes and in PDX, modules have an effect on the gameplay. Some modules will increase voltage every 10-12 seconds, while others will increase that rate if you manage to hit 50 or 100 notes in succession without missing anything. Accessories do this as well as good combinations of accessories that add further effects.

Obtaining Modules and Accessories is a little different, too. Modules can only be obtained by successfully completing Chance Time in a song. If you manage to do that, the singer you’re playing as will get a new module. What module you get can depend on the song but also drop rate. There are common modules and rare modules, so if you go into the same song twice, you could get the same module twice, depending on what drops for you and what accessories and modules you use that can enhance rare module drops.

All of this comes together well in a mixing-things-up sort of way. Past games were just play song, unlock new song, play new song, unlock new song, repeat. This switches a lot of things up and story scenes coming in often really helps it be more engaging.

The difficulty of the game has remained around the same as the last game. It’s a music game both for newbies to the genre and veterans. Easy offers a pretty casual experience, savor a couple songs, while Normal, Hard, and Extreme can and will test your patience and hand-eye coordination. Even on Normal, the game isn’t very easy to go through successfully.

Play Time has also increased compared to previous games. The main party of the story has you going through 30 songs, 5 of which are the multi-track Main Event tracks. Going through all of those plus the first wave of festivals will take you around 6-8 hours to finish. After that, you unlock crystals in each cloud and go through songs and festivals again in order to unlock the True Ending song. Doing all of that can easily raise that 6-8 hours to 10-15 hours. You’ll have plenty to do.

Controls

The controls aren’t too different from previous games. Like f 2nd, Project Diva X is compatible with the PlayStation TV. The nice touch is that you no longer have to go to options to turn on the twin-stick feature for scratch/star notes. It is automatically turned on for both touch scratches and analog clicking for whatever method is more comfortable for you.

Aside from that, it’s the same as you’ve known before. Each face button has an input in songs that look just like the button symbol: X, Square, Triangle, and Circle. And you have the Arrows which are a combo of the D-Pad and that button, like a down arrow being down on the D-Pad plus the X button. It’s the same scheme that series fans have known from previous games.

Presentation

It’s hard to judge these games, visually. Everything looks really nice in cutscenes and in the menus. All of the character models look practically flawless, even on the PSTV. But the actual song animations look a little blurry and jaggy in a lot of places. This is more noticeable because the menu and scene renders don’t look like that at all. If they’d used the same renders from menus in the actual songs, I wouldn’t even be mentioning this.

As far as audio is concerned, they did a great job with the game’s song selection of Miku songs. I’ve liked the tracks in PDX much more than previous games. The only nitpick I have is the fact that most of the other Vocaloids are snubbed in favor of Miku. You can use Miku, Luka, Meiko, Kaito, and all of the others, but almost every song in the game is a Hatsune Miku song, meaning that the voice will sound wrong when you use someone else. I was personally hoping for more balance with the others.

Now with presentation, you’ve got nothing to worry about. The load times are nice and short, and frame drops don’t happening anywhere in the game. Everything in that aspect runs really nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PYcie26J4M

Game Title: The Legend of Heroes Trails of Cold Steel II
Developer: Falcom, XSEED
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Game Type: Vita
Download: 3.1 GB
NA Availability: Retail | Digital Download
EU Availability: Retail | Digital Download

The Legend of Heroes series is something PS Vita gamers have been looking at a lot these days. Trails of Cold Steel has gotten a lot of reputation since its western release and as such, its sequel has received a lot of hype and interest as well. The lengthy journey of Cold Steel is continuing in the west soon, and many are both looking forward to it and asking the question of whether or not the sequel lives up to the original.

Past all of this hype and “God status” some people may have placed upon the series, Cold Steel II is now out for PlayStation gamers to get into and enjoy. I’ve been working tirelessly since I received my copy to be able to review it for you on release day. So, here it is. After having beaten the final boss just last night, here’s my review of the Vita version of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II!

Story

1 month after the events of Trails of Cold Steel, Class VII is scattered throughout Erebonia and the country is in the middle of an intense civil war. Rean, the main character of the first game, finds himself in a mountain range in the aftermath of the final battle. Upon recovering, he then vows not only to reunite with his fellow classmates, but also do what he can to find his place in the world and in the war.

The story really makes the game feel more like a continuation than a brand new game. Everything proceeds as if it were just a part of the first game, coming in right where it was left off. Even many parts of the game help give it this feel.

As far as starting the series with 2, it is possible. In the main menu of Cold Steel II, there is a rather extensive and lengthy “Backstory” section which goes into great detail on the events of the first game. So, if you don’t wanna play the 50-60 hour journey that is CS1 before playing this game, you very much can.

Gameplay

Like its predecessor, Trails of Cold Steel II is a turn-based RPG with a variety of other elements thrown into the mix. For the majority of the game, you’ll be exploring towns and dungeons, fighting off enemies and bosses, and developing bonds with other characters on off days. So, it’s pretty much the same kind of game as the first Cold Steel.

Among the changes between the first and this game is the fact that this isn’t a school simulation style of RPG. Rather than going through classes each chapter, you will be exploring various towns and dungeons across the world like many traditional RPGs do. You’ll still have days to spend bonding points on developing relationships with other characters, but that’s the only thing reminiscent of that school life. It feels much more like a traditional RPG.

The other major addition to the game, outside of balancing and vehicles that you can use in dungeons, are mech battles. In many sections of the game, you’ll have to fight by controlling a giant robot fighting other giant robots. This feels like a completely different game since it plays out very different from normal fights. It’s still turn-based, but focuses more on finding weak points and managing energy than normal JRPG battles.

There is also the ability to customize your mech, both with weapons as you progress through the game as well as creating equipment that will increase its stats.  This is something crucial towards the end of the game, but something you’ll be using for a good amount of it.

With all of this in mind, the game progresses in three parts. Two of those parts are heavily story-led while the middle section gives you a lot more freedom to go where you choose, do side-quests, recruit allies to enhance your base of operations, and the like. While the series is known for the linear story progression, this is a nice way to mix things up.

Combat, itself, isn’t much different from before. Most of the changes here are balancing and a couple extra features, like obtaining new S-Break Ultimate Attacks and a couple story-involved abilities for Rean which I am unable to talk about in this review. The playable character count has been upped, though. While you’ll mostly be using Class VII in your party, there will be a lot of temporary party members, bringing the total up around 20 different characters.

One thing that has changed is the length. If you recall, Cold Steel was about 50-60 hours long. Those looking for a super-long RPG won’t find it in Cold Steel II. While it is a long game and has a ton happening across its story, it only took me around 30-35 hours to finish Cold Steel II. Granted, that’s still long for an RPG, but not nearly as long as the first game was.

Controls

Not really a whole lot to say about the controls. But, Cold Steel II is compatible with the PlayStation TV. Unlike the first game, you will not have to update the game with a patch to get it working. It will work fine right out of the box.

Pretty much the same controls as before. Left analog moves your character and Right analog moves the camera. D-Pad is used for menus and zooming in and out while in the field. The L and R buttons are used in battle for Linking with other characters or swapping out party members. Then the X button is used for selecting commands, Square for looking at enemy information, Triangle for opening the menu, and Circle for cancelling options in menus.

Presentation

This is pretty much the same song and dance as the first game. There’s a lot of detail and the visual presentation is very pretty. There are a couple jagged edges here and there, but all in all, the game is really well done in terms of graphical presentation.

The biggest technical mishap from the first game is the fact that a lot of cutscenes had lag and frame dips. This still happens in some scenes, but is overall better than the first game. There are still big frame drops in cutscenes, but there aren’t nearly as many scenes that do that here than in the original Cold Steel. No frame drops in actual gameplay, which means they won’t affect how the game is played.

Game Title: God Eater 2 Rage Burst
Developer: Shift, Bandai Namco
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Game Type: Vita
Download: 3.5 GB
NA Availability: Digital Download
EU Availability: Retail | Digital Download
PSTV Support: Yes

The hunting genre is quite popular among handheld gamers. Between Final Fantasy Explorers and Monster Hunter on the 3DS and nearly a dozen hunting games on the Vita, handheld gamers are really digging the formula of these games. Whether it’s the colorful Ragnarok Odyssey or the bloody Lord of Arcana, there’s something on handhelds for any type of hunting fan.

Last month, I touched on the genre when God Eater Resurrection released in North America. It was a remake of the original God Eater and originally intended to be bundled with its sequel, God Eater 2: Rage Burst. I said a lot about the game in said review and now it’s time to return to the world of God Arcs and Arigami.

My very first review key game from Namco Bandai, here is my review of the Vita version of God Eater 2: Rage Burst!

Story

3 years after the events of God Eater / Burst / Resurrection, a separate branch of Fenrir travels in a moving fortress. They are constantly fighting Arigami, strange creatures that suddenly appeared in the world and have brought humanity to the brink of extinction. Since the events of the first game, however, they have grown and evolved to repel God Eaters, humanity’s only military force capable of fighting them.

In these worsening times, it is up to a special unit known as the Blood Unit, to fight back. Using a hidden ability known as “Blood Power”, they can resist the Arigami’s growing ability to stop God Eaters in their tracks, and fight to bring an end to the fight, once and for all.

The plot of God Eater 2 will bring both new and old faces into the fray, giving players of the first game something to look forward to as well as newcomers. It is also worth noting that the story of God Eater 2 stands on its own, so you don’t have to play through Resurrection before diving into this game.

Gameplay

God Eater 2: Rage Burst is a Hunting RPG in the same vein as previous games of the series. It takes you on missions where you hunt after giant monsters and bosses to obtain materials, complete objectives, and progress the storyline. If you’ve played the first game or other hunting RPGs, then you know where I’m going with this.

The first thing everyone wants to know about a Hunting RPG sequel is what the new features are that weren’t in its predecessor. This is where things get a little tricky. You see, in Japan, God Eater 2 released before Resurrection. Then, Resurrection was made with almost all of the enhancements from God Eater 2. The fact that the West got Resurrection first means that most of the new features that made God Eater 2 unique aren’t very new anymore.

Almost all of the game feels exactly like Resurrection, except for one feature: Blood Arts. These tie in with the story of God Eater 2 and are special skills that can be unlocked and unleashed. Monster Hunter players, you know Hunter Artes from Monster Hunter Generations? Blood Arts are kind of like those. Powerful attacks that can help you in your fight against the Arigami. That, along with the story, is the main unique point to Rage Burst compared to Resurrection.

Past that, progression is done between your base of operations and missions that you take part in. Your base has different areas, mostly for story purposes. The main area has a desk for taking part in missions, kiosks for modifying equipment and skills, a vending machine for buying items, and the exit to take you out on actual missions. It’s just like the base was in the first game, except for being a different room layout.

When you’re out on missions, you’ll be in the middle of the action. Each mission has you and AI partners seeking out and hunting enemies and bosses. You will be fighting them not only with Blood Arts, but also your transforming Blade and Gun weapons. There are different weapon types for different types of attacks like short swords to great swords and rifles to sniper rifles. Your main goal is to find enemies and slay them. You also can use the devour system from previous games to steal skills from enemies and extract materials from fallen enemies.

Blood Arts are the biggest aspect that makes combat feel different from Resurrection. Everything else, from how swords and guns handle to using items and traps, is the same as before. You use OP when using guns and have to use melee weapons when you run out and still have a limited stamina gauge for running and dodging enemy attacks.

Another thing I want to talk about is the repetition that inevitably hits all Hunting RPGs. You’re going to have a lot of missions fighting the same enemies, and that’s a given considering the Hunting RPG formula. However, the game felt very repetitive from the get-go because it borrows a lot of resources from Resurrection, or rather, Resurrection borrowed a lot of resources from 2. It took a good bit of time in the game to find a battlefield that wasn’t recycled from previous games, and that made it feel repetitive from the very first few missions I took part in.

That’s not to say the game isn’t fun, because it is. It’s got all of the intense and strategy-heavy battles that the franchise is known for. If Resurrection hadn’t come out before Rage Burst in the West, we wouldn’t be having this conversation about recycled resources or a lack of brand-new features. I understand why they released Resurrection first because of the canon, but it really hurts Rage Burst in the long run.

Finally, let’s talk about length. Resurrection was a long game, easily covering 30-40 hours. Rage Burst is lengthy as well, but not as much so. It should only take you about 20-30 hours to clear the game, which is surprising, considering how much longer the first game was. It’s still got a good amount of length, but it’s something for you to think about.

Controls

The controls for this game are pretty easy to follow. First off, Rage Burst is fully compatible with the PlayStation TV. Like Resurrection before it, it utilizes not only the L3 and R3 buttons but also has features built in for the Dual Shock 4’s touchpad. It’s a really nice touch for those PSTV owners out there.

Now, the actual control scheme. The Left Analog Stick moves your character around and Right Analog moves the camera. D-Pad is used for moving around in menus. The L trigger is used for lock-in and R is used to change your weapon form. X lets you jump and Circle lets you pick up items while Square performs a weak attack and Triangle performs a strong attack.

It’s a pretty easy scheme to catch onto and the tutorial missions do a great job of explaining everything to you.

Presentation

Visually, the game looks pretty nice. There are some jagged edges here and there on the character models (more noticeable when playing on the PSTV), but all in all, it looks pretty solid for a PS Vita title. It’s no Freedom Wars, but it’s close.

The only thing I will talk about is the audio quality of the game. For some reason, the audio compression on the voices in scenes and battle is really low. I had to almost completely mute sound effect and music volume with voice at the maximum just to try to understand what was being said in missions. It’s very different from how it was in Resurrection.

Performance, however, is pretty nice. Some load times may get up towards the 9-10 second area, but it stays within an acceptable range for a PS Vita title.

Game Title: Noitu Love 2: Devolution
Developer: Joakim Sandburg, Mp2 Games
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Game Type: 3DS
NA Availability: Digital Download
EU Availability: Digital Download (09/22/2016)

The indie game scene has been slowly expanding to consoles a lot over the years. Nintendo is in on it, too. Not with developing indie games, but bringing indie games over to their platforms. If you watched the last 3DS-themed Nintendo Direct, they showcased a small segment about an indie schedule for their handheld with games like Axiom Verge in the lineup.

I’ve been preparing to review one of these games for a couple weeks now. Just released today is fast-paced side-scrolling platform game that the indie scene on PC has known for a long time. The sequel to hit title, Noitu Love, here is my review for the 3DS release of Noitu Love 2: Devolution!

Story

The intro recaps upon the events of the first game, helping this be a standalone title. It’s been 100 years since the legendary hero, Noitu Love, saved the world from the Darn Armies. In the present, the world is kept at peace until the Darn Armies suddenly resurrect and attack again. Taking on the mantle, a new heroine called Xoda Rap heads out to stop them, unknowingly running into a time-distorted world.

The story of Noitu Love 2 certainly isn’t going to make you weep on the sofa, but there’s an interesting tale to be told. If you’re a fan of time travel, you’ll be sure to enjoy the ongoing plot from start to finish.

Gameplay

Devolution is a fast-paced side-scrolling platform game in the vein of Mega Man. Throughout the game, you’ll be running, jumping, attacking, and all around moving through stages as fast as possible, all ending with a boss fight to take you to the next area. All in all, imagine it like a Mega Man game, except with melee combat instead of shooting.

As above, progression will be done in stages. In each stage, your task is to move through, fight enemies, and reach the boss at the end so you can continue the story. This isn’t all simple, though. You will using a lot of acrobatic maneuvers to get through. Lots of stages have puzzles to remove blockades. You might need to, for example, hang off a rope to raise a guillotine and then only have a couple seconds to jump off said cord and dash through the opening before it comes down to slice you in half.

Above all else, the game is meant to be played very quickly with constant movement. Many enemies will endlessly re spawn in areas, so you can’t just kill everything and stop to see where to go next. The moment you kill everything and stop, more enemies appear in front of you, requiring you to constantly be moving and fighting, judging where to jump and go as you slash through waves of enemies.

The fact that you have several types of attacks depending on direction helps with this. You can endlessly slash in one place but you can swipe the touch screen to do dashing attacks up, down, left, or right. This lets you switch things up and make little combos instead of just jumping and doing the same attack over and over again. It helps things not get repetitive as you’re playing through the game.

When you reach boss fights, it’s also a fast-paced experience. While each boss does have a pattern for you to learn, you just as much need to be constantly in motion, be it jumping and doing normal attacks or using the stylus to do dashing attacks to both damage the boss and move out of the way to avoid getting yourself killed.

All of this comes together well and remains fun because of how fast paced it is. Some platformers have you slowly walking and attacking but Noitu Love 2 keeps things going fast from start to finish.

Now, with speed in mind, know that the game will feel like a bit of a rush by the time it’s over. A normal run through the game will likely take you no more than a couple hours. This works well for the game type, but I can’t say spending $10 for a 2-hour experience is something gamers will take a liking to. This is especially noteworthy since the same experience can be bought on Steam for half the price.

Controls

Here’s where things start to get ugly in the game. But before we get to that, let’s talk about touch controls. A lot of menus and all combat maneuvers must be done with the stylus pen. For those against touch controls, there are no ways of turning this off. Combat is locked to the stylus.

This is an issue because of how the game plays. Noitu Love 2 is very fast-paced. You move with the D-Pad and you attack with the stylus pen. The touch maneuvers are far too fast paced to be able to be used with just your finger so it remains in that awkward stage of holding the left side of the system with one hand and holding the stylus pen over the screen and holding the right side of the system all with the other hand.

I personally see this as a situation that remained very awkward and in much need of button alternatives to combat. This touch orientation would work well on a device that has a more responsive non-stylus touch screen (like mobile devices and the PS Vita), but on the 3DS, it just feels awkward. And when something you do almost every moment of the game is awkward, it really hampers the experience.

Presentation

Visually, the game really hits that retro feel well. It’s got a 16-bit presentation on it that matches right in with those classic platformers like Mega Man and the like. This also looks nice especially on the smaller screens of the 2DS and normal 3DS. The music also feels like it was taken straight from that era.

Performance I have no problems with. It loads quickly and plays nice and smooth (which is important for a fast-paced game like this)

Game Title: Sky Force Anniversary
Developer: iDreams
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Game Type: Vita
Download: 248 MB
NA Availability: Digital Download
EU Availability: Digital Download
PSTV Support: Yes

Shoot-em-up games involving aircraft. This genre has been around for a very long time. I remember playing Thunderblade on Sega Genesis for the first time and it was always a blast. There could even be a case made for the original Space Invaders for being one of the early games of this genre.

The PS Vita has seen its fair share of the genre and that has increased with a stealthy release not many weeks ago. If you’re familiar with the Sky Force series, you can add the Vita to the list of systems the series is available on now. Alongside the Steam, Apple TV, PS3, and PS4, here is my review of the Vita and PSTV version of Sky Force Anniversary!

Story

Due to this game not having a storyline, this section shall remain blank.

Gameplay

Sky Force Anniversary is a vertical shoot-em up game. It is a remake of the original Sky Force and as such, has you going through stages with the goal of downing as many enemies as possible until you reach a boss at the end and doing the same to them.

When you progress through the game, you’ll be going from stages of the campaign back to your base and repeat the process. The most important aspect here is that you gain points in missions that you can use to buy upgrades for your plane. The game will start out difficult, but get easier the more upgrades you buy. This is key to being able to pass missions and go into the next in the campaign.

The biggest aspect of this is that it isn’t as simple as flying through and finishing a mission. You can only unlock the next mission by completing objectives within each mission. There are both enemies to fight and stranded humans to recover. Many of the objectives involve defeating a certain percent of the total enemies as well as saving all stranded humans. This is a difficult process since the enemies appear in short waves and once they’re gone, you missed them.

This increases the length of the game, but also makes it repetitive. Some stages will require you to memorize where and when enemies show up, so you’ll have to play them several times before you can pass enough objectives to complete them, or to have enough points for the upgrades you need to complete them.

This is a blemish on an otherwise fun experience. Each stage has a lot of enemies and each stage is fun in the strategy of fighting and saving as well as being able to upgrade and make your ship that much more intimidating to the mobs of enemies that are always coming at you.

Another thing I’ll mention is the fact that the co-op mode that made the Steam version a lot of fun for friends is missing from the handheld release. Although it was confusing enough to even figure out how to get the multiplayer working on Steam (Connect a second controller and it auto-populates another plane on screen), the Vita version had that feature omitted. No local or online.

Finally, let’s talk about the length. Sky Force Anniversary has 9 stages for you to go through. Each stage takes roughly 5 minutes to complete once. So going through each once takes about an hour. Accounting for multiple plays for upgrades and working on objectives and we’re still only looking at around 3 hours, give or take. Without the addition of co-op, there’s not much replay value here. It’s fun, but not very long.

Controls

Controlling the game is a pretty simple task. PlayStation TV / Vita TV owners will be happy to know that it is very compatible with Sony’s micro-console. There aren’t any special controls for it there, but it’s there.

The main controls are simple enough. When you’re in a stage, you can use either the D-Pad or Left Analog Stick to move around. The R trigger can shoot, and you can gain some extra features for the other buttons when you upgrade your ship further. It’s pretty simple to go into.

Presentation

The game looks very colorful and vibrant on both the handheld screen and the big screen. Whether you’re saving a passenger or duking it out with a giant battleship, it’ll look quite pretty.

The performance side of things is going well. The developers had said once that it was difficult to make the PS Vita version of the game. But, kudos to them for making it work well instead of doing what many other developers do and finish it with it not running the best it can.

Game Title: Criminal Girls 2 Party Favors
Developer: Nippon Ichi, NIS America
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Game Type: Vita
Download: 1.3 GB
NA Availability: Retail (NISA Store), Digital Download
EU Availability: Retail | Digital Download
PSTV Support: Yes

When I first heard the name “Criminal Girls”, I thought of something entirely different than what I experienced in Criminal Girls: Invite Only on the PlayStation Vita. I had pictured a female gang committing crimes, like a female version of GTA type of storyline. What I got was a pretty solid dungeon crawler with some very lewd skill-creation systems that I never thought possible to be released in the West.

Criminal Girls had a sequel that’s been out in Japan for some time now. Just like Invite Only, no one expected it to come West, yet it did. Bringing back the lewd mini-games, solid dungeon crawler, and of course, the censorship debates from more communities than I would care to count, here is my review of the PS Vita game, Criminal Girls 2: Party Favors!

Story

Criminal Girls 2’s intro mirrors that of its predecessor. You wake up in Hell with no memories. You’re quickly brought up to speed that you’re a Program Instructor for Hell’s “Reformation Program”. It’s your job to take a group of young girls under your wing to help them face the sins they committed in life and atone for a second chance.

The main premise shown above is almost a copy-paste of the first game’s story. Unlike the first game, though, the story is new. The Reformation system breaks down early in the game, and instead of climbing to the top of the Hell Spire to redeem your group, you’re sent into the depths of Hell, not only to help your girls face their sins, but also to find the problem with the system and get it solved.

The story is different enough that it’s worth a play. Another new aspect is the fact that the Main Character has a personality and dialogue outside of random dialogue choices. He gets to know the girls as much as they get to know him, bringing a lot more character background and development from within the game.

Gameplay

Criminal Girls 2 is a turn-based dungeon crawler RPG. You’re going to spend most of your time running through dungeons and fighting enemies and bosses. Aside from that, you’ll also be taking part in touch-oriented minigames to further develop your characters and learn new skills. (These have button alternatives for PSTV owners)

For the bulk of the game, you’re going to be traveling with your party through about half a dozen dungeons filled with enemies, chests, and switches to be able to open locked doors and proceed forward. Although many view the focus of this series to be the mini-games used for skills, you’ll be spending much more time dungeon-crawling than doing mini-games.

In each dungeon, there are also Save Points that allow you to Rest to heal your HP, Motivate the girls in mini-games for skills, use the Shop to buy and sell items, and of course, Save your progress in the game. These will be used a lot, mostly for healing and for the Motivation. You can also warp back to these at any time, given you have the right item or skill to be able to do that.

Before we get to anything else, let’s talk about Motivation Time. From a story standpoint, you use Motivation to help train the girls, learning their inner desires and then use that motivation to push them to better themselves and reform.

The story also blatantly calls the feature out to say that you are performing what is called Sadomasochism. SM is something that not only exists in the game but is a very real activity in the world of Kink and BDSM. If you’re not familiar with the term (and are of proper age since SM is a sexual activity), take a quick Google Search and you can learn about it.

During Motivation Time, you use CP you get from winning battles to interact with the girls and, in turn, learn skills. You gain different types of Motivation Activities throughout the game and with each activity comes a greater challenge in the mini-game and better skills. Skills could be as simple as stat increases or as useful as new attack or support skills. There are also side-quests you get for each girl during these sequences that can be used to lower their MP usage and see special events.

Outside of dungeon-crawling and Motivation Time is combat. The game is a turn-based RPG so you have turn-based battles. As soon as combat starts, you will be given one possible combat option for each of your four characters taking part in the battle. Each command is randomly chosen based on the attacks and skills each character has available so there’s a random element in play here, encouraging strategy and challenge in every battle.

On top of the random commands causing challenge, the difficulty has gotten overhauled since the first game. Criminal Girls 2 has very challenging bosses and very large difficulty spikes between dungeons and bosses themselves. If you want to just fight all of your battles and succeed, you won’t. You will be doing a lot of level grinding and CP grinding, both for getting skills and items to help you in boss fights. Setting the difficulty to Casual also helps, but still maintains a pretty high challenge compared to most Vita RPGs.

All of this comes together pretty well, but you have to like grinding to be able to truly enjoy the game. Once you get into the system, it works, but if you don’t like grinding in RPGs, this is not the game for you.

Now, with length in mind, you should expect to spend at least 25 hours with the game. My 25-hour file was at the point where I was just barely able to scrape through the final boss and get the credits to roll. If you want to be more prepared and go into post-game content, expect your total play time to be much higher than that.

Controls

First, let’s go over Motivation Time. The game is compatible with the PlayStation TV, but the default touch controls are very awkward to do on the micro-console. In the Title Menu, you can switch control of Motivation Time from touch to button controls to make this doable. Many of these are far easier to accomplish with button controls while some are easier with touch controls. But the nice thing is that you have the option to switch from one to the other.

The rest of the controls are pretty simple. The D-Pad and Left Analog Stick is used for moving around dungeons while the L and R triggers will let you dash and change your map view in said dungeons. The face buttons are more standard. X interacts with objects, Square interacts with the portal feature of save points, Triangle pulls up the customization menu, and Circle will cancel commands in menus.

One thing I will say about the controls are regarding how finicky the touch controls are. Some touch mini-games are very responsive, while others are hit-and-miss. I’ve spent time in each mini-game to learn all skills for my main party and the first mini-game still never goes through quite right. The touch sensitivity on it and one other just doesn’t work and respond very well compared to others.

Presentation

Visually, this is a huge step up from the first game. Invite Only looked like a PSP game that was copy-pasted into PS Vita format. Party Favors has a lot more polish, character models move instead of being static, and there’s all around little to no graphical flaws to be seen from the zoomed in artworks of the characters to the battle animations for combat.

The performance I’ve no issues with, either. Short Load Times, no frame drops to be seen anywhere. It’s optimized really well, as it should be for a game that is handheld exclusive.

Game Title: Attractio
Developer: Game Coder Studios, Bandai Namco
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Game Type: Vita
Download: 2.2 GB
NA Availability: Digital Download
EU Availability: Digital Download
PSTV Support: Yes

Portal was a huge success. A lot of gamers have played it to death, and those that haven’t played it likely recall the lyrics to the song, Still Alive. In light of this, it’s surprising that there haven’t been a ton of games made in the indie world that mimic Portal’s gameplay of Cube-based puzzle-solving.

There are some around, though. There was a Portal-like game set to release on PlayStation systems earlier this year that I’d been planning to review right away. For reasons of a review request that was never followed up on, it took some time before I went out to make the purchase.

But, here it is. This is my review of the Vita / Vita TV version of Attractio!

Story

The world of Attractio takes place in the future, when Mars is colonized and the most popular form of entertainment is a Reality TV Show known as “Attractio”. In Attractio, players go through a series of deadly gravity-based obstacle courses in the hopes of becoming the victor. The story comes in with three different players of different backgrounds. One is a known criminal, hoping to be pardoned, another a police officer from Mars, and the third an orphan that grew up in a low-income neighborhood.

The story of Attractio is interesting enough to keep you interested in the dialogue you get from each level, and is a world I would like seeing more fleshed out in further games.

Gameplay

Attractio is a first-person puzzle game in the vein of Portal. Every stage you play will take you through 3D environments, using large cubes and gravity mechanics to avoid hazards and open the door to escape to the next area.

As I said above, the game is stage-based. The story will take you from stage to stage, and cycle you through the three characters you play as. This is more sequential and gives more variety, as opposed to playing as the same person for the entirety of the game. It seemed a little odd at first, but once the story kicked in further, it made more sense and was nice with mixing things up.

Every stage has you going through an environment in a first-person shooter fashion with the goal of opening the door to exit and go to the next stage. All of these puzzles involve a large cube that is designed very similar to the looks of the Companion Cube from Portal. There are no hearts to be seen, but it will remind you of it from the get-go.

Solving puzzles is a matter of using the cubes to activate switches to open doors. If you need to go through a green door, find a green switch. At the beginning, this will be as simple as walking to a switch and setting the cube down. As the game goes further, though, it gets much trickier. You’ll go from having to walk to a switch to using a gravity cube to make your cube go a certain direction and launch it from a certain airborne point so that it will hit the switch and you won’t die from the fall. Even later you’ll have to be even more creative with using gravity to ride cubes and use them to create openings through hazards.

The biggest way to solve these are with equipment and with thinking. Across the game, you’ll gain new equipment, from the ability to reverse gravity to stand on the ceiling to using a gun to alter the trajectory of objects further away. But even that won’t solve everything for you. The game gets very difficult very quickly. Unless you’re using a guide, many of the latter stages will have you stumped and constantly trying new things to try to get it just right. There are multiple ways to “solve” stages, but it’s one of the most difficult puzzle games I’ve played recently.

With length in mind, there are almost 30 stages across the entire game. If you throw in the idea of each stage giving you a fair amount of difficulty, you could say the game could be cleared in 1 or 2 hours. However, if you’re not using a guide, I would wage the game will take you at least 3-4 hours to beat. I was stuck on some stages for the better part of dozens upon dozens of attempts.

In short? It’s not long if you’ve mastered the game, but don’t expect it to be short if you’re just starting.

Controls

Controls are pretty simple to learn, and one thing is that there are special controls on the PlayStation TV. Since settings for the Gravity Gun are used with the Touch Screen, two of these functions are now used with the L3 and R3 buttons.

Controls are pretty simple for the most part. The Left Analog Stick moves your character and Right Analog Stick moves the camera. The L and R trigger are used for firing off your main equipment, and the D-Pad can modify settings on some equipment (like the Gravity Gun). Then, the face buttons. X is used for jumping and Circle for Crouching. Triangle can be used to slow down time temporarily and Square is used to pick up a nearby cube.

Presentation

Here’s where things get a little rough in the Vita version. A lot of textures look completely different in the handheld version, and those textures we have are very grainy, rough, and all around not very polished. Even just slowly moving the camera shows all of the textures shaking like they’re having a hard time staying stable.

This issue is joined with Loading Time and Frame-Rate problems. Let’s get into the loading times first. Every time a stage loads, I had to put my Vita or controller down and go do something else while it loaded. We are talking about load times that are a good 30-60 seconds on average. They’re really long, even for a console game. Much longer than they need to be.

Frame-Rate is playable, but it’s rough. I’d say the frame-rate average is somewhere between 15 and 20 frames per second. It doesn’t freeze the game up to throw off your control input for difficult sections, but it’s not smooth like it should be. Changing textures for a smoother frame-rate would’ve made sense, but even with the different textures, the game doesn’t run very smoothly.

Game Title: Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 Venus
Developer: Team Ninja, Koei Tecmo
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Game Type: Vita
Download: 1.8 GB + 766 MB (Patches)
Asia Availability: Retail | Digital Download

Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 should bring up some pretty controversial thoughts when you hear it. I’m sure a lot of you handheld gamers remember the big buzz over the net when Koei Tecmo came out and announced that the newest DoA Xtreme game would not be localized due to the fear of sexism reaction from the public. It was a big downer for series fans, but also understandable from the developer’s perspective.

You may also know that English-speaking players were given the chance to play the game, even though it never officially released in Europe or North America. In the Asia region, a multi-language version was released with English subtitles and Japanese voice-acting. Importing still costs money, though, so how did anyone know if it was worth the extra cash to actually get it?

I went to find out. This is very late from the time I originally intended, but here is my review of Dead or Alive: Xtreme 3 Venus for PlayStation Vita and PlayStation TV!

Story

The basics of the story is that Zack from the DoA series once had a tropical island that he used to create a special vacation service for all of the girls of the series. The intro quickly recaps the events of Xtreme and Xtreme 2 / Paradise, and the disasters that befell the islands, requiring him to rebuild.

Xtreme 3 takes place on the third island he creates, dubbed New Zack Island, made after the previous was taken out by a meteor. And as the story starts, he puts you, the Player, in charge of the new island as many girls come to spend a vacation on the island. As the owner, you are tasked with making sure they have a pleasant stay.

Gameplay

The DoA Xtreme series doesn’t really fit under a specified “genre”. As you go through the game, you’re going to be playing through a lot of mini-games as you go through each vacation. Some mini-games have you playing volleyball, while others have you doing various other activities with button-inputs like a rhythm game or an interactive cinematic from games like God of War or Resident Evil 5. If Mini-Games was a genre, that’s the closest we would get to this.

There is normally no point in a Dead or Alive Xtreme game. You go through a vacation, take part in activities, buy and give the girls new swimsuits to wear and gifts to raise their affinity with you, and keep going until the vacation is over. Many people view it as a Voyeur game because of how much detail is put into the butt and breast jiggle physics and the fact that Relaxing is essentially just the player watching the girls prance around on the beach in a skimpy bikini.

Now let’s talk about how this is different from the previous games, because as soon as you load the game and start playing, it’s going to feel almost exactly like playing Dead or Alive: Paradise, its predecessor. The way you move around the island, spend time relaxing, and many of the activities almost feel copied and pasted from the previous game.

First off, I feel like I need to point out that the character roster is smaller in Xtreme 3 than it was in Paradise. While it would make sense for a sequel to have more character, it has less. Paradise had 10 characters total. Xtreme 3 only has 9. There are plenty of different characters that weren’t in Paradise, but it doesn’t make much sense for a sequel to have less content.

The game is different in that it adds a couple new activities and Owner Mode and Missions. The two new activities are Tug of War and Rock Climbing. In Tug of War, both characters are on floaties in the pool and your goal is to tug the rope to make the other girl fall in the water. In Rock Climbing, your character climbs a rock wall while you do button input as they climb.

Owner Mode is the significant change. In Owner Mode, you’re able to do different tasks like taking photos of the girls doing tasks or accessing the Owner Store for exclusive items. This mostly ties into Missions. The game has a ton of missions for you to accomplish, sometimes as easy as winning a game of Volleyball or as difficult as saving up the funds to purchase an item to finish a girl’s exclusive mission set.

These tie into the Satisfaction feature built into the game. While the game can be played randomly, there is a method to the madness. Your main goal is going to be raising your girl’s Satisfaction rating to 100% to ensure she has as good a vacation as possible. Doing this will not only give you a lot of money when you complete it, but it will also unlock that girl’s special ending event and trophy, which is the main point of doing it in the first place.

Speaking of money, let’s talk about that. Let’s say you don’t want to play it to drool all over your handheld’s screen from seeing Marie Rose in a bikini. Maybe you want to just enjoy the mini-games with them wearing costumes from earlier games that aren’t 100% fanservice. You can do that. When I first played, I strove to get Momiji’s Ninja Suit to get her out of a bikini and I worked pretty hard to get there. And that’s where I’m going with this point.

Costumes exclusive to each character unlock as you spend time with them, and they cost a lot of money. And the game makes it so that getting that money is a bit of a grind. For example, let’s say you can get 150,000 Owner Dollars per vacation run. Unless you risk gambling in the casino or doing endless missions, it could take several runs through the game, possibly hours upon hours of time just to get one costume. It’s made to be very grindy. Now, you can spend real money on PSN for Premium Tickets to get these, but if you don’t want to dump cash into DLC, it’s repetitive.

Or, you could do something known as “Save Scumming”. When I played and a costume unlocked, I used this method to get money faster. Basically, you back up your save data to the cloud via PlayStation Plus before playing in the casino. Bet all your money. If you win, save and back it up and do it again. If you lose, close the game, download your backup, and try again. Even with this, it’s a very repetitive and grindy process, but still faster than doing vacations over and over and over until you get enough money.

Not that you won’t be earning anything with all the time you take. As you continue to level up, you’re constantly being rewarded with new items and features, like extra options for your camera or the ability to make the girls look straight at you to make a better pose for a snapshot. There are also constant events with new items, so even players who started when it was released are still getting new content today. But even so, it’s going to feel like a grind with doing vacations over and over and over just to get a new ending or a new feature.

As far as time is concerned, it really depends on what you want to do in the game. A single vacation could take as little as 3 hours to complete, while learning the methods of satisfaction and how everything works will significantly increase that. By the time I unlocked my first “Ending” from 100% satisfaction, I had spend about 14 hours in the game. Whether this is worth the $50-60 and Import Shipping is up to you.

Controls

Controls are pretty simple, and the controls remain the same whether you’re using the Vita or the PlayStation TV. No special controls for the L2/R2 or L3/R3 buttons aside from resetting the camera during a relaxation activity.

You use the Left Analog Stick and D-Pad for navigating the menus or moving certain features of the camera. The L and R triggers are used for button input for some activities but also for using the camera. The R button can be used to take pictures, though I’d argue it’s easier to just use the PS Vita’s screenshot feature for that.

The face buttons are used for mini-games, but I think it’s worth noting that the Circle and X button are swapped from the normal Western configuration. This is an Asian game, so Circle is used to select options in menu instead of the X button, and X is used to cancel. If you’re used to the opposite, it’s going to be a little confusing to go back and forth, especially if you use that Save Scum method for money that I explained in the above section.

Oddly enough, for a voyeur game, Venus is void of touch controls. You don’t need to worry about using the touch screen for much of anything.

Presentation

First of all, the visual presentation is one of the game’s best features. The character models and environments look great for a PS Vita title. The shadows are a little jaggy but the character models look like they were taken straight from a PS3 game. While Paradise was Jagged Edge City, this game looks really well-done and polished, and even moreso when it’s on the PlayStation TV.

The rest of the presentation I have no complaints about. Despite the high visual quality, load times are short and frame-drops are nearly non-existent. The only times I ever saw the frames drop during gameplay was during menus and not during actual activities. It was pretty impressive, to be honest.

Game Title: Dragon Quest VII Fragments of the Forgotten Past
Developer: Heartbeat, Square Enix
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Game Type: 3DS
Download: 11,632 Blocks
NA Availability: Retail | Digital Download
EU Availability: Retail | Digital Download

Back in the days of the PS One and Nintendo 64, there were two major Japanese RPG franchises that kept making their way to the west: Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. Today, both series are associated with a single company: Square Enix. However, this wasn’t always the case. Before Square and Enix did their merger, the franchises were the same type of game but on opposite sides of the RPG fight.

Back in those days, Dragon Quest was an Enix series and Final Fantasy was a Square series. The former also had a different name: Dragon Warrior. There was also a bit of a reputation about them both. While the 7th entry of the Final Fantasy series was known for bringing 3D visuals to the franchise and on its way to becoming one of the most popular RPGs of all time, Dragon Warrior’s 7th game was on its way to becoming one of the first JRPGs that passed the 100-hour mark for its main quest.

On the Nintendo 3DS, JRPG fans are eagerly awaiting the release of the remake of Dragon Quest VIII. To satisfy their thirst, however, Square Enix has just released a remake of that seventh entry. So, here is my review of Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past.

Story

The premise of Dragon Quest VII is pretty simple. There is only a single island in the world. You take the role of a silent protagonist, a young prince of the only kingdom in the known world, and the daughter of a small town’s mayor. The three friends soon discover that there used to be several islands in the world, and disasters befell each one. After being chosen in an ancient shrine, they’re given ancient tablets that let them travel to the past to right history’s wrongs and restore the world to its rightful glory.

The story of Dragon Quest VII is a pretty decent story. You get a lot of character background on each playable and guest character, the story goes into several arcs, and seeing an island in the past and what it changes after you save it is a really interesting part of the game.

Gameplay

Dragon Quest VII is a turn-based RPG set in a standard console RPG feel. You can run around on the world map, explore towns and dungeons, and you end up fighting off enemies and bosses in turn-based battles.

Since this is a remake, there have been some things changed and added. Most of what was added is in the form of new dungeons, an extra playable character in post-game, and equipment you can buy and use. The bulk of the game is the same as it was before.

Progression in the game is pretty simple. During story arcs, you can freely travel between the present and the past, and your goal is to activate story events to “Save” each island you travel to in the past. Once that is done, that island appears in the present, where you can explore it and proceed towards unlocking the next island via ancient tablets that enable time travel. You then repeat this over and over again until the entire world is restored and you move towards the latter parts of the storyline.

Fixing the world will mostly be in the form of doing side-quests and fighting through boss fights. Each world requires something specific in order to change history. In the first island, it’s just a matter of going to monster hideouts and taking out the boss to rescue the village’s population. In later sections, though, it gets to the point where you’ll need items from different time periods in order to save the day. So, you will inevitably have to jump back and forth between the present and past to be able to do everything right to restore each island.

In regards to combat, there are a couple systems to go into. First of all, there is a Class System that is introduced as you play the game, allowing you to learn new skills and move towards certain types of play styles. While you do learn skills before that is introduced, this significantly deepens what all you can do and access as you play.

Combat, itself, hasn’t changed a lot. When you go into a battle, you take part in turn-based battles, entering commands and watching those commands play out. One thing I personally feel is nice is that this game’s combat is a mix of first and third-person battles. The original Dragon Warrior VII had first-person battles. You put in commands and it all plays out in first-person. Kind of like battles in Etrian Odyssey. In the remake, though, the camera zooms out to show a third person perspective when commands are being played out. So, if you really hate first-person battles, this is something to help keep you interested.

One thing I will want to talk about is the length. If you’re new to Dragon Quest, it is highly advisable that you know this before starting. The 3DS remake is just as long as the original, so expect to spend more than 100 hours just in the main story campaign. That is huge, even by JRPG standards. Most handheld RPGs nowadays are between 20 and 40 hours, and this is over twice that.

Another thing is the pacing. In the original, the game set itself up extremely sluggish, requiring you to wait a good 3-5 hours before you even got to the tutorial battle. It’s not as long in the remake, but you’re still gonna be a good 2 hours in before you get to your first battle, and well over 20 hours into the game before you are introduced to the class system. If you don’t like slow buildup, the first couple dozen hours of the game are gonna be a sluggish bore. Even by JRPG standards, this is pretty daunting and ridiculous.

Controls

Controlling the game is pretty easy to do once you get into the game. You can use the D-Pad or the Circle Pad to move your character around the world. The L and R triggers are used to move the camera around, so you don’t need to worry about using touch for that.

The face buttons are pretty simple as well. The A button lets you interact with people or menus, and B can either cancel menu options or actively speak to your party members to remind yourself of what you need to be doing. The X button is used to pull up the menu and that’s about all you need to know.

Presentation

Visually, this is a true remake. The original game was 2D in the manner of other PS1 games of the title like Star Ocean 2. On the 3DS, everything is cell-shaded and in 3D. If you’re a veteran of the original, it’s like playing a completely different game, and that’s one nice thing about it. This also does wonders for showing off the Dragon Ball-like art style the game has to offer, all the way down to the way faces are designed on NPCs.

Other parts of presentation I don’t have any issues with, aside from the exceedingly-long “Character joined the party screen”. Dear Square Enix, we don’t need the game to take 10-20 seconds to make sure we know someone joined the party. We understand.

But, back on topic. Load times are nice and short and the frame-rate is pretty smooth. You see a couple blemishes in the frame-rate when running around on the world map, but nothing of consequence.

It is that time of the month again. Time to recap the reviews I wrote for the month of September! October is coming in so fast, and there’s so much planned for it already. But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Here are the reviews posted for September 2016:

Nintendo 3DS Reviews

Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past
Noitu Love: Devolution

PlayStation Vita / PlayStation TV Reviews

Attractio
Claire: Extended Cut
Criminal Girls 2: Party Favors
Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 Venus
God Eater 2: Rage Burst
Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X
Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II
Sky Force Anniversary

It was really a one-track month towards the Vita side, but I do have some 3DS reviews for next month planned, including a certain controversial first-person shooter. Stay tuned for that and a huge announcement next month regarding the future of the site!

Game Title: Superdimension Neptune vs Sega Hard Girls
Developer: Compile Heart, Sega, Idea Factory International
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Game Type: Vita
Download: 1.5 GB
NA Availability: Retail | Digital Download
EU Availability: Retail | Digital Download
PSTV Support: Yes

Hyperdimension Neptunia has always been known as a series to parody other series. The first two games in the main series parody the home console wars (PS3 vs Xbox 360 vs Wii) and the handheld console wars (PSP vs DS). Since then, everything in the series has parodied everything about gaming, from characters based on gaming companies to monsters parodying known RPG enemies.

One thing that hasn’t been done yet, is the series actually crossing over with another franchise. It’s been known that many of the Neptunia characters are based on Sega consoles, and Sega took note of that. Working with the developers, they’ve made a cross-over between Neptunia and the animated series known as Sega Hard Girls (Short for Sega Hardware Girls).

So, here is my early review of Superdimension Neptune vs Sega Hard Girls!

Story

Superdimension takes place in a post-apocalyptic world that has been reduced to a dead wasteland. A traveler known as IF seeks out a famous library known to hold records of the entirety of history in the hopes of finding out why the world is a wasteland. Upon arriving, she is drawn into an adventure across time as segments of history begin to disappear.

The plot of this game is more in-depth and less focused on comedy alone like the other spin-offs do. It does a fair amount to give background for eras based on Sega consoles as well as incorporating the Sega Hard Girls into the Neptunia series in a way that makes sense for them to be there and involved with the CPUs.

Gameplay

Like the main series, Superdimension is a turn-based RPG with additional unit management and platforming elements thrown into the mix. The game plays out very much like the Re;Birth games do on the PS Vita with world map exploration, quests, and story events pushing dungeon availability forward. If you’ve played the Re;Birth games, you have a very good idea of how you’ll be playing this game.

Main exploration has a new feature in the form of terrain you can interact with. New dungeons incorporate these and many returning dungeons have expanded sections. You can now climb walls, squeeze through crawlspaces, dash to make longer jumps, and climb on ropes to reach your objective areas. This is also encouraged with the inclusion of medals and baseballs you can pick up in each dungeon, normally associated with these interaction areas.

Although you can freely explore different eras through the world map, story progression is quest-based. Each time you want to do a side-quest or see the next story segment, you have to accept it as a quest from the library. Once a story quest is accepted, it will trigger an event in the appropriate era, and you can go into the dungeons and see those events play out.

The way this works is refreshing, but it also has a bad side to it. One thing I like is that there isn’t a set order for the story. You have four different time eras you can visit, and you can progress those story events in any order you want. If you want to do the Dreamcast era before the Mega Drive era, you can do that and it will not have any consequences. This gets more strategic later in the game when quests you take will affect the strength of the final boss. But it gives you a lot of freedom you don’t normally get from JRPGs.

The bad is that it feels repetitive. Some story quests are literally a cutscene and nothing else so you’re going through Accept a quest, watch a scene, backtrack to report quest. Accept next quest. Repeat process. This really starts to feel repetitive with all the backtracking you have to do with constantly leaving eras just to activate the next story event.

Combat looks similar but it has also significantly changed. You no longer set up combos with learned skills. You now have an Action Gauge on the left that fills when you move, use an item, attack, or use a skill. You have a lot of freedom in this. In previous games, you went through an attack combo on a single enemy and the turn was over. In this game, you could use a few attacks to knock out one enemy, and use the remainder of your gauge to move to a different part of the arena and start taking out another.

This is also changed with Overdrive, Gems, and the Fever Time systems. Overdrive is like a charged attack. If you hold the attack button, you can charge to do a finishing combo at any given time so you don’t have to use a skill to finish off an enemy. I personally prefer using most of my action gauge with normal attacks and ending with a charged attack.

Gems are floating objects that will randomly appear during battle. Jumping into these could do a lot of things, from healing you to regenerating SP needed for skills. There’s also a Gem for Fever Time, which builds up as you fight. Fever Time will give you extra turns before your enemy can go, increases all of your party’s stats, and give you access to EXE Skills, exclusive to Fever Time and only use part of the Fever Gauge instead of using SP.

The final addition is the use of Classes. Like other RPGs, each character can change classes, which affects what skills they learn. Characters level up for stats, but classes level up to give you skills, both offensive like SP skills and support skills that can affect battle, such as increasing the amount of EXP you get from combat or changing how quickly the Fever gauge fills up. You can keep support skills you’ve learned in other classes, so it’s worth the grind to be able to get those skills for the optimal setup.

This all comes together pretty well, giving the game a lot of customization, much of which is needed for the game’s boss fights. Normal battles don’t increase difficulty terribly quickly, but when bosses show up, get ready to give everything you’ve got. Every major boss fight is a struggle unless you’ve done a lot of grinding and have your EXE skills and Fever Time set up before the battle starts. It’s certainly not an easy game without all of those and a good formation setup.

As far as length is concerned, don’t expect to spend the same amount of time in this as you would in the Re;Birth games, but it does have a good amount to it. Your first run through for the story-based ending should take you around 20-25 hours. If you know exactly what you’re doing, though, you could probably clear it in a little less than 20 hours. Then you’ve got New Game Plus for the two alternate endings, quests you didn’t do before, and the NG+ exclusive secret boss fight to test your skills.

Controls

Controlling the game is pretty simple and there isn’t a lot different between this and previous games of the series. As always, the game is compatible with the PlayStation TV but there are no special controls, unless you consider hitting L1 as an alternative to the touch screen for skipping battle animations as a special control at this point.

The Left Analog Stick is used to move around and the Right Analog is for the camera. D-Pad can be used in menus, but also for zooming in and out when in the field or in combat.

Almost every other button is used in combat, though. The R trigger is used for escaping from battle or choosing to end your turn after you’ve done actions. X is used for attacks, Square for using items, Triangle for skills, and Circle for jumping. It’s pretty self-explanatory as all of those combat controls have their button displayed in the battle HUD.

Presentation

Visually, this game is a step up from previous games. There is a lot more detail and higher quality cell-shading done to make the game look prettier. There’s a lot of physics done as well, showing character hair and costumes flowing in the wind, especially when rope-climbing and the shadows are very accurate.

This doesn’t come without cost, though. There are many areas that have frame drops. You can watch the video review to get an idea of this, but it’s more or less like the frame drops seen in Re;Birth 2. It’s not a huge deal since it doesn’t happen terribly often, but something to consider since a few of the drops are relatively significant.

The PlayStation TV and its game compatibility has always been something that many don’t know much about, but I continue to work hard every day to get the information out and maintain a well-updated list of compatible games.

This month wasn’t an incredibly busy month for compatible games, but I have upped my game on contacting developers and publishers about it.  I’ve had many developers come back, saying that since they don’t have a unit to test on, they’re not going to enable PSTV.  Others just say no and don’t give a reason, even though enabling it is just hitting a checkbox in the dev kit.

Going off of all of this, and with how dumb it sounds with developers giving excuses for why they’re not take 2 seconds to hit a checkbox, I’ve been including more info in emails to help these updates get more and more frequent.

But that’s not why you’re here, is it? Let’s get to it.  Here are all of the games added to my PSTV Compatibility List in September:

Japan

Demon Gaze II
Dynamic Chord
Magic Kyun! Renaissance
Mary Skelter
Sakaagari Hurricane Portable
SD Gundam G Generation Genesis
Shirogane x Spirits
Utawarerumono: Futari no Hakuoro

North America

Darkest Dungeon
Demetrios
Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II
Sky Force Anniversary
Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters Daybreak: Special Gigs
Wanderjahr

14 titles across Japan and North America isn’t bad.  We’ve certainly had busier months, but things are still going forward!  Thanks for checking out this recap and be sure to check my Compatibility List because, as always, I am striving to work my hardest on making sure it’s always up-to-date.

Game Title: Darkest Dungeon
Developer: Red Hook Games
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Game Type: Vita
Download: 592 MB
NA Availability: Digital Download
EU Availability: Digital Download

There are a lot of games in the indie world that have becoming incredibly popular on PC and then consoles. The king of the hill here is clearly Minecraft, but lots of indies have done this. Terraria, The Binding of Isaac, the list goes on. The fact that these games do come to console (and handhelds via the PS Vita) introduces console gamers to experiences that took the PC and Steam world by storm.

Darkest Dungeon is one of those games. It’s dark, gritty, incredibly difficult, yet it has a massive following on Steam. PlayStation gamers have been looking forward to seeing the game’s console and handheld debut for some time now, and it’s finally here.

Here is my review of Darkest Dungeon!

Story

Your ancestor writes you a letter, detailing his life and pride to the family estate. Upon rumors of an evil haunting the grounds, he finds an ancient gateway after years of digging. Through said gateway was a world filled with nightmares, monsters, and horrors. Because he was unable to do so, he passes to you the responsibility of restoring the family name by purging the evil place that lies beneath the estate.

Darkest Dungeon is a dark, gothic tale that looks like it was taken out of classic horror mythos. And that story is one of the game’s greatest assets. Every dungeon you go through, every menu and scene you watch, and every battle has a narrator describing the dark tone of everything that is happening in a way that really fits the atmosphere well. Not only that, but it keeps you interested in the story even when there isn’t a major scene in play.

Gameplay

Darkest Dungeon is a strange game to classify under a single genre. It’s a rogue-like with random elements. It’s a survival game. It’s a turn-based strategy game. It’s a lot of things, really, and let’s just leave it at that.

In Darkest Dungeon, you crawl through dark dungeons. Whenever you go on a mission, you go through a 2D dungeon that is randomly-generated with the end goal of taking loot, taking down enemies and the goal boss in turn-based battles with attacks and skills and, above all else, survive the trip. Imagine it’s progression like The Binding of Isaac but in shorter doses, and with a more RPG-like story progression with not playing the entire game in a single dungeon run.

The story will advance as you clear dungeons, and you’ll be spending a lot of your time either in said dungeons or managing your party members in the hub town you always go to between missions. There are a lot of things to do here, like working on equipment, putting sick heroes in facilities to heal them, recruiting new party members, or just simply embarking on the next dungeon run. Though, very few of these options will be available to you at the beginning of the game.

If there’s one thing to note about Darkest Dungeon, it’s that you’ll always be in a bad situation. That mostly comes out of the survival elements built into the game’s dungeon-crawling. As you go through dungeons, your characters will get hungry, but also stressed out. The more hungry and stressed those members become, the more susceptible they are to mental strain and sicknesses. You will need to tend to them constantly with items to keep this from happening.

I stress this because unlike hunger in other games, too much stress will make them pretty much useless to you in combat. A Paranoid party member may simply do nothing but stand around and not be able to help at all when fighting enemies. This is a big hindrance, and an even greater one if multiple party members have this happen. You need every resource available to you and the amount of things that can go wrong is really in-depth, so it’s just as much a survival game as a dungeon-crawler.

This is part of what makes this an incredibly difficult experience. This isn’t a typical RPG-like game where you recruit a party and they stick with you until the end of the game. You’re going to lose party members very often and those that you don’t lose will likely end up ill, requiring you do throw them in the hospital and use new party members until they heal up. Tying this with the level of difficulty from enemies, traps, and other later obstacles in dungeons makes this a game that will try your patience and meddle from the very first mission.

The quick turn-around for party members adds to the depth, though. Every party members has an immense amount of custom skills and stats that no other party member will have. Traits, skills, abilities, and more are all chosen at random, and once you find a great combo, you’re not going to want to lose them, yet you will, and this in-depth search will start anew.

How this all comes together is an experience that starts out decently basic, but keeps getting more in-depth past what you feel is possible for a game. The further you go, the worse things get and the more in-depth you can go with all of the different features of the game. There is an overwhelming amount of things you can do, so if you want a difficult experience with a lot to do, you’ll definitely find that here.

Now let’s get to length, which is difficult to gauge. Missions are randomly generated to be short, medium length, or long. What you get is all up to chance. One mission could take 10 minutes, or it could take 30. You really never can tell. But, over the course of the entire game, expect dozens of hours to be used up. If you stick with it and go all the way to the end, I wouldn’t be surprised if you spent over 40 hours in the game. It’s random, but it’s long either way.

Controls

Controls in the game are a bit controversial. Some people love them, others hate them. I like some parts, but dislike others. Before we get to that, though, Darkest Dungeon is fully compatible with the PlayStation TV! It even has L2/R2 controls that use the touch functions to make the experience easier on the micro-console. Pretty impressive, especially considering the developers weren’t sure the game would even run on the PSTV just a week before the game’s release.

Now, onto the Vita controls. The Left Analog Stick moves your character around, and the D-Pad is used for changing item types in the field. The face buttons are used to interact with objects, confirm and cancel menu options, and using items from said menus. Switching character control is where things get a little touchy. You use the rear touch screen to do this. The controls work fine, but using the rear touch screen makes things feel a little odd. That is what lets me prefer playing on the PSTV.

Presentation

The dark and gritty visuals that gave Darkest Dungeon its gothic atmosphere transfers to the PS Vita really well. On the little screen or the big, everything looks crisp, clear, and really detailed. I’ve played the PS4 version as well, and it’s hard to tell the two versions apart. PS4 and PSTV versions on the same TV look pretty much the same, outside of load times.

Now, one thing that didn’t translate as well is the on-screen text. When you play on the Vita, you have text that’s pretty hard to read because of how small the print is. When translated on the PSTV, there aren’t any problems here, but anyone without near-perfect eyesight may find the text a little hard to make out on the handheld. It’s not blurry. Just too small.

As far as performance is concerned, I only have one complaint, and that is crashing. My first day in the game had it crash before a mission. I’ve also gotten information from others in the various Vita communities that are also experiencing crashing. This doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. For me, it’s always when you’re prepping for a mission, but others have had it happen during missions. It’s something that the developers are working on fixing, but something you may want to consider.

Game Title: Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters Daybreak Special Gigs
Developer: Toybox, Aksys Games (Publisher)
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Game Type: Vita
Download: 1.5 GB
NA Availability: Digital Download
EU Availability: Digital Download
PSTV Support: Yes

Enhanced editions of games are something that are popular in some genres. The Hunting RPG genre, for example, is a very common place to see this. You could list the number of games just on the PS Vita that are like this: God Eater 2: Rage Burst, Ragnarok Odyssey Ace, Soul Sacrifice Delta, and the list goes on.

Visual novels, however, was not a genre I ever expected to see an “enhanced edition” for. Yet, Aksys Games has brought such a game to the West. The PS Vita, PS3, and PS4 got an enhanced edition of a visual novel game that hit western shores last year.

So, here we go. This is my review of Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters Daybreak Special Gigs!

Story

The plotline begins as you start your first day at a new school, meeting classmates and having a local journalist trying to bring you in on her latest news article. As the events of the first day unfold, though, you find yourself wrapped up in the paranormal history around the school and recruited by an organization of Ghost Hunters, giving you a part-time job of, as the name suggests, a Ghost Hunter.

The storyline of Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters is unique because there really aren’t many visual novels in the gaming world about ghosts and the paranormal? I found this to be very refreshing, not only as a visual novel, but also as a paranormal title. Every ghost has some sort of backstory around it, and it’s quite interesting if you’re a fan of horror and the paranormal.

Gameplay

Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters is a mix between a turn-based strategy game and a visual novel. While most of your time will be in VN cutscenes, a fair portion also takes place in turn-based combat rich in strategy elements.

First and foremost, this is an “Enhanced Edition” of 2015’s Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters. As such, everything from the original game is here along with extras. Added content includes new characters in the storyline, new story chapters to take the story further, and a few gameplay changes, most notably a re-worked combat system when the strategy elements are in play.

As you progress through the game, you’re basically going between story events with class life and hunting ghosts. Going through story scenes takes the most time out of the game, but near the end of each chapter, you’ll get to a point where you have to fight off and either capture or defeat a ghost.

While the meat of the game is in combat, there is a system to the cutscenes outside of typical VN scene progression with story dialogue and dialogue choices. In this game, you have a Sense Wheel pop up whenever you have dialogue choices and you use those senses to interact with other characters. You can change your attitude as well as what sense you use, like touching the person, hearing something elsewhere, looking at them, and this can be used for a variety of reactions, both serious for character relationships and some that are just funny.

The main issue here is the game doesn’t really explain to you what this is and how it works. You just see some random dial on your screen in the middle of a story scene with no idea what you’re supposed to do. Once you use it a few times, you get what it’s supposed to do, but the main issue here is the fact that combat is pretty well-explained and this isn’t explained at all.

When you get into combat, things get really different. Combat changes the visual novel style to a grid-based combat system that looks like a board game. Here, you have turn-based battles where you and enemies move across the board in the hopes of finding and defeating one another. While doing this, you can run into enemies, but also obstacles that can be removed for better mobility.

The main idea here is to find and defeat enemies before they find and defeat you. You move at the same time, though, so you have to predict where the enemy might move to be able to corner them. You move to where the enemy was for an attack and they move on their turn, and you just wasted your turn. There are some traps you can use for this, but a lot of it relies on luck and how well you can predict what the CPU will do.

This all comes together pretty balanced, though the game is mostly Visual Novel. You have a lot more story than combat, which is what most VN fans look for in games, considering Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters is classified as a visual novel, rather than a strategy game.

As far as length is concerned, the new content doesn’t add a ton of new length, but you can still get about 30 hours of fun out of it. For newcomers, this is a pretty good bang for your buck. However, if you’ve already played the original game, you’ll want to gauge if you want to pay $40 for the same experience with a little extra thrown in.

Controls

The touch screen can be used for a lot of things here, from proceeding story scenarios to using the “Sense Wheel” during some cutscenes. This doesn’t keep the game from being compatible with the PlayStation TV, though. All touch controls do have button alternatives, so there’s no risk of it running awkwardly when on the micro-console.

Controls are a little different than what most VN fans are used to. First, the touch screen can be used for progressing dialogue. With buttons, though, the R trigger is used here. In scenes, you can use R to move dialogue and R and Square to skip a scene. Across this and Select being used to pull up the text log, that’s all there is in this area. There is no stop, auto, cancel, or any of the other normal text progress controls.

When in combat, a lot of the other buttons are use. The D-Pad is used for navigating the grid on-screen and most of the interaction, from setting traps, opening the menu, and engaging actions are done with the face buttons. However, this is mostly where you’ll be using these buttons, other than the sense/emotion interactions in scenes.

Presentation

Visually, the game looks very crisp and clean. All of the visuals look hand-drawn, but there are a lot of 3D effects going on. In each cutscene, the 2D renders move and have effects. Imagine it like how character models move in Hyperdimension Neptunia cutscenes, but to a deeper extent. Some character introductions, for example, will show a camera panning out of a moving background and show the character’s hair flowing in the wind as they show up on screen.

There’s not a whole lot else to say about the presentation. Since this is a 2D game, performance never really is an issue here. Load times are short, and the 2D combat never has any issues.

Game Title: Valkyrie Drive Bhikkhuni
Developer: Marvelous, PQube (Publisher)
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Game Type: Vita
Download: 3.2 GB
NA Availability: Retail | Digital Download
EU Availability: Retail | Digital Download
PSTV Support: Yes

Valkyrie Drive is something that I have a love-hate relationship with. If you have seen the anime, Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid, you should know that half of the anime is about lesbian fondling, kissing, and all around over-exaggerated sexual activity. Valkyrie Drive as a whole is about girls sexually assaulting one another to turn themselves on and transform into powerful weapons to be used in combat with other sexually-transformed girls.

The series is something I hate but something I love. When I watched the first half of the anime, I wasn’t sure what to think about the overly sexual focus, but once I got halfway through, story started to have the focus. By the end of the anime, I started to really enjoy it.

Knowing this, I was shocked to find out that the video game based on the series got the green light for a Western release. The only thing in my mind was imagining the anime as a game and thinking ‘How in the world was the ESRB okay with bringing this to the West?’. Yet, it’s here. So let’s get to the review. Here’s my official review of PS Vita exclusive, Valkyrie Drive: Bhikkhuni.

Story

Valkyrie Drive’s game starts in a very similar manner of its anime. There is a virus affecting women in their teens and 20s called the V-Virus, slowly spreading and eventually killing them. The virus also grants them superhuman strength and powers when they initiate “Drive” with another victim of the virus, transforming one into a weapon, and they are dubbed “Valkyries”. In order to learn to keep themselves in check and society safe, these girls are sent to artificial islands until they can be trusted to keep themselves from harming others with these powers.

While the anime takes place on the island known as Mermaid, the game takes place on the island known as Bhikkhuni, an island with a high reputation of now only learning to control the virus, but a record of completely curing girls of it. Two sisters are sent to this island to be cured, having a special strain of the virus, known as the VR Virus. As they come into the island, they begin training towards being cured through intense battles with other Valkyries.

The story of Valkyrie Drive is actually pretty good. It plays out like an anime with arcs around characters, fleshing out a good amount of character development, and moving towards finding out the dark secrets of the island and what that means for the main cast of characters the story revolves around. With the way each chapter is laid out, it feels like episodes of an anime, even down to artwork transitions between parts. I honestly enjoyed the game’s story more than the anime’s story. Sure, there are some fanservice scenes thrown here and there, but it’s an overall serious story that develops well.

It’s not all good, though. The game’s localization has a lot of typos in story scenes, ranging from misspelled words to completely wrong words in place of words that should be there. You see this from time to time in games nowadays, but it happens A LOT in Valkyrie Drive. A lot of times there are several dialogue sequences in just a few minutes of scenes with these typos. Not that you can’t understand what is being said, but it looks like they translated it but didn’t proofread.

Gameplay

Valkyrie Drive is a 3D brawler with RPG elements in the same vein as the Senran Kagura Versus games on the PS Vita. In each stage, you’ll be navigating 3D arenas as you take down hordes of enemies and gain points to power up in transformations and end in taking down bosses to finish each stage.

The first order of business is how the fanservice is in the game. After watching the anime, I was expecting non-stop fondling, kissing, hands being thrust into panties followed by near-nude transformation scenes. What I got was something far more tame. The game’s story doesn’t even mention the whole sexually pleasured aspect to transformation but you still do get a lot of parts showing characters in skimpy swimsuits and, if you do certain tasks, nude with lights shining over their private parts.

Unlike Neptunia U or Estival Versus, the fanservice sections cannot be turned off. Every time you do a transformation for Second Drive and higher, you’re going to see a lot of fanservice, as well as in combat. The Costume Break feature from the Senran games returns here, so do so much damage to an enemy (or they to you) and the costume will break, all the way down to being nude with lights hiding private parts. That doesn’t make up a lot of the gameplay, but it’s there and there’s no way to get around it.

Now, main progression. In the game, you have several game modes to go through. Story Mode for playing through the storyline, Survival Mode to fight endless hordes of enemies, Challenge Mode for specific objective-based missions, Online Mode to battle with other players over the PlayStation Network, Vault to view music and artwork, Store to purchase new accessories or swimsuits for the different characters, Dressing Room for using the touch screen to interact with the characters, and the Cafeteria, where you can interact between characters to increase their bonds and relationships.

When you go through stages, you’ll only be controlling one character, despite going into the stage as a pair. You will fight off hordes of enemies that come at you when barriers appear in the arena and combat is combo-based. Everyone has their own type of combo chains based around their weapon type and attack style. Playing as Ranka is more of a button-mashing fist-bashing playstyle while Mana is more of a ranged archer with fewer combos available due to her increase combat range.

The combat is similar to Senran Kagura games, but there is a little difference thrown in. In Estival Versus, you had a focus on dashing and Valkyrie Drive has changed this system. You can still chase after knocked-back enemies, but when you do so, you can enter special combos unavailable during normal circumstances, and only if the enemy doesn’t recover before you reach them. This is called Phantom Drive. It’s similar but a little different and more combo and timing focused.

As you fight, you’ll fill up an energy gauge and be able to use those filled gauges for transformations, special attacks, and power-ups. As you level up characters as both Liberators (Playable Characters) and Extars (Weapon Forms), they will gain new transformations, from First Drive, Second Drive, and all the way up to the 4th, called “Final Drive”. The higher the Drive Form you’re in, the stronger your attacks are and the more combos you have access to.

This is all formulated to build up strength against mobs as you make your way to the boss. The game allows you to build up Drives so you’ll already be in a significant form when the boss fight starts, be it a boss against another Valkyrie or against a giant multi-part boss that will mostly take place in the air.

This brings me to the difficulty of the game, or rather, lack of difficulty. I won’t lie and say no boss fights are hard, because a select few I had to really think about towards the end. However, for the most part, the Normal Difficulty is very easy. Aside from a few select bosses, you could easy just button-mash your way through the entire story campaign. I rarely had to dodge and strategize how to approach bosses. If you’re used to the Senran games, I suggest starting the game on Hard Mode if you want a challenge.

As far as time is concerned, it’s a pretty long game for a brawler. I played most of the game on Normal, and reached the Final Boss after about 25 hours of playtime between stages and cutscenes. Considering Estival Versus was only about 12 hours, that’s a pretty meaty experience. Granted, a lot of that is story cutscenes, but it’s still pretty long for a non-RPG Vita title.

Controls

First off, Valkyrie Drive is fully compatible with the PlayStation TV though there are no special controls here. But since the touch screen is only used for the interactions in the dressing room, there’s no required control feature that you can’t do on the PSTV.

The Left Analog is used to move around stages and the Right Stick is used to move the camera or switch locked-on targets. With the mention of locking on, the D-Pad is used for locking onto enemies and using potions during combat. Then, we have the triggers. L is used with the D-Pad for potions and L + R are used for initiating transformations.

Now, the face buttons. X is used to jump, double-jump, and charge the Phantom Rush. Square is used for light attacks and Triangle for Heavy attacks. Finally, Circle is used for knock-back attacks.

Presentation

Visually, the game looks really well-done, just like the Senran Kagura games. Zoomed in, the character models look very detailed and the cell-shading is done well. On the PSTV it looks like you’re playing a console game, despite it being a handheld title.

The main downer here are the frame dips. If you remember how the Vita version of Senran Kagura Estival Versus had frame drops, you can expect the same here. They don’t happen terribly often, but when weilding certain weapons or in certain areas, you’ll see quite a few frame drops. It won’t really knock you out of your flow, but it’s a blemish on an otherwise pretty presentation

Game Title: Exist Archive The Other Side of the Sky
Developer: Tri-Ace, Aksys Games (Publisher)
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Game Type: Vita
Download: 3.3 GB
NA Availability: Retail | Digital Download
EU Availability: Digital Download

In my long journey through RPGs, I’ve experienced a lot of games. In childhood, I experienced Pokemon Generations 1 and 2. Then came Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Parasite Eve, and Digimon World. Later when being introduced to the PC world, I experienced Fallout 1-2. Later years to come, I came into the world of Kingdom Hearts, Star Ocean, Tales, Valkyrie Profile, and many more.

In those years, I came to love two JRPG developers, one being Square Enix and the other being Tri-Ace. Final Fantasy will always remain my favorite series, but Tri-Ace games really shined for me. The original Valkyrie Profile and its sequel that brought PS3-level graphics to the PS2. Star Ocean 1 and 2 being remade on the PSP along with the addictive Star Ocean 4 on PS3. Not many new Tri-Ace games come out these days, but when they and composer Motoi Sakuraba team up, I take notice.

Their recent teamup is why I’m writing to you today. The newest RPG from Tri-Ace has released on the PS4 and PS Vita, and it sent me through a nostalgia trip. Here is my review of the handheld release of Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky!

Story

Exist Archive revolves around a group of teenagers from Tokyo, Japan. On a seemingly-normal day, natural disasters hit the city and this group disappear from the face of the planet. Some time later, they wake up in a strange world filled with floating islands and crystals. Soon after, they realize they’ve been taken to an alien planet for being holders of the soul of an alien being with virtually no way of ever returning home.

The plot of Exist Archive is interesting, as it shows modern and realistic characters thrown into a fantasy scenario. Tri-Ace has always been good with science fiction, and the plotline really develops well, both as a story on its own and not being too similar to the developer’s previous projects.

Gameplay

Exist Archive is a bit of an odd duck among other Tri-Ace RPGs. It is a mission-based dungeon-crawler RPG. You’ll be taking on missions as you go through the game, crawling through 2D dungeons and fighting enemies as you explore and reach goals and boss fights.

Progression in the game is mission-based. As the story progresses, more areas begin to unlock that you can go through. Each of these areas takes you through a dungeon leading up to a boss fight. Some of these are story-focused, dubbed “Main” and are used to advance the story. As you go, you also unlock “Free” missions, letting you revisit dungeons to complete side-quests in order to better equip you for future story missions. This is pretty standard from the time you start the game until the very end.

This method of accessing dungeons as well as actual dungeon progression takes a lot of inspiration from the original Valkyrie Profile. Dungeons are side-scrolling and platform-oriented. You move around in each room of the dungeon, trying to find the end area where either a boss or a story scene awaits you. As you go towards it, though, you’ll encounter item capsules, healing pods, teleportation pods, and of course, enemies.

Enemies float around stages as giant red orbs. Running into one or attacking one as you go through will start up a battle scene. When battles begin, you are placed in a 3D stage with a group of enemies. Combat goes in turns, where you have an Attack Phase, letting your party attack and a Guard Phase, which lets enemies attack and you have to time guards to not take more damage than you have to.

This is also heavily inspired by Valkyrie Profile. When you attack, each character is set to a face button. You have lots of attacks, from magic spells, launch attacks that send enemies flying into the air, slashing attacks, and all of this incorporates timing. One character’s attack can send the enemy flying and if you time your magic attack wrong, it could completely miss them while they’re falling back down to the ground. You have a limited amount of energy per turn, so it’s all on using your energy well for who should attack and how to attack.

The Guard System is also something to take note of. Each turn, you gain energy either to be used for attacks or guards. You can guard every turn before enemies attack you to receive less damage. Or, you can time your guards perfect and get out of taking any damage. Enemies can do this as well, so you have to be careful about attacking guarded enemies without Guard Breaking them to do normal damage again.

When you finish a battle, you have a normal experience-based system. You gain EXP and can use that to level up and increase your stats. Though you also gain special Skill Points when you level up as well. Skill Points can be used at will to learn offensive and support skills as well as unlocking new classes to further enhance your combat abilities. Remember Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment’s extensive skill point system? It’s very similar to what is shown in Exist Archive.

Now, with things coming together, fighting all enemies you see as well as doing side-quests are key to keep going in the game. The difficulty increases at a fairly rapid rate, so you can’t just rush through story missions and expect the next to be doable. After a few missions, things start to get harder. The level requirements on story missions are meant to be taken seriously, as bosses start off easy, but will gradually get harder. This is shown early in the game, so it’s easy for you to pick up on and get used to.

As far as length is concerned, expect to spend a few dozen hours on the overall experience. You can easily spend 4-5 hours just in the first couple chapters of the game. A lot goes on from start to finish, and this will keep you busy for quite some time.

Controls

Controlling the game isn’t hard to do. One thing to note is that this game support the PlayStation TV, so players can play on the go or on the big screen. Since Exist Archive doesn’t use the touch screens, there’s no need for extra controls when using a controller.

Moving around in dungeons is done with the Left Analog Stick. The D-Pad is used for navigating menus as well as swapping targets in the middle of combat. The Right Analog Stick isn’t used and the L trigger is used for pulling up the map when navigating a dungeon.

Then, of course, the face buttons are used for various characters in combat. Outside of combat, though, X is used for selecting menu options and Circle for canceling. X is also used for jumping in dungeons and Circle is used for attacking. Triangle can interact with items and warp points. And start can bring up the customization menu.

It’s certainly not standard JRPG format, but it works once you get used to it.

Presentation

Visually, the game looks really nice. Backgrounds move and some of them look downright beautiful. From the opening scene of the vast world in the background to moving trees when you’re in the forest. The character models look good as well. There’s the occasional jagged edge here and there, but overall, the game looks beautiful.

The main problem here is that the frame-rate isn’t the best. When I played through the first few battles, the fps was nearly perfect. The more I played, however, the more I noticed that the game struggled and hiccups when loading the customization menu and in certain dungeons. It’s certainly not game-breaking, but it shows a clear sign of struggle as you go through the game.

Game Title: Ninja Usagimaru The Mysterious Karakuri Castle
Developer: Arc System Works, Aksys Games (Publisher)
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Game Type: 3DS
Download: 426 Blocks
NA Availability: Digital Download
EU Availability: Digital Download

When I think of Aksys Games, my mind mostly goes towards games like Zero Escape, Exist Archive, BlazBlue, Guilty Gear, and other bigger games. They dive into smaller more indie-like experiences too, especially on Nintendo’s handheld. I remember reviewing the game Slice It, and it was something I was never expecting to see coming from the same publishers who did the Zero Escape series.

It was inevitable that Aksys would surprise me again with another smaller game, and that they did. I’m here to talk about the newest title of the Ninja Usagimaru series. So, here’s my review of 3DS title, Ninja Usagimaru: the Mysterious Karakuri Castle!

Story

The plot begins as a hero ninja is coming back to his hometown, only to find a small rabbit god injured and huddled on the ground. From mere words of the weak deity, he is told that all of the villagers have been kidnapped by the evil Oni and are being held hostage. The hero then heads out towards the Oni to save the villagers.

The story really works itself out well. While it doesn’t show itself much, it really just adds to that mythological atmosphere. With the rabbit deity and the art style, it really reminds me of Okami, and that’s one thing I really like about this game.

Gameplay

Ninja is a 2D Puzzle-Platformer, and that’s pretty much all you can really call it. You go through each stage of the game by platforming around stages and using various elements and environment pieces to solve puzzles and save villagers. While things do change as you progress, that remains the same from start to finish.

Progression of the game has you going through over 60 levels with the goal of saving villagers. You will start at a certain point and need to get past enemies, rescue villagers and then escort them to safety without you or them getting hit and dying. Things will start out simple, but will get more difficult as the game progresses.

The biggest feature of the game is moving blocks. There are locks of blocks you can physically move by pushing them or pulling them towards you with a hookshot. Most of the puzzles use blocks. You’ll use them to make bridges for you to cross. You’ll push them on top of enemies to kill them. You’ll even use them to hit switches and change other parts of the stage. You also have other tools at your disposal like swords and knives used to destroy fragile objects blocking your path.

This sounds pretty simple, and really, it is. The mechanics are very simple across the course of the game. The game, itself, is not. Under a normal puzzle game, puzzles are very easy and slowly get harder. Ninja has puzzles that go from easy to hard almost instantly. You’re going to get stuck and lost even in the first 10 levels of the 60, and it gets a lot harder from there on. It has a complete lack of balance in its difficulty scale. It’s like it took Normal and Intermediate Difficulties out and puts you straight from Beginner to Expert, and from there to Master and beyond.

That’s really the only thing I don’t like about the game. The difficulty imbalance. Everything else comes together pretty well. Stages are nice and short for the handheld experience and the tutorial does a great job of explaining how everything works. While the game is also very short, there’s not a whole lot to complain about when the game is very cheap.

Controls

As far as controls go, you will only need to access the system’s buttons for this. No reason to have to use the touch screen at all. The controls cannot be altered, either, so if you want to use the touch screen, you’re out of luck here.

Moving around stages is done either with the Circle Pad or the D-Pad, whichever feels more comfortable to you. I personally prefer using the D-Pad for side-scrollers, but that’s just me. The A button lets you slash with your knives and B lets you jump. X plants manual checkpoints, and Y lets you push blocks. Finally, R fires your hookshot and L lets you respawn at a placed checkpoint.

It’s pretty simple, and there’s a tutorial stage for each of these.

Presentation

Visually, the game captures the Asia Mythos theme really well. Everything really brings out the feel of it. The graphics themselves look fine. The 2D models look retro and pretty sharp, unless you zoom in and hold the system a few inches from your face. Unless you actually do that (I hope you don’t actually do that), the game looks pretty good.

Performance is also on the good side. No real issues here. Load times are quick and there aren’t any frame drops. Not that you would expect there to be out of a 2D platformer indie-type game.

Game Title: Dragon Quest Builders
Developer: Square Enix
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Game Type: Vita
Download: 256 MB
Asia Availability: Retail (English Subtitles)
NA Availability: Digital Download
EU Availability: Digital Download

Dragon Quest has been doing a bit of experimentation, lately. The Nintendo side of things, Square Enix is releasing remakes of the main Dragon Quest series, such as the recently-reviewed Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten past. On the PlayStation side, the series is experimenting with new types of genres with a number of other developers being pulled in and working on new games.

This started by coming in with Koei Tecmo with Dragon Quest Heroes and Heroes 2. These were a mashup of Dragon Quest and the Musou genre, bringing inspiration from Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors. The series really translated well, from what I played of the Heroes 2 demo on my PSTV, so it makes sense they’d try to experiment further.

That brings us to today’s review. Recently released on both the PS Vita and PS4, Square Enix has released a game that melds Dragon Quest with Minecraft. A surprising meld of games, here is my review of Dragon Quest Builders!

Story

Builders takes place after the events of the first Dragon Quest. The Dragonlord brought ruin and darkness to the world, spreading sickness, armies of monsters, and removed mankind’s ability to build. Without being able to build new things, the species quickly sunk down and became one constantly fighting for survival.

The Goddess of the Land responds to this by awakening the Builder, a magical being told in Legend that is meant to restore mankind’s ability to build and purge the darkness from the world. As the Builder, you explore all corners of the world, befriending humans, teaching them how to build, and restoring the light that once shined upon the realm.

The story of Builders is pretty nice in that it’s part of the series canon, but it also doesn’t require you to have knowledge of the previous games to play. Yes, the opening scenes are remade versions of the ending of the first Dragon Quest, but they don’t have an immense impact on how well you understand what’s going on.

The other aspect I enjoy is that the story constantly changes between chapters. You go through 4 chapters and 4 different areas of the world, and each one’s focus is different. You go from learning about a city’s destruction and building up the city anew in Chapter 1, while in Chapter 2, you focus less on rebuilding cities and more on rescuing victims of a plague and cure them of it in an effort to get rid of the sickness in that part of the world.

Gameplay

Dragon Quest Builders is a 3D Platformer Survival game with RPG elements thrown into the mix. Like Minecraft, you will be collecting materials and building all manner of objects, cooking food to keep you from starving, as well as a manner of RPG elements, which I’ll explain in just a moment.

Main progression is done through Quests. The point of each Chapter of the game is to build your base/town up to attract people to live in your town. Once you get people there, they’ll give you requests for a manner of items based on materials you can collect. It may be a new building, food for them to eat, or new weapon types. Doing quests will unlock more quests and lead you towards upgrading your base.

Collecting materials is similar to how it works in Minecraft. You craft tools that let you mine materials, from dirt and stone to iron, silver, and even water itself. The better your tools, the more types of materials you can mine. However, you can also craft weapons. Unlike Minecraft, there are monsters literally everywhere in Builders. Fighting and defeating monsters doesn’t give you experience to leveling up, but monsters do drop needed materials.

The biggest thing (outside of Quests) that is unique are Blueprints. For many Story Quests, you’ll receive Blueprints of a certain object or building an NPC wants you to make for them, be it a sickroom, house, or a kitchen. You basically plant the blueprints on the ground and you follow its instructions for what materials are needed and where to put them in order to create said structure and complete the quest.

This all goes towards leveling up your base. Your base/town is set in a certain space, and you gain Base EXP whenever you build something within it. Whether it’s a teleporter to visit a new island or a new sickroom, the EXP gauge goes up when new things are made. Leveling up will take you to the next phase of the chapter, which shows a “Boss Fight” in the form of monsters raiding your camp. In these battles, you have to fight off monsters and defend your base. Upon winning, you’re rewarded with teleporters that lead to new islands and, thus, new materials.

You do this all the way to the end of a chapter, where you do a proper boss fight to rid that land of evil and unlock a gateway to the next area of the world and the next chapter. When you clear a chapter, you unlock that chapter’s area in Free Mode, a game mode where you can build to your heart’s content as well as download and share creations with others over the PlayStation Network.

That opens up the last two things I want to talk about. First of all, when you go to a new chapter, you start with a clean slate. You lose your items, equipment, Max HP upgrades, everything. You are in a completely new area and it’s like starting a brand new game. To help this not feel like it’s making you do the same thing all over again, each island has a completely different focus. As I said in the Story section, Chapter 1 has you focusing on learning about the history of a ruined city while rebuilding it, while Chapter 2 has a focus on building a hospital and rescuing victims of a plague.

The other thing, and my main gripe, is the fact that there are no multiplayer functions like Minecraft has. Free Mode lets you download others’ creations, but has no sense of Co-Op like Minecraft does on the Vita. It’s solely a single player experience and that’s really a letdown, considering this is probably the biggest and most in-depth Minecraft competition to come to consoles.

Over the course of the game, though, and the fact that this is like an RPG extends this, you should spend at least a couple dozen hours on the game. Each chapter will take you several hours to get through just the main quests, so I would say 25 hours is bare minimum for finishing all 4 chapters.

Controls

First of all, Builders is not compatible with the PlayStation TV. Square Enix came out publicly and said they weren’t going to make it compatible, and that is a real shame. There are petitions out across the net to get them to change their mind (especially since making a game compatible is just a matter of hitting a checkbox in the Vita dev kit), but as of right now, you can’t play it on the Vita TV.

The control scheme itself feels a little awkward, but works well, regardless. The Left Analog Stick is used to move and the Right Analog Stick is used to move the camera. The D-Pad, like in Minecraft, is used to cycle through your inventory items and is also used for changing equipment, like weapons and shovels and hammers. Then you have the L and R triggers that lets you look up or down when placing blocks.

Now let’s get to the face buttons. X is used to open the menu and Triangle is used to attack with your current weapon/tool. Square is used to place blocks and Circle can be used to jump. It’s a very uncommon control scheme, but it doesn’t take long to adjust to.

As much as I would like to leave it at that and give the game a stellar score of 9/10, I have to mention my frustrations with the camera. This is especially present when you’re inside caves and houses, but the camera does not like going where you want it to. Go into a closed building and the camera stays outside, then you have to zoom it in and then you can barely see to move around. It’s quite frustrating.

Presentation

Visually, the game doesn’t look perfect, but it looks nice. The game is much more graphically polished than Minecraft is. When you zoom in on the characters really far, you can see some slight blurring on the details, but you’ll never need to do that. Overall, the game works really well, both with how polished everything looks and with how well the lighting effects are used during night phases.

Performance is about the same as Minecraft is. Occasionally, you’ll see a few frame rate hiccups, but it’s more or less 30fps occasionally dropping down to maybe 22 fps and then back up. Nothing major. It runs quite nicely.

Game Title: Chase Cold Case Investigations -Distant Memories-
Developer: Arc System Works, Aksys Games (Publisher)
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Game Type: 3DS
Download: 1,625 Blocks
NA Availability: Digital Download
EU Availability: Digital Download

Solving murder cases in video games has gotten really interesting the past several years. Ace Attorney is obviously where a lot of people would turn for this. However, my first turning point would be Danganronpa. Having not played Ace Attorney outside of using him in Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, I have little experience with the franchise. But, when it comes to solving murders, Danganronpa is my game.

Those are kind of niche, but also some of the most well-received crime solvers and trial simulation games in the handheld gaming world. Another crime solver came to the 3DS from Aksys Games as a smaller eShop title that is easy to overlook. I’m glad I didn’t, though, because I absolutely loved it.

Spiritual Successor to the likes of Hotel Dusk and Last Windows, here’s my review of eShop title, Chase: Cold Case Investigations – Distant Memories!

Story

Chase revolves around two detectives working for the Tokyo Police Department. In a long phase of having nothing to do, they receive an anonymous tip about a 5-year-old accident case at a nearby hospital. Upon receiving a tip that the case was, in fact, murder, they begin an investigation to find the truth.

The story of Chase is good because it’s got charm. Tying the animated visuals with the way the two partners act towards each other and suspects just draws you in. After playing the game for a mere 20 minutes, I felt like I knew the duo for years, when I’d only been introduced 20 minutes prior. It’s got that comfortable, synced vibe between the two of them that really comes off as charming to the player.

The one thing I’ll mention is that there are a lot of questions unanswered. There are a bunch of scenes that show something that hints at being explained further along in the game, and the game wraps up before saying a word about it. You’re left with a lot more questions than answers, which is great for setting up possible sequels, but you should just make a note of that if you’re someone who doesn’t like things being open at the end.

Gameplay

Chase is a visual novel adventure game with some light puzzle elements. For the majority of the game, you’ll be watching cutscenes play out as the daring duo investigate their case. Then, you’ll have some mild puzzle elements when you have to make dialogue choices and investigate a couple crime scenes. But, it’s mostly a visual novel.

Main progression basically goes in one fell swoop. There aren’t chapters that separate parts of the game, only scene changes. You go through dialogue, scene change, dialogue, scene change, etc until you reach the end of the game and figure out the case. There are also puzzles thrown in as well, but if you are expecting to see some fancy “Chapter 1: So It Begins” or “Chapter 2: The Mystery Deepens” title, you won’t see it here.

As I said above, you have puzzles as well as dialogue. As you learn more in the story, you’ll encounter sections where you’ll need to find key pieces of evidence in a crime scene (Imagine it like the investigation sequences in Danganronpa 1 and 2), and other sections where you’ll have dialogue choices. Now, there is margin for error in some of these sections. However, in a few of them, you get only one shot or you get a Game Over, requiring you to retry it to try and get it right.

Especially towards the end, you have a “Tried” gauge on your screen for dialogue choices. Whenever you get an answer correct, you increase your tries gauge but every time you get an answer wrong, you lose one. Lose them all, and it’s Game Over, so it’s a big game of thinking and you’re figuring out the case just as much as the characters are. The finale has a ton of these in a row, so it’s important to pay attention.

These are balanced relatively well, but with a bigger focus on the plot. The story is the star of the game, so probably 80% of your time will be going through dialogue between the duo and their interviewees. The time it takes, however, can be short. If you’re a fast reader and have a good memory, you can beat the game in under 2 hours. If you’re not a fast reader, you’re looking more around 3-4 hours, maybe 5 if you’re an especially slow reader. TLDR? It’s a relatively short game. Considering it’s also a cheap game ($5.99 USD), that’s not such a big deal.

Controls

Controlling the game is pretty simple and entirely up to you. If you’re more of a stylus person, the entire game can be done with the touch screen. But, if you like buttons more (as I’m sure a lot of you handheld gamers do), you can use that as well. But, first, touch controls. Pretty simple. Tap the screen to progress dialogue. Tap options to choose said options, and tap areas on a crime scene to investigate that area.

With the buttons, you are mostly just using the A button to proceed through dialogue. The D-Pad can be used to cycle dialogue choices, and the final thing is that Y can be used to pull up all of the menus.

That’s one thing the game does not tell you. There’s a hidden menu in the game, where you can review files, see story logs and, most importantly, save your game. As far as the game’s intro is concerned, you can’t save your game and that’s the biggest thing that bugs me. I’d played over half the game before saving once because I didn’t think you –could- save. Then I accidentally hit the Y button and this magical menu popped up out of nowhere. Would’ve been nice to know that was there.

Presentation

Visually, the game deserves credit. It’s not a super-fancy 3D visual game like Zero Time Dilemma, but it works its 2D artwork well. All of the scenes have animated renders and scenes, similar to moving renders in games like Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters or the Hyperdimension Neptunia games on the PS Vita. It also makes use of both screens, showing a large, tall portrait view extending from the top to the lower screen, and that’s something I really don’t see much anymore.

No other complaints here. Some people will notice that the game lacks voice-acting, but once you see the ending, you will soon realize that was done on purpose. Had there been voice acting, it would have ruined the ending.