Game Title: Touhou: Double Focus
Developer: Aqua Style, NIS America
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Download: 696 MB
Availability: Digital Download (NA, EU)
PSTV Support: No

Never thought I’d see the day when a Touhou Project game would hit mainstream consoles, let alone one that I cover on the website. If you don’t know, The Touhou Project is a series of bullet-hell PC games that have been made by a single person way back in 1996 and has since expanded into a huge phenomenon in the 21 years since. Bullet Hell games. Spin-offs. And now, console games.

Although Bullet Hell is where the series is most recognizable, two games recently released for the PS4 and PS Vita that are anything but that. Call it experimenting with other genres or whatever your opinion on the matter is. But, Vita fans who love Touhou just got 2 games they can dive into and enjoy to their heart’s content.

Today, I’m starting with the smaller of the two. Just released a few days ago, here’s my review of Touhou: Double Focus!

Story

Double Focus takes place in the realm of Gensokyo, a fictional realm from the franchise that resides somewhere in the mountains of Japan. A curious reporter for the local newspaper is digging around a bookstore and happens upon a magical book. One thing leads to another, and the residents all get sucked into this book’s world, void of all of their magical abilities and trapped. The game is about them finding a way out of the book’s world.

The story of Double Focus is very cute and light-hearted but also very lacking in explanation. You have a lot of characters that get little to no character development, as if the game assumes you know who who is, what they do, where they came from, etc. There’s just a severe lack of explanation for newcomers to the series, from characters to even Gensokyo itself.

It’s got a lot of lighthearted humor, but you need to be a fan to really appreciate it.

Gameplay

Double Focus is not a bullet hell like the PC games, and it’s also not a rogue RPG like Genso Wanderer is. It is actually a Metroidvania title that is far more Castlevania than anything else. From the moment you start moving through the first area, it feels like you’re playing an anime version of Castlevania. From the door sequences, boss fights, etc. It’s all very Castlevania-feeling.

Progressing through the game is a matter of exploring areas with your two playable characters and learning the maps of each area. In every map, there will of course, be enemies to fight and items to find, but a story quest (or 3) to do in order to gain access to the boss room. Your task is to find the NPCs for this quest and fulfill that quest and the path to the boss will open up for you.

Sounds easy, but it isn’t as easy as you might think. First off, you’ve got 2 characters to switch between with different abilities. One walks slowly, attacks quickly, and can temporarily hover in mid-air while the other moves faster, attacks slower, but can run up walls to reach areas the first cannot. Your initial task is to use these abilities to find hidden rooms. Once you start clearing areas, you unlock new skills that help break down obstacles to open up new areas. For example, in the first dungeon, there are a lot of cracked walls you can’t break, but the skill obtained from that area’s boss allows you to access those areas. You’ll be doing a lot of backtracking every time you get a new ability for new area access.

Skills is another thing that I would call a bit of a challenge. You have magic skills you can use if you find skill books. Story-based skills are permanent, but generic skills like healing magic and creating portals back to your base (where the only save point is), uses up a skill book. Basically, have 3 Cure books and you can only use Cure 3 times until you find more books. It makes you think twice before spamming skills.

The main thing you’ll want to be looking at is Boss Battles. The game is all exploration, learn simple attack patterns for normal enemies, learn how to run up walls to get into this room, go do this side quest, but when you get to a Boss, the difficulty shoots up through the roof. Every boss is fast on their feet and has an attack pattern you must learn to defeat them. Whether it’s learning where a magician teleports before launching plasma balls at you or where a monk will land after each of their attacks, you will have to try, learn, and retry each boss you come across.

And that’s the thing about this game’s difficulty. It is brutal throughout. If you pick Easy Mode, bosses are still very hard to take on, let alone the nightmarish difficulty in Normal and Hard Modes. This is, in no way, an easy game to master. Exploration, sure, but once combat comes into play, especially the enemies in the fourth area that parody horror movie villains, things get very hard very quickly.

Finally, one thing I didn’t like about the game was its length. Across the four areas the game has to offer, you will only be spending about 3 hours on it. That is including time to get lost and have no idea where you’re supposed to go. I got lost for a good 30-40 minutes in one section and I still finished in around 3 hours. There’s even a Time Attack Mode meant to have you race through the game as quickly as possible.

Controls

Oddly enough, Double Focus is not compatible with the PlayStation TV (while Genso Wanderer is). The game features no motion or touch or camera controls, so I’m at a loss as to why this is the case, but I’ll surely mention it to NISA when I send them this review.

To move around, you can use the D-Pad or Left Analog Stick, though I’d highly recommend against the Left Stick with how intricate some of the platforming is. The two triggers are used for characters and dodging/blocking. L lets you swap your controlled character with the other and R lets you dodge and block (dodge with Aya, block with Momiji). Finally, X lets you jump and the other three face buttons can have skills assigned to them, like physical attacks, healing magic, or special character skills.

My main issue is that the controls and a lot of gameplay features are not explained at all. What buttons do I use to run? What do I press to run up walls? How to I equip skills? None of it is explained outside of vague comments if you choose to talk to the NPCs at your base. It’s very confusing. I had no idea I could run up walls until I’d been playing for a good 20 minutes.

Presentation

Visually, the game looks very nice. The 2D art style looks very polished and the animated character models look straight out of an anime game like Dust. Even the little movements show just how much attention to detail was put into this game’s graphics engine.

The problem comes with frame-rate. Every once in a while, you’ll see tiny little dips in the game’s fps. At first, I couldn’t really tell what it was, but I saw it often. It was only for a millisecond. However, when you get to the 2nd boss of the game, it becomes very clear. During that boss fight, I would wager the game drops from a nice 30 fps to about 12. It’s really bad for the entire boss fight. You can get through it, but it’s a pain.

Game Title: The Binding of Isaac ~ Afterbirth Plus
Developer: Nicalis
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Download: 610 MB
Availability: Retail (NA, EU), Digital (NA, EU)
Battery Life: 4-6 hours
Supported Modes: TV, Tabletop, Handheld

I’ve come to have a love-hate relationship with The Binding of Isaac. In some runs, I love it and in others, I hate it. That’s gone even more-so recently with the new DLC that’s been added to the game, past the Rebirth remake. It’s just one of those games you love, you hate, and do everything in between as you play it more and more. Such is the way things go with random-generated rogue dungeon crawlers.

This isn’t the first trek I’ve made with the game, either. A lot of you may remember me playing and reviewing the PS Vita version of The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, though you haven’t seen a thing about the later DLC that came out, Afterbirth and Afterbirth Plus. That’s because they haven’t come to the PS Vita version as of yet, and they might never end up coming, after today’s review.

With the Nintendo Switch came two new opportunities for The Binding of Isaac. First of all, the game saw its first widespread retail release. There’s not a game store in my area not crawling with Switch boxes for Isaac. The second is the opportunity to bring the Afterbirth and Afterbirth Plus content to the handheld world, due to the Switch’s ability as a handheld unit.

So, let’s get right to it. Here is my review of The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth Plus for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

The Binding of Isaac is short on story and big on speculation. While there is a definite tale being woven here, the 20 endings to the game does leave a bit of speculation and theorization as to what exactly is going on as the game commences.

But from the story shown, Isaac and his Mother live alone in a small house. Isaac stays in his room, playing with toys while his Mom watches Christian shows on TV. Then a voice from above that Mom interprets as God instructs her to remove evil from his life, and finally to kill him as a sacrifice to him. But just as she bursts into his room, he drops down a hole in his room to the depths of the basement below to face the monsters that lurk beyond while escaping from his Mom.

Note that the story does have strong religious themes and could lean some people to believe the game has Anti-Christian tones to it. Without spoiling anything, I will say that it falls well in the line with the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac and the initial ending does clear up any skepticism about God trying to get Isaac’s Mom to commit murder. But that’s all I can say without spoiling the Epilogue, so just know that it clears things up in the end.

Gameplay

Afterbirth Plus contains the original Binding of Isaac: Rebirth as well as the Afterbirth and Afterbirth Plus DLC Expansions. The game, itself, is a random-generated dungeon crawler implementing Zelda-like gameplay with twin-stick shooter mechanics and an extensive upgrade system. Basically, combine 2D Zelda Dungeons with twin-stick shooters, add a random element, plus a couple hundred different possible upgrades, and you’ve got this game. Plus a lot of grotesque and dark elements.

First off, the PS Vita and New 3DS both have Rebirth, so what content does a handheld gamer get by grabbing Afterbirth and Afterbirth Plus in this release? In short, here are all of the added in features that Afterbirth and Afterbirth Plus total up to:

• Greed Mode
• Daily Runs for Online Leaderboards
• 3 new unlockable characters
• 4 New Dungeon variations, 2 brand-new dungeons, and 2 new final bosses/endings
• 240 new items, pickups, and trinkets
• Various balances, new challenges, new enemies and bosses, boss variations, among other small additions
• Local Co-Op (Not new to Afterbirth, but was not present in the Vita/3DS versions)

The biggest things to make note of for handheld gamers is that with Afterbirth Plus, you get local co-op multiplayer, 2 new dungeons, final bosses, endings, 3 playable characters, as well as Greed Mode and Daily Challenges. But before getting into those new modes, let’s talk about the basic premise and progression of the game for those not familiar with Isaac.

When you start a “run” through the game, you choose a playable character and difficulty and you’re set in a 2D dungeon to crawl through. Navigating each floor or level is a matter of moving from room to room. Like old Zelda games, you are trapped in a room with enemies until you have defeated every once of them. You do this by firing tear projectiles at them in a twin-stick shooter fashion. Once they’re gone, the doors open up and you move on. You keep doing this until you find the Boss Room, defeat the boss, and move onto the next level. And you keep going until you reach and defeat the Final Boss and get an ending.

The thing about this game is the random element as well as the fact that it is like a never-ending game. Beat the final boss and you unlock the next final boss as well as two optional paths filled with optional bosses. Beat the final boss ten times and you unlock the Afterbirth final boss. Beat them and the Afterbirth Plus final boss unlocks. Across 20 endings, it’s like the game doesn’t have a True End.

And in the rest of that, you will constantly be unlocking other features. Random items, rooms, enemies, and even bosses are generated in each level and fulfilling conditions unlocks more content. This content ranges from new dungeons, new weapon types, new variations of enemies, new power-ups, new characters, new challenge runs, new game modes, and the list goes on. It’s really a game where it feels like you never stop unlocking new content and, because of the hundreds of items that could appear in the dungeon and the variation of each character, every run feels completely different from any other.

And if the Challenges and normal runs aren’t enough, the new Greed Mode adds a new level of intensity to the game. Greed Mode is a kind of “Survival” mode, where you fight 10 waves of enemies and bosses on each floor, where each wave has a timer. If you don’t defeat them in time, the second wave appears and now you’ve got 2 waves to fight at the same time, and if you don’t do that quickly, the rooms can fill up and become absolutely chaotic in no time at all. Not to mention that the boss of Greed Mode is one of the most challenging bosses in the rogue genre.

Despite the overwhelming amount of content the game offers, a single run through the normal game could take you around 20-30 minutes to do, while after unlocking the Afterbirth dungeons, it can climb up towards 40-60 minutes. If we’re talking completion time, here’s what you have to do:

• Defeat the initial final boss to unlock the 2nd Final Boss
• Defeat the 2nd Final Boss 10 times to unlock the Afterbirth Dungeon
• Clear the Afterbirth Dungeon’s boss to unlock the Afterbirth Plus Dungeon
• Clear the Afterbirth Plus Dungeon to obtain the final ending to the story’s conclusion.

That is a grand total of 13 successful runs (which is difficult to do, considering this game is far from easy). With an average of 30 minutes per run, depending on your character, that would be a bare minimum of 6-8 hours of play time. That is for experts that can handle and succeed even if the game gives you a bad run with items and upgrades that do more harm than good. For a newbie, the time it would take to learn the game, build up skill, and unlock all of that would be more like 20-25 hours.

Controls

There are two ways to control the game, depending on if you’re using the built in co-op multiplayer. For Couch Co-Op, each player uses a single Joy Con to control their character, so we’ll explain the two different setups.

For Single Player, you use the Left Analog Stick or the Directional Buttons to move and the Right Analog Stick or Face Buttons to fire your main weapons. The + button is used to pause the game and the – button lets you toggle the map view. Now for the triggers. The L trigger lets you drop a bomb and the ZL trigger lets you use a trinket weapon you have charged up. The R trigger lets you consume a pill for a bonus and the ZR trigger lets you drop an equipped item you wish to get rid of.

If you’re in local co-op mode, each joycon has movement with the Analog Stick and firing with the four other buttons (Directional Buttons on the Left Joy Con, Face Buttons on the Right Joy Con). Though, just so you know, to activate Co-Op Mode, you have to actually go into the Switch’s Joy Con settings and set it up as 2 controllers before going into Isaac.

Presentation

Visually, The Binding of Isaac is made to be a retro-like game with retro graphics. This is a good thing and bad thing at the same time. The game looks just like it does on any other system, but the retro graphics will look very blurry during animations in a lot of boss fights. Plus, the Flash Filter option in the PC version used to make the game look much smoother and more crisp is nowhere to be found in the Switch release.

The other issue is slowdown when using certain powers. We know that Nicalis is having issues with getting Afterbirth running on the Vita because of how resource-heavy it is. On the Switch, there are select scenarios that causes the game to have some pretty intense slowdown. If you get Charge Shot when using Azazel, it gets pretty bad (especially in the Utero dungeon), but it’s only with very specific powers. Worth noting, but it does not happen very often.

Battery Life

In terms of battery, The Binding of Isaac is another game that’s going to get you plenty of battery life. Here are the results of my tests from 100% battery to 15% battery:

• Full Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 46 minutes
• Full Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 50 minutes
• Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 54 minutes
• Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 5 hours, 11 minutes

In terms of this, all the way to 0% could get you from around 4 hours to nearly 6 hours of battery life. Slightly less than I am Setsuna, but still quite a bit of battery life compared to the likes of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Game Title: Snake Pass
Developer: Sumo Digital
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Download: 3.7 GB
Availability: Digital Download (US, EU)
Battery Life: 2.5 – 3.5 hours
Support Modes: TV, Tabletop, Handheld

There are some upcoming games that are trying to bring back fond memories of the colorful 3D platformers from the Nintendo 64 age. Yooka-Laylee is a big one that is almost like a spiritual successor to the Banjo-Kazooie franchise that tried its best to live on, but ultimately went down when its final entry did not fare well in the eyes of the fans.

3D Platformers aren’t all about jumping around with a bird in your backpack while fighting off an ugly cliché witch, though. Sumo Digital has made a game that has 3D Platformer, all the color and charm of the era, but with a more small puzzle-oriented theme to its game.

That’s what we’re going to cover today. Also released on the Xbox One, PS4, and Steam, here is my review of the Nintendo Switch version of Unreal Engine 4-powered puzzle game, Snake Pass!

Story

Snake Pass stars a duo of animals. Noodle the Ground Snake and Doodle the Hummingbird live in a world above the clouds, connected to other islands through magical gates. Noodle is awoken by Doodle when the keys that power the gates go missing and urges him to help retrieve and restore the keys or be permanently trapped on their island.

The story of Snake Pass is, like the rest of the game, casual, cute, and very charming. You don’t get a ton of story in the game, but what tidbits unfold across each level just gives a cute and charming feel, which often will help balance the increasing difficulty towards the game’s finale.

Gameplay

Snake Pass is a 3D Platforming Puzzle game. Each stage is built like a puzzle game, but to collect all of the items required to open the exit to the next level, you have to platform around 3D environments with a pretty significant amount of physics involved as well.

The gist of the game is that in each level, there’s a gate that requires 3 color-coated keys to open. So your task is to collect the 3 keys and bring them back to the gate to proceed to the next level and repeat the process for the 15 levels that the game has to go through.

How you do the platforming is what makes the game so interesting. You play as a snake, so you can’t just walk and jump around the platforms to get what you need. You can’t even hold the analog stick forward to move forward. The developers made this game heavily rely upon a snake’s natural way of moving around: slithering. You slither left and right to start moving and pick up speed so you can move forward, up, and around all of the environments the game throws your way.

This makes climbing pretty unique as you can slide and wrap yourself around small poles to attach yourself and pull yourself up to get to a higher platform. And even after you’re there, you have the physics of getting up well. If only the head and neck of the snake reach the platform, the tail will hang and weigh you down, eventually pulling you off the platform and plummeting to the ground. There’s a process for everything and while there are many ways to navigate a platform, there is an efficient and easy way to do it.

The tail weight is balanced with your hummingbird companion. With a quick tap of the Y button, your bird friend will pick up the bottom end of your tail, preventing it from pulling you down off a platform, and another tap will let him drop it next to you as you head towards your next platform. While there are certain areas where he cannot help you, like when you are swimming underwater, this part of the game is a balance between knowing what situations the tail grab will help and others where you need that tail length for climbing.

Aside from this, you learn new elements as you go. Across platforming, swimming underwater for secret passages, wrapping around and using switches to manipulate your environment, and dodging dangerous hazards, the game becomes pretty complex by the time you reach Level 15.

And to add to the complexity are collectibles. In each stage, there are bubbles and gold coins for you to collect. You don’t need to collect them to finish the level, but if you’re a completion-ist, they’re there for you to figure out how to reach and collect.

One thing I’ll say is that the difficulty keeps climbing and climbing. The first set of levels is pretty easy and casual, while the second set starts giving you more complex platforming, the third giving you more hazards to avoid, and finally the fourth bringing in the biggest challenge. I won’t lie about the difficulty. The final stage is in a league of its own. It will test every ounce of skill you gain as you play the game. I spend at least 30 minutes on it alone.

Play Time, however, is something you will want to consider. Let’s say you want to just go through the game. Get collectibles you come across while searching for the keys, and that’s about it. If you want to do that, the game will only last you about 2 or 3 hours. 100% Players will likely get twice as much out of it, but a standard run your first time through will probably only take you a few hours. To give you an idea, when I streamed the game yesterday, I ran through Levels 1-7 in a single hour, which is about half of the entire game.

Controls

Controlling the game is one of the most crucial learning curves you will have to go through. Whether you’re playing in TV Mode, Tabletop Mode, or Handheld Mode, the has a control scheme as unique as the movement style of the ground snake you play as.

While the Left Analog Stick lets you slither back and forth, you cannot actually move forward unless you hold ZR while moving the Analog Stick. This can be toggled in the controls settings if you’d rather only use the Left Analog Stick. You’ve also got ZL to hold if you want to stick to the platform you’re wrapped around to take a look at the stage or move the camera. Finally, you’ve got the A button to raise your head in the air to actually move up stairs or platforms and Y to call your Hummingbird friend to lift your tail.

There’s only one thing that is bothersome about the control scheme. Hitting Y for the hummingbird. While the inconvenience of holding ZR and hitting Y at the same time can be worked around with the ZL stick feature, the hummingbird’s effectiveness cannot. There are many situations where Doodle will land on an object you’re supposed to go towards. In this scenario, you have to hit Y not once like most other times, but twice to get him to grab your tail. If you’re in a tight situation and need him ASAP, he will not get there in time and you will needlessly fall.

I found this to be a pretty big flaw as it makes you expect to only hit the button once when in select scenarios, you need to hit it twice. I failed dozens of platforming sections because of this.

Presentation

Visually, the game looks good depending on what mode you’re in. In Docked Mode / TV Mode, the game looks pretty nice. In the few sections where the camera can zoom in on noodle, you can see a huge amount of detail, all the way down to individual scales on his skin.

In handheld mode, it’s a different story. The reason why is currently up in the air, across resolution speculation to a few other fan theories. But, in handheld mode, the game looks surprisingly blurry. Environments look good overall, but noodle’s model has a noticeable blur that isn’t there at all in TV Mode. There are rumors around that there will be a patch that fixes this, but as of the moment, it’s a bit blurry when playing on the go.

How the game plays, though, is great. Load Times never exceed 7-8 seconds and the game stays at a nice and smooth 30 frames per second.

Battery Life

In terms of Battery Life, and I’m sure the fact that the game uses Unreal Engine 4 is mostly to blame, it eats battery like crazy. From 100% down to 0%, here are my battery times for Snake Pass:

• Full Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 46 minutes
• Full Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 00 minutes
• Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 28 minutes
• Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 36 minutes

Like Zelda, you’re not going to get a lot of battery out of this game. Note that this is down to 0%, not 15%. This is the maximum you’re going to get before the system’s battery dies on you. Granted, that full charge is enough to last you the entire game, but as far as replaying, that’s another story.

Game Title: Vroom in the Night Sky
Developer: Poisoft
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Download: 808 MB
Availability: Digital Download (Europe, Japan)
Battery Life: 3-4 Hours
Supported Modes: TV, Tabletop, Handheld

The Nintendo Switch line-up is a very large debate, no matter which region or country you’re referring to. Of course, you’ve got the heavy-hitting Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, JRPG opener in the West with I am Setsuna, the return of Bomberman, and a lot more. Across expected and unexpected games, it’s been a debate since the very start, considering how small it was.

In Japan and Europe, there was a very intriguing and quirky game starring Magical Girls and Motorcycles. The general opinion is that the game is awful on all levels, and that just meant that I had to get it and try it out. Thanks to the region-free nature of the Switch, I popped onto the UK eShop and bought it.

On this April Fools Day, let’s take a good look at the quirky world from the edge of a broomstick. Here’s my review a game made by only 6 people, Vroom in the Night Sky!

Story

Vroom in the Night Sky is about a Magical Girl who flies through the night sky on magical motorcycles to collect Stardust. It is implied that Magical Girls are powered by this stardust material, and must race through the world to make sure they can get their fair share before other magical girls take it for themselves.

That’s pretty much where the story ends, too. You have that setup and that’s it. You get random dialogue during stages, mostly in terms of you making note of your environment to very silly remarks. You will see discussions about how comfortable of a lifestyle magical girls have, how you wish you could swim but can’t, and hoping that your fairy friend isn’t scared of heights after you pull him a couple hundred feet in the air.

It’s quite silly, and all of it is random. The other thing is that the translation is awful. Almost every sentence in the game doesn’t make sense and looks like the developers entered the script into Google Translate and didn’t refine or edit any of the translated text. Context like “The moon of tonight is my friend” or “Are you the first time play this game?” It’s so bad it’s just funny, like a lot of other aspects of the game.

Gameplay

Vroom in the Night Sky is, well…I’m not sure what kind of game it is. You fly around stages like you’re in a flight simulator and collect objects like old Nintendo 64 3D Platformers. There are also some light combat elements with fighting your rival. If I had to generalize it, an Action Flight game? It’s really not completely in those genres, and it’s practically a genre all on its own. Let’s call it a Magical Girl Flying Sim.

The main thing is that you go through stages to collect money and use said money to buy new vehicles to tackle each stage with. So you’ll be going through Gameplay and a Shop after you complete each stage. There are also a lot of achievements to gain to unlock new content. It’s worth noting that the way the achievements pop up, it looks EXACTLY like PS4 Trophies. Even the trophy images and colors for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum are a straight up copy of trophies. (So anyone wanting Trophies in Switch games…well, here you go).

Once you get into a stage, the setup looks interesting enough. You start flying your vehicle around in a 3D Sandbox arena, set on collecting a number of Star-like objects littered around the stage, like a Go-and-Collect sort of game. Once you collect them all, go through a circular gate to complete the stage and convert your points into money to be used in the shop.

And that’s really all there is to the game. Collect items. End Stage. Buy Stuff. Collect Items in a different Stage. End Stage. Buy stuff again. Itimplicity really reminds me of the days of PS Mobile. Almost as if this game is more of a tech demo for something that could be expanded into a game, but is a game in and of itself.

There are 2 things about the game, though. First is other elements to gameplay. It seems very basic at first, but does have a few things you can do. You can accelerate and turn as well as shoot your fairy off like a magical laser beam that will zone in and collect stardust fragments for you. This is also used for attacking your rival once they show up and try to steal the stardust for herself. The big thing is that collecting stardust with your Beam Attacks gets you extra points for more money. Although using the Beam and the Speed Boost options uses up gas, so you may have to refuel at a Magical Gas Station in the level.

The other is unlocking content. The game has 8 stages and the first 5 unlock themselves when beating the previous stage. Once you get to 6, you must use the in-game Trophies to unlock new content. Tier 2 stages unlock only once you purchase a Tier 2 vehicle, and the same for Tier 3 and Tier 4. To buy them, you need money. This leaves you to doing either mass grinding in easy stages or doing achievements involving doing special maneuvers and beating time trial records.

This leads to the game being a huge grind. The most I’ve ever gotten in a single stage even with the fastest vehicles in the game are a little over 100,000 of the in-game currency. So, if you need a Tier 4 bike that costs 1.5 million cash, you’ll have to do those stages a lot. Especially towards the “Platinum Trophy” which involves buying every single vehicle, half of which are all over 1 million per vehicle. In the end, doing that will take a good couple hours of grinding and dozens of stage completions.

The other aspect of the grind is that the starting vehicles are extremely slow-moving. Considering this is a large sandbox game, it makes the game seem really boring. However, once you get some Tier 2 Vehicles, you can start doing the Time Trial achievements and unlock special vehicles. These are almost all gag vehicles they threw in to increase the confusion factor. These include, but are not limited to a magic car, bench, broomstick, and even an Airliner. Granted, some of these are the best vehicles in the game, but it is so odd (and hilarious) seeing a giant Magical Girl standing on a huge airliner.

I won’t lie. I was getting bored with the game until I unlocked the special vehicles, but once high speed became an option, I became addicted to completing everything. I didn’t put the game down from the moment I unlocked the Airplane until I had every vehicle bought, every stage mastered, and every achievement obtained. It really has charm once things speed up.

As far as difficulty goes, there isn’t any. This is meant to just be a quirky little casual game you can play when you just want to relax. You can take your time in each stage, and your rival poses no real threat in actually collecting the stardust before you can. While there is a difficulty curve in the handling difficulty and differences between vehicles, that’s pretty much the only thing remotely difficult about the entire game.

Now, if you want Play Time, you would have to factor a few things in. First off, there are 8 stages. A single run through a stage, even with a fair amount of time in hunting down shards and taking out your rival for bonus points, shouldn’t take you any longer than around 5 minutes or so. If you take into account all of those grinding plays for getting everything unlocked, you’re probably looking at around 3-5 hours, at the most. I would put at least an hour just on unlocking the vehicles that are 1 million cash and higher to buy. Not too long, but certainly not terrible for the price as you’re essentially buying the game for around $7.00. I consider it a fair trade-off (especially in comparison to Snake Pass that charges you three times that for less game content.

Controls

Controlling the game is a confusing point in and of itself. Unlike most Nintendo games that use A as the confirm option and B as the cancel option, Vroom in the Night Sky has a more PlayStation-like control scheme with A and B reversed. Although you can change this in settings, you cannot change this in gameplay, so you might as well just get used to it because you will be confused either way.

In gameplay, you move around with the Left Analog Stick and move the camera with the Right Analog Stick. All 4 triggers don’t do anything at all. Then you’ve got the face buttons. The B button lets you accelerate and A is for the brakes. Y lets you shoot your magical beam and X is used for giving yourself a speed boost in exchange for a fair portion of your gasoline, which is critical for the Time Trial achievements.

The major problem I have with this is the fact that you have to constantly hold down B to accelerate and when you want to constantly use your speed boost, you have to press X while B is still held down. This is an extremely awkward maneuver which could have easily been avoided by moving either option to the triggers, which do nothing at all in the game.

Presentation

Visually, the game looks good, but it also looks bad. Vroom is one of the 3D games for the Switch that has flawless character model edges in and out of handheld mode, which is really nice for those wanting to take their magical broomsticks and motorcycles on the go. But the draw distance and details of environments really needs work. In the Ocean level, everything blurs into the blue of the ocean. Even mountains that are ABOVE the ocean. And some environments literally just look like blocks when they’re supposed to be buildings.

The rest of the presentation, though, I applaud the devs for. First of all, the music is nice and calm throughout the game, with a particularly epic final stage song that I would put up there as a legitimately great theme song for any kind of game. And the performance is flawless. The game runs at a perfect 60 fps and never drops or dips for anything.

Battery Life

Since this is a 3D Nintendo Switch game, I had pretty low expectations in terms of Battery Life, but the results I got from my tests were pretty decent. From 100% to 0% Battery power, here is how long you can play Vroom in the Night Sky:

• Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 05 minutes
• Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 20 minutes
• Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 36 minutes
• Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 52 minutes

This isn’t bad at all, though it stays between 3 and 4 hours no matter what your settings are. So, unless you want to chug out that extra half hour, you might as well just keep this at full screen brightness all the time.

Game Title: Touhou Genso Wanderer
Developer: Aqua Style, NIS America
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Download: 1.5 GB
Availability: Digital Download (Europe, North America)
PSTV Support: Yes

Touhou is a franchise I’m a tad familiar with. Years back, I was playing a user-created RPG Maker game when I came across this amazing battle theme music that I thought was incredible. I looked it up, finding out that it was called U.N. Owen Was Her and is associated with a character from Touhou Project known as Flandre Scarlet. Afterwards, I looked further and further into the franchise, finding an overwhelmingly deep set of games, lore, and more.

I recently reviewed Touhou: Double Focus for the PS Vita, though my first Touhou game was one of the Touhoumon games, made with an altered version of the Pokemon GBA Roms. So, even with Double Focus out and about, my Touhou RPG itch really wasn’t scratched. But in game this other game that released the same day as Double Focus.

So here is my review of the PS Vita and PSTV version of Touhou: Genso Wanderer!

Story

Our story takes place in the land of Gensokyo, where the Shrine Maiden Reimu encounters an unfortunate event as a strange magical orb turns her friend into a magic-powered super-villain set on cloning the inhabitants of the world and taking it over from a giant tower that the orb’s power creates. After a hopeless attempt of resistance, Reimu must traverse the land of Gensokyo, make her way to the tower, and stop him, if she can.

The story of Genso Wanderer is a hundred times more serious and proper than Double Focus. Everything is as serious as a normal JRPG would with a cast of characters from the serious Reimu to her many companions she picks up on her journey. The game also does an amazing job at setting up and teaching you lore for the Touhou franchise. In fact, you could say they do too good of a job.

By too good of a job, I mean there’s way too much lore thrown at you everywhere you go. Every time you find a town, each individual shopkeeper gives you a 5-10 minute backstory of their life, followed by Reimu’s strict and serious personality trying to learn and then her companions coming in with the usual comic relief that inevitably derails the entire conversation for another few minutes more. Don’t get me wrong, though. I love how far they went, but we don’t need 10 minutes of lore for every single shopkeeper all at the start, all at once. It’s a bit overkill.

Gameplay

Genso Wanderer is a game that will bring back memories of Shiren the Wanderer and Sorcery Saga. Just like those games, it is a turn-based rogue RPG rich in grid-like dungeon exploration, being punished upon dying, and lots and lots of difficulty curves. If you recall either of those games, you know what you’re in for, and then some.

Genso Wanderer progresses from Reimu’s Shrine at the base of the mountains in Gensokyo. You then travel through dungeons and towns as break points as you constantly move and travel towards the tower where the Final Boss resides. It’s a pretty simple premise, though actually getting there is another story.

In rogue fashion, you traverse various floors of dungeons that are generated randomly, so you never know what kind of difficulty or mob numbers you’re dealing with. Your goal is to get through that dungeon’s floors and to the next town where you can resupply, enhance your characters and items, rest, and move onto the next dungeon. You can save anywhere, though, so there’s not a massive feeling of constant danger, unless you get hit by a really by random floor, like the Cornered Battle floors where you need to be OP to survive.

Navigating dungeons is just like Shiren and Sorcery. You walk around on a tile-based map and for every movement you do, every enemy on the map takes 1 movement step. Once enemies come close to you, it turns into a game of guessing enemy movement and moving accordingly to get your enemy close enough to attack before they can attack you, be it hiding in a narrow passage to not get overwhelmed or simply luring them towards your mage ally so they can take them out for you.

As you travel up, you start gaining experience, levels, and picking up items and equipment. This is all good and fun, but the final bit of depth is the Tummy Gauge. You lose stamina as you go and if you lose all of your stamina, you will collapse, so you’ve got to use items to heal your HP but also eat food to restore stamina. And when you have dungeons that are 10+ floors a piece, having supplies ready is a must.

Preparation is also key because of the biggest challenge aspects about rogue RPGs: Dying. If you die, you will be reset to the very bottom of the entire game, back at the Shrine and have to re-climb up every single floor to where you were before. Although you do not lose all of your items if you die (which is a blessing compared to other Rogues), you will have all of your progress reset and have to re-climb dungeons.

This also coincides with the difficulty spikes. As you find towns between dungeons, you’ll be spending a lot of time upgrading, resupplying, and just re-preparing for what’s ahead. The game’s difficulty spikes and it spikes very quickly. When I first ran through and found the first dungeon to be very easy on a run, I headed to the 2nd and got completely destroyed by a single normal mob enemy. Not upgrading and re-preparing at the many types of shops in towns is an easy way to die and have to completely start over. It may be an Action RPG, but the biggest aspect is Strategy.

As far as time goes, it’s a time sink. A HUGE time-sink. Across learning the game, the mass amount of story and gameplay content, you’ll probably be spending at least 70 hours playing this game, probably more if you go for optional content as well. A lot of people wonder if there was a reason to justify the $50 price tag, and the fact that it’s a 70+ hour game is definitely the reason. Maybe that’s still not real justification for charging that much for a PS Vita game, but it’s there.

Controls

First of all, I am glad to say that Genso Wanderer is compatible with the PlayStation TV. No special controls here, but at least it works on the micro-console, unlike Double Focus. And if you watch my video review, I’m extremely glad because it gave me a reason to put in UN Owen was Her as background music for one of my reviews.

Controls are pretty simple. The D-Pad is used for movement, while the Left Analog Stick doesn’t do a thing. The Right Stick can cycle the skills you can use with the L trigger, though. You’ve then got the R trigger that allows you to dash in stages to cover distances much faster than normal.

Now, the face buttons. X lets you attack while holding down the Square button lets you change the direction you’re facing. Triangle brings up the customization menu, and Circle is the same as R with letting you dash.

It’s pretty simple if you’re used to Rogues and the game does a nice job with the tutorial dungeon in explaining everything to you.

Presentation

There’s nothing bad about the game’s graphics. The environments and the lively character models all look perfect. It’s all in 2D, but it just looks great. The only thing that doesn’t look great is the map. Instead of having a mini-map as you progress dungeon you can toggle, the entire map is on-screen at all times. When you get a more complex map, it easily starts to cover up your screen. You can’t turn it off, only move it, so it’s a massive hindrance on looking at your surroundings.

Music fits the Touhou scene very well. The game doesn’t have all of everyone’s favorite Touhou songs, but it’s got plenty to really fit the tone of the game and the Touhou Lore, itself.

Performance is great. No complaints there. Load times are short. FPS drops don’t happen at all. It’s optimized extremely well.

Game Title: LEGO City Undercover
Developer: TT Fusion, Warner Bros
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Download: 7.6 GB
Availability: Retail (North America, Europe), Digital (North America, Europe)
Battery Life: 2.5 – 4.5 Hours
Supported Modes: TV, Tabletop, Handheld

Lego games have been a pleasure of mine for quite some time. On the PSP, I spent dozens of hours into Lego Star Wars 2. On the Vita, it skyrocketed through Lego Marvel, Avengers, Batman 2 and 3, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Star Wars TFA, and the list just keeps going and going. You could say that I am almost a fanatic when it comes to handheld LEGO games, considering I still have yet to play a console Lego game outside of Lego Star Wars 2 back on the PlayStation 2 and if you don’t count playing the Vita games on a PlayStation TV.

Now that the Nintendo Switch is melding console and handheld gaming, we can look forward to much more extensive and in-depth LEGO experiences on the go. The Lego PSP games didn’t have any open world or sandbox elements, and only a single PS Vita LEGO game had it, which was LEGO Marvel’s Avengers. As great as it was, its size pales in comparison to true open world LEGO games.

In comes the newest LEGO game to join the handheld world. Having been ported and enhanced from Wii U to consoles, here is my review of the so-called “Lego version of Grand Theft Auto”, LEGO City Undercover!

Story

Undercover adapts the many play-sets dubbed “LEGO City” from the real-world into a world of its own. You play as a policeman named Chase McCain, whom was transferred away from LEGO City PD after bringing down a huge criminal and accidentally revealing a witness’ identify on live TV. However, when said criminal escapes from prison, they bring him back in order to track him down and put him back behind bars.

The story of Undercover can be more defined by saying that it is a giant love letter to action movies and science fiction movies. Across the game’s various story chapters, there are always big references to all kinds of movies and video games. Off the top of my head, I recall deliberate references to Aliens, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Metal Gear Solid, The Shawshank Redemption, and pretty much every Arnold Schwarzenegger of all time. (I’m not kidding. They make references in one story level to at least a dozen of his movies, from Jingle All the Way and Twins to Predator and Pumping Iron).

These two factors really come in nicely. You’ve got the serious crime tone of the actual story along with constant laughter from all the references and tongue-in-cheek humor. Any Shawshank fan just can’t hate a game that has a Morgan Freeman lookalike that freaks out in-game about Morgan Freeman’s lawyers listening in on them and worrying about being sued.

Gameplay

LEGO City Undercover is an action-adventure game like any other LEGO game. However, it is also an open-world sandbox game made in the image of the Grand Theft Auto franchise. So, while many LEGO games do have open-world elements with large hubs, LEGO City Undercover is a true open-world game where the majority of missions are built around the open world itself, as opposed to always being in enclosed areas.

Progression goes between exploring the Open World and going towards story objectives that are labeled on your map. In this way, the game mimics the gameplay of the GTA series. You are placed on this giant map and can “steal” any car that’s driving down the road simply by walking up to it and jumping in. You can drive vehicles like cars and motorcycles, boats and aircraft , trains, animals like pigs and horses, and even disability vehicles like wheelchairs you can grab and drive. And, like GTA, you can drive any of these vehicles into others to destroy them (I tested this by destroying a bus with a wheelchair, which turned out hilariously well).

What all you choose to do is up to you. The first half of the open world is available to you until you get through the first 4 or 5 hours and then the second half opens up. But on the open world itself, you have story objectives, but you also have a lot of secrets, side missions, and collectibles to go find. Most of these will be in locked areas you cannot access until you get a new power from Story Mode (some locked until post-game)

If you choose to do Story, which you inevitably will have to do to unlock powers for the majority of the game’s secrets, you will have story objectives that you can either travel to or will need to build transportation to. Many of the areas may require a Ferry to travel to, or a Bridge you need to build to cross over to the Dojo. This is where currency comes into play, which is a bit different from previous games.

In most LEGO games, you have one currency: Studs, which are used to purchase unlockable characters, extra Gold Bricks for completion, and new vehicles. This game also has Bricks that drop from special collectibles littered around the open world and from destroyed objects/vehicles. These are used for Super Builds, which will make all of these bridges, vehicle spawn points, ferries, and other big objects you need to advance the story.

Eventually, this will incorporate exploring the open world into your story progression. Finish a Story Mission, and then you need 20,000 bricks for a bridge to access the next Story Mission, so you go around and collect bricks until you have enough to make said bridge and advance the story some more. That way, you can’t just power-play the story without being introduced to the exploration elements that the open world has to offer.

Though missions is where things can differ. Some story missions have you in the open world, like driving a police truck back to the station while being pursued by robbers, while many of the others are in large, enclosed areas like a Fire Department, Apartment Buildings, or Underwater complexes. That is the main and pretty much only time you’re taken out of the sandbox and put into an enclosed environment, though you access these areas via the open world, so the integration is still there.

Navigating these missions is pretty on-par with what previous LEGO games had. Outside of the open-world missions, you’ll be inside an enclosed set of areas where you have objectives. These are normally either navigating an area or opening new areas to be able to access whatever you’re there for. Puzzles and Combat both come into play here, and they’re all around the different character types you get, which are called “Disguises” for Chase, each with their own powers. Police Disguises let you use a grapple gun, Robber Disguises let you break into buildings, and there are others like the Fireman Disguise with an Axe for breaking down blockades.

This back-and-forth goes on for about 17-20 hours until the story ends. I did exploration every so often and I cleared the story after a little over 17 hours of gameplay. Once you get the story done, Post-Game opens up. There are a lot of areas and a lot of hidden collectibles that do not become available until you hit post-game and unlock the main villain as a disguise. That is when the game really starts to get lengthy, because when I cleared the story, I was around 24% completion and got to 30% after about 2 hours of exploration and replaying old story missions with new powers. So, there’s A LOT to do.

Controls

Controlling the game is pretty nice and optimized. The only downer is the fact that you need 2 sets of joycons to do the in-game co-op. TT Fusion and WB came out not long ago, as they found no comfortable way to explore a 3D sandbox game with a single joycon (basically without a second analog stick to control the camera), especially since single player play uses almost every button on the Switch.

The Left Analog Stick is used to move around environments and the Right Analog Stick is used to move the camera. The D-Pad / Directional Buttons are used for your Data Pad for the camera, taking calls during Story Mode, and using Scanning to eavesdrop on conversations or to find hidden Lego Bricks. Then the four triggers are also used. L is used for honking the horn for vehicles and R is used for hopping while you’re driving. They’re also used for swapping the equipped disguise. ZL is used for the Brakes and ZR is used to Accelerate (Or Descending and Ascending in Aircraft).

Finally, the face buttons. A is used to interact with objects and B is used for jumping. X is used for pulling up the Character Palette to swap to a specific disguise, and Y is used for melee attacks. Finally, the + button brings up the Pause Menu (and allows a second character to join in) and the – button pulls up the map. So, given the fact that literally every button is used, you can see how TT Fusion had issues getting Single Joy Con Co-Op to work.

Presentation

Ah, presentation. Here’s where my nitpicks are going to be. First off, the game looks very nice, visually. There are virtually no imperfections in character models. A few tiny jaggies in Handheld Mode, but nothing that notice-able.

First, let’s talk about music. When you’re in a mission, you have very colorful music that really fits the action theme of the game. However, when you’re exploring the open-world, you don’t have ANY music at all. And that’s one thing that really is a downer for me. When you’re in GTA, you have the radio as you’re cruising through Los Santos or Vice City, but in LEGO City, you get sound effects and nothing else.

Next, let’s talk load times. Loading the sandbox and missions can vary. I’ve had loading sequences that ranged from 25 seconds to a full minute, most of which were more around 25-30 seconds. But still, that’s a long time to wait for a static screen, especially in handheld mode.

Next, the long-discussed Frame-Rate. LEGO City Undercover runs at a native fps of 30, but will often drop to around 25 when exploring the open world. This is a constant, whether you’re in Docked Mode or Handheld Mode, and whether you have Airplane Mode on or off. It’s nothing that’s going to make the game unplayable, but the fact that it’s not constant isn’t a great way to start your game. Hopefully, TT Fusions can patch it like Nintendo did for Breath of the Wild.

And while I’d like to say those are all the problems, they aren’t. LEGO City Undercover has a habit of crashing, both in handheld and docked modes. During my first couple hours of playing the game, it crashed on me three times, but then was fine for the next 16 hours or so, but it’s crashed twice for me since I hit post-game. It’s something to really look for and it’s not triggered by a specific event. Sometimes, it crashes when accessing the Helipad for Aircraft while other times you’re just roaming around and it crashes.

Battery Life

As far as battery goes, I’m fairly happy with the results. You’ll get more battery than Zelda, but instead of talking about it, let’s just show you the results. Here are the Battery Times from 100% to 0%:

• Max Brightess + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 46 minutes
• Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 03 minutes
• Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 9 minutes
• Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 26 minutes

The great thing is that you can squeeze about 4 and a half hours out of the game and the fact that most environments are bright means you can use it comfortably in non-cloudy weather. It’s not the best the Switch has seen but it’s far from the worst.

Game Title: Metal Slug 3
Developer: SNK
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Download: 171 MB
Availability: Digital Download (Europe, N. America, Japan)
Battery Life: 3.5 – 5.5 Hours
Supported Modes: TV, Tabletop, Handheld

I’ll admit that I don’t have a massive amount of experience with the Metal Slug series of horizontal Shooters / Shoot-em-up games. I never got a chance to play them in the arcades, though I did end up playing a couple of them via emulation on newer consoles.

So, when I started seeing the series popping up in the Neo Geo “Virtual Console” games for the Nintendo Switch, it was the perfect chance to dive back into the series. As many people that watched my stream a couple weeks back saw, I grabbed the series’ third entry, which is highly regarded as one of the best.

So, without further delay, here is my review of the Nintendo Switch version of Metal Slug 3!

Story

The plot of 3 takes place several years after Metal Slug 2. The assumed-defeated Morden’s armies are being taken out, but once unsurprising organization is shown, the special Strike Force that once took him down are re-assembled on the assumption that the Aliens that Morden was once allies with are back and aiming to take over Planet Earth once again.

The story of Metal Slug 3 does sound surprisingly deep, but the series never really had a focus on story. You see a lot of story progressing in each stage, but there are no story scenes or set dialogue pieces that tell you the story. It’s more or less just you picking up on things based on boss fights and what happens at the ends of each stage.

Gameplay

Metal Slug 3 is a Side-Scrolling shooting game or a “Run and Gun Shooter” as many like to call it. As the name suggests, you’ll be side-scrolling through 2D arenas, constantly shooting at mass hordes of enemies that are placed against you. The best comparison I can make for it is Contra, but more arcady and more geared towards Co-Operative Play.

As far as features go, this is based on the original Neo Geo version of Metal Slug 3 ported from Arcades. There are 4 different Game Modes you can go through. 2 are the original game, which features the Japanese and English versions of the game. You’ve got Hi Score Mode, which gauges your score until you get a Game Over and Caravan Mode, which is like a “Timed” version of Hi Score, pitting you in 5-minute segments.

The biggest addition here, in my opinion, is the options for emulation. When you hit the + button in-game, you get the Options Menu, which gives you a ton of customization and convenience options. The first is Creating Interrupt Save Data, which is basically a Save State. It lets you save anywhere and resume at that point later on. There are other settings here, like Control Options, a Manual, Online Score Rankings, Game Reset, and Game Settings that let you set the Difficulty, Number of Players, Language, Blood, Tutorial, etc.

The biggest customization option, though, is for the Display. The Neo Geo version of MS3 is locked to a 4:3 ratio, which means that it will display in its original resolution with borders to the left and right. This is similar to Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus on the PS Vita or any PS One Classic on the PlayStation TV. Display Settings let you stretch the game to the edges of the screen as well as apply filters to smooth edges and remove pixelated graphics. A great addition, especially considering the age of the game and the ability to play it on a TV.

To play Metal Slug 3, you start a game, choose a character, and go at it. You’re spawned in the first stage and you endlessly shoot at all of the enemies, vehicles, and obstructions in your way. The goal is to get through the level, rescue prisoners that will give you power-ups and new weapons, and fight the boss to end the level. Easier said than done, as the Metal Slug series is known for being very difficult.

The Arcade Roots of the game significantly helps you with that. If you die, the game doesn’t end. Just hit L and R and you can spawn right back where you were and continue, just like in an Arcade to simulate inserting an extra quarter into the Game’s Cabinet. In this sense, you will never permanently die, but lose your score for the kills and rescued prisoners. If this were the Arcade days, you’d spend a lot more than the eShop price. My first run took 131 respawns, which would have cost me $32.75 in quarters.

In gameplay, you run through and fight enemies. You have different weapons you can pick up, from the default pistol to a heavy machine gun, flame gun, rocket launcher, and a wide variety of vehicles from tanks, mech armor, Bomber Jets, and UFOs. Although there are 4 different characters, the load-outs will be similar between the 2 male and 2 female characters. What character you choose really is up to your design preference.

Outside of just being a mindless shooter, it’s a short game with each run only spanning about a single hour in length, but replayability comes in alternate paths. Every level has fork-in-the-road sections with different paths you can take that lead to the same final area and boss. In the first level, you can choose between an underwater submarine level or an above-ground shooting level and the same goes for every level the game throws at you. Tie that with the 4 different Game Modes and you’ve still got quite a bit to cover to really experience the entire game.

The other way to play is local Co-Op. The Switch version allows for Single Joy-Con play so you can Couch Co-Op the game with a friend without needing a separate set of Joycons. You just have to make sure 2 Players is set up in the Options Menu and set the Joy Cons up for Single JC Play before booting up Metal Slug 3. Once you start it, it’s like a typical side-scrolling co-op game with 2 characters running around and both needing to keep up with one another or the game won’t let you advance the level without your partner.

The main gripe is the price. The Neo Geo games on the Nintendo Switch eShop cost about $7.99 a piece in USD, and 6.29 pounds on the UK store. Although this is half the price of the PS4/PS Vita port/remake of Metal Slug 3, you can spend $19.99 for the PSP or PS4 version of the MS Anthology, which effectively gets you 7 games at around $3 a piece (Metal Slugs 1, 2, X, 3, 4, 5, and 6). So with handheld gamers, it’s a matter of “Do I want to spend $8 a piece for the games as they come out for the Switch or just drop $20 for the entire anthology to play on my Vita?”

Controls

Controls are confusing to talk about because the game’s controls are based on an Arcade Fight Stick. You have to watch the controls that pop up when you start the game to really understand what you need to do. But it’s not like SNK doesn’t show you how. It’s just a matter of paying attention to that loading screen when the game starts.

Since the Arcade version only had a Stick and 3 buttons, the control scheme gives you a bit of variety. The most confusing aspect is starting a game. If you’re doing 1P, you start the game with the L/R buttons and choose your character with the ZL/ZR buttons, but on Single Joycon Play, it only uses the 2 triggers on the JoyCons themselves, which makes it a bit less confusing.

Once you get started, it’s pretty straight-forward. You can use the Directional Buttons or the Left Analog to move your character around the stage. B lets you fire your weapon and Y lets you jump with ZR also letting you fire and ZL also letting you jump. Finally, the – and + buttons both can activate the Options Menu. It sounds confusing and can be confusing, but as long as you read that tutorial loading screen for the controls or test said controls on the Arcade Control screen as you start the game, it’s not as confusing as it sounds.

Presentation

Visually, the game is very dated as a Neo Geo title and things can look a little pixelated on the big screen. As I said earlier, though, you have filters you can enable to make the game much smoother and prettier to remove pretty much all jagged edges and pixels. This way, the game will look great, even if you want to full-screen it instead of having it in its default resolution.

Performance is really what you expect out of the game. There is a lot of dramatic slow-down implemented into the game and has been that way ever since its original arcade release. All of that is intact in the Switch version of the game. It never happens in the middle of fighting and it is supposed to be there, so when you see it, just note that it’s not an issue with the game. And, since it doesn’t happen outside of large enemies being defeated and thus, not causing you gameplay issues, it’s worth noting that it’s just supposed to be there.

Battery Life

Being a 2D game makes Metal Slug 3 a game that will get you loads and loads of time on the go. Here are all of the battery times I recorded for the game, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 46 minutes
Max Brightess + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 52 minutes
Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 5 hours, 00 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 5 hours, 08 minutes

Considering that turning Airplane Mode on only gives you an additional 6-8 minutes, this is a game that will not only get you 5 hours out of your battery but also something that you don’t necessarily need to disengage Airplane Mode to lose much battery at all. I was very pleased with these results.

Game Title: Fast RMX
Developer: Shinen
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Download: 838 MB
Availability: Digital Download (North America, Europe, Japan)
Battery Life: 2.5 – 3.5 Hours
Supported Modes: TV, Tabletop, Handheld

Handheld gamers have had a bit of a drought on racing games for several years now. The PS Vita started off strong with games like Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Wipeout 2048, and Table Top Racing, but proper racers are few and very far between. The Nintendo 3DS has a couple but really none that took off as great games. So racing on the go has been in a big rut.

When the Nintendo Switch launched, it only had a single racer to its name, but one that looked quite interesting. While racing fans are still waiting the Switch version of Redout from Nicalis, they have a Wii U turned Switch game to play through and enjoy. Once called Fast Racing Neo, here is my review of Fast RMX for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

Due to this game having no story, this section shall remain blank.

Gameplay

Fast RMX is what I would call an arcade-style racing game in the style of F-Zero or Wipeout. Like Wipeout, you travel through set race-tracks in an anti-gravity vehicle at high speeds to dominate your opponents and win a race. Imagine it like Wipeout without weapons and with more elements to the Boost Pad mechanic.

As I mentioned above, this is a remake of Fast Racing Neo from the Wii U. As such, this version of the game includes all of the original game’s tracks, all of its DLC, and 6 brand-new courses for this version, which brings the total track number to 30. So, for $5 more than the original version, you’re getting a lot more content.

When you go into the game, you have a few different game modes you can access. Championship is the game’s campaign, where you can access all of the different tournaments built into the game. Multiplayer lets you do local or online Multiplayer against other racers. Hero Mode lets you race with an Energy Shield that can be lowered. The better you race, the more energy you’ll have to survive the race. There’s also newly-added mode called Time Attack that lets you race by yourself for High Score Times against Developer Scores.

In whatever mode you do jump into, you pick a race, pick a racing vehicle, and you go at it. Like Wipeout, every racer has different stats, including top speed, acceleration, and handling. As you win tournaments, you will unlock new vehicles to use in the races to come as well as the other game modes. But you need to win tournaments in order to unlock them.

Playing through Tournaments takes you through 3 separate races on 3 race tracks. For each race, you gain points based on what position you end with. Your points at the end of the tournament dictates what final position and reward you get. That way, you can still get 1st in the tournament even if your races aren’t all perfect.

This is good because of how the races go. In each race, you’re going through environments filled with jumps and colored boost pads. When you hit a boost pad, you get a speed boost but you must be the same color as the pad to obtain the boost./ You can manually switch between colors to be able to catch each boost and that is critical for winning. Not only will you nearly come to a dead stop if you miss a boost pad, but boosting fills up your Boost Gauge to be able to slow down other racers.

The Boost Gauge is like Nitrous in other racers. You can fill it and use it for a massive speed boost. If a vehicle in Boost Mode hits around, the hit vehicle will be temporarily disabled. The other vehicles can do the same to you, so you’ve got to be careful at all times. This adds to the level of skill you need in the game.

The big thing to note is that this game is FAST. The pacing of the game is almost intimidating at first. If you remember the pacing of the Wipeout games, imagine it like that x2. When you’re just hitting the boost pads, it’s fast, but once you use your manual Boost, it gets crazy fast that requires lightning-quick reflexes to get around corners without wrecking.

On top of that is the biggest gripe the game suffers from: Rubber Banding. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, Rubber Banding is a gameplay element meant to make sure the game always has a challenge, no matter how good you are. After you memorize a race track and get an early lead, the AI will compensate by getting a huge lead on catching up with you. Sometimes, they will even teleport in front of you to automatically regain the lead and cause you to have to use skill all over again.

Normal Rubber Banding is thrown in to create constant skill requirements for racing games, but the teleporting nonsense happens constantly and gives the AI an extremely unfair advantage against you. This makes playing the game extremely frustrating, whether you’re a racing expert or a racing newbie.

As far as time goes, a perfect run of the game could be done in a few hours, but thanks to the rubber banding, it will go far beyond that. It took me that long just to cover the first couple tournaments, which is only about 20% of the total race tracks, and that’s not even counting Hero Mode and the Time Trial. If you do want to get everything done, it’s gonna take quite some time.

Controls

The game is pretty simple to control, and do note that the game supports single joy-con play for local multiplayer or just single player if that’s your preferred control style. Note that the game also supports both button controls and motion controls, which is very similar to the PS Vita Motion Controls in Wipeout 2048.

Moving is simple enough. The Left Analog Stick is used to move left and right around while you’re racing, but this can also be used with the ZL and ZR buttons. Adding these onto motion controls, you to have 3 total movement methods to find a preference. You also have the R shoulder button you can press to use your manual Boost.

Accelerating is done with the A button and braking with the B button. Finally, the X button is used to change your phase. But note that the control scheme can be customized, so you can set it however you want.

Presentation

Visually, the game is beautiful. From the environments, the shadows, the renders, and all of the non-racing effects in play, the game far exceeds the prettiness of the Wii U version. Every single track gives you a lot to appreciate, from flying through an Egyptian Sandstorm to going through an underwater tunnel beneath a massive whale that’s swimming for food.

Performance of the game fits that as well. The beautiful aspect is that this game is hard-coded to be locked to 60 fps at any and all times, whether you’re in TV mode or Handheld Mode. There have been some claims that the resolution will automatically lower itself a little bit if the fps is about to drop underneath 60 fps. So you’re guaranteed 60 fps no matter what you’re doing, no matter how many vehicles are on screen, etc.

Battery Life

This is a 3D Game, so I took that into consideration before doing battery tests. Here are the results I got, from 100% to 0%:

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 30 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 46 minutes
Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 03 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 20 minutes

Considering it is such a graphical game, you’ll get around 2 and half to almost 3 and a half hours out of the battery. This is one of the games on the list of “eats up battery like crazy” with Zelda and Snake Pass. Then again, I don’t see many people playing it for that long without getting upset at the rubber banding, outside of the Time Trial Mode.

Game Title: Kamiko
Developer: Flying Works, Skipmore, Circle Entertainment
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Download: 111 MB
Availability: Digital Download (Europe, Japan, North America)
Battery Life: 5 – 7.5 hours
Supported Modes: TV, Tabletop, Handheld

The Region-free features of the Nintendo Switch have been extremely convenient for users with demos outside of their own region, but also for games outside of their own region. Although I am awaiting the North America release of Disgaea 5 Complete, anyone can grab it from the Japan eShop and see that it has full English Voice and Text support from there. Getting the funds for that aren’t exactly easy for full-priced games, though.

Cheaper games are an entirely different story, though. Just a week or two ago, a small little Zelda-like game released on the Japanese eShop for only 500 yen, which is the equivalent of around $4 in USD. That makes importing via the eShop considerably easier, as you only need to buy a 1,000 yen eShop Card for it.

Since buying it and streaming it, I’ve had time to play through the games a few times now and am ready to jot down my thoughts in the form of a review. So, here’s my review of the Zelda-like game, Kamiko!

Story

In Kamiko, the world is being overrun by demons. After they corrupt the majority of the world’s shrines, a Shrine Maiden is summoned by God to strike back at them. As one of 3 Legendary Shrine Maidens, you are given a powerful, mystical weapon with the power to fight back. With this weapon, you head into the world and aim to restore the shrines to their former glory.

Like some of the older Zelda games, you’re given story at the beginning and the end of the game. Basically, you are given your scenario and thrown out into the world, but the ending story does conclude things really well, as you get a decent amount of story at the end so the game isn’t void of the color of a plot.

Gameplay

Kamiko is a top-down action-adventure game in the vein of the old Zelda titles. In each of the game’s levels, you will be navigating 2D arenas, striving to solve puzzles while fighting through large hordes of enemies that spawn and aim to keep you from continuing to live. So, imagine a 2D Zelda without puzzles being inside dungeons as opposed to on the Overworld itself.

When starting a game, you pick one of 3 characters to play as, which is mostly a choice of what weapon you wish to use, each with its own playstyle. You have a One-Handed Sword for close combat and fast combos. The second is a Bow, meant for ranged combat and setting up shots from a distance. Finally, there’s a Boomerang and Dagger combo, where you are build around throwing your Shield to damage enemies and use close-range knife stabs until your shield returns to you. These are all different enough that they each require different strategies in fighting enemies, especially Bosses.

Game Progression basically goes with you being dropped into a stage that’s like a large dungeon. There are 4 shrines that you need to find and purify by giving some of your energy gained from defeating enemies to do so. The puzzle aspect is implemented in how you reach all of these shrines to purify them. There are locked doors, blocked paths, and more keeping you from the shrines, so you need to solve puzzles to open up these paths. This can be a matter of fighting through enemies and finding hidden paths through trees or finding a chest with a key that you need to carry around enemies in order to open a locked door.

The main difficulty of solving these puzzles isn’t in finding these paths, but making it to your goal. Whenever you have to carry an orb or key to a locked door, you cannot dash or attack enemies, plus you’ll drop the key if you get hit by an enemy. So you have to not only navigate towards your goal but you have to navigate around enemies that spawn around you without being hit, which is a difficult task to accomplish later on in the game.

Once you purify each shrine, a portal appears to take you to the Boss Room, where you can get some Energy and Heart Increasers and fight the Boss. Bosses are where combat really starts to get strategic. Instead of just mindlessly attacking enemies, bosses have certain patterns to learn when their weakness is shown and when you can exploit it. They have 3 phases like most old-school Zelda bosses. Once you defeat each boss, you’re sent to the next level and you repeat the process until the final boss.

The overall length of the game isn’t all that long, as you’d expect for a game that launched for a grand price of 500 yen. The game’s 4 levels can be completed in around an hour. I ran through the game with each character. The first run was a little more than an hour, but the second runs only took around 50 minutes. It’s not a long game at all.

Controls

Controlling the game is pretty easy. You don’t really have a lot to worry about. You actually only have to use a few buttons on the switch to control the game. Dash is the main button you can customize which is set at B to default, but you can set it to a lot more buttons from the Main Menu.

To move, you can use either the Left Analog Stick or the Directional Buttons. Dashing is done with the B button (but can also be set to a considerable amount of buttons, including any of the 4 triggers) and attacking/interactive with doors and chests is done with the A and Y buttons. Finally, the menu can be brought up with the X or + buttons.

Really, it’s easy to learn, but one big inconvenience is the X button being used for the menu with such a hack n slash atmosphere. As I played the game, I found that I frequently would accidentally tap X while slashing through enemies and it would open up the menu time and time again. If you watch the stream I did of the game, you’ll see it happen and me comment on it a lot. Considering all the mashing you’ll be doing on the A/Y buttons, the menu really should’ve been kept for the + button.

Presentation

Visually, the game has a retro look to it. Everything is pixel-based and that feel really shines throughout the game. Every pixel is perfectly-rendered and looks smooth no matter what mode you’ve got your Switch in. It looks dated, but it’s really refined and looks nice.

Performance I have no issues with. Loading is short, frame drops never happen. It’s optimized just as well as it looks.

Battery Life

Kamiko brought me incredible results when I did the Battery Tests. This is the game you show to all of the people out there that think the Switch has low Battery Life. Here are the times I got from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 5 hours, 00 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 5 hours, 16 minutes
Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 6 hours, 36 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 7 hours, 30 minutes

You read that last one correctly. You can squeeze seven and a half hours of battery life out of the Switch with this nice, little 2D game. That’s incredible. You’re definitely gonna get a ton of time on the go with Kamiko.

Game Title: The Legend of Dark Witch
Developer: Inside System, Qubic Games S. A.
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Download: 96 MB
Availability: Digital Download (Europe, North America, Japan)
PSTV Support: Yes

There’ve been many games out there that try to create nostalgic experiences for fans of certain older games. Some call them Clones, others call them Retro Games, but there are always more games that do it, whether the creator loved that series or just want to reach out to that fanbase. Just look at Mighty No. 9. It was trying to be the new Mega Man.

Other games have mimicked Mega Man, though. Shovel Knight is a successful game that played like Mega Man (and a few other retro platformers, like Castlevania). But the Nintendo 3DS had a game that was very much like the Mega Man formula, from the stage intros, bosses, special skills, and more. It was called The Legend of Dark Witch. People called it “Mega Man with Anime Girls”.

It spawned a sequel and a release on Steam, but it was never available to play on a TV like a true console game. Until last week, anyways. It came to the PS Vita with PlayStation TV Compatibility and is now a console, PC, and handheld game. Here’s my review of the PS Vita version of Legend of Dark Witch!

Story

In the not-so-distant past, the human race of a certain country discovers an object they dub “Syega”, which is crystallized and allows anyone to use the power of Magic. It is used to improve the quality of life. As the game begins, all of the Syega suddenly goes missing. In response to this crisis, a Goddess is dispatched down to the Human World to find out who stole it and return it to restore balance.

The story of the game is interesting, but not too in-depth. You get story scenes at the beginning and end, and you mostly just get a couple dialogue lines between your character and the boss of each level, right before you end up fighting them. It’s a cute story, though. Just don’t expect it to be any more story than in normal Mega Man games.

Gameplay

Legend of Dark Witch is a 2D Platformer that is made in the same way Mega Man is. You have stages to choose, fight enemies, fight bosses, get powers, repeat. Just as I said in the intro, imagine Mega Man with Anime-style Girls and that is exactly what this game is.

Progression is simple. You have a list of bosses you choose from. You can choose any boss/stage you want and go in any order you want. If you want to start with the School stage and the Fairy stage last, you can. Or, if you want to start with the Fairy stage, you can. It’s got just as much choice until you complete each of the initial stages and unlock the final 2 to end the story.

Aside from just stages, your progression goes with your currency and upgrades. In every stage, you fight enemies with projectiles and enemies drop currency that you can later use at the Stage Select to upgrade your stats and weapons. Each element has a certain number of upgrades you can do, for Max Health, Extra Lives, Attack Power, Currency Gain, and each of the sub-weapons you win from the different bosses.

Actually going through the stages has you navigating platforms and fighting off enemies with projectile weapons. Your goal is to navigate the stage and reach a portal to fight that stage’s boss. But you also want to build up your in-stage upgrades for when you do fight that boss. Depending on your difficulty level, you will not only gain currency but also energy that can be used to enhance your abilities.

The energy gauge fills up with options for Speed, Gliding (hovering while in the air to cover more distance), Line and Comet (the two types of projectiles), and Power. Each of these can be upgraded a certain number of times. 3x Speed will make you move very quickly while Line or Comet x3 will let you send 3 projectiles at once.

This helps you with the difficulty as every boss is difficult and has certain patterns you need to learn However, the triple-upgraded Line/Comet is like hitting them 3 times and with Power x3, it’s even stronger. Although some of the Boss weapons are extra-strong against each boss, you can just utilize that Line/Comet 3 + Power 3 to easily take down each of the bosses with only minimal skill.

As far as length goes, it’s about 8 stages to play through and each stage takes roughly 7 minutes to complete. You might be able to cover that in an hour, but it took me 3-4 hours for my first run through the game. For $10, that’s not terribly bad, especially if you want to play the game again after beating the game and unlocking the secondary (and considerably harder to use) character.

Controls

It’s pretty simple to play through the game. First off, there aren’t any touch controls or motion controls so it is plenty playable on the PlayStation TV. In fact, my entire first run was done on the PSTV, enjoying the game on the big screen. I noted this earlier, but it should be mentioned that this is the first time Legend of Dark Witch can be played both on the go and on a TV as a home console game.

Move your character around stages with the D-Pad and/or the Left Analog Stick. The Up and Down D-Pad buttons are also used to change the camera so you can pan it up and down to see where you are going to jump up or drop down to other areas. The L and R triggers are used to change the equipped weapon (when you have unlocked sub-weapons)

Face buttons! X is used for jumping and Square is used for firing off your weapons. Circle is used to buy upgrades in-stage for Speed, Power, etc, and Triangle is used to open the Skill Menu to manually pick a sub-weapon to switch to. It’s a pretty easy scheme to figure out.

Presentation

If you recall, the 3DS version of the game wasn’t the most polished 3D game in the world and the graphics don’t seem to have changed much in the transition to the Vita. However, the game also comes with a cropped HUD that is on the outside of the game rather than on-screen. This is good and bad. The graphics do look a little crisper with the smaller screen, but it also cannot be put in full-screen, so if you aren’t a fan of borders, you’re out of luck.

Performance is perfect, though. Load Times are short, Frame-Rate is perfect, and the music fits the theme well. No complaints there.

Gun Gun Pixies Guide / Walkthrough

I’ll refer to the game’s title as GGP to save space.

**If you want to search for anything, all missions will use the format C#M# So if you want to search for the 2nd mission of Chapter 3, search C3M2.**

Chapter Zero: Training

Mission 1 – Pacification Tutorial

This mission is pretty straight-forward. The girl in front of you is doing Yoga so just hit the R trigger to start firing off shots at her. Watch out for the Hearts that she shoots at you as they damage you. If you run out of ammo, the Blue objects to the girl’s right are ammo refills. But just keep firing off shots at her different body parts and it will eventually end.
Mission 2 – Leave the Room

This is basically a bunch of tutorials. You start out on a shelf, so ease your way off onto the platforms around you to not die from the fall and simply walk to the big door and hit Circle at the prompt to exit the room.

Mission 3 – Room A or C – Stealth and Sniper Tutorial

Carefully navigate the narrow space given to you, making sure to stay out of the Giant Girl’s Red Sights. Climb up the books behind the furniture and step into the glowing green Sniper Point. After the tutorial ends, simply aim with L and shoot at her until you damage a body part enough and you’ll end this mission.

*Note that right after the Mission Results screen is a prompt with a ? at the end of it. This is asking you to save. The option on the left is to Save Your Game. Since this is a Japanese game, confirming a save is done with Circle instead of X.

CHAPTER 1 Walkthrough

C1M1 – Collect Information from Amayo, Kira, and Misa

Happy Bullets are Your Ammo. Your goal is to go into Rooms A and C and collect information from all 3 of the girls. Room A is easy, since Amayo is sitting at her desk. Just don’t get too close to set off her Hearing Alarm. Room B is more difficult as Kira is walking about. Head and climb the stereo on the far side of the room and use the Sniper Point to take out any part. Then, you need to head out of the room and back in to do the same to Misa (Purple Hair). Once you do, the mission ends.

C1M2 – Examine Trash for Food Scraps

The objective is self-expanatory. there is a Trash Can in each room. Find your way into them and examine them when the prompt comes up and the mission will end.

For Room A, you’ll need to get on top of Amayo’s Desk and drop down into it. You can do this either by climbing the steps on the bunk beds and jump onto the desk, or go under the desk towards the corner and climb up some books. Either way, just drop into the trash can, hit Circle at the prompt and leave the room.

For Room C, immediately head left and get onto the first bed via book platforms. Then just go across the TV stand to the other bed, and drop down into her trash can and hit Circle at the prompt.

After finding the trash can, hit your Searcher and you’ll see a Sparkle on top of Misa’s Desktop Tower. Head over to the Stereo from the last mission and use the stack of CDs to get onto her desk. Once you’re on the Tower, face the big poster on the wall and hit Circle at the prompt. There are also prompts at the 2 posters behind the desk, itself (If they don’t come up with Searcher, try going out of the room and back in) and return to Room A.

Back in Room A , use your Searcher to see that the animal posters above the computer desk are your next objective. Head up to the desk and onto the railing. Hit Circle at the Prompt and do the same for the poster on the left side of the desk.

The final clue is the pack of gun in the shelves on the left side of Amayo’s Desk. Interact with them and leave the room to end the mission.

C1M3 – Neutralize Kira

Head into Room C, the only one available, and start shooting at Kira. You need to neutralize her Head, Upper Body, and Lower Body to finish this mission.

C1M4 – Pacify Amayo – Yoga

Head into Room A and do a Pacification which is the same one you did during the Tutorial. Be careful of getting too close to Amayo, as she can knock you out or away with her body movement. This one is easy enough to dodge the hearts. I head to the Sniper Point under the Coffee Table and constantly fire. If you get hit, just re-adjust and hit Circle to restore your outfit and resume firing until it ends.

C1M5 – Bathing with Amayo

Fire at Amayo until she gets out of the bath. When Red/Pink circles appear around her, go to one and hit circle to jump on her. Now, just spin the Left Stick to get huge money. Once it’s over, simply save the prompt to end Chapter 1 and unlock the Mission option from the Title Menu

*Note that The Shop updates with new weapons every Chapter so be sure to go in and upgrade your guns. You can also use the Bath Event from the Mission option from the Title Menu, so if you want to farm for money, head into it and do it over and over until you have your desired amount of money.

Chapter 2 Walkthrough

C2M1 – Defeat the Squids Invading Amayo’s Room!

This mission is tricky. You can aim and fire at the Squids to kill them, but you also need to be careful not to get caught by Amayo at the the same time. The Coffee Table can be used as cover, so use that and get high to stay away from her as you fight off the blue squids.

There are Squids Under the Coffee Table, On the Bed, On the Shelf by the window, and one over by the plant. Once they’re all dead, the mission ends.

C2M2 – Finding and Stopping the Bug Spray (3-Stage Mission)

Objective 1 – Find the Bug Spray

You start in a room with Kira sitting in front of the stereo. Ignore her and climb the beds like we did in the Trash Mission. But when you’re on the TV Stand, stop by the electrical outlet. The door will open and let you teleport across the room. After teleporting, turn to your left (The character’s left) and jump onto the large cabinet. Ignore the Squids (or kill them. Your choice) and interact with the Bug Spray.

Objective 2 – Stop Misa from Poisoning the Room

Now we’ve got a problem. Bug Spray is toxic to pixies and Misa is spraying it everywhere. Find a good Sniper Point and pummel her with Happy Bullets. You need to take out her Head, Upper Body, and Lower Body

Objective 3 – Open the Window to Air out all of the remaining Bug Spray

Now that Misa is gone, you need to open the window. Since you’re too small to lift it, you have to shoot it. Amayo is roaming around and you can’t aim at the window from the Stereo Speaker’s Sniper Point. The best area is to climb onto the desk and onto the tall edge (where you can see the shelf and window). Once there, the squids can’t touch you. Just make sure Amayo doesn’t see you and fire until the window’s HP bar runs down. Once that’s done, this multi-segment mission will end.

C2M3 – Pacifying Kira and the Humidifer

Now that the window has been opened, the girls want the room cooled off. Unfortunately for you, Cold Mist will cause the pixies to freeze to death, so you’ve got to pacify this crazed popsicle-sucking humidifier-riding girl.

First off, staying out in the open is very difficult as she sends a massive wave of projectiles your way. What I do is immediately run straight to the stereo and hide behind it. The projectiles eventually stop as the humidier cools off. Use this opportunity to jump onto the speaker and utilize its Sniper Point to do damage and rinse and repeat when she starts riding the humidifier again.

C2M4 – Bathing with Kira

Same deal as with Amayo. Shoot, Interact, and it’ll be over soon. Once this finishes, Chapter 2 Ends and you can choose Kira from the Bath Time Missions from the Main Menu. Also, new Shop Inventory, so be sure to upgrade.

Chapter 3 Walkthrough

C3M1 – Finding and Exploring Minami’s Room

Objective 1 – Find Minami’s Room by Collecting Info from Amayo

There’s a new resident, so it’s time to discover their room and explore it! Start by heading into Room A and pelting Amayo with Happy Bullets until she spills the info. Then, simply leave and enter Room B, which is Minami’s room, filled with plenty of ominous objects from a broomstick to a Black Magic Crest on her carpet.

Objective 2 – Clear Minami’s Room of Squid Monsters

Upon entering, everyone’s favorite squid monsters show up, so let’s take them all out. Without a girl to avoid, this should be pretty easy to do. Note that there’s a new enemy type. The White/Cream-colored squid will retract under its helmet if its hit, so hit it with a gun with high firing rate or simply jump on top of it after it hides to kill it.

Note that there are multiple waves of these enemies. The 1st Wave is on the floor, while the 2nd is on Minami’s Bed and various shelves. Use the bunk’s step-ladder to access these areas as well as a case of CDs near her desk. Navigating all of the high shelves is an option, but a tricky one as one false move and you’ll fall and get a Game Over. Once you take them all out, Minami comes into the room, depressed and curls up in front of her desk.

Objective 3 – Collect Information from Minami via Happy Bullets

Pretty simple. Shoot Minami with Happy Bullets. This is very easy as there’s a Sniper Point on a shelf right next to her. Just be careful and watch Minami’s Hearing Gauge as you climb so she doesn’t hear you. Shoot her anywhere (but the head is the obvious target) and watch the scene about why Minami is so depressed.

Once it’s over, simply leave the room to finish the mission.

C3M2 – Fight to Research the Squid Monsters

Objective 1 – Fight Off the Squids

It’s time to try to figure out the Mystery of these squid monsters. First of all, you have a few waves of enemies to fight through. Since Minami is asleep, no need to hold back. There are 4 waves this time, starting from the floor and moving onto the shelves near the Laptop Desk.

Objective 2 – Find Clues for Minami’s Blog Password

Time to Get Minami’s Password and access all of her precious information! But we need clues. So hit that Triangle Button for your Searcher because there are a few objects you look at, all media-related.

One is the Visual Novels on the bookshelf by Minami’s Bed (followed by the books on the bottom shelf of the same bookshelf) and the others are the Game Cases and Poster on the shelves next to the computer desk for Lagrangian Online. The final clue is in her trash can, which can be accessed from the computer desk by jumping to the shelf above it and dropping down into it.

Once you find them all, the Pixies will start learning about Lagrangian Online and be interrupted by the other girls calling for Minami.

Objective 3 – Wake Up Minami

This is where things get interesting. To wake Minami up, head over to her bed and shoot the strange Rabbit-like doll next to her alarm clock. One its HP drops to zero, you get an incredibly creepy scene with the doll talking to you.

There’s also a dialogue choice here once Minami wakes up, but it doesn’t matter what you choose. It just affects the dialogue in the scene.

C3M3 – Supply Drop

Objective 1 – Find the Supply Drop

Your Commander has dropped you new uniforms, so head into Room A to find them. The easy way to do this is to head up to Amayo’s Desk and using the Electrical Outlet to a shelf on the wall. Next to you is a strange Green Cube. Grab it and change into your new, sexy police woman costumes!

C3M4 – Pacifying the Possessed Minami

Objective 1 – Pacify Minami

Minami is possessed and doing some sort of strange ritual, so pacify her quick and fast. The biggest thing about this boss fight is that she is almost constantly moving. But she will stop every so often in the center of the room as she chants an incantation. Take advantage of this to fire as much as possible but be careful as she will fire off dozens of projectiles when this is over. Patience and proper dodging will make this boss fight last awhile, but not terribly long.

A very easy way to do this is to go to the Sniper Point right next to the Black Chair and Footrest. Every time you get hit, just hit Circle to heal and keep firing over and over. Just be careful of the blue projectiles as they can knock you away from the Sniper Point.

Objective 2 – Access Minami’s Laptop

Now that Minami is down, head to her laptop to check out her blog and see her emotions run high and low when she goes to update it.

Objective 3 – Break the Picture Frame

Very simple. You need Minami to notice the photo on her table So take aim at the picture frame next to her computer desk and knock its HP down to break it.

C3M5 – Bath Time with Minami

Same as with the others. Shoot, Grope, and Enjoy the Mad Flow of Coins towards your new upgrades as the chapter comes to an end and the next chapter begins!

Chapter 4 Walkthrough

C1M1 – Neptune’s Memory Card

You have a choice of 3 different quests to do here, but I love doing Neptune’s because of all the game references that are made by her and the pixies.

Objective 1 – Find Neptune’s Memory Card

Your objective is to find Neptune’s lost Memory Card, but you need clues first. There’s a new enemy here. The Purple Squid doesn’t hurt your HP, but he grabs and proceeds to hump you, draining some of your ammo. Also note that Nep-Nep is on her hands and knees, so you can’t hide from her sight underneath furniture. You have to always be behind or away from her.

To get info, simply attack Nep with your Happy Bullets. You’ll need to take out her Head, Upper Body, Lower Body, and Butt. Once that is done, the Memory Card will appear in the room.

*Note that the Memory Card will not always appear in the same place. Use your Searcher to find it. I’ve found it on the Window Shelf but I’ve also had it appear on the TV Stand, so it’s semi-random.

Now that you have the Memory Card, go place it on the Coffee Table so Nep can find it.

Objective 2 – Protect the Memory Card from the Squids

This is simple. There are a bunch of waves of enemies, so take them all out. Do be careful to keep out of Neptune’s sight. The 1st 2 waves spawn on the coffee table, the 3rd on the Floor, the 4th on the Couch, and the 5th on the Floor and Table. Be careful during the last 3 waves, as Neptune will move and look around the coffee table. Always make sure that seeing her is a priority.

Objective 3 – Defeat the Squids

Just like last time. Take out all enemies but without Neptune patrolling around the room. There are several waves to take out. They start around the coffee table and extend to the computer desk and beds.
C1M2 – Nep-Nep is Studying?

Objective 1 – Find Out what Neptune is Studying/Reading

Very simple. Neptune is reading at the computer desk, so just head up there and you’ll get a scene with the pixies seeing what kind of studying she is doing (As if Nep ever studies)

Objective 2 – Defeat the Surprise Attack

Fighting Squids but in a confined space. Quickly defeat them and make your way back to the computer desk. More waves will spawn as you move along, but keep fighting them and you’ll eventually make it back. Once you do and interact with the books underneath the desk (the ones you stand on to jump up onto the desk from behind. Use your Searcher), more Squids will appear on the beds. Take them out to end the mission.

C1M3 – Neptune’s Yoga Session

Objective 1 – Pacify Neptune

This is almost the same pacification you did with Amayo but with Neptune, so do the same strategies you did there and you’ll make short work of this. Note that you also have Squids roaming around, so make sure to keep moving or head up to a high vantage point.

If you can get up on the shelf under the window and get the purple squids to attack, miss, and fall off (They respawn if you kill them so getting them to fall off and be stuck on the floor is far better than constantly fighting them), you have a very easy boss fight. Most of the hearts don’t have knockback so the moment you get hit, just tap Circle to heal and keep firing. You should only have to leave to refill ammo once before this is over.

Objective 2 – Bath Time with Nep-Nep

Same ole Same ole. Shoot. Grope. Get Cash.

But this isn’t the end of the Chapter! Since Neptune and Noire leave after this chapter, you have one more boss fight to do.

C1M3 – Pacifying Noire, the Pole-Dancer

Objective – Pacify Noire

Who told Noire it was okay for her to Pole Dance? First the secret Magical Girl Cosplay thing and now this?!

This boss fight is tricky to figure out, but easy when you know where to go. You cannot stay close to Noire, because she repeatedly falls off the pole and will hurt you and send you flying. Head back to the Stereo Speaker because your weapons have mad range. Hit the Sniper Point and fire to your Heart’s Content.

The Hearts she sends out are so far away that they will never reach you, but the Stars you need to be wary of. They have knockback so you need to reposition and heal immediately whenever they hit you. Other than that, it’s just a matter of shooting and healing. One thing to make things easier is to make sure you fire at her and take out a body part right as she is getting back on the pole. That will cause her to fall on her back in a daze, letting you get a ton of damage in.

Objective 2 – Bath Time with Noire

Same as the rest. Shoot her, Grope Her, and Get Mad Cash. This will end the Chapter and conclude Neptune and Noire’s cameo appearances in GGP. As always, hit up the Shop for upgrades.

Chapter 5 Walkthrough

C5M1 – Find Eli

Objective 1 – Get Misa Out of Minami’s Room

You need to collect information after what we just witnessed coming from Minami and Misa’s intrusion is in the way. So, attack one of her body parts with your Happy Bullets and she’ll leave the room.

Note that there’s a new enemy type here. The larger Yellow Squid is basically a stronger version of the Cream-colored one. Hit him once and he will hide under his helmet.

Objective 2 – Collect Information about Eli’s Hiding Spot

Leave the room and head back in to see that Minami is back. We need to collect information from her so go in and attack her with Happy Bullets for each Body Part that you can (Head, Upper Body, Butt, Lower Body).

The Head and Upper Body are easy from the shelf near her computer’s Sniper Point. The Lower Body and Butt are significantly harder. The enemies around will endlessly respawn, so you need to learn to get distance from them while firing on Minami. If need be, just stun the Yellow Striped Squids so they’ll hide as you fire on the girl. Lower Body can be targeted from anywhere, but her Butt you generally need to be close to the chair for, so you need to watch both where enemies are and her Hearing Gauge if you get too close.

Objective 3 – Expose Eli’s Hiding Spot

Now that we have the info we need, make Eli come out of hiding by firing your weapons on the large cabinet next to the door out of Minami’s Room. As soon as the HP bar hits 0, you’ll get a scene.

Note that it’s extremely easy to get swarmed by the ever-increasing mob of Squids on the floor, so I suggest you not worry about Sniper Points and jump up onto the table with the skull. Stand on the skull and aim for the center of the cabinet. It’ll be a slow process, but much safer than having to constantly deal with a dozen or more Squids.

Once she comes out, its Mission Complete. Wait until you regain control and leave Minami’s room for the next story scene.

C5M2 – Stubborn Misa

Objective 1 – Get Misa out of the Room

Pretty clear objective. Shoot Misa with Happy Bullets to get her out of the room. When you finish damaging her, leave the room when she seems to be unaffected by the Happy Bullets for a story scene that ends the mission. Pretty simple compared to others.

C5M3 – Pacify Misa – Pole Dancing

Objective 1 – Pacify Misa

Your goal is to head into Misa’s room now to see her Pole-Dancing and pacify her for the reason she’s doing it. (You can optionally head to the other 2 rooms to shoot Happy Bullets at Amayo and company to find tidbits of more info on what is bothering Misa so much and how much both the girls and the Pixies are worried about her).

This is similar to the Pole Dancing fight against Noire, but Misa has more HP. As such, you’ll likely need to refill your ammo twice for this boss fight rather than just once. She also has a move late in the Pacification that Noire did not have, where she will twirl herself around the pole (and not fall). She moves quite a bit during this so you may need to keep a steady aim or just stop firing until this animation stops.

Otherwise, just use the same strategy you used against Noire and this should be over quickly.

Objective 2 – Bath Time with Misa

You know what to do. Shoot her, grope her, and get a bunch of cash in the process. Once this is over, you get a heartfelt scene between Misa and Eli, you unlock the Hookshot ability (which I’ll explain in the next chapter), and the chapter ends, so remember to upgrade your items before heading into Chapter 6!

Chapter 6 Walkthrough

C6M1 – Neutralize The Mysterious Thief

Objective 1 – Protect the Dorm from The Thief

First order of business is to neutralize the threat the thief poses to the dorm. But there are 2 things to go over first. If you look to your left, a new Squid has appeared. This “Giant” Blue Squid is tough to kill, and spawns 5 tiny squids (even smaller than the pixies) upon being defeated.

Next, Hookshot. Did you notice all of those strange glowing icons on platforms that look like blue cross-hairs? Those are Hookshot Targets. Now that we have the Hookshot ability, simply aim your weapon at these targets and tap R to grapple up, removing a huge amount of hassle in platforming.

But back to The Mysterious Thief. You need to be very careful around her, as she is looking for something and that means her perception is much higher than the other girls. If she starts looking in your direction, run. Not only does her Sight Gauge fill up very quickly, but she can see where some of the girls can’t. There’ve been many times where she’s looked at the shelf with the sniper point and I would hide behind a book and she’d still be able to spot me.

Outside of that, business as usual. Fire off your Happy Bullets to try to deter this thief from, well, thieving. The Shelf Sniper Point can work if she’s not looking, though. Just note that each time you defeat a single body part, you respawn on the floor. So feel free to try to find a better vantage point that doesn’t require as much climbing and re-climbing.

Once you take out her Butt, Head, Upper Body, and Lower Body, she will retreat.

Objective 2 – Chase After the Thief

The thief may have retreated from Minami’s room, but we can’t let her get away! Head to Room C to find her snooping around on the girls’ Desktop Computer. Grapple up to the dresser right behind her to get her to leave for good and end the mission.
C6M2 – What’s Misa Doing in That Outfit?!

Objective 1 – Collect Information from Misa

Now that Misa has the most ridiculous Computer-using outfit in the world, we need information from her, so you know what to do. Start shooting her with Happy Bullets.

Note that you can easily do this from the Sniper Point on the dresser we just grappled onto during the Break-In, but the camera doesn’t play well with the wall behind it so the moment you aim at her, you will see a book and nothing else.

Outside of that, this is like when we had to shoot Minami while she was sitting at her computer desk. Head, Upper Body, Butt, Lower Body. Since this is a different room, note that there is an Ammo Refill on the TV Stand (there aren’t any on the floor level).

Once all 4 parts are damaged, you learn the innocent nature of what Misa is doing (unlike her outfit) and the mission ends.
C6M3 – Retrieve Data Left by The Thief

Objective 1 – Visit Sniper Points in Amayo’s Room

Self-explanatory. The pixies want to find data that the Thief left behind, so visit all 5 of the Sniper Points in the room and interact with them, as if you would if you were damaged and needed to heal. The locations of them are:

1. Under the Coffee Table
2. On the Computer Desk next to the bed
3. The Dresser underneath the Window
4. On top of the Shelf above the couch (Grapple up to it from the back of the couch)
5. On top of the shelf above the TV Stand

Be very careful when moving around. Not only does Amayo move much faster in this mission, but there are tons of all breeds of Squids all over the place. Once you find all 5 points, though, leave the room.

Objective 2 – Visit Sniper Points in Minami’s Room

Apart from the near-shock of the room loading and Eli literally crashing her butt down inches in front of you (or in the middle of the room. It’s random), same deal as Amayo’s Room. Find the 5 Sniper Points and interact with them. Their locations are:

1. On the floor next to the Black Leather Footrest + Chair
2. On the Red Dresser on the same wall as the Black Leather Chair (Grapple up from the floor)
3. On the shelf behind the head board of Minami’s Bed (Grapple from the floor)
4. On the shelving next to the computer (You should know where this is by now from how many times I’ve referenced it in this guide. Climb the CD case next to the outlet on the floor and make your way up to it)
5. On the TV Stand

Once again, Eli looks around a lot and there are Squids everywhere. Be careful and use the Sniper Points for healing when necessary. Once you’re found all 5, leave the room.

Objective 3 – Visit Sniper Points in Room C

Kira and Misa are out, so you are free to explore and find the Sniper Points of this room at your leisure. Well, aside from avoiding Squids. The locations are:

1. In the middle of the room on the carpet
2. On the Stereo Speaker
3. The Dresser behind the computer stand (where we went to end the Thief mission)
4. On the Red Shelf above the TV Stand (Access by grappling from the 1st bed to the TV and then to the shelf next to it)
5. Silver Box next to the 1st bed (From #4, jump across the shelves on the wall the door is on and drop down onto the hanging bag and then the box)

Just like before, leave the room when you visit all 5 Sniper Points.
C6M4 – Searching for More Data

Objective 1 – Look for Data from Misa’s PC

Well, the Sniper Point Data was a bust, so let’s try Plan B. The objective here is to examine the PC in Kira and Misa’s room. So head into their room, grapple up to the desk and interact with the side of the tower. Go ahead and ignore the Squids (Trust me. With what’s coming in the next 2 chapters, you want to deal with them as little as possible right now)

Objective 2 – Keep Eli from Reading in the Dark and Ruining Her Eyes

The next objective is in Minami’s Room, so go ahead and head over there. The only girl awake is Eli, whom is reading a nice Doujinshi Manga. So we’re going to ruin her night by destroying it. Head up to the top bunk and fire at it until the HP runs out and watch her freak out as the mission ends.
C6M5 – Pacifying Eli’s Exercise Session

Objective – Pacify Eli

As if we were done ruining Eli’s day. She somehow brought a treadmill into Minami’s room and is trying to use it, so you know the drill. Fire, Fire, and Fire some more.

The thing with this is that Eli sends off so many Hearts and Blue Projectiles that you can’t camp at a Vantage point. By the time you get hit and get back up, a dozen more projectiles explode in your face. So your strategy here needs to be firing at her as you circle around the treadmill until she takes a break and steps off for a moment. That’s your cue to grab the Sniper Point on the floor and let her have it. Hit her knees while she’s recovering and she’ll fall on the ground, letting you do even more damage.

Once you get her down to low HP, she will be so tired that she will crawl on the treadmill instead of running and the projectiles will become much faster as the Blue shots will be replaced by Stars. They will also fire off when she rests (when the treadmill literally throws her off), so constantly move until the Pacification is over.

Objective 2 – Bath Time with Eli

Now that we’ve destroyed her Manga and wrecked her Treadmill session, we’re gonna give Eli a break, right? Wrong. Usamael is going to exploit her love of touching another woman’s bare skin and infiltrate the Bathroom.

Same as always. Shoot, Grope, Get Money. This ends the Chapter, so don’t forget to grab new equipment from the Shop.

Chapter 7 Walkthrough

C7M1 – Squids in Amayo’s Room!

Objective 1 – Cheer Up Minami

Simple enough. Head into Minami’s room and shoot her with Happy Bullets. Depending on where she starts, you may want to either use the TV Stand’s Sniper Point for this or the shelving next to the laptop. If she spawns right in front of you, the TV Stand is too close. But just attack her until one body part is defeated and you’ll get some story scenes to go through.

Objective 2 – Dorm Defenders: Amayo’s Room

The Squids are invading heavy, so be prepared to spend a VERY long time fighting them off in all of the rooms. You will have waves and all variations of Squids to deal with. So, just get to it. Kill them, wait for the next wave, and repeat the process until you’re done. Remember that the Purple Squids always drop Ammo Refills so watch for them and your ammo count.

The locations the waves will be are as follows:

1st Wave – Floor, Coffee Table, and Window Shelf
2nd Wave – Floor near Coffee Table, Couch, Bed, Desk, TV Stand
3rd Wave – Floor, Back of Couch, Top Bed, Top of Desk, On top of TV
4th Wave – Square Shelf above Silver Boxes (Next to Window), Plant, Chair at Desk, Doorknob of door to leave room, Railing between Bed and Underneath Desk (This one was hard to find)

Once you kill all of the enemies from Wave 4, you get a scene and the mission ends, but don’t get too cozy. Things are just heating up.
C7M2 – Squid Cleanup

Objective 1 – Dorm Defenders: Minami’s Room

The Squids are back and we’ve got lots more waves to take out. There’s also a new enemy here. A Giant Red Squid, which has a long-ranged attack. In Minami’s room, here are the locations for the enemies of each wave:

1st Wave – Floor Level
2nd Wave – File Cabinet Top, Bed, TV Stand, Window
3rd Wave – Computer, Top Bed, Shelf behind Bed, Red Dresser next to Filing Cabinet, Top of TV
4th Wave – Top of DVD Cabinet, Top of Window (Shelf above the window) & the computer shelf right next to the window shelf, High shelf in the corner (between the blue staff and broomstick), Top of Clothing Cabinet (Where Eli was hiding earlier in the game)
5th Wave – Floor

Note that the mobs on top of the tall clothing cabinet during Wave 4 can be fired upon from the floor and if hit from the right angle, will come falling to the ground so you don’t have to climb up there to get em.

Once the 5th wave is down, the background music will go silent, signaling that you need to leave the room.

Objective 2 – Dorm Defenders: Rika and Misa’s Room

Same thing as the last 2 rooms again. Fight off all the waves of Squids. Get ready for a challenge in its final waves, though, as platforming comes into play and not being careful enough will lead you to fall to your death and have to start over from Wave 1.

Here are their locations as they come in:

1st Wave – Floor
2nd Wave – Beds, TV Stand
3rd Wave – High Shelves above the Beds
4th Wave – Top of Clothing Cabinet next to Door, Top of Dresser next to Clothing Cabinet, Top of Air Conditioner in corner of room, Clothes Line above Window
5th Wave – Computer Desk + Chair, Floor Underneath Deck
6th Wave – Floor (All Giant Blue Squids)

The hard part, as I said above, is that a lot of these mobs spawn very high in the air. A fair number of them can be sniped from the ground or on the beds, but the Clothing Cabinet, the Yellow Squids above the Beds, and the Air Conditioning mobs cannot. So, when you go up you have to be careful as it’s very easy to get hit with knockback to knock you off the platform to your death. If you’re fighting Yellow mobs, I highly suggest stunning them before heading to their platform.

But once all 6 waves are dealt with, the music stops and you can leave.

Objective 3 – Dorm Defenders: Amayo’s Room Mk. 2

Just when you thought it was over, it’s not. There are more Squids in Amayo’s room so we have to take them out as well. You know the drill. Here are the locations of each wave as they spawn:

Wave 1 – Floor
Wave 2 – Floor
Wave 3 – Bed
Wave 4 – Computer Desk
Wave 5 – Top Bed
Wave 6 – Above the Window, Top of Clothing Cabinet, Square Shelf above couch

This mission is very dangerous as nearly every wave tries to get you in a confined space with a huge group of enemies, especially when Wave 3 happens. But just lure them away from the others or snipe from a vantage point and it will be easily manageable.

Another thing you’ll notice is a distinct lack of ammo refills in normal locations. The mobs in this mission don’t spawn Purple Squids often, so you need to rely on the Ammo Refills in the stage, itself. If you run out without enemy drops, check the top of the couch and the bookshelf on the desk for a refill.

Once Wave 6 is killed, you’re finally done.
C7M3 – Pacify Rika – Pole Dancing

Objective 1 – Pacify Rika

Pacify Rika. This is the same as Misa, but there are Squids wandering about on the floor. If you used the Speaker Sniper Point in the past, do it here as well so the Squids cannot get to you. You also need to watch out for Stars as they not only give knockback but they will knock you off the speaker.

Otherwise, just keep shooting until the Pacification is complete.

Objective 2 – Bath Time with Rika

Just like everyone else. Shoot, Grope, Get Money. End Chapter. Be sure to go grab your upgrades before the Final Chapter is here!

Chapter 8 Walkthrough

‘
C8M1 – Where is Eli?

Objective 1 – Shoot Rika with Happy Bullets

Once again, very simple (to make up for that crazy fighting we just did with the Squids). Shoot Rika until one part is damaged and you’ll get a story scene.

Objective 2 – Search for Clues in Amayo’s Room

You need to find things laying around in the room that don’t belong. Some of them are pretty easy to find, others not so. Your searcher is key. Here’s what you need to find:

1. Trash Wads on the Coffee Table
2. Razor on the Computer Desk

You also have to interact with the railing on the bed directly behind Amayo’s head. Use your searcher to see exactly where as it’s not easy to find.

Once you find all 3, leave the room.

Objective 3 – Search for Clues in Minami’s Room

Once again, you’ve got a few things to interact with. Use the searcher to find them, but here’s what you need to find:

1. Minami’s Laptop
2. Minami’s Photo next to the computer desk
3. The bed railing directly behind her head (just like with Amayo)
4. The Pillow on the Top Bed/Bunk

Once you find them all, leave the room.

Objective 4 – Check on Rika and Misa

Same deal here. You’ve got a few things to find, so use your Searcher. Here are the locations you’re looking for:

1. Bed Railing behind Rika’s Head
2. Bed Railing behind Misa’s Head

Once you’re done with those, leave the room to end the mission.
C8M2 – Lifting Spirits

Objective 1 – Encourage Amayo with Happy Bullets

Exactly as it sounds. Even Amayo is despairing and she needs encouragement. Shoot her full of Happy Bullets to knock out one body part and she will leave the room.

Once she does, you should leave the room as well.

Objective 2 – Clear Minami’s Room of Squids

Amayo is over by Minami and as long as you don’t walk directly in front of her, you don’t need to worry about her until Wave 5 The Squids are keeping Minami unconscious so we need to take em out!

Wave 1 – Floor
Wave 2 – Floor
Wave 3 – Floor
Wave 4 – Filing Cabinet, Dresser, Box under the Bed Stepladder
Wave 5 – Top Bed
Wave 6 – High Shelves near Broomstick, Top of Clothes Cabinet, Shelf Above Window

As said above, Wave 5 is the dangerous section. You’ll be fighting on the top bunk, so you need to make sure you’re not close to where Amayo is, or she’ll be able to hear you fighting. Stay close to the stepladder and you won’t have an issue.

Once all 6 waves are finished, you awaken Minami and leave the room.

Objective 3 – Clear Rika and Misa’s Room

As before, Amayo is standing by Misa and Rika, trying to wake them up. So, it’s another mission to take out waves of Squids until they do. Here are their locations:

Wave 1 – Floor
Wave 2 – Floor
Wave 3 – Floor
Wave 4 – Floor
Wave 5 – Floor, Window Shelf, Desk
Wave 6 – Top of Dresser, Shelves above Beds and Door

Most of these waves aren’t hard to get to, but during Wave 6, there’s one group of enemies on a shelf above Misa’s bed. Since Amayo is watching at the TV stand, you have to grapple up on the other side of the room to the dresser, the clothing cabinet, and then hop over platforms until you get over there. So whenever you do this, make sure to be careful as if you fall and die, you start over from Wave 1.

Once Wave 6 is down, though, you’re finished and get a scene.
C8M3 – Discover the Truth

Objective 1 – Search Minami’s Room for Answers

This is a Search Mission and a long one at that. Each item you need to find is in a specific order and you need your Searcher heavily for this mission. Here is what you’re looking for to interact with:

1. The Pink Cushion in front of Minami’s Filing Cabinet
2. The Center Symbol of her Carpet (in the middle of the room)
3. The Tokyo Tower “Statue” on the black bookshelf by the beds
4. The Two Filing Cabinets (You need to interact with both the Left and Right sides)
5. The Wood Dresser in the corner next to the Filing Cabinets
6. The Box under the bed’s stepladder
7. The Boxes under the other side of the bed (Use your Searcher. The exact spot is hard to find)
8. The Coffin in the back corner by the computer shelves.

Once you do all of this, you get a scene before one final searcher.

9. A high shelf, two away from the Clothing Cabinet.

Interact with this and you’ll get a lot of story scenes, detailing the true background of the Mysterious Thief and the Final Boss Fight. If you want the nitty gritty of the story, I’ll add a section at the end of this guide to talk about it, so as to not have you accidentally get spoiled while still doing this walkthrough.

C8M4 – The Final Boss!

Objectives 1, 2, and 3 – Defeat The Mysterious Thief

The Thief is back and is faster and has a lot more HP. You need to defeat her 4 separate times to get the game’s ending, each for a body part (Upper Body, Lower Body, Head, Butt). Once you do this 4 times, then well…

CONGRATULATIONS! ENJOY THE ENDING!
FINAL SECTION 01: NEW GAME +

New Game Plus

Upon completing the game, you are free to buy the multitude of costumes that just unlocked for you, from main character costumes to Neptune and Noire’s costumes from Neptunia.

You now also have everyone unlocked for Bath Time, can redo any Story Mission by itself from the Mission menu from the Main Menu, and do the Challenges. But as far as Story is concerned, you’re done outside of NG+

But if you choose Story, you’ll restart at the beginning of the story with all of your previous outfits, enhancements, weapons, etc.

FINAL SECTION 02: Ending Explanation

So, the story ending. It turns out that Eri and The Mysterious Thief were One and the Same. Eri had been brainwashed and as a result, had Split Personality Syndrome, although she retained memories of herself as the thief, hence why she felt guilty and ran off at the beginning of Chapter 8.

The Pixies then took her on while she was in her brainwashed state and used their Happy Bullets to overcome it and allow for the Eri persona to come out and keep the Thief persona hidden.

After the victory, they expected to be exiled from the Galactic Military as they effectively quit when their Commander forbade them from helping the girls at the dorm with finding Eri. But their Commander made sure there were no records of their quitting.

They were then caught by Amayo, whom proceeds to thank them for watching over her and her friends. Upon their departure, their ship changes direction and they get a permanent mission at the dorm, so as to stay and watch over the girls while also collecting data for their original mission.

*Note that there are multiple endings, so you may get a scene with a different girl than Amayo

This is a very simple idea.  I will compile a list of all Nintendo Switch games I have played/reviewed and list all of the Battery Life times I’ve recorded for each game, since it varies so much from game to game.  This is so users curious about Battery Life can reference this list for that information.

Last Update: May 09, 2017

*Note that this will be from games I have personally played/tested.  I don’t have PR Relations with every publisher in the world, so some games are likely to not be included here for that reason.

This table’s format, to save space, has been shortened.  Here is the explanation of the format guide:

Bright = Screen Brightness
Air = Airplane Mode

So Max Bright/Wi-Fi means you have the brightness all the way up and the Wi-Fi turned on.

Game Title                             Max Bright/Wi-Fi       Max Bright/Air     Low Bright/Wi-Fi     Low Bright/Air

If anyone wishes to add to this list, feel free to reach out to me with your times and how you recorded them in the above format (Max Brightness/Wifi, Max Brightness/Airplane Mode, Low Brightness/Wifi, Low Brightness/Airplane Mode)

Game Title: Revenant Saga
Developer: Kemco
Platform: PlayStation Vita (Cross-Buy with PS3, PS4)
Download: 181 MB
Availability: Digital Download (North America)
PSTV Support: Yes

Kemco RPGs have been coming over to consoles for some time now. I did a review back in January for the game Asdivine Hearts, known to be Kemco’s first Great RPG among many others they’ve thrown out onto Mobile, Steam, and Consoles alike. The experience got an okay score, due to story blandness, stuttering, and only lasting around 16 hours.

The game they made next that really tried to test and excel past Asdivine Hearts is Revenant Saga, a game that is a hybrid of sorts, even as an RPG. Having released on both Mobile and Steam with good scores, it’s finally made its way to consoles.

Cross-Buy across PS3, PS4, and PS Vita, here is my review of Revenant Saga!

Story

Revenant Saga takes place in a world filled with strife, due to immortal demonic monsters invading the world known as Revenants. Once a Revenant is killed, it immediately revives itself to full strength, seemingly become an indestructible force. However, The Order of the God Rystoria trains warriors known as Valkyries with special amulets that can banish and completely eradicate Revenants in an attempt to fight back.

The story revolves around a youth named Albert, whom loses his parents do to an incurable plague. After signing up for an experiment to help save a childhood friend, he falls victim to a terrible accident and becomes a half-human, half-revenant with a demon constantly trying to take over his body. Blaming the madman responsible, he ventures into the world, hunting down revenants in the hopes of finding the man who made him what he is to exact his revenge.

The plot of Revenant Saga is quite interesting from the get-go with you getting a ton of info on what Revenants are and how they came to be within the first hour of the game. That and the chatter between the MC and the demon within him really spices things up and makes the game feel like more than just some RPG Maker project given life.

Gameplay

Revenant Saga, like Kemco’s other games, is a turn-based RPG in the theme/style of the old SNES Final Fantasy games. 2D exploration, turn-based combat, overworld map, towns with shops. All of it is here and that is the biggest nostalgia aspect to the game’s appeal, just as it was with Asdivine Hearts. Imagine it like Final Fantasy IV or Final Fantasy VI and that’s the style this game takes on.

Game progression is story-based. You’ll have access to the Overworld Map right away, but your current Quest will push you towards your next story objective. This is relatively linear, but once you get to the second or third town, you begin to have optional side-quests to do alongside the Main Quest. Just as those older games were, the longer you play, the more options you have available to you.

As you play through the game, you’ll basically be going through towns and dungeons and having to both solve puzzles to open doors and fight off monsters both in random encounters and in boss fights. Combat is the most intriguing part of the game as it is in 3D environments while the rest of the game is in 2D environments.

Combat has your typical turn-based battles. Your turn comes up and you choose commands, like Items, Defending, Attacks, Skills, etc. The main difference here is the Transform ability. In each battle, a character can Transform into a higher form. In this form, all stats are increased and you gain access to Transformed-Exclusive Skills. However, you cannot be healed or revived if you are in your transformed state, so if the boss knocks out a transformed character, they’re out for the rest of the fight.

This leads to later boss fights to be very strategic with whether you think you can transform everyone and take them down just by throwing constant skills at them or if you need to keep half the party un-transformed, in case you ever need to heal or revive. At the start of the game, you don’t need to worry about this, but the further the game goes, the more difficult bosses become.

As far as difficulty goes, it’s decent, but not really super hard. You can’t just set the game to Auto Battle for the entire game, but at the same time, as long as you watch what you’re doing, you’ll probably never lose a boss fight unless you set the difficulty to Hard. Enjoyable, a little casual, but not too casual. I think it’s a pretty decent difficulty scale.

With time, the advertised 30 hours of gameplay is not for just doing the story. I did a few side quests here and there and I managed to finish the game in a little over 20 hours. Still a decent amount of time. Just don’t expect that 30 hours advertised to be Just-Story. It’d be more like Story + All Side Quests as they become available to you.

Controls

First of all, Revenant Saga is compatible with the PlayStation TV, so you don’t need the PS4/PS3 versions of the game to play it on the big screen. No touch controls to speak of, so it’s fully optimized for TV Play.

Controls are pretty simple. The D-Pad and Left Analog Stick can be used for moving around areas or navigating menus. The L trigger can be used to use your skill points to heal the party while in a dungeon. The Right Stick doesn’t do anything, so all that’s left are the face buttons. X interacts with objects and NPCs, Square lets you zoom in and out of the current map you’re on, Triangle pulls up the customization menu, and Circle cancels options in menus or in battle.

Pretty simple, overall, and the game’s tutorial does a nice job of explaining how everything works.

Presentation

Graphics-wise, it’s difficult to really gauge the game, considering it runs 2 different game engines. In battle, it runs a 3D engine and outside of battle, a 2D engine. What I will say is that regardless of the engine you’re using, you’re going to see a noticeable blur effect over the sprites. I first noticed this at the beginning of the game, when the 2D sprites had a bit of a blur around their edges, but it’s also like this, to a point, in the 3D battles.

The second thing I’d like to criticize is the audio quality. For most of the game, audio sounds great, but during the Victory Scene in battles, the volume sounds really muffled. This could probably be easily patched out, but it’s noticeable that the audio quality severely drops during those sequences.

Performance is decent, overall. The load times aren’t terrible. Maybe 3 or 4 seconds a piece. The only performance issue, really, is the stuttering the game does during the first combat animation of a battle. Whether I use Auto Battle or manually input skills, the very first hit on the enemy has the game stutter and almost freeze for a second or two before actually going through with the animation. I’ve never had the game crash from it, but it’s very noticeable.

Game Title: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Developer: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Download: 6.7 GB
Availability: Retail (Europe, Japan, North America), Digital (Europe, Japan, North America)
Game Modes: TV, Tabletop, Handheld
Battery Life: 3.5-4.5 Hours

Since the Switch launched, there have been 2 questions I’ve had my eye on. The first is the lack of First Party titles outside of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The other is the lack of a AAA racing game. Both of these are relative to my personal interests in loving Nintendo games and loving racing games, and they were both answered just a week or two ago, when Nintendo’s top racing franchise hit the Switch and proved to be an overwhelming success: Mario Kart.

Mario Kart has been a huge popular thing since Mario Kart 64 brought the racing franchise into the true 3D Racing scene. It has expanded upon countless times, going aware from just base kart racing to more strategic racing with learning tracks, drifting, manual boosts, etc. It’s even evolved quite a bit since the last game I played of the series, Mario Kart 7 for the Nintendo 3DS.

So, let’s get right to it. Originally on the Wii U, here is my review of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe!

Story

Due to the game having no story, this section shall remain blank.

Gameplay

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is basically an expanded version of Mario Kart 8. It is a 3D Combat Racer where you drive various vehicles through 3D tracks while avoiding hazards, collecting items, and using said items and power-ups to attack enemies or defend against attacks aimed towards you.

Before diving in, let’s talk about differences. There are 2 comparisons to be made. First of all, for Wii U owners, what’s different between Mario Kart 8 and Deluxe? Deluxe contains all base content and DLC from 8 as well as 5 new playable characters, 2 new item power-ups, a few new Kart Mods, new gameplay modes for the Battle Races, and the most strategic improvement is that you can now carry 2 items at once, rather than just one.

However, if you’re coming as a handheld gamer from Mario Kart 7, there’s a lot more to be gained. More than twice the character roster, more tracks, anti-gravity stage sections, etc. So, depending on what game you’re coming from, you might get more content in comparison.

From the Main Menu, you can choose from Single Player, Multiplayer (Local for Single Joy-Con Play), Online Play, and Wireless Play (Two Switches locally communicating with one another). Within each of these, you have 4 Game Modes to choose from. Grand Prix for doing 4-race tournaments for trophies and unlocks, Time Trials to test your skills on courses against not only online ghosts but also developer ghosts, VS Race that lets you set up races with custom rules, and Battle that lets you dive into the many Battle Modes that Deluxe offers.

Your main task in Single Player will be to play through races and earn coins to unlock Kart Parts. Just like with 7, your coins are used to unlock mods to affect how well you can race. These include Kart Models, Tires, and Gliders. Each Kart has a class from Light and Heavy weight to Bikes and ATVs. Each Kart has different stats, like Top Speed, Acceleration, Traction, Handling, and more. The Tires and Gliders also affect these stats, so it’s a big matter of finding the right combination to help you navigate the tracks and win your races.

Unlocking parts is done by collecting coins. When you hit a milestone, a random Kart part will unlock, starting at 30 coins all the way up to 2200 coins. Because the maximum number of coins you can gain from any one race is 10 coins, that’s a minimum of 220 races if you want to unlock everything.

Doing this is pretty easy if you go through Grand Prix Mode. It has 12 different cups with 4 tracks a piece, meaning that all 48 base and DLC tracks from MK8 return here, including the F-Zero, Animal Crossing, and Legend of Zelda tracks.

When going through a race, it’s pretty straight-forward. Your goal is to win the race by navigating the course, collecting items to attack or defense yourself with, and make it to the end. In the earlier difficulties, like 50cc and 100cc, this is a pretty simple task, but once you get to 150cc and above, it’s an all-out war and feels much more like a strategic combat racer and less like a casual Kart Racer. So if you want to finish 200cc to unlock Gold Mario, you’re in for a fight.

Then you have Battle Mode. As before, there are new Battle Mode game types. You have the classic Balloon Battle, Renegade Roundup where you use Plants to gobble up criminals, the explosive Bob-omb Blast , Coin Runners, and the capture the flag-like Shine Thief. Each one feels very different from the others, so there’s a lot of variety here, even if you just stick to Battle Mode.

Just to mention it, there’ve been a lot of folks out there talking about the online features of the game being flawed with constant disconnects. I’ve done about a dozen or so matches and they’ve all been perfect from start to finish. This may change in the future, but I’ve run into no problems with online connectivity.

Difficulty is definitely there in the higher CC’s in Grand Prix, but the game is for all ages. As such, Nintendo has included some hand-holding features for the younger players. You now have Smart Steering and Auto-Accelerate that can be toggled from the pause menu. Smart Steering will automatically steer you in lower CC’s to try to keep you from driving off the edge of the track. Auto-Accelerate, however, is just as it says. It acts as if you’re holding down the accelerator when you’re not. Together the game basically drives itself for you, though it’s not useful for farming in anything above 50cc.

With this much content to go through and the full $59.99 price tag, Game Time becomes something to think about. As far as unlocking content, I made it to the halfway mark of the part unlocks and completing 50cc and 100cc in Grand Prix after I’d been playing the game for about 20 hours. So if you wanted to unlock everything, you’re probably looking more towards the 30-40 hour range, plus more if you plan to use the Online Play.

Controls

Controlling the game is pretty simple. Left Analog Stick steers you around and the Right Stick does nothing. The L and R triggers are used for using items and jumping for ramp boosts, respectively. The ZL and ZR buttons do the same functions as L and R, so you can use L or ZL for items and R or ZR for jumping. The R and ZR buttons are also used as the E-Brake for drifting.

With the face buttons, the A and Y buttons are used for acceleration. B is used for your normal brake, and X is used to reverse the camera so you can see behind you. Finally the + and – buttons are used for pausing the game.

Alternatively, you can hit Y in the pause menu to toggle motion controls. They work pretty decently, but I wouldn’t suggest using them competitively without some sort of wheel or grip.

Presentation

Visually, the game looks incredible. While on the big screen and the small screen, the graphics look pretty much flawless. There are occasional jagged edges in handheld mode, but not enough to really notice. Nintendo did an amazing job at making this game look as pretty as the original Wii U game. For the first few races, I was in awe, just taking in how much detail and how much the game looked like a PS4/Xbox One racing game.

The music is done really well, too. All the retro tracks have redone music and some of the best remixes are from the Animal Crossing and Zelda stages. It’s a lot of fun to do Hyrule Circuit just so you can listen to the new remix of the Zelda Main Theme.

Performance is great as well. Load times never exceed around 5 or 6 seconds and the frame-rate is perfect, whether you’re doing Single Player, Online, or Split-Screen between 2 players.

Battery Life

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe exceeded my very-low battery expectations. I expected the max to be 3 hours, given how beautiful and detailed the game’s graphics are. But, here are the times I recorded from 100% to 0%:

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 28 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 36 minutes
Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 10 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 18 minutes

So, instead of my expected 2-3 hours of battery life, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe not only looks great, but will let your battery last over 4 hours, even while doing constant multiplayer.

Game Title: Hakuoki Kyoto Winds
Developer: Idea Factory
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Download: 3.05 GB
Availability: Retail (Europe, Japan, North America), Digital (Europe, Japan, North America)
PSTV Support: Yes

I’ve come to see the otome genre in a bit of a different light since playing a few of the genre’s games. When I first heard of it, I came to know it as “Dating Sims for Girls” much like a lot of Dating Sims are for guys. Essentially, dating games where you play as a girl. That’s how a lot of people see the genre when they’ve never played a single game of said genre.

Today, I view it very differently. After playing Amnesia and the game I’m about to talk about, I see the genre as much less of a dating sim and more of a story-heavy Visual Novel genre with some romance elements thrown into the mix. Though the series I’m about to cover is much richer in Japanese history.

I am, of course, talking about the Hakuoki series, known for being the top of the top within the otome genre. Having experienced it with laughs, cries, and a vast amount of learning, here is my review of Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds!

Story

Kyoto Winds takes place towards the end of the Edo Period in Japan, when the Shogunate is still around. You play as a young woman traveling from Edo to Kyoto in order to visit her father as he works from the Edo. Upon arriving in the town, however, she is jumped by wandering Ronin and later by strange zombie-like men, only narrowly rescued by members of the Shinsengumi, a local police force formed to protect the citizens of Kyoto from rogue Ronin under the Shogunate, itself.

Having witnessed something she was not allowed to witness, the men of the Shunsengumi take her back to HQ, under the assumption she is a man, aiming to execute her for what she witnessed. However, upon explaining her gender and situation, she is allowed to stay under their watch as both they and her try to find her father.

Over the course of the story, you see a lot of battles from Japanese history, starting with the Ikeda Inn incident all the way to the start of the end of the Shogunate. The game is far more Japanese History VN about the Shinsengumi than a dating sim. You get tons of history on Japanese culture. While many parts of the story are fiction, most of it is not. Even the characters for all of the game’s “husbandos” are real Japanese people that were a part of the real Shinsengumi.

One thing to note is that this is the first in a two-part series. There are a lot of things that will develop in the story and not conclude. While many of the endings are very heartfelt and do feel conclusive, do note that there is a Part 2, which Idea Factory International will surely bring West further down the road.

Gameplay

Kyoto Winds is a Visual Novel with otome elements thrown into the mix. Essentially, you’ll always be going through story scenes about the Heroine’s interactions with the Shinsengumi and their actions.

It’s typical VN format. Cutscene after cutscene after cutscene with the ability to save at any time you want, with some light romance elements thrown in, here and there.

I specifically said romance/otome “elements” for a reason. This is an otome game, but you can also play it as a normal VN. The Romance aspects of the game can be toggled on and off, so if you don’t care for the romantic love-dovey stuff, just head into the Settings, turn Romance off, and enjoy it as a VN about the Edo period. For this reason, I don’t really view this game as otome, but more as a VN in general that just so happens to take place from the perspective of a Heroine.

Progress is typical for a VN, but the biggest thing that this game features is Options and Branches. During every chapter, you will have choices that will drastically change how the story progresses. In some of these situations, the story will be the same, but you’ll see a different perspective (like having 2 different groups rally for an attack in different locations and choosing which location you wish to go to), while others can be the difference between a character or even the Heroine, herself, dying and the story coming to an abrupt end.

Aside from the Heroine’s life, your choices will ultimate decide what major character you will end up with when the game’s final chapter hits. The game basically has 4 chapters of story and then Chapter 5 is a character-specific path, where the story will go towards the character ending for whatever major character you’ve interacted with the most.

This leads the game to having dozens of different playthroughs being completely different, not only in the main story, but also endings. Even in certain character paths, there are multiple endings, normally a Good Ending and a Bad Ending.

As far as the length goes, a single play through the game should take you at least 6 hours, depending on how long you spend reading the dialogue that takes place in each scene and chapter. If you only want to play the game once, it is around 6 hours, but if you even want to see the different endings for your character path, it can easily add literal hours onto your play time, depending on how often you save.

Controls

Controls aren’t a huge issue, really. The game is fully compatible with the PlayStation TV, so you can play it on the little screen or the big screen. There are touch controls on the Vita, but they’re not required. You can advance the dialogue with the X button or by tapping the touch screen. It’s just an extra option thrown in there for hand held fans.

Controls are simple enough, once you know them. X lets you advance the dialogue, Circle will make the dialogue window disappear if you want to look at CG artwork, Square will quickly skip through dialogue if you’re replaying and want a different ending, and Triangle will open up the menu to be able to save and load your game data. Start will let you Auto-Advance scenes, and the L/R triggers will let you Quick Save and Quick Load.

The controls aren’t a problem, but the lack of explaining the controls is a problem. The game doesn’t have an Auto-Save system, so you have to manually save every time you wish to save progress. The game does absolutely nothing to tell you how to do this. While figuring out controls is a simple task in most games, not knowing controls can put you in a situation of having to potentially re-do literal hours of gameplay if you don’t know how to save after a long gaming session.

Presentation

Graphically, it’s a VN, so everything is hand-drawn and there aren’t really any 3D animations or anything. What is there is done very well. From the splatters of blood from battles to the details of the CG scenes that show the Heroine spending time with the Shinsengumi, it all looks really nice and the design has a very authentic look to it, which really matches the Japanese setting of the game.

Performance is great as well. The game is fully voiced outside of the Heroine, herself, which is normal for an otome game and there are never any loading issues, crashing, or frame drops.

Game Title: Akiba’s Beat
Developer: Acquire
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Download: 3.1 GB
Availability: Retail (Europe, Japan, North America), Digital (EU, JP, NA)
PSTV Support: No

The newest game in the “Akiba” series has caused quite the buzz in the online PS Vita community. It changed the formula and is trying to make a name for itself outside of just being “The Sequel to Akiba’s Trip 2: Undead & Undressed”. There’ve been good murmurings on the grape vine and not-so-good.

However, I am here to give you an informative review and give you all of the information you need to know, since I’ve completed the game, myself. So, without further delay, here is my review of the Tales-like Action RPG, Akiba’s Beat!

Story

Akiba’s Beat takes place in Akihabara or Akiba for short. A local NEET (Non Educated, Not Employed, Not in Training) is going about his daily rounds when he discovers spatial distortions that no one else can see, a phenomenon known as a “Delusion”. When a chipper young woman recruits him into infiltrating and destroying the delusion, they realize that they are trapped in a never-ending time loop,with the same day repeating time and time again.

In order to escape from this endless time loop, the two team up to track down and destroy delusions that pop up around Akiba and end up recruiting many of the people who spawn them along the way. The story of this game I view very similarly to the Persona series. The mystery and explorative part of the story is very similar to the concept of Persona 4, but with the heart of Akiba culture thrown in. The cast is colorful and each has unique backgrounds. From a NEET and Transgender Queen Information Dealer to a Magical Girl Idol-in-Training and a Gothic Lolita with a razor-sharp tongue, each member brings a lot of diversity and humor to the table.

It should also be noted that Akiba’s Beat has one of the most high-quality English Dubs the PS Vita has ever seen. Every line of dialogue is voiced and the VAs did an outstanding job. XSEED should be proud of the work they did for the localization.

Gameplay

Akiba’s Beat is unique in the gameplay department. Imagine Persona 4, Akiba’s Trip, and Tales of the Abyss all being melded into one game, and you’ve got Akiba’s Beat. It uses Tales of the Abyss’s combat system for inspiration, Akiba’s Trip’s exploration features, and Persona 4’s style of story and dungeon progression.

Progression is story-driven, but you basically have a large map of Akiba to explore. On this map, you will always have some story objective you need to find to go to the next part of the plot. However, you will also have shops to visit for equipment upgrades and the occasional Character Events to do a side story with character backgrounds for a major character. These events pop up across the story and will often complete with rewards, like equipment or supplies.

The biggest flow is the unlocking of dungeons. Every story chapter has a new dungeon, or set of dungeons you need to find and activate an entrance for. This is remarkably similar to Persona 4’s method of finding new dungeons in the TV World. Each time a new dungeon or “delusionscape” appears, you must spawn story events until its creator has their heart shaken and that’s when the entrance will pop up. It’s really a huge amount of character development as every dungeon is based on its creator’s delusion, or life dream.

Once you get the entrance, you storm through the dungeon to destroy it. This involves navigating several floors filled with enemies, ending with a major boss fight that will not only destroy the delusion but also conclude that chapter of the story.

Dungeon progression is pretty simple. On every floor, there is a door that leads to the next floor you need to reach. Getting to this door is normally a matter of puzzle-solving. All dungeons have blocked paths you need to find and interact with objects to open up. In some dungeons, it’s electronic switches to open doors and others it’s chain strings to open curtains. And these get continually more difficult as you get closer to the game’s climax.

Combat is the main thing you should look at, though. Akiba’s Trip was a hack n slash beat em up game. When you find an enemy in Akiba’s Beat, you are taken to another stage for an Action-RPG combat sequence with your party against the enemy party. You have AP to do physical attacks and skill combos and have both physical and magic skills to use.

If you’re a Tales fan, imagine Tales of the Abyss’s combat system and that is almost exactly like this. You have a line between you and the enemy and you have to hold the L button to actually start free-roaming around the 3D arena. The other major difference is AP. If you only have 4 AP, you can only do 4 different actions until you have to run away and recharge.

This raises the strategy but it really makes the game feel stiff. Abyss isn’t exactly a new combat system and the AP limitations really drags down the intensity of the fights. It’s fun, no doubt, but a flawed kind of fun.

The main balance to the AP system is the Imagine Gauge. As you fight enemies, you build up a sort of “Overdrive” gauge. Once you activate it, you start playing a song in the background and use that song’s length to fight all-out with infinite AP.

As far as difficulty, it’s pretty tough outside of Easy Mode. Normal fights aren’t too hard, as long as you can balance your party out with healers, magic-users, and fighters, but many of the boss fights are really tough on anything Normal Difficulty or above. This isn’t a game that will hold your hand, like setting Auto Battle in a Tales game. You’ll need a lot of skill, and you’ll need to be skilled with every party member as you will have solo battles throughout.

Length is harder to tell. You can’t rely on the in-game tracker because it tracks time in and out of sleep mode. In other words, if you are at 20 hours and put it in sleep mode and go to sleep. When you start again 10 hours later, the timer will now say 30 hours. But over the course of the game, accounting for progression, story scenes, and side events, I would put it at no less than 30-40 hours.

Controls

Here’s where a downer comes into play. I spoke with PQube and XSEED Games, but no version of Akiba’s Beat is going to be made compatible with the PlayStation TV (even though enabling it is as simple as hitting a checkbox). So, if you want it on a console, you’re forced to get it for PS4.

Controls are relatively simple, overall. You move around with the Left Analog Stick and move the camera with the Right Analog Stick. The L and R triggers are mostly just used for cycling menus or the free-roam aspect of combat arenas. Now, face buttons. X is used for jumping in the field and using skills in combat. Square is used for physical attacks and Triangle for the customization menu. Circle opens the menu in dungeons and the town, while it lets you Guard

The controls aren’t too complex and they’re explained well. If you’re used to Tales, there won’t be much of a learning curve.

Presentation

The graphics of the game aren’t bad. Definitely not the best the Vita can do, but far from the worst. There’s plenty of details and not too many jagged edges. Plenty acceptable by Vita standards (though the PS4 version is a different story as it’s not much enhanced from the Vita version).

The main issue with presentation is the loading sequence. When you first load a save file, you’ll be spending a good minute or more waiting for it to load. The same thing will happen going in and out of dungeons. Not a full minute, but easily 40+ seconds. Some boss fights also have load times longer than a minute.

The saving grace of this is the frame-rate. Aside from a couple circumstances, the game stays a solid, steady flow from start to finish. It rarely ever drops under 30 fps, but maybe once in the game, so this is optimized very well.

Game Title: Deemo The Last Recital
Developer: Rayark Games, Rising Star Games, PM Studios
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Download: 939 MB
Availability: Retail (Asia), Digital (Europe, North America)
PSTV Support: No

The Vita hasn’t gotten too many music games since the release of Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X. Many people are still waiting to see if IA/VT Colorful eventually makes its way to the West, while others are just diving in and enjoying previously-released music games outside of Project Diva, like Superxonic Beat.

Deemo: The Last Recital is another Vita music game that people have been waiting to come West for a long time. It has actually been available in English for much longer in Asia, but a publisher has finally seen fit to bring the game to Western audiences on the Vita with all its exclusive features over its Mobile release.

Here is my review of the PS Vita music game, Deemo: The Last Recital!

Story

Deemo revolves around a strange entity known as Deemo, whom lives in solitude, playing a piano. One day, his life is interrupted when a strange young girl falls from the sky and into his home, void of any memories. At almost the same time, a strange seed begins to sprout, growing a magical tree around his piano.

Deemo and the Little Girl then continue to explore music and allow the Tree to keep growing to slowly restore her memories, bit by bit.

The story of Deemo is interesting because it’s mostly assumed. Every so often during progression, you’ll see a scene and most of them are voiceless, just showing the scene, itself, and letting you interpret everything that’s happening. This gives it a very unique feel, not only because most music games don’t have storylines, but also the unique feel that almost makes this like a videogame version of a Silent Movie.

Gameplay

As you can imagine, Deemo is a rhythm game, where you tap the touchscreen in response to notes coming down the screen to simulate the player being Deemo and playing the piano for each song being used to grow the Magic Tree and restore Little Girl’s memories. There are exploration elements in here as well, but it’s a rhythm game to its core.

Main Progression in the game is a mix of exploring the different room of Deemo’s home and playing/unlocking songs like a normal music game. You begin with two different sets of songs at the piano and playing each song well will unlock new songs and new story scenes. I generally aim for 90% or above to get that song’s unlocks, regardless of the difficulty setting.

Eventually, you’re going to run out of songs to play. That’s where exploration comes in. Not all songs can be unlocked by just playing previous songs. You have to explore the different rooms of the home or “hub world”. Songs are hidden all over the place, from high up in the attic to areas underneath tables and chairs in the library room. You just tap wherever you think a song might be and you’ll get a little dialogue when you do find out to play at the piano.

Now the big problem with the game is that you don’t know that you have to go find songs in the other rooms. In fact, you don’t even know where the other rooms are. Without a guide, you might just find them by accident when you’re tapping on the touch screen. The big lack of direction can easily de-rail you by making you think you might have to just keep beating the songs on different difficulties to unlock more songs, when you couldn’t be further from the truth.

When you’re actually in a song, it’s pretty straight-forward. Every time you start a song in each play session, you get a little tutorial telling you what to do. You have all of these piano key-like notes falling towards a horizontal line on your screen. When normal notes hit the line, you tap on them to hit the note. Then there are yellow notes bundled together, which require you to slide your finger across the screen to hit those notes. It’s pretty simple and once you get the feel of it, it’s easy to get lost in that flow.

Do note that the flow being easy doesn’t make the game easy. Easy Mode is easy enough but any difficulty or speed above that is really challenging to get to. That difficulty also raises another interesting aspect of the game. Not only can you toggle the difficulty of the song, but you can toggle the speed of it, to increase the difficulty even further.

As far as time spent, there are over 100 songs to be unlocked and played across the default Story Scenario and the PS Vita-exclusive “After Story” Game Mode that is not available in the Mobile release. Given the time it’d take to play all of those songs at least once while adding exploration time, I would gauge this game as a bare minimum of 6-7 hours. Bare minimum. That’s if you know where hidden songs are and only wish to play each song a single time.

Controls

Two big things here. First of all, Deemo is not compatible with the PlayStation TV, though not without reasons. The nature of the control scheme makes the game unplayable even if they’d checked that Vita TV checkbox to make it launch-able on the micro-console.

The control scheme is very touch-friendly. In fact, Deemo: The Last Recital is only playable with touch controls. There are no button controls for menus, pausing, moving between areas, or anything of the sort. Everything is touch-oriented, just as it was in the Mobile release. So, if you like touchscreen music games, this’ll tickle your fancy. If you do not like touch-based music games, well, you’re out of luck here.

The fact alone that they didn’t add button controls isn’t really that bad, but it’s just another point with the lack of direction. You need to tap very specific parts of the screen to do simple tasks, like cycle through songs or even start songs. There is a very small portion of the screen (from my experience) that acts as the “Start Song” from Song Select and it took me quite some time to actually find it more than once.

For a simple control scheme, it’s got a pretty decent learning curve from figuring out where to touch for what.

Presentation

Visually, the game is very pretty. The story scenes have a very anime-like feel to them and the entire UI look so detailed with the art style. Even the notes flying down the music score during gameplay has a very unique feel to it.

The music is also a great deviation from typical PS Vita rhythm games. A lot of the soundtrack is full of nice, calming piano tunes with some variety of genres later on but always with a piano backup melody. It is a very relaxing game to play, especially compared to the more Jpop feel of the Project Diva series.

Performance I have no problems with. The game loads quickly and never suffers from any frame drops, glitching, or crashing. The optimization is definitely there.

Game Title: Minecraft Nintendo Switch Edition
Developer: 4J Studios, Microsoft Studios, Mojang AB
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Download: 540 MB + 2 GB for Save Data (2.6 GB Total)
Availability: Digital Download (Europe, North America, Japan)
Battery Life: 3.5 – 4.5 hours
Supported Modes: TV, Tabletop, Handheld

There are a lot of Third Party games that release on most consoles that are considered “staple” games in today’s gaming world. For indies, there are games like Terraria, The Binding of Isaac, and even games Darkest Dungeon, among other titles. Even among indies, nothing is as big as the giant, open sandbox building game, Minecraft.

Minecraft has been on consoles for a long time, though Minecraft on handheld consoles has only been a thing for the past few years.  That is thanks to the building game coming to the PlayStation Vita, which marked the first time the full console experience was available on the go.

With the Nintendo Switch, the idea was to bring the Wii U experience on the go, and enhance it when hooked up to the TV. So, how is the final product? Let’s find out. Here’s my review of Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition!

Story

Minecraft does have a story, but it isn’t given until the very end. The basic premise is that you’re a person out in a big world, aiming to survive, fight off monsters, and take out an evil dragon hidden in an alternate dimension. You don’t know any of this until you actually go and kill said dragon, but once you do, you get a engthy dialogue sequence from the “Gods” of the world, based on your exploits and a philosophical speech about the game and life in general.

Obviously, the story isn’t anything to focus on, but it’s there to be there and give you a bit of a reward once you do actually “Beat” the game. It’s worth noting that the ending sequence in the Switch version is drastically longer than it was in previous console editions like the PS3 and Vita versions.

Gameplay

Minecraft is a 3D Sandbox game where you create a randomly-generated world to collect materials and make literally anything you want from weapons, shelter, tools, and more. It also has some light RPG elements with leveling up and enhancing items, but it’s essentially a Lego Simulator, if all Lego pieces were square cubes.

For handheld fans, let’s talk about the differences between the PlayStation Vita Minecraft and Nintendo Switch Minecraft. The Switch version contains Adventure Mode (which the PS Vita version is currently missing), which is like Survival, but requires tools to mine anything (even simple materials like wood).  Apart from the Mario Mashup Pack being included like on the Wii U, the worlds are also larger.  The PS Vita and Wii U Editions contained worlds up to 864 x 864 blocks, while the Switch version has world sizes up to 3072 x 3072, a more than triple increase.

Another enhancement from the PS Vita version is a higher capacity for characters on-screen. I quickly noticed that there were a lot more animals on the Switch than Vita.  While I would travel and barely have enough food to survive when playing on the PS Vita, I have plentiful amounts of food when playing on the Switch.  As well as animals,  there are also wider and thicker trees, more enemies, etc. It’s all around a much busier game.

For anyone unfamiliar, the point of Minecraft is Creation and Imagination.  You make a world based on a texture pack that is generated completely at random. Once you spawn in the world, you mine materials and build a shelter to protect you from monsters at night, tools to mine harder materials, collect and cook food to survive from day to day, and use your imagination to create and build whatever you feel like making.

Many people play Minecraft to build creations, like recreations of their favorite location from a TV show / video game, or just any random thing they want to build. Did you ever take generic Lego blocks when you were young and build whatever? Minecraft is essentially like that, except you have to collect/mine the right colors (or go into Creative Mode and access all materials at the same time).

Obviously, these projects last a long time. I made a Castle Town project in the Vita version of the game and across clearing land, collecting materials, and building everything, that single project took close to 50 hours of playtime. That is what Co-Op Play is for. The game supports up to 8-player Multiplayer across local and online play. Get 3 or 4 friends together, put them to work, and that 50-hour project becomes a 10-15 hour project. Something you can easily do a few hours each weekend and be proud of your work upon completion.

As far as time is concerned, that depends on what you wish to do. A full survival run of building up food and equipment and searching for the right underground stronghold to find and defeat the Ender Dragon will likely take you at least 5-8 hours, given the random element, the fact that the Switch Worlds are larger than the Vita worlds, and the specific equipment and inventory needed for that final boss fight. I’ve played the Switch version for about 25 hours thus far and that’s across one Survival Game only barely past setting up a shelter, some bridges to some material-gathering locations, and near-completion of the first armor set.

In short, it’s very easy to get lost in your own personal tasks and sink tons of hours into Minecraft, even more-so if you play with your friends.

Controls

The controls of Minecraft: Switch Edition are a bit different than you may be used to, but they work out pretty well. The biggest different Vita owners will notice is the fact that the Jump/Confirm button is now A, where Circle is on the PlayStation control map.

Moving around is done with the Left Analog Stick and the Right Stick moves the camera. The D-Pad/Arrow Buttons can be used to cycle through your inventory, whether you’re in Crafting Mode or just Exploring Mode. The L and R triggers can also be used to cycle from side-to-side in your main inventory, and ZL and ZR are used for using items and mining, respectively.

The face buttons are pretty standard. The A button is for jump/confirm and B is used for cancel in menus. X is used for pulling up your inventory and Y for the Crafting Menu. Finally, the Left Stick can click for perspective changes and Right Stick can click for crouching/standing, just like on the PlayStation TV.

The tutorial does an excellent job of explain how all of this works, so there’s really no learning curve with it.

Presentation

Visually, the Nintendo Switch version is identical to the Wii U, though resolution has improved. Minecraft for Wii U ran a resolution of 720p while the Switch runs 720p in handheld mode and 1080p in TV/Docked Mode (unlike many rumors about it running 720p in both handheld and TV mode, but considering it stretches beyond the screen of my 720p TV, safe to say it does display in 1080p). The renders certainly aren’t perfect like the PS4/Xbox One versions. There are jaggies here and there, but nothing too incredible. As I said a moment ago, it is identical to how the Wii U version looked.

The only real blemish of the game is the music track swapping in the Super Mario Mashup Pack. I didn’t notice this at first, but there’s a wider gap between tracks than on the Wii U. As a comparison, when one Mario track ends, the next starts up about 7 seconds later on Wii U, but 25 seconds later on Switch. This seems to only be localized to the Super Mario Mashup Pack, as the other packs I’ve used don’t have that much silence. Nothing too major, but just a little thing I noticed.

The draw distance is around the same as the Wii U version, though in Handheld Mode, it’s slightly under. To be more precise, it has slightly more draw distance than PS Vita Edition has and slightly less than the Wii U Edition has as a handheld, but the same as Wii U as a console.

Performance is wonderful. I never realized how much slower the Vita version was until I played Minecraft on the Switch. Menus go by lightning-fast and the frame-rate is a great 60 fps for the majority of the game. In handheld mode, it sometimes will drop down to 30 fps, but no matter where you are, you will get 30 fps and more, though 90% of the time, it will be a constant 60 fps, which is amazing, considering the fps of the Vita version dipped relatively often under 30.

Battery Life

I wasn’t sure what to expect with the Battery Life. On one hand, it’s a 3D game, but at the same time, it’s not exactly super-high-graphics. Here are the times I got from 100% to 0%:

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 20 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 29 minutes
Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 52 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 20 minutes

This isn’t bad. About the same as what Mario Kart 8 can net you, Minecraft will last between 3 and a half and 4 and a half hours, depending on your settings. I’m pretty satisfied with it, especially considering the high network usage that Minecraft uses, even when you’re not playing with 7 friends.

Game Title: Spellspire
Developer: 10tons
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Download: 22 MB
Availability: Digital (Europe, North America)
PSTV Support: Yes

Were you ever good at Word Scrambles? You know what I’m talking about. You are given a bunch of letters and your task is to rearrange them into actual words. I can’t say I have a huge amount of experience, given how I fared when I played the game I’m about to review for you. Many of you may have that skill up on me.

Word Scrambles are nothing I’d expect out of a PS Vita game, though it did happen. Thanks to our friends over at 10 Ton Games, a Word-Scramble Puzzle game has come over to the PS Vita and releases this week. Here is my review of originally-on-mobile title, Spellspire!

Story

Due to the game having no story, this section shall remain blank.

Gameplay

Spellspire is a puzzle game where you use Word Scrambles to fire off spells and fight off monsters as you climb up a huge tower. I would even go as far as to say that Word Scramble is its genre, as that’s the interaction element of the game, although combat looks more like an RPG.

Your goal in the game is to conquer 100 floors, each with a “stage”, pitting you against undead monsters of various varieties in something very similar to the ATB battle system that Final Fantasy has used since the days of the Super Nintendo.

Once you’re in the stage, you have a group of letters you must then form into words. The longer the word, the more damage is done. The catch is that you must use these letters to form several words in order to fight off a wave of different enemies. You can only use a single word once per stage, so you must not only form them into one word, but many by the time the stage ends.

If you have issues, enemies can attack you. Each enemy group has a timer before they attack. Form words and defeat them before that timer reaches 0 and you’ll go by unscathed. If you don’t, they’ll attack and down your HP. If you run out of HP, you lose and have to retry the stage or go back and better equip yourself. But if you prevail, you’re rewarded with Gold to spend on items and upgrades.

Between stages, you can access the Shop, where you spend your Gold on Upgrades and New Inventory Items. As you play the game, you’ll gather items to be used in stages, like instant words or HP refills, but to keep going, you need to upgrade your weapon and armor and get new weapons and armor pieces as the game continually gets more difficult. The more you upgrade, the more HP you have and the more damage your words do to enemies.

The normal flow is to do a stage, use money for upgrades, and then repeat the process. However, there are many moments where the difficulty will spike a lot, and your current equipment, even at max upgrades, will not allow you to prevail across the enemy doing too much. For this, you need to unlock and buy new equipment items. However, unlocking new equipment requires you to replay old stages and collect Gold Stars by performing well.

This leads to a lot of situations where you play a few stages, get to an unwinnable fight, go back and replay those stages again to get Gold Stars to unlock your new Wand/Hat/Robe, and then replay them a second, third, fourth, etc. time to get the money needed to purchase said Wand/Hat/Robe, as well as the money needed to enhance it enough to get you past that fight. Doing this every so often isn’t too bad, but it actually happens roughly every 4-5 stages. So across the whole game, you’ll have to stop and do this repeat-stages-several-times-in-a-row process around 20 times. It gets very repetitive and very tedious.

As I said earlier, there are 100 stages to play in the game and each stage takes around 1-2 minutes to complete, the length slowly increasing the further you get. If you didn’t have to do so many replays, the game would barely last a couple hours, but thanks to the repetition, the game easily lasts 5-10 hours before you finally complete it.

Controls

Spellspire is a great exactly of how a publisher can support the PlayStation TV, despite control awkwardness. The game cannot be controlled by buttons at all. It is solely touchscreen-oriented. Despite this, 10 Ton Games made the game compatible with the PlayStation TV.

The game is still playable as well. Since all you do is tap on letters or menu options, having the touch alternatives off constantly makes it for a decently-playable experience. Although button controls would help immensely, it isn’t completely useless. Far easier on a Dual Shock 4 controller than a Dual Shock 3, but you get the idea.

Presentation

Visually, the 2D style of the game looks nice. It’s smooth, clear, and the animations work well for it. Nothing outstanding or underwhelming about it. It looks just as nice as it did on Mobile.

Performance is the same. No real problems at all. Load Times are short. FPS never drops or lags. It’s optimized well.

Game Title: Disgaea 5 Complete
Developer: NIS America
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Download: 6.2 GB
Availability: Retail (Europe, North America, Japan), Digital (EU, NA, JP)
Battery Life: 5-7 hours
Supported Modes: TV, Tabletop, Handheld

Disgaea has been a big franchise for Handheld RPG fans for a few generations now, though mostly on the Sony side of the table. Disgaea 1 and 2 got remakes on the PSP as well as 2 Prinny-based spin-off titles. Disgaea 3 and 4 got remade for the PlayStation Vita/PlayStation TV. Nintendo Disgaea games have really only been localized to Disgaea DS, an enhanced version of the PSP remake of the first game.

The Nintendo Switch has changed things. Back when Disgaea 5 was being made for PS4, NIS had stated that it was far too powerful of a game for the PS Vita to handle, especially since even Disgaea 4 had frame-drops on the Vita in the Item Worlds. But they’ve deemed the Switch worthy of such a game.

Remade from the PS4 version and now released for console and handheld fans alike, here is my review of Disgaea 5 Complete!

Story

Disgaea 5 revolves around female Overlord named Seraphina and a wandering warrior named Killia, whom the prior Overlord has abducted and decided is her future husband. As they begin to travel together, they begin to fight off an army called “The Lost”, whom fight for an Overlord invading and attempting to conquer all others. Collecting comrades along the way, the two form a Rebel Army and intend to hunt down and kill this Invading Overlord and his army.

This game follows Disgaea’s normal routine for storylines. The overall plot has a very serious idea to it, but you have to actually get there to get much aside from “We all have grudges against this Overlord for reasons none of us want to tell each other or the player about for the first 10-15 hours of the game”. There’s plenty of humor thrown in, but it feels like the plot is one of the weakest of the series until you get to that 10-15-hour point when the REAL plot kicks in.

Gameplay

Disgaea 5 Complete is a Tactical RPG / Strategy RPG and also an enhanced edition of Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance. As the series has had since the beginning, it involves turn-based movement and combat on grids. If you’re new to the series, imagine it like Final Fantasy Tactics or even The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, but with more complex maps.

Firstly, this edition of Disgaea 5 contains all DLC from the PS4 version and said DLC is accessible from the start of the game (unlike Disgaea 4 which made you play the entire Story before you could access it). All Story Scenarios, Characters, Item Packs, etc are readily-available, including Girl Laharl and the NISA character from the Hyperdimension Neptunia franchise. Though, unlike past handheld remakes, Complete has nothing new that Alliance of Vengeance didn’t have on PS4. It’s basically Game + All DLC + Portability.

Next, Disgaea 5 added a few new gameplay features since even Disgaea 4’s PS Vita remake. You can now make Squads to access facilities while you’re off doing your own thing. There’s also the new Innocent Farm mechanic, letting you grow “Innocent” characters, and the Curry Shop that lets you cook food based on ingredients that gives your party temporary effects (similar to the cooking element from Toukiden 2).

One thing I would like to mention is the inclusion of Trophies. NIS America dubbed it worthy to incorporate all of the PS4 version’s PlayStation Trophies into the Switch version as an unlockable grid. Every time you would get a trophy in the PS4 version, you see the trophy pop up on the Switch exactly like it does on the PS4. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but a neat little feature that caters to fans of Achievements and Trophies.

The progress flow hasn’t changed much since the previous games. You have stages to clear in each chapter and clearing one unlocks the next. You keep this going (aside from specific scenarios that have different requirements for continuing the story) until the chapter ends and you go to the next chapter. And you keep doing this until the game ends. It’s a pretty simple progression style, though gets deeper as you need to keep buying equipment for your characters, enhancing skills, recruiting new character classes, interrogating prisoners, etc.

Combat is something series veterans will be familiar with, too. You spawn on a grid-based map. Each turn, you can move your characters according to their move capabilities and set them up around enemy units so you can attack them and defeat them. You can move around enemies, throw allies closer to enemies for better combat setups, attack blocks that give certain areas of the map enhancements, etc. It’s typical Disgaea combat.

The new system here is the Overdrive Gauge. Once you fight for some time, your character will activate their Overdrive, enabling them to use a powerful Ultimate Attack, be it fighting a group of enemies with a powerful combo or damaging and capturing enemies to take back to your base and interrogate as prisoners.

This gauge is there for balancing as the game’s difficulty spikes very quickly and very frequently. At the start of the game, things are easy as you gain access to Girl Laharl and NISA, whom are very much overpowered (having weapons with a damage of 120 rather than the shop’s inventory of 10-20), but that gap quickly thins and the game becomes a game of intense strategy. Although you don’t need to go out of your way to grind levels to beat each story level, it is very much a difficult level of strategy that’s involved until much later in the game.

Despite this, we are 5 games into the series and very little has changed in combat since the first couple games. The Overload System is definitely appreciated, but 90% of combat feels like the same thing we’ve already gone through with Disgaea 1-4 and D2. Not that it isn’t fun, but some more major enhancements are definitely past due for the series.

As far as length goes, I’d gauge an average play of Disgaea 5 at around 40-50 hours. I spent around 10 hours on the first 4 of the story’s 16 chapters, plus there’s a lot of DLC Scenarios and the Post-Game to extend that time further. It’s a very long game.

Controls

Controlling the game is surprisingly-simple. Unlike the PS Vita remakes of 3 and 4, Disgaea 5 Complete doesn’t use any touch controls. Everything is done with the buttons, so you don’t need to worry about touch controls.

You move around with the Left Analog Stick and/or the Directional Buttons. Although not by default, you can set camera rotation to the Right Analog Stick. Otherwise, it is handled by the L and R triggers. ZL and ZR, however, are used for jumping in the base/hub world.

The rest is the face buttons. A confirmed menu and combat options. B cancels combat and menu options. X pulls up the menu both in the hub and in combat. Finally, Y lets you see details and the movement grid for any selected character/enemy.

Presentation

Visually, the game looks exactly the same as it did on PS4. Renders are flawless outside of some small jaggies during the zoomed-in special attacks. If you display it on a TV, outside of certain button prompts, it doesn’t look any different from its PS4 counterpart.

Everything else is the same as the PS4 as well. The initial load time when you start the game up is a good 20 seconds, but once you’re in-game, it is lightning-fast. Stages you’ve already cleared take around 1-2 seconds to load and even new stages only take 3 or 4 seconds to begin their pre-stage story scenes. It’s really quite impressive.

No complaints about the frame-rate, either. Item Worlds play through very smoothly and I encountered no performance issues or crashing from start to finish.

Battery Life

This is something you’ll love. Given that Disgaea 5 is a 2D game, technically, I was expecting some crazy Battery Life, and I was right to expect that. Here is what I got, from 100% to 0%:

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 5 hours, 00 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 5 hours, 16 minutes
Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 6 hours, 48 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 6 hours, 57 minutes

As expected, you’re getting a ton of Battery Life out of D5C. The only game I’ve recorded thus far that exceeds this game’s battery life is Kamiko, and by less than an hour more. 5-7 hours is huge amounts of Battery Life.