2064: Not A ROM Hack

You thought visual novels were only for weebs and horny teens. Believe it or not, you'd be wrong in that assumption. A while back I found a truly hidden gem; 2064: Read Only Memories. In this game you play as the average broke-ass Joe who probably just got out of living with their parents, when suddenly a robot breaks into your run down apartment and asks you for help because some guy you knew back in college or whatever disappeared. Travel around a city in the year 2064 where technology is everywhere racism is at its finest because furries can actually be furry and people are confused if its moral or if its a breach of humanity.

How exactly does the game work, you might ask? Is it super sci-fi or political or adventure or what? Allow me to answer those questions the best I can.

The game is mostly a visual novel, but does have some point-and-click puzzles. I don't really have anything else to say regarding the mechanics, as that's really it. You click through dialogue, click dialogue options, click things in a certain order, et cetera. Not really that complex. Don't get me wrong, this game has plenty of action and suspense, the plot is really good. It's not even something that takes a while to actually pick up, like Steins;Gate or Psycho Pass: Mandatory Happiness. Honestly, the plot has something for everyone. Politics, sci-fi, cyberpunk, action, adventure, city wandering (apparently thats a genre?), all that tasty stuff.

Now, I've pretty much explained why the game is amazing, but maybe I should touch on some reasons to stay away. First off, pixel graphics. Some people don't really like the aesthetic. I love it, but I'm not judging. Second off, voice acting. Some people don't like voice acting either. Also, some of the plot can be either obvious or tedious. But really, it's not that often at all.

I also forgot to mention this game has multiple endings, for those of you who dig that. I'm pretty impartial to it. That's really all the replayability you get. There's somewhat of a 'postgame', but it's really just going around the city and talking with all the people you've met along the way to see how they're doing. Other than that, there's a few easter eggs here and there.

So, 2064: Read Only Memories. My verdict? Definite 9/10. I kinda wish it sucked just so that I could give it a verdict of 20/64, but hey, it's a pretty awesome game, I'm not complaining in the slightest. So yeah, go play it, its fun. Unless you don't like visual novels. Then uh, maybe don't.

Fortified Nuts

I should have done this when the game was still relevant, but I saw a discord notification and was reminded of this game's existence and thought, "Why not review this one?" And so I went with it. You've more than likely heard of Fortnite. It's a game that got really popular back in about late 2017, and somehow is still generally popular today. Most of the time, I'm deterred from big bandwagon games such as this. However, as it bragged a low low price of free, I went ahead and checked it out after a bit of peer pressure from friends. I played a few rounds and uninstalled the game about a half hour later or so. 

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, whether you be very old or from the distant future of like 2070 something, allow me to explain what Fortnite is. It's a third person shooter game that focuses on a Battle Royale style of gameplay, and boasts a unique mechanic of being able to build things in battle. I don't mean like, crafting weapons, I mean like building walls and stairs and traps and such. Now, you're probably thinking that there's a reason this game got so big and popular, right? Well, if there is one, I can't see it. The game's UI is an absolute hellscape, being more of a mess to navigate than an overly complex RPG. It makes Apple's UI look simple. You'd think that the game would make up for the terrible UI in gameplay, right? Wrong. It follows basic shooting and driving and moving and whatnot, but the building mechanic is implemented terribly. The building and the shooting do not mix. I applaud anyone who managed to jam together such different and polarizing aspects to be good at the game. You have to swap menus from a combat menu to a building menu, switch to your breaking tool, whack enough stuff to give you enough resources to go into a submenu bigger than the original menu itself and go through a whole mess of things to find the correct thing you want to build with the correct resource. This probably could have been implemented way better if the UI wasn't a dumpster fire.

Now, obviously, I have to give credit where credit is due. When it comes to the combat alone, they did a good job. Rarity of items is color coded, it's easy to understand what items are, the Storm mechanic allows the game to not drag on, and the camera/replay mode is really neat. Ah, I should have explained earlier, the Storm is, well, a storm, that continues growing larger, causing the eye of the storm to shrink, which causes the battle area to shrink, which ultimately keeps the combat going until a winner is decided. The replay camera is one of my favorite things about this game, something I wish more games had as a matter of fact. Because of how the game records its replays, you can watch your replay in a multitude of ways. You can watch it in first person, you can watch it in third person, you can freely control the camera to look in places you weren't looking at during your actual play, it's just cool. And keep in mind, it records the entirety of the match, so you can watch from beginning to end, rewind, fast forward, pause, all that great stuff.

Alas, the replay camera does not make up for all of the games shortcomings. With a terrible UI forcing the game to merge two separate mechanics into a gross confusing mess, I'm afraid Fortnite will result in an overall score of 4/10. 

Danged Grandpa: The Second One

Puhuhu, Danganronpa is back. Well, not really, but it is here. Now, I'd like to say that this does a great job of being a sequel. Not only does it tie in with the first game in a great manner, but it does an excellent job of staying true to its vibe while presenting a fresh new feel. This time, you're on an island, you have a new fresh cast of characters (but someone returns?), and there's a monokuma bunny? It's some pretty fun and wacky stuff, but don't get me wrong, it definitely still retains and reeks heart destroying despair.

Now, I'm going to assume that you've played the first Danganronpa, for two reasons. One, this game is a story based game, so if you're looking to play this game, you should REALLY have played the first game. Second off, I don't want to explain the majority of the mechanics again. However, I'm aware some of you (like me) started off the games in Danganronpa 2 after watching the anime adaptation of the first one. So, I would highly recommend you take a look at my review for the first game so you get a general understanding of the mechanics. That being said, there are a few changes:

Hangman's Gambit is changed

NO MORE PURPLE WORDS!!

A tamagotchi minigame?

An extra bonus beat-em-up mode

Allow me to explain the changes. Hangman's Gambit is no longer a "wait for the letter and shoot at it until you destroy it". Instead, letters will float across the screen in a single direction, and you have to merge at least 2 of the same letters in order to be able to put them in the answer box. However, you have to be careful, as if two different letters combine, you'll lose some influence (basically your life meter, for those who are new). You can pick up one letter at a time, and place it anywhere you like, where it will continue in its direction. Once a letter is merged, you can destroy it, let it sit there until it fades away, or you can send it to the answer box.

This tamagotchi minigame is basically a pedometer that you have to check frequently. The pet will often poo, and you have to clean up its poo to gain hope, but if you let the poo sit there, the pet gains despair. There's a bunch of different evolutions your pet can evolve into, each leaving a different gift if you successfully raise it to its departure.

This extra beat-em-up mode is unlocked after beating the game, in which you play as the monokuma bunny, and circle your enemies with a rainbow beam thing. Doing that kills them, or, at least does damage, as not everything wil be a OHKO, bosses do exist. It's pretty fun, it can be quite challenging at times, and it'll give you a good extra couple hours of play if you enjoy the mode or are a trophy/achievement hunter.

You may be asking me about the story, and if it's good or not. Of course, this is all purely opinionative, but I feel that Danganronpa 2 has an amazing storyline, revealing a bunch more crazy shit, adding on stuff to the old game, and surprising you with more crazy plot twists. The game doesn't have the traditional escalation in mysteries like the first game did, but it definitely pulls its weight. You may think the first few trials kinda suck though. Two reasons for that. One, you're used to the original crazy shit that the first installment threw at you, and its hard to go down from that. Second, well, that's a story reason, and I think it's up to you to figure that one out. I would also like to say that the latter half of the trials MORE than make up for any lacklusterness from the first three. In my personal opinion, this game had the BEST trial in a danganronpa game.

A few slight alterations I should mention. The way skills are acquired are a bit different. Hanging out with people gives you a currency which you can buy skills with. Maxing out their bond unlocks skills. The school mode (or Island Mode as this game calls it) is also slightly different in that you no longer work for one product, but multiple smaller products. Plus, the monomono machine now has a vending machine too, so you can purchase specific gifts.

Overall, Danganronpa 2 gets a 9/10 from me. A truly amazing follow up to the first game, excellent story, mechanics are improved, more content, amazing soundtrack.

XCOM 2 Review

Hoo boy. This is one review that's way past due. This is the first time I haven't come up with anything witty to say in the title. What could possibly have caused that? Could it be that XCOM 2 is one of the greatest games of all time? Could it be that XCOM 2 is one of the worst games of all time? Or could it be that XCOM 2 isn't really the type of name I can really come up with a good pun for? Find out at the end of this review.

NOTE: Currently only reviewing the vanilla version of the game, which means this review does not include anything regarding the DLC.

If you're just a normal peruser of this blog and didn't click here for a review of XCOM 2, you're probably wondering what the hell I'm talking about. XCOM 2 is a grid-based strategy game in which you command a squadron of soldiers to fight against the aliens which have taken over the government, known as ADVENT. This game features a good chunk of soldier customization options, a diverse variety of enemies, extremely difficult/tense/rewarding situations, a pretty cool storyline, resource management, and even a multiplayer mode. Overall, I'm a HUGE sucker for this game. Sci-fi/alien/space stuff is super cool to me, combine that with strategy, soldier customization, a war-like feeling for the combat scenario, and boy golly do you have a dream game for me.

So, how exactly is this game played? Well, the bulk of the game comes from the grid-based combat missions. But, I'd like to start by explaining what you do in your off-time. When you're not wrapped up in another epic or brutal mission against ADVENT forces, you spend your time aboard the XCOM ship, known as the Avenger. During this, you can view a map of the earth, where you can scan areas for items such as supplies, intel, soldiers, weapon upgrades, etc. When not passing time on the map waiting for your loot or a mission to arrive, you can utilize those items to craft facilities on the ship, build items, assign research to acquire upgrades and/or more items to build, as well as view your line-up of soldiers. Your main goal is working against the clock to stop the 'AVATAR project'. ADVENT is building facilities dedicated to research and progress for the project, they're attacking resistance havens, your soldiers are dying, you're low on resources, and it can be a really difficult and stressful experience a good amount of the time. However, I would like to make a personal note that the AVATAR project is not as much of a time limit as it initially seems. You may be a single block away from the AVATAR project finishing, and you don't have any access to any missions to revert its progress. That's perfectly okay. Once the AVATAR meter is full, a secondary countdown begins, showing how much time you have left until the game is over. In that time, you need to unlock and complete a mission that will delay the project. So, even though the game is basically the Dark Souls of strategy games, this time limit isn't as much of impending doom as it seems (don't worry anxiety squad, we got you covered).

During missions, which will occur during passing time via viewing the global map, you select a group of soldiers, which starts at 4 (however, you can build a facility to upgrade this to a max of 6 soldiers), select equipment, and wait for a good while for the mission to load. For each entity's turn, you get a max of 2 actions. You can move, shoot, throw grenades, use items, use a special class action (Oh yeah, I forgot to talk about the class system. That'll be next.), etc. Some actions will end your turn as soon as you use them (such as shooting or throwing grenades), and some don't even take an action (opening doors, hacking the objective). Your movement range is defined by a blue outline, but you can dash (use both actions to move) anywhere in the yellow outline, which is shown when moving your cursor out of the blue outline. One extremely crucial factor in XCOM 2 combat is cover. Always be in cover. XCOM 2 is also nice enough to show you where is covered, and where is a flanked position. Blue shields represent cover (full shield or half shield), meanwhile red means it's flanked, which could allow a sneaky alien to land a very deadly blow on your soldier. Combat scenarios are always interesting, as they can feature a wide variety of enemies, and you can have a wide variety of soldiers, and the environments are randomly generated, leaving every mission fresh, at least to a degree. There's nothing quite like it.

I mentioned a class system in the previous paragraph. XCOM 2 doesn't just give you generic "shoot the alien" soldier, because, frankly, that's boring. XCOM 2 gives over 5 different classes, each with a skill tree. Or, well, skill... web? I dunno, that's besides the point. When your soldier ranks up from rookie to squaddie (level 1 to level 2), they are randomly assigned a class from 4 choices. Each time they rank up after that, you're given a choice between 2 abilities to add to that soldier, each side kinda correlating with a different playstyle for that class. For example, the specialist class is very similar to the basic rookie setup, except for the addition of a little robot friend. The main upgrade paths are ones more geared towards a medical/support version, while the other is more focused on a combat oriented path. Now, why only select from 4 classes, when there's 5 classes? How do you get this 5th class? Well, you need to do a bit of research, build a facility, and then select a rookie soldier to train for that class specifically. Which reminds, me, if you really don't want a soldier's fate to be left to random number generation, you can always build a facility that lets you train soldiers in a class from the traditional 4, very similar to the way you get the 5th class, minus the research and all that, of course. This works great for either if you're low on a certain class and you need to stockpile some more of them, or for roleplaying purposes, where the character based off that one friend would definitely be a specialist, and not an up-front-and-personal class.

And that really just leaves multiplayer. There's not much to say about the multiplayer mode, as it's basically a mission, except the goal is eliminate the enemy player's forces. You can create a multitude of loadouts, featuring not only specialized and fully upgraded soldiers, but you can also play as the aliens. Aw yeah. Each alien/soldier is given a point value, in accordance to how difficult they are in a fight. The most basic ADVENT trooper is going to have a much lower point value than, say, a giant mechanical psychic octopus thing.

What would make XCOM 2 a not worthwhile purchase? After all, I regard it as my favorite game of all time. But, not everything is for everyone. If you aren't a fan of alien or sci-fi stuff, this already should be a huge initial turn-off. The game is also quite unforgiving, even on the 'easy' mode, so if you're looking for a more casual experience, this game is probably not for you. However, I will say, the game has a definite 'reverse difficulty curve'. So it initially may be pretty daunting, but play the same campaign enough, and you'll have yourself a jolly old time killing aliens.

Overall, I'd give this game a 10/10. Definitely pick it up if it looks interesting, even if you're on the fence about it being hard. It's such a worthwhile experience, and I'm definitely going to be playing it for many years.




UPDATE: Sorry that I've been super inactive. I promise, I'm trying to write more reviews, it's just hard to manage all the stuff in life. I'm going to get better at managing it one day, hopefully that day will be soon. Thanks for sticking with me on this guys, be sure to stay tuned for more reviews in the future.

Life Update

Hey guys, I know no one reads this blog anyways, but if you were wondering about the over a month gap, it's because work and depression and such got caught up and life has been busy. I just haven't really had a good time to sit down and write reviews. However, I'm hoping I'll finally have a streak of at least month of consistent posts.

Tomorrow, I may be getting a fourth cat. Crazy shit, I know. I don't plan on a new catto getting in the way of blog writing, so do not fret. In fact, I may start writing stuff ahead of time so I dont have to take the time to write it all in one sitting when a post is due and I'm late to post. Honestly, I really just need to be more productive with my life. Video games and sleeping and eating is fun, sure, but I should do something when I get bored of those things too, something like writing or making music. I have links to my stuff somewhere here I think, so if you're interested you can go ahead and check that stuff out.

If you took the time to read all of this, ya cool ;D

Generic Shooter Game #12

The 12th installation in the ever growing franchise of generic shooting: Call of Duty Black Ops 3. I got this game almost a year or so ago at this point, and only recently have I gathered enough desire to play through all the modes - Campaign, Zombies, Multiplayer. I'll be reviewing each of these aspects, showing that even being generic shooting, it's surprisingly not that bad.

Note: I will be reviewing the BASE GAME ONLY. No DLC. So if the DLC makes the game insanely better, I wouldn't know, and I don't have the money to put into this to figure it out.

The first thing I did when I got this game was mess around with the multiplayer mode. It surprisingly wasn't just "pick guns, pick game mode", there's also a sort of class system, which took me by surprise. There are a good few different classes, maybe around 10 or so, each with 2 different abilities. The ability you choose for your 'specialist' is charged up over the game until you get enough power or whatever to use it, unleashing a unique and helpful ability. Of course, only about 3 specialists are available to select from to start, and to unlock other abilities/specialists you need to get an unlock token from playing the game. Overall, it's pretty neat. Lots of different game modes (even though theres only 1 or 2 that have a decent amount of players lol), the mobility is pretty fun (wall running and little thrusters in your boots for a double-jump-esque mechanic), and the maps are surprisingly memorable. As someone who much prefers bright colorful Nintendo over dark and grey shooters, the multiplayer mode of CoD Bo3 is surprisingly fun.

Zombies is the first mode of a call of duty game I ever played. I and a friend or two went around and shot some zombies in the face, I dubbed myself the 'Window Repairman', and it was a good time. I don't know what game it was, but I think it was black ops 2. Now, in Black Ops 3, you're given 1 map if you don't have any dlc. This map... well, frankly, I quite dislike it. It's extremely hard to traverse/very easy to get lost in, the color palette makes everything look the same gross color (once again contributing to the constant "where am i" feeling), and overall, the map ruins the fun of shooting zombies and repairing barriers. There's a bunch of 'rituals' or whatever secrets in the map you can do, but they aren't remotely interesting at all. Honestly, I don't think there's a worse map I've played.

Last but not quite least is the campaign mode. I went into it thinking it'd be really boring and just shooty shoot shoot and war and whatever. However, I forgot to take one thing into account: this game takes a somewhat futuristic setting, allowing for robots and such, which is a fun addition, especially given the fact you can unlock abilities that allow you to mess with the majority of them in different ways. That was probably the most fun for me, turning the robots against themselves and having my very own robot buddy travel with me on to the next checkpoint. The story itself wasn't all that bad either, something about a CIA project that was unlawful or something, yadda yadda yadda, something about traitors, you get the idea (maybe). It wasn't anything super exciting or anything, but it was nice to not be bored out of my mind while beating it for trophy hunting. Hell, I even got excited at a few parts. The characters actually become half memorable too, which is something you don't expect from a generic shooter.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. Multiplayer was fun, Campaign wasn't as bad as I expected, however the Zombies mode kinda sucked this time around. I give this game a rating of 7/10. It's surprisingly not shit, in fact, actually pretty good sometimes, but it's still not worthy of being a 'good' game. It's just.. alright. It exists. It's decently fun. Maybe get it if you have some spare cash on you and you wanna check out a shooter game. I dunno, do what you want with your money.

One Time Dilemma

You may have heard of Danganronpa, one of the best franchises to ever exist, but did you know that the creators behind Danganronpa have another lesser known gem of a series? Introducing Zero Escape, a trilogy of games focused on murder, puzzles, and theories about the human mind that will cause your own to explode. The way I discovered this series was through the steam queue, where I was recommended a game called Zero Time Dilemma. After looking through the reviews, I learned this game actually had 2 predecessors. Not wanting to buy and play this without having played the other two, I removed it from my wishlist, forgetting to put the predecessors in its stead. Then one fateful day at the mall, my girlfriend found the first 2 games just by chance. Then yaddah yaddah yaddah, here we are. I've just finished Zero Time Dilemma, and am now ready to review it for you.

As I've said before, these games are murder mysteries with a great story and a lot of puzzles. The games revolve on a visual novel engine, and have lots of choices you can make throughout the game which alters your path through the story. The final game of the wonderful mindfucking trilogy has received mixed reviews. This could be because the animations are... incredibly lackluster, the storyline puts the rest of the games in a really weird limbo of contradiction but also not contradiction. Plus, it takes the term 'game flow' and throws it out the window, as you play the game in fragments. The rest of the game stays similar to the franchise, puzzles, occasional typos, murder, etc. So, what makes the game good, and what makes it bad?

To start off, if you don't like anime or visual novels, don't buy this game. It's not a dating simulator, so don't fret if you're worried that's what it is.
Another thing about the game is the graphics. After playing the first games, you may be thinking that they've improved upon the weird animations from VLR, or have returned to the anime style from 999. You would be very deterred from the game, as the animations return in CGI, with even choppier movements. No lip syncing with the voice acting, no fluidity of movement. Honestly, I'd bet money that the only thing they worked on was boob physics, and even then it's still quite unnatural and choppy. Yes, I may have forgotten to mention that the creators of this game actively encouraged rule 34 material, so if constant boob jiggling makes you uncomfortable when you're just trying to play a murder mystery game, maybe wait for a sale, or buy it used or something, because there's a lot more of it than necessary.
Of course, as I've mentioned before, the fragmentation of the gameplay makes the story extremely hard to follow, with you having to check on the flow chart after practically every fragment just to figure out when something happened. Your choices barely matter at this point, throwing the whole decision part practically out the window. It makes for a major disappointment, especially considering how well VLR did in this aspect.
Other than that, the game overall is quite boring until you get around halfway in and plot points start revealing themselves. Plus, there were some knots that could have been tied together better.

So, what did the game do right? Unpopular to common opinion, I personally loved the story AND the ending. The way it was presented was a little sloppy, but the twists were amazing, even if a bit weird sometimes. So even if you do get bored, go ahead and take a break to play something interesting, but do keep in mind that this game is 100% worth playing all the way through.
I also personally enjoyed the escape rooms a lot in this game, they kept true to the franchise, even if it felt a teensy bit different.

Overall, this game gets an 8/10 from me. Great story with great puzzles, but the presentation was just a bit sloppy. However, once you get past that, it becomes an amazing experience. Definitely an ending to a franchise that is worth your time.

This Is Not The Police

I should have figured that not every game was going to be a hidden gem, but my gut said otherwise. I was at gamestop one day, going through some games because I had some cash to spare and I wanted to spruce up my selection. One game I hadn't heard of before caught my attention, This Is The Police. It looked like it might be pretty neat, so I decided to pick it up to see what it was about. I regretted that decision so much that practically the very next day I returned it and got the Mega Man collection instead.

So, what exactly is This Is The Police? It's a management sim with minimalist graphics and heavy story elements. You play as a corrupt police officer who works with the mafia to accumulate 500k before retiring in 180 days. You have to use your minimal staff and resources to do your best to protect the city as well as profit.

What makes this game good? Well, it has a decent soundtrack, you can purchase vinyls with the in-game currency for music to listen to while managing your force. Of course, there's only a few that are really quite good, but I have a weird taste in music, and you might find a lot more pleasure from the tracks than I do.
Other than the music, the feeling of having your own squadron to control and dispatch on plentiful missions to stop crime is a great euphoria. Of course, this may just be a me thing, some people might find the limited staff quite stressful at many times.

Sounds like an alright game so far, what makes it so bad? Well, the story is... lackluster. To put it bluntly, it's boring and bland. I honestly can't find any words to put together to describe it. There's some weird subplot of your wife cheating on you or something, and you frequent a strip bar where you meet a lot of mafia members, but other than that, that's really all there is to the story. Maybe I'm just not far enough or something, but I've tried and tried to progress through the story, but it's just so boring. It's a real deterrent to the game, especially since it relies so heavily on its story.
Other than that, well, as I've said, it can be unnecessarily stressful, especially when a lot of it comes down to RNG. The management aspect of the game should be meant to be strategic, but it doesn't feel like you're making decisions to strategize to the best advantage. It feels like you're doing whatever you can to have RNG always work in your favor.

Overall, I'd give this game a 4 out of 10. It has it's moments, it has a few good things, but overall, it's a bland game that deters me so much that even the fun parts become a chore.

Growing Trees Is Surprisingly Fun

You've probably never heard of this game. But it's good, and you should play it. What's it called? It's called Photosynthesis. What is it? It's a game about growing trees and fucking over your friends by being a bigger tree than them, casting them into the eternal darkness of the void (until the sun rotates next turn), and overall just having a good time enjoying being a tree hive-mind. 

So, why should you play this game? How do you play? Should I play it if I don't like trees? All these questions shall be answered.

Photosynthesis is mainly an area control game, as well as sort of a resource management game. To win the game, you must have the most points at the end of 3 (or 4) full rotations of the sun. To do that, you must plant trees, grow them, and score them once they're big enough. To do those things, you'll need the games currency: light points. How do you get light points? You grow trees, and have the trees touch the sunlight. So overall, a simple cycle. Trees = money = more trees = points. Of course, there is a lot of strategic elements such as how to spend your money, where to place your trees, when to score them, etc. But it is much more of a casual game than expected. You can gather your family or a few friends and force them to play a game about trees, and although strategy is an important part of the game, you can still have fun even if you're miserably losing and surrounded by everyone's giant trees.

What are some reasons that would be a good idea to not spend money on this? Well, if you don't like board games or nature. That's really the only thing I can think of. If you like playing games, buy it. If you like nature, buy it. It may not be a hardcore nature based game with all sorts of facts and biological accuracy, but look at all the pretty colors and the squirrels. I don't know, just buy it, it's the same price as pokemon sun and moon, and everyone should know those games sucked. If you've got 40 bucks to spend on a relatively 'big' purchase, go ahead and yoink this game, it's worth it.

Hey, sorry I missed last week's review, I may or may not have been really busy with work. Normally I'll get it done before work or during a break, but last week was scouring a huge building to take out ALL the trash. And even after scouring the building, we still missed a bunch. Still, not here to give excuses, just here to apologize. Not like anyone reads these haha.

Amazing Games And Horrible Puns Are Always Out There... Somewhere

One of my favorite undiscovered gems is called Out There Somewhere, as you could probably guess by the name. I found this beauty while perusing steam during one of its amazing sales, and happened to stumble upon this game at quite the nice price, so I picked it up. When I got around to playing it, which I'm honestly not sure when, it was pretty fun. Albeit relatively short, it definitely provides a fun experience, with even a little bit of replayability.

So, what is this game about? You're a space explorer who has been shot down and crash landed on an unknown planet, and now you must traverse the planet to find a way to fix it so you can get back to your journey. The gameplay itself is mostly puzzle platforming, with a bit of enemy combat and 2 sequences of mild bullet hell, one at the very beginning, and one at the very end. Very nice soundtrack, fun puzzles, challenging boss fight, overall just a great quick game.

As for the replayability aspect I mentioned earlier, this is mainly for collecting a few secrets, doing achievement hunting, or speedrunning. Some people may not find any of these replay worthy, but I know that these things can definitely be quite a value.

The best part about the game however? Well, you'll have to play to find out. That's something I won't spoil for you. However, it is a line that is worth the full price of the game.

Dang And Grandpa

Do you like mysteries? Do you like anime? Do you like psychotic teddy bears and death? Then I have the game for you. Introducing... Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. Danganronpa is a game where a bunch of high school students find themselves trapped in a school, with some psychotic teddy bear pulling the strings and making them kill each other. Pretty fun premise, right? What if I told you it gets even better?

Danganronpa is a franchise consisting of about 4 games plus an anime, which I plan on reviewing all eventually. So we start (naturally) at the beginning, with the first installment, Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. This game has a lot of ups, but it does have some downs. I'll be describing its mechanics, the story, and then, well, anything else that doesn't really fit in.

So, what is this game really? How do you play? To answer your question, it's mostly a visual novel, with the occasional puzzle and other mystery-themed minigames. The game has mainly 2 parts: the story part, and the trial part. The story part consists of the aforementioned visual novel style, while as the trial part does have some of that, the core of it is something different.

What are class trials? Put simply, they are trials which the students attend (involuntarily) to figure out who the killer is. Every chapter contains a killer (otherwise where would the story be?), and your job is to find who it is via the trials. The main mechanic here is a game where words will fly across the screen, and you have to find the correct weak point to shoot with the correct bullet. At its roots, it's pretty simple, however some of these mysteries can take a bit of brainpower to solve, and sometimes you'll end up just looking it up or just trying every possible combo. There are a few other mini-modes in the trials, however, which are a fill-in-the-blank comic, a rythym game, and a... spelling game. Obviously, not the best selection minus maybe the rythym one, but it works, as the comic has some fun art in it, and the spelling game... well, maybe not for that one.

So, for those who are curious, how is the story itself? It is a story based game after all, so buying it if it has a sucky plot would pretty much be a waste of money. Fear not, for this game has an excellent plot and shows outstanding execution of the story mountain. The setting is described quite well with a quick but interesting prologue, as you get to learn about this fascinating world that contains people with extraordinary talents. The action in the game does a great job of building up for the climax, each trial better than the last, with even crazier plot twists. Even the introductory trial has a pretty neat twist! The climax is definitely great, with an epic final battle with the main antagonist, solving many of the games presented questions with outrageous, absolutely crazy answers. The falling action definitely does its job of, well, leading everyone to the resolution, which is a great finish for the game, yet leaves you with a few minor questions, that will, of course, be discovered in later installments.

What about the rest of the game? The characters are quite the cast, each with their own unique personality, backstory, views, and secrets. How about a secret mode where instead of killing each other, you micro manage all the students in a weird little rpg/dating mode? It even has quite a fair amount of replayability, as it will take a while to actually complete it all the way through. Extras, you say? With the in game Monocoins you get, you can also purchase some of your favorite tracks, art, clips, events, and more!

So, I said Danganronpa had some bad. And it's true. However, it's only one thing. But its bad enough to put a damper on the whole experience. Allow me to rant.

Fuck purple words. Taking time out of my reading to press buttons, go through the same dialogue MULTIPLE times, and fucking like, it's just so tedious to always do. It practically ruins the first chapter because they use it SO FUCKING MUCH. If it's a story game, and I'm supposed to know the information anyways, don't hide it behind some stupid button press other than the main button. It's not even for like  multiple endings, or different paths. It's a stupid hurdle that blocks your progress.

They removed the purple words in later games so thank god. Overall, great game, 8/10 needs less purple words.

The Final Album In The Starbomb Trylogy

Starbomb finally released their new (and unfortunately probably final) album after over 5 years. And I have to say, it's pretty damn good. However, something has arisen that was even a shock to me. The Tryforce is actually the worst starbomb album out of their 3 album discography. Crazy, right? Allow me to explain.

The Tryforce is one of Starbomb's most mixed bags of jams to this day. Their debut album was fucking tasty as fuck, with their worst songs only being moderately average. Their second album was definitely a sequel, introducing new concepts and a new span of games to sing and joke about. In some aspects, this amplified the humor and tastiness, but in other aspects it hurt the album as a whole. And now, 5 years later, we arrive here. Despite the fact this is the worst Starbomb album of the 3, The Tryforce brought out some of the best ever songs in the entire Starbomb discography, such as Vegeta's Serenade. Unfortunately, other aspects made the album's overall quality somewhat... diminished.

What made the album end up being bad? It was one of the top selling albums on the itunes store, how could it have been bad? Short answer: it wasn't bad. Just because it's worse in comparison to something else doesn't mean it's bad. So why am I saying it was the worst? Time to finally explain in a lot more detail.

One of the core aspects of Starbomb's songs is the humor, which is often found in the lyrics. This album has the worst case of any starbomb song in the music-louder-than-the-lyrics-itis. Take, for example, Filling In The Name Of. When you first listen to it, you can barely understand what's going on until the music stops completely and you overhear the word 'Tetris'. Cool, it's a Tetris song. But what even is going on? Unless you have amazing lyric deciphering skills, or you google the lyrics, you probably won't have a clue. When you do get it, it's pretty humorous. But until then, its just a lot of noise. This would be excusable if this noise was tasty, which it isn't.

Some of the main features you'll always find in a Starbomb album are an intro and outro. This usually involves Arin making a goofy rap, and making some jokes as they talk to their fans. The intro was... not that great. The finish of the "Butts Are Nuts" rap was really disappointing. Along with that, the humor from all other intros and outros was almost nonexistant. The outro, was once again, kinda disappointing, for the same exact reasons.
Another recurrence is the Simple Plot song. And I just have to ask, how could they do this to Talking Video Games? These are normally the BEST songs on the albums, being an extremely tasty and ear pleasing combination of music, jokes, arin's raps, and dan's harmonic choruses. This... had none of that. The jokes were ok at best, the choruses were lacking, and the main singing wasn't great either, nor was the music itself. The best thing about the song was jerking off into pancakes. Other than that, all the humor was, like I said, just... okay.

One final aspect of Starbomb was introduced back in Player Select, and that would be the short comedy skits. The ones from the first one contained a bit of music, even if there wasn't that much, and were pretty funny. The ones from The Tryforce were terrible. And it hurts me to bash one of my favorite bands like this, but the two skits from this album flat out sucked. The first one was extremely repetitive, no music, and only about 6/10 humor. The second one was just arin rapping. There wasn't humor. Normally, that's not a problem, but this is a comedy band. Plus, rap without music just kinda sucks. Sure, the rap itself was pretty ok, but... I highly doubt it was a good enough concept to be on the album. There were so many other things it could be, tastier, funnier, but no, they stuck with this.

Also, the lady who was featured in This Song Sucks and Hardest Fucking Game In The World really decreased the quality of those songs. 'Sexy music' did NOT set the mood, in fact it did quite the opposite, it turned me off to the entire album for a quick while, thinking this was how the entire album was going to be. And I really didn't need to hear her moan. Twice.

Ok, I've mentioned plenty of reasons why The Tryforce lacked badly in some areas. Now, here are the reasons why it's still pretty great.

Vegeta's Serenade. A perfect and beautiful harmony of jokes, Arin's singing, Dan's singing, and instruments. I don't often give out a 10/10 to anything, except when I jokingly do so for a quick dumb laugh or whatever with some friends. But this song, this fucking masterpiece deserves it. I'm honestly really sad that this may be Starbomb's final release, because I loved how pleasing Arin's voice was in this. Normally, he raps. This time, he sung, and it was fucking amazing. Please, Starbomb, I need more of that. The world needs more of that.

TWRP helped in the production of this album, and it helped a fuck ton. Welcome to the Mario Party was actually really good thanks to them (plus Arin's tasty rapping, surprisingly well pulled off, not usually a fan of that kind of rapping), as well as how they saved the Intro a bit. Other than that, I didn't discern any super noticable places where TWRP made it clear they did that part or whatever, so I can't give that many specific mentions to them, but they did great.

And just, overall, anything that I haven't mentioned specifically was up to usual starbomb standards: pretty tasty. And yes, I'm including Donkey Kong Joonyer. Everyone seems to hate this song, but I found it pretty funny and pretty tasty. The instruments in this album really went next level, from the chorus of Blowing the Payload to the introduction of the newest pokemon Saxuffalo.

So, overall, The Tryforce was a less than average album, due to its grab bag feel. However, where they didn't fail, they succeeded pretty damn well, leaving it to not suck as an album. I'm gonna miss you, Starbomb. I wish for your return.

Sorry for the late post, it's been crazy with robotics and school and work and everything, to a point I almost forgot this existed. I'm going to try to do better at staying active here. Sorry again, and I hope you enjoyed my review.

A Memory Lane I Never Knew I Had

Do you love music that brings you back to the good old days? Music that's pleasing to the ears and the soul? Music that intertwines the line of beauty and rock? Music that is Japanese? I'm really hoping that last one doesn't turn you off. Still, even if it does, please, give this band a listen, it's extremely worth it.

This masterpiece of a band is called Ivy to Fraudulent Game, and it will blow your ears off and start blowing them. It's that amazing. This band has brought me back to the times of 3rd grade gym class, an amazing summer I don't even think happened yet, my uncle's funeral, and places I can't even begin to describe. This music is truly a work of art, and will take you on a journey through time itself, bringing you through your fondest memories and memories you have yet to experience.

Please, go and listen to Ivy. It is an experience you will not regret. And even if it doesn't end up working its magic on you, it's at least some bomb-ass tunes.

Apologies for the short hiatus for those who follow, I've been busy with work and school and all those fun things. I'm trying to get back into doing some of this stuff, and I think now is a good time to merge into it. Thanks for sticking around.

Unchart Me Daddy

Uncharted is basically what you get when Sony makes sweet sweet love to Indiana Jones. Filled with a bunch of conveniently placed climbable objects and hiding spots, it's quite the adventure.

What makes Uncharted good? The writing is above average, providing some good hearty chuckles once in a while, as well as some good story. The gameplay is what you'd expect, jump around, find shit, shoot people when ya need to.

What's the bad parts? Well, not much if you like adventure games. For those of you who the concept of Uncharted isn't super appealing, you may struggle a bit to want to play. The major thing that would be considered bad is that the controls can be a bit clunky. Let's say you're trying to hide behind a sniper, but you need to leave cover for a quick bit to pick up a bit more ammo. You exit cover, run over to the gun, and then press the cover button again. Unfortunately, this can sometimes contain you rolling around looking like an idiot while you take tons of bullets. This doesnt happen super often however, but when it does pop up it can range from mildly annoying to mildly infuriating.

Overall, Uncharted is an 8.5/10 in my book. Great writing, fun game, but wasnt the most intriguing until about the end, and the uncommon control kink can kill a few times too many.

Brick Breaker Breaks Me

I'm sure a lot of you have seen, heard of, or are aware of the existence of the style of game where you have a paddle, a ball, and break bricks of various colors with various power-ups. In fact, a good portion of you should know what I'm talking about, as there's been a recent resurgence of this style with a weird modern twist. Since there's a lot of those games, I'll try and be as specific as I possibly can. The title of this game is simply "Brick Breaker", sold on the PS4, Xbox 1, and the PC. I have found a link to the game I'm talking about on steam, so here it is: https://store.steampowered.com/app/539290/Brick_Breaker/
I imagine a lot of you probably haven't heard of this variation unless you really enjoy this style of game, you have PS Now, or something like that. That's probably because this version kinda sucks. A lot. Let me tell you why.

When you start up the game, the first thing you're going to notice is how god damn loud the game is. Naturally, you're going to go into the settings to turn down the sound. But wait, you can't do that, you can only turn it off. Same goes for sound effects and the voices that declare combos and speed. Luckily, if you're fortunate enough to be a PC user, you can use a sound mixer and turn down the application sound via that. But if you're a console user, you're fucked. Sure, you can turn your TV down, but still, why the fuck should I have to do something like that? I don't want to have to edit the sound outside the program, I shouldn't be forced to do that. That's a real upsetting lack of options. Already, you can tell the game isn't the most amazing game ever.

Since you're most likely playing a game like this on your own, you'll be faced with two options: survival and arcade. Arcade is a traditional set of levels that you can beat whenever you want, in order of course. Survival is just arcade, but all in a row. So, not much originality, and not much you can do if you're stuck on a seemingly impossible level. The paddle speed is quite fast compared to versions I've played before, not sure if it's normally this fast and I've just been playing child versions or something, but still, weirdly sensitive.

There are 2 other factors in the game other than the usual "ball bounce and break brick, move paddle", the combo and the speed. Combo is really not a factor or anything, it's just how long you can have the ball bounce without you needing to hit it with the paddle. Speed increases with how long the ball is still alive, going up to a max speed of x10. Which is really fuckin' fast. Normally, this isn't much of a problem. Most times, you have a reasonable gap in between the paddle and the area where the bricks are. Not in this game. The bricks are fucking forcing themselves upon your paddle, rubbing their bricky-ass bodies up against your poor paddle. This is an absolute mess when you're trying to deal with a x10 speed ball. Once again, this is based on my past experiences playing these types of games, so maybe this is the norm. Still, I'm more than quite certain that this is not the norm.

Now, as I am friendless, and wouldn't dare force anyone else to play this game with me, there is a multiplayer mode that I have not explored. From the bit I've seen in trailer videos, it looks similar to ice hockey, but with a brick wall that you have to destroy to score on the opponent. This actually seems like not that bad of a concept, and I might have a poor willing soul play this with me one day, possibly boosting the rating. I will edit this post with that new information if I ever do such a thing.

But, as of right now, this game is just a 4/10. It's not unplayable. It's certainly not good, however. Lack of options, sensitivity, and other factors make this game not that fun. Still, it's fun enough to be a good time killer, or if you're a masochist.

Boss Monster Is A Boss-Ass Game

Boss Monster has climbed high in my list of favorite games, almost outranking games such as Twilight Imperium IV. I'm here to tell you why you should or shouldn't buy and play this game, because it definitely is not for everyone.

Boss Monster is a card-based strategy game, focused around the nostalgic feel of retro video games. The theme is this: You and some other bosses are having a competition on who can make the best dungeon. If you can acquire 10 souls, you win. On the opposite hand, if you acquire 5 wounds, you lose. Most heroes count as just one soul/wound, but as the game progresses, you'll encounter the epic heroes, who count as two souls/wounds. You utilize the strategy of your available rooms and spells to try and win, either by killing heroes or wounding opponents.

For those of you who love strategical games, or card games, or even just like the premise, I can almost guarantee this is a good game for you. If you enjoy the base game, try out some expansions! I myself haven't personally played any expansions yet (mainly due to financial limitations), but I'm sure they're probably at the very least decent.

Some flaws to this game are the fact that as it may seem simple, it's a lot of stuff to handle on your first play. You really aren't aware of how limited your resources are, and how weak you are in comparison to the heroes early game. There also is a slight lack of advanced cards, making some of the level up abilities unfortunately useless. And, if you aren't a fan of this type of strategy, you probably aren't going to enjoy the game all that much.

Overall, this game is a solid 9/10. If you don't like strategy, this game most likely isn't for you, but that's ok, there are plenty of other games out there. But for those who do enjoy this time of game, I highly recommend giving this game a shot, it's one of the best out there.