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.