Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs - Tanks seriously suck

This is another generic kickstarter game. Tactical TBS game, "comedic" storyline, pathetic main character, it basically checks every generic criteria for a kickstarter game these days. What makes this different from the others is that its actually fun to play. I was in awe at how fun this actually turned out to be. When I saw the trailer for this game I thought I was watching something from Wakfu, a tactical TBS MMO. The artstyle was similar and combat looked similar. Then it went into detail of everything else the game had to offer. Town building, choose your own adventure quests, personal bonds, multiple party members with unique skills, and a whole bunch of shit. I was hooked in and gave it a try right away.

Before we get into the details of the game we need to talk about the story and the main character. What is up with the sudden influx of loser protagonists. You start the game as Kay, a whiny punching bag loser who ends up being the heir of the House of Loren, the next in line to be king. You along with your two sisters, the younger Elaine who is a giant bubbly airhead and the older Gwendolyn, the grouchy haughty sister who is probably the only competent one of the family. She is basically in charge. Then there is Griffith the family servant/bodyguard who is all about justice, honor, and all that garbage. If this was another game he'd be the stereotypical main character. I know people want to avoid being generic heroic manly protagonists but now that there are a lot of loser protagonists it isn't very unique anymore. Either way as you progress the game the characters all grow. Kay actually isn't that bad compared to the beginning. The only issue I have with the main cast is you don't really see Elaine or Gwendolyn do much. They don't help you in combat and they're only around doing behind the scenes stuff. You don't even get to raise personal bonds with them. I'm not talking about incest or other weird shit but siblings definitely don't get along all the time.

What the hell is a personal bond. They are basically the social links from Persona. Every character has their own schedule at where they will be and what they will be doing. You can look up the calendar to see if they are available to hang out or they are away on leave or on a break. Spending time with someone will take an entire day. Since there is a time limit in the game as well as a set schedule, you should try and plan out in advance what you are doing. Monday I'll talk with Griffith, Tuesday I'll talk to Theo, Wednesday I'll hang out with Haksun. Then I'll go dungeon crawling on Thursday for 12 days. Shit like that. There are over a dozen people you are able to bond with and each person has 5 levels to their personal bond. Acquaintance, Buddy, Friend, Confidante, Admirer. Each level requires bond exp gained by spending time with them, picking the right choices in adventures or events. For example choosing to loot dead bodies during an event will drop your personal bond with several characters. These bonds all give bonuses depending on the person. Party member bonds will unlock skill morphs and skill traits. Personal bond with NPCs will usually give a bonus like extra DLC, Dilac the currency for the kingdom, gained from all sources to allowing the crafting of better gear. They will also unlock skill perks. This is a very good way to improve your team's fighting prowess. Your only gear is a weapon and 2 relics and leveling up adds small stat boosts. Each level will unlock a skill perk slot. Skill morphs change the effect of the skill in some way, usually for the better. They can take from 1 to 4 perk slots to use. While skill perks are just stat increases like damage boost, bonus accuracy, and like skill morphs also take anywhere from 1 to 9 slots. You'll end up with a max slot/level of 20 so pick and choose wisely what you want.

Outside personal bond you also have to manage your kingdom. Usually through the form of completing kingdom quests. You are given the time limit of two months to complete 5-7 kingdom quests. These can be done in any way you like. Constructing buildings is a kingdom quest, as is building bonds with many people. Crafting, fishing, you name it. Then there is the dungeons. Outside of the kingdom are a wide variety of dungeons. These take days to travel to and clearing out the dungeon will usually take a week or more. Inside the dungeon you have little action blocks you can progress through. A sword block means its a fight, an exclamation point is a choose your own adventure section, two speech bubbles is a rest area where you can resurrect fallen teammates. You must progress through the dungeon in order from block to block. If your teammate dies inside a dungeon they cannot be used again until you find a rest area. You cannot backtrack to a previous block so if you had to go though a rest area to another and someone died after then you're fucked. Hopefully your others can carry the slack. However the game is lenient, you can restart a battle with no penalty if you fuck up. Dungeons also have varying difficulty, from easy to moderate to difficult. Dungeons also need to be cleared in order like the dungeon blocks. You cannot do the dungeon behind the ones in front of you until you fully clear it. So the later dungeons in the far corners of the map are the hardest while the ones immediate to the castle are the easiest. However that is not the case as sometimes you find moderate level dungeons locked behind difficult ones. The game is well balanced if not a little easy near the end. Start off you might find yourself dying all the time and trying to get over the hump from easy to moderate dungeons will take awhile. But as soon as I unlocked the blacksmith and got a few bonds for skill perks it really started snowballing in power and I had no more problems with the game. You will still die if you fuck around and mess up. Its not walk in the park but you really shouldn't have any problems if you're min maxing your characters.

Combat is tactical turn based strategy. There really isn't much to say about it. There are a bunch of monsters they attack you, you move around the map in little cells and attack them and you win. You can bring up to 6 party members with you in a party and deploy 4 in a single battle. You can check the elements of enemies or skills to see who you should bring or replace for certain fights. A lot of ranged guys sniping you down? Don't bring fucker tanks, send in the assassins and destroy them. Bunch of fire trolls? Don't bring Aliss shes full fire, bring in Theo and have him rain ice on them since they have no ice resistance and will die in two hits. You might be thinking, what only four people at once in a single battle thats so little. Think about it, Final Fantasy Tactics only allowed you four to five people at a single battle too and everyone was fine with it. Each character comes with 5 skills that can be morphed in some way. The final one is always an ultimate with a long cooldown and cost authority points. Each turn you gain an authority point that can be saved and use for ultimates or used for a second turn, letting you move in kill someone and get out with an assassin or needing the extra turn to kill an opponent at low health. Its very flexible and is part of why the combat is so fun. Every character you have in unique, not just in personality, but their roles all differ from each other.

Kay - He is probably the strongest character in the game. He is the only healer. At the start he may feel weak. but once you get his skill morphs in he's the most powerful character. He has command, which can either Shield an ally for 20% of their health or Mark an enemy preventing the target from dodging. This should be morphed asap to ignore line of sight letting you heal allies while hiding behind walls and other safe spots. There is no way to heal in the game other than gaining shields which are permanent. He has a pistol shot and a basic slash attack, pretty garbage. Then he has the banner which gives all characters a 30% chance on the start of their turn to gain empower which is a 25% damage boost. With skill morph that chance becomes 100%. This thing should be dropped whenever its off cooldown and is the single strongest buff in the game. His ultimate is a 60% shield, and when morphed becomes 100% and reset all cooldown on the target to 0.

Griffith - The tank. Pure physical damage. He is slow, his attacks are weak, all he does is single target damage and he has a long range single target taunt. There is really no point using him after the initial few stages as he gets completely overshadowed by everyone. He does get a charge that lets him run in quicker but he just dies because he can't kill the enemy fast enough before he gets killed. His ultimate is even more trash. Its basically an execute letting you do bonus damage on targets below 40% health on a single target. Just no.

Signy - The assassin character. Shes probably my favorite character and one of the strongest. At first she ends up dying really quickly but later on her dodge gets so high that she becomes tankier than a tank as well as having the mobility and damage of an assassin. Her basic attack is a leap attack that does 60% of your weapon damage. It looks really weak at first until you realize that the leap hits all adjacent cells next to her. When morphed lets you ignore line of sight letting you hop over walls to assassinate targets and pounce out when done. Its both a strong mobility move and a good AoE move. Whirlwind does 90% lightning damage to all adjacent and diagonal cells next to her and apply sundered. Lowering their defense by 25%. Empower is a self buff that boosts damage and movement speed. When skill morphed this skill doesn't take a turn when you cast it so you can empower run in pounce into a pack of enemies, whirlwind, then pounce out. Savage roar does pure AoE damage, ignoring shields and causes enemies to panic. This forces them to run away. Her ultimate does 4 high damage hits to random enemies within a huge AoE. Its a good AoE attack and if the target is alone, as very powerful single target attack. Great debuffs, great damage, great AoE, great mobility, best overall character.

Aliss - Fire mage. Shes not amazing but she does have one skill that can make or break her character. She suffers from severe accuracy issues and until you have skill perks to boost up her accuracy you'll find her weak as shit. Her basic attack is a fireball that chains to nearby targets. This will also mark them causing them to take bonus fire damage from Aliss. Its a very weak single target nuke for 60% of attack but once you can start chaining two three and even four enemies at once the damage adds up really fast. Inferno is a big 3x3 cell aoe burst but the main power comes from blazing barrier. Its a firewall you can put down that when enemies walk though take 50% of your attack in damage. Since AI in this game can be stupid you can strategically place it so all the enemies must walk though the wall from end to end to get to you and you can watch them walk through the wall go "oh shit I'm on fire, then walk backwards and burn themselves to death one by one. Its broken beyond fuck and the only reason I use her. She has a fire shield that reflects damage for a turn and a summon for an ult thats meh.

Levant - Another tank. I hate tanks in tactical TBS games. My strategy is always to kill before you get killed. He's better than Griffith defensive wise but honestly what is the point of a tank. He can leap around the battlefield with his skill and he takes up 4 cells meaning he gets stuck in narrow passageways and move at the pace of a snail. He sets up walls and his ultimate is a full map one turn silence. I would call him the worst character in the game if he didn't have slightly more utility than Griffith. He does shit for damage though. Avoid.

Theo - Ice mage vampire. He has the best mobility in the game in that he can teleport anywhere within range of his movement squares. His basic attack has long reach and deals pretty significant single target ice damage that applies Victimized. Batswarm is a weak AoE that applies Blind. Captivating Gaze is a single target nuke that applies Silence. Seeing a trend here? Pure harvest does 50% + 40% for each debuff on the target in pure damage to everyone on all adjacent cells next to him. Can be skill morphed to be 60% damage per debuff. This is fucking disgusting damage. But the weakness is he has to be next to the opponent and he's squishy as shit. If your team has a lot of debuffs you can easily blow up someone in a single shot with the skill. His ultimate sucks though as it picks one random effect and applies it to every enemy in the battle. Basically letting you use Levant's ultimate if you really wanted to. Overall solid character.

Diego - Physical damage archer. His damage isn't too bad and he really needs to stand at max range to gain overconfidence from his main attack. Depending on the distance you get more overconfidence, up to 6. His other skills will do effects based on how much overconfidence he has. He has a strong low and poison but neither are very powerful effects. He's really not that bad but is overshadowed by the two mages and the other ranged character.

Grenn - Stealthy assassin character. Why pick him if Signy exists. Really what is he good for? Almost nothing. He can stealth and his basic attack applies poison but poison is really annoying against you but really useless against enemies because they die too fast for the poison ticks to do much. He has a bunch of debuffs that do no damage so there really is no point in using him over Signy. Pretty shitty.

Esther - Engineer character. She's odd but powerful. You can drop turrets that can tank and do damage. Set them to self destruct for big AoE damage and stun. Her basic "attack" is tinker which lets you buff an ally or buff your turret. She gets a stun grenade for big AoE damage and push back. And when I mean big I mean biggest AoE in the game. Her penetrating round attack hits an entire line with unlimited range for 150% physical damage. 50% less for each target. It looks strong until you realize you rarely hit more than one target in a line. Thats where skill morph comes in and changes it to a single target sniper shot dealing 250% damage. Thats stronger than Griffith's ultimate and can be used every other turn with unlimited range. Usually one shotting enemies. What the fuck. Her ultimate is the aeon clock that stops time and lets her move around and do shit without ending her turn. Pretty crazy strong. She is only available if you side with Shedu in diplomacy.

Henrietta - Lordemar's representative. I picked Shedu so I can't get her.

Mifune - Samurai Dwarf tank. Fuck not another tank. Tanks suck ass. He moves slow he hits for no damage and he is a pure piece of garbage. Every turn he gains a Laido stack and each Laido stack lets him perform an attack. This can be saved up an unleased all in one turn for pitiful damage since he is a tank. Don't pick him. Only available if you side with The Empire.

Valen - Pirate elf prince. Alfheimr's representative and probably better than Mifune but I don't know because I can't get him.

These are your party members. They are all pretty unique and you can build them in whatever way you want. Make them tanky with perks, boost their damage, their move speed, go full sniping team. You can beat the game with any strategy you want except mass tanks. I hate tanks.

There are a few issues to this game though, a few bugs here and there and the diplomacy options being completely garbage. Diplomacy lets pick an ally between two different nations and you get 4 chances per alliance. You need to ally with one faction at least 3 times to unlock the character but you really have no idea who you are unlocking, who your allies really are and why you are allying with them. It felt added on for the sake of adding it in and does nothing to help the game. The other party members and NPCs you get don't interact with the main story because you are able to avoid picking them up if you want to by not triggering their event. Which means its just the four of you throughout the whole game and the rest of the people are just there when battle happens. It also doesn't expand on Elaine and Gwendolyn. Voice acting is a little off sometimes for some characters but overall pretty good. There are a few bugs that lock up the game in battle I've encountered but not really replicated. It makes you restart the battle and thats when you find out the drop rates are RNG. If you don't get good gear you can never go back and farm the dungeon again. You have to craft at the blacksmith but the best items are found.

As you can tell, after typing all this shit that I really like this game. I was looking for a game with diverse classes and tactical TBS and I stumbled almost accidentally onto this gem. Unfortunately the game was released without full content and the developers have said they will patch the game after release. They also said the game will take around 30 hours to play and I finished my play through in about 20 hours but I've only done around 70% of the dungeons and missing a bunch of personal bonds. Once I go back and finish them it should be around 30 hours, which is more than you can say about other shitty kickstarter games. If you like tactical TBS games do not miss this one. Its filled to the brim with fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFQmu5HlTJY

Va-11 Hal-A - Cyberpunk Bartender Simulator

This game is brilliant. I first became aware of it when people on my steam friends started playing it and then seeing it on Twitch and people talking about how great it is, I had to give it a try. This game you play as a bartender and you serve drinks and listen to your regulars or even one time customers talk about their lives. Sometimes they don't know what they want, other times you know exactly what they want and can make it without them ordering it. After awhile you can start mixing the recipes by heart. There is a story going on in the background but you're not directly involved in it. In fact the entire game takes place behind the bar counter and you only hear about it directly from the people telling you about it. Sometimes they talk about their lives, sometimes they talk about life in the dystopian city, and sometimes they talk to you about you. All the people you meet are characters in their own stories. You are just the bartender you don't get to play hero, or save the world.

You start off randomly in the life of Julianne, Jill for short, a 27 year old bartender working at Va-11 Hal-A along with your coworker Gil and boss Dana. Although you don't really see Gil working behind the bar. He's just sort of there, as is your boss. Sure you have Christmas parties at the bar and drink in your room with your coworkers and such but you mostly live a lonely life of work and sleep. As you play the game you learn more about your regulars and more about yourself and the world around you. The city is called Glitch City. A place of crime and corruption run by mega corporations. At the bar you meet the people who call this city their home. Here many species of people call this place home. The humans, the Lilium who are humanoid AI robots, super intelligent talking animals, brains in a jar, and cat boomers, people who undergo treatment of nanomachine rejection and undergo "catification."

The whole game really is about talking to people and learning their lives. A short list of some of the people you meet are as follows:

Alma - She's a hacker and probably the closest person you can call a friend. If you get evicted because you can't pay for rent she'll take you in to live with her. Has a large family of sisters and recently has problems with one of her sisters. If you ever have problems shes there to help and listen. She loves classy drinks and always asks for them.

Dorothy - Super bubbly, super energetic, super flirtatious. She's a Lilium prostitute who looks like a 10-13 year old girl. She along with Alma are your best friends and will always be there to help you out in a pinch. She's constantly talking about her sex life and making advances on any men or women around. She loves girly drinks.

Donovan D. Dawson - Mister Donovan as he like to be called is a very crude misogynistic man. He's the owner of The Augmented Eye, a news company. He likes to talk about the bitches working for him and how they're all hungry for a raise. Goes around chasing after big titted Lilims and openly talks about cheating on his wife, and claims she cheats just as much as him so its fine. He doesn't show up often but when he does he wants Beer and lots of it.

Betty and Deal - These two are inseparable. Both of them work at Seifar Toy Company, a company ran by talking dogs. Betty is the irritable and bitchy one of the two. She is a lesbian and never has a relationship longer than a week. Deal is a Lilium and he is is serious one of the two. They will always come together and complain about each other but at the end of the day they're still both best friends. Although Deal claims Betty is really sweet underneath her outward personality. Betty loves strong manly drinks while Deal doesn't like drinks with much alcohol, which Betty disapproves of and calls him a pussy.

Virgilio - A pompous buffoon who orders though cryptic descriptions rather than a name and you'll have to figure it out what he means. He is patronizing and almost completely insane when you first meet him. He loves weird shit so you don't really know what to mix for him most of the time but guessing.

Streaming-Chan - When she shows up words will fly across the screen and the music will change to her own theme song. She is super high energy and outgoing and most likely high on drugs all at the same time. She streams herself 24/7, even bath time and and sex time, but only for premium members for the low low price of $99.99! Premium members can even download a VR of her to have sex with! All for the low low price of $99.99. She is just as annoying as you can imagine but a nice change of pace from the regular patrons. She loves drinks with high amounts of alcohol so she can get wasted on stream.

There are a lot more people but this is just a small sample of the people you can meet in the game. Everyone has a story to tell and you're there to hear it all. You even have your own story going on and the people you treat nicely will be there to listen to your problems to sleep in your arms when you cry yourself to sleep. You start get emotionally attached to these people and you can make their drinks before they even ask for it.You perk up when you suddenly see someone you haven't seen walk though the door in a week and go I remember him!

There is however no other gameplay than the mediocre life of a bartender. Its not meant to be exciting but mundane. However they can somehow turn the mundane into something fun and for that it is brilliant. I never expected to have this much fun as a virtual bartender. However this game is a whole lot of reading and a whole lot of mixing drinks. If thats not your thing then this game isn't for you. Theres no combat, no shooting peoples heads off, just a single screen behind the bar counter and you make drinks. Thats it. One thing I want to add to this is that the music for this game is great. Its probably the best part of the game. There is a huge soundtrack for you to play on the jukebox in the bar and you can set it up every day and after every break period.

Mass Effect Andromeda - Let me play my game

What the fuck is wrong with games these days that they feel the need to make everything open world. Its good if its done well but for Andromeda it becomes a huge chore to do anything in this game. Its even worse than Dragon Age Inquisition's open world and completely sours the game. Mass Effect Andromeda is a side story to the original Mass Effect trilogy and was worked on by a completely different team. It carries the Mass Effect name so everyone went into it with high expectations and came out disappointed.

This may be the most boring game I've played since Dragon Age Inquisition. Its not as bad as that game but its up there. There are fun parts to the game, the combat still feels like Mass Effect, but a little weaker. Exploring the remnant ruins for the first time was amazing, but after doing the same garbage on every single planet makes it annoyingly repetitive. Seeing the different planets is nice, but it feels like the same as the previous planets just with a different coating of paint. Instead of heat, you're worried about cold. Instead of radiation you're worried about toxicity. Every single planet is a empty wasteland with nothing to explore and just a lot of fucking driving. The biggest thing is there is no Shepard. Shepard isn't an amazing protagonist or anything but he was competent, he got shit done and he has some emotions at least. Look at Andromeda's Sara Ryder, she stands there cross eyed with a big dumb smile on her face reading emotionless lines fucking up everything everywhere she goes. Really? This is the protagonist you come up with? This is worse than Hawke, this is worse than Inquisition's protagonist, this is the worst protagonist Bioware has ever shit out. Ryder is completely incompetent with a schizophrenic personality that changes on the fly. I never had any "woah Ryder is kicking ass" moments like I've had with Shepard but I've had numerous face plants into "WHAT THE FUCK RYDER WHAT ARE YOU DOING THIS TIME."

This game has no reason to be open world other than to pad the game out. Why make a fun game that lasts 30 hours when you can make a shitty game with 5 hours of actual game play and 200 hours of mindless fetch quests. This is coming from someone who found driving around on the Mako bearable in Mass Effect 1. I wouldn't call it fun but it wasn't a huge chore to get anywhere because the driving distance wasn't that far and you are able to shoot stuff. In Andromeda you have to ride the Nomad, basically Mako 2.0. It doesn't have any guns and it doesn't do any damage when you run over people. There is a 4 wheel drive and a 6 wheel drive mode. The 4 wheel drive is faster but it cannot go over slopes, or bumps or any kind of uneven ground unless you're going downhill. The 6 wheel drive is slow as shit but you can drive at a steep angle. So what is the point of the two modes? You wish you can drive around in 4 wheel drive all the time but you can't even drive down a road without getting stuck and rolling down backwards. A ROAD. What kind of garbage car cannot drive on the fucking roads. Why not keep the speed of a 4 wheel drive and give us the traction of a 6 wheel drive like the Mako? The Nomad is so slow and the world is so big it takes you 20 minutes of holding down the W key to get from the hub to wherever the quest wants you to go. Of course you have a boost key but it lasts half a second and the cooldown is so long its almost worthless to press it. Just hold down W, read a book with your other hand, play with your cat, or go fiddle with your phone. Theres nothing out there so you won't be missing anything.

Open world means exploring many planets and that means animations. What animations you're asking? Every single time you do something in this game, an unskippable animation will play. You try to click on a planet in the space screen? You see your ship zoom out from whatever planet/asteroid/spacestation you're at and fly through the galaxy, then zoom in onto the planet you clicked, then zooms out. Now you can scan the planet or land or whatever. Nothing here? Lets click the next OH FUCK NOT ANOTHER ANIMATION. This is the least I've ever explored in a Mass Effect game because of how long it took to get anywhere. If you stuck to the main planets, there is still a landing animation of your ship touching down on the ground and one when you leave the planet of you flying away. Going to another part of the Nexus? Tram animation. Seriously who thought this was a good idea? At least there was a patch that helped. Also shut SAM up a bit. The worst part of all this is how much backtracking this game forces you to go through. You are wandering around on a planet and it wants you to go back to the tempest. You can't just fast travel and click go back. No you need to drive all the way to the border and go through custom then take an elevator up to the town hub, which is a loading screen. Then you go back to the ship which is an animation of your ship taking off the port then you enter the ship, talk to your party member who tells you to go back down to the surface. So you take another animation of you landing in the port. Get off the ship take the elevator load screen. Walk through customs again walk to the open world then call your car down get in the fucking car and start driving. What the fuck? Can you let me play the fucking game? As if the driving wasn't bad enough you have to add this shit.

So we can finally get around to the game play right? NOPE. Not yet. The UI is a giant mess of garbage. Instead of just buying guns in the original or unlocking new guns in Mass Effect 2 and 3. You have to craft everything this time. This means you have to run around mining and scanning everything in the galaxy. This means your inventory will get clogged with a whole bunch of garbage. I want to shoot people not play inventory manager. There are a whole bunch of guns to craft but you can count the viable guns on one hand. Which ones are good? Which ones are bad? Can we test them out? Who the fuck knows. What does this gun do? Who the fuck knows. They show a huge list of guns where you can't scroll down quickly. You have to roll your middle mouse button over and over and over until you reach the bottom. I don't need to know every single item at the exact same time in my inventory and what I can craft. Why isn't there a list where you can pick from the sniper rifles or assault rifles instead of jamming every single gun in the game in one giant list in a randomized order. The rest of the options isn't any good either. Adding in skills you often need to click multiple times because how much of a mess it is and having to reset it. Shopping is a huge list where you have to scroll down with your mouse button again. Show more stuff at a time? Have tabs? Do we need to see every single item possible? Can't we split the shop NPCs up? Then you have the AVP where its a huge garbage can of vomit. You can unlock different people from cryro which will let you unlock bonuses. You check back every hour to collect points and materials from them for crafting.

The gameplay is different this time. It feels like there are way more enemies and they are much weaker than before. You only get 3 skills and you don't really feel yourself get stronger. From level 1 to level 30 you are killing at around the same speed, using the same guns. You just shoot shoot shoot and move on. You get an annoying rocket jump this time which makes climbing a pain. They added a bunch of jump puzzles and other annoying garbage you have to leap from. Don't make platforming puzzles if  the jump is awkward and the movement is shit. Everything is wide open and half the time you can't tell where the shots are coming from. Enemies can shoot through walls and shoot while completely behind cover. A lot of times its safer to just rush them and kill them than wait and get shot. Bosses are all copy paste. I've only seen one boss repeated multiple times so far. A kett with a barrier and a orb that spins around him. Shoot the orb to break the shield to kill the boss. They also use the orb to charge giant energy balls that knock you out of cover so shoot it while they channel the ball and get out. Thats it.

The story they tried their hardest to be as safe as possible and fucked it up horribly. Not only is the main villains nonthreatening you rarely come in contact with them. Like the Kett invaded the galaxy but your team of 3 can mow through millions of them. Your outposts are being attacked? Well the 3 of you can come can wipe them out and save them all. Which brings me to another point. Where the fuck are the soldiers protecting outposts? Why is the pathfinder in charge of defense? Isn't the goal of the pathfinder to find new worlds? Also they have a distress call but I can leave it there forever and they never get attacked until I land there. Why is the 3 of us able to clear every enemy. I'm no super soldier. I'm not Shepard. This time you're Sara Ryder part of your dad's pathfinder team. Your dad is a mary sue and was a top scientist who invented the SAM AI and joined the N7 and then became a pathfinder and is the most looked up to person in the new galaxy and everyone loves him and all the other pathfinders want to be like him. Then he dies because your helmet broke and he sacrificed himself to save you by giving you his helmet. Then you find hidden memory fragments throughout the Andromeda galaxy that gives you an idea what kind of man your father was. Then you inherit the position and fuck everything up because your a piece of trash, garbage cyborg. No one likes you, they all want your dad. Then you meet the Angara who somehow across galaxies, have the same biological makeup, the same reliance on electricity, the same spaceships, guns, ammos, omnitools, mass effect engines for their ships, they also speak space english and have the same words like ambassadors and embassies as you even though there are no other species.

It seems like they tried their hardest to not offend anyone. You catch a criminal sabotaging the Nexus? Shepard would've shot him or at least threw him at an officer. Here Ryder tells him you're going to report him to the ones in charge and the guy just walks off going "yeah right." OK. So this fuckface endangered the life of millions of people, potentially wiping off the last vestiges of civilization in a new galaxy and you let him walk off saying you're going to report his ass, which you never fucking do? Every other person you meet is some kind of minority. Talk to this guy oh he's Russian, this guy oh he's Indian, talk to her oh shes Japanese. Talk to this Krogan, shes female, this Salarian, shes female too. OK BACK UP. In Mass Effect lore, female Salarians don't leave their home planet and female Krogans also don't leave their home planet because they're too valuable. Here they're running around with guns blazing shooting everything. Like what? Aren't they the leaders of their community while the men run around dying? What about Quarians why aren't they here. The story says there was a problem with the Quarian ship which was also carrying the Hanar and Drell and other races and were unable to reach Andromeda. So they don't exist at all. Whatever, the point is they pushed it way too far in another direction that it feels really fake. Your companions aren't much different either they stuck to the safest possible group of squadmates. You have the tough as steel balls Krogan, the scientist Asari, the Turian bad cop who does his shit, the token Alien that joins you, and a whole bunch of boring humans. This is the standard formula for every Mass Effect Squadmate and they haven't moved from it.

The game is pretty bad but the worst part of it all is how boring it is. A bad game can still be finished. Look at what I've written. I've played plenty of bad games but when a game is so boring that I can't even be bothered to finish it then I don't know if I should consider that game worse than a game I found bad but still interesting enough to finish.

Torment:Tides of Numenera - BILLIONS OF YEARS!

I have not played Planescape Torment. I just need to get that out there and anyone that played or is planning on playing this game should probably stop comparing these two games. Its a spiritual successor, its not the same game, and its never going to live up to its predecessor. The biggest problem people have with this game is its not Planescape Torment. The game is based off the Numenera tabletop game universe, which takes place BILLIONS OF YEARS into the future. Instead of Planescape Torment's "What can change a nature of a man?" its instead "How much does one life matter?" This theme unfortunately makes zero sense and we'll get into that later. Its a narrative driven game where you can talk your way out of any battle if you are good enough at it. This also means combat is the biggest shit stain on this game and anytime you fail a skill check you want to restart because sitting through combat makes you want to jump in front of a truck. Yes its one of these type of games.

Lets look at the universe of Numenera for a second. This game takes place "a billion" years into the future. We need to stop and think about this for a second. A billion may sound like a small number when you say it out loud. But this is an astronomical number in life and evolution. The earth itself is only about 5 billions years old and life started only 3.5 billions years ago. Life evolved from single celled organisms to land life in 3 billions years. Within 200 million years they evolved from amphibians on land into dinosaurs. These lived for several hundred millions of years before going extinct. It took 66 million years from the time of dinosaurs to the time of humans. Humans only evolved 200 thousand years ago. Human civilization only begun 10 thousand years ago. You're telling me billions of years into the future, everyone is still human and look exactly like the people today? People still live in mud houses on the side of a cliff and everyone has the same moral standards as people today? That architecture and design still look the same as today? They tried to explain it all by saying its currently the ninth world as in 8 great civilizations before the one in the current game have come and gone and currently everyone is living in a medieval like civilization. What the fuck? This basically is a medival fantasy game that uses "technology" instead of magic. It uses Authur Clarke's famous third law, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Instead of shooting fireballs you're shooting esoteric bolts. Instead of casting heal you use innervate which channels esotery into their bodies and cleans them of wounds.

Now we have the billions of years rant out of the system we can start looking at the world of Numenera. The world of built on the ruins of ancient civilizations. Every now and then you can click on an object and shit will happen. Sometimes nothing will happen and most often than not, it is completely useless. Why have all this cool stuff around when they do absolutely nothing. In fact the main storyline has almost nothing to do with any of the technology around. The main story is short and garbage but there are plenty of side quests that are somewhat interesting. There are some pretty interesting ideas in the game like the house of empty time where homeless children, though the keeper is able to be adopted by another family in another time frame. You could be adopted 600 years into the future or into the past. Or something like the Anchorage and the lore behind it. There is a lot of interesting stuff if you look for it, unfortunately none of that is in the generic main quest.

With technology and future shit out of the way we can focus on the main storyline. Some time ago someone discovered a way to to transfer his consciousness from one being to an artificial body and was called the changing god. Whenever the conscious is transferred out of the previous body, a new consciousness appears and takes its place. These people are known as the castoffs. You are the newest castoff of the changing god and you basically travel the world trying to figure out what to do. And by world I mean three maps. The first area you are at is the biggest, then it gets smaller as the game goes on. If you just follow the main quest you can probably finish the game in a couple hours. Doing every side quest took me about twenty hours to complete the game. Most of the time was wasted running around doing nothing trying to find quests. The other half is talking. This game has a lot of text. Do not play this game if you don't like reading. Its a whole lot of text with a whole lot of nothing. They can drag a description on for paragraphs yet you learn nothing about the character. If fact you rarely learn much of the people in the world. They are sort of just there and you sort of just walk away before stuff happens.

Not expanding on things really hurt the game. Like you meet a group of Nanos in a bar who fight the the Adversaries, a group of beings that traveled through the bloom, a multidimensional living creature that opens maws across dimensions, composed of pure thought and are in constant combat with the Nanos in an invisible psychic war. You show up you do a few quests and you leave, you never really learn that much about them and they never show up again. It was interesting but it was over much too fast. This also includes the Bloom, its a huge living creature that has maws extending to different dimensions and the living beings in the world of Numenera use it as a way of travel as well as a home. However the maws are not permanent and many groups of people get lost in different worlds. New maws are also always constantly being made which require different foods to open. Slaves are sold to feed the maws who will only eat certain things. For example, one maw will only eat guilt and after the feeding, the person will sometimes stay alive, but lose their ability to feel guilt. Upon eating something, the maw will open leading to a whole new world. Like this thing is fucking awesome why isn't the game expanding on this. Am I the only one who thinks this multi dimensional creature the size of cities just biding its time at our doorstep is a threat? Its such a powerful entity that the sorrow can't even reach you inside the bloom. Except when suddenly plot holes appear and it could reach you.

The main story is shitty. You are chased by the sorrow, a monster that chases the changing god and all its castoffs to kill them. Really? You're going to call it THE SORROW!? What kind of shitty name is that. The sad part was the original name was called The Angel of Entropy. Basically its a creature that ignores space time and is angry at you and your siblings. Why? Because of the tides. Its wiped out civilizations because of the tides and its after you because you, the changing god, and all your fellow castoff siblings are tied to the tides. What is the tides exactly? Well its the currents of urge and emotions that flow through humanity's collective psyche. Its never really expanded on other than its a power thats shared among you all. It has the ability to affect people around you based on the colours of your tide. Its basically a reputation system. The tides are as followed:

Blue Tide: Represents wisdom, enlightenment, and mysticism. It is the Tide of people whose goal is to expand the mind and the spirit.
Red Tide: Represents passion, emotion, action, and zeal. It is the Tide of people whose goal is to live in the moment, to experience life to its fullest, or to follow their heart wherever it leads them.
Indigo Tide: Represents justice, compromise, and the greater good. It is the Tide of people who view life's difficulties from a broad, global perspective rather than an individual one.
Gold Tide: Represents charity, sacrifice, and empathy. It is the Tide of people whose primary goal is to help others, especially at the cost to themselves.
Silver Tide: Represents admiration of power and seekers of fame. It is the Tide of people who seek to influence the lives of others or who actively seek to be remembered.

Almost every choice you make in the game will shift your tides, and it shifts very quickly. You can even have two dominant tides if there are two high ones instead of one very high tide. For example I started the game with the blue tide because I kept asking questions about the world, but as I started doing quests I gained gold and turned into blue/gold tide. Eventually I did a bunch of quests that jumped me so far ahead that I turned into full gold tide. By the end of the game I was back down to blue/gold and ended at that. However, from what I've read theres only like a couple of NPCS who will mention anything because of your tides. That and the ending which is similar to Mass Effect 3's notorious ending. It looked like they wanted to do something with the tides but never got around to it. This holds true to almost everything in the game.

Onto the worst part of the game, the combat. I have never seen combat in a game this terrible before in my life. It is turn based with the most horrible UI I've ever seen. Combat design in this game is to put as many enemies as humanly possible on the map and each one takes forever to move. The next is to add consistently respawning enemies or enemies that will keep joining in the fight. A single turn of combat can take minutes, a entire fight could take ten to twenty. Like what the fuck? The good news is you can skip most of it by cheat scumming. Usually I'm too lazy to bother with that but when the alternative is the equivalent of sitting through an Adam Sandler movie I would rather retry over and over until I got it right. No matter what you do, there are several fights where you cannot avoid. Most of them involve the Sorrow and the Sorrow are the worst fights. It takes forever to appear and walk, and then it will spawn Sorrow fragments every turn which is another enemy that takes up time during combat and the entire time is spent running away so enemies eventually fill up so much of the screen you can take a shit and come back before your turn is up. When your turn is up though, you usually can't tell where the fuck you are going. Sometimes the circle for how far you can move disappears entirely. So combat becomes a game of clicking as far away as possible then clicking closer and closer and closer until you can move then hoping the enemies don't spawn new ones and waste five minutes of shuffling around before its your turn to run away.

There is a lot of potential in the game and it was obviously unfinished. A lot of the things promised on kickstarter never made it into the game, although they have said they are working on a new patch to add in one of the removed companions. I wish they expanded on more of the lore and side quests instead of the dumb main story quest that is over way too quickly. More areas to explore would be nice too instead of the three maps we gotten. Combat would have to be completely remade because what it is now is a piece of shit. Is this game good? I would say its passable if you ignore the combat. Its not the greatest, but some of the side quests, characters, and lore are interesting but they just sort of end abruptly. The ending also ends abruptly and completely shits over the theme of "How much does one life matter?" by giving you the power to choose the fate of the world. All of them involve the death of many so there really isn't much of a choice.

Kathy Rain - Unsatisfying

Kathy Rain is a old school style adventure game where you play as Kathy Rain, a rebellious college student who found out that her grandfather recently passed away. Going back home to the family that she hasn't seen in over a decade revealed a old family mystery. What this game really reminds me of is The Blackwell Legacy. The graphic style is similar, they both feature a whiny young woman as a protagonist, they both have a sidekick of sorts, they both get dragged into the occult and solve mysteries that others cannot. The biggest issue is, Kathy Rain was also set up as an episodic game like The Blackwell Legacy so you basically learn nothing from playing the game. It just ends out of the blue and it leaves you pissed at the whole thing. The Blackwell Legacy did the same, but it at least ended at a better place than Kathy Rain. It did take 8 years to finally complete the entire series but each game in the series left you satisfied.

Enough comparisons and lets get on with explaining this game. You start off waking up in your dorm as Kathy Rain and your hyper religious roommate tells you that your grandfather died so you take your motorbike down to your hometown and find out your grandfather suffered some kind of shock one day 30 years ago exploring the woods and became a vegetable. So you spend the rest of the game digging up clues of your family's past. This part is fun there are interesting puzzles to solve, a few characters to meet a few areas to explore. One issue with the game though is that its incredibly tiny in areas to explore. You get one or two areas at first which only has a few objects of interest. Near the end of the game you start getting into the supernatural. The story is really similar to The Blackwell Legacy. Instead of being a spirit medium to help dead spirits move on in the afterlife, you are the chosen one by whatever magical force of the other world. If I knew more of the story I would explain it but there really isn't. Apparently people meet the will-o-wisp of the woods and then get visions of the future and then the "red man" shows up and tells them to do shit and they end up dying or disappearing or going vegetable. You go to the other world save your sidekick and then the game ends with nothing being explained.

Thats it. After the game ended you know about as much of the game as you first started. Absolutely fucking nothing. The characters are all boring, the places you explore are boring, the story is complete trash and the whole entire game left you unsatisfied. If you want a good point and click adventure game with supernatural elements then pick The Blackwell Legacy.

Owlboy - Too fucking long

Fuck this game. I wanted to enjoy this game, I wanted to like it but every time I do something fucking stupid shows up and drags on way too long to be remotely enjoyable. I commend them for trying different things in the game but when it fucking sucks, it really fucking sucks. Alright what is Owlboy? Its an indie sidescrolling platformer that spent the last decade in development. Literally a decade to develop. The graphics are great, the characters are likable and the gameplay is decent in some parts. However, underneath its pretty exterior is a frustrating mess. I have never wanted to throw my controller at the screen harder than playing this game. Not even Persona 3 or Dark Souls or anything challenging. This game is frustrating because it feels like I'm either fighting with the controls or something boring just drags on way too long like the fucking stealth sections.

The unique part of Owlboy as a platformer is you have the ability to fly. Flying hides the terrible controls somewhat until you get to sections where you cannot fly. Most of the game is spent navigating through dungeons/ruins solving puzzles and killing monsters along the way. Pick up a rock, drop the rock here, grab a cloud and have it pour water here, then kill monster and use it as a bomb blah blah blah. This is fun, its a great game if it was just that. Then suddenly you'll get to a part where the screen goes dark and you "cannot fly because they have poor vision but can hear the sound of your wings flapping." Yet I can run around jumping on rocks or slamming onto the floor as hard as possible. You have to sneak past them and since the jump and fly button are both A, you will constantly accidentally fly and instant game over. Getting to close is a game over. This goes on and on and on. Luckily that part was short. Then you get to other parts where you accidentally set off a swarm of gnats in the darkness and you have to survive by lighting up torches and grabbing lantern monsters. As soon as you touch the darkness you instantly die. Then theres the pirate base where you have to stealth past pirates. If you get seen the door locks and they shoot bombs and you die. Then later in the game theres another pirate base where you have to stealth, then even later you have to stealth through a pirate ship. And so on and so on. LIKE IS THERE ENOUGH OF STEALTHING? Its not fun, its clunky and with the shitty controls makes it a huge core than anything challenging.

Then there are the gladiator rooms. I don't know what they're called but you will constantly enter a room both doors will close then waves upon waves of enemies will spawn and you have to survive. Getting hit in this game will send you flying across the room and stick onto a wall. If you get hit, its fairly easy to get chain hit and you can do nothing but die. So you're fighting swarms and swarms of enemies and then eventually you'll get hit somehow and then get swarmed and die. You need to be flying to summon your allies to shoot at them. Yes you don't actually get to fight you need the power of your allies to do it for you. That is interesting in a way but when you do get hit you are separated from your ally and have to grab him again. Imagine a game where you are hit and you drop your sword or gun and have to pick it up before you can fight again. Sometimes in regular exploration mode I get too lazy to fight monsters and just fly past them but they will keep following you to the next screen and soon I find myself being chased by 50 bees and then swarmed to death. You don't have that much health in the game and getting hit a couple of times usually means a game over so gladiator rooms are just a room of pure luck. Are you standing in the right spot when the monster spawns? Did it spawn on you? Well too bad try again.

Bosses are underwhelming. Theres usually a chase scene before or after bosses where you have to constantly run from a big bad thing or lava or water or whatever thats coming. Messing up once is death. I surprisingly haven't died once in these sections. Its hectic but it doesn't feel too annoying to do. Bosses all have a set pattern and once you learn it it is fairly easy to do. The thing is, for all the bosses, they are immune to all damage so you just have to sit there and take it until it suddenly stops shooting. Use the cannon from an enemy ship to shoot a rock to have it land on them, dodge swords until the guy charges a wall and gets stunned then shoot him, have the guy punch a wall to get his arm stuck then shoot him. Its unrewarding to spend 90% of the time just running until you can run up close to hit him once and after like 3 hits the boss is dead. Whats the point of giving me a gun and upgrades and all that shit if I'm not going to be using it? Look at something like Axiom Verge, you're running around with guns blazing shooting giant bosses. Those felt rewarding to fight when you finally win. This feels like you're a punching bag. You don't even get to kill the bosses as most of them end up being used by the pirates and are actually good people underneath it all. You never kill anyone because murder is wrong! Except the part where you go around murdering all those monsters, and monkeys and the monkey king probably died too after you flood the room with lava. You might be going, yeah but monsters and monkeys and prinnys aren't human. Neither are you, you're a fucking owl.

Then the worst part reveals itself near the end where you go into space and cannot fly anymore. This whole section has no monsters, no puzzles, just hours of platforming fun. OH JOY. This part you'll realize how bad the controls are. You are trying to do a jump when you'll accidentally flap and end up crashing to your death. Want to jump from the chandelier to the door? Oh we've made sure you have to stand at the very edge and leap and click fly at your highest point then glide towards the door. Any less will have you crashing into the ground below. Oh its an autoscroller now? We'll make the rocks spawn as slow as possible so you have to click fly and stay in the air as long as possible and one fuck up will end up costing you the entire thing. Even if it looks like you made it if you jump too early you'll eventually die a slow agonizing death. Which fucking masochist came up with this shit. This isn't fucking remotely enjoyable to do. I love sidescrolling platformers. Its my favorite genre of game but this is fucking infuriating to play. I cannot stress how bad the flying and jumping are in this game. You will constantly fuck up and randomly start flying when you are doing a long jump and crash to your death. If its just a few sections thats alright but this drags on too fucking long. In fact most of the game drags on for too fucking long. Too much instant death, too much stealth, too much platforming with bad controls, too much of shitty stuff.

The really sad part of this game was that its fun to play. Its an enjoyable game ridden with frustrating parts. The puzzle solving is fun, the exploration is enjoyable, and some of the bosses even put up a challenge and the storytelling is great. The characters are likable, they have their flaws, and they have growth to them. One thing I can't help but notice though is that everyone is male. Everyone you talk to, everyone you meet and fight are male. The only women you meet in this game are the two captured soldiers in the pirate base and the mad scientist. And those show up for a total of like 5 seconds. The game is very story driven and its really quite interesting to learn about the world. Its honestly a fun game. However all of that is just completely overshadowed by the horrible experiences in certain sections of the game. Was the game enjoyable for me? After that last platforming section, no. I can hardly remember the fun I was having with the game after that section. I would play it once for the story but I'll never in a million years want to touch it again. If I want a good platformer that I can go back and play over and over again then I'll just play something like Castlevania SOTN, Axiom Verge or even Valdis Story. I'll even reply Shantae: Half-Genie Hero over this.

Shantae: Half Genie Hero - Hip Shaking Transformations

I've never heard of the Shantae series, and I'm sure most people haven't. It started off as an indie game by a husband and wife team on the Gameboy Color but releasing it when the Gameboy Advance was already out hurt its sales. Nevertheless it had great reviews and gained a small following. The next game came out on the DS and once again received great reviews. By the time the third game came out on 3DS and WiiU it already reached cult classic status. It wasn't the most popular but enough people wanted a sequel and the fourth one was funded through kickstarter and they passed it by a huge margin. I recently learned of it from AGDQ as people were talking about speed running the game. I saw that people on my steam list has been playing it but never bothered to look into it because it seemed pretty anime. Its anime, but it has charm.

Half genie hero is the forth of the series and is probably the one most people will start with since its the only one to come to PC. Because of this, half genie hero is a soft reboot of the series and does not follow the plot of the first three games. What is the plot you say? Is there even a plot? Well, you start off as Shantae, a half-genie hero. Genies used to live in the world and protected it and eventually fell in love with humans. However bad stuff happened and they all left the world to return to the genie realm so they can focus their powers on protecting the world. They left behind their children, the half-genies and each one becomes a guardian of a town. Thats where you come in, the guardian of Scuttle Town. You must go around beating up bad guys and saving the world with the power of love and friendship. Before you groan and puke, it's a light hearted game with a lot of charm. The characters are likable and the humor is passable. But the greatest strength of the game would be the graphics and the music. The graphics are bright and colourful and the enemies and NPCs you meet are charming. From small pirate grunts and starfish to giant worm monsters and mermaid girls. Everything looks cheerful and cute. The music is catchy and I sometimes end up humming along with the level. I especially enjoy the music in Mermaid Falls. The main theme of Shantae has actual singing too.

The game plays like a side scroller, although not a very complex one. You start off with 2 hearts, each one represents 4 health. It may seem challenging at first, but later on you'll find so many extra hearts that everything does trivial damage. Your attacks consist of hair whipping enemies and it can be upgraded to deal more damage and whip faster. As well as learning magic like shooting fireballs or spinning swords. Thats not all though, the best part of the game is the dances. Early on it will tell you to shake those hips and when you do you can get up to 12 different dances at once. Using a monkey dance will transform Shantae into a monkey that can hop high and climb walls. Crab dance will transform her into a crab that can swim in the water. Elephant dance will transform into an elephant that can break weak walls and floors. There are many forms and each one will allow Shantae into previously blocked off areas in earlier stages for secrets. There is one issue though, if secrets are required are they still considered secrets? For example every time you finish a chapter you will get a new dance, then your uncle will tell you to collect an item for his invention which requires you to help several people by trading item to item and each of the items needed will be from a secret area. I can't help but feel its made as padding for the game.

The game itself is very short, consisting of 5 stages and one extra final stage with no secrets. Like really? This is it? Even when I searched though everything and collected every secret I still managed to beat the game in 5 hours of playtime. The game length really hurt. Luckily, on kickstarter some of the stretch goals included extra characters. Unfortunately, most of the stretch goals were set way too high. It was originally supposed to come with 3 chapters but two were added in as stretch goals. Only 3 chapters? Are they serious? Either way, the extra character's chapter isn't out yet so I can't comment on it. The stages are quite varied with each stage having its own gimmick. However, some stages contains parts which are much too frustrating. There is are too many pitfalls or instant death on stages with no or far apart checkpoints. Its not very bad that you die, however its very bad that whenever you die you have to fade to black into a loading screen then start again. Bosses have pretty predictable patterns and each stage contains one or two bosses. They do have a lot of health so its just poke poke poke until it gets defeated eventually. Defeated, not killed because this is a game of love and friendship. They aren't really that much of bad guys and they come back later, reformed in a way, and you help them out. Except the real villain, the evil pirate Risky Boots, and even she can turn around and become reformed.

Is the game fun? Very. I would recommend this to anyone who likes platformers and isn't turned away by this style of game. It has the old school feel to the game and really makes you feel like a kid all over again. The game is a little easy however and quite short so if 5 hour of gameplay isn't for you, I would wait on a sale. If anything, wait for the other character to be added in first to see if you want to jump into the game.

This War of Mine - Eating raw rats

Alright, when I first heard of this game I automatically assumed it would be another one of those war games where you play as the hero and go around shooting everything and glorifying war. Then I found out it was some kind of survival game where you actually play as the civilians during war time. I completely overlooked this game until now and wow was I wrong about how much fun it was. This is a survival game where you need to build a shelter, find food/materials/weapons, barter, help others, rob others, murder others, and a whole lot more to do. I went into the game blind and this is pretty much how my first game went.

I installed the game, then the DLC, the little ones, which included children. Clicking play put me into the shoes of the father Christo and his daughter Iskra. The first day Christo and Iskra found an abandoned house and Christo went around digging through rubble with his hands and looting through everything he could find. Iskra being the child that she is, was unable to help and spent the entire day playing hopscotch. Occasionally she'll try and get the attention of Christo but he was too busy digging. Using the materials he found he started building a workshop, then a metal workshop then eventually from those ended up making a crowbar and shovel. This helped break through the rest of the rubble and locked doors of the house. They found food and had enough materials for beds. At night Christo had the option to scavenge and leave poor little Iskra all alone. They were low on food, if he didn't scavenge then they would surely starve. He picked the abandoned shopping mall where he ended up seeing a group of looters. They were open to share what they find but being nervous around armed men Christo looted whatever he could find and bolted home only to find that raiders had come and ransacked the shelter stealing all their food.

Iskra ran over crying when Christo came home in the morning asking why he wasn't there to help her. He had no choice was what he wanted to say but he could do nothing but apologize. They needed more protection. Christo spent the morning sleeping only to be awoken by a friendly neighbor. He wanted to give the two wood since he saw them move in recently and we should all help and rely on each other. Christo accepted it and spent the wood on boarding up the open walls of the house. Surely raiders wouldn't attack right? Even though they were out of food, Christo spent the night standing guard but no raiders showed up. They were desperate, Iskra has been complaining about being hungry. Just then two neighbors showed up bringing a batch of vegetables. They were a gift and Christo graciously accepted it. The two of them will dine like kings tonight. However, Christo still needed to scavenge but he can't possibly leave Iskra alone. That night Christo went scavenging again, this time at an abandoned house. He managed to loot everything from the fridge which contained many cans of food. Great, they can survive for a few days with these. He quickly headed home to find the night was quiet and Iskra was safe.

That next morning a knock came at the door and a girl calling herself Arica begged to join the group. She was a girl from the hood, a cat burglar at the age of 14 and her abusive alcoholic father died during the war and she survived up to now all alone. Christo gladly invited her in. They needed someone to scavenge the night and Arica would be perfect. Iskra ran up and introduced herself. She asked if Arica would stay forever and she only replied with a generic response. She doesn't know how long she would stay. Each night could be her last and if the group was out of food, then she had no reason to stay with a sinking ship. That night Arica went scavenging and came back with the most food they had. She proudly proclaimed her loot as she walked in the door only to find a sad Iskra. That night raiders had attacked again, they stole the food and injured Christo who was guarding the house, as well as Iskra who was sleeping in the bed. This calls for war. Christo spent the rest of the day making knives. The next few days would be the same routine with Arica scavenging and Christo guarding the house. Only problem now is Arica scavenged most of the abandoned areas and they are out of food again. Raiders have attacked again, stealing the rest of their food and injuring Christo again. This leaves them only one reasonable choice. They would have to steal from others. Arica armed with a knife went to the home of an old couple as soon as she entered the two ran in fear. Arica walked calmly up to them and pluged her knife deep into the old man. His wife ran and screamed begging for mercy but there would have to be no witnesses. With a second plunge of the knife, Arica killed the old woman too. She looted everything in the house and returned home broken.

Arica was depressed, Christo came to comfort her saying she had no choice, she did what had to be done and he wasn't going to judge her. Iskra sensed something wrong but no one would tell her what happened that night. She ended up becoming sad. Luckily for them, that morning a sick man calling himself Marin showed up. He was a handyman and needed a place to stay. The party agreed to help him and let him inside. The group gave him some of his medicine and he spent the rest of the day sleeping. The next few days would have neighbors come over and beg for medicine for their sick mother. They had extra so they gave them some. However there was an outbreak of violence, raids became a nightly occurrence and they were losing their food. Arica decided to steal again, but this time a group of thugs. She had quiet sneaking so she could make it in and out without much trouble. But when she fell down from a open floor making a loud thud, she knew she was done for. The thugs ganged up on her and shot her twice killing her instantly. She was gunned down like a dog. Marin was sad but it was up to him to do what Arica couldn't. They crafted some guns for defense and Marin went back for revenge. He gunned them down but his mood was awful. The raids didn't stop and winter was coming. They were out of food, out heating, and Marin needed to go out again. He didn't come back that night as he was gunned down at the next house. The two remaining survivors didn't live through the winter. The End.

This was how I died? Really? I fucked up pretty hard there. I went to start a new game and I realized, It randomly picked one for me since I had the little ones DLC. Kids were useless, they can't defend, they can't scavenge, they can't use tools to help around the house. All they did was eat your food and get sick. I could start another story with other premade group of characters, or start my own custom story with custom characters. But what about Iskra? She was depending on us, she needed us to protect her and we failed as adults. Not wanting to give up I picked the same story but this time I have a better understanding on what to do. Obviously I would board up the house early this time with weapons. Raids caused a snowball effect and I couldn't get myself back on track after the first couple of raids. Next I built a rain catcher and a rat catcher. These two will give me food. This time woman called Zlata joined the group and I had her scavenge. I chose not to rob, not to kill but early on found a soldier coming onto a girl a little too hard. I hid behind a door and watched as he beat her and started dragging her away to rape her. Well I'm not going to stand here and do nothing. Snuck up killed him and stole his assault rifle. This will stop anyone from attacking our shelter. Soon a man named Roman showed up, he was an ex gang member and would gladly go on missions to murder thugs and rescue others. The group applauded for what he was doing. He was saving lives and psychopathic killer thugs brought nothing but harm for the war torn neighborhood. Eventually winter came and I had to set up two heaters just to keep warm and was nowhere close to dying. My food storage was always full, no one managed to raid us with our guns and Roman would dispatch all the thugs and have Zlata come in to scavenge with her bigger inventory. Arica ended up joning us 3 days before the war was over and the war ended with the good ending and everyone going their merry ways.

Iskra ended up going to school again and being normal, Christo was reunited with his wife, Zlata went back to Canada and continued music school, Roman ended up becoming good, and a leader of his community, Arica decided to give her father a funeral and ended up starting her own family. The End. That ended much nicer than the first try but it almost felt too easy once I knew what to do the second time around. People, events, locations are all randomized each run but I don't know how much replayability there is for something like this. If survival or stealth is your thing I would at least check this out.

Conception 2 - Persona meets child making simulator

This game sucks. When I first heard of the title I thought it was some kind of porn game but after hearing people talk about how its a persona clone and is actually pretty good I went and looked it up. This thing looks like a giant ripoff of persona from the social links, to the ui, to the combat, to the dungeon crawling, and even the music. Only difference here is instead of making friends with others to strengthen your persona and summon stronger ones, you make friends so you can "classmate" with them and make children.Yes you're probably going what the fuck and I don't blame you. I said the same thing out loud when 5 minutes into the game you meet someone and the priest tells you to start classmating. Yes I hate that term too. Other than this the entire game is basically a bad ripoff of persona.

I started this review with this game sucks and I'll repeat it again. This game sucks. They tried very hard to copy persona but didn't realize what they are actually copying. Each "day" you get 3 hearts where you can talk to the 7 heroines each represented by one of the 7 virtues. Talking to one of them will raise their affection slightly and there are 7 bars. Each bar is locked behind one dungeon each represented by the 7 deadly sins. Here is the issue, there is no time limit like persona where a big bad monster is coming every full moon nor is there someone trapped in the shadow realm waiting to die. There are no days where you cannot enter the dungeon because of a school event or there is no fog. No in fact there are no time at all. So why the fuck can you only talk to 3 people a day and then have to go back to rest in your bed for the next day is beyond me. So the majority of the time is spent navigating the menu going to sleep talking to a girl then going back to sleep. There are random events you get and you answer a question and their affection and mood goes up. Only problem here, unlike persona mood doesn't really matter because your not limited by time. It doesn't even matter what the mood of the heroines are because its almost impossible to fuck it up. So both mood and limited hearts is a completely worthless mechanic added in for almost no reason.

The point of raising affection is because when you have higher affection, you'll get stronger children when you classmate. And by classmating its not exactly sex as its just the male shooting his star power into the woman's star womb and a starchild gets born right away. There's also the sailormoon silhouette thing where they do sex poses and moans but its totally not sex! They are affected by the level of you and the mother with higher level parents giving the child better stats and higher maximum levels. They can also be different classes, some are gender locked, some are hidden classes, some require items. Which brings me to another point. This game is fucked up. I wanted to get a mercenary class and kept classmating but kept getting girls. Mercenary is a male only class so I ended up having to toss away tons of children. Same thing happened when I wanted a diva class and kept getting boys. Even more annoying when you have a full bar of affection, you have to classmate to advance the story but I don't want children right now. I'm still leveling these children and the new ones being born can't be saved for later because their stats will be shit once I finished leveling the ones I am using and the mothers level increases as I grind in the dungeon. So toss them away again. If only they let us advance the heroine bars without forced classmating. There's also this part later in the game where you have to perform classmanting with two other guys and the scientists create some artificial womb for you guys to get children and you have a gay orgy and some children were actually born. They ended up dying within 24 hours and everyone is all sad and like what the fuck. Why is that in the game.

Before we get further with all the children and classmating and all that shit we need to first introduce the people in the game and the story. Basically dusk nests appeared in the world and monsters are being spawned and children from the age of 16-18 are blessed with magical ether energy from the star god so they can fight back. The higher the ether count the higher your rank and two S rank disciples can classmate for a 1% chance of conceiving a child. They gathered everyone with the star god brand and put them in a school for them to fuck and fight all day long.

God's Gift - G.G. for short. You are called god's gift because you are filled with a monstrous amount of ether energy that lets you enter labyrinths without danger. With your super ether it also means you have a 100% conception rate with any S rank girls so you get a harem of them there to make children for you. What the fuck.

Fuuko - The first girl you meet she's the normal girl who is so normal she's kinda boring but not really. After meeting the other heroines you wish for normal. Basically all she does is swim and eat croquettes nothing special.

Narika - Another girl in your class she is the super shy student council vice president or something. Soft spoken, super shy, and blushes every other sentence. Warning though, later on you realize shes a yandere and tries to stab you with a knife. "Why do you talk to Fuuko when you have me? I will gouge out your eyes so you can't see another girl. I will cut off your tongue so you can't speak to another girl. I will cut off your ears so you can't hear another girl. You are mine, all mine." I'm not fucking kidding.

Ellie - The little sister childhood friend you almost forgotten who died when you were kids and got resurrected by the church and became a zombie assassin. I wish I was joking. That's her entire character she is a super happy cheerful little sister but have a darker side to her where she goes around murdering people for the church. I don't know about you but I really can't stand little sister characters. Even less if shes a zombie and an assassin.

Ms. Chloe - Your teacher who is actually only 1 year older than you because shes a genius and skipped grades. Yeah what the fuck right? At least give us someone older but no the game has to keep everyone within 16-18 years because only they can handle ether energy. Anyways blah blah blah she becomes an idol and you become her manager somehow and her singing can cure diseases and mend broken bones blah blah. Boring ass shit.

Serina - Haughty senior who is slightly tsundere. She has a huge complex about her short height and how successful her sister was when she was a disciple at the school. She's pretty likable and not very annoying. Kind of on the tame side after seeing all the other heroines though. Constantly having fights with her sister then later on gets a magic spell that lets her transform into a "tall busty beauty" from a kiss from you so you end up having to kiss her all the time to help her transform and enter a beauty pageant. Its not as bad as it sounds.

Torri - Eccentric super genius who talks in monotone with no emotion. She's odd but not in a bad way. Nothing too special about her shes just normal outside of her eccentricities. She does build planes from scratch and golems and send them flying and shit. Loves birds, tries to be a cicada, stands in the pouring rain all day because of a promise, walks around naked without being embarassed, tries to fight monsters alone because you said you wanted world peace and almost dies, and a bunch more shit. Although you do have the same feeling with her as you have with Ellie. She feels more like a little sister than a heroine. And you know how I feel about little sisters.

Feene - Foreign girl with blond hair blue eyes and talks in really weird formal speech. She's ok but they try to hard to hammer in the fact that she's foreign and shit. Shes all about justice this justice that justice everything blah blah blah.

Clotz - Fuuko's childhood friend. You classmanted with him and he helps you guys out when you're in the dungeon as the radio guy. Similar to the characters in persona who never actually fight but is always giving hints and talking through the radio.

So yeah these are the people who are going to help you fight in the dungeons. What is annoying is you can only bring 1 heroine with you and 9 children. So you will be forced to grind each heroine individually until they are high enough levels to have good children to power up your team. This is fucking annoying and grindy. Luckily if you are playing the steam version it comes with all the DLCs so you get a rare mob called Saggita on the final floor of dungeons. If you pick up the quest to kill them but never turn them in then the mobs remain golden so you can easily scout them out and kill them. These guys give like 3000 exp each and comes in a pack of 3 while normal enemies give like 30 exp each. What the fuck? Basically strategy is skip every pack of mob you see in a dungeon and go down to the bottom floor then hunt for these. Kill them and tp out and come back in to the same floor and repeat until you are leveled up. This is fucking boring. Near the end I pretty much gave up because the dungeons get so fucking large. 15 floors of 30 rooms each is way too much to explore for a game with shitty combat. Well combat isn't bad but its all just spamming your strongest skills since there is no time limit so you can always leave the dungeon and come back at the same floor when you need mana anyways. And its not like mana potions are in low supply. There's even an autocombat button you press and it does all of this for you. They know the game wasn't about the combat. That said bosses are stupidly easy and boring. Unlike persona's giant health sink hour long boss fights, the ones here ends in one turn. All bosses use the same skill, dusk release which is a full party aoe attack that does moderate damage. That's it. From the first boss to the last they only use one attack and you can blow them up in 1 turn if you're decently leveled.

So if combat sucks, if the social links suck, then what about the story it has to be good right? Nope! Not even close. It the most generic and mediocre bullshit save the world story that every shitty mindless developer makes. Monsters suddenly spawn 20 years ago and all the kids start fighting. Why? who gives a fuck. Then there's an evil corporation who wants to harvest the power or some shit and people start turning into monsters and what the fuck. So you use your powers to make children with all the girls and then you and your army of kids go into the dungeon and fight them.There are basically two short cutscenes before a dungeon opens up and you go in there and spend the rest of the time farming. After you beat it, two more short cutscenes, talk to all the heroines to raise another bar of affection, classmate, do two cutscenes with each of them, then do 2 story cutscenes and enter the next dungeon. Repeat until its over.

The classes in the game are interesting but the problem with having a lot of classes is most of them end up sucking. But they did a good thing in that when you bring children with you they travel in a pack of 3. 3 groups of 3 will make up your team of children and you with a heroine makes up the 4th group. Different classes in the groups will unlock hidden group skills so even if Bulleteer is the strongest gun class in the game, you're not going to get full potential unless you mix it up with a say Gambler or Ether Sniper. The stats of the child is determined by the mother. For example, Feene has a lot of attack and defense but low speed and technique. Torri has a ton of speed and Serina has a ton of technique but no attack. If you are making an Archer class you should pick Serina since Archers use technique for their damage while a Paladin class should be on Feene since they are tanks. That means to get the most of all the classes you'll need to level up the mothers so their stats will be better. What if you want a shitty Archer could you just go Feene since she's the highest level? Nope! You must reach certain stat thresholds before you can create a class so since Feene's children's growth is mostly into defense they will never be able to make an Archer no matter how much you level her. The mother will also pass her element down to the child. For example, Torri's children will all have the wind element, Serina's children will have fire, and Feene will have dusk. So having all your children be one element may be good when you're fighting against one you are strong against, but as soon as you meet water enemies with a team of 9 fire element children you'll start crying. Some weapons can change the element of your attack, but your defense will always remain. Casters will always learn spells based on their element. So Narika's children will always have earth element spells.

Now comes the more complex stuff. Later on you are able to perform trimating when you get heroine affection high enough. Any heroine with 5 bars or more are able to trimate with each other. Trimating lets you pick two heroines and create a child with bother their stats and one of their elements. You're probably thinking you can just mix Feene with Torri for a child with both great defense and great speed but it doesn't really work that way. Those two are probably the worst mix because it averages out both mothers and they grow into some weird shitty average child with no specialization. Trimating is a trap that people fall into because they think they can get away with a low level mother and a high level mother to make children not easily available to one mother. Lets use the Archer example again. Say your highest level mother is Feene and Serina is at level 1. When you trimate the max level of the child will be low and the growth of the archer will have weak technique, lower defense and attack and even lower speed than normal. Archers want technique for their damage and since their growth is so low once you leveled up they will be doing shit damage. Sure you'll be able to hit the threshold for an Archer but its going to be a giant burden character not able to do shit because you handicapped yourself. Archers don't care about attack, or defense really since they're not going to be tanking like paladins are. These stats are completely wasted. Mixing say Torri with Serina might be better because Torri is all about speed by sacrificing some attack you get to move at incredible speeds. What trimating is good for is unlocking thresholds of special classes early on. For example you might get an Astromancer or Dungeoneer unlocked but no one is able to pick it because no one can hit the threshold, trimate and you can make one. These two classes aren't as specialized in stats so you can make an average child as one of those classes. Trimating also lets you get different elements on classes that are usually focused heavily on one element. For example Serina's Archers will always be fire, but if you trimate with Serina and Torri you'll now have wind element archers. Since Serina also has earth element defense you could have wind element attack, earth element defense archers or fire element attack, non elemental defense. Its surprisingly complex and probably the best part of the game.

Classes are good, choice is good, but it all ends up being more grind. After basically finishing one dungeon and unlocking the next bar of affection for the heroines, its time to get rid of all your children and get a new batch of powered up children! Your child hit their level cap of 13 and now you make a new batch which are level capped at 28. After clearing the next dungeon they most likely hit their cap again so you make a new batch with a cap of 51. But I unlocked a new class I want to make it but oh no I only leveled Ellie but I want to make a Warlock. If you try to make it with Narika you'll get a child with like a max level of 17 or whatever level Narika was. Now you have to go back to level the mother, then you make the child then level again! So once again its back to grinding level 1 children. This shit is boring. Every once in awhile you will get a genius child, marked by a star on their stat screen and a giant star aura around them in dungeons. Genius children get better stats and have a max level of 99. You might be thinking, I have a genius child I'll just keep him forever! NOPE. If only it was that easy. The stats of your child is based on the level of the mother. A level 4 mother with a genius child will not be as strong as a normal child with a level 40 mother for example. Sure you can grind to 99 but so can a genius child from a higher level mother. The game is also limiting you to 3 genius children at a time so you'll need to get rid of them before new genius children can be born. By getting rid of them I don't mean killing them off because that's just cruel. You send them away to become independent by helping out the city. Each child will contribute exp to raise the level of the city which opens up new shops or upgrade shops with new stock so you'll always want to send them away when they don't need them. Higher level children contribute more exp but since there isn't a time limit in the game you can just make thousands of level 1 children in one sitting and send them all away to max the city level anyways. Once again they didn't think shit through.

Is this game good? No its not. If you want to play a good game try Persona. Persona 3 isn't the greatest but Persona 4 is pretty good. One thing that this game does well is that it gives me a new appreciation for Persona. Thanks Conception 2, at least you have that going for you. It has potential but it doesn't know why exactly they copied such and such from Persona.

Firewatch - A Midlife Crisis

When I heard of this game being good I sort of just brushed it off going its probably like Gone Home or Dear Esther and didn't really bother with it. While I liked those two games I found this one to be much superior and believable. In Gone Home you learn of life through notes hidden in the house and in Dear Esther its from a unknown narrator. In Firewatch however, you are basically alone, isolated in the woods and the only form of companionship is a friendly voice on the radio, your boss Delilah. You learn of the world, yourself, your fellow coworkers, and Delilah though conversations with her.

What is the game about? There really isn't much you can say without spoiling the game too much so I'll just say its about a game about a man named Henry going through a midlife crisis. When you first start the game you get a little text narration of your life going from how you met your wife Julia, to how you ended up at Firewatch. The narration will constantly give you multiple choices on how you want to react in certain situations. It doesn't change the story at all, but it changes little things and affect your conversations with Delilah. Basically it starts with how you met your wife and then the years you spent with her and her eventually suffering from dementia at the age of 40 and how your life spiraled into drinking and petty arguments with your estranged wife and her family. Eventually you decided to run away from it all and take a summer job in Firewatch as a park ranger away from civilization. You will then spend the next few months there with your boss talking about anything and everything from her failed attempts to marriage and running away here for a decade to random conversations about trees. You start from being annoyed by her constant prodding into your personal life and sarcastic remarks but eventually both you and Henry will get along with her. Shes very realistic in the way friends egg each other on and is quite entertaining since she will be your only human interaction for the entire summer. Then shit starts happening.

The first half of the game is sort of calm and in a way boring. Delilah gives you instructions to pick up a supply drop, someone setting of fireworks in the forest go warn them, check out that smoke pillar in the distance, blah blah blah. Its relaxing walking in the trees with no one around and soaking in the image and sounds of nature then Delilah pops up on the radio to give you a friendly jab to remind yourself that you are not quite alone. At the second half, you start noticing shit happening. Someone breaks into your tower while you're away throwing your shit out the window stealing your stuff. Someone cut the phone lines so you cannot call for help. Getting attacked from behind and finding stuff about a Wapiti station that shouldn't exist. A giant conspiracy happens and the game starts getting interesting but the formula doesn't really change. Delilah sends you somewhere and you go do it. You find clues and you report back to her. You spent the entire game constantly chatting with her and the time you found out how someone has been listening in on your conversation and then Delilah saying the two of you should stop talking for awhile really puts it in perspective how lonely it is out here without her. Its really quite unnerving to hear silence on the radio. The ending is pretty great too. It doesn't try too hard to give you a bad ending or a good ending, but a realistic ending. While some people were disappointed about it, I enjoyed how it ended. This summer was your escape from reality, and eventually you have to face it and return. What you choose to do is up to you.

While I found this game to be interesting, it is quite short. It can be finished in a couple of hours and most people will find that isn't worth the cost for the game especially since there is little to no replayability. If you're a fan of Gone Home or another narrative story game then you will enjoy this and probably worth the cost. Otherwise wait for a steam sale or something before grabbing it. However if you hate walking around doing nothing or listening to random conversations then this game obviously isn't for you. You don't get to do any fighting. There is nothing out here in the forest but you and your radio.