Wow another touhou themed game, buuuuut this one is a rougelike game where you play multiple characters. Rumia (usually a first boss level) has sunk Gensokyo into darkness, every one of the sorta main cast is stuck and has to light torches to fight Rumia, over and over again. Did I mention it was in beta? Mind that it's a little buggy and incomplete, but there's enough in the game to really review it. First off, characters. It includes the two main heroines Reimu and Marisa, but it also includes many of the other characters with notable abilites. They each have unique bullets and bombs to use, even different types of dashes. Reimu - Easy to use starter character, homing bullets and a special (which requires MP) that kill everything, she also grazes easier due to her smaller hitbox Marisa - Has a start up period for bombs and bullets, but once they start they can lay down some hurt, also big fat laser special, can't argue with that Reisen - A burst character that doesn't have much in the way of personal offense, but her dodge and special can summon clones which can take out whole groups of enemies and have do insane damage to bosses. Youmu - Melee character that has a projectile special, if you upgrade her she can slice projectiles, so she's reeaaaallly easy to abuse, especially since her ability gives her bonus damage if you have extra range alongside half damage from other melee opponents, also really tanky. Suika - Large offense and defense, flamethrower special that melts through health bars but endangers you with it's close range, you're special kinda helps since you turn big and take only one damage from projectiles but you need lots of MP regeneration items if you want to dominate. Sakuya - Pretty much the best character if you want to complete the game as many times as possible, she has a really slow bullet where you have to charge your knives to throw them (at least it does a lot of damage) and her special should rarely be used to deal with weak/large groups of enemies, but it decimates tanky enemies and bosses, also she has the lowest health out of all the characters. My personal favorite. The thing about all of the characters is that they all have their fun moments, but some have niches that are way better for beating the game, which you will be doing over and over again. For instance, Youmu basically never loses health since she slices everything, enemies die quickly and the projectiles that are shot will be sliced anyway. Sakuya has a time stop clone which avoids a hit then gives you lot of time to reposition yourself, AND her insane special (the DIO timestop knife attack thing) really does decimate bosses, literally two phases in the first five second for most bosses, and Rumia herself is easily beaten with enough MP items. But what really brings out the potential is collectibles, random objects that can give you more health, attack, range, and other special effects. There are a really random assortment of items, toothbrushes, jeans, radios, seals, sailor uniforms, hammers, bricks, waterguns, fire swords, baguettes, and all sorts of funny hats. The best part is they all stack, so you have to collect as much items as possible. There is a degree of strategy to this, since some items have really severe downsides, the magic hammer gives you a bigger hitbox (but more health), the vampire fangs make it so you can only consume black tea (in exchange for it dropping regularly instead of chests), and the water gun decreases your damage by 20% (in exchange for an 80% fire rate bonus), it depends on the character but you should capitalize on their strengths, you do not want to use the water gun with Suika's fire breath (common sense I guess) since it already has a high fire rate, you're gimping your damage output that way. This isn't even bringing up the special items which are other items that you can use alongside your bullets and specials but have a cooldown. Most are based off a character who may or may not be in the game, Suika has a gourd that flings fireballs, a super double laser spark, and even a retired train car. They should be used as much as possible. Some of them are also really easy to abuse, like the boundary that makes you invincible, move faster, AND regenerates a bit of health alongside a short cooldown. There are very good items, but there are really meta ones, good thing you can carry four. That's pretty much the main part I wanted to talk about, cool characters with awesome items to obliterate bosses and enemies.
So what did we learn?
0 Comments
You know those games that take a lot of time to really get anything out of? The ones where you're building up 2/3 of the time you play? That's Elona, a Japanese developed open source open ended roguelike RPG where literally anything can happen, factoring in the stats of course, that's been in development from 2006 to 2010, but has multiple fan made expansions that are still developed today. Elona is, like any good open source JRPG, based on character sheets and die rolls. Attributes are your characters characteristics that allow you to do basic actions, skills govern the possibility of actions working, and the things you get from both are essentially how you progress. Skills and attributes grow from potential, a percentage that is used up to affect how much stat gain get from certain actions (i.e. casting spells grows your casting skills), so you also have to go to trainers to train your stat skill from platinum coins, which you get from quests which coordinate to certain stats. Simple right? The main goal of the game is to save the world from an ancient evil usurping the world blah blah blah preventing a mad experiment from ruling the world with zombie soldiers blah blah blah preventing ANOTHER ancient evil usurping the world, it kinda sucks that the story is only in Japanese and the English version doesn't translate all of the lines. These later game content are gradually unlocked through the story dungeons, really just a big dungeon with a boss on some floors, and have higher level scaling. Still with me? I'm about to get to the interesting stuff. But other than the story, the game really depends on what you want to do, you can become a golem and focus solely on big melee hits (or just use potential growth to grow your other stats and become OP), become a cargo trader with a large estate with all gold everything, become a thief who can steal the weapons and leave everyone defenseless, raise the charisma stat and command an army of catgirls, it's really up to you. Scaling in games is far from new, especially RPGs, but Elona has ALL of its skills useful with obscurity making them fun to use, particularly ones that specialize in character growth rather than direct work like combat or magic. A good example is gardening, the ability to grow plants sounds quite plain, until you realize that you can use the cooking skill to make skill food out of your +9 crops (or sell it for lots of money), grow artifact seeds for some easy enchanted weapons, or some magic seeds for spell books and rods essential for a wizard, to become a really well stocked character. That's only one skill, jeweler can make precious gemstones out of ore to sell for a lot of money, carpentry can make a lot of cargo to sell for money, alchemy can make potions in a jiffy compared to the limited stock of low invest merchants, it really is up to what you want to focus on. But a stat that allows rapid scaling for your skills and attributes is very valuable. The fun also comes from dungeoneering (dungeons are called Nefia in-game) which is the more exciting part of the game, you'll encounter weapons of legendary value, weird and funny looking creatures that will kill you in one hit, and of course the cooking supplies and spell books to keep your skills going! Dungeons and enemies are level locked, the best part is the monster balls (poke-balls) that recruit any hostile monster to your team. But that's the most fun, seeing the different bosses and monsters and defeating them, along with the modifiable sprite sheets, so you can put any anime character or moe-ize any monster you want (*ゝω・). Overall if the point wasn't made clear, you really get what you want from the game by just exploring at first, then maybe making a new character that will focus one one thing, it really depends on you. That's all I can say, just don't pick a dumb class like fairy (gear limitations and easy to die early game) and go for any stat boosters. So go young one, explore... But seriously what do I do?
Obligatory Score: *single roll of (8d10+11) that modifies hit bonus by 8 and damage bonus by 5 with two hand modifier and character scaling*/10 Disclaimer: I'm using ElonaPlus 2.01 with some visual modifications, Elona base or OOMSEST are considerable too
The seventh game in the mainline Touhou series, or rather the second game in the more well known Touhou games developed for Windows, it improves upon Embodiment of Scarlet Devil and fine tunes the game's system for a more rewarding system. There are five base levels, an extra level, and the Phantasm level. You play as one of three playable characters shooting enemies which fire danmaku (projectiles, lasers, anything that can kill you) towards you, a mini boss, then a boss fight. You have a limited amount of lives and three continues, you can cancel enemies and projectiles with a limited amount of bombs. Bosses and mini bosses consist of regular projectile patterns, and spell cards, really difficult (and pretty) attacks where you can't die or use a bomb if you want to capture it. You obtain different bonuses when you clear the stage. The main objective is to finish all the stages, but the good ending is when you can beat it without a continue, and also collect the highest score you can. This system is a very solid example of using flow, if you've ever seen the game without playing it, it looks impossible and very visually appealing. But when you actually play the game you see something else, you can see a path to sneak through and the right way to take it, also you have a tiny hit box, you can practically kiss the danmaku and you will live. That is the first part of playing any sort of bullet hell game, getting to understand danmaku patterns and knowing how to lead shots at enemies as you do that. You will die a lot, use a lot of bombs, and eat up your continues just to see what the stage and bosses even look like. But after a lot of repeated attempts, you can practically do whole stages without using any bombs or dying. The impossible eventually becomes possible, then it becomes easy, this is the skill return that makes the series so addictive. The changes in difficulty do have a sorta steep curve once you get to The Prismriver sisters, since their stage's enemies have large chucks of projectiles all flung at you. On the first play through, You would die a lot, the only way around this and to grab all the score items in time is to fly around the edge of the screen, which goes against a lot of schmup thinking. But, that's Touhou for you, so the best thing you can do is go with the flow (ooh pun) and always play with the whole screen. The flow stays intact since there is a practice mode, so you can focus solely on the stage and boss, eventually mastering that one boss that tears you in half without the hassle of the bosses you already mastered just eating up your time. You also tend to find favorite bosses through practice (*cough* Konpaku *cough*), which also keeps you going. With some precarious curiosity, you can eviscerate through some spell cards The flow learning the pattern and shooting the boss until it's become second nature. But what keeps this system going is the difficulty setting before you even start. What makes Touhou difficulty settings so interesting is that each pattern and spell card is revamped with more projectiles, lots of bosses and mini bosses will even have new spell cards that you can't even witness until you play higher difficulties, further rewarding mastery of previous levels. Which leads up to the fact that it's really up to you on how confident you are in your abilities to see what else the game has to offer, self-challenge is what keeps the flow flowing without infuriating the player, since the player is deciding how difficult they want to play. But there is another feature that follows completion and that is score, because this is a traditional arcade game at heart. There are many ways to get waaaaaay more score than playing normally, from shooting unfocused to item grabbing by going to the top to shooting closer to a boss so a spell card can be beaten for a better time score, they are all very dangerous and can only even be considered if you know the original stage/spell card. But this is what throws the flow into the stratosphere, building a new score as you learn projectiles is addictive, supplementing the gameplay further. Cherry is also important since it auto-grabs items so you can focus on dodge projectiles So, the last thing to talk about is the game's main draw, which adds a new score feature called Cherry. You get cherry from grazing, shooting, and cherry items. If you collect 50,000 points worth of cherry, you activate a barrier, which acts as a free bomb that activates when you are hit are you use a bomb. But, you can keep the barrier up for a nice score bonus, which means you can't use a bomb or die when it's active, further reinforcing the skills that is expected of you. You will be cashing out your barrier bonus for a large score during a spell card, which is fun with the sound effects and huge numbers on the screen, really really addictive. There is also the characters and music, what makes Touhou so unique. if you've been on the internet and have even grazed (oh look another pun) anything video game/anime related, you have maybe seen a character (Cirno probably lol) or heard a music track without even realizing it: Bad Apple, Night of Nights, UN Owen Was Her, Hartmann's Youkai Girl, Gensokyo Past and Present, and the millions of popular tracks covering each song. So does Perfect Cherry Blossom's characters and music tracks stack up? Yes, absolutely because of how energetic and powerful they are, the tone and mood is perfectly set by each track. MIDIs fit the Touhou games well from the fact that they are meant for PC games from that era (early 2000s). But really, all the Touhou tracks in every game are actually good, so yes they do stack up. If you want to know more just look them up and see what fan made anything is made on them. Touhou characters are easily recognizable, which is where they're so popular. The interactions in the base game are funny too. It just works, separately or together. So overall, you should play the games, from learning how to be patient and gradually getting better to just being able to love what is arguably one of the most recognizably obscure video game series out there. What did we learn about? No seriously I went off and forgot what I was writing about
Obligatory Score: Chen/10 *All footage was recorded in medium difficulty of practice mode
Cheese Quest is a flash game hosted on the Cartoon Network site, it is based on Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends, running from 2004 to 2009 with six seasons. The game itself is about Cheese being Cheese. What makes it different from other flash games is it's sheer simplicity, it's faithful adaption of the series, and it's addictive nature that keeps it fresh.
Play the game and finish it yourself, you'll see why. https://www.cartoonnetwork.com/games/fosters/cheese-quest-3d/index.html (this is a link to the game) The first thing to talk about is the levels, while along the way discussing tips and tricks to getting a higher score from the expert (that's me, I've been interested with this game since fourth grade). First step, always ALWAYS play in 3D. If you don't, you kill bunnies. The first level has platforming, which has simple moving platforms, pitfalls, rolling and bouncing obstacles, and collectibles. It's not demanding at any point in this section. The important parts are the lady power-ups (from that one episode), which is where you get much more points, and the horsey power-up from the dancing monkeys, which is the best part since the platforming is ACTUALLY kinda demanding. The best way to rack up points is to duck under the smiling coconuts with the lay power-up, then immediately jumping to get the points for dodging and kissing the coconuts. The second section has you rocket into space (on the horsey) and shooting weird alien things. This is where you have to use actual thinking. There are several types of aliens, each in increasingly difficult patterns, at first it's completely static ones, with some that shoot back at you. Eventually you have ones that come towards you, that do a weird pattern thing to collide into you, and ones that go up and down while shooting you. This is then used to combine certain enemies to make it much harder, a wall of static enemies with the other shooting enemies is a good example of difficult. If you put down enemies before they shoot they shouldn't be a problem, but there are times where you can't or you're trying to get a no-hit run. Shooting enemies projectiles don't give you too much room when there are more than two in the middle, so moving to either edge at the top or bottom is best. But, if there are projectiles on one or both edges, your best bet is to track what projectiles are there so you can weave in between (if you've played bullet hell games then this should be a cinch with the huge hit box that is Horsey Cheese). Shooting back is as easy as going up and down while spamming space bar, curtain fire kills literally everything, just don't run into any projectiles. Your shots are not at a specific interval when moving (kinda hard to explain but your shots are "placed" in succession instead of following the point where it came from), so you can form a sort of walled shot to clear horizontal rows of enemies, perfect for clearing all enemies and shooting aliens that shoot back. The boss battle, a flying cake (Cheese's mortal enemy), shoots a bunch of projectiles at you while flying around. This section seems hard, but if you use the projectile wall while being diagonal to the cake will make this battle kinda easy to cheese (pun not intended), just don't get cornered, weave out of there. Rinse and repeat to get the water horsey. The third section is where most people would give up and say "I give up, lol." You control the water horsey, but there are torpedoes and nukes (bigger torpedoes) flying towards you. Your horsey can eat the torpedoes but not the nukes, dodging either will still net you points. The worst part is how you take up half the screen, so the only torpedoes you can eat are on the bottom, and if you hang around the middle, you have to constantly watch the top so you can dodge torpedoes at the top. You have to do lots of resourceful procedures to get the most points you can without dying. The last stage is the bonus stage, where you fall into a bowl of cereal and dodge coco pops. it's self explanatory, the best I can say is to hang out where the cereal isn't. But, then you beat the game, Cheese announces his love for cereal, and you are given your score. So, the reason why this game is so highly rated by me is it's pacing, it's three different games that are different yet united. The first play through is one of the best experiences one could have, since the different situations are amazing when you don't know what's happening next, which is why I said you should play it first. At the end, it feels like a big adventure and like some ethereal, other-worldly piece of art, or that's what I feel at least. The other best part is the humor and references it has to the show it's based on, having Cheese as the main character gives it a surprisingly wide roster of material with it's horsies, monkey dances, and a cameo from Bloo making it very unique when it's mixed with it's retro aesthetic. The game play is also interesting, infuriating but that's what the intent was, or I think it was. The third section does feel very suck-y, but can you name a good water level in an NES era video game? This game is one of my most favorite things in the world, it's up there next to Trigun, Late Registration, TR-808 drum beats, and caramelized popcorn, It's that good. If you're interested in more shooter game things, then play Neptunia Shooter, based off the Hyperdemension Neptunia games, it's a fun shooter game that popped into my head while playing. So, what makes this THE flash game?
Obligatory Score: really cool my dude/10 Back at the end of 2019, there were trailers for two games based on Persona 5, the Royal edition, which is a special re-release edition similar to the Golden or FES editions of Persona, and Persona 5 Scramble. A game that, at first, many people thought was a cash grab based on Persona 5. As more trailers were released, with cut scenes, character reveals, special attacks, and changes to the Warriors style that captured the original game's distinct style. Many people were convinced that Scramble would be worthy of being a sequel to what many people consider to be the JRPG of the decade. As of February 5th 2020, a demo was released for Persona 5 Scramble. Which releases on the 20th for PS4 and Nintendo Switch, in Japan only. In order to download the demo, or buy the game if you really want, you need to have a PSN account or Nintendo Account set to Japanese region, it should be easy to find from there. Persona 5 Scramble is designed after a Warriors game, with similar "beat up a bunch of guys" gameplay. ATLUS originally planned to make a whole Warriors series about all the Persona games. They decided to focus more on Persona 5 during development, and now Scramble is a full fledged Persona 5 sequel, with Joker coming back to Shibuya Ward and meeting up with the Phantom Thieves again. Persona 5 is also designed to be much more light-hearted than Persona 5, with it's world-ending plot and stories of corruption, so it's about the Phantom Thieves travelling Japan for summer vacation. The game starts after Joker, Ryuji, and Morgana are given cards by Alice Hiiragi, a popular idol that happened to be in the area. The cards have the keyword "wonderland" on them, and say to use EMMA, the new navigator app. A name, a keyword, and an app enter cause them all to find themselves in another shadow world in their thief outfits, with Hiiragi as it's ruler. Since anybody with the app can enter, and there are innocents having their soul gem things stolen by shadows, it starts with another plot similar to Mementos that the Phantom Thieves have to stop. Gameplay, alongside the 3D beat 'em up environment, has many mechanics from the fist Persona 5 to not only associate the two mechanic-wise, but actually add to fighting and make it truly feel correct. The major ones are skills, with the same elemental weakness format, all out attacks, which you get after you knock out enough enemies, and even attacks that seem very time sensitive, like gun attacks, which slow time and are quick attacks that knock lots of enemies out, and the "1 more" mechanic being a follow up attack after hitting a persona's weakness. It may seem like a lot, but if you've played the Persona games and understand the mechanics, especially in Persona 5, then it feels almost natural. These mechanics are amazing, the same tools for both games are translated well, and even new mechanics like environmental attacks, attacks from certain places that are oddly similar to the Arkham games, and chance attacks, which are basically miniature all out attacks, all fit together to feel like some alternate universe of Persona 5's release as a 3D fighting game, which is good, different is good. Later in the dungeon, you find a persona mask that Joker can equip, Pixie. When you next use your skills, you can now switch between Arsene's and Pixie's skills. Just like the games, you can switch personas and their abilities while you are queuing up an attack. Another genius change that is original to Persona 5, but is re-purposed to suit the game. Dungeons, also known as palaces or in this game Jails, are still the same formula. Except the platforming in previous games are now more fluid and integrated, due to the full 3D control being throughout combat and exploration instead of changing to turn based battles (which is still fun I'm not complaining), and there being new environmental attacks for ambushes. Party members still exist, I guess. Skull beats people up(what else would he do?), Mona occasionally heals the party while he beats people up, and Sophia, a new character that is an AI (not an android like in a certain game) with the Persona Pithos, also beats people up. It's a Warriors game so party members aren't going to be relied on heavily, although they are useful in drawing attention and healing. You can play as them later in the game, just not in the demo.
The demo ends a little after that, with the set up of another new character, Hasegawa Zenkichi, that's investigating the incidents happening and meeting with the Phantom Thieves, and explaining that these are not palaces, but jails, and with kings, not rules. Overall, it's a nice snapshot into what the game will bring, especially with personas being back in the game, which means even fusing can be a thing again, as seen in the dream sequence with Lavenza and a missing Igor. Positives
Obligatory Score: 3D/10 Gensokyo Night Festival is a fan made spin off game of the popular Touhou franchise, made by developers Vaka Game Magazine and tea_basira (who has done other Touhou related media), it follows Ibuki Suika (the drunk oni girl of the franchise) as she looks for something to do 'cause she's bored, a surprisingly common motive for many characters in-universe. This game is in early access, released on Monday of this week, which means it might have many problems and glitches, and is used more as a playable demonstration of what they are developing. It's also only the first level of the game, all six will be released by spring of 2020. So far, it has nice combo/projectile oriented dodging based game-play. Specifically, the combo style fighting it offers. Like most 2D platformer games, moves are linked to an action, then to different directions. Gensokyo Night Festival's combos are based around immediate actions, with basic combos that are just mashing X, to finishers that do a bit more damage. Along with the projectiles that do damage from a long distance, or just taking care of weaker enemies that fire projectiles. In order to pull off finishers, like the uppercut and the downward fireball, it requires a directional change during the last attack, like holding up or down. this is further mixed up by the density system. There are two bars you can fill, one for density, one for sparseness, one makes you slower, but powers up your finishers, and the other makes you move faster, but dodges slower. Using these two can essentially give you two modes, one for slower movement and more damage potential, and one for speedy escapes from big attacks, or just running around. All of these give different options that aren't going to be situational, since they all relate to either dodging through projectiles, or damaging opponents. The movement is like water (ironic for an oni), pretty fast, flows into itself, and is WET. Basically put, you can jump, turn to mist and fly around for a bit, hit the ground and keep dashing on the ground, and it gives an indescribable WEEEEEE! effect, if that makes sense. This can come into play when fighting enemies, since projectiles do fire in distinct patterns you can easily dodge, along with the generous invincibility frames that come with. But, it's true value shines when you run around and explore new areas. You feel just like Suika's run animation, essentially. The wide moveset is where controls come into play, the game only explains controller buttons, and even the control settings are only for controllers, not keyboard. Although, it isn't too much of a hassle to find a controller to hook up and the fact that making specific directional movements are easier with a controller stick (although that is up to preference), more information for keyboards, instead of finding out what each action is linked to by pushing all the buttons, would make both ways to play much more viable. The layout when you discover each button is fine though, dodging is mapped to shift (the universal dodge oriented key for mainline and fan made Touhou games), and even has really fun free movement when you turn to mist, with full eight directional control. The buttons for map, camera (for those sneaky areas across a jump), and the heal are all well mapped too. But in the end, it's still in early Access, and I had to redo many parts of the game because the new screens tended to freeze Suika in place, with an eternal spinning that requires going back to the title screen. This is expected, as said before it's in early access and this is initial impressions, when V 1.0 releases it will be an even nicer, more polished release. An Early Access *8/10
Obligatory Score: Spinning Suika/10 *this score is for the everything shown in the Early Access section, a new review will be made for the full release in Spring 2020 Fire Emblem: Three Houses is the latest installment in the Fire Emblem Series, taking the top down strategy elements the series is known for, and putting a different spin on out of combat game play.
In the game, taking place after thousands of years, you play as your own character Byleth, by default. the not too characteristic main character you play as, who has to teach and educate young warriors at Garreg Mach Academy. You pick from one of three houses to teach, which does affect how you witness the story. This sets it apart from other games, as it makes the emotional attachment to these characters much more deeper than just warriors you meet, but more platonic and relatable compared to romance options in previous games. The rest of the game, small battles to bigger war scenarios, is quite standard for Fire Emblem games, but specific twists (which are spoilers) affect all of the characters in their own ways, especially each house's leader. Events like a person having to fight their own house, the not as utilized talk feature on the battlefield, or specific grudges one of your units have against an enemy, none of which is new in Fire Emblem, is made to be much more personal and relevant. The game play is quite similar to the other games, with tile based game play along with different units trying to rout each other or kill the leader. But, there are major changes to the game from tomes being learned spells and not bought, and the weapon triangle not being relevant (although Valentia didn't have them either). This makes it more reliant on character building, with stats not being too situational in the triangle, and spells feeling more deserved when they are learned to specific characters, since they are built into levels for magic stats. These elements of character customization is a nice touch for the new "mechanic" for Three Houses, since it takes a non-linear approach to character design (i.e no skills or abilities are locked). Since you teach your characters, which are your units, you can decide what you want each unit to be, which is determined by their class, which is assigned through tests which require skill checks (require a C in axes, or a C+ in magic, etc), which you teach to your students (affected by your own stats), making character builds that do really well into the later game. It's a lot to take in at first, and you aren't expected to fine tune each character into a rigorous fighting machine, so each character has their own beginning stats and traits, setting up a build that uses those base stats, and each character even requests specific goals on what they want to study and become better in. The best part is that each character's personality is reflected in their stats. There are many other elements that affect characters, Support Levels, Crests, Equipment, Skills(the melee character's equivalent to spells), and Battalions. This still sounds like an absolute unit of information to remember, so the best way is to make an example build: So, you choose the Black Eagles, you see this one girl with a hat, you're like "Hey, that's a J̶o̶j̶o̶ ̶R̶e̶f̶e̶r̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ ." One of the first things you know about her is that she sings, you also find out her name is Dorothea, and she has nice magic stats. "Ok, I'll make her a black magician since it's cool," you say, "Her adjacent healing skill also makes it viable to be white magician, along with a budding talent in it" you think at the same time. You see her goals aren't geared for white magic, and teaching her (via weekly instruction) the skills won't result in great or perfect, so you decide to stick to black magic. Later, after you made her a mage, she asks for a change to swords too. "Wait, doesn't that slow down Black Magic progression, what would she do with sword skills when she got magic, lol" you're smug little face says. Later, you see the (spoilers) dance/singing competition, it results in the unique dancer class, skilled in both magic and swords. "Wow, Dorothea is pretty suited for this class (she outright admits she wants to be in the competition and she also has a wicked charisma stat so...)." After she's that class, you quickly find a Levin Sword, a sword with magic requirements (and a three range attack when forged), and you say "Wow, her sword skills can rise along with her magic skills." The thing is, all of these proposed builds are viable, White Magic, Black Magic are mostly leaned towards, but if you want to make a Pegasus Knight for whatever reason, go ahead, but magic is what you get the most out of. The perfect symphony of these characters, heavy units, ranged units, and even flying units too, makes the true claim to fame for this title, since the other games focus on each character's class, the school setting complements this amazingly, with tests, learning objectives, and friends(yay), making this a pretty good game that I enjoyed, three times. So, how does Fire Emblem: Three Houses combine it's fun and elements?
Obligatory Score: Post Time Skip Dimitri/10 Before we start, Brutal Doom is actually a mod, but it changes enough to be different. So, we should start with history, Brutal Doom is a game modification by Sergeant_Mark_IV for Doom and Doom II that was first released somewhere around 2010 and is still in development in 2017, as proven with this new beta to the next version. It was voted with one of the first Cacowards in 2011, so it has a track record for being pretty well received. At it's heart, it makes the original Doom more violent, more shoot-y, and more interactive, while giving it more modern touches, like physics and vertical aiming(although this was more of an improvement of the modern ports). Now that that's out of the way, lets discuss some of small changes first, like the small little map script things he talked about in his dev diaries he has on YouTube, and then we can go up gradually from there. The scripts are pretty simple, like adding lights that go out when you shoot them, having small bits of grass on grassy plains, or TREES OUTSIDE. These parts of the level used to be barren, now it's more lively and adds more oomph (get it?) to a level. This may be subtle, but it makes me grin when he thinks to put in such small details, like being low of health and dripping blood. These changes are a lot more noticeable in some levels, like the "Waste Tunnels" level. He added more grimy walls so it looks like tunnels that are actually used for waste. The next "tiny" detail is the gore. He also added more deaths to some enemies that were pretty lacking, like the Arch-Vile, which I don't feel like showing because I would've had to play through half the game to find one. Another thing that I think needs to be covered more is the fact you can KICK A PERSON'S HEAD OFF EASIER. In the previous version, you had to aim slightly up to kick a stunned person's head off. Which is not ideal, especially when there's another person shooting at you, now he made the hit box more on the head. This ties into the melee system, which is WAAAY overhauled from simply punch or chainsaw. I love the melee overhaul, it may be physically impossible to do just melee in a pit of monsters that take more than two second with the chainsaw. But, it is is fun in areas with just imps or possessed solider guys. So, the chainsaw is nice, and the fists are actually useful, even with out berserk. So, you can basically do combos with first, simple combos, like uppercuts after the right hand punch and the kick. But, this is made even better with berserk, since the new beta added grabs. Grabs basically make the reload button grab any of the average enemies. You could either, throw this person, or use him as a body shield while shooting. This is really cool, especially when you do it in the MIDDLE of a fight. Even the kicks are overhauled, they made the flying kick ACTUALLY hit an enemy when it lands and add a sliding kick (even though project brutality did it cooler, since you could slide up stairs), which is useful and not just gimmicky. Now, we finally get to the new weapons, My personal favorite is the machine gun, since it's a bit more well-rounded and simple to enjoy. The next gun is the sub-machine gun, which is really cool of you dual wield it. But the problem is, that it is rare just to get one, getting two is even harder, so I just forgot about it until I had to write this. The next gun is the automatic shotgun, which is JUST like the hawk shotgun from project brutality. The only difference is that it's more reserved, it doesn't dual wield or have a pump function that could instantly kill most small enemies. This is actually good, since I don't go into an odd moment of being the go-to weapon. The other new weapon is the rail gun, this is a little weird for me, since the gun doesn't have an INTENSE SCREEN SHAKE to really give me that "big laser being fired" feeling. I never really liked the next gun, the BFG 10K, since it's more like a fancy plasma gun, with bigger projectiles and slower fire rate. Unlike the regular BFG's single projectile that has a big build-up, which makes it even more fun when it actually fires. By far, the weapon I don't really like is the un-maker, since it's find rate is SO RARE. I also heard that the un-maker's ammo comes from killing enemies. With it's fire rate, it is a bit too gimmicky for my taste. So overall, the problems with some of these weapons is that they either lack "oomph" or are a little rare to find, which are easily fixed with a more common find rate, and adding a VERY RUMBLE-Y SCREEN SHAKE, like with the BFG. So, to end the overview with the verdict. I must explain how I would rate these. I like to use an alignment chart, but instead of having good, bad, and neutral, I have good, bad, and meh. I also have enjoyable, meh, and un-enjoyable, instead of lawful, neutral, and chaotic. An example of enjoyable bad is probably The Room, not enjoyable good is something like fast food, and good mediocre is a game that is not bad, but makes me feel good afterwards, this one is the hardest to explain. Now, I can tell this entire mod leans more into the enjoyable good, but the beta update to the mod itself is kinda a good meh. So, the update adding these weapons was kinda predictable, y'know, auto shotgun, rail gun, and sub machine gun, these guns were modded in a lot. Since the small map scripts are the most unique thing about this update, I think that this is a good example of enjoyable meh. Obligatory Score: gun/10 download: http://www.moddb.com/mods/brutal-doom Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YoADewX12E |
JamesHe aspires to be a game designer, let's just hope he gets there. He also happens to goes to DSA. Categories
All
Archives
August 2021
|