The latest collaboration between McDonald's Japan and Neon Genesis Evangelion has certainly been an attention-grabber. From the amusing commercials to the freshly-designed original McDonald's-themed EVA Unit UNIT-M to the transforming toys, it has been hitting all the right notes. At the heart of this unusual mash-up lie the Evangelion burgers, three special limited-time menu items. You may have seen promotional pictures of them already, but what is the reality? And most importantly, how do they taste? There's only one thing for it: I had to try them out.

In order to keep my doctor and wife from getting too upset, I properly prepared for this potentially stomach-destroying effort. Okay, I just had a light brunch and drank a lot of water, but I'm telling myself that's good enough. After finishing work for the day, I hopped in the car and headed for the nearest Makku. While I considered taking the easy way out by going through the drive-through, I wanted to check out some of the in-store signage. So in I went. I placed my order for all three burgers, then checked things out while I waited.

After taking a few pictures, I grabbed my order and drove back to my office. In total, there are three Evangelion burgers at McDonald's, each with a particular character assigned to them. Representing Shinji Ikari, we have the Double Teriyaki Cheeseburger. The enigmatic Rei Ayanami adorns the wrapper for the Hashbrown & Beef Burger with Garlic Mayo. Finally, the fiery Asuka Langley is paired with the Mexican Cheese Chicken Burger. I wouldn't think too hard about how those are supposed to line up. Well, let's dig in.

Mexican Cheese Chicken Burger

This was the one I was the most interested in trying. The special burgers from McDonald's Japan can be hit or miss at times, but they rarely miss when they try to go spicier. This isn't a particularly fancy sandwich, but on paper it seems like it would work. The usual chicken filet patty is placed in a special fluffier-than-usual bun and topped with a slice of processed cheddar cheese, a couple of pickles, taco meat, and a sweet lemon sauce. McDonald's Japan issues a warning that this sandwich is spicy, so if you don't like spicy food you should be careful. This typically doesn't mean much, but upon opening the wrapper there was a certain spiciness wafting off of the burger.

The Mexican Cheese Chicken Burger kicked off what turned out to be a theme with these Evangelion burgers. It was quite messy to eat and its contents were prone to spilling out. The first bite I took was quite delicious. I got a good bite of pickle and taco meat, and the result was a pleasantly spicy and flavorful taste. The sweet lemon sauce had a nice tang to it, too. The chicken filet patties at McDonald's Japan can be a little bland, so having these peppy ingredients in the mix really helped out.

Sadly, the ingredients weren't evenly distributed. Some bites had no pickles and very little taco meat, and when that happened it really demonstrated how important those two elements are to this burger. My hands were in an absolute state by the time I finished this one, but that's what soap and water is for. All in all, I rather enjoyed the Mexican Cheese Chicken Burger. It could have used a little more tsun in its tsundere, but overall it's one I would order again. Best burger for the best character? I guess we'll see as we continue on.

Score: Eight "ANTA BAKAs" Out of Ten

Hashbrown & Beef Burger with Garlic Mayo

A real gap between the McDonald's Evangelion crossover marketing photo and the reality for this one, but we all know how that goes. The Hashbrown & Beef Burger with Garlic Mayo comes off as the busiest of this bunch. You've got the same fancy bun we saw with the Mexican Cheese Chicken Burger, with a thicker-than-usual beef patty. From the bottom to the top, you get some tangy steak sauce, a slice of processed cheese, a hashbrown potato patty, the aforementioned beef patty, and some garlic mayonnaise sauce. Surprisingly, this is not the highest-calorie sandwich of the three. That would be the next one.

The scent of garlic hits you as soon as you open the wrapper. And that proved to be the case for the Hashbrown & Beef Burger with Garlic Mayo as a whole. Biting into it, I found the garlic mayo overpowered every other flavor. The hashbrown pretty much melted into the rest of the burger. Since this burger is lacking any crunchy vegetables, I was hoping the hashbrown would add a bit of texture to the sandwhich. Unfortunately, it was quite soft. The hashbrown and beef patty took turns trying to fall out with each bite, too.

Ultimately, the Hashbrown & Beef Burger with Garlic Mayo sees the rest of its flavors lost in the powerful taste of the garlic sauce. I like garlic as much as the next person, but I couldn't help but feel a little empty about this burger. For how much it appears to have going on, it's completely one-note. Those who hate garlic cannot love or trust this sandwich. Rei, you got robbed. Hopefully the last of the Evangelion burgers can bring this back around. Shinji, don't let us down!

Score: Four "Objects Living a Lie" Out of Ten

Double Teriyaki Cheeseburger

I'll say straight-up that I wasn't very excited by the Double Teriyaki Cheeseburger in the way I was for the other two. It's not that I was expecting it to taste bad or anything like that. The reason is that this is really just a Teriyaki McBurger with an extra pork patty and a slice of processed cheese. On top of that, McDonald's Japan has offered the Double Teriyaki Cheeseburger before without a Shinji endorsement. The only new thing here is the bun, which is the same special one used by the other two Evangelion burgers. The filling is two pork patties generously slathered in sweet teriyaki sauce, the aforementioned slice of processed cheese, some lettuce, and a large dollop of tangy mayonnaise.

If you've never had the Teriyaki McBurger before, there are a few things to know. First, it's very tasty. The sweetness of the teriyaki sauce and saltiness of the pork patty make for an enticing blend, and the mayo adds to the nasty decadence of it all. The lettuce is just there to make you feel better, as it will most likely be rendered fully limp by the time you start eating. Second, it's really messy. When you open the wrapper, it's like an explosion went off. You will get your hands dirty eating it, so plan ahead. Third, because it's such a saucy burger, the contents like to spill out of the bun. The more McDonald's tries to cram in there, the more it wants to spill out. Indeed, the second pork patty and slice of cheese in the Double Teriyaki Burger make it hard to keep a handle on.

The Double Teriyaki Cheeseburger is good, but it's just a bigger Teriyaki McBurger. The extra pork patty doesn't hurt the balance of the burger, and cheese is always welcome. Still, it feels like an opportunity was missed here. For such a big collaboration, having one of the burgers be a recycled one that wasn't very exciting to begin with is a bit of a disappointment. Surely the main character of the show deserves something a little cooler. Then again, it's Shinji. Maybe this is just what he deserves. Reliable, a little on the plain side, and if the others can't get it done then this might be your hero.

Score: Seven "Get in the Burger, Patties!" Out of Ten

Closing Thoughts on the McDonald's Evangelion Burgers

Overall, this isn't a bad batch of burgers. Sure, the Hashbrown & Beef Burger with Garlic Mayo comes off like an oily garlic ball, but McDonald's Japan has unleashed far worse before. With that said, I feel like McDonald's could have done more to lean into the theme. Despite the name, the Evangelion Burgers feel like they could have been slotted in during any number of McDonalds campaigns, and it feels like very little attempt was made to fit them to the Evangelion brand. Even so, I'll stop in and get the Mexican Cheese Chicken Burger once more before it's gone. If you happen to be visiting McDonald's Japan this month, that would be my recommendation. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go hit the treadmill for about six hours.

The Evangelion crossover is live at McDonald's stores in Japan now.

The post A Cruel Grimace’s Thesis: Trying the Evangelion Burgers from McDonald’s Japan appeared first on Siliconera.

Being a Western Ys fan has certainly gotten easier in the last decade or so. For a very long time, the odds of any given release in the series getting a localization was hit or miss. More miss than hit, really. That changed in the twilight years of the PSP, when Nihon Falcom hooked up with XSEED to bring a number of its games overseas. One such title was the PSP version of Ys: The Oath in Felghana, the superb remake of the third game in the series. The two companies have once again joined hands to bring that game to the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4/5 with Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana.

The word "remake" gets applied in all kinds of ways in this wild hobby of ours, but Ys: The Oath in Felghana would probably qualify as one of its most extreme forms. It's essentially a new game that follows the narrative framework and world design of Ys III: Wanderers from Ys. Originally released on the NEC PC-8801 in July of 1989, Wanderers from Ys broke from the pattern of the first two games by shifting to a side-scrolling format. While the game was well-received at the time, it would prove to be the only time the Ys series would use that style of gameplay.

Following the release of Wanderers from Ys and the departure of series creators Masaya Hashimoto and Tomoyoshi Miyazaki, the series had some very rough years. Ys IV had two largely distinct versions, neither of which was developed by Nihon Falcom. Ys V brought the series back in-house, but didn't make much of an impact. It was a Super Famicom release in 1995, so that might not have been entirely the fault of the game. Whatever the reason, when Nihon Falcom returned to the series a few years later, it was in the form of Windows remakes of the first two games.

Things got back on track with the release of Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim in 2003 for Windows PCs. It sported a spiffy new engine, and had the good fortune to be picked up for a global release on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable by none other than Konami. The work done on this game was carried into yet another remake, this time of Wanderers from Ys. Titled Ys: The Oath in Felghana, it released on Windows PCs in Japan in 2005 and the PSP globally in 2010, with a global PC release coming in 2012. While it told the same story as Wanderers from Ys and featured most of the same locations, the gameplay was more in line with the rest of the series and just about every aspect of the original was expanded upon.

We're a ways past 2012 now, however. That PC version is still kicking, of course. PC games are nice that way. Otherwise, you have had to dig out an PSP or Vita to play Felghana, a prospect that gets more inconvenient as time goes on. Fortunately, Nihon Falcom has ported the game to the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4/5 in a slightly enhanced form as Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana. It appears to use the PlayStation Portable version of the game as its basis, which makes a certain degree of sense. It was the newest version up until now, after all. Things have been touched up a bit visually, and a few modest new features have been implemented.

The real star of the show here is simply that the game itself is now available on these consoles, though. Yes, Adol (awkwardly) fills the silence in conversations now. You can choose your preferred version of the soundtrack, and swap between the original portraits or some new ones. Otherwise, you're looking at all of the same content as the PlayStation Portable release. That's not a bad thing, but if you're looking for a lot of new additions you won't find much here. A remake of a remake, this is not.

With that said, Ys: The Oath in Felghana is an excellent action-RPG, and that goes just as well for this new version as it did for previous ones. At least for this writer, this era of Ys hits the sweet spot between the somewhat thin earlier entries and the multi-character, somewhat long-winded modern games. The story and characters are relatively basic in Felghana, but they're present and help make the world feel bigger than it really is. Adol and Dogi return to Dogi's hometown, and it turns out trouble's a-brewin'. It's up to our red-haired hero to save the day while Dogi is presumably off smashing through walls like the Kool-Aid Man.

The town of Redmont serves as your hub on this adventure, with each of the paths leading from its outskirts taking you in the direction of a different area of interest. You'll be dealing with these areas in a more or less linear order, as opening up them up usually rests on either a story trigger or an ability you'll earn in an earlier spoke. You can return to previously visited areas with your new abilities to score some extra upgrades, and the story will occasionally take you back to some locations to open a new path. Not exactly a massive world, but the areas are just big enough to require exploration without feeling too overwhelming.

You'll frequently return to Redmont, allowing you to take advantage of its shops to pick up useful items and equipment upgrades. You'll need quite a lot of money and ore to stay up to date with your gear, and this will sometimes encourage a bit of grinding. Nowhere near as much as the original Wanderers from Ys, but gold in particular can be scarce as the game goes on. Leveling up can also help with tricky sections, but Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana leans more on your reflexes and skills over having the best gear and a high level. The easier difficulty levels give you a comfortable ride, but even the Normal setting requires the player to put in a little work. The more challenging difficulty settings are a genuine test for any action game fan.

The gameplay in Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is fast-paced and tense. You will often be crowded by your enemies, and there are plenty of hazards and environmental features to keep in mind as you dance around those hostile forces. The boss battles are thrilling, with plenty of fun patterns to learn and liberal amounts of things that will dispatch the inattentive player in a hurry. It feels good to master each encounter, because Adol is like a whirling dervish of death when you've got a handle on things. When combined with the quick movement speed and outstanding soundtrack, it's very easy to get in a zone with this game. That's the mark of a quality Ys entry.

That zippy pace results in a game that you can easily wrap up within ten to fifteen hours, which some players might balk at. I think it's as long as it needs to be, with very little in the way of unnecessary filler. It also provides some satisfying incentives to replay on higher difficulty settings, with an interesting New Game+ feature. The game allows you to pick some cheats using points earned based on the difficulty level you beat the game on, so if you want the full Tiny God effect you really do need to push yourself to the limit. Big risk, big reward.

For this review, I played the Nintendo Switch version of the game. By and large, it runs nicely on the platform in both handheld and docked mode. There have been some light graphical improvements made, but this is still a game from the mid-00s at its core and the texture maps and geometry often reflect that. The framerate on the PSP version could get dicey in busier sections of the game, and while this Switch version is considerably better in that regard, it does still sometimes dip when there's a ton of things going on. One would hope the PlayStation version would smooth that out, but I can't confirm that. It's a little disappointing, but I doubt it will be gamebreaking for most.

The best thing about Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is simply that it gets this immensely enjoyable action-RPG onto more modern platforms. The port is solid though not flawless, and not much has been added for this go-around. I would argue that The Oath in Felghana doesn't need more than we already saw in the previous versions, though. I'm not sure if a series like Ys could get away with a game this lean and mean anymore as a brand new installment, but it's one classic that I always like to have at hand thanks to how breezy and satisfying it is to play. A great game then and now.

Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana will be released on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5 on January 7, 2025.

The post Review: Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana Is a Refreshing Blast from the Past appeared first on Siliconera.

There was a slew of exciting announcements at The Game Awards 2024, including the returns of several long-dormant franchises. Capcom dusted off not one but two of its beloved old IPs, announcing new installments in both the Okami and Onimusha series. The Okami sequel appears to be getting a lot more love, and it's perhaps not difficult to see why. While Okamiden was a very good game in its own right, fans have been wanting a full-blown sequel for almost two decades. That game also sees Hideki Kamiya return to working with Capcom, reuniting the director with the creation he left off with.

That's exciting news, to be sure. With that said, I think Onimusha: Way of the Sword is set to surprise many. At this point, we know very little about it. Capcom announced the game with a teaser trailer and a few basic story details via the game's official website. We see a samurai equipped with the signature Oni Gauntlet battling an assortment of monsters small and tall, absorbing soul energy, and questioning his own humanity. Standard Onimusha stuff, really. Further information from Capcom tells us the setting is a twisted version of Edo-era Kyoto, where Genma creatures roam and clouds of Malice choke the streets. This also checks out.

Capcom will assuredly continue to trickle out more on the game between now and its 2026 release, but the footage we've seen already has people speculating. What kind of game will it be? Will any characters from previous games return? Why Onimusha, and why now? Time will have to reveal most of those answers, but I believe there is no better time to for Onimusha to make its return. This is a series that carried tremendous weight in its time, and it could very well do so again. The key will be to solve one of the issues to led to its original demise: what is Onimusha, really?

Onimusha was first conceived by series creator Yoshiki Okamoto as little more than a Warring States Japan-flavored take on Resident Evil. Instead of a spooky mansion, players would explore a ninja house filled to the brim with deadly traps and merciless enemies. It was initially planned for the Nintendo 64DD, then partially developed for the PlayStation, but was ultimately released for the PlayStation 2 early in the console's life.

This proved to be a massive boon for the game, now known as Onimusha: Warlords. The PlayStation 2 was an immediate smash hit, and those new owners were hungry for cool games that showed off the power of the console. With Resident Evil otherwise occupied, Onimusha: Warlords looked to scratch that itch in a way no other contemporary game could. Its main character Samanosuke Akechi, modeled after real actor Takeshi Kaneshiro, looked incredible. While the game opted for prerendered backgrounds instead of real-time 3D, this simply allowed its visuals to shine even brighter. It felt like a true next-generation game, even if in most respects it played like the PlayStation games it was inspired by.

Onimusha: Warlords was a huge hit, becoming the first PlayStation 2 game to sell a million copies. A sequel followed, this time starring the late actor Yusaku Matsuda as a new protagonist, Jubei Yagyu. Perhaps responding to some criticism over the brevity of the original game, Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny offered a more sprawling adventure. While it received a sunny reception in Japan, its performance in the West left something to be desired.

This led to Onimusha 3: Demon Siege, which brought back the original hero Samanosuke Akechi and paired him with a French officer portrayed by Jean Reno. This chapter also marked the shift to a full 3D engine, bringing it in line with the latest Resident Evil games. Although reasonably successful, Onimusha 3 couldn't quite hit the heights of the original game's sales. Nevertheless, a fourth entry was developed for the PlayStation 2 and released in 2006, but it was considerably less of an event. Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams' weak sales seemingly spelled the end for a franchise that had been so important to Capcom scant years before.

What happened? It's possible players were burnt out on the series. Counting a couple of spin-offs, there had been six distinct Onimusha games and one remake released in the span of five years. It could be that Onimusha: Warlords was just in the right place at the right time, and returns were bound to diminish. Some might say that it had just run its course as a series. After all, it was hardly the only franchise that failed to make the leap from the PlayStation 2 to the next generation of consoles.

I think there was something else going on, though. It's clear that Onimusha: Warlords resonated with players, at the very least. As the generation went on, I believe Onimusha found itself losing more and more of its purpose both to Capcom and players. If you wanted a Resident Evil-style game from Capcom on your PlayStation 2, the real thing soon arrived. Meanwhile, Devil May Cry was doing the melee action thing in a much more stylish and widely-appealing fashion. Onimusha found itself caught between two other in-house successes, and its Jack of All Trades approach left it in a tough spot that even stunt casting couldn't get it out of.

It likely didn't help that the two elements that most strongly defined the franchise seem to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Onimusha's strong Japanese historical themes may have become a liability as the global market entered a period where Western themes were more strongly favored. Its signature gameplay element, the Issen, was a flashy parrying move that required split-second reactions. It was highly technical and challenging to master. Unfortunately, the general sentiment towards difficult games was also entering a low period.

It's been a long time since 2006, and trends have swung significantly since then. The Dark Souls series and the many games inspired by it have shown that players relish tough, precise fights against deadly monsters of all shapes and sizes. Games with Japanese themes have no trouble finding a global audience, with the likes of Sekiro, Ghost of Tsushima, and Rise of the Ronin demonstrating that samurai settings are hotter than ever. Resident Evil has leaned hard into its horror elements, and Devil May Cry appears to be on another break. The path is once more clear.

Presumably, Onimusha: Way of the Sword isn't going to bind itself excessively to the franchise's traditions. The footage already shown tells us we won't be dealing with prerendered backgrounds or fixed, cinematic camera angles. No obvious signs of Jean Reno. Still, we're going to be going toe-to-toe with plenty of Genma creatures, and that Issen parry move will assuredly be there. Whether or not the game will take on a more open world style or return to the linear style of the older games is as of yet unknown, but there's some serious potential here either way. Even if it turns out that people were burnt out on the games, 20 years is plenty of time for one's appetite to whet again.

While Onimusha once found itself without a place in the world of gaming, this is a medium where things are constantly changing. There's always another chance for a comeback. A chance for an old hit to reforge itself, stronger and sharper than ever. If things continue to line up the way they look to, Onimusha: Way of the Sword might be poised to bring the series back to the top of the gaming world in one swift strike when it arrives in 2026.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword is expected to release in 2026 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

The post It’s Never Been Better Timing for the Return of Onimusha appeared first on Siliconera.

In its massive year-end round of interviews with various Japanese game developers, Famitsu talked to a few members of Eiyuden Chronicle development team Rabbit & Bear Studios. Character designer Junko Kawano, director Osamu Komuta, and producer Junichi Murakami all spoke with the publication about their aspirations and goals for 2025. While each had their own answers, all of them confirmed that DLC is on the way for Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

A spiritual successor to the Suikoden series, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes finally saw release in 2024 after a couple of delays. With design headed up by the late Yoshitaka Murayama and a team of Suikoden veterans, the game sought to scratch the itch for another game in the long-dormant RPG series. It launched in a rather buggy state on some platforms, but Rabbit & Bear Studios have since issued a number of updates to hammer down the biggest issues.

Character designer Kawano briefly touched on the challenges of using a crowdfunding model, thanked players for their support, and said that DLC for the game was ready. She also mentioned that she is looking forward to the upcoming remasters of Suikoden I & II, and I think that's something we can all relate to. Director Komuta talked of his ambitions with Rabbit & Bear Studio and Eiyuden Chronicle. According to him, the last three DLC scenarios that were written by Murayama are finished and awaiting release. He also offered apologies for being late with some backer rewards.

Producer Murakami talked about the big events of 2024 for him, including parting ways with his friend and the release of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. He feels that he didn't fully achieve his goals, but that he would take what he learned forward for the next time. He too apologizes for not fulfilling some of the backer promises yet, but says he will make them his top priority.

From what these members of Rabbit & Bear Studios have said, it seems this upcoming DLC will still have that Murayama stamp on it. His passing was truly tragic, and while it can't be said that Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes had the smoothest of releases, his work on the project certainly shines through. For its part, the team seems dedicated to ensuring that the game lives up to its promises in the end.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is currently available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/Series X/S, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store.

The post Rabbit & Bear Studios Say Eiyuden Chronicle DLC Is on the Way appeared first on Siliconera.

At the end of each year, Famitsu conducts brief interviews with a huge number of Japanese developers about their ambitions and aspirations for the year ahead. It's a great chance to get some insights into what a wide array of developers are up to, or even just what's on their mind. One such developer is ArtPlay's Koji Igarashi, the man behind many Castlevania games and the spiritual successor franchise, Bloodstained. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

It's perhaps little surprise to see that Igarashi has one goal foremost in his thoughts: releasing his next game. The wildly successful Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night finally wound down its active development in 2024, five years after its initial release. All extra content and modes have been implemented, and virtually ever backer promise has been fulfilled. If ever there was a time to hear what's coming and when, this is it.

To that end, Igarashi states that his goal is to release a new game in 2025. ArtPlay announced a sequel to Bloodstained was in development back in June 2021, but has since said little about it. Igarashi states that his year has been rather busy, and he has not been able to make as much progress as he had hoped to. He mentions the illness of director Shutaro Iida, who recently announced that he was battling cancer, as being a shocking event. Nevertheless, he resolves to move forward while hoping for his colleague's recovery.

Since his departure from Konami in 2014, Igarashi has primarily worked on the Bloodstained franchise of games. It seems likely that his next title is the aforementioned sequel, but time will have to tell on that one. At the very least, we know Igarashi wants to release something soon, and that's good news for fans of his work.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is currently available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam.

The post Koji Igarashi Wants to Release a New Game in 2025 appeared first on Siliconera.

As the year 2024 draws to a close, Famitsu has continued its usual tradition of speaking with a wide array of game developers. It's always an interesting opportunity to hear from just about every corner of the Japanese games industry, and this time is no exception. Koei Tecmo's Mei Erikawa, director and brand manager of the company's Ruby Party label, had some exciting news to share. The pioneering otome game developer celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2024, and it's hard at work on a new otome game. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

According to Erikawa, the goal is to create a new otome romance game that suits the modern age. In recent years, Ruby Party has developed games such as Buddy Mission Bond, Touken Ranbu Warriors, Angelique Luminarise, and the seventh game in the Harukanaru Toki no Naka de/Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time series.

Speaking of Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time, Erikawa also mentions that with the series celebrating its 25th anniversary in April, various things are being planned to commemorate the occasion. We'll have to wait and see what she means by that, but with the most recent game in the series having been released in 2020, it wouldn't be shocking to see some kind of announcement about a new entry. With that said, Ruby Party's works often cross multiple forms of media, so it really could be anything.

As the first otome game developer, Ruby Party's name carries a lot of weight in the genre. Few of its games have ever been localized for the West, but there's always a chance Koei Tecmo will change its mind.

The post Koei Tecmo Is Working on a New Ruby Party Otome Game appeared first on Siliconera.

It's weird to think back now to that period of time in the mid-2010s where the Nintendo 3DS was slowing down, the Wii U was clearly not going to recover, and the shape of Nintendo's future remained uncertain. With the mighty power of hindsight, we all know how things turned out. At the time, even Nintendo itself appeared to be hedging its bets, announcing that it would be entering the mobile market with games based on its popular brands. Several franchises were talked about, some saw releases, and a few of those were quite successful.

Flash forward to today, and Nintendo's enthusiasm for its mobile endeavors has almost completely dried up. Some games, like Dragalia Lost, have been shuttered. Mario Kart Tour is essentially in maintenance mode. Talks of which Nintendo series will get the mobile treatment next are long in the past; the answer appears to be "none". The remaining handful of games saw one of its number picked off with the announcement that Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp would wind down in late 2024. While it was certainly a simplified take on the concept, it still had plenty of fans who logged in daily to forge friendships and craft the latest seasonal goodies.

Fortunately, Nintendo offered a solution for those who wanted to keep playing. As the original app went offline, a new fully-paid version would be released. Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete is a modified version of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp that removes some elements tied to the previous monetization system while adding some new things. You can even bring your save file over from the original, so you don't have to start over again. I'll say right away that I wish more free-to-play games would take this route when they close down. Dragalia Lost did not deserve to be, well, lost. But that's a topic for another day. Let's talk about Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete.

It's probably best to take this from the top. Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is a spin-off of Nintendo's wildly popular series of cozy games. While the gameplay of the mainline series would have fit well enough on mobile, Nintendo aimed to create a more streamlined experience. At its launch the game was very slight, but more features and mechanics were added as time went on. The core loop involves visiting four different locations where visiting villagers will rotate in and out every few hours. They'll request certain items that you can gather from the different locations by fishing, bug-catching, or shaking down trees.

Meet those requests and you'll strengthen your friendships, which will get you some goodies that you can then use for crafting clothes and decorations. At certain friendship thresholds, you can even invite the villagers to come and hang out at your campsite in a more permanent fashion. The campsite is one of the two spaces you're able to decorate as you see fit. You can also dress up your camper, and it works a lot like your house in the normal games. That goes all the way down to the loans you'll have to take to expand its size. Outside of these two locations, the placement of things is outside of your control. What's there is what's there, and that's that.

You can also designate one villager as your caretaker, and they'll follow you around in most locations after that. They'll complete requests for you and gather various items while the app is closed, providing you with some goodies every few hours. You can also talk to them whenever you want. Your relationship with your chosen caretaker villager will boost very quickly, so if you're the min-maxing sort you can swap them out regularly to take advantage of that. You can also opt to not have them follow you around if that proves to be annoying. It's just another way to have a favorite villager around in a less temporary capacity.

That's more or less the gist of it, though there are a lot of other side activities to engage in. Most of them are tied to their own locations. Unlike in standard Animal Crossing games, these locations aren't set in one continuous world you can walk around in. Instead, you select them from a map. It's efficient, but this is one aspect of the game that makes it come off as slimmed down as it does. That feeling of escaping reality and chilling out in another place, done so well in the other Animal Crossing games, is absent in Pocket Camp.

With that said, the game has its own appeal that works for it. The conversations with the villagers are as amusing as ever thanks to their quirky personalities and the sharp writing. There is a constant rotation of events, and they're enjoyable to participate in whether you fully complete them or not. Pocket Camp nicely fits the mobile need for something you can play for a few minutes when you don't want to get particularly invested in anything. Indeed, by design there is only so much you can do in it at any given time.

Other aspects of Animal Crossing are well-represented in the game. It's still enjoyable to collect items and use them to decorate your spaces and customize your character. The Happy Home Academy is here, and they've got some of their usual decorating challenges waiting for you. Fishing and bug-catching are made easier here thanks to more generous timing windows, but there's still a certain relaxation to these activities. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that while Pocket Camp does not do everything the other games do, it carries a lot of the same spirit with it. As such, it's a nice companion to the main events.

So far all of this is true of both Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete. I think if you enjoyed the free-to-play version of the game, you're going to enjoy the new version as well. There are differences that I will go into from here, but I want to emphasize that I think just about everything good about the original app has made it into the new one, with plenty of new additions and balance changes that make for an even better experience.

The original Pocket Camp, being a free-to-play game, had various mechanisms to help it monetize. The economy ran around the paid currency of Leaf Tickets which, as in any free-to-play mobile game worth its salt, could be used for a variety of purposes. Initially, you were mainly paying to remove annoyances like inventory limits, timers, and so on. When that proved insufficient, the game added a system where players could earn time-limited sets of items via fortune cookies. If you were an easy-going player, it never felt like the game was pinching you that hard. Those trying to collect full sets on a regular basis, however, likely would have had to pay.

Pocket Camp Complete ditches Leaf Tickets for Leaf Tokens, and these cannot be bought with real money. You can instead earn them by completing various goals and achievements, as rewards for engaging in certain activities, increasing your level, or by exchanging Bells on a monthly basis. The game's thirst for these Tokens is nowhere near that of its predecessor's for Tickets, though the balance is such that you can't really spend them willy-nilly either.

This is always a tricky balancing act when games go from free to paid. A careless approach can lead to either the game still feeling balanced around in-app purchases you can no longer make, or everything coming too easily. Pocket Camp Complete does things the right way with this. Helping to support this changed-up system is the new Complete Ticket, a reward that can be earned from playing events. You can exchange these for a wide array of fortune cookies containing special items from past and present events, or use them to directly get your hands on any limited-time items that you might have missed. This means that even if you can't get enough Leaf Tokens together during an event to fill out your collection, all is not lost.

The other big difference in Pocket Camp Complete comes in how it handles its social elements. In the original game, other players' characters would pop up in various locations. You could befriend other players, which enabled you to do things like buy and sell from each other, send items, or support each other in certain events. Pocket Camp Complete fully does away with all of that, and I'm not sure if I like its new system better or not.

In Pocket Camp Complete, you will have to create and share your customized Camper Card. Once you've exchanged cards with another player, they'll show up in a new location called Whistle Pass. K.K. Slider will hold concerts here on a regular schedule, and you'll be able to enjoy them with the avatars of your friends hanging about. Sometimes they'll give you presents, sometimes they'll offer to help you enter the Quarry location to earn some loot, and sometimes they'll just emote. You'll have to exchange cards via QR code scans, and that means you'll either need to find a community somewhere on the internet or rely on people you already know. The official website offers up several cards for those who aren't interested in going through all of that.

The removal of the marketplace is a small loss, as I always enjoyed poking around and seeing what others were selling. I also miss having random campers show up at the different sites. It was interesting to see what kinds of fashions random people were wearing, and that's one aspect that is simply missing in Pocket Camp Complete. The multiplayer elements are now so thin that they seem largely pointless. I know the aim was to have this app work offline as much as possible, but for how much it still has to check in I feel there could have been more done with this part of the game.

While I may have my gripes, I'm generally very happy with Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete. On a conceptual level alone, I'm always thrilled to see a free-to-play game live on in a premium format after its shutdown. I mean, why not just let players have at it at that point? I'm also glad that this new version had some thought put into how it would work when detached from its monetization model. It's well-balanced and enjoyable to play. A bit of a trifle when compared to the real thing, to be sure, but that's by design. I hope a similar fate awaits other Nintendo mobile games when their time finally comes.

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp Complete is available for mobile devices.

The post Review: Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete Keeps the Party Going appeared first on Siliconera.

While it's debatable these days whether or not Ys retains the status as Nihon Falcom's flagship series it enjoyed for so long, there's no question it remains an important part of the storied publisher's history. Ys X: Nordics, the latest in the series, is in many ways the largest and most expansive entry, and it seems to have gone over well with fans. With that said, there's a certain appeal to the simpler, more straightforward earlier entries. Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana offers a spruced-up take on a classic entry, and I've had a chance to go hands-on with the first several hours of this action-RPG set to launch on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4/5 early next year.

First, the obligatory background information. Back in 1989, Nihon Falcom decided to change things up for the third game in its successful Ys series of action-RPGs. While the first two games played from a top-down perspective, Ys III: Wanderers from Ys opted for a side-scrolling view akin to that of Falcom's 1985 hit Xanadu: Dragon Slayer II. Despite the dramatic shift, the game was received warmly by fans and saw ports to a number of computers and consoles. Subsequent Ys games went back to the familiar top-down style, leaving Wanderers from Ys as the oddball of the family.

When the time came to remake Wanderers from Ys, Nihon Falcom chose to use the framework of the original game and completely rebuild it. The then-recent Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim's engine served as the basis for this effort, which was ultimately released on Windows PCs in 2005 in Japan under the title Ys: The Oath in Felghana. While many of the the locations and main story beats were carried over, just about every aspect of the game was significantly expanded upon. The story and characters were richer, the dungeons larger and more complex, and the action faster and more furious. Japanese fans were delighted, but it would be a significant wait before Western players could get their hands on it officially.

Nihon Falcom bet bigger than most publishers on Sony's PlayStation Portable, and part of that involved porting many of its PC games to the handheld. In 2010, Ys: The Oath in Felghana was released on the platform, with a localized version coming by way of Xseed Games. While largely the same game as the Windows PC release, the PSP port added a few small quality of life features and some minor extra dialogues with certain NPCs. A couple of years later in 2012, Xseed Games localized the Windows PC version of the game.

From what I've played so far, Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana appears to be based on the PSP release rather than the Windows PC original. This is mainly for the better, but those with sharp eyes and a great deal of experience with the PC release might notice some slightly lower quality textures here and there. In terms of new additions, you can now choose to play with Mieko Ishikawa's original Wanderers from Ys PC-88 soundtrack, Masaki Kawai's charming X68000 soundtrack, or Yukihiro Jindo's arrangements for The Oath in Felghana. There are some new character portraits, with the option to use the originals if you prefer. Adol also speaks in this version of the game, with new lines inserted where there was once only silence.

The version I played was the Nintendo Switch one, and I can happily report that it runs smoothly and has minimal load times. As well it should, but one can never know in these times. The game plays great, though it is a little odd that you have to use the directional buttons to navigate some menus while Adol's movement is locked to the stick. While I suspected this might be a lingering quirk of the PSP version, a quick check showed this to be a mapping choice new to this version. Nevertheless, you can find remnants of the game's original age here, like the inability to skip most cut scenes. The visuals are rendered at a higher resolution and have seen some clean-up, but at its core this is still a game whose roots lie in the early 00s.

Truly great games transcend time, however, and I firmly believe Ys: The Oath in Felghana to be one such example. The action is so fast, and that speed is thoroughly refreshing in an era where slower, more deliberate combat is the order of the day. Adol Christin is like a little red-haired Tasmanian Devil in this game, flying around like a whirling dervish of destruction. As you gain new abilities and level up, his capacity for chewing through enemies only grows. Bosses require a more strategic approach, but are no less frantic in their pacing. There's a bit of platforming in here, just enough to break things up without imposing too much on the action.

The story is similarly speedy in its pacing. There's enough meat here to give the adventure context and make the stakes more real, but you'll be zipping from one quest to the next without much downtime to worry about. There are side-quests to find and complete, but they're brief jaunts compared to those in many other games. Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is a game that wants you to keep on moving, and the result is one of the more exciting action-RPGs you can find.

While more modern Ys games have a lot of excellent qualities, it sometimes feels like something from this era of the series has been lost. Revisiting this outstanding classic via Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana only reinforces that in my mind. So far, this is looking to be a solid update of a stone-cold classic of the genre. If the rest of the game proves as strong as what I've played up to this point, this might prove to be an excellent way to ring in the new year.

Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana will be released on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5 on January 7th, 2025.

The post Preview: Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana Looks to Be in Fine Form appeared first on Siliconera.

I've always felt there was a certain kinship between Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Both properties follow unconventional teams of teenaged superheroes who battle weird monsters using their fighting skills, cool weapons, and distinctive vehicles. The roots of both lay earlier than their most popular forms, and both have seen numerous follow-ups and reboots that despite their success haven't managed to bottle lightning in quite the same way. Perhaps most importantly for our purposes today, both are also perfectly suited for video game adaptations.

This is also a point of divergence, however. Where the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are practically woven into the fabric of video gaming history due to Konami's outstanding and wildly successful run of games in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Power Rangers have never been able to fully shake off that "licensed game" feeling. It would be easy to explain if all of the games based on the IP were of dubious quality, but there have been a number of good games featuring the multicolored martial artists. For whatever reason, none of them have had the right combination of elements to hit it truly big.

Enter Digital Eclipse and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind. Following in the footsteps of other successful beat 'em up revivals like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge and Streets of Rage 4, this game sees the original teenagers with attitude taking on a threat from the future. Coming off her villainous turn in 2023's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always, Robo-Rita has decided that two Ritas are better than one for conquering Earth. She transports herself back in time to 1993 to team up with her younger self and take down the original teenagers with attitude while they're still young and inexperienced. Zordon doesn't miss a bit and has Alpha press the team into action immediately in order to put a stop to this time-bending crisis.

What follows is a few hours of Putty-pummeling, Goldar-grinding, Bulk-bragging action. Everything has been put together here with an eye to pleasing fans of the earlier episodes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, with every big boss being pulled from those foundational tales. You'll travel through many familiar locations, and the Putties are always dressed for the occasion. You can even hit up the Juice Bar between episodes and listen to Bulk go off about how he was the one who actually saved the day. While not quite up to the sheer excesses of Shredder's Revenge, I think fans are going to be pleased with how the Rangers and their world are represented.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Revenge is so dedicated to making sure all the core elements of the series get their proper due that it takes some very odd swings at times for a co-op brawler. Is it really Power Rangers if the Megazord doesn't awkwardly knock around the monster of the week for a bit before using its Power Sword to finish the job? For better or worse, you're going to get the full Power Rangers experience here. That means that in addition to the standard belt-scrolling punch-ups, there are a few other kinds of stages you'll have to deal with. Two of them play like variants on SEGA's popular Super Scaler games, with one putting you on the back of a motorbike and the other in the cockpit of your very own Zord.

These stages offer a pinch of Space Harrier and a touch of Hang-On, with a few moments of clumsy platforming for the land-bound Zords. Destroying certain objects and enemies will give you some temporary power-ups, but the general rule here is to just keep blasting everything. Avoid attacks where possible, and be very careful not to fall down a pit as it's an instant life lost if you do. While a nice change of pace and a good nod to an aspect of the Power Rangers that tends to get forgotten, these stages run on a bit longer than I feel would be ideal. They're also very repetitive, following the same broad structure each time they appear.

The other oddball gameplay type comes when the Rangers form the Megazord to battle a giant opponent. It plays out a little like a first-person take on Punch-Out!!, with you having to dodge enemy attacks and counter with punches of your own. Your aim here is to fill up the meter charging your Power Sword. Landing hits will fill it, while taking hits will drain it. There are three levels to charge up, and even if you get boxed around a fair bit you can only drop down to the bottom of your current level in the gauge. Once you fill it up, the Power Sword will drop and you can use it to deliver the final button-mashing blow. Very cool stuff, even if it comes off more methodical than I'd prefer by the end.

I think there are two ways to look at these alternate stage types. If we look at Rita's Rewind as a beat 'em up, I think these stages take too long to complete and are too repetitive to work as a palate cleanser for the brawling action. This game loves its phases, and going through the same time-consuming routine with each Megazord boss fight loses its luster after a while. The Super Scaler-style stages are more varied, but they too recycle certain phase-based sequences too often. The worst is if you happen to run out of lives near the end of one of these stages, since continues send you back to the start. This is less of a problem in multiplayer than it is in solo play, but it can be very disheartening.

If we set aside the beat 'em up mindset however, and just look at this as a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers game? These stages seem practically essential to the experience. Sure, we don't see many episodes where the robot T-Rex sprints and hops its way through canyons, blasting everything in its path. But these sections, along with the motorbike bits, are very cool in that Power Rangers way. The Megazord fights might be formulaic to a fault, but how could you possibly dislike boxing a giant monster's face while the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers theme song plays in the background? How can you not be hyped to see the Megazord do his familiar clunky sword retrieval and then use it to blast away the boss? It's utterly Power Rangers. It has to be here.

Let's talk about the beat 'em up mechanics, as you'll spend the bulk of the game playing the brawler stages. You have a melee attack that goes into a combo, and the last hit generally hits behind you as well as in front. You can do an aerial attack, and you had best practice that because you are going to need it. There's a jump kick, a ground pound, and a dash attack. You can perform a backflip that works as a dodge, and you can pose. Posing gives you a little bit of energy for your super gauge, which otherwise simply fills up as you fight. Grabbing Power Coins from smashed objects will also help build your meter. Once it's full, you can call on your Zord for a screen-wide super attack. Aside from Power Coins, you can also pick up health-restoring food and some collectibles by smashing everything. So, you know. Do that.

Apart from light cosmetic differences, all the Rangers have the same set of moves. I can't be fully sure, but I think there might be some mild differences in their speed and power. This is one aspect of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind that disappointed me. The move set is adequate even if it isn't anywhere near the better games in the genre, but the fact that there is so little variability between characters is unfortunate. The characters all have their own style in the show, and that would have been really cool to see expressed here. One of the things that makes games like Shredder's Revenge or Streets of Rage 4 so fun to replay is in how each character feels distinct from the others. In this game, even the unlockable character plays more or less like the rest.

Still, there's a decent flow to the combat. It's closer to the speedy chaos of Shredder's Revenge than anything, and you can zip around the screen taking out multiple opponents with ease once you get the hang of it. Fighting is breezy and fun, and Digital Eclipse has done a great job of taking notes from how the Turtles games create variations on the Foot Soldiers to stretch the Putty forces into a varied bunch. It's rare to fight any basic enemies that aren't Putties, with the Tenga Warriors serving as the other main punching bag baddies. The AI isn't very clever, but I suspect most don't want it to be in this kind of game.

The boss battles by and large lean hard into the phase-based approach. You'll be able to attack them for a bit, then they'll go invincible and do some kind of pattern you'll have to dodge a few times, then back to the vulnerable state, and repeat until dead. I'm not personally a huge fan of this style of boss battle in a beat 'em up, but outside of one extremely annoying portion of the fight with Bones, I didn't find any of these fights terribly egregious. Solo players might find themselves vexed by a couple instances where the battle was clearly designed for multiplayer, however.

Multiplayer is a key component of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind. At this point in time, you can have up to two players online and five in local play, but Digital Eclipse has stated that you'll be able to go online with more players in the near future. At any rate, even one additional player makes a huge difference here. As I said earlier in the review, this game gets a lot better if you take it more as a Power Rangers game than as a beat 'em up. The Power Rangers aren't exactly known for going it solo. It can be a challenge to design a game to work well in both single-player and multiplayer, and this one leans more towards satisfying the latter experience.

Some of the bosses and enemy encounters can be troublesome when you're alone, and it sometimes feels as though your moveset is insufficient to deal with everything being thrown at you. When you're flying solo, it's a lot easier to notice how rote the Scaler stages and Megazord fights are. Even the voice clips seem to assume other players on the field, which comes off weird when you're the only Ranger around. Bring in other players, and you'll have a far better time. It's incredibly chaotic with a full set of five, but you'll not only be able to handle the challenges with greater ease but also will be able to pump each other up when the game starts cooking up its more hyped moments.

The only fly in this multiplayer operation comes in the Megazord fights. There's only one giant robot, after all. You end up passing control to the next player when you take damage or reach a new level of the Power Sword gauge, and it comes off as a clumsy solution for a difficult problem. It at least keeps everyone on their toes, if nothing else. Again, if everyone buys into the premise and is rocking along to the chants of GO GO POWER RANGERS, this isn't going to be a big deal. As a game design element it's somewhat lacking in elegance, but the presentation helps paint over it.

Indeed, the presentation is virtually unassailable in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind. The pixel-art graphics are excellent, both detailed and well-animated. The backgrounds are packed with fun details, and I got a kick out of the different Putty disguises. The Super Scaler-style stages look terrific, and the Megazord fights do an superb job of making you feel like you're in the cockpit. The music rocks in all the right ways. The main theme isn't overused, and the additional tunes fit perfectly. I love that Bulk and Skull's theme is in here despite the pair being not much more than a cameo. The sound effects are great, too. Hits have a nice thwack to them, just like in the show.

You also have access to a really good CRT-style filter, and while I am not normally in love with such things, this one was good enough that I kept it on during most of my playtime. In terms of other options, there are four different difficulty settings including one you'll have to earn. You can also play a speed run mode that times you as you make your way through each stage. In true Digital Eclipse fashion, there are also some unlockable faux-retro games that you can play in the Juice Bar. They're all quite enjoyable, and they'll keep track of your high scores.

At the very least, I can say that Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind is a well-made game with a lot of love put into it. How much farther than that it goes really depends on how you approach it. A solo player looking for the next top-tier beat 'em up is going to find that a lot of annoying design choices were made here. A Power Rangers fan with some friends in tow looking to relive the good old days is going to have an absolute blast. I'm not sure if I would call this the best game to carry the Power Rangers license, but I'm comfortable calling it the best Power Rangers game. Go, go.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind is available for the Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC.

The post Review: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind Is a Faithful Ode appeared first on Siliconera.

Just before the turn of the millennium, a workhorse studio named KID took a chance on creating an original visual novel game for the PlayStation after years of mainly working on action games and PC game ports to consoles. Memories Off was a coming-of-age romance story with surprising depth to its characters. It broke a few unstated rules of the genre, and perhaps in part because of that it found an audience. KID spent the next several years making follow-ups to Memories Off along with other assorted visual novels, none of which were localized because… well, visual novels tended not to be localized back then.

KID collapsed in 2006, with its former staff scattering to various corners of the Japanese games industry. Some key members ended up at MAGES, a developer mainly known for visual novel games like Steins;Gate. As for KID's intellectual property, it bounced around from company to company until it ended up with MAGES. Oh hey, that's convenient. As the star of the package, Memories Off wasn't on the bench long. MAGES picked it up almost immediately, producing more sequels and spin-offs. The franchise seemed to largely peter out as the Science Adventure series rose up on the back of the popularity of Steins;Gate.

SINce Memories: Off the Starry Sky is a spin-off of the main series. Its story largely stands alone, but fans of the previous games should be able to spot a number of connections as they make their way through. In an unexpected move, this installment was picked up for localization by PQube. This marks the first time the series has seen an official English release. On paper, it makes a lot of sense for this game to take that role. It's the newest release after all, and its story requires absolutely no knowledge of prior games to enjoy.

In practice, I really wonder if this is the best introduction to Memories Off. It certainly carries a lot of the qualities of those beloved early games. It too is a coming-of-age romance story that deals with loss, grief, and acceptance. The protagonist, Junya, is an actual character rather than a mere player stand-in. The heroines might seem like tropes at first, but they almost all defy those expectations over the course of their respective routes. The game's pace is extremely slow, particularly in the opening handful of hours as it sets up all of its pieces. The real punch of a Memories Off game comes in the pay-off for all of that, though. It's in that respect where I'm not sure Off the Starry Sky does what it needs to.

SINce Memories: Off the Starry Sky follows the story of Junya Mizumoto, a young university student who works part-time at his family's handyman business. One year before the start of the game, he was involved in a car accident while riding with his older brother, Takaya. While he survived, Takaya did not. On top of that, Junya's memories of the incident seem to have been mostly lost outside of a few flashes here and there. What really happened that day? The answer to this serves as the main mystery for the story, and one that gets more fully explained in some routes than others.

Junya's brother was something of a local hero in the town of Sumisora, and Junya constantly wrestles with survivor's guilt as a result. He feels he can't possibly measure up to his brother, and that he should have died instead. This inner conflict is another aspect that gets explored to varying degrees depending on which route you opt to follow, but it's one whose resolution I wasn't terribly satisfied with after all was said and done. Junya's spotty memories make him an unreliable narrator, but even with that I feel like some of the jumps his character makes could have been set up better.

Off the Starry Sky is like that across the board, though. It feels like almost every aspect of its is a few steps away from being great, but instead has to settle for middling to decent. What's missing from each element isn't even consistent, which makes for a frustrating aftertaste. Some things are over-explained while others don't get enough explanation. Some characters have interesting personalities with weak storylines, while the ones with more interesting plots are less appealing as characters. The only convergence here is in Hinata's route, a dreadful combination of a bland character and a story that is downright poor.

Otherwise, you're dealing with contrasting flavors. If you want the real plot nuggets, those are sitting in the routes of childhood friend Chihaya and Azusa, the fiery stranger who barges into Junya's life. You'll probably want to save those routes for last, as they pretty much spoil the whole mystery. Those two were the routes I enjoyed the most overall, though I can't say I really cared much for either character. Chihaya is the daughter of a wealthy family. She's headed for an arranged marriage when she graduates but is more or less allowed to do what she wants until then. Her dream is to convert her grandparents' old house into a cafe, and she ropes Junya into it. This one goes about the way you would expect, but it was written well enough to keep my interest.

Azusa takes the bull by the horns. Junya runs into her while out on a job, and she does a double-take when she sees him. She quickly becomes angry and accuses Junya of murdering his brother. She clearly knows some things no one else is privy to, and while I can't talk much about her route without spoiling things that are best left unspoiled, I will say that this route is where the biggest plot movements happen in SINce Memories: Off the Starry Sky. Unfortunately, Azusa is a really unpleasant character for much of her route. That's by design of course, as she has a bone to pick with Junya. It doesn't make her any easier to deal with for those hours before she starts to warm up, though.

As I've already mentioned, Hinata's route is a complete wash. She's another of Junya's childhood friends, and also Chihaya's attendant. While she puts up a strong front, she's actually deeply insecure. She's also a closet geek. I really don't know how to describe how off the rails this route goes. It feels like it was written by someone else entirely when compared to the rest of the game. The way events happen and how the characters involved behave both come across as forced.

Chunyu Huang is a Chinese exchange student at Junya's university, and it's hard not to fall in love with her immediately. She's a fun, vibrant character who has plenty of potential to drive a great plot. Her peppy theme music is also my favorite piece in the game. I was extremely dismayed when her route's story turned out to be really weak. Another heroine barges in frequently and at points it comes off like it's her route more than Chunyu's. Perhaps the writers had difficulty creating a satisfying arc for Chunyu because she's more put-together than the other characters from the get-go? I'm not sure, but it's a waste of a great character.

Finally, we have Yuriko. You won't even meet her until several hours into the game, and her late entrance ends up hurting her story a little. She's an idol who is taking a break from show biz, and she's trying to decide if she wants to go back or not. She knew Junya's older brother, as he actually encouraged her to reach for her dream, and she is grieving him in her own way. I like Yuriko. She's a decent character, and while I don't think her route does much for the main plot, I think it's a good breather. Since she comes into the story far later than the other heroines, her arc doesn't get as much time to develop as the others. Somehow, it sticks its landing anyway.

Overall, I found myself somewhat torn by the writing in SINce Memories: Off the Starry Sky. It was engaging enough that I wanted to finish almost all of the routes (not you, Hinata), but I admit that finding the motivation to sniff out all of the endings was hard. Each heroine's route has two endings, and you need to be very careful at literally every choice that comes up in the game. Sometimes things you couldn't possibly imagine would have an effect on the ending will muck everything up. You've got room to make a lot of saves; I strongly recommend you exercise that option.

When I reflect on the parts of the plot that I liked, I can admit there's a lot to appreciate in this game. The problem is that there is just so much build-up that doesn't properly deliver on its promise. Some of the characters misfire, some of the sub-plots misfire, and even the main mystery's resolution doesn't exactly feel like it was worth the squeeze. I think it's okay for a game to take it slow and really set its scene before pushing the drama, but SINce Memories: Off the Starry Sky asks too much for how little it gives back.

At least with the presentation, it's hard to fault the game. The art is fantastic. The music is terrific. You get full Japanese voice acting, and it's good stuff. Even side characters are treated with care, and it helps create a very believable setting. Sometimes visual novels feel like they have a few sets with only five characters in the whole world, but SINce Memories: Off the Starry Sky goes to great lengths to bring its setting alive with plenty of locations, incidental characters, and an excellent soundscape.

I wish the localization matched that level, though. While it does a decent enough job with the broad strokes, the text needed more editing. Typos abound, along with grammar tense mistakes, incorrect pronouns, and outright translation errors. It's not bad enough to sink the game, but it's frequent enough to be noticeable. A slight blemish, but a blemish nonetheless. In a game where you do this much reading, it's really essential to make that prose sing, after all.

SINce Memories: Off the Starry Sky has its good points. The production values haven't been skimped on, the setting is well-realized, and some of the characters are very interesting to get to know. Sadly, the writing on the whole is very uneven, leading to a lot of routes that don't pay off properly and a couple really poor characters. There's some potential here but the game ultimately fails to realize it, despite taking a very long time to get everything into position. It's an inauspicious Western debut for such a beloved franchise.

SINce Memories: Off the Starry Sky is available for PS4, Switch, and PC. 

The post Review: SINce Memories: Off the Starry Sky Is a Slow Burn with a Weak Pay-Off appeared first on Siliconera.

Dragon Quest is at a challenging turning point as Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake debuts, and it one that few gaming franchises will ever have to weather. It is exceptionally rare for a series this old to have retained so much of the same core creative staff from its inception to the present day. From Dragon Quest to Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age, three individuals have driven the mainline entries. Yuji Horii, the designer and scenario writer. Akira Toriyama, the character and monster designer. Koichi Sugiyama, the music composer. In an industry where change seems to be a constant, it's unusual to have a creative team stick with a series for their entire lives.

That trio of talents was stable core that led to perhaps one of the most consistent franchises around. Sadly, the march of time has broken up that band, and Dragon Quest will now have to get by without the direct contributions of Toriyama and and Sugiyama. A series long steeped in its traditions now has no choice but to turn to a new page. While we wait to see what that new direction looks like, it's as good a time as any to celebrate the games that made Dragon Quest so special to begin with. The original Dragon Quest trilogy of games has rarely out of circulation for long. With remakes for a wide array of platforms over the years, these three games have almost constantly been available.

Unfortunately, the quality of those remakes hasn't always been ideal. The most recent versions have their roots in feature phone releases, and it shows. Much of the combat animation found in previous releases was cut, perhaps to reduce the size of the download for data-conscious customers. For Dragon Quest III, some content was also removed. The end result was a version that took a step back in many ways from its predecessors. That would be fine had it not ended up so ubiquitous, but that was the version that ended up serving as the basis for the most recent console releases on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4.

Dragon Quest III deserves better. Luckily, "better" has arrived. Putting that fancy HD-2D tech to spectacular use, Square Enix has done a complete remake of Dragon Quest III with Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake. It just rolls off the tongue. This fresh take on the 36-year-old game aims to put a lot more meat on these old bones, and not only in terms of its presentation. But, you know, also in terms of its presentation.

This isn't the first time Square Enix performed this trick, with the HD-2D reissue of Live-a-Live showing already how a classic game can be juiced up via these means. This one feels a little different, though. Where that game was a late-era 16-bit release hailing from 1994, Dragon Quest III sits squarely in the middle of the 8-bit era. Its original February 1988 release puts it scant months after the debut of Final Fantasy, when JRPG developers were very much still figuring things out. Is a new coat of paint enough to entice modern audiences?

Time will ultimately have its say on that one, but whatever the outcome no one can accuse Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake of putting in a half-effort. Beyond the candy for your eyes and ears, there are a lot of new things to explore here. Every area is bigger, there are new things to discover in just about every location, and the story has been expanded upon. There are some new enemies to fight, a new character class to play with, and a significantly expanded Monster Arena that provides further incentive to poke around every nook and cranny of the world.

As a result of all of these changes, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is a much longer game than its previous incarnations. A person could easily spend twice as many hours making their way through this version, perhaps even more if they seek to do and see everything. There is a slight cost to all of this, with the brisk pacing of the original game taking a modest hit. Some of the dungeons in particular can feel a little too big, since most of them haven't become any more complex in the process. The distances between locations of interest are much bigger, too. It's not a huge issue, but those familiar with previous versions are probably going to notice.

Those new to Dragon Quest III are going to have to keep the original game's age in mind as they play. While it has been expanded upon, the narrative of this game is fairly lean. You're the child of the brave knight Ortega, who disappeared while on a quest to put a stop to the villainous Baramos. Upon reaching your 16th birthday, you set out on your own quest to finish what Ortega started and perhaps find some clues as to what happened to him. You'll have to travel the entire world on this journey, and we can see the eventual Dragon Quest custom of each stop having its own problem forming here in a prototypical fashion.

I think Square Enix did its best to flesh out the story of Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake as much as it could. We get some cinematic angles, fully voice-acted cutscenes, and additional dialog to make the NPCs feel less like props. There are some new story beats in here as well. The original game didn't give the main character much more than a basic quest and an ending, so having some additional narrative reinforcement along the way is nice. Nevertheless, this remains mostly true to the source material when it comes to the main plot and your party's place in it.

Your companions on this journey are characters you roll up yourself, more or less. You choose their vocation and appearance, and can then distribute a few stat boosters to customize them. Each comes with a pre-assigned personality that will affect their stat growth, but that's all it affects. They will almost never speak any dialog, and mostly serve as extra bodies in combat. You can choose whether you want to directly command them when the time comes or have the AI handle things via one of a few different routines. Basically, you shouldn't expect any narrative development for your team members. It isn't that kind of game.

One thing going for this remake is that for an 8-bit JRPG, Dragon Quest III's world has always felt lively and connected. The remake builds on that nicely. There are lot of NPCs milling about in every town or city, and the layout of the world makes a fair amount of sense for a game of this vintage. There's a reason for that, of course, and those who have played a version of this game before will know what I'm talking about. I'll leave that as something fun for the new players to pick up on, though. The presence of a day and night cycle adds further to this sense of place, and the ability to rest at any inn until the time of day of your choosing helps avoid some of the irritations that system originally caused.

Dragon Quest III HD-2D has a lot of new features like that to make the play experience more comfortable. You can choose between three different difficulty settings. Veterans will probably want to go with the Draconian Quest option, which more closely mirrors the original game, while those who simply want to enjoy the story can pick Dracky Quest, where you literally cannot die. There's a new system that will point you towards your next goal should you want to make use of it, but you don't have to use that if you don't want to. Another pleasant change is that you don't need to talk to royalty to make a hard save anymore, as any person of the cloth will be able to handle that. With both a frequent auto-save and a quick-save option on top of that, you can pretty much stop and resume your quest whenever needed.

A lot of the additions to the game take the form of more information at your fingertips. Full area maps, quick references to how many Mini Medals you've collected, and so on. You have more traversal options, too. You can Zoom to another location even if you're indoors now, and Zoom points extend to almost every location you've visited instead of just the towns. If you Zoom from a location and then use Zoom again, it will take you right back to the original point. This helps cut down on a lot of trekking around, and I think it's a good way to offset the larger size of the areas you're exploring.

There are other incentives to keep you exploring those spaces. First of all, you'll find a lot more random loot laying around in just about every space via jars and barrels. For the most part you'll find basic consumable items, but they can be welcome relief if an outing goes longer than planned. The overworld map offers even more thrills. As you journey, you'll see sparkling spots strewn about. Searching them will give you caches of items and gear, and you can sometimes find really nice things this way. They appear to be random, and new spots will appear as you play.

Less random are the new Secret Spots. These places tend to stand out on the map. Maybe it's a bigger tree of a different color in a forest, or an oasis in the desert. Whatever the case, visiting them will take you to a separate screen. You'll sometimes find NPCs with helpful advice, some goodies in jars or barrels, treasure chests, or even stray monsters. Don't worry, they won't attack. Instead, they tie in with the new Monster Wrangler vocation and the reimagined Monster Arenas. The time of day you visit is important, as certain things will only appear if you come at the right time. You'll come across stray monsters in other locations as well, such as towns, and again it's all about that timing.

The Monster Wrangler vocation is an interesting new element. In their basic form, they're strong fighters who can make use of a decent array of gear. They aren't quite as good at this as the other combat-focused classes, but they make up for it with their abilities. As you find stray monsters and take them in, your Monster Wranglers will get access to some seriously powerful moves. We're talking group heals in the early game, strong multi-hit attacks, and more. How well they keep up with the other classes depends on how much work you put into finding those stray monsters, though. They're helpful to that end, at least. Some monsters are skittish but if you approach them with a Monster Wrangler in your party, they'll easily come with you.

There's another benefit to finding these critters. Square Enix adjusted how it handles the Monster Arena in Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake. Once a place where you could scare up some cash by betting on monster battles, these are now places where you take a more direct hand in the action. All the stray monsters you've collected find their way here, and you can pick a team of three to go into the arena. Each rank offers a nice reward for winning while also giving you access to the next rank up. The battles themselves are fully operated by the AI, but you can give them the same guidance each turn that you would give your normal companions. It's typically good enough to get them to do essentially what you want them to.

You can only have one of each monster type in your party, but finding more monsters of the same type will strengthen that first one you picked up. This is the only way to power them up, so make sure to look around every corner. You can find monsters in Secret Spots, in towns and dungeons, and even in castles. Since some of them only appear at certain times of the day, you'll want to scour every spot at every time of the day if you want to fully fill out your collection. It's not necessary to complete the game, instead serving as a treat for those who want to get as much out of the game as possible.

The main quest is essentially as it always was, when you dig down to the core. It starts off relatively linear, but once it's confident the player has their sea legs, it opens up dramatically in more ways than one. You can choose the order in which you get things done to a great degree, but it all needs to be done. You'll also eventually get access to the Alltrades Abbey, allowing you to change your companions' vocations for some sweet multiclassing power. This has always been one of my favorite elements in Dragon Quest III, because you can absolutely create some broken characters that will tear through your enemies.

With that core intact, it means that newcomers are going to have to brace for what is in many ways still that 1988 game. You're going to be fighting a ton of random battles, and even the hyper-fast-forward option can't help that fiftieth fight with an assorted bunch of monsters feel fresh. Sure, they're gorgeously animated, but even that shine can fade when you're deep in a dungeon. The inventory management's UI has seen some improvements to cut down on the busy work, but characters still have their own inventories with limited space. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but it's something some might not be used to.

The sense of adventure that drove the original Dragon Quest III is as powerful as ever, even with the wrinkles from its age. You've never staying too long in one place, and there's a surprising amount of variety in the tasks you're given in each. There's a good balance between guiding the player and letting them find the way forward themselves. The vocation system gives you a lot of customizability in setting up your party members, and this remake gives you plenty of options in terms of how they look and sound. I think the case could be made that Dragon Quest III is where the series finally got all of its pieces in place, which makes it perfect for a modern reimagining.

Beyond all of the nuts-and-bolts gameplay adjustments, the impressive new visuals and excellent new orchestral recordings of the soundtrack bring this quest alive in a whole new way. Seeing your next destination peek up over the horizon as the water glistens in the morning sunlight and the triumphant score swells up is truly something else. The cities are beautiful, the caves are extra-creepy, and every structure feels carefully hand-built. Even the battle backgrounds look great. The lighting effects in all of these scenes help everything pop just that little bit more.

While there is no denying that the heart of Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake comes from another era, the level of quality across every aspect of this redo cannot be denied. If you love the original game, taking a trip through this version of its world is simply a must. If you've never played it, I can't imagine a better way to experience one of the genre's all-time classics. Its intentional adherence to the source might make some aspects of it hard for newcomers to swallow, but everything that could be done to make it palatable without changing it too much has been. It's a true celebration, both of the game and the series.

Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake will come to the Nintendo Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC on November 14, 2024.

The post Review: Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Does a Classic JRPG Justice appeared first on Siliconera.

Trying to update a decades-old game is never an easy task, and it's an even bigger challenge when the game in question is a cherished classic. While Dragon Quest was already a popular series in Japan, it's the third game that really kicked it into the cultural icon status it still enjoys in its home country to this day. As a result of that, Dragon Quest III is no stranger to remakes. That itself presents a further hurdle for Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake. How do you stay faithful to the spirit of the original while also making enough changes to ensure this isn't just another remake? Based on my time with the first several hours of the PC version of the game, Square Enix might have managed to gracefully thread that needle.

The most obvious change here comes from the presentation. Just as the title says, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake uses the HD-2D style that debuted in Octopath Traveler and has shown up in a few other titles since then. For a series that tends to root itself firmly in its own traditions, I can't think of a better way to update the look of the sprite-based entries. Even the simplest of areas look fantastic, and the game takes advantage of this refresh to add significantly more complexity and detail to most locations. Castles truly feel large and ornate, towns more lively and vibrant, and caves more claustrophobic and mysterious. It's an incredible transformation.

Battles don't benefit from this facelift to quite the same extent, but the more complex backdrops and impressive lighting effects are a welcome update. Monsters are more animated than ever, and I particularly enjoyed the new death animations. Adhering to tradition, most of the action in the battles is viewed from a first-person point of view. Your own party members are only visible between rounds. With the sprites as detailed as they are, even going so far as to show what kind of weapon they have equipped, it's a bit of shame we don't get to see them in action during fights.

Having been around the Dragon Quest III block more than a few times in my life, I was eager to see what might be new in this remake. As you might expect, the newly-expanded areas have a lot of space to fill. Inside of towns and dungeons, that generally translates to more fully-realized spaces visually, with a few more pots and barrels to check for loot strewn about. Overall layouts have remained similar to the originals thus far, and I would be surprised if that changed later in the game. You can now run by holding down a button, which helps you traverse these larger areas at a good pace.

The overworld map, on the other hand, has a lot more to see. With everything being a lot bigger, incentives to explore off the beaten path are more important than ever. So far, those come in two forms. Sparkling spots are hard to miss, and they can be searched to find caches of items and gear. They're virtually impossible to miss, especially at night, but trying to reach them will sometimes require a little hike. Slightly harder to spot are Secret Spots. Certain features of the landscape might look out of place, and if your hunch is right you might find a small location with some valuable treasures, informative NPCs, and more.

Another new element comes in form of the new vocation, the Monster Wrangler. I benched my usual Fighter in favor of bringing one of these along with me. It's an interesting character type. A fairly strong attacker, and suitable for backing up your Hero in that regard. The Monster Wrangler has its own set of abilities derived from monsters, and it gains new ones as you get to know more monsters. Befriending monsters is a big part of increasing the power of this class, but it doesn't work in the same way it did in previous games. Instead of recruiting them via battles, you'll find friendly monsters in specific locations around the world. Sometimes you need only approach them, but at other times you'll need to lure them or sneak up on them.

Once you find a friendly monster, it will automatically head to the Monster Arena. In previous versions of Dragon Quest III, the Monster Arena was a place where you could wager gold on monster battles. In Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, you have a more direct role. You compose a team from the friendly monsters you've found, then coach them in multi-round tournaments. If you win, you'll earn money and prizes. At the point in the game I've played so far, only a couple of tournaments are available. With monster collecting tied so strongly with empowering the Monster Wrangler, it seems likely the Monster Arenas will ultimately play a far larger role than they did in the past.

Just in the first several hours of the game alone, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is impressive. It appears that veterans will have lots of new things to enjoy, while newcomers get to experience this classic with a fantastic new lick of paint and plenty of added quality of life features. If the rest of the game is as good as what I've played so far, JRPG fans are in for a real treat.

Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake will be released on PCs via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Microsoft Xbox Series X/S on November 14th, 2024.

The post Preview: Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Seems Like a Brilliant Update appeared first on Siliconera.

Sometimes, explaining the appeal of a game can take a lot of effort. You might talk about how the gameplay systems work together, or how the setting and plot build up, or how particular mechanics blossom after spending some time with them. Then you have games that make it easy like Flowstone Saga. It's a JRPG where the battles are Tetris, to put it plainly. There's a lot more to talk about, but I suspect many will be sold on the game with just with that basic description alone. Luckily, Flowstone Saga does a good job of delivering on its fun concept.

The protagonist of the tale is Mirai, a young woman who has only recently come to live in the town of New Riverstone. The town is part of Ocean's End, a backwater place that doesn't see a whole lot of people coming or going. Mirai and her pet Sprig are out adventuring one day when they stumble across a buried ruin. Looking for a means of defending herself against a pursuing monster, Mirai happens to grab the Flowstone. A mysterious energy contained within grants her a number of powers, not the least of which being the ability to fight. This discovery naturally kicks off a series of events that will not only rock the world but also reveal secrets about Mirai herself.

Flowstone Saga makes a great first impression. It visuals are lush, calling to mind some of the better 16-bit games in the genre. Its soundtrack is energetic and catchy. You don't have to wait around long before you're thrown into your first battle, since the story starts in the middle of the action before flashing back. There's a brisk pace to it right from the get-go. The initial story set-up is certainly intriguing, and the dialog in these opening scenes reads well. A solid start, to be sure. For the most part it keeps things up through the course of the adventure, which takes about ten hours to complete.

Before we get to the many other aspects of the game, I want to go over the battle system. It's the eye-catching element, after all. While the shapes aren't a one-to-one with those of Tetris, anyone who has played that game will get the basic gist of what to do without being told. You have to make lines to attack your foes. The urge to set up big plays might be strong, but don't fool around too long. The enemies will be launching attacks of their own, and they aren't going to wait. Those attacks deal damage of course, but they'll also often throw clutter into the play field. That clutter has varying effects, and none of them are good for you.

So far, so good. There's more to it than that, however. The pieces will also carry Link Crystals, and if you place the blocks in such a way that three of them touch, you'll gain Heat. That makes your attacks more powerful, so you'll want to line those Link Crystals up as often as possible. As you make matches, you'll fill up a gauge that allows you to use one of a selection of powers. When you start you'll only have one, but as you play you'll get access to more. These can do things like give you a straight line piece or throw pieces onto the field that, when matched, will hit your enemies with an elemental attack. There's also the Flask, which again tosses pieces onto the field that give varying effects when matched.

Essentially, there's quite a bit going on here besides a simple game of clearing lines. It can be a little overwhelming until you get the hang of things, but unless you go right for the hardest of the three selectable difficulty levels from the start you should have it sorted before things get hairy. Just keep matching those lines and you'll be fine. When you hit the point where you're not fine, you can start making use of the other systems. If you play on the recommended difficulty, that point may not ever come. Most players who have some experience with both sides of the mash-up here will likely want to play the second difficulty level at a minimum to keep things exciting. You can change at any time though, so feel free to take it easy while you learn.

Flowstone Saga is far bigger than its battle system. That's even true for the Tetris-style portion of the game, which is also put into use for gathering resources and completing build-a-shape puzzles you'll find scattered about. Mirai's hometown of New Riverstone plays a major role in the game. It's where she picks up new quests, mingles with the townsfolk, buys new equipment, or just chills in her personally-decorated house. As you play the game and complete requests, the town will grow and gain new facilities, which in turn unlock more features of the game.

Finishing those requests often come down to gathering the necessary resources or items the townspeople ask for. Resources can be found laying around, but you can always gather more by playing a timed mini-game. The special items work as a motivator to send you to the many other locations in Ocean's End, since most of them are in the possession of a boss monster waiting at the end. Some requests are more direct, sending you somewhere to move the plot forward. You'll travel to these locations via a map that lists each spot as it opens up.

The dungeon designs are solid enough, with some little secrets to find that will reward you with treasures or stat increases. Enemies are visible on the map, so you can try to avoid encounters if you like. You'll also be able to see the boss, and their size usually makes it very clear that they are not a normal encounter. As you make your way through, you'll get the odd proper puzzle to deal with, often involving switches, plus the aforementioned build-a-shape mini-games. In those, you'll be given an outlined shape and a selection of pieces. You'll have to figure out how to place them to create the shape. You can also try as many times as you like, making these more of a way to spice things up during the dungeon runs than anything else. These puzzles also indirectly demonstrate one of the many accessibility features of the game.

You can, if you choose, play the game in a turn-based mode where the pieces don't fall during battle. Instead, you can take your time to place each piece, and the enemies will simply attack after a certain number of pieces have been placed. It's a nice feature for those who might not be so good at Tetris, a quality which would otherwise put you at a grave disadvantage in Flowstone Saga. Combined with the various difficulty options, you have a lot of say in how challenging or relaxing you would like the experience to be overall.

One of the best things about Flowstone Saga is in how breezy it feels. The run time is tight, so it avoids overstaying its welcome. It's constantly introducing new systems or abilities, keeping things lively. While you probably don't need to engage with most of them to finish the game, they're welcome all the same. There was a real risk here that the line-clearing battle system could have gotten too repetitive over time, but it never gets much of a chance to do so thanks to all of this. Just when the dust settles in the early going, you unlock a job system. Then, you unlock additional elements. A bit later, you've unlocked battle helpers. It keeps adding new twists for quite a while into the adventure.

While Flowstone Saga is mechanically rich, perhaps even to an excess, its narrative left me wanting more. The dialog is competently written and the overarching plot is engaging if somewhat predictable, but the characters and their interactions often came off slightly artificial and banal. It's not terrible, but it was difficult to get invested in a lot of the conversations between characters as a result. The upfront excitement and mystery didn't pay off as well as I'd hoped for. By the end I was playing more for my enjoyment of the gameplay than to see where the story went.

Flowstone Saga is a charming blend of RPG and puzzle game with a zippy pace and lots of mechanics to engage with. The presentation is great, with colorful, detailed visuals and a strong soundtrack. The story doesn't hit the same high notes as the rest of the game, but it does its job well enough to keep you engaged for the duration of this relatively brief yet enjoyable journey. In some ways, it feels like the game could have gone longer and explored some of its mechanics more thoroughly, but I give it credit for wrapping up before it got repetitive. If you're looking for a lighter bite between all of the gigantic RPGs releasing these days, this should fit the bill nicely.

Flowstone Saga is available for PCs.

The post Review: Flowstone Saga Is a Quirky JRPG with a Puzzle Twist appeared first on Siliconera.

The JRPG genre is more diverse than ever in its themes. You can get your turn-based math battles on in all kinds of flavors now, from farm simulating to Shakespearean magical girls. If you're looking for a little horror mixed in, there are plenty of games to choose from. To narrow down that list a little, we've got some of the best scary JRPGs for you to check out… if you dare! Which I assume you do, or you wouldn't have clicked on the article. Well, on to the list.

Parasite Eve

Square Enix put out a lot of experimental games in the 32-bit era. Parasite Eve uses elements from a Japanese horror novel, but tells its own original story. It introduces us to Eve, a terrifying monster with the ability to make people spontaneously combust. Set in New York and using a variant on Square Enix's turn-based battle system, Parasite Eve stands out from its peers in more ways than one. It offers just the right mix of Japanese horror and JRPG traditions, making for one of the best scary JRPGs.

Koudelka

The predecessor to the excellent Shadow Hearts games on the PlayStation 2, Koudelka is a rather unique game. Its art style is a lot creepier than that of its follow-ups, and the overall mood is darker. Set just before the turn of the 20th century, Koudelka follows the titular character as she explores a monster-filled monastery. There's not much else out there like Koudelka, as even the Shadow Hearts games have a less sinister feel to them.

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey

Really, any game from the Shin Megami Tensei series or its many spin-offs has a good chance of being one of the best scary JRPGs. Maybe not Jack Bros., but you know what I mean. Strange Journey's extremely oppressive atmosphere and clear inspiration from The Thing put it just over the top. You're no less powerful here than you are in any Atlus JRPG, but something about this game just make you feel deep dread. Perhaps it's the bizarre soundtrack, or the claustrophobic hallways. Maybe it's that there's a good chance of getting wiped out at any moment. Whatever the case, this is quietly one of the scariest JRPGs you can find.

Laplace no Ma

Originally released on Japanese computers, Laplace no Ma is part of a loose series of horror-themed JRPGs. The Super Famicom version has a fan translation, and is probably the best one to check out for non-Japanese speakers as a result. Set in a fictional Massachusetts town called Newcam, Laplace no Ma draws heavily on Lovecraftian lore. You have to explore a creepy mansion, but you're able to leave and use the town's facilities when needed. It has its share of rough edges, but it's very much worth checking out if you're looking for something creepy to play.

Sweet Home

The inspiration for the Resident Evil series may be a mere Famicom game, but it's still capable of sending chills down your spine. Sweet Home is something of a chimera, mixing elements of survival, adventure, and JRPG into a package that stands out on its platform. You've got limited resources in almost every sense, and if you don't make careful use of them you won't be escaping the mansion alive. One of the best scary JRPGs? If not, it's clearly one of the most important scary JRPGs.

Let us know what you think is the scariest, or the best, JRPG below!

The post The Best Scary JRPGs appeared first on Siliconera.

Hello, everyone. I'm Shaun, and I'm a very big fan of Dragon Quest. This is not an especially unique condition, but it's uncommon enough among Western gaming enthusiasts that we always have to cross our fingers that any given game will get localized and released globally. As one of those fans, I am very excited about Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake. It's a great game and a very important one for the history of the medium, and it's awesome to see it get such a high-class treatment.

On top of that, Square Enix has also announced that the first two games in the series will also be getting the HD-2D Remake treatment. It's easy to see why Square Enix would lead this effort with the third game in the series. Dragon Quest 3 is where the series really hit the big-time in Japan, pushing the brand into the wider pop culture in a way few games had done before. Where the first two games have a rather prototypical feel at times due to being genre pioneers, Dragon Quest 3 has most of what modern players would expect from a JRPG. It feels classic, but never terribly dated.

It's that latter point that is most important outside of Japan, where the series has enjoyed a decent level of popularity but never truly broken out the way it did in its home country. This isn't the first time Square Enix has tried to push Dragon Quest in the West, and it surely won't be the last. The attention afforded to HD-2D games right here and now presents a unique opportunity, however. It's a chance for the formative games in the franchise to shine, and one that Dragon Quest 3 can take advantage of in a way its predecessors might not be able to.

Editor's Note: There will be spoilers for the first three Dragon Quest games below.

There's another fortunate aspect at play here. You see, unlike most of the games in the series, the first three Dragon Quest games have strong narrative ties. Where this could present a huge problem for releasing the games out of order, Dragon Quest 3 ducks the issue by being a prequel. Chronologically speaking, this is where the trilogy starts. There's no issue with playing Dragon Quest 3 first and then going on to the first two when they're released. Or… is there?

Prequels aren't a new thing by any means, and they certainly weren't back when the 8-bit Dragon Quest games were made. History is full of interesting stories, and that can apply to fictional worlds as well. A skilled storyteller can use a prequel to flesh out the world further, and even surprise those familiar with the original works by going against their firm expectations. Part of the fun of a prequel is that we generally know where things will end up, but not how they get there. There's a lot of narrative meat in that type of tale. The more the person knows about what comes next, the more fun you can have playing around with that.

There's another kind of prequel, though. Sometimes the person experiencing the story doesn't even know it's a prequel until the storyteller chooses to reveal it. Sometimes they know it's a prequel but specific connections are kept under wraps until the right moment. It can be carefully hinted at along the way, enough to tickle at people's memories. When the boom is finally dropped, the impact can be tremendous.

At first, Dragon Quest 3 seems like it's completely separate from the first two games. Unlike Dragon Quest 2, the world you're thrown into has no resemblance in form to that of the original game. A whole new map, albeit one that might be familiar in other ways to the observant. After going on a long quest that spans the whole world, evil is defeated. Celebrations are underway when it is revealed that there is a greater threat, and the only way to put an end to it is to chase it into its own realm. Courageously, as thou must, you volunteer to make that journey.

Suddenly, you find yourself in a completely new world. If you've played the first two games, you know exactly where you are. The geography, the layout of the nearest settlement, and even the music hammer it home. A clever little move that was played in a smaller way in the previous game. If you know the previous two games very well, some of the details will start adding up. You're not just in Alefgard. You're in Alefgard at a time before the original game's events. The tasks you must perform to reach the final boss should also ring a bell.

By the end, many players will have already figured out what the final twist will be. It still hits. It turns out the legendary warrior Erdrick who the heroes of the first two games descended from is… you. So the trilogy closes, having fully closed its circle in a surprisingly elegant way for games of this vintage. It's a stunning end to an excellent game, and one that might have you anxious to replay those first two games again.

Virtually every Dragon Quest fan already knows this, of course. Among Japanese gamers in general, the original Dragon Quest trilogy occupies such a large part of the history of the medium that even those who aren't into the games have a good chance of being aware of this twist. If that's the case for you, then it doesn't really matter what order you play these games in now. It can even be fun to play them in their narrative chronological order.

This release of Dragon Quest 3 is very likely to reach people who haven't played the original trilogy and aren't aware of the story, however. For them, none of those big story beats are going to land the way they're meant to. Dragon Quest 3 happens first, but it was never meant to be played first. It's still a great game even without all of those connections being revealed, but it loses something. In a series that envelopes itself in nostalgia more than most, the final hours of Dragon Quest III are quite possibly its greatest, most natural callback.

Ultimately, Square Enix is probably making the right call by presenting Dragon Quest 3 ahead of its more rough-edged forbearers. At the same time, there's a real cost to presenting these games out of their original order. While I'm sure that Dragon Quest 3 can get by just fine without its memorable endgame flourish, it's a heavy sacrifice for those experiencing this legendary trilogy for the first time.

Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D will come to the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC on November 14, 2024.

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