[Review] Reus

For the last 6 months I've been on the lookout for any new development-sims that cater to my tastes, something fun, not too stressful & action-y, yet challenging & rewarding. And preferably in cute 2D. Imagine my surprise when Reus got released on Steam a couple of days ago. "This is it!", I thought. And I was right.

[Review] The Testament of Sherlock Holmes

Part of me really wants to love this game and the other part just wants to puke from all the motion sickness this game has caused me, simply because of bad camera control. 

[Review] Atelier Ayesha - The Alchemist of Dusk

By now I've played through the game twice, did everything there is to do and watched all the endings. And while Meruru is still my number one when it comes to Atelier games, Ayesha is a pretty close second.

Installing Atelier Ayesha...

... and while I'm waiting for that to finish (oh, why are you so damn slow at installing games, PS3?) I'd like to share my thoughts on Ayesha before playing the game and then we'll see how much they might change (or not) while I'm playing through it... ;>

- I'm a little disappointed that the game has no dual-audio. I'm not exactly that much into Japanese dubs, tho I admittedly have this huge crush on Takehito Koyasu's voice, but I do find a lot of American dubs rather unpleasing to the ears. It's mostly the girl characters, with way older woman trying to voice a teenage girl, that get annoying to me easily... Japanese voice actresses can somehow pull this off, but I've never heard a good dub in a non-Asian language where a 30+ old woman can pull off a 16 y/o girl's voice. I haven't heard any of the US voice actors besides Ayesha's so far, but I'm a little scared that I won't like the voices much. I think British voice actors would suit the Atelier series' style so much more, since the city designs always have such a European style (and I think the original PSOne games were set in Germany?) - but oh well, let's see how I feel about the voice acting when I play the game... maybe it's not that bad. :)

- I really love the new art style. As I've seen many mention before, I agree that the new artist's style suits the 3D cel shading models a lot more! The animations of the characters still feel a little bland tho, from what I've seen in videos and lip synching is pretty much non-existent. But still, I think it looks the best out of all the Atelier games so far and I like the simplistic menu design a lot as well.

- I'm looking forward to the story and characters a lot, since this time the theme is a bit more mature compared to the Arland series... not that I didn't find the cuteness of the Arland series charming and all, but I really like me some good drama, so yay!

Well, game's installed, so let's see how much I'll love this game then... :)

And more games I want got announced...

I'll be piss poor this year...

A little rant about Ni no Kuni...

So, as I said I'm gonna rant a little.


This will be a little spoiler-y (I won't spoil the ending or deep plot twists tho), so stay away if you haven't finished the game yet and don't want to know some story related things before having seem them yourself (I won't talk much about anything post-Hamelin, so if you've reached that part you're pretty much save anyway.)

[Review] Ni no Kuni (& Gold Hurly Familiar Give Away)

I'll try to keep this review as spoiler-free as possible for those who haven't played the game yet... I'll make another post with rants and a few in-depth hints for those that are interested later on. ;>

I've put a good 75+ hours into the game now (tho I think around 5 hours of those are just me leaving the PS3 on while doing other stuff. ;>) and finished the main story. I still got quite a bit of the post-end content left to finish (monster hunts, quests, catching all familiars just because I can...) and not one minute of it felt like wasted time.

I love this game. A lot. But I have to admit that this game has its flaws. Most of them are no big deal and if you're able to overlook them you'll have plenty of fun with this game.

It finally arrived... *_* (Ni No Kuni Wizard's Edition)

Even tho I was already prepared for it, I was still a little disappointed that the Wizard's Companion is so tiny...

 And after playing the hell out of it, I'll also share my thoughts on the game with you~

What I'm looking forward to...

While 2012 was a bit lacking for me (even tho they were a few incredibly great games, as mentioned in the post before...), 2013 seems to be more than promising. There's tons of stuff I'm looking forward to and I'd like to share my excitement with you guys. ;>

First of all there's Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch coming up in a mere 15 23 days (just as I was writing this, Amazon informed me that the game has been delayed to the first of February... orz) - I've been wanting to play this game ever since the DS version got announced. I was severely disappointed when they announced a localisation for the PS3 version but not the DS one... I had no PS3 then and I didn't think I'd be getting one so soon either. But then I did and after playing through the demo once, I immediately pre-ordered the Limited Edition of Ni No Kuni. It's so fun and so pretty! The story seems to be promising too (but I didn't expect anything else, I mean.. it's Ghibli!) and Level 5's cel shading is marvelous as always... hell yeah. I'm excited for this game!

Next up is Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Escape (Vita version), which gets released on the same day as Ni No Kuni over here in Germany. I decided to not import the game, when I saw it's only gonna cost 28 Euro over here - a price I'm certainly willing to pay for that game. :D (Usually prices in Germany have the same numbers as in the US, just with a € behind instead of a $ in front of them... so, a 40 USD game suddenly turns into a 40 Euro game which is about $52. How is that fair? ;_;) 

In February I'll finally get to play Persona 4 Golden too! The main reason I got the Vita, as I was never able to finish the game on my shiny pink PS2! The little one deleted my 90% complete save game and ever since I just couldn't bring myself to start from the beginning... after enough time had passed to make me wanna play the game from scratch again, the upgraded Vita version got announced and I decided that if I'm gonna play the game again, then I'm playing that version! So I got me a Vita.. and it has been waiting ever since... waiting for me to finally push the game's cartridge into the game slot and play til the battery runs dry... 8) And that I will do in February!

The game I'm probably most excited about tho, is probably Atelier Ayesha - I've been drooling over this game ever since it got announced and after Tecmo-Koei bought Gust I was a little scared that we won't see this game localised or that it would take ages at least. But what's that? A European release, you say? In April? Pre-ordered. WANT NOW!

Don't Starve will also finally see it's official release soon! The Beta has been available for purchase for a while now and it's pretty fun to see the game expand and give you more options to die every few days... 8) It's also 20% off if you buy it now before it's released. :)

Then there's Deponia 3, The Rabbit's Apprentice (another P&C Adventure game by Daedelic & the awesome Matthias Kempke of lassiegames!), Pokemon X & Y just got announced for this year too...

And of course Fire Emblem: Awakening! Finally a Fire Emblem game that has no perma death! And oh, how I look forward to marrying off all my characters to each other, haha.... 8)

Last but not least there is also the release of GTA V to look forward to sometime this year... who knows when exactly that is, but it's gonna be awesome!

So many games I'm looking forward to... I wonder if I'll even have the time to play them all.

If you haven't yet, you can also check out what 2012 games I'm looking back on... ;>

What I'm looking back on...

So I'm a little late with the list of my ten favourite games of the year 2012, but let's do this anyway:

Coming Soon...

I've been a little absent from the internet lately, busy with real life stuff and I've got to admit, mostly I was using all my free time to catch up on a few games I haven't been able to play before.

But with the Christmas holidays coming up I might even be able to review some of the games I've been playing lately. This list consists mostly of:

Puzzle Agent 1 & 2
Chaos on Deponia
Home
(all of these were played together with J, as usual)

1931: Scheherazade
Dandelion
Don't Starve
FTL: Faster Than Light
Portal 2
King's Bounty: Crossworlds

Saturday I'll start playing GTA IV with J on my PS3 - we actually wanted to play it last weekend on my PC, but found out it got ridiculous CPU needs that my computer sadly can't fulfill (which results in lots of lag while driving - unbearable.). Luckily I got a friend with the PS3 version and since I recently bought a PS3 (which is actually a Birthday-/Christmas present for me and the little one (his bday is 4 days before, mine 10 days after Christmas, so that works out well for big presents.. :>))

Anyway. Expect some updates from my side the next couple weeks and maybe there might even finally be some info I can share on my own game as well. :)

In any case: Awesome holidays and everything to all of you for now! <3 p="p">

[Let's Talk] Multiplayer Games

Recently I've been trying lots of turn based multiplayer games, trying to find a few ones I can play with J when we don't have time to meet up and fulfill our point & click adventure urges. I've stumbled upon two games I found very worth mentioning:

Sound Shapes

I'm usually staying away from platformers, as I really, really suck at them. But add some creative options, like making your own levels and composing music at the same time - oh well, I can't help but get curious...

And since the Vita hasn't seen much love and since I like to support indie developers.. and the game is 20% off for PS+ users, I just couldn't resist and pre-ordered it last week. 8) (It's also for both Vita & PS3, no matter which version you buy, you'll get the other as well.)

So on Tuesday the game was finally available to download and since then I've been spending quite a bit of time with it. And not just me, the little one is rather fond of it as well - which is just awesome, since he can go and do all the jumping and running to unlock more items and sounds, so I can fiddle around even more with the level creator.. ;>

But admittingly, the stages aren't actually that hard (at least not all the time) and there's no game over, you just respawn at your last checkpoint and merely have to collect the coins you gathered after the checkpoint again - luckily you can use the checkpoints again after picking up coins, so you won't lose them any more after dying. So all in all I am actually having a lot of fun with the platforming as well - which is mainly due to the awesome artwork and music in this little gem. 

                                                                          A few of the different stages

The level creation mode

Most of the levels feel more like an artsy interactive music video than just a platformer, especially Beck's "Cities" was a lot of fun to play through since everything was so perfectly synched to the song's rythmn and even after ten minutes (I died A LOT ;>) I didn't get bored of the song.. :)

I'd recommend this to anyone who likes artsy stuff, good music and doesn't hate platformers with a passion.. the 20% discount for PS+ still lasts til Tuesday as well! :)

[review] Ciel no Surge

...or "Menu Navigation - The Game".

Atelier Ayesha

Developer: Gust 

Official Site: click here 

Genre: Turn-Based RPG

Release Date: 2012/06/28 (JPN)

 

I'm pretty excited for this by now... especially since two new awesome characters just got announced.. 8)

Limited Edition

I just pre-ordered the limited edition of Ciel no Surge from CDJapan AmiAmi. I'm not sure if this was really smart, since I don't think the game is very non-Japanese friendly, menu-wise and all, but I really want this game. And the extras. Especially the PS Vita front sticker:

The rest of the LE is nothing that special, a soundtrack CD and "documents" which are probably containing info on characters, the world etc.. 

Definitely not as awesome as my last LE, the Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 4 Treasure Box, which included a CG collection book, a character design book, a bunch of postcards with art from the game and a flower necklace with replaceable stones, 8 of them, one of each for the romanceable guys in the game. <3

But the Ciel no Surge LE is tempting enough with that sticker thingy, I really find it rather pretty and would love to stick it on my Vita... ^^; It's also been quite a while since I bought Haruka4 (and back then I was lucky enough to have a friend stay over in Japan, so he bought it for me and brought it back over here when he got back... no customs, no hundred years of shipping, no shipping fees... yay!) so I'm somewhat excited even tho the extras aren't that awesome. it It still seems pretty shiny to me and about 60 Euro for a LE from Japan is quite cheap actually. Can't wait for early May when the game arrives here.. or rather when I get my notification from the customs office.. orz

5 Reasons Why I Hate That My Son Is A Gamer

Huge rant about why it's not a good idea to let your children enjoy video games at an early age. And it got nothing to do with wether playing video games is good or bad for a young child. ;>

My son is a huge gaming enthusiast like me. He just turned 6 and can't even read yet, but he loves nothing more than playing video games. Except for ice cream, maybe. I'm usually pretty pleased with him being so interested in games except for these certain moments where I regret nothing more than introducing him to the gaming world. 

Accidently deleted this - Stuff that's intriguing me

 
Cave's newly announced Tokyo Therion which is gonna be released on iOS systems, is supposed to be a MORPG, so since it's not massive, I hope there's gonna be some sort of storyline (maybe revolving around the three characters from the teaser image) that can be played via co-op. I'd really rather love that, as I'm not too much of an MMO fan, since those are mostly lacking in the story department... so I hope this game doesn't. I also really like the character design of Tokyo Therion, so I'm definitely looking forward to more news on that - I hope they'll port it to another system (*coughs*Vita*coughcough*), since I own no Apple decives and never will.. ;>

Here's the official website: http://www.tokyot.jp/

The other game that has picked my interested is Sol Trigger, a newly announced PSP RPG by imageepoch, which I'm very curious about since the character design looks awesome (it's by Shuji Sogabe who also designed the characters in the Senko no Ronde games, not my cup of tea genre-wise, but the art is adorable) - by now scans of the three protagonists are floating around the web, so I hought I'd share:

Farrel, Emma & Walter

I'm not too sure how great the story will be as it sounds pretty generic: Some sort of freedom fighters, with access to some sort of power source called "Sol", which seems to be some sort of enhanced mana, it's used for skills and special attacks and if you die, but got enough Sol, you won't die, but your Sol gets depleted instead. Farrel is somehow special, being the only one having a gold Sol and he's a candidate to become the next Sol Trigger. Emma is his gun wielding childhood friend and Walter's best friend was killed by the church, so he is seeking revenge.


The scenario will be written by Kazushige Nojima, who also wrote the scenarios for FF8, 10, 10-2, 13, 13-2 and Kingdom Hearts 2 among other stuff. I have to admit, the only game where I really liked the storytelling of those is KH2, so I'm not too sure what to expect. 


It sounds a lot like another imageepoch game, Arc Rise Fantasia, right now.. fighting for freedom, the church killing people... I really loved Arc Rise Fantasia (the undub!!) but I hope it will be different.... I hope the church won't have such an important role, I just don't like the church as the bad guys, way too overused.


I'm not too sure what to expect from all of those involved.. the art is superb, definitely, but imageepoch has never done anything more than mediocre to quite good but flawed games imo and Nojima never really got to me either. I still hope this turns out good and will be localised. ^^;


Also: Does anyone else think that Walter looks like a girl if you cut off his head? That clothes design is somewhat creepy... ^^;;


Speaking of imageepoch... as I've mentioned, I'm currently taking a break from Corpse Party and I borrowed my DS to one of my besties, as she has no money for consoles and handhelds, so I gave her my DS and a couple of games (Pokemon White, Ghost Trick, Layton, GTA, ...and I forgot what else XD) so she can enjoy a little gaming. That means I'm taking a break from Devil Survivor 2 right now as well.

So I bought Fate/Extra and Dissiddia 012 [duodecim] (since it's 50% off for Plus users) from the US PSN store and have been playing those two. 


Fate/Extra is very.... hm, I like the design and the gameplay is interesting, but it's also very lacking. The characters are beautiful, especially the 3D models look really awesome (and that from the girl who usually can't stand 3D) but everything else is just so bland and boring. The dungeons are even worse than that Thanatos tower in Persona 3. The battle system is interesting for the first ten minutes and then it just gets annoyingly boring.. you either predict everything right and win after a minute of watching your servant (in my case Archer <333) smack the enemy or you get everything wrong and almost die yourself... and I'm playing on easy mode. 


In fact, everything annoyed me so much, that I downloaded a clear save file and started my game over after I reached the 3rd day of the 1st week. Now at least I know all enemy patterns. The game is still very annoying, it's just one hell of a huge grindfest and usually I do not mind a little grinding here and there, I enjoyed it a lot in Persona 3 & 4, but battles in those two where at least a little rewarding, since you could get Personae and items and stuff, but the lack of any kind of equipment for your servant and the minimal experience gain from each battle, they really demotivate me. 


So, as a result, I asked someone to add the 999SP cheat to my save file, so I can avoid grinding and just add a few points to my skills each day.. orz


I'm on the 6th day of the 1st week now and I hope I'll enjoy the game more now, as I really love the Fate universe.. :) 


But I forgive the game's flaws. Since there is Archer. And who could resist this smug smile, huh? ;>

And even tho I'm pretty sure it won't happen (I've avoided all kinds of spoilers so far!) I really wish for an ending like this:

Anyway.. while Fate/Extra has an extra lot of flaws, I still kinda enjoy it.. ^^


Dissidia 012 [duodecim] is quite lovely in every sense on the other hand so far. I'm not huge on fighting games unless I play against someone else (sitting next to me, playing on the same console, not via online play - I'm a big fan of Guilty Gear and Melty Blood <3) so I'm playing on easy and with the RPG mode and while I do barely understand all of the gameplay yet (50 minutes into the game) it does seem to be fun and it's definitely a good buy for $14,69! <3


I'm also done with Fringe, I'm up to the latest episode and OMG THIS SERIES IS UTTER MINDFUCK!!! Totally love it, but I think they should stop adding new timelines, alternate realities and everything.. it gets a little confusing by now. ;> And Olivia and Peter... it's just graaghwjwgjfkrfhjrk!!!!1eleven


I swear, I'll kill the people behind this series if those two do not end up happily ever after at some point! ;> Since I was so obsessed with Fringe I have to catch up with Lost Girl, New Girl, Being Human, Grimm and all those anime series I'm currently watching as well.. but oh well, I'll concentrate on Fate/Extra for now! :) 

My game and my brother's PS3

Which are two totally unrelated things. :>

First of all, I found an artist for my game. So this kinda makes the team complete. My bestie, who is awesome, will be in charge of composing the music and sound effects (http://www.benedikt-grosser.com/), a long-time online friend of mine will be in charge of programming (... and I am wholeheartedly amazed by his enthusiasm for programming) and now for the art we've got a very talented artist! (http://cathselprime.deviantart.com/)

Now that leaves me with game design and the story. 

I finally had some ideas about a core element in the story, so writing should move along smoothly. I still have to figure out a few things about game play mechanics, like what kind of effect they have on the story progression and individual charater routes and things like that. I started a few character designs, which I'll hand over to the artist this weekend and maybe in a bit there will be more to show. :)

Things are moving a long slowly in any case! <3





But for this weekend, I've got my little brother's PS3 - he's off to Holland with a few friends, so I can have his PS3 while he's gone. And I still got Agarest Senki (also known as Record of Agarest War) on my PSN account, which I bought like 2 years ago and never had a chance to play since I don't own a PS3. orz

But now I've got 3 whole days to try and finish the game. I probably won't be able to play through all generations in this time, but maybe I can at least finish one? I totally need to check out which bride makes the prettiest son, so I can play the bishiest hero in the other generations. ;> Tho I will probably not go for any girl that annoys me, even if her son would be the easiest on the eye. Hopefully the one's with the pretty sons are the girls I'd choose anyway. (I'll definitely go for the fox girl in the second generation. :>)

The game should have finished downloading by now, so off I go to save the world and make children! ... Did I mention that I totally want to play Conception: Ore no Kodomo wo Undekure and make lots of Star Children? 8)

[Let's Play] Devil Survivor 2

Since I started playing the game yesterday, I'd like to write down my first impressions on it. I'm still not sure wether I like the game's characters and story tho.