I haven't played the first one yet but this one sounds similar. I will say it does start off slow while assembling a full party. Doing all the characters' intro chapters and starting and stopping progress on the main quest four times really kept me from getting in a rhythm with the game so its been slow going at first.

Broken Sword 4 The Angel of Death, Sep 13 (GOG)-I beat this one last night and I can easily this is one of the worst games I've ever played. Certainly the worst one I've played this year. There is not a single redeeming feature. The writing is bad, the voice acting is bad, the interface is bad, the puzzles are bad, the hacking mini game is bad. George is an annoying, unlikeable character and when did he become a ninja warrior. I don't remember him being so bad in the previous games. The puzzles range from absurd moon logic to I know what the solution is but can't implement it because I can't get a character to talk about something. And the worst part if probably that you can't skip dialogue. So you're forced to hear the same terrible jokes everytime you get a puzzle wrong or misclick. Nothing about this game is good but I wanted to finish it just to see how bad it would get. Spoiler the ending is pretty bad too. And after the game was over the credits never rolled. It just sat there in a menu with a song playing. I suppose the developers didn't want their names associated with this. Also, an extendable golf club was used for multiple jokes and puzzle solutions so there's that.

Full List

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess (XSX Game Pass)

This is that Japanese tower defense game crossed with real time squad tactics game that you just know you've always wanted. It's a very well-made, high-quality game. The art design and animation are really well done. You can tell this was a smallish game made by a team at CAPCOM that were really into the game that they were making.

I honestly cannot think of another game that exactly matches this one, though it has elements from many. It's primarily tower defense. You "tower" is the goddess, and she moves slowly through the maps clearing corruption. Most maps take several day night cycles. You prepare and move during the day, freeing the villagers and recruiting them to fight. Then you defend through the night. So, this is very different to most tower defense games that I've played where you start with your troops and set traps before anything happens. Here you start the maps with nothing and have to recruit on the fly. The most troops you ever have is 12 and you can move them and command them in battle- so it's more like a real time squad tactics game. You also fight yourself with your own character.

The standard missions are mixed up with some surprises to keep you guessing, rather than just straight mobile tower defense. Plus, many maps are followed by a boss fight. The game is not very difficult, but sometimes I had to replay a boss mission because I went in with the wrong mix of troops or the wrong build for my character. You can respec freely before missions.

Excellent game that is not quite like anything I've personally played, even when comparing to other games in the genre. At around 20 hours for one play through, it's just about the right length for the amount of gameplay ideas it introduces. There is a demo on Steam as well. This is another Game Pass game that goes onto my curated "buy in a few years on discount" to play again list.

Dungeons of Hinterberg, Spe 14 (Xbox Game Pass)-This was a good game with a fun gameplay loop but it was far too easy. Each of the four regions had specific spells that were required to solve puzzles and each of the dungeons in those areas were unique but the puzzles and combat never felt more than just surface level. The puzzle solutions were standard fare like shoot a target to activate it or push a block on a pressure plate or to access a higher area. Maybe if you could use all spells in all locations the developers could have made some more complex puzzles and interactions. Combat was mostly get swarmed by mooks with one tough enemy then repeat 2-3 times with additional waves. There were boss fights that changed things up a bit but not much. I did like the social/relationship aspect at the beginning. For the first several days you were encouraged to talk to a particular character in the evening to progress the story or learn a new mechanic. Once that ended around day 15 I mostly just looked for the best relationship rewards for each character. The plot was ok. Characters were more caricatures than anything. It was fun but I was hoping for something better.

Full List

Star Ocean The Divine Force


Star Ocean is a series somewhat near and dear to me. I played Till the End of Time extensively as an early PS2 game for me and my brother back in 2010 and have played through The First Departure. In addition, I have played parts of Second Story (or is it Evolution?) but have not touched my copies of Integrity and Faithlessness or the last Hope International. I was super excited for this game though and started playing it extensively last year about August. Unfortunately, stuff happens, I get distracted, we move on.

Anyway, since I played this game over the course of two separate bouts separated by about a year, I won't be able to give a very complete summary of my thoughts, but I'll put this down for my sakes anyway.

So, first off, on One X and especially Series X this game looks very good but always stops short of looking great. That said, the character designs are some of my favorite in the series. Raymond kind of just barely avoids totally looking like a hero but he does look suitably cool as well as everyone else in the party. The characters were all good as well with no one being egregious or obnoxious. They all were suitably unique as well as largely well acted and written. My favorites included Elena and Marielle but Laeticia is also very good as well as Nina and Albaird having a fair few good moments.

Acting was very good across the board, bearing in mind I played with Japanese audio (although I slightly regret that only because Todd Haberkorn plays the emperor).

Gameplay is also pretty excellent this time around. The only true annoyance comes in the battles with the AP gauge. It just is slightly convoluted to fill up (the only way I managed to do it was with blind siding with DUMA). I guess I should clarify: the AP gauge is your Action Points, all actions in battle consume an action point except using items. You start battles with like five and can increase it to at least a dozen or twenty. DUMA is also a character who in gameplay mainly is used as a kind of thrust jet pack. You can dash to an enemy's side and hopefully land a blind side on it, that usually gets you a few points. Other actions can too but this was the only one that seemed to work consistently for me. Once you have acquired the AP gauge up to a point (it refills to that limit if you rest a little in battle) you can pretty much use all of your attacks with relative impunity. However, if you get hit with a devastating attack (Anything that knocks you back or anything that comes with multiple hits like getting hit with a laser beam, fire breath, or a rock slide) then you start losing AP gauge points and have to reacquire them. It can be tedious when you are fighting some big mech and he gets you with a laser cannon and cancels out several of your AP points leaving you to try and outflank the machine that is not only bigger than you but also is faster than you. That said, I would not call this a hard game, just one with a few frustrating moments. I want to say that someone described this as an easy game with hard bosses. The game is not easy per se and not all of the bosses are hard, but that is pretty close to the mark.

Exploring the environment with the jet pack DUMA is pretty fun and gives a sense of verticality to the game that is often missing from JRPGs. Resultantly, exploring the environments and towns is often rewarding with certain items or upgrade points and gives you reasons to look up every here and again. It also makes traversing the environment easier than if they gave you a lackluster climbing mechanic. That said, the environs are not the most open that a game like this could have and even though you go to a few worlds only one of them has all that diverse of biomes or is particularly well developed in its design.

One thing I should point out are the ways in which the game feels rushed. The story largely is functional until it reaches about the fourth chapter (the game is divided into four and is roughly about 25-33% of the game depending. It added about thirty hours to my playthrough, bringing me to about 80). However, the story takes a nose dive in the sense making department after the primary crux of the conflict is brought to the fore. It is a spoiler but I will just say, is it a hive mind or isn't it? The story covers its butt by saying "it makes sense when you're in it but not before" but this barely is a real cover. And at that they go to great lengths to talk about the concept but fail to really enlighten too much about it. In the end, it's just a fairly standard Star Ocean/JRPG story and there is nothing wrong with that especially since the characters are all pretty good still. The pacing also takes an odd nose dive at that point, slowing down what was feeling like a race to the climax. The rest of the game is good, I assure you, but it just did not feel quite right with the pace building so much to be told, "Hold it, we still got a ways to go." It will do this to a lesser extent one more time also.

Speaking of characters, I don't know why but I saw like five or six private actions before I got to a point in the story where I was like "They've warned me enough, let's see if there is anything I should see first." This took me somewhere between 5-10 hours. Now, I like private actions so it was not a problem I just thought it was strange how the game only put a handful in your path naturally but the rest were things that I think you'd only get if you were wanting them.

Speaking of the things that made the game feel rushed, the game does look good but the visuals are occasionally rough. The Unreal Engine of today I think is a bigger cancer than UE3 ever was, with companies like Namco and Square throwing it into every game imaginable. It does some things well and then others horribly. Reflections continue to look like vague, dotted trash, fabrics are a little odd when moving dynamically, and lighting effects are a mixed bag: occasionally looking amazing and occasionally looking below par for an Xbox 360 title.

That said, the game is a very, very good RPG. I think it is probably the best Star Ocean I have played (not a long list) with the least harmful plot twist between it and 3 and being a better fulfillment of the concept than First Departure. If you like this kind of game then get it and play it. It is easily worth the reduced price it can be had for today and was well worth full price when it launched (at least for me).


(I may as well say a few words about the Doom games I played lately)

Doom (2016)*

Firstly, I wish they called this something other than pretentiously just calling it Doom. This trend is annoying and feels like they are trying to over pander to older gamers or they are ashamed of following in the footsteps of a prior game. Wolfenstein (2009) should not have done this either.

I have surprisingly few thoughts on this game. I think it is okay, maybe even good. I enjoyed Doom 3 appreciably more. I guess just to clarify how well I got into this game: I played this game for the first time around when I got and started paying Samurai Warriors 5 and it was not long before Samurai Warriors occupied more of my time. It's not bad but it has a few of the problems of the new Wolf games. That said, it is a lot better than New Order or Old blood. I don't think it is better than, say, Shadow Warrior (2013, you see why this trend is annoying?). I mean, it is a similar enough design philosophy to Shadow Warrior: go to room/arena, bad guys spawn, you kill them, do some light exploration or paint in the lines puzzle, rinse and repeat. I have heard people adulate about this game before and I think it is fun and good but it is not as sophisticated as a Metroid Prime, it is not the immediately satisfying fun of an RTCW or the original Doom, it is not as moody and atmospheric as Doom 3 or a Dead Space, the soundtrack is not as good as Quake or Quake II (I really will stand by this point, some of the tracks by the end sounded like the musicians discovered how to make a synthesizer fart), and while the game is leagues better in visuals than the new Wolf games it was not better looking per se than Titanfall 2. That said, for the year it came out, it is similarly enjoyable to Titanfall 2 for me (Titanfall 2 had better gameplay variety and was better for me) and is better than either Battlefield 1 or Infinite Warfare as well as being less tedious than Shadow Warrior 2 (that one hurts). But in the end for me the game does become tedious after a bit and was not brilliantly paced. The glory kills in particular were something that I thought were fun for a little bit but eventually were about as tedious to me as QTEs are in so many titles. There are lots of people who think this game is a modern classic akin to the old Quakes or Doom titles and many of them are old enough to remember those titles when they came out but I just do not see it. I like it but I am far from loving it. Also, the edgy, try hard tough guy stunts like punching everything like a caveman got old really, really fast. I also never get too into the "You are so badass and scary that the demons are scare of YOU, bro!" thing.

Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil (BFG Edition)

I played the BFG edition of this because the Enhanced Edition mod kind of broke the ex pack on my base version and I figured I may as well since I already had it easily accessible. This game (as well as Doom 2016) is not a hard game, I should mention. It can be very satisfying, all the same. This game being an ex pack is also short. In the BFG edition, which makes things easier with more plentiful ammo and a shoulder lamp, I beat this game in about four hours on standard difficulty and I hesitate to say I am good at games. It ought to take a person who is good at them a little less time since I had to redo a few sections because of derp. This ex pack adds a really, really good double barrel shotgun that almost breaks the game in your favor. It was super fun to use though. The other addition was that relic which I was able to pretty easily ignore, actually. in fact, I question if the game glitched on me or if the BFG edition just eliminated any challenge from a few sections (the sewer in particular). Oh well, this ex pack also kept up a decent atmosphere throughout although there were fewer audio logs by a lot. Still a few emails, many of which were hilarious.

In all, I really liked this ex pack and it is a really good way to kill an afternoon, better than Old Blood at any rate.

*In fairness to Doom (2016) I did play it on an Xbox One X so the following is worth keeping in mind. The game looks better than it did on an Xbox One from 2016, I am not sure by how much but it does. I even think it still looks pretty good for a new release. The controls also were an impediment to enjoyment. This game felt very aimed at a PC audience with gameplay decisions, like jumping and shooting at the same time as aiming being difficult on an Xbox but no problemo on a PC. I think I would have liked the game more on PC from a gameplay perspective but I don't think it would have fundamentally altered the fact I think it is similarly good to Shadow Warrior (2013) which is another good to very good but not strictly speaking excellent game.

Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars (3DS)

I've had this game since it launched. I meant to beat it for a very long time. I originally started playing it in earnest in early 2016 when the primary elections were going on. (There was an occasion in 2014, August, when I was debating between this and Fire Emblem Awakening and I chose FE because I figured that it would be easier to return to that game if I took a break. It turns out I was right.) I then had a bout of playing it in mid-2017, and a little while in 2020. Then, with more election stuff in the news lately, it kind of called the game back to mind and I figured I would finish it once and for all.

I liked the game, the girls were all nice (muh waifu was Chloe this playthrough), and the graphics were decent. The character designs were all good to me. The dungeon designs are kind of boring, but I am not really a fan of dungeon crawlers in the first place. I thought the creation of the Star Children to make your lesser party members was fun. Although I wish I went with a second Ether Sniper instead of the Magic Knight for my final party...oh well. The battle system was snappy enough not to bore me. The game was pretty long for me. I took about 120 hours and I don't think I made special efforts to do everything, although I did fully upgrade the city and tried to get the harem ending (it turned out I missed Torri's final event). However, the game kind of felt like it dragged near the end there. The last two chapters took way longer than all the previous ones combined and my first bout ended with me beginning the second to last chapter. It was just difficult to care after that point. (It seems like it takes most people around 1/3 to half the time to beat the game that it took me.)

Oh, spoilers, but the obviously evil people turn out to actually be evil. Shocking.

Anyway, I have difficulty recommending the game unless the Star Children creation seems strong enough to carry your interest throughout. Oh well, it feels good to clean something that's been sitting on your plate for so long.

I knew as soon as I discovered the solution to a puzzle was to lock a door and kick it down taking the brick wall with it to create a bridge I was in trouble.

Saboteur! This is the remake, not the original ZX Spectrum or C64 version. I had somehow missed or forgotten that this version of the game promised "new levels" and such, so I was playing like it was just the original game ported to modern systems. I was feeling good about finally managing to steal the data disk, bomb the computers, and escape the base (that last platforming section is a total bitch) within the time limit. Then the game tells you to go back inside the base, so I was thinking there would be some sort of epilogue, and I started getting annoyed when I started dying very quickly after going back in.

I finally blundered my way to the right spot before dying and the guy takes a long elevator trip, and then comes out into a whole new map. I sort of groaned at realizing I was nowhere close to really being done, but then I started having a good time when I realized that this new section was nowhere near as frantic as the opening/original game. The original game is quite challenging in that way of mid-80s computer games, but the update section is actually almost relaxing to play. There are checkpoints, the timed sections are a lot more forgiving than the original game's time limit, and the enemies you face aren't really any more challenging than the original's, so you can punch them down and then take a breather to heal if you're hurt. The only part of this this new map I didn't like was the section where you have to run back and forth through a sound-sensitive area while finding particular chemicals to use to solve a puzzle. It's the one part in which I felt the developers (or is it still just Clive Townsend?) were padding things out. It can also be a bit hard to see what you need to interact with in a couple of sections.

I don't consider this version to be a replacement for the original game, and unless I missed something I wish there was an option to just play the original version as a standalone experience because it feels so different. But it's a nice piece of work for the most part. I'll definitely check out the sequel's remake and then the new third game.