Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Remastered - Review

 Genre: RPG.

Developer/publisher: Game Arts/GungHo ent.

Platform: PS4,PC,switch.
Official Site: N/A.

Release date: 18-4-2025

 

Okay I decided to get started on Lunar 2 the sequel to Lunar Silver Star Story because the original

Toki no Kizuna was too repetitive and I needed something else to spice up my life

so what better way than to work on your backlog than slogging through only one thing?

I actually ended up finishing both close together too. 

Anyways this game is set thousands of years later following Hiro and his flying pet cat Ruby.

 

Pro's

- Interesting story that expands upon the setting of the original.

- Main heroine has good character development.

- Lot's of hilarious and funny moments.

 

Grey Area

- Epilepsy warning, ISTG this game had a lot of flashing.

 

Con's

- The first hour of the game was harder than the game overall.

- Slow walking speed in dungeons.

- Optional dungeons had difficult random enemies but the bosses were easy...

 

Honestly I found that the storytelling had significantly improved and it no longer felt barebones.

Lunar 2 actually ended up adding meat to the bone that was the original game.

Late game reveals did explain more about the world. It explained

why things are the way they are, overall I left pretty satisfied. 

 

As for our protagonist this time... Hiro's just a normal boy who likes to go on

adventures and read way too many books, his grandpa is an archeologist.

The beginning of the game felt like a comedy which... suddenly gets serious

as some guy Leo crashes our parade of doing the usual adventuring.

Apparently the destroyer is coming and he is here to stop it and help Althena.

To do so they need to go into the tower but Hiro and gramps beat Leo to it...

they find a girl who Hiro thinks is the most beautiful he ever met and its love at first sight!😂

She doesn't really seem to notice him and is more concerned with her mission. 

Lucia is her name and she came from the other side aka the moon in the sky

to seek Althena's aide and stop some guy named Zophar from destroying everything

but it seems Lucia is being suspected of being the destroyer as well.

Hiro decides to be brave instead of a chicken and tries to help her out with her mission.

 

Hmm... we should be close to the viera village right?

Gameplay is mostly the same but I thought Lunar 2 was significantly more difficult

in its opening hour and you can actually get game overs easily. Thankfully

it balances out once you get access to actual equipment as well as more party members. 

 When Lucia first joins she is very overpowered and could one-shot everything so I was like

this is kinda nice but also... I bet she's gonna lose her powers cuz this ain't it or is she secretly

the destroyer? The game hinted she had the power to either save or destroy... and it checks out.

Of course she didn't keep that power cuz the game would be no fun and I did have to look up a guide

for the first boss because they did require some specific strategy like place your character

in the top left and make sure to debuff it. I didn't even know you could move your characters

with the defend command till the guide pointed that out.  The UI felt much cleaner

and not as clunky as the first game which was nice as well buuut I did think it was

a little slower compared to the prequel. Switching screens also felt slower

maybe its something they couldn't fix. 

 

It took me about 25ish hours to beat the game which wasn't particularly long.

I mostly had 1-3ish hour sessions, its not a long game and it didn't overstay its welcome at all

maybe its good I took a break between the two games and I fear had I jumped into this

right away then I may've liked it less so I am glad I didn't do that. 

 

Much like Lunar 1 there's no complicated crafting system

and you just buy items and gear from shops or find them in chests. 

 

In terms of collection there was the usual bromides and if you wanted them all

you're best off using a guide since most were still kinda missable during the main story

but there's a away to get them in the epilogue apparently. 

A lot of the pictures were nice so its worth trying to find them.

There were a few for the previous heroines as well, sorry none for the dudes though.

Mia looks like a queen... because she is one.

 Lunar 2 still has some of the same progression issues that I hated from the first game.

Thankfully this only happened in the first real town you get to and never happened again. 😊

When I had to go look for that priest I already knew who it was but because

I hadn't talked to a bunch of specific NPC's I couldn't trigger the event.

I wish they learned because someone could even think there game is bugged cuz they know

what they must do but they lacked insuffient flags to trigger the next event.

Idk its probably some series staple but its weird its only in the first town

and then everyone is fairly straight forward. 

 

Another thing I found weird was: Hiro can sprint but only for a short time

but what is weird is that in towns the speed was faster than in dungeons

so I didn't understant why they didn't keep it the same, just weird design.

There's ways to increase it but it involves putting on random gear pieces

and if you trigger a battle you will start asleep. WTF is this shit?!

Its almost impossible to avoid all enemies so ain't no way I will gimp myself

just so I can run faster, this feels like a cruel joke or punishment if you want to run faster. 

 

Also it is hard to avoid enemies, while not impossible a lot of the times there's

no way to avoid them and only some enemies could be avoided.

This is more or less because of placement and some places just being tiny or cramped

but this is not a big deal since you need EXP anyways. May as well fight em.

Except in the epilogue but more on that later.. 

The only time I had trouble with the enemies in the main game was in the beginning

but I feel that this is more or less because you don't got any access to better equipment.

Once I did as well as getting more allies it felt the game became more balanced.

The last two dungeons were also harder than most dungeons but it should be ok if you have

max starlights so you can top up MP midway & before last boss. The epilogue did see

another spike but that wasn't an issue because of save and run method due to this

you can just save your MP for the boss as levels at that point didn't really matter.

 

AI/auto mode is helpful to remove tedium of battles but there's moments

manual input is better such as boss fights or a certain cavern beneath

a certain new version of a city. Some later bosses may've had me do another take

but this game is very generous and you can save right before most, even mid dungeon.

You can save anywhere. Also enemies don't respawn till you leave the dungeon.

 

There's also no fast travel feature for a good while, you do get that same

special item from the original game but its been nerfed and only gets you out of dungeons.

Which makes the item that you can buy useless or Ronfart spell that does the same thing...

It isn't apparently not untill the epilogue you get access to fast travel which is a good

20 hours into the game... but even then you had to revisit the towns for it to work.

NANI le F*&cK It would have been nice indeed to have a quick way to restock on items

but the game just makes it a pain in the butt. Hiro already went to those places

so I cannot fathom this decision. The rememberizer works the same way

you have to visit certain spots before you can view the scenes. Unlike the previous game

which just let you view them right off the bat. This simply only adds play time.

 

That aside this game did have me look for my party members once but I wasn't as annoyed with it

maybe because nothing felt like it every dragged on too long and the game balance was alright

sans beginning and epilogue. Those two moments are the only time the was a difficulty spike.

Lunar 2 did not overstay its welcome and I had no issues with the pacing.

 

Idk what the original was like in terms of humor but this game

did have one legendary line from Ronfar no less that made me smile.

Me every morning......

There's only one area I grinded in because I wanted the best equipment at that point

and it was in Sluice forest, the money gain elsewhere before it was just not worth it.

Doing so did give me an extra level or two as well so it wasn't a bad idea.

I ran from most of the enemies in the epilogue dungeons cuz it wasn't worth my time

and the bosses themselves were easy and not level-gated. 

 

TL;DR 

Lunar 2 is the most hilarious RPG I have ever played and I don't regret it.

I liked Lunar 2 a lot more because it actually adds to the original

which honestly just felt flat to me and this game is the meat to its bones. 

Sure some of the story-beats are kind of predictable but it was the right kind of predictable

and it felt like I also learned a little bit about the world it took place in. Instead of like

setting off on a journey to become a dragon master, a bunch of stuff happens and then some.

The romance was a little better, its not as obvious oh no they like each other but you could

definitely tell they both cared. Its also explained off key in a single line of dialogue no less

that Alex simply is a quiet guy(that grits his teeth in the face of adversity) with a kind smile.

Even that... made me appreciate our past hero a little more. 

For Hiro its kind of love at first sight but... there was no time for sappy stuff 

and it didn't feel like Lucia reciprocated it so it kind of felt one-sided at first.

This leaned towards; when a guy likes a girl he'll do anything for the girl

so in short Hiro is just a massive Lucia simp.😂😂😂

Due Lucia spending time with the group she learns how to be human and understands feelings

because of this I think it was believable she fell for Hiro. I think its kind of heartwarming. 

It also felt a bit like a comedy which may not be everyones cup of tea.

9/10

Overall I felt engaged with the story and was motivated to sit through the game

which was slightly more difficult than its prequel. It knew when to have fun and

when not which made it an overall enjoyable experience.

I can recommend it if you'd like to see more of the world of Lunar

especially if the original game left you feeling this wasn't all. 

 

More rambles after the jump but its mostly about the characters and a summary of my thoughts. 

 

Lunar Silver Star Story Remastered - Review

Genre: RPG.

Developer/publisher: Game Arts/GungHo ent.

Platform: PS4,PC,switch.
Official Site: N/A.

Release date: 18-4-2025

 

Since I always wanted to play Lunar 2 I decided to get the remaster which contains both games.

Things to note is that they're based on the original japanese PS1 version and not on the WD release.

You can either play the classic version or the remaster, I picked the latter.

Either way I am really grateful these games even got ported, especially its sequel which

unlike the first game which got a psp version, L2 hasn't seen a port since its ps1 release.

This post is however about the first game, I don't think reviewing two games at once is a good idea.

 

Pro's

- Mostly likeable cast of characters.

- An anime RPG that carries the spirit of the 90's.

- Not too short or too long so it doesn't overstay its welcome.

 

Grey area

- Without a guide this can be a pain to 100% due easy to miss collectables.

- The general UI can seem a bit clunky till you get used to it.

 

Con's

- Story can be a bit cliche.

- Limited inventory space.

- Some characters are underutilized. 

It pretty much feels like an FF game from the PS1 era but with anime cutscenes

instead of FMV's and really good character interactions so I got some ''tales of'' vibes as well.

The interactions and dialogue were also pretty fun, this is what pretty much sold the game for me.

The main heroine Luna was delightful and it was pretty obvious within two hours

of play time that romantic feelings were involved but of course there was no time to talk

about any of that because the hero Alex had a goal to reach of becoming a dragon master.

Sadly while I liked Luna she is absent for a majority of the game...

its then that the other main characters ended up catching my eyes.

 

I knew there was something up with Luna but I almost forgot about her. Alex is OK

as a protagonist but after certain events everyone else basically has more to say than him

but when Luna's involved then he starts speaking up more which is hilarious cuz for half

the game it felt like he was gritting his teeth and bearing it that he couldn't do more.

I suppose putting it like that then Alex is actually a pretty decent MC, he's not whiny

but perseverant. TBH he felt like a pretty standard shonen hero

that wasn't quite silent enough to be considered a silent protagonist.

 

More characters were slowly introduced as the story progressed some turned out

to be allies and others villains. Its done in such a way that the player

can get attached to the main characters, most other characters were also

more interesting than Alex who really was just a dragon boy. 

Honestly after finishing it, it felt I had not seen all the world of Lunar had to offer

or the how or why's of how the world works. A lot of things were left up in the air

but atleast it ended on a good enough note. I do plan to play the sequel

so I hope that it actually makes more sense of things. 

Overall this game was just a very 90ish anime RPG it carries the spirit of that era.

In terms of story Lunar SSS has a really long prologue/first half and it isn't

untill you meet Quark for the second time the story really starts to move.

Other than that it felt pretty standard but I liked the pace, it wasn't too slow or too fast.

It took me about 25 hours to beat the game.

It started out fairly light-hearted but it was the opposite at near the end.

I will admit that Lunar SSS can be a bit cliche and if you play a lot of RPG's

it may not do much  new but I don't think it did it in the wrong way, still if you were

to expect this game to do things to revolutionize the genre you're in the wrong place.

Unfortunately idk if it was the localization but I found out the main villain had much more

 depth to him but all that was erased just so he could call the hero dragon boy. 💀

 

The battle system wasn't too complicated its honestly really simply, boring even.

I liked how there were 5 party members at once on the field! usually it just 3 or 4. 

 While autobattle could remove tedium it isn't useful for boss fights or late game

once I found a strategy I could apply it to most other fights. As long as you're

prepared no boss should be too much of an issue. Its not that hard of a game.

There was no journal to tell you what happened or what you should go do next

so I either had to write it down on a notepad or consult a guide. Thankfully RPGsite

had made a guide for the remaster which also included collectables, if not for them I wouldn't

have been able to find all bromides or get 2 out of 3 secret accesories. Other than that

the story was fairly easy to follow and it was easy to remember the characters as they all

had distinct personalities. The pacing was good and you gradually got to understand what

was really going on even if some stuff is left up in the air, sadly the villains hided their

true goal for a long time so if you want to know what's going on you have to wait till the end.

The quick TL;DR Honestly it wasn't a bad game, it had all the right ingredients

and for the most part it was a fun ride but it fell a little flat to me.

I suppose I shouldn't fall into the trap of going like what if it was

a little bit more fleshed out cuz its better to appreciate things for what it is!

still that shouldn't be an excuse either... its okay to think that it felt like it missed something.

I know Lunar is overall very well received and I too like it but this was pretty standard rpg stuff.

The main charm of this game was the characters, not the combat or the plot.

So for what its worth Lunar Silver Star Story was still a solid RPG.

It may have come a little late for me and i've seen it done before but that doesn't make it bad.

I pretty much recommend this game to anyone that likes older FF games with a fun

cast of characters like tales of or just simply likes oldschool rpg's.

7/10

 

More rambles after the jump.

Tsukihime A piece Of Blue Glass Moon - Review

More like Lunar Legend infodumpTM.

Genre: VN.

Developer/publisher: Typemoon.

Platform: PS4,switch.
VNDB: https://vndb.org/v17909

Release date: 27-6-2024

 

I decided Tsukihime remake would be my next game as I wanted to try it... since I liked MahoYo.

This version of tsukihime is a remake of the original, I am well aware that it is

a partial remake but nevertheless I decided to buy and play it now.

Sadly I didn't really like this game as much as I would have liked

but it is definitely not the worst urban fantasy VN i've laid my eyes upon.

Rather it feels like this game just wants you to be upset or get angry with its MC.

 

Pro's

- Interesting setting and complex characters.

- For a story that includes the supernatural, its solid.

- High production values but the quality of CG's varied.

 

Grey area

- MC is difficult to like yet by the end of the 2nd route he had a full stamp card of pity points.

 

Con's

- Strong violence and horror. Did I mention gore? (Could be a grey area but yea...)

- Comparing the scene presentation to MahoYo, same style yet Tsukihime at times felt basic.

- Some CG's never get added to the gallery, I couldn't find Ciel's umbrella CG.

 

The opening doesn't play till you land on a character route

which isn't till 5 hours depending on your reading speed.

 Both routes have their own opening but I will only link Arc's.

 

 

I wasn't as hooked to this unlike MahoYo and thus didn't enjoy it as much

but what I won't deny is that it was for the most part pretty well written

its just overstayed its welcome for me, I am really sorry! it ain't for me.

Not much of note happened till  Arqueid shows up something

happened that made me do a record scratch *freeze* frame moment.

At that point the game utterly disgusted me because of what happened.

That aside everything else was interesting enough I pressed on, I have to say

from then on I started to feel constantly on edge and didn't like Shiki as much as before.

The MC Shiki is a broken guy who just tries to live but despite the advice he got from

his master, he just barely seem to hold himself to it almost as if its a silver lining.

Sure he has regrets of something really bad he did, you're given that choice

but the rest of the game just made me nervous because he's quite unstable mentally.

Shiki gets what he deserves when he gets roped into the stuff surrounding Arqueid

and there were some bad ends where I was like yea he had it coming.

It isn't like till later on in Ciel's route that I understood why the heck Shiki did what he did

and I just started to really get as to what was going on. Honestly I didn't think the plot

was badly written and for a story about vampires its not bad just... once again not my thing.

 

Had this been any other VN it would probably be romantic but this is Tsukihime...

In terms of other characters; I didn't care much for his sister Akiha, she looked too much

like an Aoko clone but not as snarky. It wasn't untill later I saw her as her own character.

 I found Akiha to be too much like a girlboss which would make Arcueid the gatekeeper.

Arihiko was funny at times but he looked too much

like Shirou from Fate except he's like a delinquent version...

I liked Kohaku but Hisui was a bit too stoic and/or deadpan to me but she gets better

its just I could never get too invested in them in this game which like Akiha is probably intended.

Arcueid would be fine she's fun, For Ciel it felt like there was more to her than meets the eye but

she is definitely best girl. I disliked Noel though as much as most of the girls at Shiki's school.😅 

Noel also got worse as Ciel's route progressed which did not help... at all.

I loved Mario and his potty mouth though, easily the best side character. 

The rest? too much of makes an appearance thus I forgot them because of infodumps.

Honestly I kept playing mostly for Arcueid and I didn't really care for Shiki as much.

Because I didn't do any of Ciel's events in the common route on my first play

she was also sort of just there, later on she becomes a bit more interesting

but when I started her route, I couldn't help but think she's a bit too perfect...

 

Me when I think about the story in this game.

I did start to wonder why was this game even popular? because its violence? unhinged mc?

shock value? or because it was typemoon's first ever work before they got big from fate.

I mean Tsukihime started out as an unprofessional doujin, not many would probably try nowadays

unless you're super invested in nasu's works. Now what would happen if you turn that doujin

into a professional work? while fleshing out all the added lore it got via a fighting game no less. 

I think the latter is why Tsukihime got popular, its Arcueid that carries it hard. Tsukihime is

likely aimed at people who tolerate these themes, I find it hard to get into it because sure

there's a good plot here but its buried beneath layers of lore which gets dumped on you in parts.

Anyways what I really liked about Tsukihime was Arcueid as a character and Ciel.

I didn't really care as much with the protagonist but I could sympathize with him a little.

Tsukihime looked like a normal visual novel and for the most part it just loves gore&blood

about as much as Virche evermore. Maybe I should have done more

research before I started this but that wasn't the worst of it.

 

While the beginning hours gave time for the reader to settle in and get familiar

with most characters while exploring the setting in great detail. If not for that i'd

probably have dropped it. In chapter 3 it took its first nose dive. It reminded me of when

I tried to watch Elfen Lied and then suddenly things get super gory like with cut-off body parts.

I know this game warns the player about disturbing content

when booting it up but I didn't expect it to be like that.

Gonna say I can stomach some violence now, I didn't even mind what happened to Shinji

in the second heaven's feel movie but Tsukihime takes everything to another level.

Now this wasn't actually what bothered me, I can get past the violence and gore

what I didn't like was the dragged out battles and infodumps. There was almost an hour 

of vampire lore for dummies moment nvm the fight against the guy itself. 💀💀💀

Which was just so drawn out and felt like some stuff from dragon ball like it

kept going and going.  You know what's funny about the early infodumping? not even

Shiki understood all of it so I guess I could relate to his single working braincell.

Okay you beat this vampire guy but here comes shota saber and dumps his church lore

right before the chapter ends while I was already tired from everything beforehand

and that is just an example of how this game does things especially in Ciel's route.

Like in Arc's route Shiki would just sleep but in Ciel's he fucking wakes up and goes to read

which leads to a convenient infodump and thinking about it just makes me hysteric.😂

It was important later but god damn this game is so messy...

 

Despite that there was some hilarity amidst it all to be found, not on the same level as MahoYo

but I generally did like most Shiki and Arqueid scenes despite the former being a dick.

That's putting it nicely, like Shiki can be sensible but more often than not he's just an idiot.

Like he doesn't need to be a Shirou, that's not the point I have to try really hard to find

good points about Shiki and when I think he's okay the guy ruins it yet again. SIGH.

Yea fuck you Shiki.

Unfortunately due to Arqueid and/or Ciel being the way she is the writer tends to get away with a lot

because it doesn't matter how much they gets hurt. If Shiki was a LI in an otome game

he's a failure of a man. Sorry but imma roast this guy like Aoko would.

--- 

System wise it is pretty much a straight-forward VN with some choices that could

lead to a bad end of which there are 21 in total. There's a hint corner as well

so you pretty much won't need a guide if you follow the advice.

The flowchart was good but you couldn't use it to quickly get bad ends

as there would be no choices so best advice I can give is manually save a lot

especially at the start of a chapter. So if you get hit with a delayed bad end

you can easily get back to somewhere to fix that.

 

There's only has two routes Arcueid and Ciel, the latter is second play only

so basically you will have to play it twice but Ciel's route felt more like it was some

alternative route going deeper.  Also I thought I was tripping but i'm pretty sure some

early scenes ch5/6 stayed the same with some slight differences here or there because

you were with Ciel instead of Arc. There was definitely some copypasta because

there  were numerous occasions where I saw dialogue I knew I read before but couldn't

skip cuz the scene was a tad different which is nothing unusual it just got on my nerves in

Ciel's extra end since they also would love to show the same scene prior

from another perspective which changed nothing.😑

 

Also I didn't really play this game till I was sure I have atleast two hours I could

spend on it as I don't like leaving the scenario hanging in some awkward spot

like in the middle of a infodump or epic fight scene and this game had a few of those.

Chapter length was quite inconsistent, Arc's route was relatively short overall but

it got worse in Ciel's route due to being full of infodumps and just longer in general.

Ciel's ch13/14 took me three sesssions to get through it was insanely long...

Glad I took this screenshot while playing cuz this shot was not in the gallery.

 

TL;DR: Tsukihime was a solid urban fantasy with high production values

but if you can't stand strong violence,gore, vampire themes, horror and a lot of infodumping

I don't recommend it. I loved some of the characters and the setting was interesting

but it was simply too long for its own good. Plus some of the material at times

just did not make me feel good, so while I kept in mind what I liked

that honestly won't matter if the material just makes me uncomfortable.

This is also one of the few VN's where I didn't like the protagonist much which didn't help.

Half of it was due to the Roa BS but even then he only turns out OK thanks to one of the girls.

Looking back at MahoYo, this VN didn't have as good as a scene direction except for fight scenes

and the art/cg varied greatly in quality. While MahoYo would put characters to the side or use

half a sprite, Tsukihime still did this but mostly I was looking at full sprites or zoomed in sprites.

In the average scenes more often than not I thought it would be better with text boxes

than text over busy backgrounds.  Much like FF7 remake it ends up being longer than

the original some of it could be in a good way but 60 hours for only 2 routes?

while the original was 40h average with all routes? yea they padded this one out.

By the time it was over it felt like a relief... cuz at times it seemed like to never end.

Though if you like Nasu's work and don't mind the above or my complaints then sure

Tsukihime might be another cake for you to dig into! but it may not be for everyone

so don't feel bad if you cannot get into this game, there's an audience but its not for all.

To me however Tsukihime a piece of blue glass moon is a FINE dumpster fire. A solid 6.3/10

its just a classic that I personally, while I tried just couldn't enjoy as much.

More rambles after the jump but there's not much to write about honestly.

I did try to write out my thoughts about both routes, so if you don't

want spoilers just stop reading here. I probably wrote too much but this

game also had a whole lot of stuff to unpack so it kind of checks out.

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

God Eater Resurrection - review

May as well share the best box art the game ever had...

Genre: action RPG.

Developer/publisher: Bamco.

Platform: PS4.
Official Site: N/A.

Release date: 29-10-2015.

 

Remembering I once played GE2 on vita I decided to get GE2RB on sale

which comes with a remaster of the original game. Its got updated models

 and difficulty rank 11-13 with an extra story and challenges but that's about it.

Oh yea scythes from RB are ported over as well but tbh they don't fit well.

It also doesn't feature the JPN audio for some inane reason. Like its an anime game

I can't fathom why they didn't include the OG audio.

Anyway 10 years ago I did play god eater 2 vanilla, I remember finishing it

and being obsessed with Julius but most of it didn't stuck in my memory at all.

 

Pro's 

- Stellar cast of characters.

- Story is OK but kinda barebones.

- Great soundtrack, this game had some good tracks.

 

Con's

- Bullet editing is nice and all but how about a proper tutorial?

- Blatant padding, especially in the burst segment of the game.

- No japanese audio, for it being an anime type of game bamco should feel bad.

 

Oh honey, you're the only one I really think about.

Story... well it is off to a fairly slow start? you start out as a rookie and slowly end up

fighting against different types of aragami the dangerous monsters

that roam around the world who forced mankind into hiding

and setup a specialized force aka fenrir to deal with them.

God eater and GE burst were also segmented games so rank 1-6 are OG and 7-10 are burst.

There's also 11-13 for yet another arc... but honestly I was about done with the game at that point.

Most of the fun scenes were in the first part of the game aka 1-6.

 I don't got much positive things to say about 7-10 part of storyline as it was rather dragged

out filled with random story missions with a bunch of side characters that added very little

to the ongoing problem. Almost everything was told through mission text which wasn't interesting.

Like oh Kanon might be sad but it wasn't really important...  It did nothing to padd out the game.

To make it worse there were not even cutscenes with them and if they did, only then did the

story progress. Maybe if there were scenes with the backstagers I'd be more invested but it

seems they had a shoestring budget. When it gets to the point again I'd say it was good

but yea a lot of the burst arc was pretty boring and some things

were never really explained either. Life just goes on. 

 

Basically this whole game.

Moving on, while playing through the game pretty much felt like a mission based RPG game with

a silent protagonist who's name apparently is Yuu kannagi but you can name him/her anything.

I named him Crow Armbrust because I am not very original.

The main characters of the game would definitely be Alisa, Soma as well as Lindou but we don't

talk about him much, no instead we spend time wondering wtf happened to him

while doing missions and watching drama unfold that relates to him among others.

Kouta or Sakuya would be the orbiters, important but on the supportive side.

There's also Kanon and a few others but they're like the outer senshi

and just exist to protect mankind another day.

Sadly I found the burst part of the game to be mind numbingly boring, sure we get

a hint at someone but other than that it was just aragami slaying business as usual.

Relatable.

 

As this only has eng dub, I say it was okay but it reminds me I prefer JPN voices

as ENG onces often seem like they try too hard. VA's I liked a lot would be voicing

characters like Tsubaki followed by her brother Lindou's. Kouta was annoying, Paylor

was still somewhat fitting for a nerd type of guy who spends too much time in the lab.

Kouta.... his character was okay tho its just his VA tries too hard and just sounds obnoxious.

I picked male MC voice 12 and I am just indifferent about it, don't like or hate it.

Alisa VA was okay... but Sakuya too but I have heard way too many times elsewhere...

and not in the fun seiyuu kind of way, i'm sorry they tried there best.

I didn't like Ren's eng voice though it sounds like someone trying really hard

to sound younger that its almost nails on chalkboard. Even Shio sounded better.

I loved Soma's eng VA though! more often than not his tone of voice hits just right

with the dialogue. His voice really carried his emotion and when he's pissed he really is.

Well he certainly doesn't minch his words.

 

Moving on to the gameplay part I guess?

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if people dropped this game, whether it was due to the slow

start of the story with boring missions to go along with or the difficult to get a grasp

on gameplay system. Looking at the PSN trophies they get to rare very quick, most people

don't even seem to get to difficulty 3. They probably already played it on PSP

and were like nah not doing this shit again or just gave up.

Personally the gameplay got better once I realized its better to hit it once or twice

than do a whole whombo combo on an aragami. Still the enemies are very aggressive

and just playing a little would tire me out quickly so I only played in short bursts.

Atleast some of the dialogue was funny.

Later missions had 2 to 3 boss aragami's in the same mission...

so if they were meeting up too early I had to restart the whole mission

since things would just get too chaotic. Sometimes I'd get lucky and one

would mind their own business but there were definitely a few tough missions

like a charged borg and a quadriga just to name some cursed combinations.

Also two Yaksha's and a Ravana in part 3 made me take a break from this game.

 

Random NPC has hilarious dialogue for no reason...

Anyway I think I could only enjoy this game by playing it in short bursts

the way the story is presented its easy to remember what happened too

but scenes were never that long, due to this originally being a psp game.

Its literally decided to be whipped out for 30+ minutes and then stop

my longer sessions were about 2 hours but by that point i'd get tired.

 

Obligatory group pose.

  Overall this game seems fun but it gets repetitive quickly.

I was actually bored of it by chapter/difficulty 9 and it dragged a lot as well.

It has a stellar cast of characters and great music but that's about it.

The story is basic and feels flat, people shit on the anime but it can't

be any better if the source material wasn't much either.

The OG GE story(1-6) was IMO decent but burst just felt like an extension filled out

with blatant padding cuz if you get to the point it wouldn't even last 2-4 hours.

I'd recommend this game to those that like hunting/survival games and don't mind grinding

the same monsters over and over, whether its for material or the story itself.

 6.5/10

Yea its 6.5 because of the characters really...

Only thing God Eater Resurrection did was make me a Soma fan. Easily best boi.

More ramblings after the jump but i've pretty much said all there's to say.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yakuza 6 the song of life - review

Time for the final episode of the Kiryu saga! but who was baby?

Genre: Brawler/adventure

Developer/publisher: Sega.
Platform: PS4.
Official Site: N/A.

Release date: 17-4-2018.

 

I actually hadn't intended to play this game so soon but because

Cafe Enchante was such a slow game I was itching for some action!

knowing that Y6 wasn't nearly as long as its predecessor also helped.

The game takes place after Yakuza 5 and we're also back to just having Kiryu as the protagonist!

honestly the real reason for going into this within 2 months of finishing Y5 was more or less

me wanting to move on and see Kiryu's tale to its conclusion while I still had investment. 

Pro's

- Decent and well-paced story that doesn't overstay its welcome.

- Great cast of characters lot's of fun interactions during the main story.

- Both main and substories are voiced fully.

Con's

- Combat felt weird, no heat actions for downed enemies? Meh.

- Too many substories are locked behind this or that. Also no substory finder.

- There was not nearly enough Majima.

Story wise it had me hooked from the start, I was surprised by how much directly

followed up on five, the opening scene was a bit random though like who was baby?

but record scratch *Freeze frame* how did we get into this situation happened.

The pacing was pretty good this time, I had an easier time following the plot and

each chapter felt like I learned a new piece of the puzzle which felt really good.

It pretty much felt like a proper crime drama that followed up on Y5's crappy ending.😅

I know RGG studios just sort of keeps writing but they really do manage to build something

from what they already have, they've proven that multiple times through this series.

 

Forgot the jump break so uh I generally enjoyed this game, more rambles after the jump!

Yakuza 5 remastered - Review

Its called Yakuza 5 because it has like FIVE layers of padding.

Genre: Brawler/adventure.

Developer/publisher: Sega.
Platform: PS4.
Official Site: N/A.

Release date: 11-2-2020.

 

After a brief rest and finishing up some substories in Y4 at premium adventure I decided

to get started on the next yakuza game! also I honestly wasn't even sure what else to play

right now but Y4 triggered some kind of itch which lighted a fire in me to get started on Y5.

Pro's

- Fun cast of characters and decent build up of the plot to go along with it.

- Great cinematography, its at its best here.

- Lots of side content if you know where to look.

- There is a pause menu.

Con's

- Length is a double edged sword, kinda overstayed its welcome for me.

- Padding, terrible pacing; especially in the finale.

- High encounter rate, there's item that reduce it but I only found them for Kiryu none with others

so it was pretty much suffering with other chara's. Why are there items to increase it? it high enough.

- Can't make clear save in premium adventure to carry over to NG+.

 

Let's get started with mostly good things.

The game left a pretty positive impression on me right from the bat

they really improved upon the previous two ps3 era games.

The cutscene direction, general gameplay it all feels real smooth now, especially

coming from Y3 and Y4, the latter already improved but this is chef's kiss.

There also appears to be significantly more voice acting so its no longer

going from no voices in a scene to a fmv with them. I will add that

you should becareful with pressing x during VN-like scenes as it does stop VA.

Another good point would be they finally allow us to pause the game during scenes

and you won't need to flip a switch in the main menu to skip them.

If only Y3 and Y4 had it but alas... those games show their age more than Y5 does.

Thank god because some scenes were quite long!

The story did seem to have a slow start but it did have some hooks

which kept me interested, this game however does start with Kiryu or rather

with him under a different name. He became a taxi driver known as Taichi Suzuki

but alas he shall never know peace because the yakuza can't behave for one minute.😩

The only downside is some pacing issues and some parts draggin on but still the presentation

was good like miles better than y3&4 so I mostly had a good time going through it.

Me neither man...

 

This game uses Y4's system of viewing the story from multiple characters

but by the time I was in Shinada's story it kinda felt like the dev's didn't even

wanted the player to finish the game, I mean what you end up playing as a guy with

a funny personality but is weak as fuck and he has no money. Everything is painful

while I am looking forward to what the game was building up to there's

shit unfolding with a brand new character that may be related?! damn.

Probably came off wrong somewhere in here but Y5 is still pretty good its just

very ambitious in what it tries to do, it either has you hooked or you slog through it.

I already started forgetting important story bits by the time I got to the finale. So maybe

it was a bad idea to waste 5+ hours on batting side stories and training Shinada.😅

That's like admiting you like older women...

The finale itself was long and I think the game was actually overstaying its welcome

which is sad since I was having such a pretty good time with it.

It took me 50 hours to complete the game with some side stuff sprinkled in here and there

yep this game is no joke, its twice as long as Yakuza 1 through 4. Even 0 feels short in comparison.

Don't forget to stock up on staminans/potions.

Gameplay wise its pretty much identical to Y4 everyone has their own style

and most characters don't feel any weaker, Kiryu was as strong as ever

however it was so obvious Shinada was the weakest out of all of them. 

Some substories were fun but most weren't very memorable except for a few.

The ones I liked would be little match girl, ending up dressed as a santa and uh the delivery guy

who forced Saejima to walk 5 meters to deliver someone his food, shit was hilarious.

 Kiryu helping some poor sob with his exams by being an emergency tutor

was pretty funny too, other substories just weren't that memorable.

There really wasn't much to share, most of Kiryu's substories felt like jokes or callbacks

to ones in earlier games like hey its that scam again. I did like the one with an

NPC who's also called Haruka who had a dog too. Unfortunatly by the end of the game

it took looking at old screens to even remember it. So most really are just nice in the moment.

For others it be like Haruka almost got scammed into buying something

or another were was picked by a crowd to do some signing on the street. Ok.jpg

I did like the one where she had to help find some random photographer taking pictures

of her and another of an interview were the interviewers were totally not people

 she knew. Dancing Akiyama was also something we needed as well...

Shinada's were either funny or wholesome, he had spunk and was surprisingly

self aware despite also being kinda shitty, i'll let others be the judge of him.

There's side stories with special missions attached to them like Kiryu has taxi missions 

for some were you had to drive and an urgent fare was by far the worst but there's also a few

were you just chat with the passenger and Kiryu just autodrives.

Saejima has some hunting side stories which I never really finished

since while you can go back to the place I honestly couldn't be arsed.

I also couldn't be bothered with Haruka's side story which relates to Akari

to do it you have to do dance battles with NPC's a whole lot. No thanks.

The only training I finished was with Yoko for Haruka and others I couldn't be arsed

like I could not believe what Igarashi tried to make me do to lvl up Shinada's batting skills

but I managed to do most of them except the last which was enough for his sidestories

to the point I never had to buy any batting equipment. Wew saved me some monies!

Yep that's right the only sidestory I finished was for the hobo ex-baseball player.

Also Tatsuya was annoying, apparently this guy is based on some IRL celebrity

but he overstayed his welcome and doing his training was too repetitive, it may be useful

on higher difficulties or for some boss fight though, sadly the buff you gain is only temporary. 

I only completed Tatsuya's training for Shinada because he was weaker than the others

but honestly I can't tell if it was worth it or if I should have just drinked more potions.

There was this Ayanokoji guy and while the scenes were fun the training part

was not and just unfun, i'm not here for a hit and run session for 20 minutes

so I never finished that either like most other trainers.

Revelations returned as well but everyone only had like one or so due to substories

and sidestories existing its only natural there's less of it so it didn't bother me.

Honestly due to the plot being full of revelations itself it makes sense there wasn't a whole lot.

Yea she had one too, don't ask.

 

The new locations/cities were nice to explore, they weren't as big

as kamurocho but Tsukimino looked really nice. 

The streets were really pretty with those lights.

Kineicho, also had some nice sights to see.

I did think the encounter rate was a bit high though like one time I got out of a fight

and went straight into another.  There's items to increase it but I don't think you

would want that, unfortunately the item that reduced it was on Kiryu so I was 

suffering as Saejima a lot cuz punks kept picking fights. When I was in premium adventure

and tried to  do some more things it really did not seem to matter if I had them on

like holy shit so many fights right after another, I started thinking maybe it is

related to the lucky system but even with good luck and the thing on it was miserable.

I miss Yakuza 4's encounter rate it, seemed reasonable compared to this game.

TL;DR

No it isn't someone died there. /s

 Overall there's a lot going on but if you're just here for Kiryu you may like the first few hours

but then its 20+ hours without Kiryu. I didn't always have the same level

of investment or ability to care as much about the stories, it got good at times

but there were times it just dragged on. So you could say it has ups and downs.

Throughout I found myself caring about characters that wasn't Kiryu...

who felt like a stranger in his own game, it was like that in 4 as well

but for some reason I didn't mind him being a side character once.

Here you start with Kiryu and then its like 4 layers of padding, some of it is interesting

but near the end I couldn't keep track of everything happening and even forgot things.

Like characters that showed up along the way so by the end I was going

yea that guy but ugh... so and so right? it was painful.

Still the story did have hold on me because I constantly looked forward to what was next.

Shinada's story was the only time I got sidetracked.  It may not have been off

to the greatest of starts but I loved his minigames!

Y5 is a pretty good follow up but may also be overstaying its welcome and there's a lot that

could seem random as you progress even though most of it ties together pretty well.

There's also so much side content its easy to get overwhelmed but I wasn't here

for most of it so I only did what I wanted to do and moved on with the story.

Completionist may suffer with Yakuza 5... because there is a lot to do

honestly due to that I can't recommend doing everything as soon as you can.

The plot is already complicated as is so you will likely lose all threads you caught thus far

so only thing I can recommend is just do some substories here or there along the way

and save the rest for a second play or premium adventure. Speaking of you can't

make a clear save in it unlike previous games, they had 1 job here but they couldn't do it.

7/10

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I'll write a little more after the jump which is mostly character related there's not many spoilers

but I had to vent a little about the finale so here's the usual spoiler warning!