Kuro no Kiseki 2 Crimson Sin - Review

Lol, they buried Aaron...

Genre: RPG
Developer/publisher: Falcom
Platform: PS4/PS5.
Official Site: https://www.falcom.co.jp/kuro2/

Release date: 2022-09-29.  

Okay its that time of the year! unfortunately while I greatly looked forward to this game

I did not enjoy it as much as I had hoped! first of all this is a direct-sequel to kuro no kiseki

so I don't recommend starting with this game. Sadly when this game launched

there was a bunch of drama Llama due to chinese streamer that rushed the game

and finished it in a day or so and a lot of fans were disappointed.

After playing it myself I can sort of understand why!

I will say this here, I tried to be positive but this game is far from perfect

this is not one of those cases where sugar coating it is gonna make it better.

Anyway if you don't like what you're reading close the tab and

go play it for yourself and form your own opinion.

There won't really be many plot spoilers in this post, though some notes

about random scenes but nothing with full context.

Pro's

- Story has an interesting enough premise and it is good as a direct-sequel.

- Rion and Celis are goat, Nadia and Swin are cute little angels.

- BGM was good, tho mostly boss fights.

- Fishing minigame is back and better than ever.*

Con's

- This game does very little for the trails series as a whole.

- Dumb bad ends with time travel gimmick yet no consequences for it.

- We hardly visit any new areas.

- Characters get too careless and OOC in a way that does not fit.

- Minigames for the sake of having them.

I'm going to start with the things that I liked!

I loved spending more time with Rion and Celis and learning more of them

they're also Bergard's disciples/students and they go way back. Sadly Bergard couldn't

be around much in this game but these guys have our backs most of the time, especially Rion!

I liked the scene where Celis kicked a door and Rion went like oh my that's quite sturdy isn't it?😅

or the one where Rion covered Celis's mouth as she was about to spout obscenities.😂

I Need more cheeky guys like Rion in my life...

 Someone at falcom may have been a Eugeo fan though as Rion's S-craft is quite the reference!

and well he ended up being like a true bro too so... hmm!

Cuz Bergard isn't present at all in this game and I wish Rion/Celis replaced him in full

but they ended up being more or less guests that join at fixed times.😭😭😭

A timeless classic...

 Nadia and Swin are also back and they're so cute and sweet, most scenes were fun with them

also plenty of fun moments with the cast in the game, it wasn't all bad.

Okay you may be like what does this have to do with any of the plot? well it doesn't

the plot is mostly about the eight genesis, Quatre also gets more development

as his backstory was actually pretty big and could definitely not be told before.

Unfortunately this game may have been about the eight genesis but it did a terrible job

at even explaining wtf they even are... instead we get an entire chapter full of bullshittery

but hey just in case anyone misinterprets this sentence i'll add that atleast it wraps it all up

pretty well and there was a reason why garden master wanted the dang things... and why red grendel exists. So even if this game does nothing for the series as a whole it is good as a sequel.

Elaine has a nice ass.

Sadly I thought Elaine would have more presence but more often than not it felt like Swin

was the second protagonist and she was even sidelined for a whole chapter.

Haha atleast Elaine's final connect event was kind of nice, super fanservicey but uhm

while that is nice its also nothing definite regarding her relationship with Van.

 

Van is a good MC, kuro 1 has showed that but in this game he and the crew have

gotten careless, add into the fact the dead ends are just shock value

its like they tried to turn this into a visual novel! Maybe trails becoming a VN

wouldn't be so bad, perhaps this way they could actually finish the story as a whole. /s

As for Shizuna... she was cool as always but yet again this wasn't her game!

also I didn't really like her costume this time cuz it looked like she robbed a store 

and was caught in the act when going for the pants.😂

 

Anyway if you expect Kuro no Kiseki 2 Crimson Sin to make big progress for the series in general

then drop those expectations cuz you ain't gonna get it! but as a sequel or fandisk to Kuro 1?

yea it is good in that sense but it also doesn't do too much for any of the cast.

In short, Kuro no Kiseki 2 can be a disappointment *if you expect to much in the grand scheme of things.

 

More rambles after the jump, edit: I won't force anyone to read any further as I can sound

kind of harsh, cuz despite loving parts of it I did not enjoy the game as much and actually

expected more of it. Please note that I do not think this game is that bad...

if you really don't like what you're reading then I urge you to play it for yourself

maybe you will like it more than I did! thus my score of enjoyment overall

is a 6/10 this is my personal rating for the game.

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Xenoblade 3 - review

Genre:RPG.

Developer/publisher: Monolith Soft.

Platform: Switch.

Official Site: N/A

Release date: 2022-07-29.

 

Okay since this is turning into an rpg blog anyway, i've just decided to carry on

and write a post about it, straight of the bat I will say here that I like this series

mostly for its characters, story and exploration... I have never been a fan of the combat

and i'm not here for it, sure its cool but i'm a story enjoyer that still tries to play on normal. 

 

Pro's

- Great cast, I liked the story surrounding Noah and Mio.

- Exploring is fun, plenty of quests/optional content.

- Great OST.

- English/british dub is good, has a stellar seiyuu cast as well.

 

Con's

- Story while interesting, it might seem a bit farfetched to how it ties itself to its prequels

part of me even wondered what was the point and that it felt kind of forced.

-  PLOT is also full of cheeseHOLES and story elements either are underdeveloped or unused.

- Using side stories or subquests to advance the main story no longer makes it optional.

- Class system is chaotic, and makes everyone seem samey.

- Too many bosses are sponges, the final boss itself was a tad too long plus WhErE

iS mY cHeCkPoInT?! if you die(funny cuz every other boss'll wait for u).

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TL;DR its a well-rounded rpg with a great cast and the story  that on its own is seemingly fine.

I won't spoil anything about the story which is interesting to say the least but I think

in how it connects to the first two games feels a bit off and/or far fetched

that at the end of the day seems to amount to nothing thus making it all

seem like some fan fiction of trying to merge the worlds/aspects of xenoblade 1 and 2???

I did however really like the story surrounding Noah and Mio! by the time of the ending

I was actually shipping Lanz/Sena and Taion/Eunie as well.😄

The battle system is okay, class system can be weird and chaotic but as long as you

do quests and fight blue enemies its easy to gain the upperhand and stay ahead of the curve.

If you don't do that then it could get a bit more challenging but I absolutely recommend to not

miss out on the hero quests as they're great supplement to the story. Sadly I wish everyone

could revive like in past games and not just the healers cuz if they die for whatever reason

then you are fucked and this happened more than once. The combat is actually pretty simple

and straight-forward but they just expect players to just get it. I didn't even know till I beat

the damn game that you could do a dash move to quickly move around while in combat! also

if it was in a tutorial then I must've forgotten? I don't remember it being told to you.

I have my gripes but its a good game, fans of the series will probably not be disappointed! 

So if you're looking for a 60+ hour adventure  which could be even longer if you try

everything it has to offer including postgame stuff. But after beating the game I was too tired

for any of it except unlocking the extra heroes... so yea even after beating the game 

there could be plenty left to do if you're up for it. Sadly idk what it is but this game

left me so drained by the end of it? in comparison to Arise which left me satisfied/fulfilled.

Oh well, i'm just gonna say that Xenoblade 3 had a strong start, a very good middle(ch5)

but it ended up being a little bit confusing and/or lacklustre in the way they ended it.

Even for a TL;DR this was pretty long... well the game was long it took me a good 70 hours!

 

Now for the big question should you play the other two games first?

hmm probably better you do! but its not completely necessary. I did wonder why

the Queen's of each nation looked like certain characters from both games

but other than that this game just takes place after the first and second games.

For the most part there's not much that directly references anything except two characters

but if you played the other games you'd probably have several questions why things

are like the way they are in xenoblade 3, it takes a long time before you even get

a good explanation and even then, I thought huh why did that even happen?

Its all up to you really, when it comes to numbered games and knowing they all

take place after the other, i'm more willing to say start with 1 than at 3. Honestly though

I think both 1 and 2 were fine as stand alones. Anyway that's my opinion and I say it

later down the post as well, i'm not a gatekeeper you're free to do whatever you want.

 

If you like lengthy rpg's with a battle system that has you do epic attacks then this game

might be for you, if you can get past the same-ish combat flow and system that is actually

quite simple but never really properly explained which at this point I consider a series staple.

7,4/10

I was gonna give this an 8,5/10 but the final boss was just such a slog and I found out

that if you die in the fight, doesn't matter where you're forced to restart from scratch.

And it was like an hour long LMAO... wtf even xenoblade 1 had checkpoints in its final fight.

Also what was up with lucky seven? the whole thing was underdeveloped, we got to use it once

there was even a tutorial and then it was just forgotten. Riku also was kinda SUS if you ask me.

After chapter 5 the story and all did take a little nosedive and it never regained its momentum

and we get boring fetch quest and a rushed/lacklustre conclusion to it all.

I'm gonna say it this game was released ahead of its initial release in september

SOMETHING HAPPENED and we don't know what. Either it was budget or 

they decided it was good enough, no one really knows.

Sad, I know! I really want to like this game more but this all ain't helping....

The rest of this post is just more rambles/more detail on my experience of the game

if you don't like/agree then just close the tab in your browser, its just my own opinion

which could differ from yours. There are no plot spoilers but there are a few screenshots so beware!

Trials of Mana - review

Genre:RPG.

Developer/publisher: Square Enix.

Platform: PS4,switch,PC,mobile.

Official Site: N/A

Release date: 2020-04-25.

 

This game is a remake, its apparently pretty faithful...

Gonna be honest here, I have never played a mana game but this

was a nice game to just casually play, it is linear  and little to worry

about missing anything except maybe the cactus thingies.

Most of them are easy to spot but there are a few easy to miss!

I wish I could be completely positive about my experience with this game but I can't.

Anyway...

I got into this while waiting for xenoblade 3 to come out... I decided to continue playing this

from the demo I tried a while ago, it was easy to pick up the pace and/or understand

what's going on plus when chara's mentioned this or that also please be warned

this game is fairly straight-forward in terms of plot, there's not a whole lot of talking

and its pretty on point nor does it ever drag itself out more than needed.

Sadly it seems this game has dropped tremendously in value, I bought it for 30$

and it is now even 20ish euros. After playing I can definitely see why... it is not long

so unless you really love action rpg's most people would give up cuz certain things.

 

Pro's

- A simple, yet traditional story with some replay value.

- Good music, the ability to switch to the original bgm is nice too.

- The ability to choose your protagonist and those who tag along.

- Most of the bosses are all unique and fun in design maybe a lil frustrating too.

 

Con's

- Over two hundred chests but most contents are healing or revive items....

- Class change items shouldn't be locked behind RNG, nor be able to get duplicates of.

^^(Maybe actually put nice things in treasure chests?)^^

- Terrible AI is terrible.

 

The quick and dirty  would be that this is something to look into if you want something traditional unfortunately this games pitfalls are the god awful AI, I think its even worse than ff15!

it also has a nice class system but I found it to be such a hassle when it came to the

second class changes which involves unknown item seeds... it is never guaranteed whether

you get a light or dark class item??? so unless you want to farm and put up with stupid RNG s

 you'll probably have to take what you can get. If you can get past all this it could be a fun game.

 

I am well aware that you can't always get what you want and I already sucked it up and rolled

with classes I didn't want, so I'd like to believe i'm mentally strong enough in that regard.

Anyway bullshit RNG is still bullshit RNG no matter how you slice it. Even worse

if it is determined from the moment you get the item from the chest. REEEEEE~

Anyways I adored the characters and even made a start to the second playthrough but it seems

aside from the prologue and personal motivations most will be the same, a guide said some

of the end game will be different so that is nice. Sadly the AI is horrendously bad

and I was frustrated at watching my team mates die over and over and over again

to the stupidest things. Good news though the only difficulty specific trophy you can

just switch to before the boss itself! so no need to suffer on hard the entire game unless

you want all the challenge! you can just play on normal till then.

 

Sometimes I wonder why I put up with BS like in this game... I must've been really bored

to plow through this game but hmm I guess what was nice was nice even if somethings weren't nice.

Hah... I don't think Chawlotte's UwU speech was ever a problem... IMO there were worse things.

I wouldn't be surprised if people gave up on this game... the beginning might seem

like this is gonna be super stress-free but the AI will end up testing you.

 

For what its worth a nice, fun game but it has noticeble setbacks!

I do want to play the other mana games someday, they do have its charm

but as you can see, you must be willing to get past some setbacks.

Now for all my screeching, another good thing is despite them recycling three bosses

the main game isn't any longer than it should be. If you're still up for more there is a post-game

scenario but I am not sure why they had to split it from the main game. Maybe because

due to the extra classes making MP no longer an issue thus breaking the game.

Anyway if I had to score it this game it might get an 6.7/10 from me which translates to

 well its fine really but could be a little better? it might be even better if you want

a game with not much talking cuz there really wasn't. At the end of the day this was a classic.

 

More rambles after the jump, its more or less just my own experience

with this game and some parts may be a little ranty.

 

Final Roadtrip Fantasy XV - review

 Genre:RPG.

Developer/publisher: Square Enix.

Platform: PS4/PC.

Official Site: https://finalfantasyxv.square-enix-games.com/

Release date: 2016-11-29.

 

With not much else to play I decided to look at games I once started but never finished...

which lead me to FF15! I did remember where I stopped it was after arriving in galdin quay

and met some suspicious guy. Knowing this I saw no reason to replay from scratch

and it was actually easy enough to get the hang of things again!

Casually adds even more screenshots... after making posts.

My reasons for dropping the ball on this before was simple, my old ps4 had a bug

where it would try to eject discs sometimes even when there's no disc inside as well 

as annoying beeping sounds when it tried to do exactly that (even when turned off).

It was not just me that had it but yea I couldn't really play disc based games cuz of this.

A shame really because this game was quite fun and I don't understand the hate it got.

I suppose I could have bought it digitally when royal came out but I didn't

and it just ended up being dropped till now.😅 (The old model was replaced by a slim)

Pro's

- Exploring and doing quests/hunts is fun.

- Cast has great chemistry and most of the time the vibes are chill...

- Story is straight-forward but this is not a character game.

- Scenery is beautiful and the OST is really good.

Con's

- Story can be pretty peak fiction but terrible execution and full of holes so if you want

to fill those gaps, you need the movie(sets the stage), dlc ep's and read the novel(epilogue).

- Magic system is a hassle.

 

 

More ramblings after the jump break.

Radiant Tale - Review

 Genre:VN.

Developer/publisher: Otomate.

Platform: Switch.

Official Site: https://www.otomate.jp/radiant_tale/

VNDB: https://vndb.org/v30920

Release date: 2022-05-26.

 

Okay the WoF team also known for the recent variable barricade

have come up with a new otome game... about a circus troupe.

Now don't get me wrong but it finally seems they have embraced their inner clown!

if you have played WoF, Reine or other games they worked on they've been known

to be creative with their systems luckily they've toned down their BS.

The artwork is exceptionally pretty and some prerelease info confirmed

it won't be a virche and will be light-hearted! so its mostly a good time.

I won't be posting too many CG's in this part, everything that is shown is common route only.

If you're gonna get this game... enjoy it for what it is, not for what it is not.

Pro's

- Interesting story and worldbuilding.

- Unique self-contained routes.

- Art, its beautiful.

- Music is lovely and fits the tone of scenes, though one track did annoy me.

 

Con's

- The common route is quite long.

- Sometimes problems come up that are resolved almost instantly.

- It feels like the general plot/world was from a rejected RPG game.

- There should've been a Lian route/end.

- Ye olde idea factory sound effects are back! missed em from old otomate titles

or compile heart games? hahah recycle factory is at it again to haunt us! /s

 

Story; I went in relatively blind and aside of knowing about the circus theme

I had a hard time figuring out wtf was going on till it was explained, Tifalia joined

some circus troupe and got to meet her mates. There's some monsters around that feed on

negative emotions as well as a down-trodden prince who is stuck in the body of a child

whom also seems to have shut off his emotions so the troupe gets ordered to put on a show for him.

TL;DR: The troupe works to try & make people happy as well  as help out prince Colivus

overcome his emo phase while mostly unaware of a bunch of political intrigue going on.

Unfortunately they find out they can't actually perform that well YET so they still have a ways to go

LMAO I can't help but be reminded of Kimiyuki cuz these guys don't seem to have any idea

of what they're doing so its up to Tifalia to help them out. Their shows end up being

retellings of folklore, they travel across the country like an actual circus troupe to perform in

the various cities(and bloom pretty flowers). Each of the guys have their own strengths so we see

a bit of everything really. Anyway that's all i'll write here about the story

I think I have already said way too much.

 The general vibe of the game reminded me of WoF... and it was pretty light-hearted

nothing too dark or dreary. The heroine Tifalia is cute but she doesn't have a sprite

or voice acting unlike most of the WoF teams heroines which is a let down

cuz I think it would've made her stand out more in the story since she is pretty important to it.

Also while this game has a circus theme, it kind of leaned towards theatrical troupe as well

but it is still a circus cuz they were trying to play out a story with tricks and magic.

Maybe my idea of a circus is just a bit old fashioned...? this is a fantasy setting after all!

The UI(user interface) its okay but not my thing, the text is very small and like I said the heroine

did not have a sprite, I honestly really wish she had one outside of POV from the guy.

The music was good it matched the general vibes of the game, it stood out more

than some other otome games so maybe that says something.

The system is just the usual choices and some map selection stuff, nothing special!

Art is by Kagero and Miko... pretty gorgeous! I think most of it is by Kagero but I know

for certain that Miko worked on Ion and some of the subchara like Rian.

 Seiyuu cast is... fairly unknown to me aside of Umehara but I have heard

the others SOMEWHERE before just not a lot. Also Aaron Wei i'm hearing you!

Radiant Tale seems like a good time if you want to explore a fantasy setting that doesn't get

too dark! there is an underlying plot beneath it all as well as some political intrigue

so even though it seems all nice and easy-going there's some guys pulling strings.

Aside of the main love interest there are also a lot of side characters

and one of them catched my eye but alas Rian is a side chara's with no route.😭

The prologue/common route is pretty long, while it serves as an introduction and is good at

setting it all up including developing the heroine, I did get a little bored

because it did seem to keep going on and on. The prologue is long and then you

have your common route which is were you get characters flags to decide the route but honestly

aside from some banter here and there its kinda like older otome games, you can get a feel of

everyones personality and see what they're like but the plot had varying levels

of being interesting still its not too bad its just a bit long!

 

So while it is a light-hearted game, Radiant Tale takes a while to get going, 

it has a good amount of wordbuilding and sets things up for the individual route.

In terms of romance there isn't that much of it in the common part... thankfully there's some

cute scenes here and there so its not like they forgot but most of it is in the personal route.

Radiant Tale might be cute but it isn't short&sweet. I'm not sure how else

to describe it as... honestly as I got near the end of the common route I started thinking

how while the story is nice it felt like it was scraps from some rejected plot for an rpg....

considering idea factory's history this is not at all surprising! the WoF team was

probably stressed with the daunting task of making another game so they

looked for scraps for some ideas at the headquarters. Nvm this is turning into a shitpost.

That aside I don't think this game is bad or anything but it might be nice if you're in the mood

for something slower paced yet with easy-going vibes as they all work toward a goal. 

In terms of characters, I think its gonna be a hit or miss maybe some might surprise you 

when you're actually on their route some will just have a terrible first impression. 

At first Zafora didn't quite click with me but the further I got into the common route

the more I got interested and actually wanted to do his route! so I saved him for later

sadly I didn't really like him that more over the others, oh well can't like everything.

As for Ion his route didn't do it for me either but I didn't dislike his character... my favorite 

was Paschalia, his route just did everything right for me and after it he was my best boi.

Lately I just tend to really like the cheesy stuff like coughTalesofArisecough.

Radie wasn't bad either but at times it made me wish I was going for Lian instead.

Also because I did Ion first I could not believe people were saying this is such a cute

and happy game which it isn't atleast not all the time. Zafora's route made me appreciate

what happened in Ion's a little more though so there's that! Unfortunately while I do like Vilio

his route suffers from the true end effect, not only do we have to sit through the common route again

it is also a combined version of all the routes thus far and it was twice as long as all the others.

Well... with this Radiant Tale finally turned into the clown fiesta you wanted it to be no?

I think this made the game seem extremely disjointed only to be tried

to put together with glue which actually worked? still it suffers from some commonly

found problems like most routes not even touching upon the real story.

As for play order... for first play I just went for someone that seemed interesting which was Ion...

You have to do all routes to unlock Vilio so my play order ended up being:

Ion > Paschalia > Radie > Zafora > Vilio.

Basically just pick whoever interests you except maybe Ion cuz his route hits a bit different

 Radie has some revelations about Tifalia so somewhere in the middle or before Vilio is good.

TBH it really doesn't matter in what order you play, cuz of how the final route works.

I do think the WoF team knew what they were doing and I can see things

from some of their other games in here. So while there might be some downsides

this was still quite nice, a cute fantasy setting otome game with a bit of volume!

Honestly if you prefer longer otome games that take their time, a proactive heroine

and like worldbuilding with some light political intrigue then I can recommend it cuz there is

some pay off, the cast was lovely too but if you have a short attention span then its better to pass!

7,5/10

Anyway character rambles/cg's after the jump, due to the games length I won't be writing too much

and whatever is there in the bimbo route babbles is just what I thought was note worthy. If you don't want spoilers back out now the routes are best enjoyed when you don't know what happens!

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