Recent reviews by Blk_Mage_Ctype

I only just heard about Little Kitty, Big City about a week before it was to be released, but due to my love of Cats, Platformers, and Sandbox Adventure Games, it seemed like something that I would most likely enjoy, so I figured that I'd check it out eventually, but once I learned that it was to be included with a subscription to Game Pass, I knew it was something that I had to check out as soon as possible. So without further ado, let's get into the Nitty-Gritty of Little Kitty, Big City.


Little Kitty, Big City is a rather graphically simplistic game by modern standards, but that's fine because the real meat is in the gameplay, where it belongs. Nevertheless, the game manages to have a cute, charming, and endearing artstyle which is pleasing to the eye. While there isn't a whole lot of detail in the graphics, there's a surprising amout of variety in the overall design of the city itself, so the overall attention to detail is actually rather impressive.


The Jazz music that makes up the game's soundtrack suits both the slinking feline protagonist as well as the urban environment of the city perfectly, although I can't quite put my finger on why that is exactly. The sound effects are mostly what you'd expect, although the odd "whoosh" it makes when you jump or climb sounds rather awkward, it is if nothing else, unique.


Little Kitty, Big City is best described as a hybrid between a Sandbox Adventure Game and a 3D Platformer. As Kitty, you explore a open world environment both by running through the city, crawling under gaps in fences or through narrow cracks in walls, climbing vines, jumping between various objects, grabbing ledges and pulling yourself up/over walls. It's fun and engaging without being too challenging or frustrating for less experienced players to enjoy. There are no injuries to be sustained, no nine lives to be lost, and therefore no GAME OVER screens for failing to make a jump and falling from a great height. In typical feline fashion, Kitty always lands on their feet after a fall, thus making the game accessible and fun to players of all ages.

As you travel through the city you'll find a number of friendly animals who need help in various ways and will assign Kitty with various tasks, offering a variety of awards for completing them. You'll collect Shinies — assorted bits of metal — which serve as the game's main unit of currency that can be given to Crow in exchange for cosmetic Hats for Kitty to wear as they traverse the city in style, Fish to increase Kitty's stamina which enables them to climb for longer periods of time, and Feathers — earned by sneaking up on birds then (harmlessly) pounching on them — which can be given to Tanooki in exchange for opening up manhole portals, enabling Kitty to fast travel between them.


One lazy affternoon, while taking a nap on the ledge outside of their master's apartment window, Kitty carelessly slips off the ledge and falls a great distance to the city streets below, fortunately having their fall broken by landing in trash can. Upon climbing out of the trash can, Kitty finds themselves too weak from hunger to climb all the way back up, but fortunately a friendly Crow offers to Kitty some helpful advice as well as assistance on how they can find Fish around town to eat in order to replenish their Stamina. From there, Kitty embarks on a wild misadventure, traveling through the City, making new friends along the way, on a quest to return home before the day is through.


Admittedly, the game is not without a few bugs, but fortunately I experienced nothing game-breaking during my playthrough. Mostly just a few mildly annoying issues with collision detection which would prevent Kitty from grabbing onto ledges reliably or colliding with solid objects correctly, which made progressing through the game take a bit longer than it otherwise would have, but fortunately didn't set me back much. One extremely helpful bit of advice given to me by a friend is to SAVE OFTEN, especially during sequences which require a lot of platforming, that way if something goes wrong you can just reload your save without having to start all over.


Little Kitty, Big City is a short yet sweet game which can be completed within about 4 to 6 hours, yet could last up to 10 hours for a Completionist Run. I enjoyed the game so much that I decided to go for 100% in order to really get the most out of the game. Once I had finished, I was so pleased by the experience that I decided to purchase the game on PC, just to support the Developers and have another go at it at a later date. It's currently included with a Game Pass Subscription, so I highly recommend that you check it out while it's still available on Game Pass, but it's definitely worth full price at just under $25, let alone any sale price it may receive at a future date. If you love cute animals, open-world sandbox gameplay with platforming, items to collect and objectives to complete, then don't miss out on Little Kitty, Big City.

Some of my fondest memories of gaming were those spent in my youth, playing beat 'em ups (also known as Brawlers) like Double Dragon, River City Ransom, and Streets of Rage. There was just something so satisfying about beating down the baddies in the streets using your fists, weapons, and new techniques learned by leveling up. Unfortunately, there was a period in time in which the genre had practically vanished, apparently such simplistic gameplay just wasn't good enough anymore, so even the few games that were still technically best 'em ups had been watered down by supplementary gameplay which I personally felt subtracted from the experience. For over a decade, I had basically lost interest in the genre altogether due to lack of interest in what had become of it. However, that all changed a few years ago once the Yakuza series was brought to my attention. Normally I would kick off this review by going over various facets of the game beginning with the graphics and ending with gameplay, but in this case I'm going to break away from my usual format by starting with the gameplay.


Yakuza harkens back on the old days of the beat 'em up genre with gameplay which consists mainly of brawling with various villains as you traverse the city streets. In classic style, you battle a wide variety of enemies using an ever-growing repertoire of moves. Battling enemies gives you money which in addition to serving as currency also functions as experience points used to level up. You play as Kazama Kiryu and Goro Majima, two former Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) thugs who have been excommunicated from their respective crime families as they attempt to redeem themselves, each in their own individual way. As the story progresses, you'll go back and forth between Kiryu and Majima, each with their own unique storyline which intersects down the line. However, being a game developed in the moderm era of gaming, Yakuza 0 is a story-driven game with much more to offer than simply roaming the streets beating up bad guys. In addition to the core gameplay, Yakuza 0 offers the player an array of diverse optional side-content in the form of various missions and mini games. Unlike some other games, the majority of the mini games in Yakuza 0 are entertaining and aren't an unwanted distraction which gets in the way of the core experience. Arcade Gaming, Batting Practice, Bowling, Dancing, Darts, Dating, Karaoke, Real Estate management, and Slot Car Racing are among the list of mini games available in Yakuza 0. By the time I finished the game I had clocked in a total of 98 hours worth of playtime, and I didn't even complete all of the side-missions. I would estimate the average playthrough for those who are mainly in it for the story to last around 60 hours easily, so you'll find no shortage of things to keep you busy in Yakuza 0.


Yakuza 0 looks absolutely fantastic, especially considering that it was originally released on the PlayStation 3. The game has been completely remastered in 4K, and being a port of a PS4 game from 2015, you don't need a rig featuring the best hardware to run it on Maximum Settings in 4K. It's a far cry from being the most graphically impressive game on PC, but it looks fantastic for what it is. The character models are highly detailed and realistic-looking, dare I even say life-like? You can literally see the pores on the characters skin, hairs on their bodies, and the stitches in their clothing during cutscenes. The in-game environments also look exceptional considering the limitations of the hardware that the game was originally developed for. The cities of Kamorocho and Sotenbori come alive with crowds of people walking the streets, neon lights illuminating the city at night, reflecting off the asphalt, advertisements everywhere with high resolution textures, detailed buildings, reflections on every smooth surface. Everything just looks impressive.


Yakuza 0 has an excellent soundtrack which really sets the mood in every given circumstance. Sound Effects are also exceptional. Gunshots, explosions, impact sounds, even ambient sound effects just sound exactly as they should. Although I don't speak Japanese, the voice acting sounded great to me as well, every character's vocal inflections seemed appropriate for the situation at hand, and left me feeling as I should in context with the scene. I honestly don't know what more I can say, everything just fit perfectly and I can't think of anything to complain about as far as the audio presentation is concerned, nor can I think of anywhere it needed to be improved upon.


Yakuza 0 begins with Kazama Kiryu, a new recruit of the Dojima crime family who performs low level jobs for the family and occasionally takes jobs on the side for extra cash. Kiryu's life is turned upside down after a shakedown job he pulled ends with Kiryu being framed for murder, blackmailed, and subsequently discharged from the family. With the police on Kiryu's tail and the ones who framed Kiryu gunning for him, Kiryu sets out to clear his name, uncover the truth, and expose those who framed him. As the story progresses, Yakuza 0 introduces the secondary playable character, Goro Majima, a former foot soldier for the Shimano crime family who was disgraced, tortured, and imprisoned for disobeying a direct order from the family patriarch to betray his sworn brother. Upon his release, Majima seeks redemption by attempting to rejoin the Shimano family for the sake of his sworn brother Taiga who has since been imprisoned himself. The story is very deep, engaging, exciting, funny, dramatic, and at times very touching. The characters are all very well done, you'll love the heroes, love to hate the villains, and genuinely feel for each of them in one way or another.


Yakuza 0 truly feels like the modern day equivalent of a classic old-school beat 'em up. If you enjoy beat 'em ups, action, comedy, drama, exploration, tons of side-content, and an engaging story, then you'll enjoy Yakuza 0. The only thing that bothered me while playing Yakuza 0 was an on-rails shooting segment later on in the game which places you in the backseat of a car fending off enemies pursuing you with cars, motorcycles, and even helicopters. Normally I wouldn't have minded since I generally tend to enjoy rail shooters, but the fact that said shooting segment comes completely out of nowhere late in the game with only one checkpoint towards the end of said segment just plain put me off, rendering what could have been any enjoyable segment a tedious chore. What they should have done is have a couple other on-rails shooting segments occur early then midway through the game which were shorter, less difficult, and had more checkpoints to better prepare you for the segment which occurs late in the game. Unfortunately, this one little thing actually had enough of a negative impact on the experience to effect my final score of the game, resulting in me giving the game which otherwise left me with such a positive impression that I was tempted to give it a perfect score, a less than perfect score.

RoboCop is a film series that I grew up watching, I saw the first movie when I was just a boy and despite the fact that it was honestly too violent for me at such a tender age and the intense scene of Officer Alex Murphy being gratuitously tortured to death with an assortment of firearms was extremely traumatic for me to watch, I still ended up loving the movie, and have watched it countless times throughout my life. As you can imagine, I've also played quite a few videogames featuring RoboCop, but I can safely say that none of them really impressed me, judging by the fact that I can barely remember any of them. However, when I first saw a trailer for RoboCop: Rogue City it caught my attention because it looked like a game that would do the series justice, and I had planned to purchase the game at launch. Alas, the game got a rocky start, and as negative reviews rolled in regarding poor performance, I lost interest. Fortunately, my brother had been watching streams of the game, could tell that I would love it, and bought it for me as a Christmas gift, enabling me to experience what I've come to consider to be Game of the Year 2023.


Let's address this upfront, RoboCop: Rogue City does most certainly have its share of performance issues, but in my experience, they're not game-breaking, nor did they detract from my overall enjoyment of the game. In my experience, the performance issues are mainly tied to the in-game settings known as DLSS (NVIDIA) and FSR (AMD) which are intended to enable the user to run the game in non-native 4K (3840x2160) Resolution by means of dynamic upscaling technology. Unfortunately, these settings just don't function as intended, because regardless of whether you set it to "Quality" for the best visual fidelity or "Performance" for the highest framerate, you're going to get both glitchy visuals as well as mediocre at best framerate coupled with stuttering and even crashes.

However, if you disable these broken features and just run the game in whatever native resolution your Graphics Card can manage at an acceptable framerate, — which for me was 1920x1080, Max Settings, at an average 75fps on an AMD RX-6800 — then no such performance issues will manifest themselves. Disappointing perhaps, but nothing game-breaking, and certainly nothing worth missing out on playing this otherwise excellent game over.


RoboCop: Rogue City isn't a AAA Release, so it doesn't have the absolute best visuals available, but it still looks nothing short of impressive, especially considering that this isn't a game produced by a top-tier developer with a massive budget. Regardless of whether you run it at 3840x2160, 2560x1440, or 1920x1080 Resolution, the game looks slick on Maximum Settings, which I can personally attest to as I sampled various resolutions in attempt to fine tune performance. I started off trying to run the game at full 4K UHD, but unfortunately only averaged 19fps natively and 32fps on glitchy FSR, so I had to dial it all the way down to 1080p before I could get a smooth experience without having to drop settings. Regardless, even at 1080p, the game looks excellent with Max Settings.

One thing I should mention — if it isn't already obvious seeing as I'm running the game on an AMD GPU — is that I did disable Ray Tracing, as that alone was cutting my framerate by roughly ⅓, and frankly I'm more than satisfied with ordinary subsurface reflections, especially considering that Rogue City has the garden variety overuse of Ray Tracing on full display, in which every reflective surface is turned into a mirror in a most unrealistic fashion.


The overall sound quality in Rogue City is pretty good, but the game commits the same sort of audio atrocity that most licensed games from movies with iconic sound effects do by failing to replicate the exact familiar sounds from the films. RoboCop's Auto-9 Machine Pistol lacks the impressive sound from the films when a three-round burst is unleashed from its mighty muzzle and comes off sounding weaker than it ought to. Likewise, other familiar sound effects such as the mechanical roar of the ED-209, the metallic ping of bullets as they ricochet off RoboCop, and the blast of a Cobra Assault Cannon just don't sound right, which as a fan of the film somewhat sours the experience for me.

Fortunately, the soundtrack does a better job of replicating the familiar orchestral tunes from the films as well as implementing them perfectly during intense gameplay sequences and cutscenes throughout the game without overusing them by having them blaring at all times. It also introduces some nice remixes of the iconic music during ordinary gameplay as well as navigating in-game menus.


RoboCop: Rogue City features gameplay which combines fast-paced First Person Shooter action with the selective dialog, consequential decisions, and a rudimentary level up system with skill point allocation featured in modern Western-style Role-playing Games. Which combined with the setting leaves me with a sort of "Cyberpunk 2077 Lite" impression, if you will. Overall, the combination suits the game as well as the setting and I found the experience to be enjoyable.


The game is set between the events of RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3, with the eponymous crime-fighting cyborg formerly known as Officer Alex Murphy dispatched to deal with a hostage situation taking place at the Detroit Metro News Station in which a street gang known as the Torch Heads have seized control of the building and are using it to broadcast a message to a mysterious crime boss known as "The New Guy" that they are the toughest gang in the city and ready to work for him if he's willing to make the necessary financial investment.

Unfortunately, RoboCop becomes damaged by an explosive boobytrap as he makes his way to the top floor of the station and malfunctions on camera causing him to hesitate to take down a thug as he holds a hostage at gunpoint, leaving his partner Officer Anne Lewis to intervene, and casting doubt upon RoboCop's ability to serve and protect the denizens of Detroit. As a result, RoboCop is outfitted with a chip designed to monitor his performance on the streets, compile data, and serve as the basis for a mandatory performance evaluation at the conclusion of his every assignment. Now it's up to RoboCop to track down the mysterious New Guy while dealing with hostile street gangs, sleazy corporate goons watching his every move seeking to shut him down, corrupt politicians vying for his support in an upcoming election, and his own malfunctions while the fate of the city hangs in the balance.


RoboCop: Rogue City is the interactive experience fans of the series such as myself have been waiting for, capturing the spirit of the first film while successfully combining it with the positive aspects of the second film. Featuring terrific graphics, good audio, entertaining gameplay and an engaging story for an experience that's not to be missed. Admittedly, it does have some disruptive performance issues if certain settings are enabled, but they are by no means vital to the enjoyment of the game. I can safely say that RoboCop: Rogue City is my own personal Game of the Year for 2023 and whole-heartedly recommend it to die-hard fans of the series.

I've been a fan of ALIENS ever since the first time I saw the 1986 film decades ago. I loved the more action-oriented direction that James Cameron took the series in because it enhanced the same sense of suspense and dread that the Xenomorph Drone in the first film commanded, only on a much larger scale because this time it wasn't just one Xenomorph on a spaceship, but an entire hive of Xenomorphs on the colonized LV-426 planetoid from the first film facing a platoon of soldiers who ultimately fare not much better than the crew of the Nostromo. ALIENS is a film which lends itself extremely well to videogame adaptation, but unfortunately has never really had a truly excellent dedicated videogame adaptation before. Sure there were some incredible ALIENS VS PREDATOR games, but never a straight up ALIENS adaptation worthy of note. Yes, I won't even acknowledge a certain trainwreck of an ALIENS game which was supposed to be produced by a high profile developer who instead outsourced production to a smaller developer for a portion of the budget they were given then embezzled the rest into the development of their own franchise leading to a lawsuit from SEGA. The real question is; "Does ALIENS: Fireteam Elite succeed where others have failed in capturing the same action-packed suspense of the film?"

ALIENS: Fireteam Elite is a decent-looking game which manages to capture the atmosphere of the grand set pieces featured in the film, but lacks the sort of high-fidelity, cutting-edge visuals one would otherwise expect the game to receive if the license were granted to a high profile developer, which should come as no surprise because Cold Iron Studios is just an Indie Developer. As such, ALIENS: Fireteam Elite is missing a lot of the features which have become common within the gaming industry over the past decade or so, such as lip-syncing and facial animations on character models. However, credit where credit is due, the game looks better than one might otherwise expect from a smaller, less experienced Dev Team, and the graphics are adequate.


Much like the visuals, the audio in ALIENS: Fireteam Elite sounds somewhat dated, lacking in high fidelity sound effects and with mediocre voice acting, but once again, it's to be expected. However, one thing that disappointed me is that the iconic sound effects of the Armat M41A Pulse Rifle are completely absent in this game. Granted, that's because the M41A Pulse Rifle isn't in the game, but rather revisions of it because the game takes place 23 years after the events of the film. The Pulse Rifles featured in Fireteam Elite have a similar sound effect, but one which lacks that iconic, impressive, and highly distinctive sound from the film. If that wasn't already bad enough, the sound effects on the Pulse Rifles is bugged and will randomly cut off sometimes while the weapon is being fired. Furthermore, only the Pulse Rifles, Smart Guns, Turrets and Plasma weapons have a distinctive futuristic-sounding report, the rest just have generic gunfire sound effects that you'd hear in any game, and that's extremely disappointing. Obviously, if this game takes place in the year 2202 and Pulse Rifles have some distinctive futuristic sound when fired, then obviously so should the rest of the firearms such as the SMGs, LMGs, and Shotguns, with the exclusion of the Ithaca Model 37 Shotgun, of course.
Otherwise, the audio presentation is adequate, featuring the same familiar sound as the soundtrack featured in the film, which does the job.


ALIENS: Fireteam Elite is your typical Class-Based Online Multiplayer Third Person Shooter. At the beginning of the game you have the option to make your own custom Marine — albeit from a rather limited amount of options — and can select your class and weapons loadout. There are a total of Four Classes to choose from at the beginning: Gunner, Demolisher, Technician, and Medic, with additional Classes unlocked as you complete all of the missions. Each Class has its own unique abilities and weapons loadouts, you don't have many options to start with, but unlock more as you complete missions and Level Up your Class/Gear. From there, you queue up for missions to progress through the story and unlock additional maps, missions, and weapons. Each Mission has its own specific objective, but they all mostly play out the same. The stages are linear with a few dead end passages which occasionally lead to hidden weapons caches which unlock new skins, consumables, and cosmetics. Enemies include your typical Xenomorph varieties featured in the films along with some additional varieties of Xenomorphs featured in other media, Synthetics in the form of Working Joes from ALIEN: Isolation, and some new mutant Xenomorphs in the Pathogen Expansion.
However, for me the real meat of the game lies in the Horde Mode, in which you face waves of relentlessly advancing Xenomorphs, complete objectives, and exfiltrate. This mode in particular really captures the suspense and excitement of the film as you're mowing down waves of Xenomorphs who attack from almost every direction accept for beneath, which is kind of a disappointment because it would be cool if you could be attacked and killed in a similar fashion to Hudson, but I digress... Horde Mode is definitely the best mode in the game in my opinion.
Unfortunately, there are absolutely no methods of communication available between players. There's no text nor voice chat, which makes coordination between players nearly impossible, and thusly leads to frustration on higher difficulties in which friendly fire is active, which is about as fun as playing a game of Five Finger Filet.


Unfortunately, the Performance in Fireteam Elite is a bit sketchy. Because the game uses Peer-to-Peer Connections, all it takes to ruin the game is to play with a host who has a slow or otherwise spotty Internet connection, which will result in lag, slowdown, and even outright disconnects. It's not at all uncommon to queue up for a match only to end up back in the hanger with the following message displayed on the screen: "ERROR: Lost Connection to Host" or even worse, be well into a mission only to suddenly receive the error. Furthermore, because Experience Points and Items are only awarded upon completion of a mission by victory or defeat, getting disconnected leaves you completely empty-handed. Granted, there is an option to play Single Player with Bots, but obviously that's much less fun than playing with others.


At its core, ALIENS: Fireteam Elite is a good game that's fun to play, and the continued support by the developers is much appreciated, but because the game is plagued by connection problems and utterly lacking in communication options between players, the overall experience is less than satisfactory. Still, it's definitely worth playing, and fortunately it's not an expensive game, so if you're subscribed to a service which includes the game or otherwise can get it on sale, then I would recommend trying it out, just be aware that the game has its limitations and be prepared for the possibility that you may get matched with a host who has a poor internet connection.

Introduction:

Ni No Kuni is a game that I had been following for years leading up to its release, dating all the way back to when it was reported in magazines/online articles as an upcoming title for the DS under the working title; "Ninokuni: Another World" which was actually redundant given that that's what Ni No Kuni translates to. Immediately I was taken in by the Studio Ghibli art direction, as I grew up watching many films by Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli, which ultimately set the tone for my expectations of the game. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to play the game until it was released years later on the PlayStation 3, but sadly my PS3 broke down before I could finish it. Now finally, many years later I was finally able to play it through to completion in a Remastered version on PC, but did it live up to my expections?

Graphical Presentation:

With art direction by Studio Ghibli, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch Remastered has notes of their signature style, with charming character designs, bright colors, and breathtaking landscapes, but alas, it's constrained by the limitations of the hardware that the game was originally designed for, and eventhough it was remastered in 4K 3840x2160 Ultra High Definition, the graphics still cannot quite replicate the gorgeous appearance of an authentic Studio Ghibli Production, which is made all the more apparent by the presence of in-game cutscenes animated by Studio Ghibli with the contrast between them and the in-game visuals whenever one such cutscene plays.

That's not to say that the game's visuals are bad, merely that they cannot measure up to the gorgeous presentation of the animated cutscenes, so in many ways the decision to have art direction by Studio Ghibli actually works against the game rather than in its favor. If only the game been made for more sophisticated hardware to begin with, then perhaps the in-game graphics could better emulate the appearance of a Studio Ghibli animation, but PlayStation 3 was the most powerful console available when the game was being developed, so this was the best that they could do with what they had to work with.

Audio Presentation:

The music in Ni No Kuni is something of a mixed bag, with an odd combination of music that's catchy, yet not very memorable, and one or two tracks that are superb. Namely, the music that plays during more dramatic scenes in the game hits the mark perfectly, matching the tone of the scene and enhancing its emotional impact, as well as the song that plays at the very end of the story during the credits sequence.

The English Language Voice Acting is pretty good, the performances are good and the voices suit the characters. I cannot comment on the Japanese Dub because such wasn't the one that I chose for my playthrough.

Gameplay Mechanics and Features:

For the most part, Ni No Kuni is your typical hybrid of traditional turn-based console JRPG combat with real-time battlefield positioning and Monster Taming Elements. You travel from one town to the next to advance the plot, gaining new allies as you go along, forming a party of companions and taming monsters known as Familiars to fight at your side, battling enemies to increase your companions/familiars levels, facing ever more powerful enemies along the way. The monster taming elements are simultaneously a major part of the game, yet ultimately one that becomes increasingly less impactful as the game progresses, somewhat undermined by the fact that multiple characters in your party including the main character Oliver are Wizards/Sages with magical abilities which allow them to cast powerful spells in battle as their levels increase. So by the end of the game, Familiars take something of a backseat to more traditional JRPG elements in which you simply cast spells rather than call on Familiars to fight for you.

Taming Familiars likewise becomes increasingly more tedious as the game goes on because the method for taming them has too much RNG involved to be fun or engaging, and the Familiar designs aren't interesting or unique enough to get you invested. Yes, I've deliberately refrained from mentioning popular Monster Taming RPGs by name because the Familiars in Ni No Kuni are nowhere near as interesting as those in Pokémon, Digimon, Monster Rancher, or even Level-5's own Yokai Watch, nor is the method for taming them fun or challenging Taming Familiars is literally 100% RNG, you just fight them in the wild and if they get hearts over their heads after taking enough blows, you have to switch over to one specific party member who can play a song to tame them, that's all there is to it.

Storytelling:

I have realized that Ni No Kuni shares some plot similarities in common with a poorly rated 1989 animated motion picture I saw as a child which Hayao Miyazaki himself was involved with known as Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland. In fact, the similarities are so striking that if it weren't for the fact that Miyazaki hated working on the film then I would think that Ni No Kuni was first conceptualized as a Little Nemo game.

The plot revolves around a boy named Oliver who embarks on a fantastic journey to another world in attempt to save the life of his mother, who suffered a heart attack after rescuing him from drowning when a go-cart he was driving late at night lost a wheel and went into a river. In the aftermath of this tragedy Oliver learns that he is The Pure-hearted One, a boy who was spoken of in prophesy who would come from another world and save Ni No Kuni from destruction. Gifted with the magical ability to mend broken hearts, Oliver sets out to mend the hearts of those who were broken by the Dark Djinn Shadar, defeat him, and save his mother's life in the process. However, Oliver is only a boy and cannot hope to face Shadar alone, so he must travel the land, seek out the Sages who can teach him new spells, gain allies to aid him in battle, and unite the kingdoms of Ni No Kuni against Shadar. It's a rather basic story by modern standards, but it does the job.

Final Verdict:

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch Remastered is a modern take on a classic JRPG formula, as such it isn't quite as complex or ambitious as modern JRPGs tend to be. I find it extremely dificult to rate this game because I'm at odds with the fact that while there were a number of features which I felt were poorly implemented/executed, I also enjoyed the story along with the overall presentation, and the game itself was still enjoyable enough to keep me invested all the way until the end. Ni No Kuni is in and of itself something of a contradiction, a game that really isn't anything special in terms of mechanics or design, with a rather basic premise and somewhat cliched plot, yet nevertheless manages to be deeply touching and memorable, thanks in no small part to that signature Studio Ghibli charm. Overall, I feel like Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch needed a full on Remake rather than a simple Remaster, because the game feels like it had untapped potential to be something spectacular. It's still worth playing, but not at full price, wait for a sale.

Introduction:

The first Final Fantasy game that I ever played was the so-called "Final Fantasy II" on the SNES, which of course we now know was actually the fourth game in the series, but it was the second Final Fantasy game to be released in the North America, so that's how they titled it domestically. However, I think that was just about the best game to start with, as it's when the series had really hit its stride, establishing many of the elements which would become mainstays in the Final Fantasy games. Final Fantasy II (i.e. IV) was the game which got me into the series, and as such holds a special place in my heart. Alas, even I must admit that the original game has aged poorly, and has been greatly improved upon in subsequent revisions of the game, thus rendering the original release objectively the weakest example of FFIV. So when the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster games were announced, I had presumed that they would use the improved/enhanced versions of each game as the basis for each Pixel Remaster. Unfortunately, that is not the case, which is a bit disappointing, but that begs the question; what changes were made, how was the game improved upon for this release, and how does the Pixel Remaster compare to other versions of the game?

Visual Presentation:

As the subtitle "Pixel Remaster" suggests, the classic visuals of the original game have been faithfully recreated in pixel art, which gives the game an appearance which is simultaneously nostalgic yet fresh, as it is visually similar to the classic 16-bit graphics of the original game it was modeled after, yet the pixel art is obviously much clearer and more vibrant. Personally, I prefer the enhanced visuals of the Game Boy Advance Remake, the aptly named; Final Fantasy IV Advance, so it was slightly disappointing to me that they chose to recreate the visuals of the original SNES release when the enhanced visuals of the GBA remake were just plain nicer, yet still featured that classic 2D look. Regardless, the game looks wonderful.

Audio Presentation:

Not to be outdone by visuals, the remastered audio of Final Fantasy IV Pixel Remaster is to my ears easily the best version of the original soundtrack yet. The classic chiptunes of the SNES release have been recreated with modern audio and musical instruments, making this the definitive version of the FFIV Soundtrack. Not only do all of my favorite tunes from Final Fantasy IV sound better than ever in the Final Fantasy IV Pixel Remaster, but my absolute least favorite, the dreadful Mysidia tune is no longer offensive to my ears. No longer does it sound completely awful to me, as it did in literally every other release. It sounds alright, and I'm no longer annoyed by the sound of it to the point that I have to mute the audio whenever I enter Mysidia.

Gameplay Mechanics / Content:

Fortunately, the classic gameplay has remained unaltered, and thus plays exactly as it should. It's a simple, turn based, JRPG with the classic Active Time Battle (ATB) system which makes it a little more fast paced, exciting, and challenging than your standard turn based JRPG battle system. In addition, a number of Quality of Life improvements have been added, such as a detailed Level Up subscreen after battles, Arrows no longer being a finite resource which the player must keep stocked up in their inventory, abilities which were removed from the original SNES version like Dark Knight Cecil's Darkness and Rosa's Pray have been restored, and item drop rates have been adjusted to make obtaining rare random loot less frustrating to obtain. Unfortunately, the additional content from Final Fantasy IV Advance is notably absent, and therein lies my major criticism of this release... The decision to maintain the classic visuals of the SNES release over the enhanced graphics of the GBA remake for the sake of nostalgia is understandable, but to leave absent the additional content which was unintrusive as well as completely optional is just lazy and dramatically reduces the overall quality of the game. Furthermore, the level of difficulty in Final Fantasy IV Pixel Remaster has been greatly reduced. It takes precisely half the amount of experience that it did to level up in the original, and there's no way to increase the difficulty. As a result, the game is substantially shorter in length than other version of the game. I was able to beat the game in just over 23 hours at a relaxed pace, which don't get me wrong, isn't bad, but a completionist run of FFIV Advance can easily last up to 60 hours! Granted that I didn't do a completionist run of this game, unlocking all the chests, finding all the hidden items, etc, but I did all of the side quests and completed the game in just over 23 hours, so I can't imagine a completionist run lasting more than 35 hours tops. So it's nothing short of a disappointment that they neglected to recreate the additional content of what many consider to be the definitive version of the game when they made this remastered version.

Story Presentation:

Once more, this is merely a recreation of the original SNES release, meaning all of the additional cutscenes from subsequent re-releases are completely absent. You won't find any of the additional cutscenes from the PSone, GBA, or DS versions here, regardless of how easily they could have been adapted in this versions artstyle. In fact, just about the only way that the story differs from the original SNES release is that they thankfully didn't opt to faithfully recreate the terrible English language translation of the original, save for of course the iconic "Spoony Bard" line which has appeared in every English language release of the game. Forget about experiencing the Interlude from the PSP remake, as well as The After Years in this release. This is the story content of the original SNES release with a better translation, nothing more.

Final Verdict:

Final Fantasy IV Pixel Remaster is a faithful adaptation of the classic SNES release known as "Final Fantasy II" in the United States which will appeal specifically towards those who desire a stroll down memory lane and nothing more. Those who are more accustomed to enhanced versions of the game are bound to be disappointed by the absence of the additional content which expanded upon the game as a whole. This is by no means the definitive version of Final Fantasy IV, nor even a complete version of the game by any standards. So those who wish to experience a more complete version of the game, I recommend that you stick with Final Fantasy IV Advance for the Game Boy Advance. For those who wish to experience the definitive version of the game, I recommend that you seek out Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection on PlayStation Portable. Again, I cannot stress enough that this is by no means a poor game, in fact it's practically perfect for what it was intended to be, a faithful remastered version of the original game. However, I have to remain true to myself, and as a longtime fan of the game, it is a disappointment because it could have been much better. Had they included more of the additional content from past revisions of the game, then this could have easily been the definitive version of the game which retained the classic look yet included all of the nice little additions/improvements to the game which have been made over the years. So in conclusion, to me it's a 6 out of 10 experience, but for others it could easily be a 10 out of 10, you be the judge.

Introduction:

Resident Evil 2 is my favorite Survival Horror game on the PSone, a game which I have done several playthroughs of over the years because I just plain enjoy the game so much that no matter how many times I play it I always end up coming back for more. It's one of the few games that I have been so thoroughly impressed and captivated by that no matter how much time passes, I can still enjoy it just as much today as I did when I first played it. The only facet of the game that I feel has aged poorly enough to subtract from my enjoyment of it is the graphics, everything else from the goofy voice acting to the clunky controls are just part of the experience for me. Obviously, when the announcement was made that the game was going to be remade I became very excited. The remake of the first Resident Evil on the Nintendo GameCube was excellent, improving on the original in every way and expanding on the content within, so that was the basis of my expectations for a remake of Resident Evil 2. The question is, did the remake of Resident Evil 2 live up to my expectations? Well, the answer isn't as simple as a yes or no, it's a little of both, so let's go over everything piece by piece so that I can tell you how I really feel about the game.

Graphical Presentation:

The graphics of the original Resident Evil 2 have aged very poorly, which is to be expected from a game which was developed for the Sony PlayStation in the early days of CGI and 3D Models. As a result, I would have honestly been satisfied if Capcom had merely remade Resident Evil 2 on the Resident Evil HD Remaster's Engine, reused assets and all. Instead Capcom developed RE2R on Resident Evil 7's Engine, and the results are fantastic. Capcom absolutely nailed the graphical presentation of this game. Everything looks fantastic, and the attention to detail is amazing. The chilling atmosphere of Raccoon City and its many locales come to life (or should I say come back to life?) in Resident Evil 2, regardless of what you're playing it on, but if you can run this game in 4K UHD, then you will be absolutely amazed at just how great this game looks. My only complaint is in regards to the lighting, which is much too dark by default, so be prepared to adjust the in-game brightness above the default/suggested settings, and you may end up having to disable HDR (High Dynamic Range) altogether to be able to see in some of the darker areas of the game. Issues with the lighting are also compounded by the fact that the game gives the player absolutely no control over the Flashlight, which just turns on/off automatically in certain areas, and unfortunately it doesn't always come on as soon as you enter a dark area, so at times you'll have to walk a fair distance in the dark before the Flashlight turns on.

Audio Presentation:

The sound effects in RE2R are great. I don't have a high quality sound system hooked up, nor am I by any means an audiophile, but from the bangs of firearms to the growls of monsters, RE2R sounds perfect to me. When it comes to the soundtrack however, I was somewhat disappointed. As a fan of the original game, I wanted to hear remastered tracks of all the original music, but Capcom chose to go with a more ambient, atmospheric soundtrack in RE2R. Unfortunately, I'm too biased here to give a fair review of the new soundtrack because I loved the original too much and honestly don't care for the modern trend of ambient sounds played over top of scant music as opposed to orchestrated music, so let's just say that I didn't care for it and leave it at that. Fortunately, Capcom provided the option for those who buy the Deluxe Edition of the game (I of thethink it's also sold separately as DLC) to select the original soundtrack, so those who dislike the new soundtrack and prefer the original are covered.

Gameplay:

Unsurprisingly, Capcom has done away with the original method of control (often aptly referred to as "tank controls") and fixed camera angles in favor of the more modern 3rd Person Shooter controls and camera which has become the standard since RE4. Love it or hate it, you have to admit that it was the reasonable thing for Capcom to do. Personally, as much as I love the original RE2, the tank controls never felt natural nor intuitive to me, they were merely something that I had grown accustomed to over time, so I don't miss them. However, one thing that I do find disappointing about the gameplay is that a few of the enemies from the original game were omitted from RE2R, including a Mini Boss. (Crows, Webspinners, and the Giant Moth.) Granted that these enemies were mostly an annoyance/obstacle in the original game, so if anything it was a better choice to remove them than keep them as they were, but I would have preferred to have seen them reworked than outright omitted.

Story:

Despite being billed as a "Remake" initially, RE2R is actually more of a "Reimagining" of RE2 in terms of story. The plot is still more or less the same, but little tweaks and additions have been made to the story, and unfortunately this is where my biggest disappointment with the game comes into play. For the most part, I like the additions which have been made to the story, but I dislike some of the changes which have been made to the original story. Namely, I dislike how Scenario B has been omitted from the game along with the way it affected the story. Capcom has replaced Scenario B with what is now referred to as Second Run, which merely shows the other side of the story from the other playable characters' perspective. Unfortunately, as a result the game now has significantly less replay value because there is no longer a sort of "what-if" scenario when you replay the game in the opposite order. In addition, instead of merely consolidating the canon events of Claire Scenario A with Leon Scenario B from the original by having the major plot elements of Leon Scenario B occur within Leon's portion of the story regardless of whether he is chosen for the First or Second Run, Capcom chose to completely omit the events from Leon Scenario B in favor of his much less interesting/impactful Leon Scenario A playthrough. As a result, Leon's portion of the story feels much weaker and less impactful than it could have, especially in terms of his relationship with Ada Wong. The events of Leon Scenario B made the romance feel much more genuine due to certain scenes between the two which don't occur in Leon Scenario A, not to mention that Ada receives more character development in Leon Scenario B which makes her character more genuine as well. Why Capcom would choose to omit the expanded story of Leon Scenario B despite the fact that it is the canon version of Leon's story is beyond me and the results of said decision reduce what could have been a perfect remake to a mere reimagining with a weaker story and less replay value. Oh, and no, it's not a retcon, Leon's canon story is still that of Leon Scenario B in the original game. In fact, Capcom themselves have taken to calling this game a "reimagining" themselves on social media since the game's release. So in terms of story, RE2R falls short of the original RE2.

Final Verdict:

RE2R is nearly a perfect remake of Resident Evil 2, but the few things they removed from the game and its story prevent it from being so. As long as this game was in development and as eager as I was to play it, I would have been willing to wait as long as it took for them to develop the game with all of its original enemies, features, and story intact. The game is still great, totally worth playing, and my current top contender for GotY 2019, but it could have been even better if more time had been taken to maintain the content of the original.

By-the-numbers Match Three game meets Dating Sim on training wheels.

That is in essence what you can expect from Hunie Pop, and yet that simple summary alone just doesn't do Hunie Pop justice, so please bear with me as I attempt to explain everything that makes it such a poor game which I can't recommend to anyone.

Let me start off by saying that I'm really not sure just who Hunie Pop is for. You'd think it's for fans of Visual Novels, Dating Sims, and to a lesser extent fans of Match Three games like Puyo Puyo, but as a fan of all 3, I can safely say that this game fails to deliver as any of the above.
It won't satisfy fans of Visual Novels, because despite what its appearance may suggest, it's not a VN at all. There's really not much in the way of story in Hunie Pop and the dialog is just plain cringe-worthy.
It won't satisy fans of Dating Sims because the so-called "dating" is really just telling the girls what they want to hear, giving them gifts, and most notably, playing a Match Three game. There's no taking a girl out on a date and then getting to know them via VN style conversations, because an invisible companion who introduces herself as a "Love Fairy" holds your hand every step of the way, often telling you exactly what to say or do in order to gain your date's approval/attention.
And it most certainly won't appeal to fans of Match Three style games because you have to go through the aforementioned dialog exchange before you can even play, and once you do it's so simple, so by the numbers, and so unimaginative that you'll be left disappointed.

Furthermore, to further explain my previous comment regarding my confusion as to who this game is for, allow me to explain a bit about Hunie Pop's plot. In Hunie Pop, you take the role of an unnamed protagonist who is supposed to be the player, (i.e. you) yet his dialog choices are so heavily cliched, insipid, and stereotypically awkward that I doubt there is a single human being on Earth who speaks in such a manner, regardless of how socially awkward they may be. which sort of gives me the impression that the developer was either trying to make some sort of cheeky statement about fans of Dating Sims or otherwise is just so ignorant that he thinks this is how the target demographic behaves in the company of women in real life. Either way, that's really offensive/rude, and not a good way to sell your game.
Furthermore, as previously stated, the protagonist isn't going on dates alone, but accompanied by a companion who identifies herself at the beginning of the game as a "Love Fairy" who takes pity on the protagonist for being so awkward and decides to help him. Problem is, her title is completely inaccurate, she's not a Love Fairy, if anything a more apt title would be "F♥♥♥ Fairy" because she's not helping the protagonist to find love, she's helping him to get laid, and her methods of doing so range from sleazy to downright reprehensible.
No seriously, Hunie Pop lacks the "routes" of typical Dating Sims, there is no pursuit of one special girl per playthrough, the Love Fairy encourages you to mack it up like a true Playa, and she is not above suggesting such morally reprehensible methods as getting a girl drunk and having your way with her. Yes, she will honestly suggest that you repeatedly offer your date alcoholic beverages until she's good and drunk so that you can essentially date r♥♥♥ her.
And as if that wasn't enough, your faithful companion the so-called Love Fairy has a delightful habit of making highly questionable/mildly offensive comments about each of the bachelorettes in regards to their ethnicities.
At first I honestly thought that this was part of a deeper gameplay mechanic/plot device. I figured that this was a karma choice which would effect your ending, and even began to suspect that the so-called "Love Fairy" was actually a Succubus, or perhaps a spectre of the protagonist's subconscious mind, encouraging the protagonist to do such sleazy/reprehensible things due to having sinister ulterior motives or otherwise as a result of the protagonist being psychotic, or maybe it was part of some social commentary the developer was trying to make which would eventually become clear. However, that turned out to be me just reading too deeply into the game, expecting more depth to the game than there was, and making excuses for the developer's lack of moral fiber.

All things considered, Hunie Pop is just plain bad... It's shallow, cliched, blatantly insults the player, and encourages morally reprehensible behavior which I can only conclude that the developer thinks is okay seeing as there are no repercussions or negative consequences for doing so.

For the longest time I avoided Undertale like the plague, after the game being strongly praised for its optional pacifist route, winning GameFAQs' Greatest Game of All Time popularity contest despite only being out for a few months, and being compared to the MOTHER series, which is one of my favorite JRPG series, I was all but convinced that the game was nothing more than a fad. "It's just the latest craze in retro-style throwback gaming and yet another homage to EarthBound which will assuredly overdo it with the humor/pop-cultural references and just come off feeling like a soulless clone, and surely the whole Pacifist Route will amount to little more than the game's designer pimping his own agenda and hamfistedly preaching at the audience for the entirety of the game." I thought.
However, one day while I was bored I watched one of my favorite Youtubers do a blind playthrough of it, and my opinion of the game slowly changed as I watched. Upon watching him do a complete playthrough and playing it like a standard JRPG and killing every monster in his path, I saw that the game wasn't preaching at all, nor was it pushing some slanted agenda, and much to my surprise, the game actually did strongly remind me of the MOTHER series. So I went to Steam and bought a copy of the game for myself, eager to experience it.

I have since done a full playthrough of both the "Neutral Pacifist" & "True Pacifist" routes in which I killed no monsters, befriended as many monsters as I could, and generally tried to do what I felt was the right thing in every given situation according to my own moral compass. The playthrough lasted me approximately 12.1 hours according to Steam, which is quite a substantial amount of content for a game of its price, and I have only experienced roughly half of what this game has to offer.
Going in, I honestly didn't expect to enjoy an RPG in which you're encouraged not to fight, seeing as the fighting typically makes up much of the RPG experience, but upon playing the game for myself, I must admit that talking my way out of confrontations was overall a fresh and satisfactory experience which I'm not used to being in anything but WRPGs, and while Undertale is technically "Western" in origin, it was clearly inspired by classic Japanese RPGs, so I just didn't expect it to handle the concept of pacifism as well as WRPGs.
I expected a shallow, idealistic representation of pacifism which even Ghandi would think went too far and served no purpose but to pretentiously preach the developer's beliefs to the audience, but on the contrary, Undertale approaches the concept in a much more balanced manner by presenting the player with "enemies" who don't really want to hurt the player, but are doing so out of desperation by the order of their King whom is just trying to free his people, and said enemies will usually surrender after taking a certain amount of damage. Furthermore, some of the characters even acknowledge that it is a natural response to defend yourself from attackers with violence, and only really judge/condemn you for killing a foe who has surrendered rather than spreading the message that fighting back is always wrong, regardless of the circumstances.

Now before I start to sound too much like your garden variety gushing fan, I will say that Undertale is by no means perfect. It does a lot of things right and is highly entertaining as well as heartwarming, but there were a few things that I didn't like. Namely, and bear with me here, the seemingly forced homosexual relationship between two of the characters. Now before you get mad or start thinking that I'm a bigot, allow me to explain that I have nothing against homosexuality. However, I do have something against game developers putting in homosexual characters into their games for the mere sake of having homosexual characters, (it strikes me as disrespectful and disingenuous, like more of a sales gimmick meant to appeal to a wider demographic than a passionate effort to denounce discrimination by showing support for alternative lifestyles) and I sort of feel like that was done here. I won't name the characters because I don't want to spoil anything, but the two are completely incompatible, never exchange any on-screen dialog, hint towards being anything more than casual acquaintances, nor even appear in the same space together prior to a specific event which doesn't even occur during the first playthrough, and both either appear to or are otherwise explicitly stated to have a crush on another character of the opposite sex, so their whole relationship just sort of comes out of nowhere with absolutely no build-up, as though Toby Foxy shoehorned in a homosexual romance between them just for the sake of having one. I dunno, maybe I'm wrong and Toby Fox had this planned from the start but just didn't draw direct attention to either character's sexuality until late in the game because he didn't want it to be a defining characteristic of either character, which would be commendable, but I'm really not sure so I can only call it as I saw it, and to me it seemed forced, especially when no heterosexual characters have a romance subplot/sidequest. At the very least, it could have and should have been handled much better or otherwise been completely omitted.

That gripe aside, my overall experience with Undertale was a very positive one, and while I'd love to write out everything I like about the game in detail, this review has already dragged on long enough, so I'm just going to sum it all up with a simple list of PROs and CONs.

PROs:
+ Great story
+ Charming cast of characters
+ Fantastic soundtrack
+ Unique combat system (Standard turn-based combat meets Quick Time Events and a Bullet Hell-style dodging system)
+ Humorous dialog
+ Interesting spritework/character designs
+ Emotionally driven plot
+ Pacifist option with no preaching or pushing of agendas

CONs:
- Aforementioned homosexual romance feels forced (Comes off feeling like a cheap sales gimmick in attempt to appeal towards LGBs rather than an invested attempt by the creator to acknowledge and/or properly represent homosexuals)
- Color palette feels needlessly subdued at times, especially for a game inspired by the likes of EarthBound (A wider range of colors could have and should have been used, especially on battle screens in which the most prominent colors are black and white, which is needless to say, rather dull)
- Somewhat graphically inconsistent (Some character sprites are far less detailed than others, so much so that they look as though they are from separate hardware generations)
- Kind of a slow-starter (Don't expect the game to draw you in all at once)
- Overuse of Internet Memes (EarthBound had pop-cultural references, but most were centered around The Beatles, which were an international phenomenon and every bit as relevant today as they were in 1995 when EarthBound was released, whereas these memes will not age gracefully at all)

Overall: Undertale is an excellent game and I highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of classic JRPGs and the MOTHER series.

I had originally planned to get this game shortly after it's initial release back in 2010, but after hearing news that Episode 1 ended on a cliffhanger and the publisher (Atari) was holding back the release of Episode 2, I decided against it.
However, now that Atari's license/publishing rights to the game has expired, Blade Kitten is back on track in the hands of the developer, Episode 2 is in development, and Episode 1 is better than ever with full Xbox 360 Controller support, an option to unlock the framerate from 30 to 60fps, and support for higher resolutions. Oh, and did I mention that the price has been reduced to roughly 1/3 of its original cost with Episode 2 planned to be released at around the same price?

Gameplay-wise, Blade Kitten is a solid 2D Action Platformer with tight controls, good physics, decent combat, fun level design, and enough optional exploration/collectibles to appeal to folks who are into that sort of thing.

Graphics-wise, Blade Kitten looks good. The graphics are by no means ground-breaking or cutting-edge, (this is a game from 2010 by a rather small developer, after all) but they serve their purpose by illustrating a colorful and interesting world.

Sound-wise, the game is average but adequate. The voice acting is decent and the music (while somewhat forgettable) is by no means unpleasant to listen to.

Story-wise, Blade Kitten is fun and interesting. Kit is an amusing and likeable protagonist, and most of the other characters are amusing and likeable as well. The story so far is incomplete as Episode 1 ends on a cliffhanger, but it left me wanting more and I eagerly await the release of Episode 2.

Overall, Blade Kitten is a solid buy for the price. It's a fun game that will keep fans of the genre entertained and leave them wanting more. If you enjoy 2D Action Platformers with solid gameplay, colorful graphics, and an amusing cast of characters, then I highly recommend checking out Blade Kitten.