Recent reviews by Luce_

Welcome to Eyeforge: The Final Lash.

If you’ve been searching for a way to model anime characters, then look no further. This game is second to none within its field. The arsenal of tools at your disposal is incredibly robust, allowing for unrivaled precision in your creative vision. It’s an incredible thing when the primary constraint is your own mind and ability. In fact, its expansiveness only broadens the more you learn about the way it functions. As of writing, I’m closing in on 300 hours played and haven’t even thought about leaving the maker for the story mode. Because of that, this review won’t delve into that portion of the game, and will instead gauge the strength of the creator alone.

The creator is split up into the five main tabs of head, body, hair, clothes, and accessories. Within these are a lot of subcategories. You can also give your character different quirks and a choice of around 40 voiced personalities. The accessory category is especially powerful as it is through additional pieces of hair and different items that the character really gains its individuality. If you’ve played for a bit and find it enjoyable, what you’ll want to do is buy and install the two DLC packs (Personality & After School). Then install one of the community mod packs that not only bundles all the free updates into one easy installation, but also further expands the already large selection within each category of the creator. This will allow you to load images to be used as shirt motifs for instance. Unfortunately the DLC is not offered on Steam at this point in time, and as such you will have to purchase it through the Illusion’s Japanese storefront. The two DLCs offer additional personalities, 3P positions, and a new date location, but they are not a necessity by any means. If you don’t see the value in it or want the least amount of hassle, go and get the patch by itself. Otherwise you’ll be locked to the creator as everything but that is cut out of the Steam release.

You’ll be hard pressed to find many negatives with the maker itself. While fundamentally a good thing, it can be overwhelming to have the amount of settings offered when all you want is a minor tweak. Not knowing exactly what you need can at times turn aggravating as you find yourself adjusting sliders back and forth without making any real progress. However, all of this is linked with your own memory and skill, and is thus not the fault of the game alone. If you get frustrated, the best advice I can give is to stick with it. You will get better without really noticing it. Looking back at my first character made that evident and compelled me to redo her entirely.

To build on the above, one thing to note is that while the interface is user friendly, it does have a learning curve for knowing where all the settings are, how to efficiently move between them, what they do, and especially how they interact. As an example, it took me far longer than I’d like to admit until I realised that implementing a change in eye height in conjunction with lower eyelid shape offered far better results than pivoting the eye while adjusting the upper and lower eyelid shapes on their own. Cheek width, jaw width, and lower face width are three settings in particular that do similar things that you absolutely need to understand the interaction of in order to achieve the best results.

In practice, some problems do make themselves apparent. The positive side of that is how flexible the system is, especially with mods. Because this is a character creator, the player’s creativity is 95% of the time going to work itself around any roadblock that might appear. There’s nothing game-breaking, but certain things would be in need of a fresh coat of paint, with my own criticism also nitpicking at best. Hair and accessories, and as such accessory hair, don’t interact with each other as well as they could, leading to frequent clipping. It would look infinitely better if they were to merge into each other to create a better flow. The hair itself is also somewhat stale and it would’ve been nice to bend portions of it freely rather than in incremental angles. It’s most certainly possible to fine-tune it until it stacks the way you want, but it would be hard to argue against this being one of the more frustrating parts of the game. This becomes particularly annoying since you cannot save individual hair between outfits, so if you want a certain hairstyle tied to a certain outfit it’s necessary to create all the hair within the accessory category.

Regardless, there’s certain expectations with character makers and this game goes leaps beyond those. There’s little else for me to do but recommend this game and hope that Illusion’s next title will add some QoL features that will not only modernise it further, but in particular update the stale aspects that drags down the overall user experience.

Beware, for the strife for perfection will undoubtedly consume you.

Princess Evangile can best be described as your typical slice of life galge with added drama scattered throughout the plot. It is divided into two parts, with the common route having you getting to know all the girls, while the second part is mainly about getting closer to the girl of your choice. Nothing out of the ordinary here. However, despite the fact that the plot is fairly bland and straightforward, it achieves what it set out to do and manages to stay interesting most of the time.

+ As one would expect from a VN of this type, Evangile has both decently fleshed out characters and a mostly proper story. I especially enjoyed the chapter conclusions which included a little jingle and art to make you reflect over what you just saw. The story itself is generally consistent, with characters occasionally looking back to past events and drawing conclusions based on them. Characters are also not particularly annoying, with the exception being Konomi. However, it should also be noted that the story is fundamentally eccentric and over the top, which I can definitely see causing disinterest amongst some people.

+ While the Steam version is missing some events from the 18+ version in the form of hentai, it is still a fully enjoyable experience if you don’t care for them. If you do want them though, it’s possible to mod them in. However, keep in mind that there’s only a handful of scenes for each character that only really appear towards the end of the story, which mainly exist to further prop up the scenarios and characterise the relationship with the girl you’ve chosen. So, if you intend to play this for the H-scenes, I’d definitely recommend you looking elsewhere.

+ It took me roughly 50h to complete the common route and one of the diverging routes. It’s worth keeping in mind however that I read VNs by clicking autoplay and watching them through fully, in order to immerse myself in the story. A friend of mine went through two routes in less than 14h, but he also skipped voicelines and sped through a couple of parts. Playtime will therefore be based on your own preference while reading VNs.

- Rarely do you get any interesting choices. At times characters are in conflict and they will ask for the opinion of Masaya (you), but he simply answers vaguely. Extra choices, as meaningless as they would be, would inject even more life into an already lively story. If this had also expanded into you having any input over the trials he has to pass, it would’ve been great as well. About the only decisions you do make are related to which girl you want to pursue, and they are very blatant.

- Some observations. Like other VNs with childhood friends, Chiho doesn’t get enough background before her route to make that fact more known. Ruriko doesn’t have her own route, which was a bit strange considering how much focus she had gotten compared to the other side characters up until the first choice. Occasional issues with things being said by the wrong person, or duplicate sentences. Spelling is generally consistent, with few errors.

I would therefore recommend Princess Evangile if you enjoy VNs of this type. Within its genre, it is about average, but also probably one of the better ones that are available on Steam. Kinetic stories themselves are not inherently bad, but dating sims in general would benefit a lot from having more choices. Some things are a little cringe and Masaya gets into quite questionable situations from time to time, but I feel that these things add to the type of story this is. It’s not supposed to be too realistic, and I appreciate that the story itself realizes that and doesn’t take itself too seriously either.

With that said, Ritsuko is a conservative bible-reading atheist. That also objectively makes her best girl.

A game about a frog obsessed with female legs and ghosts playing poker in a huge mansion… wait that’s not what this game is about at all who gave me this script

The first thing people may want to know about anything horror related is how scary it is. Let me start off by saying that I’m a complete weakling when it comes to horror, with Corpse Party freaking me out to the point of being unable to play it at night. So when it came to Rinjin (Neighbor), a kinetic visual novel no less, I decided that I wanted to go all in. I played it after midnight, in a dark room, and with headphones on. I even hooked up my friend on screen share so we could experience it together. Without spoiling anything, all I can say is that at times this game gets really damn creepy, but it was honestly the most fun I’ve had in a long time.

The reason for that is because the strength of this game lies in its presentation. As advertised, the somber colouring of the art mixed with the dreary music carries with it a tone of terror that goes beyond what any jumpscare on its own could do. That’s not to say Rinjin doesn’t have any of those, because it does, but they’re few and far between, and when they do occur they’re either predictable or simply emphasising the mood. However, as the focus is on the presentation and plot, it means that the characters themselves take a bit of a backseat role. They’re the ones carrying the plot forward, but at the same time they’re a bit insignificant in the face of how beautifully constructed the rest of the game is and what you’re actually focusing on.

Now, the story and mystery itself is laid out in a way that makes it easy to follow. At first it may seem a bit convoluted with all the names of character you never actually end up personally meeting, but since the game clocks in on around 6h on autoplay it never becomes much of an issue. How short the game is might be an issue to some, I know that I expected it to be at least twice the length it was, yet the pace of the story is quite rapid and it fits the scope of the narrative without dragging it out. Another thing that is worth bringing up is that some things are either seemingly intentionally left unexplained or indirectly answered. Me and my friend both had some unanswered questions once the credits rolled, but at the end the major plot points were tied up, and that’s likely all that matters.

To sum it up, if you enjoy the unhurried tempo of Japanese horror and want something that can get genuinely eerie at times, I can’t recommend this visual novel enough. While it occasionally can become a little predictable (I was almost spot on with what the main conflict was around the midpoint of the story) I don’t actually mind it too much since you’ll be too caught up with immersing yourself in the ambience and pondering about all the other little details to really care about it. I still do wish it would’ve been a bit longer than it was, because I think that the ending, while not exactly rushed, was tied up far too quickly for its own good. Some things would’ve also benefited a lot from the extra development, particularly some of the more neglected minor plot points.

At its current price point of 12.5€, a short game such as this may not be worth it for everyone, but games like this are also rare to come by on Steam. I even backed it on Kickstarter and I don’t regret it one bit, despite the minor flaws it has. It’s definitely a gem, and if you’re still unsure you can look to pick it up on a sale in the future.

Now, I don't like horror in any form. I can't stand it, especially jumpscares. But what I do enjoy is a good story and writing, which this game seemed to contain. Once I was completely certain that this game didn't have any jumpscares, I bought it and blindly dived into this masterpiece of a game, and I didn't regret doing so one bit. So, here is a completely unbiased review from someone who hasn't been in contact with any Corpse Party media before.

+ A great story. Not the best I've experienced in a game, but it's sure up there. I really couldn't put this game down since I got it and it's basically all I've been playing for a while now. The story alone is worth getting this for imo. It's a fairly text heavy game, as there are parts of the game where you're basically only reading text. As you get further into the story, you will begin to realize how messed up the whole scenario actually is.

+ The soundtrack is phenomenal, and so is the voice acting. When I first started playing I had to lower the volume since the ambient music alone spooked me. That loud ringing noise when entering the infirmary is still in my head. Worth keeping in mind is that there is no English VA, but this didn't really bother me personally as I prefer Japanese VA anyway.

+ The gameplay is decent, it gets the job done so to speak. You basically just walk around the school interacting with objects while encountering different types of puzzles, running from ghosts, or accomplishing something before a timer runs out. It's possible to describe it as a hybrid between a VN and adventure game, similarly to the Ace Attorney series. As it's mainly about the story, I didn't feel the gameplay was particularly detrimental to the experience in general. However, you still need to pay attention to what you're doing or you'll stumble into a bad end, called wrong end in this game. Sometimes I intentionally picked a dialogue option that seemed worse than the other to trigger a wrong end, but ended up progressing the story instead. I feel somewhat bad for people who always try to pick the seemingly good option...

+ Since there are a ton of wrong ends to experience, the game seems to last for a long time, especially if you want all of the achievements. There are also quite a few extra chapters I'll be looking to play soon. It took me about 20h to finish the game + a couple of wrong ends, but I'm definitely not one of the quickest gamers out there. I didn't use a guide either, and I found this to help with the sense of helplessness the game tries to promote.

- I really don't have a lot of negative things to say about this. I found that a lot of the characters look very similar so I had some issues keeping up with all the names and who was who. I also found that when watching a wrong end unfold, some of the text would skip when pressing the A button while the text is being written out (I'm using a 360-controller). I also had some issues with controls during a certain chase scene, but I assume this is controller exclusive problem, as I completed it just fine when quickly switching over to keyboard. In addition to that I also wish there was an option to run through the hallways.

Now, to the million dollar question, is it worth 15€? For me, yes, for others, maybe not. It depends on what you feel makes a game worth its pricetag. For the average person it will probably take about 10h to complete it, but personally I don't think a game's length should determine the price of it. I don't regret buying this one bit, and as soon as I heard the menu music I knew I was in for a hell of a ride.

To sum it up, I definitely recommend this game, even for you guys out there who are as easily scared as me. While I found the game to be overall pretty creepy, it wasn't all about spooks and the story alone made me love the game. Don't let the graphics fool you though, this game is incredibly well done and has a ton of detail put into it. However, I will note that this game may turn some people off since it's more about the story than gameplay. Basically, if you don't like horror or reading, then it probably isn't for you. On the other hand, if you're looking for a superb story-driven title, look no further.

With its brilliant writing and intense atmosphere, Corpse Party is one of those games that kept me guessing what was going to happen next, and made me actually care about the characters. I will warn you though that it might occasionally freak you out, especially if you're foolhardy like me who tried playing it at night.

As this was my first 'Tales of' game, I was pleasantly surprised at what I got myself into. Being a JRPG fan, I was afraid the game would be too short or have other types of limitations. Quickly finding myself proven otherwise, I was really stoked at what the game had in store.

+ Overall a great PC port. Very much playable with keyboard and mouse, though I use my 360 controller out of preference.
+ A decent storyline that is not too overly complicated to follow. It's nothing spectacular or groundbreaking, though it was engaging enough to keep me playing.
+ The characters are also really good, maybe somewhat static at times but I enjoyed them. They were what made the story keep flowing as well as it did. The interactions between them are really nice as well.
+ A pleasant cell shaded artstyle that's quite easy on the eyes. Personally, I really loved it as the anime fan I am. Some places look really good, and I loved exploring caves and forests alike.
+ An astonishing soundtrack. Sometimes, I found myself walking around without doing much progress just to listen to the music. That's not to speak about the trial dungeons, which I find to be exceptional. The OP too. Just remember to patch in the version with vocals.
+ Solid gameplay, the combat is superb and rightly so as it's what made the game for me. However, the combat might not be for everyone. Look up some gameplay of it.
+ Good replayability due to the skill system, I'll probably play through the game again on some higher difficulty to try some different options, but I don't think that's necessary to get the full experience.
+ It's... Very long. Over a hundred hours and I've yet to beat the game, though I assume that's because I'm a tortoise when it comes to gaming. It wouldn't surprise me if you could beat it in 50h or so, probably less.

- Camera in combat can be a bit clunky sometimes, especially in tight corridors.
- The "open world" is somewhat lacking. You will find yourself running through empty large spaces quite often unless you want to spend money on fast travelling.
- Level design could've been better. They look good, but are quite linear and don’t give much room for exploration as the map is fully lit and shows you where to go.
- Minor occasional framedrops during combat.
- The skill system is really complex, especially the forging part of it and knowing which skill is better for each character etc. After so long of playing, I'm still not completely sure how to properly craft the type of equipment I want.
- Prepare to be bombarded with seemingly endless amounts of tutorials.

To sum it up, I can't say anything else but that I recommend this game. Everything just blends so well together and I found that the pros made me forget about the cons almost completely. I mean, who cares about crafting properly as long as you're having fun, right? I suppose one of the main things people will wonder about is the price, and yes, I can definitely say that it's worth it at full price. 49.99€ was a good deal as I got Symphonia as an added bonus, but even without that I personally think it's worth it. If you're still unsure, it might go on sale eventually.

Believe it or not, but this is my first Final Fantasy game. Despite that, I decided that I wanted to review it.

+ Fairly long, took me about 60 hours to beat it once, but then again I play like a tortoise.
+ Game looks great, especially Class Zero and a couple of other NPC's. Same goes for certain maps as well.
+ Story is engaging enough if you're into that.
+ A likable main cast that are well fleshed out. They're fairly cliché, but they also gets the job done. In this point I also want to include that there are a lot of playable characters, each with their own set of abilities and playstyle. You will most certainly find a favorite amongst them, and one of the greatest parts of the game for me was experimenting with all of them to figure out which one suited me the best.
+ Good replayability, if you want to experience everything you will have to play it through at least twice, and with several difficulty levels and the amount of characters available this will not be boring.
+ Combat was a bit difficult for me to get into at the beginning, but once I got the hang of it I was treated to one of the best combat systems I've experienced in recent years.
+ Voice acting is nice, although I thoroughly despised the English voices. The Japanese voices are amazing however.
+ No major difficulty spikes as you're encouraged to explore. If you find yourself underleveled, there is always the arena and special training.
+ Skill improvement for both abilities and magic is pretty fun, since you won't be able to unlock everything in a single playthrough most of the time.
+ Fun conversations/cutscenes and quests around the main hub.
+ Death system works great, and you're encouraged to try to keep everyone alive in order to get as high a rating as possible on missions.
+ Super speed for when you want to move from one place to another quickly.
+ In my opinion, a great ending. (reminded me of Mass Effect though...)

- A controller is a must if you are going to play this. Don't get me started on how poorly optimized mouse and keyboard is for this game.
- Textures for everything but Class Zero is generally pretty bad. Though since this is a remastered PSP game that is fairly forgivable. If you're not the type of person that cares much about graphics (like me), you will likely not mind the occasional Tomb Raider III type of graphics.
- Not very noob friendly, while it does explain all the major aspects of the game, some things are left out.
- The antagonists are not very memorable, and neither is the plot as a whole.
- While you're given the freedom to explore freely, there is time limit on how much you can do at once. Later on this was reversed and I was given more freedom than the US but not enough stuff to do.
- Side quests, while fun, are not as many as I had hoped for. Especially when you visit minor towns there are often only one quest to do in each, and you probably won't need to return to that town ever again.

All in all, I can definitely recommend this game. In the beginning I was not sure whether or not I wanted to continue playing it, but I'm glad I did. This has been all I've been playing for some time now and I don't want to put it down anytime soon. If you got the money to spare, or even better, if it's on sale, don't think twice about picking it up!

that is, if you have a controller

I will try to make this review as compact as possible, so similarly to my review of Re;Birth1, I will not go over the story as it will make the review unnecessarily long. First of all, I have only played a little bit of Mk2, which is what this game is a remake of, so I can unfortunately not point out any smaller differences between the games. Despite my playtime here I have played Re;Birth2 quite extensively on Vita previously however. Regardless, what I do know is that:

• Dialogue between characters are now 2D animated portraits instead of 3D models, like they are in Re;Birth1.
  
• Some playable characters are gone and replaced with others. More specifically, Nisa and Gust are both replaced with the Oracles of each continent.
  
• We get another ending.

And I believe that’s about it for the major new features. If you’ve already played Re;Birth1, you will have a fairly good idea of what to expect from this game. So, let’s start with the actual review. Like I mentioned, the game plays out extremely similarly to Re;Birth1. When I say that, I am referring the overworld navigation, similar menus and design layout. The Remake System, which lets you tinker with the enemies and items of dungeons, is also here. While not necessarily a bad thing that stuff are similar, some might be let down by the lack of changes.

Combat also plays out the same way, with you having three different customizable styles of combos (Rush, for building the EXE gauge, Power, for doing raw damage, and Break, for taking down shields). As I mentioned Rush, that also means that the EXE gauge, which lets you fire off cool looking ultimates at enemies is also here. The main difference is that you can now have four characters on the field at a time instead of three, with four more as support, which is a welcome addition.
Also, (for me at least) there aren’t any major difficulty spikes in Re;Birth2. I know the majority of you who played Re;Birth1 got obliterated by Black Heart in Chapter 2. I can say that I did, no shame admitting it. After all, the game did a bad job at explaining the necessity of grinding. Thankfully, Re;Birth2 is much less grindy, and has a much friendlier difficulty curve.
That’s not to say you won’t have to grind however, you will simply have to do it less.

Judging by what I’ve written up until now, the game is seemingly a straight up improvement over Re;Birth1. I wish I could agree with that, however that is not the case. The writing, which most of you probably liked the most in Re;Birth1, is a bit lackluster. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad by any means, it’s just… Not of the same quality. The better jokes are few and far between, and without the original four goddesses for the most part of the story things start to derail a little. In the next game in the series, Victory, which we will get a remake of under the name Re;Birth3 in fall, there is even a running gag in how people didn’t take to Nepgear as a main character.
Personally, I have nothing against Nepgear, Uni, Rom and Ram. In fact, I like them very much as individual characters. It’s just that the fourth-wall-breaking-comedy is for the most part gone and the writing as a whole comes off a bit flat at times. It’s not a deal breaker by any means, but it’s worth keeping in mind.

One of my favorite new features is Stella. She is a cute little girl which is the main character of a small minigame called “Stella’s Dungeon” which plays out in real time. Here, you are able to assign Stella to explore previous dungeons you’ve beaten. If she succeeds, she will get rewards for your party and earn better equipment for herself, which will help her explore deeper dungeon levels. On the other hand, if she is defeated, she will lose everything she’s earned up to that point.
While it’s a minor addition, I adored it personally and I hope that it’ll make an appearance again in future titles.

With all that said, I can definitely recommend this game if you’re a fan of anime and JRPG’s in general. However, if you haven’t played Re;Birth1 yet, do yourself a favor and play that beforehand.
Sure, levels can also feel a bit bland, and the game plays out for the most part just like Re;Birth1 did. However, if we put it into this perspective: If you liked Re;Birth1, I can guarantee that you will also enjoy this game. With a return of our beloved 2D portraits, the Victory battle system and 1080p, this is in my opinion truly the best way to experience Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2.

I will spare you from the storyline. If you have any interest in this game whatsoever, you either already have a general idea of what the game is about, or you can look it up in less than five seconds.

So, a turn based JRPG which draws inspiration from many other video games all while maintaining a steady stream of jokes directed at other works of arts should be a fairly chaotic experience, right? Well, it is. And honestly, this game isn't for anyone. If you don't have any interest in either anime or manga, you might as well turn back now, as you would probably cringe at everything the characters say and do.

That's not to say the game is bad though. While the story is slightly lackluster, it's mainly about the hilarious dialogue. If you don't like characters breaking the fourth wall, trolling around or poking fun at each other, the door is still there for you to leave through. For me, who is studying Japanese, this was both fun and educational at the same time.
The combat is where the game shines though, and it reminded me strongly of games such as Dragon Quest. With three characters on the field at the same, with three more as support, one of the more intriguing parts is where you can decide your own battle strategy. Do you want to go full offense? Go with a group of melee fighters. Do you want to play cautiously? Go with long range fighters. And if you want more support, there is always the option for that too. Whatever your playstyle is, with near 20 different playable characters, there is always one that will fit you.

And there will be at least one character you will like more than the others. Oh, and while I'm at it, play it in Japanese, some scenes aren't translated fully to English so you will be left with a couple of quiet scenes.
In the end, the interactions are hilarious, the combat is addicting, and if you are a collector there are a lot of things for you to find and craft. Don't see this as a hardcore game, come here if you're looking for some relaxing light and easy fun. I can't wait for Re;Birth2!