Recent reviews by Kaiphas

Originally played this game back in Winter 2012 and it still remains to be one of, if not, my favorite RPG Maker game 10 years later.

The features like the updated sprites are really nice and the the ability to talk with Garry (And Mary) is a really nice quality of life feature for those who are playing through for the first time.

I think my only real gripe about this new version is the replacing of Mary's theme with a new track only because it was ingrained into my memory for so long that it threw me off when I heard the new track instead of the original midi song that was used in the original version. Despite that, it's still a good song nonetheless.

One of my favorite visual novels that came out in 2017, but with more features and bonus side stories! See my original review for the original DDLC for a brief description of my thoughts.

Just Monika

Ok

TLDR: Would I recommend the game? Maybe/Maybe not if you've never played the game before try it out and see if you like it. If you have played the game, you may have to take the changes with a grain of salt and see if you can pick the game back up again. This review is a complete history of my experience with this version of the game so you may see points where I do not recommend the game and parts where I do recommend the game:

As much as I loved this game when I was younger, I cannot recommend this version of the game in its current state.

Some of my Reasons but not all of them:
-Too many bugs
-Removal of evasion skills (I.E. Elesis used to have a move that enable her to roll under enemies to avoid damage. The removal of this ability drastically reduced her survivability in dungeons)
-Ridiculous drop rates for Seal Breaker (Before the game's original closure, it took on average 120-130 seal breaker gems to get a full set. I've had reports in a server I'm in that it took nearly $500 to get a full set)
-Still no skill trees for 2nd job and up (This was something that plagued the original game. Every character before Dio's release never had a real skill tree. This version still doesn't have them as well)
-Brazilian community ruins the game: Hear me out on this one, if it wasn't for them, this game would most likely not have a big presence and would have faded into obscurity, but at the same time, they're one of the most notorious hackers in this game. It plagued the game when it was originally published by Ntreev and later Kill3rCombo and it's still plagued by them now.

Until most of these issues gets fixed, I can't recommend anyone this game.

Edit: 12/28/2021
The game has been updated quite a bit, but I still can't recommend this game. With all of the "balancing" they've done to the characters they've released so far, a lot of the characters' damage values of their strongest abilities from back then have been severely nerfed to the point of dealing little to no damage. An example of this would be Dio having a skill in his Weapon Force tree called Onrush that used to be one of his main sources of high damage when sustained, but due to it being nerfed it does very little damage and is very hard to sustain due to the amount of AP it consumes even after grabbing "Onrush: Reduced AP" from his 2nd Job tree.

The one good thing I saw that they did was give back Elesis her dodge roll passive, but now it has a 10 second cooldown to use so it's still feels bad playing her, but not as bad as the start of the relaunch.

Edit: 2/10/2023
I decided to come back after Decanee's release and from what I've seen since my last update to my review I would say that the game is in a somewhat better state than it was since then.
Good:
-The dungeon difficulty for the original continent dungeons feels more appropriate now for their level (On vanilla release, everything after Silver Land was a lot stronger than what they were back in Season V).
-Since my last update to my review, they added in a Rune system (Think games with upgrade systems like Summoner's War, Genshin Impact, etc) which helps in getting more stats and bonuses should you equip a set of them.
-Character balances: Some of my gripes previously was due to some characters feeling a lot weaker than they were back in Season V. I tried a few characters since then and they feel a little better now. I noticed that they nerfed the cooldowns a bit for some skills (I previously mentioned how Elesis' roll came back with a 10 second cooldown. It's now 5 seconds which is a lot better, but I still wish that it didn't have one as a quality of life, but I understand why it's not the case)
-More "Original" Content: Last year when I saw the announcement for the Queen Gorgos Nest and the Harrier Continent, I rolled my eyes at it when I noticed that a large majority of that content was just reused assets. Everything afterwards though has been fairly decent (I.E. new Seal Breaker pets, Siege of Teroka, Decanee)

Bad:
-RIP Onrush: This is an understandable nerf as this ability was extremely powerful, but I've played on some private servers however and they've done a better job with reworking it to make it less effective but still not completely useless.
-Still no Dodge ability: This version of the game still doesn't have the old dodge system that was present in Season V. At this point, I'd say if the devs have no intention of releasing it they should consider reworking the UI and removing the Dodge bar from the game.
-Enemy AI is kind of janky at moments: Just a personal gripe, but some enemy AI is really jumpy when you attack them (I.E. Boss Gate Gaikoz will almost always use his teleport attack whenever you hit him with a skill, Harkion will almost always fly behind you whenever you hit him past a certain threshold of damage I.E.)

In the end, in it's current state, would I recommend the game? Maybe/Maybe not. I wish I could go half and half with my recommendation instead of a thumbs up or down. If you've never played the game before try it out and see if you like it. If you have played the game, you may have to take the changes with a grain of salt and see if you can pick the game back up again.

A really fun and interesting visual novel that'll surprise you around every corner with its fun and likable characters to its surprising twists and turns.

If you enjoyed it, check out the modding community as well. There's a lot of good mods people have made that enhance the experience of the original visual novel, but I highly recommend doing so after playing through the base game at least once.

I was never a fan of games with tons of jumpscares, but this game is a nice example of a jumpscare game done right. It starts off really innocent with cute little cardboard cutouts of monsters, heck even the titular Spooky is a cutie (don't let her hear you say that c;) to put you off guard, but when you go deeper into the mansion, it takes a more darker turn and the creepy factor starts to kick in. At little sad that the original name of the game had to be changed, but it's something older players will have to get used to.

Hmm... how do I put this? Glass Wing was a rather interesting game. I found out about this game awhile back when I was watching a podcast with DrWolf001 and he mentioned playing the voice of the antagonist Ferace. Was debating whether or not to get it, and decided to get it in the end.

Before I get into the review, I strongly recommend to play this with a controller. I used a Dualshock 3 controller to play this and it worked perfectly.

Like I mentioned earlier, this game was rather interesting. You play the role of the Glass Wing Mayfly who is trying to get away from the demon Ferace, after he attempts to capture you. During the course of the game, you find various tools as well as unlock new abilities in order to progress through each map. The game is composed of several maps with puzzles as well as platforming stages.

One of the interesting concepts I found while playing is the use of tools and the "combat". The game strongly advises against fighting the monsters that roam around the game (The game description mentions Mayfly being very weak and not suited for combat) thus the tools you find around the game are instead used for exploring. Each tool has a purpose for getting around (this includes using a scythe to cut down plants, a sword for cutting thorns, a hammer for smashing certain blocks, etc.)

The music in this game was actually really nice to listen to. I actually recognized a few of them as several of the tracks used are from the artist Makkon, an artist who once did pony music (A Waltz for Trixie and Hallowed Waltz being the two used that I recognized).

One of the main gripes I had while playing this game was surprisingly not the controls, but the platforming levels (or Twilight Trials as they're called). I got through the first Twilight Trial perfectly fine, but aftwards they just got really painful to do. These levels were rather punishing if you fall off because you would have to start all the way back at the beginning. (This really isn't too horrible, but it gives me nostalgic moments of when I played games like Super Mario Sunshine and having to play those FLUDD-less platforming levels)

Another minor gripe I had involved the final segment of the game. There is a glitch that causes Mayfly to fall through the map should you die and try to reload the file. This was fixed by simply closing out of the game and reloading the save. Minor, but really annoying.

Overall, I thought this game was a mixture of interesting and frustration. I enjoyed the interactions with Mayfly and Ferace and I rather enjoyed solving the puzzles (I'm still surprised I managed to beat this without consulting a guide... actually I couldn't find a guide for this game. Might write one up in the future if I feel like playing through again.) Would I recommend this game to anyone? Maybe... Maybe not... Depends on one's patience threshold as this game rather tested mine at some points, but it was rather satisfying when I managed to get past said points.

Rating: 7/10

I got this game back in November, but never got the chance to review it. I was debating whether or not to get this after seeing it everywhere, but I eventually decided to check it out after receiving a recommendation from an artist I watch. No regrets were had. This was a great game that combined RPG mechanics with a bullet-hell system and providing a very interesting experience.

The storytelling in this game was superb and the characters were very likable (which pained me when I had to kill them in a "Genocide Run"). The humor also played a part in me enjoying this game. The final aspect that I enjoyed about this game was the music. I found it rather interesting that Toby Fox was able to create most of the music in the game by slowing down or speeding up several tracks.

As stated previously, the storytelling was superb as it changed depending on your actions throughout the game. You can go through the entire game without killing a single monster, or you can kill everything in your path, but suffer the consequences. There is some interesting dialogue that can also occur if you decide to spare monsters and kill some as well and the timing of when you do so can also affect the remainder of the playthrough.

Overall, I thought this was a really good game and I would recommend it to anyone who is thinking of trying it out.