Recent reviews by Jinn

The first new SaGa game in 8 years, and it's fantastic. It's a mixture of SaGa Frontier and Scarlet Grace both tonally and mechanically. Addictive gameplay, tons of choice and consequence, replayability, and maybe the best JRPG combat system ever made. If you're a SaGa fan, you'll find something to love here if you give the game enough time. It had me sold as a longtime fan of the series within the first 1-2 hours.

Amazing game. Worth any amount of tweaking or configuration you need to do to make it work.

Hate to do a positive review like this, but the game doesn't deserve to go down this way. Wait to buy it if you don't think you're going to be happy with the performance. But don't buy it, give it a negative review, then return it.

Temporary review for visibility. It deserves it!

8 years in early access and counting...

Temporary first impressions review:

Hit my first real classic Tri-Ace difficulty spike last night about 3 hours into the game, playing on Universe (Hard) mode. It's the second boss that you encounter in the mining town, and damn is he tough. It's that moment where you are really hit with the fact that you can't progress on the skill trees all willy-nilly, but need to have a focused path in mind - at least in these earlier moments in the game on the hardest difficulty. Stat upgrades on the skill trees have sizeable increases with tangible jumps in power, and each new skill you learn - be they passive or active - greatly improve a character's versatility on the battlefield. I love how the game is gradually revealing the complexity of the combat, and that it doesn't allow the player to be a juggernaut right out of the gate. It demands a certain amount of patience and willingness to learn from the player. Reminds me of Resonance of Fate in that regard. The combat is really good. It might be some of the most interesting, fast-paced, and customizable action-RPG combat I've ever experienced. And yes, D.U.M.A. is a blast to use, both in combat and exploration.

The game has a bit of a plodding start, with a lot of tutorial text thrown at you in a short amount of time, but at 4 hours in, the game is really starting to open itself up to me and presenting solid challenges. It's got me very excited to continue later today. Oh, and I'm loving the soundtrack so far too.

Temporary Review:

Great dungeon crawler that is deceptively simple, with layers of complexity and challenge piling on as you progress. Some very interesting mechanics that serve to mix up the normal classic DRPG gameplay, while keeping what we love about the genre intact. Simplistic presentation does not automatically mean the game doesn't deserve a standard indie title launch price, and I believe $23 with the launch discount is very reasonable for the amount of content offered here. Where the game is lacking in production value, it more than makes up for in solid game design - something that should be praised, not scorned.

Temporary Review:

I've had a chance to play this for a good few hours so far. Hardcore mode is great, except for one thing: being only able to save at stationary beds, i.e. not with a sleeping bag you can carry in your inventory. For the first couple hours, this didn't seem like it'd be a big deal for me, but when you're going on certain quests that require you to travel a fair distance, end up having to stealth around certain areas, get in several combat encounters, activate generators, find switches, and sometimes wait for time to pass (if you want to try to infiltrate or bypass a location at night, for instance), dying and redoing all of these things can become rather time consuming. Mind you, this is my experience early game. I feel like you'll be able to survive longer when you have better armor, weapons, and healing options at your disposal, as well as a better grasp on which enemies you want dance with or not. That being said, the intensity of some of these travel attempts with Hardcore difficulty enabled have been truly great and memorable moments of gameplay, where every action has meaning, and every mistake can mean a quick death. I think it actually served as a way to get a quick helping of what the game truly has to offer with its breadth of approaches to different situations and player agency. I continue to be impressed by what I'm seeing. Sadly I think I might have to start over on the normal difficulty and maybe try Hardcore on a replay someday in the future.

Other small positive observations I've had are: I love the UI both functionally and aesthetically. Conversations are much more in-depth than what you'd expect to find here as well, working much more like a straight CRPG using keyword prompts, without any attribute based dialogue options of course. The atmosphere is great and I've enjoyed some of the early world and "level" design quite a lot. Combat is - as I hinted at before - very lethal, particularly in the beginning stages. Different types of enemies display different challenges too. You'll be lucky to stand toe to toe with a military man for more than a couple seconds if you're unprepared, but if you have the darkness of night and some cunning at your side, you can take down a good 3-4 bandit-type enemies with a pistol. And you can of course beat the ♥♥♥♥ out of a mindless ghoul mutant with a crowbar or machete as long as you play your cards right. But get a scratch from them and you're going to contract the T-Virus, which will cause you to become weaker and more susceptible to taking additional damage.

So far it seems like the isometric STALKER I never knew I wanted. Most everything I said above was positive, but I'm sure that's mainly because I'm early on. I have no doubt the game has some hidden flaws that have yet to reveal themselves, but I at least know at this point that I'm happy to have supported this game and having a great time with it. Really hope this guy is able to make more games in the same vein in the future. Very impressive for a one man project.

Excited to play more!

Temporary Review: Tons of fun so far. Game starts to open up a lot more at the end of the second main mission. Great gun, skill, and equipment customization, with fun additional loot system that thankfully takes a back seat. Very interesting and unique level design. Action is fast-paced and fluid, but still requires precision and on-the-fly tactical thinking. Excellent challenge on the hardest difficulty, with the option right below that maintaining a good challenge with a little more leeway. Looking forward to playing more. Running wonderfully on my mid-range system, with no noticeable bugs yet besides some weird melee animations.

First mainline Shin Megami Tensei on PC! A huge moment for celebration!

-Yes the game should have been $30 tops.
-Yes the game has the same compressed OST tracks the PS2 had, and should have had at least the option to to switch between the source tracks and compressed.
-Yes it was scummy to make the original western release's content a paid DLC.

Besides those three points I really don't have much of anything to complain about in this. It's a joy to play it again, and it's a joy to play it at 1080p, with being able to choose skills at demon fusion. If you have played it before and have reservations about the price tag, then wait for a sale. If you've never played it before, and don't have a PS2 at your disposal, then strongly consider grabbing it whenever you want.

Haven't had a single technical issue with the game in 5 hours of play. Runs beautiful, looks great, and I'm having a blast, just like I did when I played the original 2010 release. The combat has been tweaked and improved a fair amount, and while not groundbreaking in any way, it's making one of my favorite games of all time all that much better. I've even been enjoying the re-recorded OST much more than I thought I would, despite there definitely still being times when I feel the punch of the original tracks is missing. I'll probably do the full first playthrough with it even if a mod that implements the original OST comes out during it.

Nier has never been a perfect game, and it still isn't, but almost all of my favorite games couldn't be considered as such. This game as a whole is just a joy to be in. Always has been and always will be.