Fairy Fencer F: A Surprisingly Good B Tier RPG

Back in the days of the PlayStation 2 there was a much greater range in pricing of games. We had the obvious super high-end stuff that would go for $50 (boy do I miss those days as we continue to see prices rise first to $60 and now $70), and there was the lower end of the spectrum where quality would often become questionable as the price dipped lower and lower below the $30 mark for a new release. Then we had the mid-tier stuff. It would usually cost about $40 and people would go into them knowing that they weren't going to necessarily be on par with the games at the higher price point, but they also wouldn't be on a level of the cheaper, generally badly made games. They'd provide a solid experience, usually with some interesting quirks along the way.

Fairy Fencer F very reminds me of those days. It's by no means the best of JRPGs but neither is it a bad game. What we have is a reasonably priced title with an interesting battle system and straightforward, humorous story. Most people will likely get through it in about 25-30 hours feeling entertained, glad that they made some time for the game.

This is another in the growing tidal wave of Vita games that have been getting ported over to the PC over the last few years, and that's the version that I played. With that, one shouldn't expect too many fancy features in terms of settings. It's a down and dirty port, but gets the job done. People who absolutely insist on a vast array of graphic settings maybe be disappointed, but the keyboard controls are okay-ish, or at least not as god awful as some other ports of Japanese games to come along in recent years. I can't comment on them too much, though, as I stuck with an Xbox 360 controller for the majority of my playthrough.

From the get go it becomes apparent that the story is very traditional fair. In the distant past, a goddess and demon fought for control of the world, but in the end it was a stalemate as their attacks forced each other into suspended animation. This in mind, the game becomes a race between the forces of good who want to reawaken the goddess and the forces of evil who would like to bring back the demon. It doesn't get much more cliched than this. With that, we follow the adventures of Fang, a young, rather selfish lad, who accidentally gets swept up in all of this when he pulls a sword out of the ground, becoming it's owner and being teamed with a fairy, Eryn, that resides within it. This makes Fang into a Fencer, a person who wields a fairy-imbued weapon. There are all sorts of weapons like this scattered through the land and they can be used to release the goddess or demon, so Fang, Eryn, and a growing group of friends set out to find them all before the evil Dorfa Corporation can do the same for the vile god.

What makes the heavily trodden story palatable is the cast of characters, as their interactions can often be pretty funny. Pippin is by far my favorite of all the people I encountered with his self-important, yet friendly demeanor. Others had their moments too, like Glados' budding bro-mance for Fang, and Harley's overzealous desire to learn more about fairies. There are also a few moments of obnoxious fan service. I'm not a fan of that sort of stuff, so tend to get annoyed by it, but thankfully they're far and few between. It is also possible to recruit two optional characters into the party if certain conditions are met. They aren't necessary, but are fun additions to the group making them worthwhile to pursue.

While playing Fairy Fencer F, people familiar with some of Compile Hearts' other recent RPGs will notice a lot of similarities, especially if you've played some of the Neptunia games. Things bounce between a hub city where one picks up new quests, buys items at shops, and talks to locals, and a world map where one moves an icon around, selecting specific locations to visit. It's a stripped down method that very much limits opportunities to explore, but adds a certain amount of brevity to getting around. It is also possible to modify any given region if you use the correct fairy. This will change the types of monsters that spawn there, which becomes necessary when doing side quests handed out at the local tavern.

Battles while hunting these monsters (and pretty much everyone else) are the strong point of the game. Combat is turn-based on a fairly large field where enemies and your party can more around, trying to get into range of one another and unload with various attacks. There's the expected abilities like special attacks and spells which consume energy, but what is really fun is developing combos. These are actually cobbled together outside of combat in the game menu. For this, players assign different attacks to different buttons, many of which play into one another. Then, when combat begins, if you bring a character within attack range and begin, instead of simply doing a normal attack you can string it from one into the next, selecting what you want to do as you go. This is useful when trying to exploit an enemy's weakness. Since everyone in your party are Fencers, their weapons can actually morph on the fly from swords to scythes to bows to guns and so forth which plays into the combo system since you can then select which attack to do next and go with something that will do the most damage to enemies. Early on, there isn't much one can do with combos, but as you spend ability points to improve characters stats and unlock new abilities it becomes possible to add new strings of attacks to a combo.

As fancy as the combo system is, combat is actually quite easy much of the game. For the first 10 hours, battles were extremely easy as my party steamrolled everything in their path. After this, there was a mild difficulty spike but this was more a matter of fights taking longer than becoming insurmountable. I did wind up unlocking Apollonius, which required grinding up to level 40, and this can make some areas of the game easier as well, so that is something to keep in mind. The only area that came off as truly challenging was Shukesoo's Tower, which is optional content anyway. The ease of battles doesn't really take anything away from the game, as they're still enjoyable trying to find the best combos and spells to unload and see if you can outdo yourself with the amount of damage your group can dish out in a single turn. People expecting tough, unforgiving battles, though, just won't find that here.

The game isn't exactly a looker either. A lot of the areas, art, and backgrounds have a fairly standard anime-inspired look to them. Apparently Yoshitaka Amano and Nobou Uematsu contributed to the game, but I had trouble identifying where they may have had a hand in that. I'd have to imagine the former designed some of the monsters, as some of them looked quite unconventional. However, I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out which parts of the score may have been done by Uematsu. The music as a whole is decent, though the tunes that plays when characters Fairize (ie. take on a more powerful form) is pretty cheesy and gets stuck in my head more than I'd like.

Shortcomings aside, I still enjoyed going on this little adventure with Fang and the gang. Fairy Fencer F by no means tries to reinvent the wheel. It simply provides a fun story with some enjoyable characters and a good battle system. The game's publisher was also smart enough to give the game a price that reflects this, so I didn't feel at all out of pocket for the experience I had. People with a hankering for a pleasant, straightforward JRPG should give some serious consideration to this game.

Digital Distribution and the Quest for Competition

Over the last week there's been a lot of talk about Microsoft bringing Quantum Break to PC but being exclusive to their new digital distribution system that they are working on for Windows 10. With that, there has been a huge uproar with the usual "If it's not on Steam, I'm not buying it!" argument making the rounds. This got me thinking about competition in the digital space for PC gaming, how publishers are approaching it, and how consumers are absorbing it.

For all of the different companies trying their hand at digital store fronts there isn't a whole lot of tangible competition. It's more about various publishers at the very least wanting to reap 100% of the money from digital sales of their own games, so they make something like Origin or Uplay and either move all new releases to their distribution platform or make it a requirement to actually run their games. Instead of entering with the idea of making a brilliant storefront that people will want to flock to for pretty much anything that is available there, they take the shortsighted view that since they have some multi million selling hits, why not just sell the games themselves and cut out the middleman, aka Steam.

Origin has been around for almost five years now and the only good thing I can think of that they've ever done with their store is introduce a refund policy. They introduced it in the summer of 2013, which was surprising as they were beating a lot of other services to the punch, even GOG, which is usually ahead of the curve on this sort of thing. It was an important move too because in time other places started implementing similar policies. GOG started offering refunds by the end of 2013 and last year Steam began doing the same.

This is how competition is supposed to work. In a marketplace one company in an industry will start doing something, then others in the sector will catch whiff of it, and if it's a genuinely good idea they will begin doing something similar. Unfortunately, one is hard pressed to find much else that either Electronic Arts or Ubisoft have brought to the table that has positively impacted digital distribution in PC gaming. Granted, EA does have their subscription service for Origin getting underway, which could have some potential, but it's still early days so we'll have to give it some time to do its thing first.

With that, it's hard not to get cynical about Microsoft's impending return to PC gaming for the umpteenth time, with an earnest expression on their face that this time, this time, they're serious about it. First, we're already at the Fooled Me Once part of their foray into digital distribution with Games for Windows, so the company is already skating on thin ice. Second, it's quite obvious that this will be no different than UPlay or Origin in terms of what they want to do: make a storefront to sell their own stuff. And that's exactly what is going to happen. At best, people will go there to get games like Quantum Break and other first party titles (muttering under there breath about needing to make yet another username and password for yet another digital service) then proceeding to march right back to Steam, GOG, Green Man Gaming, and the like for everything else because these big studios haven't figured out how to make an actual storefront for the medium as a whole, but rather a vehicle for strong arming people into buying their own games on their own platform.

As obnoxious as Steam fanboyism can be at times, it isn't without good cause. Valve didn't just cobble together a mechanism for selling Team Fortress, Half Life, Counter Strike, and the like. They made a service that has features people like and want to use, adding more and more each year. This is why people like them so much and continue to flock there. Electronic Arts and Ubisoft haven't given us good enough of a reason to switch to them.

GOG is about the closest thing to a service that offers any form of competition to Steam, and even then it is much, much smaller. Their DRM-free games area a big draw for people who appreciate that sort of thing (like me!), but at the same time that is probably one of the biggest things holding them back from expanding their library more rapidly, as I wouldn't be surprised if some publishers withhold there games from GOG specifically because of this. In the end, though, at least it's an example of a company trying to make a store where people come because it's a good store, not because it's the only place where a certain game can be purchased.

Until places like EA, Ubisoft, and now Microsoft start doing this as well, instead of it being a greedy way to maximize profits on their own games, true competition in PC gaming digital distribution will remain thin on the ground. Companies need to convince people to use their services, not coerce them.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen - Final Thoughts

After gushing about this game in a preliminary article a short while ago, it felt a good time to come back with some closing thoughts on Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen's PC port now that I've finished the game. Long story short, it's quite a good game, and the effort that Capcom put into this port is commendable, but it isn't without its flaws. On the one hand, environments, monsters, and characters look amazing, the pawn system is interesting, combat is solid, and fights against larger foes genuinely deserve the adjective "epic". However, the world doesn't feel truly alive, much of what happens in the story is seriously lacking in context, and after a time players will notice that they are retreading the same paths again and again.

Just spending a few minutes gazing at the screen with settings turned up, it's hard not to feel that Dark Arisen is a very pretty game, even with it being a few years old now. Climbing to any high vantage point then taking a look at whatever vistas are in the area are always impressive. It's some mighty fine eye candy and if there's anything of interest in sight, a sudden urge to go there begins to swell. Characters look very good as well, and they have quite a lot of customization options thanks to all of the different gear that they can wear, not to mention the insanely detailed character creator. Unfortunately, there isn't an option for an aesthetic set of gear to display while your actual equipment is underneath. Still, there is a lot of stuff to wear and at higher levels you'll be hard pressed not to look like a badass while gallivanting around the countryside.

The real standouts are the larger enemies, though. Run-ins with ogres, cyclops, griffons, hydras, cockatrices, dragons, and the like feel like something out Shadow of the Colossus. A lot of detail has been poured into their designs and animations. Cyclops lumber around slowly, lugging their club around. Dragons soar above the canopy of trees as you make your way to this or that destination, only to swoop down in front of you. Just seeing one of these big monsters in the distance while exploring the over world can either give pause as you ponder whether or not to engage it or a sense of elation, throwing danger to the wind and dive headlong into battle.

These monsters have their own unique weaknesses and strategies for taking them down. Moreover, they can all be climbed, so you may need to scale up the tale of a griffon or dragon and be taken for a ride, or scoot up the back of a cyclops in order to poke it in the eye. While the comparison to Shadow of the Colossus is certainly a fair one, it should be said that these fights are simpler on the whole. Regardless, locking horns with these creatures is a highlight of Dark Arisen.

It really should be said that the combat in this game is quite good. Movement is fluid and controls are intuitive. Both going with a controller or keyboard and mouse feel comfortable, so it's really up to the player what they go with. Personally, I liked using a controller when going with a straight-up brawler class like a warrior or fighter, then used a keyboard and mouse as an assassin so to have better fine control while aiming a bow as I'm just not used to controllers when it comes to that sort of thing. All the while, combat feels fast and fluid. Clunky is most certainly not a word that I would use to describe combat in this game. Zip around as a rogue-ish class, blast magic from afar as some kind of mage, or stand toe-to-toe with enemies as a warrior. Even classes like warriors and fighters, which wear the heaviest gear and wield the biggest weapons don't feel all that bogged down. If anything, there's a sense of momentum and power as they swing their weapons.

A nice thing about the game is that players can change classes when talking with certain NPCs. Tired of lugging around a sword and leading the life of a fighter? Why not try assassins and whip out the daggers and bows instead? Or maybe dawning the robes and staff of a mage seems more interesting? Players can bounce around between classes as they progress through the game. Each class awards different distributions of stats with every new level, so min-maxers will need to keep that in mind. Those who bounce around willy nilly will have a more generalist character at higher levels, and this is totally fine. You won't gimp yourself into a corner by doing this. However, if you really want to accentuate aspects of your character it's better to pick a side of the fence between magic users and non-magic users. Doing this will result in either a physical attack powerhouse, or the game's equivalent of Gandalf at high levels as your character's stats climb. Your primary pawn can also have it's stats changed by the same NPCs, so players can adjust its class as well when tweaking of party composition is necessary.

And this brings me to pawns. They're helpers that swear fealty to your character who, in the lore of the game, is referred to as the Arisen, someone who has been touched by the dragon (more on this later). Players will have one of their own and be able to recruit two more into their party. What's interesting here is that the other pawns that one recruits actually belong to other players and your own pawn can be used by others as well. Players earn a specific type of currency for renting out these pawns at a one-time fee and can release them whenever they like only to find a new one to take their spot. All you need to do is give some thought to what kind of party composition you would like and then grab pawns in the desired classes. They can be recruited by visiting a rift stone and being teleported to another realm where a number of pawns in your level range will present themselves for your consideration. If they aren't to your liking, there are more selection and search options in this plane to help find a pawn more up your alley. These beings can also be recruited while wandering the game world as they can be seen wandering the major roads and loitering in the cities. In this situation one can only recruit on a case-by-case basis, stumbling across pawns that seem interesting.

What's nice is that these guys are extremely useful in battle. While not perfect, they tend to make reasonably decent decisions, learning how to fight different monsters better, making good decisions on what spells to use, and even holding baddies down so that other party members can wail on them hassle-free. Even their pathfinding is pretty good. Watching these guys do their thing, I couldn't help but think of all the time that I had spent wandering Skyrim with my house carls, marveling at the seemingly non-stop cavalcade of bad decisions that they were capable of. These pawns by comparison are brilliant, and I hope other developers that insist on having NPC helpers take some cues from this game.

As much as it may seem that I'm gushing about Dark Arisen, one area of the game that consistently felt lacking was the story. Basically, your character starts as a simple villager by the sea and is then attacked by an ancient dragon that takes his heart and tells the protagonist to come find him if he wants it back. From there, you find yourself doing odd jobs for NPCs and slightly fancier ones for the Duke, who apparently runs the Duchy of Gransys. Eventually this leads to a showdown with the dragon, but all the while things keep happening and it's hard to understand why. The narrative in this game is seriously lacking in context. At one point, the main character is somehow involved in an affair with the Duke's wife without much explanation as to why. There's a strange cult running around that worships the dragon for reasons that are never really explained, and in the end the story becomes some sort of take on the circle of life. It's something that could have worked if the game did a better job of explaining why all of this was happening.

It's also a bit weird how the world doesn't feel alive. There are people wandering around doing their thing, but they come off as cardboard cutouts. I'll visit the capital and see the same kids running around day or night, and a lot of the stores there seem to never close. Since the only inhabited areas are Gran Sorem, Cassardis, and the keeps peppered throughout the land, it doesn't feel like a very fleshed out world. Players don't have the experience of being on a long journey and coming upon the welcoming lights of an inn or other small inhabited area while exploring Dragon's Dogma. You always know that those places are behind you and not in front since there are so few towns, which can make the game feel lonely at times.

Moreover, while running around doing random quests for everyone at first it's pretty mesmerizing wandering the countryside, taking in the sights and sounds of the game, figuring out where all of the holds, bandit hideouts, and chimera stomping grounds are. After a while, though, you start to notice that the game asks players to revisit these places quite a bit and many of them feel pretty samey. Even Skyrim, a game that some criticized for having overly similar architecture and locales, feels more varied than what Dragon's Dogma has on offer.

This is somewhat offset by Bitter Black Isle, an area that is unlocked not to far into the game, but isn't really worth visiting until after one has unlocked New Game Plus mode. It's a kind of Dark Souls Lite castle that players can explore at higher levels containing very powerful enemies and gear. Exploring this place seldom gets old. It's a very large zone with multiple areas and there's always a sense of foreboding while wandering its halls. It looks ancient and you never know when you'll run across something dangerous. Bosses here will get you thinking, "That's a lot of hit points!" and they take a fair bit more strategy than others in the game. An interesting feature here is that some bosses will randomly spawn, as they're attracted by the carrion that you create by killing the lesser enemies of the castle. This can be particularly troublesome should this happen while already fighting a standard boss. Farming gear here can take a while because the items are a bit randomized and the treasure chests only respawn every four days in-game, so players have to wait before hitting them up again. There are exploit strategies floating around the internet for those so inclined, however.

One the whole, Capcom's PC port of Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen is well worth a look for fans of series like Elder Scrolls, Risen, or The Witcher. It's an interesting take on these sorts of games from a Japanese developer. The combat is excellent, the game looks amazing, and the monsters are really well done. I just wish I better understood what's supposed to be going on story-wise half the time and that there were more towns to visit. That aside, this is definitely a game to look into for fans of open world fantasy RPGs.

Get This at Green Man Gaming ($29.99US last I checked)
Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen

On the Deluge of Japanese Games Coming to PC

Growing up, I always leaned more toward what Japanese companies were releasing when it came to video games. Being about 10 when the NES came along, it was just the right age where I would be hit by one game after the next that wound up creating an affinity in me for the stuff coming out of that part of the world. Whether it was big series like Super Mario Brothers, Castlevania, Mega Man, Final Fantasy, Contra, or just one-offs like Faxanadu (yes, I know it's part of a much larger series), Excitebike, or Blades of Steel, I was hooked. It just continued from one generation to the next as I migrated to the SNES and Genesis, the PlayStation and Saturn, and then the PS2 and DS.

However, when the PS3 came along, something unfortunate happened. The amount of games coming out of the region slowed down, and Japanese publishers started to hit a real funk. Interests were shifting in the West and a new generation of gamers were hungry for Gears of War, CoD, Battlefield, and the like. Sales were dropping and Japanese developers were not necessarily porting games to overseas markets with the same zeal as before. Moreover, with the rise of mobile gaming, especially in their home region, a number of them were shifting their focus to that sphere instead. So, for people like myself, options were feeling somewhat limited. It wasn't so bad for people who enjoy handheld gaming. The DS and 3DS as well as the PSP then Vita have seen a number of very good Japanese developed games come to their libraries over the years, but when you compare it to the heyday of the early 2000s, it's still not as vast.

Lately, though, with the swelling number of games that have been showing up on PC from Japanese developers and the constant uptick in announcements for more games to come, it feels like things are slowly starting to change. Sure, a considerable number of these are ports, especially stuff from the Vita and PS3, but we're also seeing it as a target platform for new releases with increasing regularity. Bandai Namco have been pumping out stuff on the PC for a while now with Dark Souls, Naruto games, and the Tales series leading the charge. Square-Enix has been porting more and more of their stuff to the platform. NIS America, XSEED, Idea Factory, Capcom, and legions of others are also bringing their games to PC.

It's feeling like a resurgence to the West to some extent as many of these games start to see a wider audience. Some of the PS3 and PS4 stuff would already get into quite a few people's hands, but with them coming to PC that's an even broader base who can and will plunk down their money on these games. Vita ports in particular are able to reap far better sales in the West by going this route because as snazzy as the handheld is, it just didn't catch on in this part of the world. Moreover, these games have the benefit of becoming relevant and easily accessible across multiple generations. They aren't shackled to a specific console, leaving fans at the mercy of publishers as to whether or not they'll add backward compatibility support for these games in future systems. Given the quite niche nature of some of these games, it can go either way in that regard.

So, it is nice that we're seeing more and more of these games come to PC and between announcements, leaks, and reliable rumors it looks like this trend will only increase in the future. However, even now, a few years after this whole practice started, we're still seeing a number of quick, down and dirty ports. A lot of companies are pretty much dumping their games on Steam without really giving them much polish. Koei Tecmo is particularly bad for this with a lot of half-assed ports of their games. Namco Bandai are still sketchy in this regard with fans like Durante often being the ones to enhance their games, getting resolution and the like up to spec for what PC gamers expect. Then there are are a number of others that could have used some tweaking before coming to Steam. A couple of examples would be Neptunia and Fairy Fencer F. I've been playing these lately, and they work fine, but they are both games that took the express train from Vita Land. Their keyboard and mouse controls feel barebones and the games handle much better with a traditional controller. Moreover, they have issues with the visuals, especially during cut scenes, that, while not overwhelming, are still noticeable enough to make me think, "Ah!" when they happen.

I'm really hoping that at some point Japanese publishers will start addressing things like this, and put a little more TLC into their PC versions. By the looks of things, I get the feeling that this will happen later rather than sooner as there are quite a few more ports coming down the pipe in the next few months that sound like quick conversions of older games. I'd love to be proven wrong, but will take a wait and see attitude for the time being.

There are a few occasions in recent months that are giving me some hope that this is slowly starting to change. The best example of this is Capcom's PC port of Dragon's Dogma. This is a game that really went above and beyond when doing this. It has a ton of graphic setting options (including an FOV slider which isn't all that necessary in third person games, but the gesture is appreciated nonetheless), giving us something that can run in very high resolutions and at 60FPS for those who want to push the game that hard. The game was ranking high on the Steam charts when it came out, so here's hoping that it does well and turns some heads not only at Capcom but also at other companies, encouraging them to take the next step and not only bring their games to the PC but also improve them for the platform.

In the end, it's great to see this shift from Japan where publishers were traditionally hesitant to put their games on PC. Now it looks like they're finally seeing that there is a demand for their games on the platform. Usually when something like Valkyrie Chronicles, Neptunia, or the like goes on sale, they see a big jump in the charts. Stuff like Tales of Zestria and Dragon's Dogma both had a fairly hefty contingent of folks who pre-ordered it. The demand is definitely there for more games from the region. It would just be nice if we could get a bit more polish and the technical options for them that most native PC games get. Hopefully, with time we'll see improvement on that front.

Spike Chunsoft Planning More PC Ports: Speculation Time!

The other day word got out that Danganronpa would be coming to PC via Steam in February and people were rather taken aback / pleasantly surprised by the news. It's a well-regarded visual novel that is a cross between Battle Royale and Phoenix Wright where students are trapped in their high school and the only way to escape is to kill one of their classmates and get away with it. First debuting on the Vita, the series has quite the cult following now, so this port is happy news indeed.

Now, word is getting out that the game's developer, Spike Chunsoft, are planning to bring more of their games to PC. The question, though, is which ones because they have a lot of them and many are quite good.

I suspect most folks will be clamoring for Zero Escape since that's the company's other big series. These had people trapped in a facility trying to escape as well, with a pronounced split between the visual novel and adventure elements of the games. If these games do come to PC, one of the questions on a lot of people's minds will be whether the 999 port is of the DS or iOS version of the game. If it's the latter, I can see some people having mixed feelings about it, but this is all idle speculation at this point.

After this, it's a hodgepodge of titles that seem plausible for release on Steam given that they mostly had Vita versions and that platform has been seeing a lot of PC ports over the last year or so. Games of this ilk that could come over include Exist Archive, a JRPG with some rather charming art, Shiren the Wanderer 5, which would make a lot of sense given how popular rogue-likes are these days, and the two Conception games.

It's really starting to look like Japanese developers are throwing the doors wide open for getting their games on Steam with all of these announcements of late, and now Spike Chunsoft expressing enthusiasm for it. My gut tells me that Zero Escape will be the other series that they focus on bringing over, but it's tough to say for certain given some of the very unexpected PC ports we've been getting. I'm not complaining, though, as I love these sorts of games. The more Japanese games we get on Steam, the better.

Lunar and Grandia Possibly Coming to Steam?

SteamDB is becoming quite the tasty place to spot games that may be coming to Steam in the future. We had a big batch of Arc System Works stuff spotted there a little while ago, and already Guilty Gear Xrd is up with the developer confirming a slew of other titles (Melty Blood! ♥).

Now a couple more interesting morsels have been spotted there: Lunar and Grandia. It certainly seems like a realistic possibility. Grandia II is already there, and Gung Ho tweeted about the sighting on the database themselves in a cheekily non-committal sort of way. Then again, they did have a survey not so long ago asking people what games from their library they'd like to see and folks screamed for both of these, so maybe they're listening and hooking us up.

Maybe this is a sign that Game Arts games are coming to PC on mass at some point. I certainly wouldn't complain. Grandia was an amazing series. Now, if we see Alisia Dragoon come along, I may just lose my mind.

The only problem I have is that there are so many RPGs coming out these days and so little time to play them. I want to be greedy and play everything but don't have a chamber that allows me to exist outside of time, so am forced to make choices. I hate that.

Interesting Leaks from the Steam Help Desk (FFX / FFX-2 HD, Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, Half Life 3)

Some folks have managed to get their mitts on some interesting data from Steam's Help Desk, suggesting a number of titles that may be coming to the platform in the not so distant future. Some of the more interesting games to appear on it include the HD remakes of Final Fantasy X and X-2, Guilty Gear Xrd - SIGN -, and Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 1-3. Both Danganronpa games also appear to be getting ports to PC.

Of course, the big stand out was data suggesting Half Life 3, but this just makes me question the validity of the whole leak. It just sounds too good to be true with this on it. Who hasn't wanted a new Half Life for the better part of forever as we patiently wait and watch Valve seemingly work on anything and everything but this. It's like the old poster Agent Mulder had in his office that read "I want to believe" except we replace the UFOs with Gordon Freeman.

Still, I'll at least raise an eyebrow and watch to see what happens here. Most of the other stuff sounds completely plausible. Square-Enix haven't been squeamish about bringing all of their Final Fantasy games to Steam, and I've been wondering when Guilty Gear Xrd would come along (Battle Fantasia is on Steam now for crying out loud), Danganronpa would make sense when one considers how many Vita ports have hit Steam of late, and Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, while unexpected, certainly doesn't seem like an unusual title to transition over.

The only big question mark is Half Life 3. So, all we can do is take a wait and see approach, watching whether any of these games really do appear on Steam or if it was all just a poorly informed rumor.

The Ultimate Troll Gift is Coming to Steam in 2016

It's always nice to have a bit of a cheeky giggle buying friends horrible games as gifts during a Steam sale. Login, slap down a few bucks on something ridiculous, send it their way, wait for the inevitable, "Thanks a lot, jerk!" reply, and having a good laugh after. Choosing just the right game is often a challenge. What will it be? How about that one where you raise unicorns? Hatoful Boyfriend is always good for a chuckle. Decisions, decisions.

Now making up your mind about what terrible game you want to send to a friend so that you can laugh at them and all of his or her other friends can judge them harshly has become a whole lot easier because Monster Monpiece is coming to Steam in 2016.

That's right. That game that helped the Vita make the leap from "Another failed Sony handheld" to "What kind of fucked up, sexual deviants make up this system's user base?" in the gaming sphere's collective mind share is making its way to PC, uncensored apparently.

I'm not going into too much detail about the game here, but one of the main mechanics on the Vita version was to aggressively rub the image of scantily clad anime girls (Wikipedia link here if you really do want to learn more). It's creepy as fuck, and just by looking at the animated GIF I've included with this article, it should give you an idea of the horrific rabbit hole that the game is leaping down, not to mention you'll probably have to register as a sex offender in some states just for looking at that horrible thing.

So, get those credit cards ready to put some friendships to the test! A new age in Steam gift trolling is almost upon us.

Quick Thoughts: Mushihimesama on Steam

A while ago, there was that announcement that Cave's shoot 'em ups were going to start making their way onto Steam. It's been about a week since the first of these appeared there, and they went with Mushihimesama. I was wondering what game they would choose, and figured it would probably be either this or one of their Dodonpachi games since these are their most well known series. Of course, I wasted no time in picking it up because Cave shmups are amazing, and, minor technical issues aside, it's been a lot of fun playing this on my PC.

There are a few game modes including Novice, Normal, and Arrange. They're pretty self explanatory with Novice being a slightly toned down version of the game for those new to bullet hell shooters. Normal is just as you would expect, and Arrange has different music, tons of bullets (but a smaller hit box on your character), and crazy high scores. I've been spending most of my time in Arrange mode because all of the bullets flying around have me thinking, "Weeeeeeee!" the whole time I'm playing, and there's something immensely satisfying about seeing the big numbers flashing on-screen as they're added to my score.

Some folks have run into technical issues, myself included, however. The big thing that I was hit with is trying to get the game to run in fullscreen, as it left my monitor black with sound still working and no way to exit it. Even alt-tabbing had no effect, so there was no alternative but to force the computer to shutdown by holding down the power button. There have also been some issues with frame rate and resolution, but these as well as other problems are already being addressed by Degica. The game is still plenty playable on my end so long as I do so in windowed mode, but it would be nice to see these tweaks get implemented as soon as possible.

Just in terms of soaking in the atmosphere of Mushihimesama, though, it's great. It just screams of the arcades from the art, to the music, and all of the stuff happening on the screen. Whenever I'm in Japan I make a point of playing this game at one of the arcades I like to pop by there, so it's nice to have a legitimate way of experiencing this at home.

It's hard not to smile while dodging all of the bullets are whizzing by, with the music blasting. I'm not very good at these games, but they're exhilarating to play, and pretty darn satisfying as one gets used to them and progress becomes noticeable. I'd even say that Mushihimesama is a pretty good game to look into for people who want something a little more entry level for bullet hell shmups. The Novice mode is great for introducing players to the genre, while Normal is a nice, logical progression to harder content, especially if playing it on Maniac setting or higher.

I'm certainly having a good time with the game, and it's been getting far more play time than a lot of other shmups in my library right now. It's great for a nice time waster or serious progress, depending on how you want to approach the game, or just soak in Mushihimesama's atmosphere. There really is a lot to enjoy here, and it's doing a lot to renew my interest in shoot 'em ups. Now I'm just curious what Cave game will show up on Steam next.

Freedom Planet and Waxing Nostalgic for the Genesis

After being engaged in a grueling staring contest with it as the game sat in my Steam library for months, I've finally gotten around to playing Freedom Planet. Its aesthetic had caught my eyes as it screamed 16-bit. The character designs, the environments, and the use of color all brought back a flood of memories from the heyday of the Sega Genesis. The game really does bare a resemblance Sonic the Hedgehog and it isn't just how it looks but to some extent how FP plays as well, as it does go for the "Gotta go fast!" mentality that is so prevalent from Sega's series. All the while, there's an element of exploration from trying to find all of the collectibles scattered around a level. Part of me kept thinking that I should be annoyed by this while playing the game because it does make for bit of a stilted experience from all the zipping around at full throttle, then slamming on the breaks to look for stuff. However, that just wasn't the case. The ambience of the game, combined with the platforming, and boss fights made me enjoy FP quite a bit and overlook that.

For someone who quite likes revisiting games of old and has a soft spot for the Genesis, FP really is something special. It can't be said enough how much the developers nailed the whole 16-bit Sega era in terms of visuals and animation here. The game looks like something straight out of 1994 or so when games on the Genesis were starting to look really good. There's a lot of detail without going overboard, smooth animation, and the color palette really pops off the screen.

The levels are actually really big. While there's a clock counting up from the start of each stage, I quickly began to ignore it. Exploration has always been a big thing to me, as I've mentioned before while playing Skyrim, so poking around and finding all of the things was far more of a priority than speed running the game to complete stages in as little time as possible. I'd go so far as to say that speed running the story mode levels on the first playthrough does FP a disservice. A lot of the fun comes from poking around trying to find everything, It brings back a lot of memories of playing Metroid and games of that ilk, just methodically checking every nook and cranny.

About the only area of the game that left me with mixed feelings was the voice acting. While it is very good, there's just so much of it. The cut scenes are very long in FP. They have a Saturday morning cartoon vibe to them, and do bring out the occasional chuckle, but they really do a number on the game's pacing. After downing the boss for a level, while I do like a bit of a break for advancing the story, a bit more brevity would have done wonders here. This is pretty much the one area where they game falters for me.

While the voice acting was a bit much, the music is amazing, and I can't get enough of it. The composer really nailed the feel of 16-bit platformer soundtracks. Thematically it's spot on, and the instrumentation does an interesting job of straddling itself between the bleepy bloopiness of the 90s and more current sounds. It's easily one of my favorite soundtracks to come along in the last few years.

With the huge wave of pseudo retro games to come out in recent years, there's just so much to choose from. Action games, RPGs, platformers, adventure games, you name it. Players have some hard choices to make when considering picking up a game of this ilk, but I'd definitely have to recommend Freedom Planet. It does so many things right when it comes to recapturing the feel of Genesis-era action platformers. If you like Sonic and have a soft spot for video games of the early 90s, you owe it to yourself to check this game out.

Random Game Talk: Truck Racer

Oh my, a video went up! In this one Jeff talks about Truck Racer. ^_^

Cave Shooters Coming to Steam...Finally...

Games from Japanese studios have been getting a lot of love on Steam over the last few years. Sure a lot of them have been frame rate locked or rushed console ports, but for many folks they've been willing to overlook this, and have happily tossed money at these releases. One exception to this gold rush has been Cave, one of the most popular, well-respected bullet hell shooter developers out there. They have a gargantuan library of amazing games in this genre that either stayed in arcades, got limited console releases, or, even more vexing, got ported to mobile phones. Now it looks like the studio has finally decided to bring their games to Steam via publisher Degica.

There isn't a whole lot to go on so far with just a single web page saying this is all happening in the Winter. So, now is the time for speculation. Which games will we see appear on there? I'd assume we'll get Death Smiles, probably a Dodonpachi, maybe a Mushihimesama, and what about Akai Katana? I'm sure a lot of people would kill to see Ketsui come to Steam. On top of this, if the initial batch of games do well, will Cave consider porting some of their older titles? It would be nice to see Espgaluda, Dangun Feveron, or Progear get release, though with some of those games, they had outside publishers like Atlus or Capcom, so I'm not sure who owns the rights to the games and if any sort of legal wrangling would be in order if they were to get ported to PC.

In any case, something shump fans on the PC have wanted for a very long time is finally about to come to fruition. It took a while, but it's better late than never. All we can do now is wait and guess which games will get released first.

I'd Buy That for a Dollar: Magical Drop V

Sometimes I like cruising Steam to see what sort of stuff they have available for dirt cheap. Is the game horrible? Underrated? Is it a half-assed mobile phone port being snuck into the library? Sometimes it turns out that the game is actually pretty decent; it's just that for whatever reason the publisher has it up for a buck. Such was the case with Magical Drop V. I'd played some of the older games in the series from back in the 90s, and enjoyed those, so I got to wondering why this installment was so cheap. As it turns out, it was rushed to market and wound up being a buggy mess. Folks were rather peeved by this, and it wound up getting mixed reviews, relegating it to some far flung, long-forgotten fringe of the Steam catalog. However, years later the game appears to work just fine. At least it does for me. So, what I got out of the deal was a fun little puzzler for essentially a sack of nickles and a button.

A Matter of Opinion: The Declining Relevance of Traditional Reviews

Over the summer, some pretty dramatic changes came to Steam. While plenty of them instantly plunged me into Curmudgeonly Old Man Who Hates Change mode, there was one thing that I really liked. For the longest time, it was possible to sort games in a given category by review score, whereby games would be listed in ascending or descending order by their Metacritic score. With the Steam update, this was changed so that user reviews were used instead.

Confessions of a Steam Sale Junkie

Jeff and Aaron offer insights about themselves and what Steam has become in light of the recent Steam Summer Sale.

So, we're in the wake of yet another Summer Steam Sale, and people were getting all excited about picking up games on the cheap that they'd been meaning to get for a while. For the first time ever, I found myself not really participating in it. I got all of one game, and couldn't be bothered to go back and see what else was been on offer.

Talking with several of my friends, their stories have been the same. In years past, they gorged themselves on all sorts of different titles, going along with the running gag about Steam sales where "You can even play the games after you buy them!" And play them we did, but seldom to completion, or even to the halfway mark. Often it was a few hours of futzing around before heading off to play one of the other games we'd grabbed and tossed into our ever more bulging libraries.

Review: Resident Evil 4 Ultimate HD Edition (PC)

The position held by Resident Evil 4 in the annals of video games is unassailable at this point. Originally launched way back in 2005, the game has been re-purposed, refined, and re-released across multiple platforms so in 2014 it feels somewhat unfair to be reviewing it now in light of the all the games of a similar play style that has been released in the intervening years, especially when a lot of those games have done it better.

Blackguards Early Access Impressions (PC)

Jeff's been fiddling around in turn-based strategy game Blackguards since it hit Steam's Early Access recently, and gives some early impressions of what's planned for the game.

Legends of Eisenwald Early Access Impressions (PC)

Fans of turn-based strategy games such as Heroes of Might and Magic and King's Bounty may want to keep an eye on Legends of Eisenwald, as it appears to be heavily influenced by these classic series.  In the video below, Jeff gives some preliminary thoughts on the game as it recently entered Steam's Early Access program.

Valdis Story: Abyssal City Quick Impressions (PC)

Today Jeff takes a look at Valdis Story, a 2D action adventure game in the spirit of classics like Castlevania and Metroid.  The game also recently got approved on Steam's Greenlight service, and will show up in the store some time in the future.

Underrail Early Access Impressions (PC)

Isometric RPGs were a big thing back in the day with games like Fallout, Icewind Dale, and Baldur's Gate leading the charge.  Recently Underrail appeared on Steam's Early Access service, and it looks to be trying to recapture some of the magic from those titles, especially Fallout.  Jeff's spent a bit of time fiddling around in the game and gives some early thoughts on what he's come across so far.