I love artsy games. Sometimes it’s nice just to sit back and play a casual game that is a visual treat. Gris is one of these games. Like many other games before it, it offers tight gameplay but a short and sweet experience. There’s really no story here, and you have to make what you can of the story based on context only. You play as a woman who loses her voice to a dark force that seems to swallow up all the color in the world. It’s your job to get that color back and your voice back. That’s the only thing I got out of this entire game, story-wise. I wanted something more; there are games that have told breathtaking stories in just context alone, such as Journey, but what’s here is fine.
The game is broken up into three levels based on colors. In the color red, you gain the ability to weigh things down. You jump around platforms and have to figure out various platforming puzzles. Using your abilities, you must navigate the area to acquire stars to unlock the next section and finish the level. These are rather clever, and I never got stuck, but I was challenged. I had to think, and it quickly clicked after a few tries throughout the game on most puzzles. The controls are great and are not floaty or slippery. The girl has nice momentum with the ability to glide, double jump, and swim, which are all acquired throughout the game.
The second level, Green, is probably the easiest and most laid-back level. There aren’t many platforming puzzles, but there are challenges instead that require good timing. You find a woodland creature companion part way through, and you use him for a few challenges, but this level was not difficult. I acquired the double jump ability here, and this opened up more challenges.
The final level, Blue, is a mix of underwater and upside-down platforming, and the levels are labyrinthine and challenging. I didn’t get too lost in this level, but I did wander around a little more than I wanted to. You have to use everything you learned to beat this level, and that includes platforming challenges that combine all of your abilities and precise timing. This game isn’t quite a breeze, as it did work my brain a bit, which is nice. Throughout the game, there are a couple of scripted chase scenes with the dark void that took your voice, which changes the pace up a bit, but overall it’s very nicely paced, and I was able to play all 3 hours in one sitting and was sucked in.
While the game lacks in story, it makes up for it in gameplay with challenging platforming, some puzzles, and a gorgeous watercolor art style that is just a joy to look at every second you are in the game. This is Gris’ main draw: his eye-catching art style. I wanted to know more about this mysterious girl, but we just got platforming instead. Oh well, as it stands, it’s a must-play for fans of games like Journey or The Unfinished Swan. I had a blast, and while the game itself wasn’t memorable, the art style is striking enough to remember.
The ’90s were a crazy and nostalgic time on the internet. Web pages full of low-resolution GIFs, viruses, profile pages, and overall teen angst. There’s no other time like the 90’s internet space, and Hypnospace captures that perfectly in an exaggerated style. Retro/Vapor/Synthwave-type aesthetics flood your screen with an actual simulated 90’s PC with HypnOS installed on it. From the crazy wallpapers, low-resolution everything, desktop pets, crazy profile pages, and cult/group pages. This game is fun for those who love to explore.
You play as a Hypnospace Enforcer who runs around the net, finding violations. This is quite fun, but it takes some getting used to figuring out how to use the desktop and OS. Figuring out shortcuts, the buttons, and everything that came with a real 90’s OS is part of the fun. You will get case files and have to report things like copyright violations, malware, harassment, and others. Once you do find the right thing to report, usually it’s through hints. To get you started, you have to read various pages and figure out where to go. This is Hypnospace’s biggest flaw. I was constantly lost and couldn’t figure out what to report, and nothing was very clear. There are a lot of hidden messages (literally) that must be uncovered, and using search terms to find hidden pages is also a must. Once I finally found the page, you just selected the right violation and smacked the hammer on the part of the page. It’s satisfying once you do, and once a user gains enough violation points, you can report their page.
After every case, you get coins, which can be used for various things throughout the net, which is mostly just for fun. Once you close a case, you get a bonus if you find all the violations. There are about 8 cases, and after this, the story starts evolving into a Y2K terrorist attack by a teen, but the evil corporation that HypnOS is run by is also in question. Once the final case is solved, you can optionally explore the archived files. A few people need help discovering the true reason behind the terrorist attack. This is very difficult, and I can’t even tell if I finished that endgame part, as I stopped getting emails in my inbox even after looking at a walkthrough. The main story can be completed fairly quickly unless you are constantly getting lost, like I was.
There are other small details like downloading files and installing programs, using antivirus (90’s anti-virus programs were archaic), exploring MP3 pirate scenes, getting viruses, and seeing them mess with your computer—even small details like going into the BIOS and changing the settings. There’s a lot of love that went into this game, and it shows at every corner. You can even drag things into a recycle bin and rearrange your desktop icons, and the best parts are when the system glitches out and crashes.
Overall, Hypnospace Outlaw is a fun game for those who grew up on the 90’s internet, and for younger players, it is a great insight into it. The game is full of humor, intriguing puzzles, and fun pages to explore and read. The biggest issue is just getting lost and not knowing where to go or what to do half the time. I loved the aesthetic of a virtual 1990’s PC, and this is definitely a game worth exploring for those interested.
I’m not the biggest JRPG fan, as I don’t like grinding or the typical tropes that go along with them. They are usually extremely bloated, with dozens of hours added just in battles alone, and this is why I only play them if they have a particular something that stands out, albeit the story or the gameplay. Trials of Mana stands out as neither of those, but it does everything in a neatly tightened JRPG package that cuts out the fat and streamlines the genre for the modern world.
The story is nothing to write home about, but it isn’t bad either. You can choose between six different characters, with three being in your party. Each character has class specializations, and this is important when your class is balanced out. It’s recommended to have a fighter, magician, and middle ground class. I chose Reisz, Duncan, and Angela for my playthrough, and it worked out perfectly. The overall story revolves around the typical JRPG plot of saving the world from an evil entity. The Goddess of Mana is being targeted by a particular evil force and wants to be the only existing god. There are other evil kingdoms racing to get the Sword of Mana, which is said to hold untold powers. Yeah, it’s trite and barely interesting, and towards the end of the game, there aren’t many cut scenes left. The English voice acting, in particular, is incredibly bad, so please do yourself a favor and enable the Japanese voice-overs. The characters themselves are very likeable with great designs, and they stand out and are somewhat memorable. They have typical JRPG hero personalities, but I grew to like them nonetheless.
Let’s dive right into battle. Trials of Mana is a real-time battle system played out in closed-off areas. Once you are in sight of a creature, the game surrounds you with a barrier that you can escape from by running toward or just fighting it out. There are heavy and light attacks, as well as the same while in the air. Once you progress far enough and depending on your class, you will unlock moves that are class-specific and consume MP, and then there are class strikes. These strikes use up stamina that is acquired as crystals that enemies drop when attacked. These strikes are powerful, and you get a new one with each new class. These must be strategically timed with boss battles, as they are essential to winning and doing massive damage. Battles overall are intense and fun, with the ability to adjust your AI mates in the Strategy section of the menu. Here you can adjust how often they use their strikes, moves, items, and how to focus on enemies. This is really important to adjust for later boss fights.
While combat is fluid, looks good, and is probably what you will be doing 85% of the time in the game, it is essentially very simple and may seem dull to people who are used to more Western RPGs with more action. While it works in the context of this game, it beats the hell out of random encounters. Leveling up also occurs rather quickly, and the use of cookies allows you to gain additional XP, but these are rare. There really isn’t much in terms of exploring or hidden items, as most chests contain standard items, seeds, and rarely armor or weapons. Seeds are actually an essential part of the game and are required in order to get Class 3. These seeds are grown in pots in inns or near certain Mana (save) statues. These range from item seeds to illusive question mark seeds that drop talismans needed to get to class 3 to rainbow seeds, which have high-end armor and weapons. You can level up the box by planting more seeds, thus dropping rarer items.
Of course, you can buy most things in towns and the single-night market, as well as reset your skill points there. Leveling up is a big deal in this game, and you can allocate points towards various stats like strength, stamina, intelligence, and so on. I highly recommend leveling up where you want your character to be strong and saving your points once you reach the cap for that class level. Once your class is up, you will have tons of points to advance your character even further without wasting them on stats you don’t need to focus on. Getting a higher class also grants a new costume and access to higher-level weapons and armor, in addition to more ability slots. Leveling up stats grants abilities that add passive stats, such as healing after battles, additional damage when entering them, sacrificing HP for additional damage, etc. The great thing is that these abilities are shared amongst all characters once unlocked, allowing you to really customize your style.
Exploring the Trials of Mana is fine, but not wholly necessary. Exploring only gets you basic items, and the very rare weapon or armor piece and the question mark seeds in Chapter 5 are needed to get to class 3. Grinding is also very minimal in this game, as you will mostly stay just behind or ahead of the current area demand. I recommend staying above two levels of the next boss; it will make life much easier, and you will chew through fewer healing items. The levels are very linear as well, and it’s hard to get lost as a golden star will always lead you to your objective as well as on the map. I have to commend Square for implementing this, as one of my biggest issues with JRPGs outside of random battles is never knowing where the hell to go. This allows you to just enjoy the game and not worry about whether or not you’ve been going the wrong way for the last hour.
With all of that said, Trials of Mana also looks fantastic. While not groundbreaking, it has bright visuals, detailed textures, high-poly models, and great animations. The effects are slick, and the bosses are very well designed. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of regular enemies as they are just standard JRPG fodder like rabbits, slime, knights, dragons, and various fantasy creatures, they do require strategy as each has different attacks and debuff effects. So with that said, Trials of Mana won’t change the minds of those who don’t like JRPGs, but those who love them will truly enjoy it. I finished the game and even continued to the additional optional chapter that can grant New Game+ if completed. This is one of two Super Bosses and requires a level 75 party. This final dungeon is about an hour long and combines a piece of every area you have visited in the game into one mega-dungeon. It’s a challenge and fun, and I recommend completing it. Trials of Mana is one of my favorite JRPGs of the last decade, and I can easily recommend it to most people.
Oh boy, this review has been 22 years in the making. I have been trying to finish this game since I was 8 years old, but I just could not do it. I will admit, I’m not the best JRPG player, as I don’t have the patience to do insane amounts of grinding and play into the earlier Final Fantasy game’s crazy summon hunting. FF8 eluded me for so many years because of one thing: the junction system. I absolutely love the characters, art, and story in this game, but the Junction system nearly ruins it for me. And yes, I had to play with cheats and boosters activated, and even then, I almost couldn’t finish the game.
I did, however, play the game normally. I collected spells, tried to get Guardians when I could, leveled up a good amount, and finally got past disc 2! The issue lies in the overall complicated nature of FF8‘s systems. You no longer just buy weapons and armor and change them out when you get to the next town. Instead, you collect spell cards that are finite, and they can be traded amongst other members. In theory, this sounds fine, but it’s hard to strategize a specific player role when everyone can use magic. Some argue that you can give certain spells to certain characters and break it all up the way you want, but this is flawed because if you don’t collect cards found throughout the world or stolen from enemies, you don’t get to use any magic.
Weapons are only upgraded this time by using parts found on monsters, but a lot of these parts are hard to find, and to upgrade to a new weapon, you must find a magazine to unlock the weapon. This just keeps piling up the frustration as it hinders progress. Characters also have overdrives, which are powerful, unique moves, but some characters, like Rinoa and Quistis, can only acquire new ones by using certain items or finding magazines. FF8 heavily relies on exploration and patience; this is not a game you can just blow through in story mode like previous games. The Junction system also functions as a way to equip Guardians, which are bosses found hidden throughout the world. I only found about half, as the other half requires exploring the overworld map and finding their hidden locations. Accompany this with insanely frequent random battles, and you will spend 2/3 of your time in the game just battling.
If this doesn’t sound complicated enough, there are hidden features not explained in the game, such as being able to “Card Mod” only using Quezacotl’s ability. This allows players to turn found enemy cards into items that are then used to turn into weapons, but this is a very obscure out-of-the-way thing for such an important gameplay element. FF8 is riddled with things like this, and learning the Junction system is like learning math. It was boring, not fun, and incredibly frustrating, and just imagine that as a kid, there’s no way I would have understood any of it. Even after I finished the game, I still felt I hadn’t quite grasped it all and had missed something.
Outside of the awful (or good) Junction system, the rest of the game is standard Final Fantasy. Turn-based battles allow you to do various attacks and use items, and there’s an option for real-time battles or waiting. Players also need to make sure they equip actual functions for each player; otherwise, you can only attack. GF use, items, and magic are all optional attacks that you can choose, but you can only have 4 menus. Another irritating thing about the Junction system. You must sacrifice GF use if you want to use items and magic, for example. FF8 is also standard, with an awful overworld map. This map has no camera controls and is horribly designed. It’s a 3D map, but eventually, you get into a ship, then a car, then a giant flying ship to traverse faster. This is when you can explore more and find guardians.
Let’s finally talk about the story and characters. FF8 has some of the most memorable characters, including Seifer, Squall, Rinoa, Quistis, and Selphie, just to name a few. They are all well-written and designed characters, and I cared for them greatly throughout the entire game. There are long written dialog bubbles that go on for dozens of minutes sometimes, but the mix of pre-rendered cut scenes with real-time models on top is a trip even to this day. There are some imaginative scenes in this game, and it’s a shame it’s hindered by the disc space of the PS1. The story in itself is one of the most controversial in the series, with no real ending being explained, and it is open to fan theory. I won’t get into those, but after reading some theories online, they made a lot of sense, and it’s a good story to talk about long after finishing.
But, also like Final Fantasy games, it’s heavily unbalanced, with the final boss having four whole phases and requiring you to be an insane level towards the end that normal story progression won’t get you towards. Even with boosters activated, I still got stuck and was required to level up normally, and the game could easily take 50+ hours just to finish properly. I can’t bash the game for this, as there’s a huge audience for it, but it’s not for me. One of the few things I won’t knock this game for is how much of a hardcore RPG it truly is. This is a game you must play exclusively for days or weeks and just grind out, and some people love this. The story is thankfully rewarding enough, and after finishing a tough boss, the satisfaction is exemplary.
Overall, FF8 is a strange game indeed. With an awful or good Junction system that changes everything you know about the game, one thing can’t be denied: it’s too complicated. The game looks fantastic, with amazing pre-rendered scenes, great enemy design, a superb music score, and classic gameplay. For me, there’s just too much that keeps it from being fun outside of the story. I often gave up on this game for years, and even with boosters, the game is still a grindfest. However, if you like those things, then you will love this game. When it comes to the remastered part of the game, it disappoints. The game suffers from the same issues as the Final Fantasy IX Remaster, with updated character models on upscaled original backgrounds. It’s a lazy remaster with only new music and some boosts added. There’s no widescreen support or anything else.
America loves to romanticize the police. Despite the political environment we are in, the only way we can really satisfy our lust for crime and murder mysteries is to put ourselves in the shoes of the police. L.A. Noire is set in an almost historically accurate 1940s Los Angeles, right after WWII ended. You play as war veteran/detective Cole Phelps, solving a drug mystery and many murder mysteries within.
The game starts out like any typical open-world game by slowly introducing gameplay elements to you before opening the world up. You are Cole, a beat cop who is called to a murder scene. You chase down a suspect, investigate some clues in an alley, and you’re so good at what you do that you magically get promoted to traffic detective. L.A. Noire has a few core elements, and it mostly sticks to these throughout the game ad nauseum. The first element is crime-solving. This is done by picking up various objects in an area, examining them, and moving on. This sounds interesting in theory, but 90% of all objects in this game are completely useless and really don’t need to be picked up and examined. There are maybe one or two objects that are puzzle boxes and a couple of documents that require you to tap on certain information. It’s cool the first time you do all of this, but after that, it’s boring and feels pointless. Make the objects I’m holding more interesting, or allow Cole to do more than twirl them around.
The next core element is interrogations, and this implements Team Bondi’s groundbreaking motion capture technology that actually makes facial animations lifelike, but in a creepy, uncanny valley type of way. Sure, you see neck muscles move, eyebrows twitch, and it all looks nice, but on hardware that couldn’t run the engine very well, these realistic life-like faces look odd on low-textured and poly-counted characters. The whole point of an investigation is to use these facial expressions to determine whether someone is lying or telling the truth, and it never works as intended. There is no set thing that the game gives you to look for, and it always becomes a guessing game or a crapshoot. Most of the time, the logic never makes sense based on what the game wants or is hyper-specific. A certain question may seem like selecting Good Cop would be a good idea because that’s what your guts tell you, but instead, you were to accuse the suspect and pick a piece of evidence that you never would have guessed. The interrogations are an awful guessing game, and I never felt engaged like the developers wanted.
The next part of L.A. Noire is about exploring and gunplay. Firefights are mundane and feel pretty lifeless. There is a cover system, and the weapons shoot, but they all feel the same, and there’s no feedback or satisfaction from firing these WWII-era weapons. Each firefight is a whack-a-mole-style shooting gallery of enemies popping their heads above cover. When you’re not shooting, you’re chasing people or driving around. Driving is one of the worst parts of the game as compared to Rockstar’s other offerings; it feels stiff, slow, and lifeless, and I had no fun driving around the city. Sure, Los Angeles looks pretty good with some great landmarks, but having a piece of a fence bring my car to a complete stop is nonsense. I can ram through a fire hydrant, but a wooden fence will stop my car dead in its tracks. The driving is inconsistent, and even car chases are no fun.
There are 40 side missions called “Streets of LA,” but these are just various car chases, shooting galleries, or on-foot chases that repeat and become stale and annoying. Thankfully, there’s a fast travel system that allows your partner to drive to the next destination to skip all the boring driving. I understand this is a realistic game, but Mafia did it much better. There are 95 different cars in the game, but they honestly all drive the same, and it just becomes no fun after the first hour of the game is over. There are other side objectives, like finding hidden badges, all the landmarks, and trophies, but why bother? Anything outside of the story cases is just completely boring and stiff; there’s a layer of polish that’s seriously missing.
Lastly, we come to the story and characters. Nearly every character is completely unlikeable in the sense that they are just plain boring. Cole Phelps is a goodie-two-shoes who can do no wrong and has zero character flaws, which makes him very unlikable. His partners on the four desks you work on are also just as poorly written. I hated them, but not because they were written so well that I wanted to hate them. They were just so average, too, Mary Sue. One partner was just a lazy asshole cop and never budged from that stereotype; another was just corrupt, and the issue is that there was no development. There is no back story to any of these characters, and Phelps’ flashbacks to WWII did nothing to make you care for him, as he acted just as stubborn and perfect as he did as a cop. For the game being a noire, there is zero character build-up or any reason to care. The overarching story doesn’t actually pick up speed until the last few cases, as each and every case drones on and on and is exactly the same as the last, just in different orders. I never once felt interested in or attached to any one case. Give me fewer cases and build up the victims within so I can feel like the boring twists are worthwhile.
And that’s where I conclude with L.A. Noire. It’s just “okay.” Each of the many cases feels rudimentary in the end and mundane, and I felt like I was just checking off boxes (literally) and had no reason to care for the first or last murder case. The driving is painfully stiff and slow, and despite 1940s Los Angeles looking nice, it’s stale and boring with nothing going on inside. You can’t even shop for clothes or buy weapons. It’s just a giant hub to get from point A to point B. Streets of L.A. side missions are just randomized gameplay loops of chasing, shooting, and driving, with neither of the three being particularly interesting in their own right. So, is L.A. Noire worth playing? Sure, it’s a fun game, and some of the cases are decent, and I did want to see what happened to Phelps in the end, but just barely. After getting so far in the game, I felt like I had to finish it, hoping it would pick up in the next case. The game plays and looks great on Switch, but it has performance issues and bugs that require game restarts. The framerate can dip into single digits in certain spots, but it’s still very playable.
A Switch console that can’t be switched. Preposterous right? Well, not exactly. When the controversy stirred up about the Lite not being able to be docked came about, I wasn’t on board with that. The Switch is a portable system as well, and that’s its main appeal. Nintendo’s data also shows that a good majority of Switch owners use it exclusively in handheld mode. The Switch itself isn’t the best handheld device. It’s very large, a little heavier than a large iPad, and the Joy-Cons aren’t that great (sorry they aren’t). When I can, I always use the Switch in tabletop mode with a Pro Controller, or I just keep it docked. When I saw that there was a slightly more powerful, smaller version, I was actually excited.
When holding the switch, you notice everything right away. The console is about a third of the weight of the original console, thanks to the attached Joy-Cons. Yes, people complained about the Joy-Cons not being detachable, but at that point, just buy the regular Switch, yeah? The buttons actually feel better than the Joy-Cons themselves. We get an actual D-pad, not chiclet buttons, tighter joysticks, and better-feeling shoulder buttons. The screen is slightly smaller, but in the format, you won’t notice. It just looks slick and like it was always meant to be played this way.
Outside of the slick form factor (it’s just a joy to hold and use), the system boasts better battery life than the original Switch, but an hour or two less than the revised model. The original Switch’s battery life was pretty bad, with most games only lasting 3–4 hours. The system still has 5Ghz internet speed, an SD card slot, and a game card slot. This isn’t a digital-only switch, which they could have easily done but didn’t. Outside of all of this, physically, the system is rock solid and is only missing the ability to dock. If you can only afford or wish to have one Switch, think about how much you will use the system in handheld mode. If the answer is most of the time, I would pick this guy up instead, honestly. The system isn’t more powerful than the original model but has a more efficient processor, allowing for better battery life. My only main complaint is that the system doesn’t have HD rumble, so you would need to connect Joy-Cons or a Pro Controller to have that feature. It really stinks, and I miss it, but with all the other pros, it outweighs this major con.
I do have to mention that the system only comes with 32GB of onboard memory, which is a shame, but large microSD cards are under $30 these days, so it’s not an issue. The $100 price tag difference is great, so with a 128GB SD card, the system still costs less than the original model. I don’t have much else to say about the system except that the new colors and overall sleekness of the system just look better than the original. That flat black tablet against brighter colors didn’t look too hot, but this new portable system with a universal color scheme just looks sharp. I haven’t seen a better-looking handheld since the PSP was released 14 years ago. While the 2DS XL looks super sharp as well, this is clearly Nintendo’s replacement for the 3DS; they just haven’t officially announced it yet.
If you do own two Switch systems, I highly recommend having a Nintendo Online account, as cloud saves can be transferred between the two systems easily, so you don’t have to manually transfer the saves every time. As far as I know, the only game as of this writing that can’t do that is Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Sadly, the game data can’t be transferred, so you’re stuck downloading all the software again. Overall, the system has a slightly smaller screen, but it doesn’t feel smaller due to the overall lighter form factor, and the speakers are surprisingly really good as well.
It was strange that Nintendo would pick up an M-rated property, especially one that is as sexualized and gory as Bayonetta. The original game put Platinum Games on the map as a great hack and slash developer. The game was bombastic, fun, hard, fast-paced, and very memorable. The flashy combat and memorable personality and style of Bayonetta herself made her one of the most popular and well-known characters of the last generation.
Bayonetta 2 tries to capitalize on that, but on Nintendo’s home consoles. Thankfully, none of the sex appeal or gore has been toned down, which is a huge shock and was what most people were expecting—more of a teen-rated experience or heavily censored. What we get is the same sexiness, blood, and guts as the original. Now, I was never a huge fan of Bayonetta’s story, which is a bit convoluted. I didn’t quite understand the story until towards the end, but Bayonetta is an Umbran Witch who is the Left Eye of God, and the Right Eyes (Lunar Witches) are part of some sort of prophecy. The Aesir God is trying to destroy humans (it’s heavily Norse-based), and Bayonetta is trying to stop said God from doing so. There are a couple of new characters thrown in, but I didn’t care much for the story. It’s a confusing mess, honestly.
What’s great, though, is the combat, and there’s plenty of it. Light and heavy attacks combined with a ranged attack make for some of the best combat on this side of Devil May Cry. Bayonetta is so agile and looks so good bouncing around on the screen, and the controls are incredibly responsive. The key to the battles is the Witch Time dodge mechanic that’s used right before enemies strike. It’s so satisfying to get into a rhythm of slowing down for a couple of seconds and attacking. Each enemy has its own attack pattern, and you quickly learn when to dodge and slow downtime to build up your witch time, which is then triggered to unleash heavy attacks. This tight combat system isn’t very deep, but it’s hard to master, especially with new moves to purchase. I found myself noticing that you must master this dodge technique or you won’t get very far. It’s the only way to really dodge attacks., but because you have to heavily rely on it, that forces you to master it, which can make it a core part of the combat system.
The combat goes a little further with torture attacks that are optional instead of unleashing your Umbran attack. These are small, quick-time events and awesomely brutal death scenes for the demons and angels. Bosses have their own unique torture attack that triggers at the end of battles. Speaking of bosses, I have to say I think there are too many here. Almost every level is either a boss only or consists of multiple bosses, from main to mini-bosses. I also think that for the short length of the game, there are too many enemies here. A new enemy is introduced at nearly every level, and they don’t really mix them up much. With so many new enemies, you just start to learn their attack patterns, and you may never see them again outside of the mini-bosses.
Outside of combat, Bayonetta doesn’t do much. The levels are highly linear, with only one way to really go. You can explore a couple of side paths for hidden items that unlock costumes, weapons, and more. There are Muspelheim missions, which are challenges spread throughout the game that grant Moon Pearls (Witch Time upgrades) and hearts (life upgrades). There are memory challenges that require you to gather pieces of a chest before time runs out, and these are nice little distractions. There are a couple of levels that have you power a mech and fly a plane, but they are short and not sprinkled in enough. The game doesn’t feel as varied as the first one, and I quickly found myself just mowing down boss after boss, waiting for something new to happen.
I loved unlocking Nintendo-themed costumes, mixing up my weapons to create a unique playstyle, and watching Bayonetta never gets dull, but it just didn’t feel as memorable as the first game; something felt off. It somehow felt too repetitive towards the end, and I became exhausted with the onslaught of bosses, with some repeating multiple times throughout the game. There are co-op Witch Trials, which are nice and all, but the core game just doesn’t feel as memorable despite how great it is.
The game looks amazing, though, and is still one of the best-looking Switch games to date. The framerate is up there at 60 or close to it with no slowdowns. Textures and models look fantastic, and the art style is just beautiful and really makes Bayonetta stand out on its own artistically. I did feel some environments kind of blurred together, but overall, it’s a treat to look at. Bayonetta 2 remains one of the best games on Switch, and hack and slash games of this caliber are far and few.
I just want to start with a simple fact: I’m not the biggest Pokemon fan. I grew up with Pokemon in the late 90’s and early 2000s and stopped caring around Gen 3 when I was about 12–13 years old. I followed Pokemon afterward, but the card collecting and anime watching had pretty much stopped. My wife, on the other hand, continues to be a huge Pokemon fan to this day. This is actually the first Pokemon game I have ever finished, including getting the legendary Pokemon. It was a chore, I will admit. It was enjoyable sometimes, and other times I put the game away for a couple of months. It was kind of exciting, then sometimes just plain boring. So, this review isn’t coming from a raging fanboy or a complete hater, so hopefully this review will help people on the fence.
I’ve played nearly every other game in the series, but not for long. I love the idea of running around a world catching monsters, but the problem is that the series falls under 30-year-old JRPG tropes that still haven’t really gone away. My biggest hate with JRPGs, in general, is random battles. I feel they are time fillers—something to pad an extra 50 hours onto a 30-hour adventure. I want to explore more, and these random battles prevent that when they’re happening every 5–10 seconds. It makes me want to give up, and I usually won’t play JRPGs with random battles. Sword/Shield has gotten rid of that with Pokemon that can be seen in the grass and random encounters that show up like exclamation marks and something following you in the grass. Yes, Pokemon are still confined to water and grass. That solves that major issue, which made exploring more enjoyable.
When you explore the routes, wild areas, and towns, there are random items scattered throughout, such as berries, candies, DMs (moves), and various items. You can ride a bike to get around faster, and you can also fast-travel to newly discovered areas, which is a godsend. This makes trying to go to certain regions much faster and simpler. Wild areas consist of level ranges, and now that a weather system is in place, you get certain Pokemon in certain weather systems for each area. Now, I had to run the system clock around to get to the month when I started wanting specific Pokemon. It’s actually quite fun to go around widdling down health and catching these guys and building up your Pokedex; that’s the entire point of the game.
Now the game had a lot of controversy by not having the full Pokedex of every game prior plus the new ones. It just has a grab bag of some from each generation. For someone like me, it doesn’t matter outside of the first three generations of Pokemon. I also found that older Pokemon were messed with, and their looks and types were changed, like Rapidash, Mr. Mime, and Ponyta. I’m not really a fan of all this switching around, but it’s not hard to get used to.
Battles are one of the main components of the game, and they look nice. I’ll give the game that; seeing these guys in crisp 3D models is great, but the Pokemon battle system is something I’ve grown tired of. I’m sick of all the long animations to get into the battle and all the dialogue boxes that pop up. I know most JRPGs are like this, but this is a 30-year-old trope that needs to change already. Some battles feel like they take longer only because of how little input I’m actually giving. When you introduce something like Dyna and Gigamax Pokemon that can grow to the size of buildings and do massive damage, I start to feel this is just filler and nothing that adds anything. These are literally just giant Pokemon that have powerful moves. It never turned the tide of a battle because either I knocked a Dyna-mon out in one hit or I could change too.
The strategy behind Pokemon battling is weakness. It’s grown more complicated over the years with additions like fighting, fairy, ghost, steel, etc. I had to sometimes look up weaknesses online to make sure I didn’t waste a move on some boss battles. These were the most challenging in the game, but I never died once in my entire playthrough. Sure, there were some cheap shots, but I always managed to pull through, with most of my Pokemon knocking out opponents in one hit. I could chew through an entire gym’s leader’s stack with just one Pokemon. The balancing is really off compared to other JRPGs, with it being overly easy or unfair. I wound up sometimes with Pokemon that my enemy was not weak against. You always want super-effective moves, and thankfully, once you’ve battled that Pokemon, you can see which moves will work against it and which won’t, which is super handy.
The visuals are another disappointing feature. They don’t really wow me in any way. They look like HD 3DS graphics and have the same bland anime RPG style that most other games have. It looks decent enough, but I just wanted this game to be the big game-changer that it wasn’t. The dynamaxing, wild areas, and overall small additions didn’t add anything new but gave us the same experience in a slightly tweaked way. At least the menus are more simplified, but things like a cooking mini-game and being able to play with the Pokemon by petting them just don’t add to the experience. I felt bored most of the time because of how little player input there is, and I haven’t even gotten to the story.
Pokemon has never had an interesting story; Sword and Shield are no exception. It’s just something to make an excuse for dialog, which, by the way, is another 30-year-old JRPG trope; you can’t skip the cut scenes. The first 2 hours of the game drag because it treats you like you’re stupid. With so many tutorials and drawn-out animations, cut-scenes, and dialogue, each Pokemon game is a chore just to start. It should ask you if you have played a Pokemon game before and just want to learn the new features, but they always have to integrate it into a story with dialogue and cut scenes. I honestly can’t really explain the story that much because I don’t care. You’re trying to become the Pokemon Champion, and some bad people get in the way to steal the legendaries away like in every other game. Characters have no substance or appeal, and there’s no reason to care for them.
Overall, Pokemon is a game that you either love or hate, and somehow I got lucky enough to be stuck in the middle. It suffers from issues in the series that have never been addressed such as the lack of player input, boring battles, story, and characters. I want to care about the world I’m in not just my favorite Pokemon; it has to be more than that for the investment. I want to see a visual change; stop making battles more complicated and make them more interesting. Can we go after something besides badges? It’s a fine game and is done very well, but as a jaded Pokemon veteran, the series has just stretched itself too thin.
The superhero video game renaissance all started with Batman. After the Hollywood superhero films grew up and became an epic universe taking over the entire industry, the video game versions feel a little more nuanced and personable. Rocksteady really hit it off with the Batman: Arkham series, and the game just got better from there. Telltale took the storytelling of superhero comics and turned it into an epic original story.
The Enemy Within follows right after the end of the first game, with Bruce having defeated Lady Arkham, The Penguin, and Catwoman. The Enemy Within feels more epic, has a larger overarching story, and has more villains in place. We get Bane, Riddler, Harley Quinn, The Joker, and Mr. Freeze all wrapped up in one big Batman package. The story from Telltale is one of the most unique and interesting I have seen in the Batman universe to date. It feels tightly knit and has resolution at the end instead of spiraling out of control into a million different spin-offs. Main characters can die, and Batman can even break his own code if you choose.
This game is probably one of the only Telltale adventure games that cuts out all the fat from the choices part of the game. Even the dialogue option has meaning and makes a difference towards the end goal. There are larger moments that can turn the story around and fewer twists and surprises in this game, but the overall story is a slow burn rather than starting and stopping as in the first game. Some episodes are slower-paced, sometimes too slow, and this game really has too few action sequences and mini-games for my taste. I like the story, but some of the cut scenes can be nearly 20 minutes long with very little input. Again, this is another “interactive movie” with very little gameplay outside of some quick-time events and even less puzzle solving.
What we get is an origin story that doesn’t go too far back. We get to see how The Joker became insane and hated Batman, how Harley became a psycho herself, and how the relationship between Batman and Catwoman grows or falls apart depending on how you play. We also get to see how Riddler became the way he did, and one thing I need to point out is that this game feels more like it can happen in today’s world. Less magic and fantasy stuff from the villains. Everything looks and feels like it can be explained somehow in today’s world, which I love. All the villains are just normal humans with a slight scientific twist to them.
I will say we don’t really get a backstory on Bane or Mr. Freeze. Mr. Freeze isn’t used all that much, and Bane is just an annoying bully through the whole thing. We do get a new entity called The Agency, which is an original faction used in the game to counterbalance The Pact (all the villains), and it’s up to you to decide how The Agency is towards Batman. Amanda Waller is a love-or-hate kind of character and mostly one-dimensional, but we get to see Lucius Fox’s daughter Tiffany, and the game eventually plays into the psychological aspect of Joker and Batman’s relationship like the comics do.
At the end of the day, we really feel like we know Batman, Alfred, Joker, and Harley all too well. Telltale did an amazing job of getting you inside their heads and making you really feel like you’re controlling Bruce’s fate and story. While the game is too light on gameplay and a little slow-paced, I couldn’t stop playing as I wanted to see what happened next. I really weighed my choices and felt that at the end, everything from the first game to the end of this one was satisfying and meaningful. This is clearly the best Batman game to play if you want an amazing story.
The Shadows Edition adds some enhanced visuals, better textures, lighting, and a noir style that I played the game in that makes everything black and white except certain colors like red, green, and various accents of the character’s iconic colors. The game’s upgrades look great, and I didn’t run into any bugs like I usually do with Telltale games.
Platinum Games makes phenomenal action games with a nearly perfect track record. From Bayonetta to Vanquish and beyond, they have proven that 2D action games can be translated to 3D and done well. With bombastic, flashy, yet deep combat, gorgeous visuals, and crazy character designs, Platinum Games is at the top of the action game developers’ hall of fame.
Astral Chain, their latest opus, puts you in the shoes of anime cop twins who have the ability to control Chimeras, which are astral beings. You are on a quest to stop a mad scientist from unleashing all of these creatures from the astral world onto Earth after a science experience in which the head scientist is trying to perfect the capture. Well, at least that’s what I think is going on. Platinum games are masters of combat, not storytelling or character development. The game goes on for so long with so little information in between that you sometimes forget what’s going on or what the end goal is.
The characters fall victim to this as well. Your character and your twin are supposed to be front and center here, but the entire game falls under stereotypical anime tropes and is just downright boring and uninteresting. Each character gets little screen time or even time to grow as the writing and dialog are drab and snooze-worthy. At least the voice acting is halfway decent for a localized Japanese video game, but it’s nothing that you will remember. I just wish the story and characters were as good as the combat, as this is Platinum’s deepest combat system yet.
You control yourself and your Chimera at the same time. Holding down ZL allows you to move the Chimera around, and holding down L allows you to take control of your Chimera. You can use it to solve puzzles in the astral planes, but it is vital to use in combat. The system seems a bit complicated at first, but you will slowly get a hold of it. When you flash white, you can press ZL to do a combo move with your Chimera, and these are keys to mastering to win. You have a light and heavy baton plus a gun, which I found completely useless, as well as healing items and buffing items. You can switch between five different Chimera that you acquire throughout the game, and these cover all bases of combat. Sword is a fast-paced light damage chimera; Arrow is the only long-ranged one; Beast is a fast-paced zippy dog; Arm is a slow-tromping heavy hitter; and Axe is the heaviest and slowest but provides a shield.
It’s important to use each Chimera based on your enemies, and you also have to level them up and assign bonuses and abilities. You can level up your weapon at the PD headquarters after every chapter, but you can’t buy new weapons, and there is no armor in this game. Any clothing is cosmetic only, sadly. There is one feature that allows you to “maintain” your Chimera but rub crystals off their body, but I saw no benefit to this, or I completely missed the point of it. Fighting through the main campaign isn’t the only thing you can do. There are side quests and missions in the large hub areas, such as solving quizzes for various arena challenges and even some light investigative work. This requires you to talk to people and gather keywords to advance the quest. It’s fun and interesting at first, but these same half-dozen quests repeat through the whole game and grow tiring after a while. The only reward is XP, or items, really; nothing too special.
Then we come across the other issues with Astral Chain. The game bounces between fighting on Earth and in the astral world, which is nice, but they both get tedious after a while. The astral plains are just fighting challenges and puzzles that require shooting down things with arrows, slicing doors, pushing blocks around, etc. They break up the monotony but later become part of it. The most interesting parts of the game are so far and few between, such as the high-speed bike ride through the tunnel, the scripted events, and the massive boss fights. Most chapters are just investing and then an astral plain area to acquire the next Chimera.
My next complaint isn’t just the drab story and characters, but the visuals are very bland and anime-inspired to a fault. There’s no unique look or visual style like Bayonetta; there’s nothing memorable here. All the astral levels look identical, and the same few hubs repeat in every chapter. Everything looks either too realistic for this type of game or just looks too much like a cookie-cutter anime. Even though the enemy designs are boring outside of some of the bosses, everything in Astral Chain just kind of blurs together after a while.
With that said, the combat is fantastic, and it’s enough to play through the 20-hour campaign. Ignore the boring and unfocused plot and characters and the generic visuals, and just concentrate on some good ‘ol bombastic combat that we really don’t get anymore. The game looks good technically for the Switch with nice lighting effects and good-looking models and textures, but I wanted more scripted events and cutting down on the fat with bloated side quests.
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Try multiplayer. A lot of fun !