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5 (23) 4 (13) 3 (9) 2 (4) 1 (0) 4.1 starsAverage score of 49 user reviews
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The Melting Point for Precious Metal 0
(Save file clocked at 20 hours, 38 minutes and 11 seconds after the end credits rolled. In handheld mode with Japanese voice and text. Played as a lad.)Playing Astral Chain made me think about why Hideki Kamiya left Platinum Games. My current conclusion, which has no basis other than how much I dislike this AC game, is that the more experiment-encouraging co-founder was let go by investors for several failed experiments he encouraged. As much as I despise corporate greed, I do know the feeling ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Is it war this time? 0
(Played in Japanese on Steam Deck. 36 hours, 59 minutes and 24 seconds to get Ending E on Normal at level 61 with 95% Quest done.)By the time I beat the closest thing NieR Automata has to a “final boss” (Game’s full end credit moving backwards and shooting at me), in April, 2024, I had put 36 seconds short of 37 hours into the game. The first 16 hours were spent with an almost always under-leveled lass known as 2B. Then next 13 hours or so were a mandatory New Game Plus with a...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Brain Storm Troopers 0
The title screen of Scarlet Nexus featuring player characters Yuito Sumeragi and Kasane Randall, from left to right. I would only refer to them as “sitting lad” and “standing lass” respectively below.(The following is based on a save file of 62 hours, 20 minutes and 9 seconds. Played with Steam Deck in Japanese on Easy.)Back in the summer days of 2021, Scarlet Nexus seemed like the poster child for Steam Deck. Playable across all 3 Xboxes (One, S and X), both Playstations...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Chapter 5: Night’s End 0
(74 hours and 29 minutes to beat on Easy, the counterpart to old Doom games’ “Hey, not too rough” difficulty, with Japanese text and voice on Steam Deck.)This is not a review standing on its own, but the fifth and final chapter of a long journey. Here are chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4. Just got to put up a number by the end. I would have loved to say “spoiler warning” but I’m a firm believer in “if foreknowledge can spoil one’s enjoyment of a thing, then...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Probably dead on arrival 0
(Almost a dozen playthroughs on both Xbox 360 and PC before this Deck run, including 2 on Hard, the second highest difficulty. 3 hours, 4 minutes and 9 seconds to get through on Causal, the second lowest difficulty, according to kill screen.)Poor Golden Gate Bridge. After the awful event on September, 11th, 2001, it seems like every Tom, Dick, Harry and their non-male counterparts have to move their “destroying American landmark in fiction for shock value” business to the West Coast....
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Bookending a bygone era 0
（Played on Steam Deck. About 8 hours to see credits roll on Easy. Again, the game was obviously designed for mouse and keyboard while yours truly was the stubborn ass trying to play with a controller like setting.）The goofily titled F.E.A.R: First Encounter Assault Recon was among the last of its kind when it came out in 2005. So much so that not even its sequels followed its footstep. The sea change brought in by things like Gears of War and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare made sure of that.Bef...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Tokyo Mirage Sessions 2: Electric Boogaloo 0
（Played on Switch with Japanese voice-over and text. 93 hours to see credits roll on Easy according to save file without that “Link’s Awakening” third semester. Look, yours truly got cocky with Persona 4 Golden on Vita. Selected Normal then got chewed out by that first proper dungeon and never went back. So cut me some slack for selecting Easy with Royal.）Combing the playing of Tokyo Mirage Sessions (“TMS” for short) and Persona 5 (“P5” for short) with v...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Reviewed by the spoiled 0
(Played on Switch with both Japanese track and text. 35 hours to beat on Normal estimated from the save file. The direct-to-new-game-plus file does not show playtime for some reason.)Allow me to lead with the following fact: I had never beaten Persona 5 as the time of writing this, not vanilla nor Royal. It’s not due to lack of trying. I started it as early as September, 2016 when the bloody thing just came out in Japan, but sitting in front of a console for an epic length RPG just cannot...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
The sins never die 0
(Played as Playstation Classic on PS Vita in Japanese. About 12 hours to go through according to the save file.)The 25th anniversary of Metal Gear Solid’s launch on Playstation in English speaking region is approaching. So why not celebrate it with reviewing Policenauts, the first product ever sold as “A Hideo Kojima Game” that never saw an official English release. The 8 kanjis read “Ko Jima Hide O Kan Doku Saku Hin” meaning “A work directed by Hideo Kojma&r...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Come for big mechs battles, stay for big mechs builds 0
(About one 37 hours long single playthrough to get the “Liberator of Rubicon” ending on Steam Deck with Japanese text and voice-over. I just got to play a “nut job” who listened to a voice in their head when that voice was provided by this game’s top billing anime usual suspect at her most stoic yet soothing…)“Clunky” said Jeff Grestmann to Drew Scanlon when the latter inquired about From Software’s King’s Field on a Bombcast episode s...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
“Forgotten” Forerunner 0
(Played as part of the 2023 remaster on Steam Deck. 5 hours to see credits on Easy. I was playing a game designed for mouse and keyboard with twin stick gamepad set-up, so of course I went for the lowest difficulty.)Out of id Software’s Quake trilogy, 1997’s Quake II was something I did not get around to play until 2023. Quake III Arena was something I played a lot on PCs not at my home in 2000. I also ran through original Quake’s shareware first episode more than once, usually...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
The sorta fun thing suitable for summer 0
(Played for 20 hours on Steam Deck)By the time yours truly made a purchase of Dave the Diver just before 2023’s Steam Summer Sale ended, it would not be fair to say that this indie title came out of nowhere. Scored 9 on ign dot com and a million sold on Steam definitely do not register as nowhere. It’s just that after paying full attention to the so-called independent scene for a full decade now, I feel nice to see nostalgia move with the times. Dave the Diver looks like something th...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
the Little "Mermaids" 0
Read in Japanese on Steam for about 45 hours.I really do not like Disney’s Little Mermaid. No, not the 2023 live-action one I would never watch and certainly not for the usual shitty reason on the internet. The 1989 one which seemingly kicked off the so-called Disney Renaissance is the one I would rage against. The fairy tale of the same title by Hans Christian Andersen was what introduced tragedies to me when I was still literally in kindergarten. So how dare the House of Mouse turned it ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Two page-turners in one 0
(Played on Steam Deck in Japanese. 30 hours to see credits roll in Meiya routes of both Extra and Unlimited)One might say that it’s rash to review a visual novel after the playthrough of only one route out of several. But I wouldn’t have been here if I believe that, since reviewing a visual novel after only one route was pretty much how I began. Video games are usually separated into genres by this tricky thing we call “mechanic”. Take a cinematic action scene of firefig...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Simple works the best 0
(Played on Steam with controller in English text)If you think there is a review for 2019’s Hong Kong Massacre because Chad Stahelski called this game the inspiration for that shot-from-top-down-perspective “Dragon Breathe scene” in John Wick Chapter 4, you would be correct. But you would be wrong to assume that yours truly didn’t play the game until recently since I unlocked the Steam achievement for killing ten thousand in the game early 2019. And THKM was name dropped ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
All in (service of) the game 0
(Played on Steam Deck with Japanese text and voice-over. 22 seconds shy of 20 hours to get through Standard difficulty according to the “kill screen”.)Before I got the ball rolling, I think I owe a shoutout to video game critic Dia Lacina. Her use of the word “orthodox” referring to over-shoulder shooting (And those came and went before.) in this podcast was what inspired me to use the O word in the same way. Yours truly certainly would not call the change from 2019&rsquo...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A link to her past 0
(Played in Japanese, both text and voice, handheld mode. )Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon was first announced on December, the nineth, 2022 (Some minutes past nine in morning during the “Keighley’s” that year, Chinese Standard Time.) and released on March, the seventeenth, 2023. Those 2 days resembled each rather uncannily as far as my life is concerned: chilly raining Fridays in the winter when I decided not go to the office and watched one episode or two of the W...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
A “Die Hard” of the video game 0
(35 hours total on Steam, seen the credits roll 5 times. Latest playthrough on the Deck being Leon first through in Japanese, 6 hours 23 minutes and 13 seconds to get the “kill screen”.)“They sure die hard” is a line uttered by Ada Wong when she shot a zombie as the player character in 2019’s Resident Evil 2 remake, or at least that’s how yours truly choose to translate that line from Japanese into English. Which got me thinking, Resident Evil 2, both the 199...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Almost Definitive 0
The week before Switch launch’s sixth anniversary just seems like prime time to take out this plastic monstrosity for another ride… (My third playthrough of this port with circle pad pro in Japanese, both voice-over and text. 11 hours 48 minutes and 32 seconds clocked on the kill screen. “Jaguar” rank with 85 enemy causalities. Had to use the small window in both terms of both space and time for sniping the End so the whole playthrough only took up a weekend.)Metal Gear ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
“Vegetable” for thoughts 0
(Second time in Japanese on Vita, actually. 12 hours and 17 minutes to have a save file in red letters on Normal. “Elephant” rank. Guess I am the Zo Ninja there…)Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty is among the first bones twenty-first century threw at the crowd calling themselves “video game critics”. Even after this end all be all piece came out in 2007, an amateur wannabe like yours truly can still find things to say about the game. As a meat eater, I would go as...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Came home to roost 0
(Played on Switch with Japanese text in handheld mode. 17 hours 37 minutes to get Mission Complete on save file with 66% complete rate.)Playing Metroid Prime for the first time through the remaster version on Switch is a revelation. It’s shocking to see how influential it is for polygonal extravaganzas including but not limited to From Soft’s bloody epics. Of course, even back in 2002, Metroid Prime was nowhere near the statues of “new shit”. Still, 20 years before Elden ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Putting Space into Dead Space 1
(My fourth playthrough. Played on Steam Deck in English. 7 hours to see the credits roll on Normal.)2023’s Dead Space remake is faithful to a fault. So much so that Dead Space 2 still plays like an improved sequel to it as the 2011 sequel is to the 2008 original. Mostly. Yours truly believe the game to be the definitive Dead Space for it being lean and mean in terms of both length and structure. With a much cheaper price tag, the game is just much easier to recommend.Lean, mean and cheap3 ...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
the Seventy-buck Problem 0
(Played on Steam Deck with English voice and text. 15 hours and 30 minutes to see the credits roll on Medium difficulty according to Steam clock.)Horror has been for yours truly the undercurrent of science fiction ever since they started reading for amusement 2 decade ago, Hugo winner Cixin Liu was already a master in short form back then. Before being the first non-English speaker winning a Hugo rocket for Best Novel with Three-body Problem, Mr. Liu had introduced my teenage self to some shocki...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Out of the shadow 0
(Played on PC through Steam with a controller in Japanese, both text and voice over. 10 hours and 42 minutes to see the credits roll according to save file.)Before survival horror of the 1990s and monster hunting of the 2000s, Capcom is known for fighting games, in a broad sense of course. There is the one-on-one affair we recognize nowadays represented by Street Fighters numbered sequels. Then there is this little thing we know as brawler, something a team of Capcom developers under the direct...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Met in the middle 0
(Played with Japanese text on Switch handheld mode)It goes without saying that this is a review reader should read with at least a grain of salt. Then again which piece put up by some anomalous strangers on the internet should be taken at face value? Witch On the Holy Night is something closer to a motion comic than a visual novel and it is certainly not a dating dim or gal game as some Japanese people would call the genre. It original came out on PC in 2012 after Type-Moon’s five years lo...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A Window Into 2 Alternative 1999s 1
(Played on PC through Steam in English with a controller for about 12 hours according to save file. Got the Promise ending for those in the know.)Yours truly consider video game a vice instead of a hobby because just as they think they are out the bloody thing would pull them back in. While I thought I was done with thinking back about the 1990s in 2022, the act of “thinking back about the 1990s in 2022” grew a mind of their own and decided that they are not done with me. Enters Sign...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Better a quarter century late than never. 2
(Played as “Star’s Kirby: Discovery” with Japanese text in handheld mode. It runs pretty well.)2022 was a year made yours truly, a 32-year-old then, thinking about media they enjoyed as a kid in the seemingly simpler days of the 1990s. Sifu is a reminder of all those better movies Jackie Chan made at his prime, then there is Freedom Planet 2 reminding me of action adventure cartoons. Between those 2, Kirby and the Forgotten Land is an experience akin to the mascot 3D platforme...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Trick rather than Treat 0
(Played in Handheld mode with Japanese text and voice. So, no comment on the English recast fiasco. Since this is kind of tear-them-a-new-one review, beware of the spoilers.)This is a story about how an impulse purchase on Halloween bit someone in the ass. On October, 31st, 2022, yours truly decided to participate in some seasonal consumerism. They went to a video game store, paid about 39 us dollars for a physical copy of Bayonetta 3 and found it to be a wicked witch’s trick rather than ...
1 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Groundhog Days 0
(Played on Vita with Japanese text. Funny enough, there is one pornographic bit in this one…)If any visual novel despising Game Bro has played everything Bioware had prepared for its Mass Effect trilogy, they had already experienced what visual novel loving weebs know as Fan Disc in Mass Effect 3’s the Citadel DLC. Like Fan Discs, Citadel goes for a different tune than its main game in the usual direction of from dramatic to comedic. With dating sim style visual novel series usuall...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
The Ever Gathering Storms 2
(Played with Japanese text on Vita. So no, I have not experienced the “pornography” bit.)There are several barriers between visual novel Fate/Stay Night and the people who might want to get into it. One such barrier that can serve as two is called “no official English release”. Emphasize on “official” here because there is a beloved fan translation if language barrier is one’s only concern. But with the variables of “Piracy is wrong, you thieves!&r...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Cyberpunk 2077 meets Final Fantasy VII Remake in a “dating sim” 0
(Played with Japanese text on Switch)I became aware the remake of visual novel Tsukihime in 2012, when the outlines of new designs of characters were shown on the developer Type-Moon’s 10th anniversary book. That same year, CD Projekt Red, fresh off porting Witcher 2 to Xbox 360 then, announced Cyberpunk 2077. While those 2 games were announced way before the Xbox One and PS4 console generation, neither would come out until the successors of those console came out.I read through Tsukihime...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Mama Bird Returns 0
(Played on launch Switch, Handheld Only, in Japanese text)Metroid Dread is not a game yours truly would recommend over several more modern and cheaper exploration-based side-scrolling action platformers. The newest in the Metroidvania name’s sake series did not take enough lessons from the newer titles in a subgenre its predecessors helped to define. But just like From Soft’s Soulsborne series, there always seems to be something admirable about a game combining old-school tough-but-...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
September free time eater 0
(Played on OneXPlayer Windows gaming tablet through Steam in Japanese, both voice and text.)If Tales of Arise set out to be the dark and gritty reboot of its 26 years old series with the marketing buzzword like “mature”, then it can be regarded a failure. What it did achieve is to attract yours truly, who once swore off Tales Of series, to play through it from start to finish.Tales of Arise has a very refined comic book like story with elements like an established rogue galley of fi...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
NieR, “Replicated” and Improved 0
（Played on PC with a controller in Japanese through Steam）If any of the NieR games got “demade”, the end result would look a lot like Ender Lilies Quietus of the Knights. Marketed as a dark fantasy 2D action RPG, Ender Lilies is a Castlevania-Symphony-of-the-Night-like dipped and soaked in a sorrowful yet soothing vibe. In a year when your truly finally got to play NieR Replicant, it’s actually preferable to play something similar but with more engaging combat.The titular Lily...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Commando for an emperor-less empire. 0
(Played in English on PC with a controller and OneXPlayer gaming tablet through Steam)Star Wars Battlefront II campaign was marketed as a Star Wars story with genuine imperial point of view. But in the final product, the player character defected to Rebel Alliance before the first third of the story is done. It got me thinking, Mass Effect trilogy’s Commander Shepard is actually quite the uncompromising agent of imperial power, whether he or she is Paragon or otherwise.One can criticize th...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A Link Among Worlds 0
(Played in English, on PC, with a controller, through Steam)Death’s Door is an isometric action-adventure game very much in the vein of Zelda games such as A Link to the Past and its “direct sequel” A Link Between Worlds. It’s rare for being very balanced between its combat and puzzle while its peers on PC usually lay heavily on either of those 2 aspects. Its music and graphic combined also makes it one hell of charmer. With July of 2021 being surprisingly bountiful, Deat...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Hands-on road trip through a chill wasteland 0
Post apocalypse fiction comes in different shapes and sizes and recently it seems like chill rather thrill wasteland became a thing. 2017 gave us the animated adaption of manga Girls’ Last Tour. It is about 2 girls’ journey through a war torn wasteland yet it’s more delightful than it sounds given the lack of gruesome danger they would have encountered in any other wastelands. 2018 gave us a cinematic platformer without combat titled Far: Lone Sails.In Far, you play a child, li...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Laid-back road trip 0
(Played on OneXPlayer Windows gaming tablet through Steam in English)The Steam Deck might have appeared as the first handheld device that runs Steam games, but as this PC Gamer article point out, there are at least 3 Windows gaming tablets allow us to take Steam games on the go. Personally, I think such devices would benefit Kinetic visual novels exclusive to Steam a lot. I cannot see myself reading through the base story of Highway Blossoms without owning one of those tablets anyway.Highway Bl...
1 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Only if… 0
(Played as part of the Chronicle of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena on PC through GOG with a controller. Last hour or so viewed online as a result of save data corruption.)Playing the Chronicle of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay more than a decade after its release is a baffling journey full of “only ifs”: only if there is a manual save feature; if only Riddick can stealth kill rather than just back stab; only if there are more segments for the still robust for today first-person b...
1 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Live, Kill, Repeat and Repeat 0
(Played on PC through Steam with a controller in Japanese, both text and voice.)(Minor spoilers for both NieR Replicant and NieR Automata)By the time I felt satisfied with playing NieR Replicant Ver. 1.22474487139..., the save file told me that I had put more than 50 hours into it. The first 39 or so of those were spent on reaching the end credits for the first time while completing all the side quests of various quality. The next 8 were spent on playing the game’s home stretch twice and ...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful.
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