Rundown (3/12/2023) Natalie Reviews The First “REAL” TSF Manga
This Week’s Topics:
- A gushing about Boku no Shotaiken (My First Time) by Yuzuki Hikaru
- Austria confirms: loot boxes are gambling
- Budokai Tenkaichi 4 announced
- Dragon Ball
- The JRPG Debate
Pokémon Shield Review
It’s a brand new world… and it’s a touch rough.
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Pokémon Masters Review
To be a master… you need to do a lot better than this.
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Final Fantasy Type-0 HD Review
Ten percent pleasure, ninety percent pain, and a zero percent reason to remember the name!
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Superdimension Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls Review
Part of me is absolutely amazed by how the Neptunia series continues onward despite the games being only average to pretty good and the target audience for these titles being a niche among niches. In spite of this, the series proved popular enough to justify a crossover with an anime and manga series centered around the personifications of Sega consoles, or Console-tans as they are colloquially known, called Sega Hard Girls or Hi-sCoool! SeHa Girls. In theory, the crossover sounds incredibly sensible, but as I should not be surprised by at this point, it is kind of a mess. (more…)
Evoland 2 Review
Two weeks ago, I revisited Evoland, a somewhat cute yet insubstantial homage to The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy that, despite holding a modicum of charm, ultimately amounted to an underwhelming adventure with an incredible amount of missed potential. Potential that could very well be pursued through a sequel, but that really is not the case with Evoland 2. Instead, the game aims to be something different and notably grander than its predecessor, but amounts to a significantly worse and less interesting title. (more…)
Evoland Review
So, I was not intending on reviewing Evoland, mostly on account of having already reviewed it nearly 4 years ago. But I recently replayed it to provide a better reference for my Evoland II review, which is not done yet because I have been unable to clear Evoland II yet, on account of a scheduling error on my part. Now, I could just go a week without reviewing a game, but I’ve got a good record going for me, and the more I thought about it, I have enough to say about this game in particular to warrant a full review. (more…)
Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King Review
A few months ago, I reviewed Dragon Quest VII, and after forty hours with the game, my thoughts could only be generously described as mixed. It certainly made me question of affection towards the series and how I would feel about Dragon Quest VIII, but after playing it for only a short while, I realized that Dragon Quest VIII is something of an antithesis to its predecessor, and I’ve never been happier to use that word. (more…)
Pokemon Moon Review
After several months of anticipation and near weekly coverage on my weekly news segment, Pokemon Sun and Moon finally arrived to mark the 20th anniversary of this series. One that I hold very closely to myself and ultimately love, but have become incredibly critical of, as the shortcomings of a series become excruciatingly evident after playing every game in the mainline series (except for Platinum). But I’m not going to talk about those right now. For now, it’s time to talk about Pokemon Moon. (more…)
Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past Review
Despite not being the biggest fan of the series, and only having played through five games prior to this one, I actually hold a special place for Dragon Quest. It is a lighthearted and joyful RPG series with memorable scenarios, excellent designs, lovely music, and simple yet enjoyable gameplay. So when a new one came out, under the guise that its success will dictate whether or not the series will continue undergoing the lengthy and difficult process of localization, I naturally picked it up, got my hopes up, and… well, I’m incredibly disappointed, let’s put it that way. (more…)
Megadimension Neptunia VII Review
My thoughts on the Neptunia games should be well documented by now. From Re;Birth 1, 2, and 3 to U and Hyperdevotion, every game in this series has loads of potential, and could easily be a zany and lighthearted adventure overloaded with adoration for the medium of video games. Unfortunately, the lack of polish present in these games, and the lack of quality of their content has prevented any game in this series from being greater than being okay. For over a year, I’ve looked at Neptunia VII as the point where the series would ideally start getting good, where it would ascend to new plains and become a genuinely great series of fun lighthearted RPGs… it almost does. (more…)
Xenoblade Chronicles Review
This is a review that has been looming over me for roughly four years now. I originally bought Xenoblade at launch after the participating in Operation Rainfall, planned on reviewing it, but after seventy hours with the game my disc drive broke, and my interest in the game dissolved as complications delayed repairs. So the game was dropped, and I always felt bad for not finishing it. Now, four years later, I decided to replay the game using the Dolphin emulator and an HD texture pack. About a hundred hours afterwards, I really wish I had cleared this game years ago, if only so I wouldn’t have spent the past few weeks rushing to finish it. (more…)
LiEat Review
One of my biggest worries for the future of the medium is how people will find, uncover, and catalog the thousands of games that come out each and every year. Especially with Steam opening the floodgates for any small time developer with a Unity license and a nifty idea. The problem gets worse when you consider how many games are not made for a specific language, namely the scrappy little mutt that is English. But somehow small freeware titles like LiEat can still be picked up and sold by the folks at Playism. (more…)
Final Fantasy XIII-2 Review
I’m pretty sure that everyone who played Final Fantasy XIII at launch did not expect Square Enix to make a sequel for it, even those who managed to look past a plethora of problems and enjoy the game. The ending was very cut and dry, and the reception quickly lost its warmth after the hype died down. So it was surprising when not only did Square Enix choose to continue the story, they chose to take the already confusing plot of XIII and insert time travel into it, which almost sounds like a joke. (more…)
Final Fantasy XIII Review
I have been waiting to revisit this game for years now. If only because I built up so much hype and excitement for Final Fantasy XIII before its release, and the fact that I actively enjoyed it back when it first came out. Heck, the fact it was a multiplatform title was what sold me on the console I primarily used for the next five years. As such, I felt I have some unfinished business to attend to with this title, and going back to it after all this time was at least a little disheartening. (more…)
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth3: V Generation
Despite my dedication and interest in the franchise, I still find the Neptunia Re;Birth trilogy to be a very temperamental collection of JRPGs that are, and I’m not sure the developers even realize this, are… pretty poorly designed. Re;Birth1 was a massive improvement in comparison to the awful original Hyperdimension Neptunia for PS3. Re;Birth2 was a better game in theory, but it had so many repetitive, temperamental, and annoying elements that I quickly dropped it after beating the game. While Re;Birth3 is probably the best of the bunch, but even I couldn’t convince myself to go through the post game content due to a plethora of issues. (more…)
Undertale Review
Undertale is a game that has been on my radar for quite some time, although, as I like to do, I quickly ignored it after discovering it in late 2013. Two years later it’s the talk of the town with ModeSeven and Ian Samson doing fanart of it and tens coming from all sorts of gaming outlets, putting Undertale up in the higher 90s on those ranking sites that tweens like to obsess over. After playing the game, I agree that this is completely justified, as Undertale is nothing short of fantastic. (more…)
Epic Battle Fantasy 4 Review
I feel as if I missed the prime time of Newgrounds as I did not discover the site until about 2006, when I promptly enjoyed a plethora of… it was mostly just sprite and somewhat shoddily drawn animated video game parodies along with stuff like TTA. The reason I bring this up is because I watched some of the flash animations of a similar nature done by the same artist, Matt Roszak, back in the day, and they were awesome to me back when I was thirteen So in short, I saw something that I found a bit nostalgic, picked it up for about four dollars, and played it for fifteen hours. (more…)
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 2: Sisters Generation Review
I honestly thought I posted this yesterday, but I guess I did not. Whoops. (more…)
South Park: The Stick of Truth Review
Sorry, I was suppose to put this up on Tuesday, but got distracted by… stuff. (more…)
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 Review
I don’t think I ever watched any proper gameplay footage of the original Hyperdimension Neptunia. In preparation for writing this review, and curiosity, I gave it a glance, and it is amazing that the game was A, released, B, localized, and C, given not only two sequels, but spawned a franchise so large that, between June 2014 and Winter 2015 should be home to seven releases in North America, and two or more ports. The original honestly looks like the worst, slowest, most boring JRPG to ever have an even remotely creative idea in its head. It actually makes it hard to call Re;Birth 1 a remake, as it is largely unrecognizable as the same game in regards to anything beyond its base storyline and characters. (more…)
Pokemon Alpha Sapphire Review
Man do I have a lot of little things to say for this pre-review thingie. Pokemon X was evil and consumed 300 hours in the game itself, and about 25 more because spreadsheets. I originally was not going to play this remake until the New 3DS came out, but I did not have anything that pressing to play. Ruby and Sapphire were the first Pokemon games I really got into, and they terrified the hell out of me, because I did not understand how to video game. Pokemon being annualized is something I dislike conceptually as the base needs a lot of refinement that I could write out if requested, and will mention in this review. (more…)
Bravely Default Review
I’ll be blunt and say that I only got halfway through the Bravely Default, and that should be how this review is read. However, as with any review I do while having not completed a game, it is naturally going to be very negative, as I viewed the game to not be worth completing. So yes, some schmuck on his own private playhouse is going to bad talk a critically acclaimed JPRG that many considered to be a reinvigoration of the genre. I think it is the most stagnant, soulless, and overall worst game I have ever reviewed. …Elaboration time! (more…)
Skyborn Review
Have I made it known on this blog that I am pondering the possibilities of making a title in RPG Maker, which would include no MP, items, or said diversions and instead be a linear story based tale of the bizarre that will be narrated by a character I voice? No, I don’t think so. It is certainly a lofty goal, don’t get me wrong, but in preparation of even opening up the program, I decided to try out several RPG Maker made games that were not the, quite frankly wonderful, To The Moon. Skyborn was one of the two I tried where I felt like it was worth playing, but I only saw it to the 10 hour mark and did not feel like investing another five… so here’s my justification as to why.
Persona 4 Golden Review
I guess this is where I talk about my history with the Shin Megami Tensei series, as I technically have one. I watched a playthrough of the Australian version of Persona 3 FES back in 2011, learning of both the plot and gameplay mechanics as I familiarized myself with the flow the sub franchise, which arguably blossomed into a franchise separate from, say, Shin Megami Tensei IV, a very gluttonous game that left me bored in terms of story due to how terrible the pacing was shaped by the frankly unenjoyable gameplay that prioritized grinding above all else. I gave it 40 hours, if only to justify my $42. But hey, people praised the crap out of Persona 4, especially Golden and I saw it worthy to get over thrice the playtime. (more…)
Final Fantasy VII Review
Due to the increasing amount of information and entertainment put out on a daily basis, I personally feel as if the concept behind there being any form of entertainment that “must” be consumed to be rather foolish. I believe that I railed against the very notion of there being a book compiled of 1001 video games, albums, books, movies, and even recordings. I understand that there is a form of shorthand that comes from referencing materials, but that does not mean they need to do anything but be aware of these materials, not necessarily consume them all, as that would take 1,001 years to go through the past 101 years of entertainment if you were locked in a room and did not need to eat or sleep. Also, I don’t think that Final Fantasy VII should be on that list, as I think the game is trash.
Fire Emblem Awakening Review
Fire Emblem was a series that I, along with countless others who naturally learned about it when it threw characters into Super Smash Brothers, but never really paid much attention to. However, as what was potentially the final game in the series dropped a few months ago showed that if you remove permadeath, the series can sell enough to justify its production costs in North America alone. Not sure if I have a ton to say that hasn’t been said, but I dumped 90 hours into this thing, and should probably review a game from 2012 not that the year’s halfway over. (more…)