Introductory Post

Hello there, everyone. The name is Radiant Arin, and this blog is dedicated to reviewing, critiquing, criticizing the worst, and explaining the best bits of RPG games. If you want a brutally honest review about a particular RPG game that you've been itching to get your hands on, or if you are unsure of whether to get it or not, you've come to the right place. This blog will be updated each time I complete a new game and have enough screenies to make use of a blog post. Other than that, stay tuned in for the next update!

Arin's In Depth Game Reviews: Tales of Berseria (Repost from July 27, 2017)

Before I officially begin this review, I want to state the following: There are going to be a lot of references drawn to Tales of Zesty, since both the world of Berseria and Zesty are actually connected. That does not mean I automatically think one game is better than the other, or that I'm not treating the game fairly on the basis that it should be its own game, or some stupid shit you people come up with. Since the game is connected to a previous installment of the franchise, however, I WILL critique that based on how well it filled the plot holes left behind by Zesty.

Tales of Berseria is a wonderful masterpiece of a story combined with horrific and thrown-together combat that screams afterthought. Berseria should have been a Visual Novel instead of an actual Tales game, considering how unbalanced and cheesy the combat can be. More critique on that later. I know you all are just itching for me to review this game (and by review I mean absolutely destroy and shred it) so let's get into the bulk of things. I'll break the game down into several segments, consisting of story, gameplay, quality, and replayability, and judge the game on all of these criteria.

Story:

"Why do birds fly"? 

This is a motif that becomes apparent throughout the game as you play Velvet Crowe. Velvet is a...we'll say "farm girl" who lives with her younger brother, named Laphicet, and her father-in-law, Arthur. The game opens with a dramatic chase scene throughout a forest as Arthur, Laphicet, and Velvet all are running away from daemons. And yes, you couldn't come up with a more unoriginal name. Arthur and crew are then stopped by some daemons along the road. Arthur fights them off with his big heroic giant sword that's seen in every anime thus far and then takes his children to underneath a nearby tree, gives them both an apple, and, to save you ten minutes of pointless exposition, tells them to be safe. Arthur then proceeds onward, but Velvet, being the curious and feisty little shit she is, doesn't listen and trails Arthur. When she arrives to where Arthur is at, she sees her older sister, Celica, floating in air as a sort of sacrifice with two giant needles of light stuck through her body. Then Arthur turns towards Velvet.

And it WAS ALL A FUCKING DREAM.

Like, seriously, you couldn't put any less thought into the fucking story you lazy shitheads?

Anyways, time skip I think seven years later (I couldn't care less because opening with a dream sequence is probably the greatest sin in all of gaming history) where Velvet is now taking care of Laphicet in place of Velvet's older sister, Celica. Velvet completely loves Laphicet, would do anything for him in the world to see him safe and to keep him protected. The setting takes place in a farm village named Abala (If I remember correctly? Like I said I could care less) where everyone is hanging out enjoying their life and is in no way shape or form going to be turned into a monster's den of daemons somewhere in the near future-oops, spoilers.

Anyways, farm village girl Velvet is pretty cute.

After about an hour of doing pointless hunting that serves no actual purpose to the story, you come home, go to bed, and realize that it has become a "Scarlet Night". This phenomenon happens once every three years, where the moon glows bright red, and that some type of God or something that people worship demands sacrifice or something, I don't really fucking know. Velvet wakes up, realizes Laphicet is nowhere to be found, and, oh wouldn't you know it, the entire village has become a monster's den. I TOTALLY DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING.

Velvet runs through the village (You have to, you can't fight them, which is extreme bogus considering what happens in about five minutes or so), goes up to the cliff where the sacrifice is being held, which is the same spot where Celica was sacrificed, and Velvet sees Laphicet hanging in the air, same as Celica, with Arthur standing right below him. And then, SHUNK.

That was my best sword impression.

And then there's this.

Velvet then flies into a complete frenzy and tries to kill Arthur. However, Arthur, being the badass and antagonist that he is, is just no match for farm village girl Velvet. She lunges herself down into the sacrificial pit where Laphicet fell, attempting to protect him, but she gets swallowed up by a huge-ass dragon thing that looks like it came from the Seven Dragonballs. Really cool CG by the way. Anyways, Mr. Dragon man doesn't like that, spits out Velvet, and she comes back with a few extra hormones, her entire body taken over by Edginess, and a fucking badass left arm. She then proceeds to scream four thousand times as you try and fight off the daemons and ultimately Arthur, which, after wiping them all out, Velvet realizes were the other townsfolk, and flies into yet again a complete frenzy, lunging at Arthur. However, he sees past the bullshit and smacks her in the chest and down she tumbles into the bottomless pit.

Timeskip three years later.

You awaken in a prison island. How you got there is beyond me since on the world map Abala and Titania are in two completely different sections of the world map AND THAT REALLY FUCKING PISSES ME OFF WHY DO PEOPLE NOT KNOW ABOUT CONSISTENCY-

You are greeted by someone. A malakhim. Malakhim are...let me simplify this so that it's easier to understand. They're Zesty's version of Seraphim. Pretty much.

After a tense fight and a pointless tutorial about how to dodge (I'VE BEEN PLAYING TALES GAMES FOR FIVE YEARS NOW, YOU DON'T THINK I'D KNOW HOW TO DODGE AT THIS POINT-), Velvet takes the malakhim under her control and the two escape through the prison island.

Oh, and, you start a prison riot in order to escape. That's pretty cool I guess.

During the course of the prison riot, you find a bunch of Exorcists, commanded by Oscar, who are pretty much this game's bad guys. They use Malakhim as tools and have suppressed their free will in order for them to inevitably do their bidding. After fighting Oscar, one of these said Malakhim is like "fuck you bitch" and turns into a dragon. It's explained later on as to why they change into Dragons, but keep this word in mind: Malevolence.

So you get to kill a Dragon. Woohoo.

During the fight, the Dragon is too powerful to tackle alone so you team up temporarily with Oscar to take him down. Then you eat the girl that was traveling with you or something so you can become stronger or something. And no, not in that way you filthy degenerates. Then you kill a dragon. Woohoo.

After that, Oscar runs away like a little bitch.

Oh yeah, I forgot you run into Rokurou in the course of escaping from the prison. Also along those lines, you find a witch named Magilou (UGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH) and a sailor named Dyle. You hijack a ship from the Titania Prison Island Docks and set sail. And then you get shipwrecked.

And after that you get to hear 40 hours of Velvet whining about "I don't care about anything as long as I get my revenge on Artorious (Arthur, a.k.a.)". Which goes back to a point I want to make: Revenge plots never work out. They always end with suffering and despair and ultimately, there's just a giant pitfall of sadness. With the way Velvet portrays herself in the game, where she doesn't care about anything other than getting revenge, it's honestly hard enough to care, as a player, about someone like that.

Eventually, you find Eizen (does that name sound familiar to you? It should, as he's a boss in Tales of Zesty) and he's a fucking badass.

Oh yeah, and you also meet a little kid I guess who's named Number Two but after about twelve hours of him being useless Velvet decides to call him Laphicet because FUCK ORIGINALITY AM I RIGHT? Oh yeah, and also Laphicet Version 2 has a giant crush on Velvet for whatever reason. How anyone can have a crush on someone who yells "DIE DIE DIE" is utterly beyond me.

Oh yeah, and there's also an Exorcist bitch you come across periodically in your travels named Eleanor who starts out as a nuisance and quite quickly becomes my favorite character in the entire game. Not just in her story and why she chose to travel with Velvet but because she fucking rocks in combat. Despite her being very dramatic and quite a nuisance in the early game, she gradually opens up to everyone and easily becomes one of my favorite characters.

Eventually, Velvet finds an answer to the million dollar question that everyone in the game seems to ask like every ten seconds. Why do birds fly?

REALLY? THAT'S YOUR RESPONSE YOU STUPID DUMB FARM VILLAGE GIRL? WAY TO MAKE MY 50 HOURS IN THE GAME COMPLETELY WORTHLESS!

As you can tell, I didn't really like the story of this game all that much. Not because of the way the story was handled (it could have been done a lot better in my opinion, starting with Velvet not being so much of a bitch, for one), not because of the characters, but because...everything you do just feels pointless. You run around for 40 hours before Velvet finally realizes her quest for revenge will never fully come to fruition, and at that point, the game just takes a dramatic spiral downwards because, yes, it IS all pointless.

Revenge is pointless. Don't make it the central core plot device of your game. Game Dev-ing 101 folks.

About halfway through the game, after doing a quest where you have to go through an underground water temple or some shit that triggered me because it reminded me of Zestiria's Water Temple, the village along the coast, Haria, turns into a den of monsters, similar to the beginning of the game. Once you escape from the town, you soon realize something. See, there's this "disease" that everyone refers to as daemonblight. The Abbey (the big bad guys) coined this term because when you contract daemonblight, you eventually lose your senses and turn into a daemon. This isn't the case, it's all a lie. There is no such thing as daemonblight. What actually triggers people turning into daemons is malevolence. And you'll see me use this term a lot, because it ties in with Tales of Zesty. The malevolence, ill intention, and hatred that we have in our human hearts is what makes us turn into daemons, not some crazy disease spreading around. In Zestiria, those afflicted with malevolence were called hellions. In Berseria, they're called daemons. It actually sets up Zestiria's plotline really nicely as now, it makes sense. Along with that, we learn that people have started calling Velvet the "Lord of Calamity". Sound familiar? That was the final boss in Zestiria. So in essence, Berseria sets up Zestiria's plot, seeming as how Velvet is technically the very first "Lord of Calamity".

Oh yeah, and Laphicet Version 2 at the end of Berseria becomes Maotelus. Maotelus, in Zestiria, is this fictional being that is designed to bring peace to the world by eating Hellions and Seraphim alike. How a little boy of 12 years of age grew to become one of the most notorious figures in Zestiria still boggles my mind, but you know. It's a game.

There's also Zaveid. <3

Anyways, I realized I may have went on a bit too long with the story, but don't worry, the gameplay portion will be really really short. Mainly because you'll read the first sentence and I will have wrapped up the entire sum of gameplay for Berseria. So don't worry. It at least had a somewhat better story than Zestiria, bottom line.

Overall: 7.5/10.

Gameplay:

The gameplay sucks.

Yeah, you didn't think you would be hearing that coming from a Tales game, would you? The massive pioneers of putting great gameplay before anything else, right?

No, the gameplay actually sucks in this game.

Granted, it did SOME things right with the actual MECHANICS of the system, like how you're not stuck to a line anymore and can freely move around the battlefield. In a 3D environment. Not like Zestiria did it. Your arte skills are also no longer bound to which direction you push the analog stick, and instead, all four of your face buttons to a different attack. This makes combat a lot more fluid, intuitive, and feel actually wonderful to play.

...Until you get to the actual reason why the gameplay sucks.

At the start of each fight, you get 3 souls. They're the little blue diamonds in the corner of everyone's portrait. You can upgrade your souls as you fight by inflicting Power Hits, inflicting Stuns on an enemy, performing a Perfect Dodge and getting Souls that way, or just straight killing the guys. Out of all four of those options, only one of them is really a consistent means of upgrading your Souls. When you inflict a Power Hit on an enemy (using moves that hit an opponent's weakness), they take more damage. If you manage to hit all of the opponent's weaknesses, it starts a Chain. When an enemy is under a Chain, they're more susceptible to being Stunned. However, even if you manage to Stun an enemy, there's no guarantee you'll actually get a Soul for all of the hard work that you put in. It's completely random. Same with getting a Perfect Dodge. As you can see in the screenshot, I managed to Perfect Dodge and a Soul popped out. Yet, it's completely random on how these things work out.

So you might be asking why is this a bad thing, you might ask?

There are abilities you get throughout the game that take advantage of how many souls you have. By expending a Soul, you unlock a move that is more powerful than the rest of your moves (in the case of Velvet). But you can only use these moves if you have more than 2 Souls. Since you start off with 3, you can only use it once before you inflict a Stun, dodge perfectly, inflict a Chain attack, or beat the fucker to a pulp. Not only that, they are your primary source of healing. Remember that as I move along to this next section.

So you might be asking why is this a bad thing, you might ask?

There are some enemies in the game who like to start with a certain skill, called "X Break", where X is the most annoying status ailment you can think of given your particular situation. Not only do these incredibly powerful attacks have a wide area of effect and inflict Status Ailments, they Break your Guard if you try to Guard, AND reduce your Souls immediately. Tell me that's not a bogus idea to not only inflict Paralyze, but also reduce your ability to fight and heal for almost every single party member unless you happen to miraculously dodge at JUST the right time. Remember how I said before that Break Souls are your primary source of healing? Yeah, Healing Artes in this game are fucking useless. Oh, here, take this First Aid spell that heals you for 20 damage.

...

I don't think I need to explain any more than I already have.

Ultimately, the gameplay wears itself down to, if you can get all the enemies in a corner and wail on them with all of your best attacks, accumulate a shit ton of Souls, and spam RT as it is the most powerful attack at your disposal, you'll win and be fine. But take note that enemies can also Stun you just the same as you can to them, and when that happens...well remember this. If you get Stunned, not only do you lose a Soul but you take more damage as long as you are Stunned. And, as if by some miraculous exploitation of Artifical Intelligence, as soon as you are Stunned, ALL OF THE ENEMIES in the fight will run up to you and start hitting you immediately. And then you're dead.

That's not fun at all. That's unbalanced.

Granted it's unbalanced for both sides as you can get everyone into a corner and hit them like a punching bag, which is what this game's strategy is, but it's also unbalanced because enemies have these particularly powerful and unbalanced moves like "X Break" or Soul Burst (gives them additional Souls while you lose Souls) that you can't do anything about. It ruins the fun and adds artificial difficulty to a game with a broken ass gameplay system.

You know, looking back on it now, Tales of Zestiria's combat system was way more fun than Berseria's, even though you were locked to a linear battle system. You know why? BECAUSE IT WORKS. There weren't broken enemies who spammed X Breaks or Soul Bursts or did overly insane amounts of damage.

And this is all on Simple mode by the way. I got so fed up with combat that I just said fuck it and blazed through the fights because I absolutely hated the combat in this game. The first time I can say I was incredibly incredibly disappointed with a game's combat system.

You get Mystic Artes quite early in the game, actually, at about 8 hours in and like when you're Level 10. And I know that's what all of you came here for, right? To see Velvet's bright and shiny face light up when she does a Mystic Arte?

There are some other gameplay aspects I'll go into here but FIRST. Mystic Arte showcase.

...

DAMN IT, I DIDN'T TAKE ONE OF SPIRAL HAIL GDI-

Needless to say, Eizen's "Perfect Mayhem" and Eleanor's "Spiral Hail" are among the top two of my Mystic Artes in this game. Both of them are just so amazing and I have nearly fallen over out of my chair pretending to stab something as if I'm Eleanor. Oh, and punching the air is pretty fun, too.

Like in the previous game, you can upgrade your equipment. The amount of skills and battle prowess you get from upgrading your equipment can drastically change how fights work. For example, if you upgrade your equipment enough, you may get extra BG, which is needed to activate Mystic Artes, or gain extra Souls at the start of combat. However, the shortcoming of this is you have to go into the shop menu to disassemble items you don't want or don't need anymore. From those dismantled equipments you can get various materials used to upgrade equipment. However, if you've been grinding in a certain place for hours on end and you have about 100 pieces of equipment in each category, like I ended up having once, you have to spam the A Button in order just to get through all 100 pieces of torturous equipment. And by that point, your thumbs probably already hurt because you're mashing the buttons in combat just to have a chance. So, while it's a good system, it has quite a few shortcomings associated with it.

There's, umm...there's card games.

I'm gonna be honest, I spent almost zero time playing the minigames. They're just pointless. And they are extremely confusing to understand, especially Card Heroes, like pictured above.

But I guess if you wanna waste your time, go ahead.

So the main bulk of gameplay is basically get beat up, die a lot, get frustrated, stop playing the game for about a week, suck it up, do it again, miraculously do 100000 damage in a single hit because what the fuck Velvet is OP, and then fly through combat.

Disappointing gameplay.

OH, BUT YOU DO GET A SKATEBOARD-I mean, A GEOBOARD THAT LOOKS LIKE A SKATEBOARD!

Gameplay: 4.5/10

Quality:

This game was rushed. It's painfully obvious and Namco Bandai didn't even bother to cover up that fact.

Take the following skit for example:

And yes, skits are back as usual.

But look at the following text. The voice actor for Eizen, however, ends up saying something completely different, something along the lines of "And what's wrong with having some dreams? It's a great opportunity you have. You all just don't get it."

And this just doesn't happen once. It happens A LOT. Like, it's like the script for the game and what the voice actors are saying are completely different. It's like Namco Bandai gave the script to the actors incomplete and just said "Ad-Lib the parts we didn't fill in because we're too lazy for that and it isn't our first priority."

Remember when annual games used to be good?

However, I can't say that the voice acting in the game was all that terrible. Most of you have probably seen this scene floating around on Youtube, but it perfectly showcases just how well Velvet's VA nailed the character in question.

Probably one of the best delivered scenes in the entire game in my opinion. But unfortunately, it doesn't overshadow all of the other problems regarding how rushed the game was regarding skits, scenes, and "lost in translations" the game got.

Quality: 6/10.

Replayability:

Yeah, yay, New Game +.

Why the fuck would I want to play through this garbage game again?

Replayability: 0/10.

Now, it's time for the final wrap-up. In this section, I'll detail if this game is truly one for you, and if you should decide to play it or not.

Would I recommend this game?:

No. It's not good, honestly. If the combat were to be completely gutted from the game and the story to be the main drive and focal point, with a bit of better execution, I probably would have liked it more. I've played games with a good story with slightly less good gameplay (Nights of Azure), but this game's gameplay is just downright ridiculous. Stay away from this one.

Overall rating of the game: 4.5/10. Terrible.

Now take some music or some shit, I don't care.

Arin's In Depth Game Reviews: Nights of Azure (Repost from February 19, 2017)

Nights of Azure combines beautiful storytelling with dungeoncrawling combat to bring you an astounding masterpiece. Or close to it. Maybe more on the spectrum of okay more so than masterpiece, but it definitely wasn't bad by any means. Though it did have some flaws that I will discuss. I'll break the game down into several segments, consisting of story, gameplay, quality, and replayability, and judge the game on all of these criteria.

Story:

800 years ago, the First Saint of the world fought the Eternal Lord of Night. Though the Saint succeeded in defeating her foe, the Eternal Lord of Night's blood spilled over the world, which came to be known by man as Blue Blood. This Blue Blood turned men into horrible demons which ravaged the night. Thus, humans could not leave their homes after the night. Every one-hundred years, a Saint is selected to contain the Eternal Lord of Night's blood within them as a vessel. Jump forward 800 years, in the 17th Century, on a fictional island known as Ruswal, which sits north of current day Finland, where the presence of the Eternal Lord of Night's power is the strongest. We follow Arnice, a Knight in service of a mysterious organization called the Curia, which monitors Arnice as she becomes a Holy Knight and swears to protect the Saint she is tasked to protect. She doesn't know of who it is, until she docks and meets her friend, Lilysse, who took up the role of this current century's Saint. The two of them were friends long before the story starts, and Arnice now must protect her friend from the Eternal Lord of Night.

The story of Nights of Azure is the absolute best part of the game. As you progress through the game, you'll get to see Arnice's and Lilysse's friendship bloom into something more, or, depending on the choices you can make in the game, you can be a total douche to Lilysse. But also as you progress through the story, Lilysse learns that in order to stop the Eternal Lord of Night from completely covering this world in complete night, where demons can roam around freely, she must sacrifice herself, as tradition every 100 years. Arnice is opposed to this because it's her best friend and, entirely, is too selfish to let her go.

The plot ultimately comes down to the prospect: Do you let friendship sink in and save one person, while sacrificing the entire world, or let her sacrifice herself to save the world? By building up that relationship between Arnice and Lilysse, it forces the game to make that decision which, morally, has no right path. You give up one to save the other. There's no right choice. But along the way, the game forces you to feel for Lilysse's plight at being the Saint dedicated to restoring the balance of the world.

And the choices you make throughout the game dictate which path you can go. So unlike 99% of most games nowadays, your choices ACTUALLY MATTER. How about that?

You'll meet new characters along the way, including Lloyd, a traveling "merchant" that came to Ruswal in order to build a fortune, Professor Alucard, who ultimately is a douche and wants the world to die so he can accelerate his process and study demons more. This is one part of the game I didn't really like: Professor Alucard and Lloyd serve as comedic relief in between tense scenarios, but it....really doesn't work out that well. Professor Alucard's running jokes become old and Lloyd just ends up looking like a greedy scumbag more often than not.

Aside from the comedic relief, I really enjoyed Arnice and Lilysse's relationship. It's not really uncommon nowadays to see two girls liking each other, or saying "I love you" in traditional media, but it's always a refresher from the typical romance plots. And the audience knows Arnice and Lilysse are in love, the game even says so.

Even still, it's a story best experienced for yourself, so if you don't want to read ahead, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS BELOW. THIS IS IN BIG BOLD LETTERS TO TELL YOU. THIS IS A DISCLAIMER AND YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

  Reveal hidden contents

Overall, the story was pretty solid, even if the random tidbits of comedic relief didn't really suit the game's dark and serious atmosphere.

Overall: 8.5/10.

Gameplay:

Unfortunately, this is where most of the game is....lackluster.

Before I start, I will say, there are immense issues with controllers on the PC Version of this game, which is what I ended up playing on. I don't know if it was because I was using a PS4 controller, but the trigger buttons didn't work on my version, which included two necessary mechanics to having fun with the game, Transformation and Servan Deck Switch. Both of which I'll go over later, but there are glaring issues with mapping buttons to the triggers that don't necessarily work. And I've tried, believe me. I tried assigning my buttons hundreds of times, with no success. The game just will not map my trigger buttons to anything.

Nights of Azure in and of itself is basically...I'd say 50% Visual Novel, 50% Dungeoncrawler. And when I saw Dungeoncrawler, I mean CRAWLER. Near the end of the game, I had to do so many runs of the game just to try and level up so I could be on par with the final boss. It really got tedious and boring for a little bit while I did was try and hit things with my giant ass sword.

Anyways, the field screen is pretty basic. You have Arnice's HP and SP, which is used to do Special Attacks, and among other things, summon the servants that are listed in the bottom-right corner. Servans are a mechanic kind of like helpers in combat, and by pressing RB plus the button correlating to that Servan, you can Summon it. There are many different types of Servans you can obtain, from sword-wielding dinosaurs to golden statues of lions to metal bombers. I think there are a total of 30 different types of Servans you can get in the game, so there are definitely options. Servans themselves are half-demon apparitions that have come into contact with Blue Blood, and have rightfully turned into Demons, but retain the memories of when they were still human, so they cannot become fully demonized. They help Arnice in her fight by putting down fields of protection, paralyzing enemies, healing other party members and Arnice, and managing crowd control. Eventually, the party I settled on was an Alraune, a Servan who can heal the entire group, Wolf, which deals massive amounts of damage, Arachne, who can tank and crowd control, and Bisque, a mechanical doll that lays down a protective field around Arnice whenever she is knocked down, and can push enemies away with her special attack.

The Servan mechanic itself is pretty in-depth, which is one of the parts I like about the game. You can have a wide assortment of different Servans that basically change altogether how you engage foes, and tackle situations. Servans can also affect your Transformation, with a mechanic called Transformation Rites. It actually matters how your Servans are lined up in combat, because having one Servan in front of the other can completely change your Transformation. Right now, since Alraune is the leader of the Servan Group, I have special access to a Transformation called "Phantom Form". The leader always gets a 2x bonus to their Transformation Rites. But if I were to put Wolf as the leader, I would get another transformation differently called "Rabbit Form", so it actually matters how you set up your party.

By the way, Phantom Form is the best.

Although you don't get Transformation until about roughly 3 hours in, Phantom Form quickly becomes a necessity for combat, as level spikes and difficulty spikes will make your Servans die quickly, and if you don't have a dedicated healer, you'll be struggling to keep your Servan's health and SP up unless you have Phantom Form. Which is one thing I quite disliked about the game: it's difficulty spikes. There's a lot of difference between Level 4 and Level 5, and even more so to Level 6. So you always need to make sure you're up to date, by constantly grinding dungeons for Blue Blood dropped off of enemies.

How you get new Servans is through finding Fetishes in Dungeons. Yes, I said fetishes. You filthy people.

By expending the Blood you find in dungeons, you can materialize new Fetishes into Servans. However, one thing I also didn't like is you also need Blood to level up Arnice. So it becomes a point of...yep, you guessed it, going into dungeons and grinding for more Blood.

The rest of combat is...boring. And sometimes wonky in some of the ways it works. For example, Lock-On. The camera turns too slowly to face the target you are locked on to, which in some situations is incredibly bad. And also, you can't turn the camera while locked on because turning the camera makes you switch your locked on target. Which...is fundamentally a bad design when you're trying to constantly find your target because you locked onto something that moves around at 9,000 miles per hour.

Boss design looks cool. You can fight a giant circus-themed Carousel.

I wish I was kidding.

No, but really, I think the boss designs are some of the best parts of the game. You can fight a bunch of dragons, sure, but wouldn't you rather fight a giant circus themed Carousel who has a giant cannon in the middle of its chest?

And yes, bosses drop significantly more EXP (which is used to level up Servans) and Blood, so it's easily the fastest way to grind for Blood. But still not really an efficient way to do it. Which is sad, because the difficulty spikes are so bad and it takes so long to grind for levels that sometimes its not even worth it. As you can see, my Servans are two levels above where I am because the ratio of EXP that you get from enemies and the Blood you get for Leveling up Arnice is so much in favor of the Servans.

There is an equipment system in the game, however, it only lets you equip up to 4 items, and even then, you have to build up Arnice with Skill Points, which you can get from doing Daytime Activities.

One major thing I have about combat in the game, is you do absolutely no damage. Like, at all. You only do 20 damage per attack while your Servans can miraculously deal 200 damage in bursts. Against Level 7+ enemies, they just become literal sponges and laugh at you while you try to attack them. So unfortunately, in order to make any progress in the game in terms of how much damage you do, you have to get ATK boosting items, but most ATK boosting items come with a penalty or some other negative that make it not worth using. For example: Glass Blade. An item that gives you an enormous boost to ATK but the instant you get hit, you die. Like, who would ever use that? And it's not just that, another ATK boosting item can lower your HP and SP altogether. So, yes, there are some glaring problems with how much raw damage you can do without ultimately sacrificing something else entirely. Same for DEF.

There's also a Side Quest option available for those of you who want to waste your time. No really, they are a waste of time because the Side Quests in this game don't give anything meaningful or worthwhile. They're just literally a waste of time. Same with Side Scenarios, pictured above. These are literally only meant for progress in the game, and they do nothing beneficial for you overall. No EXP, no Blood, no Libra (the money in the game), no nothing. Not even affection for dear Lilysse. It's literally just a waste of time to try and do everything because there's no benefit to doing it.

So just stick to killing bosses. Like this guy here. Poor Spider is gonna crushed underneath his foot sooner or later.

So unfortunately, the gameplay isn't as great as the storyline. Which is a shame. I hear they are trying to rework and revamp some of the features in Nights of Azure 2. Hopefully, the first step is that you start to deal more damage and fix the lock-on mechanic so that you can freely rotate the camera while still being locked on to a singular target.

Overall: 6/10.

Quality:

The mature theme of the game is ruined ultimately by tidbits of comedic relief that really don't belong in the game. The gameplay elements don't really work, blend together, or have a consistent theme. It honestly feels like the title was rushed to publish which happens with the majority of games nowadays. And actually, I think Nights of Azure was rushed, if I remember correctly. But still, it is a game by Koei TECMO, and being a longtime fan of their work, I really still enjoy the works that they have been putting out this year. Nioh, Atelier Sophie, Nights of Azure, Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers are all games to count on their list. So while it sucks that this game couldn't be at its best, its still somewhat of a decent effort.

The game graphically is okay. It reminds me a bit of a Tales game, which is also probably why I enjoyed playing through the story so much. Just the way everyone's characters are modeled and how they behave during cutscenes really reminds me of the most recent Tales game (not Berseria, but Zestiria). There's plenty of stuff to look at, like Concept Arts, music which you can jam out to, and you can listen to the VAs from the characters ramble on in Japanese. Perfect dream for all you people who listen to Japanese out there.

Also, speaking of music, the OST from this game is AMAZING. There isn't a single song I disliked from the entire soundtrack. Which is really saying something. In fact, I'm listening to one of my favorite boss themes while I'm typing this review simply because I enjoy the track so much.

If you're ever having any doubts as to if you don't like the soundtrack or not, just listen to this piece for a few minutes, and get back to me.

Overall, fairly good execution of the game, but not wonderful or exhilarating. It's just.....good.

Overall: 7/10.

Replayability:

So, obviously, like I said before during the Story breakdown of the game, your choices actually dictate which path you go along. If you are in favor of saving Lilysse and make the correct choices, you can potentially go for the True Ending of the story. If you don't, you'll get the Neutral ending (which is the worst ending ever). And depending on the choices you make, some characters will appear in the story, and some won't even appear at all. I'm gonna try and work for the True Ending and see if it changes my outlook on the multiple choice path in the game to see if it even matters.

But yes, there is tons of replayability. As with most games nowadays, after completing the game, you can make a new Save file with all of your progress and continue from where you left off, but before you had beaten the final boss of the game. And there's still so much of the game I haven't even explored or caught onto yet. For example, there's a Transformation named "Nightmare Form" which I have no idea how to get. I'm also not even Level 10 yet, the game's maximum Level Cap. I only beat the game at Level 9. I still have two more Servans I have to find in the world. And I managed to cram all this within 24 hours of playtime (if I'm remembering my save time correctly.)

So yes. Lots of replayability.

Replayability: 8.5/10.

Now, it's time for the final wrap-up. In this section, I'll detail if this game is truly one for you, and if you should decide to play it or not.

Would I recommend this game?:

Honestly, if you like story more than gameplay, go for it. But if you value gameplay over story, give this one a pass. I only stuck around because I like story more than gameplay. The gameplay drowns out the best parts of the story, and the gameplay proves only as a barrier to really enjoying the story.

There are some good parts in the game, but there are also some bad parts, and parts that I honestly really really really despise. But overall, it's good. Not great, not terrible. Just....good.

Overall rating of the game: 7.5/10. A good game. But ONLY for the story.

Arin's In Depth Game Reviews: God Eater Resurrection (Repost from November 14, 2016)

"God Eater: Resurrection" mimics the Monster Hunter formula, in essence, with slight variations and overall generally faster combat than it's brother Monster Hunter. I'll break the game down into several segments, consisting of story, gameplay, quality, and replayability, and judge the game on all of these criteria.

Story:

Arigami.

No one knows where they came from. Only that they were born into the world because human evolution had progressed so far. They had one goal in mind: to devour the world and to start over. However, humanity would not surrender so easily. Humanity evolved further, using their technology to counteract the Arigami threat. Constant evolution from both sides has made the war a stalemate. With the inclusion of a new power from Dr. Paylor Sakaki, the tide of battle would soon change in humanity's favor.

Oracle power. This new substance was crafted into weaponry, in common assault rifles to swords and other intricate tools. In return, Aragami kept evolving, they kept destroying humanity by Devouring them and their Oracle power to strengthen their own. The bright minds of Dr. Paylor Sakaki, Johannes Von Shicksal, and Aisha Shicksal worked together in tandem to provide an ultimately new insight to Oracle Power, one that could help turn the tide in the war against Aragami. Aragami exist in this world only to Devour humanity. But what would happen if an Aragami Devoured another Aragami? This question is what prompted extensive research into manipulating Oracle power to create a deadly weapon that could defeat and counter Aragami once and for all.

A God Arc. And the one who took up the power to wield this massive weapon was deemed a God Eater.

This story was pulled straight from the anime rendition of God Eater. If you haven't watched it, I highly suggest you do so, as the next section will become incredibly spoiler-y. The plot above consists of the plot from the anime, so what of the game itself? After the incursion of Aragami, you play as an unnamed hero you create (we'll be calling them Alpha-One for the rest of the review). When Oracle Power was formed into God Arcs, a coalition of different heroes was established under Johannes' name, called Fenrir. Multiple branches of Fenrir expanded rapidly into other countries of the world to stop the Aragami threat. The story of God Eater: Resurrection takes place mostly in Fenrir Far East branch, a la Japan. Alpha-One joins Fenrir in order to ultimately stop the Aragami threat and to put an end to their wrath.

But things aren't always in black and white. During one of Alpha-One's exhibitions, the team finds a small human child, who they name Shio. They promptly bring her back to Fenrir Fast East Branch and care for her in secret. Dr. Paylor Sakaki, a man of respectable wisdom and experience, dubs Shio as a "half-human, half-Aragami". As they care for the young Shio, she begins to exhibit more and more natural actions and reactions that humans would do, paving the way in new research to better fight against Aragami.

All the while, Johannes von Shicksal is crafting a new world. One in which there will be no Aragami, no war, and no violence. He calls it the Exodus Project. When Director Johannes realized the Aragami were eviscerating the human population, he set out to make an alternate world. A paradise in which Aragami would not exist and would not ravage on Earth. He collects the power of fallen Aragami and feeds them into a machine-island called Aegis, which houses the Exodus Project. On the surface, it sounds fun, doesn't it? But it's all a front. A handful of Alpha One's team members, Sakuya Tachibana, and Alisa Illinichina Amiella, decide to investigate the Exodus Project,only to realize that it's just a bunch of spaceships. The entire goal of the Exodus Project was not to save humanity, but to launch them into space to save themselves from the Aragami threat. Alpha-One and team eventually fight Johannes, but the souls from Devoured Aragami have all amalgamated together into the Aegis, which secured the destruction of the world and all humanity and Aragami within it, so that all the happy people in space can make babies and repopulate Earth. Gross.

All in all, even with the anime plot coinciding with the game plot, it was actually a really good interpretation of the other (I don't know if anime came first or the game. Usually in these situations, it's game first then anime). The entire prospect of humanity continuously evolving to overcome barriers and obstacles is a neat plot point. If you have not watched the anime interpretation yet, I highly suggest you do. You can find all the episodes on Crunchyroll.

Overall: 8/10.

Gameplay:

The bulk of the review is going to be in this section, mostly, as there is a lot of ground to cover and I have so many screenshots of all the different things you can do in the game.

So the basic premise is this: You go out on missions as Alpha-One and you kill Aragami. You then Devour them and grab their goodies that they drop. You use said goodies to help the R&D (Research and Development) team make new weapons, armors, and items that can help you against the Aragami threat. Rinse and repeat. Even though it sounded kind of cool...the gameplay just got a little bit same-y after a while. It was always kill this kill that, no variation in between. And although that's kind of the point of Monster Hunter games, they at least provide a little bit something different with Monster Hunter Stories as a fully-fledged RPG, and then Monster Hunter Generations coming in. But within God Eater: Resurrection itself, there wasn't too much terribly different in terms of gameplay. Smash this guy's face in, eat them with your God Arc, smash some more. It just felt repetitive after a while and it was the reason why I ended up taking such a long break from the game.

As Alpha-One, you maneuver around the Fenrir Far East Branch as a sort of little "hub world". Here, you can take missions, talk to other members of the Fenrir Fast Each Branch, and take a look at your equipment load-out for the next mission.

In the Equipment sub-menu, there is A LOT of variety you can do with your setup. Most Aragami will not be weak to everything, so it is in your best interest to take more than one weapon setup for combat. For example, taking a weapon that is Freeze element so that Aragami who are weak to Freeze are easily countered, and then taking a weapon that is Divine element for those who are weak to Divine. Each weapon will have a variety of effects associated with them as well. So for example, a Long Blade might swing slower but hit harder than a Short weapon. They also have their own effects, such as greater Stamina, HP, or Oracle Power (which fuels your ranged weapon).

You can also upgrade your weaponry so that it becomes stronger against Aragami. Upgrades will make your weapon stronger, but also upgrade its available skills. So for example, a Blade Wielder V now becomes a Blade Wielder X. Very intricate, and you can also fully customize your weaponry so that you can had more skills to your repertoire.

If you add a specific effect to a weapon, you can bring it to combat. You can have effects ranging from extra rewards when you win a fight, to having more straight up Strength, to having faster attack Speed. It mostly depends on what kind of character you want to build and how you want to do it. I went with a Paladin-esque character that relied on crowd control and taking the brunt of hits while everyone else deals damage. While also providing healing shots that raise Defense. The possibilities you could do as far as character customization go, are endless.

You can also dress up Alpha-One. I have beautiful clown tights on.

The basic premise of fighting is comprised of hitting the X Button for Light Attacks, Y for Strong Attacks, B to dash around (which costs Stamina), A for jumping, RB to switch between your God Arc forms (melee and ranged), LB to lock-on to the current target.

There are a lot of different enemies to combat in the world of God Eater. My personal favorite enemies are called Quadrigas, huge tank-like Aragami that shoot missiles and fuck you up. Borg Camlaans are also unique enemies: giant scorpions with large tails and metal shields that resemble knights.

The above picture is a Quadriga doing what it does best. Fucking us up.

Oh, I forgot to mention, before each fight, you can take which members of Fenrir's Far East Branch you want to take. So you can take party members that compliment your playstyle. You can have up to 3 other party members, including Alpha-One. My setup usually consisted of two ranged party members that just spammed shots, a tank, and then me as a crowd control setup. It was honestly quite good. And you can customize your party members any way you want, by having them have more HP, do more damage, have the ability to do Healing shots if they are a ranged character, and others.

Mostly, I liked the gameplay. It was boring at times and same-y, so I ended up taking a break from the game for a little while. Mostly, my complaints about the game are the slow loading screens from the game. Loading screens take a long time (like twenty seconds to almost a minute), and it was unbearable sometimes, because the loading screens also appear during some cutscenes. Another gripe that I had was the voice acting. It felt sluggish and forced at times, even though the majority of the script was alright. Other than that, the combat was mostly boring and loading screens were long.

Gameplay: 6.5/10.

Quality:

Like I did in my Tales of Zestiria review, the same people who did the animated cutscenes during the game (of which there were only a couple, sadly) were made by UFOTable. Also, this game is very very bloody. But the anime is worse. The anime has Attack on Titan levels of blood. That's gross.

From an overall quality standpoint, it was alright.

Quality: 7/10.

Replayability:

After the credits roll when you defeat the final boss, you go about your daily life swinging at Aragami once again, and since the threat of Aragami has lowered, less big Aragami and smaller Aragami are more apparent. This is the part where I stopped, however, because after the credits roll, that's the end of the game. No matter what anyone says. So while there is a certain concept of going back and redoing what you were doing before, it still continues on the plot as normal. When I get more invested into the game, I will see where this route goes, but for now, the general consensus is, you roll the credits, the game stops.

Replayability: 7/10.

Now, it's time for the final wrap-up. In this section, I'll detail if this game is truly one for you, and if you should decide to play it or not.

Would I recommend this game?:

Yes. If you like the Monster Hunter formula and want an anime change of pace, then this is the game for you. If you like the Monster Hunter games, then you would like this one, just the same. For $50 on Steam, you get God Eater: Resurrection, and God Eater 2: Rage Burst, two games in one. Which in my opinion, is a good deal, and look forward to a God Eater 2: Rage Burst review coming in just a few months.

Overall rating of the game: 7.3/10. A good game.

Now for the opening theme of the God Eater Anime to finish things off.