Lacuna Passage - PC Preview

Huh… so that's how Matt Damon felt in the Martian. Having crash landed on the Red Planet it won't take long to get moving because the Oxygen levels and the Battery life of your suit won't last forever. Don't worry though, there's no potato farming!

Lacuna Passage is an Early Access Simulation of what it would be like to walk on Mars after your pod face planted into it's surface. Currently there is only a Sandbox Mode in place as the Story Mode is not currently available. The Sandbox mode however is more than enough to get a sense of the direction of a final product and even if there are some rough spots with the controls, the whole package looks like it's in a good shape.

Waking up and seeing the oxygen and battery gauges to the left and the right of your helmet for the first time a small sense of urgency pops up as you know that time is not with you. Given instructions to on how to turn on your scanners in order to find, fix, and turn on the nearest habitat, you start hoofing it towards your destination. What are you supposed to do? There's a ton of stuff lying around everywhere! Following your given instructions you head into the offline habitat to see what can be done. Oh, don't forget, you're running out of air.

There's going to be a fair amount of reading involved in order to figure out exactly what you're supposed to do or none at all if things simply click. Putting the habitat back together is your first priority and ABOVE ALL ELSE, turn the systems on. I died after my first day as I didn't realize that each station that needs to be repaired from the water pumps to the power and air filters, all need to be turned on. I repaired them but was looking for a central location on the switch without realizing that each station has their own. Whoops. I ran out of air. Apparently I'm not suited to go to Mars…

On my second try, I went back to each station, checked the diagnostics for what was damaged and it surprisingly changed. It wasn't the same parts that needing fixing or swapping out to get the Habitats systems back online. This was good because it meant that you couldn't just rush through your initial starting point every time. Repairing these systems is very hands on. You need to have the parts on you and you need to click out the exact parts in question. Fuses 2 and 5 need to be replaced? Air filter 3 needs to be fixed and replaced? You have to interact with these portions that are behind panels specifically. Once they are all up and running, AND you've turned on the power, it's time to head into the habitat to see what can be done.

Once inside the for the moment heated safety of your Habitat, there's not much to do. You can check your food stores, check out your resources, make new parts to fix things or sleep. You'll need to sleep, you'll need to eat, and you'll need to keep track of how you eat as you'll need the calories to burn off while outside the habitat just as much as you need your vitamins and nutrients. Eating itself is just as easy as clicking on the item in your inventory and chowing down on it. The same can be said about drinking water that unlike eating can be done outside of the habitat as your suit apparently has a hose for that.

After you've gotten the place running and you've taken stock of what's left, there are two other habitats to be found and your survival to think of. This is where things got a bit… boring. Being hands on with the habitat is great. Finding crashed supply drops or other unfortunate souls that didn't make it back and taking their supplies is good and all but Mars is nothing but a floating ball of dust and other than a day and night cycle there's nothing to see. Some of the views are great but there's nothing else in the meantime. There are no sandstorms, no solar flares and you've got to essentially walk slowly as you can't run forever and running depletes your air faster. There's also no auto-walk meaning that you've got to hold your fingers on the direction you're moving in.

The complaint that I have about Lacuna Passage is the manner in which you can interact with your inventory. The mouse for some reason is disabled meaning that everything has to be done with the keyboard and generally one item at a time or more keyboard manipulation. It makes things take longer than they should and there's really no possible added value to disabling the mouse.

Being Early Access there's plenty of time to spice up a bit on the survival aspect. The beginning is great but it dies off fast enough as it's no longer a hands on but a boring solo walk with nothing much to look at. I do hope to see more content added such as storms, flares, falling rocks, or even creatures from underground coming up to see what is prowling around in their territory.

Game Information

Platform:
PC
Developer(s):
Random Seed Games
Publisher(s):
Random Seed Games
Genre(s):
Simulation
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
N/A

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Pierre-Yves

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Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE - Wii U Review

Tokyo Mirage Sessions *(TMS) is the love child of both Atlus' Shin Megami Tensei (SMT) and Nintendo's Fire Emblem (FE) series. True to the weirdness of SMT, our cast is thrown into a world of weird that only they really see while everyone simply walks on by. While trying to maintain the fast tracks to idol-hood our cast will also have to slot in time for Dungeon Crawling and performing concerts. The stage is set. They just need to survive it!

One of the biggest features that stuck out is the actual use of the WiiU's gamepad in order to add an immersion to the experience. The gamepad's screen not only contains a variety of windows for enemy stats and weaknesses but also acts as your main character's cellphone and the primary form of interaction with the rest of the cast when they are not there in person.

Texting, because who even calls anymore, can come in two varieties. The first are important and story related texts that have to be answered. These will stop your character on screen and have him look down to his phone to answer. Some of his answers are already per-determined according to the story while others allow you to decide what kind of person he really is. Nice guy? Jerk? Nonchalant? You choose as he's basically your avatar to this world.

The second set of texts are either updates letting you know that something new can be built, learnt or supplements to everything else. They aren't necessary to the overall story but they add something without having the characters on screen chat bubbles be cut off because a battle started. If anything this annoyed me because they didn't continue once the battle was over essentially making you miss the rest of the conversation.

A bit like the Persona series, our cast finds themselves in today's modern world, and more specifically, Tokyo Japan. Who would have thought that with that title? Being downtown allows for some pretty crazy things to happen but also allows for some easy accessibility of store fronts and transport between locations. Essentially a very convenient form of fast travel, but one that also makes sense.

While the SMT parentage can take the reigns of the experience, it does not mean that the FE components end up by the wayside. Getting wrapped up in the weirdness each character ends up with a Mirage (slightly different than a Persona) in order to be able to fight against the forces of another world that are attempting to steal what is known as Performa. These Mirages are Characters from the FE series with their own personalities and fighting styles and lend themselves to the cast after dedicating themselves to their cause. Some of the more recent characters such as Chrom and Tharja from Fire Emblem Awakening take the stage.

With the assistance of the Mirage to head into combat, the turned based approach is a perfect blend of both series' Rock Paper Scissors styles. SMT contains a lot of elemental "magical" attacks leaving physical into the three categories of Pierce, Blunt, and Thrust. FE on the order hand has Swords / Tomes -> Axes / Bows -> Lances / Hidden -> Swords / Tomes. Tokyo Mirage Sessions puts both of these into a three person team combat system that will face off against foes that didn't get the three person memo limit.

Because three on more than that just isn't fair, several other elements are added in to not only make something new, but also even the playing field a bit. Instead of hitting an enemy's weak point and then being able to double damage it on following attack, a new follow-up system has been put into place. Added onto active and passive skills are follow up skills which allow an ally to instantly perform a follow up attack if a weak point has been hit. This means that by using fire, if an ally has "fire sword" then a sword attack will follow up the fire one.

Further, if an ally has "sword lance" then a lance attack will follow up after the sword which already followed up the fire attack. Follow-up attacks help level the playing field when more powerful enemies are encountered or if the group is outnumbered. Keeping the party composition aligned for these is honestly more important than who you prefer having in the main party making sure that everyone gets their turn and doesn't fall too far behind the rest while dungeon crawling. This isn't much in the beginning but the system evolves as your characters learn new abilities through their Mirages. More and more follow-up attacks leaves this open to some interesting strategies.

Learning these follow-up attacks is slightly bizarre as they are not learned from either leveling up your main character or their Mirage. Actually in effect Mirages don't level but the weapons that they use known as Carnages do. These weapons are where the skills are going to come from and each Active, Passive, and Follow-up each have their own sections to be slotted into. Once a skill is learned then it goes into the appropriate list to either be used or be in effect. Making these weapons is a whole other story and often? More of a pain than not.

Weapons are created through a hybrid system of having defeated xth amount of an enemy, collecting different levels of Prestige Points, and possibly having picked up a certain item. This wouldn't have been so bad if it didn't require unnecessary backtracking as Carnages can only be made inside of a room inside of the main base that you have to run to the near end of of to talk to the person to start the process. Then you have to run all the way back out.

This is a bit where things don't jive as well as to see what you need to make a Carnage you need to go back to this room every time. Your cell will receive a notification that you can make something new, but as for looking for the specifics? You're out of luck. In this not being able to see things category you also can't see your side quests. Not quite sure what you were supposed to be doing? You need to track down the person that gave it to you. Not sure where they are? Start looking. The main bulk of TMS works great but there were some smaller details that can get in the way at times.

On the whole Tokyo Mirage Sessions is a solid RPG that will keep you occupied for hours on end. Good storyline and great implementation of the Wii U's system can sometimes be dragged down by some not so well implemented systems but these are only secondary to the overall experience in most cases. I do hope that Atlus creates another such experience down the line but in the meantime, Persona 5 is coming up (Edit: "was coming up" when I started to write this) and this was a good distraction while waiting for it!

*Yes Tokyo Mirage Sessions (TMS) is basically Shin Megami Tensei (SMT) in reverse acronym-wise. Well played!

Game Information

Platform:
Nintendo Wii U
Developer(s):
Atlus
Publisher(s):
Nintendo
Genre(s):
RPG
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
None

Source:
Purchased

Article by Pierre-Yves

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Week in Review - May 22nd to the 26th

Welcome back to the weekend and this Week's in Review!

Richard started the week off with some dungeon crawling in the newest entry of the New Tokyo Legacy.

"...some of the more annoying parts have stuck with Babel from its predecessor, that doesn't stop Operation Babel from being a decent sequel or stand alone game..."

- Richard

Following up on new entries was the newest Hakuoki that our new writer Natasha reviewed for the PS Vita

"Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds is game that every romantic fantasizer needs to experience, providing an emotional trip that will have you hanging on the edge of your seat. The "What if?" thought of "Did I make the right choice?" will always make you second guess yourself…"

- Natasha

---

Tuesday started off with a literal bang as Nick got to essentially play God and guide the growth of worlds with NIS's Birthdays the Beginning.

"There is an undeniable charm to taking the simulation genre and adding some adorable critters to it with a loose take on how evolution works."

- Nick

I wasn't sure there was a way to top Samurai Warriors 4 but they did it anyways with 4-II and again with the newest Spirit of Sanada which has to be one of my favorites of the entire franchise. This includes all the spin-offs.

"Building further on the ideas presented in 4-II, Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada finds a balance of both while also improving upon the gameplay for possibly the best Samurai Warriors entry yet."

- Pierre-Yves

---

And here's something that I would NEVER touch. Outlast 2. Thankfully that's why Nick's around because he plays crazy scary horror games. For fun.

" And horrors you will find. There is a warning at the start of the game, and it is an apt one. Outlast 2 goes for a lot of shock value with its loud sounds, use of language, depictions of torture and more. The first title was an unsettling one that pulled very few punches, and Outlast 2 follows the same basic path - now with better graphics! The end result is an even more intense experience. "

- Nick

After the horrors of the morning Robert tackled a science fiction twist on the whole style that From Software made popular with their Souls series. Enter the newest Deck 13 experience with The Surge.

"Deck13 has delivered a wonderful, difficult, engrossing, and thrilling experience with The Surge"

- Robert

---

Starting the day off with a bit more Horror, jeez you think it was Halloween around here this week, Chris dives back into Narcosis though without a headset this time. Wait... he did this in VR? *shudders*

"It is during exploration that Narcosis is at its best. The unique setting and an interesting story serve as fantastic motivators to keep you moving through this survival horror experience."

- Chris H.

Balacing the horror once again is a bit of retro going back to the first Xbox with Tomb Raider: Legend

"In conclusion, Tomb Raider Legend is among the best XBOX games. Besides its impressive technical quality and artistic finesse, it offers a perfectly balanced combination of narration and various types of action."

- Dimitris

---

The end of the week is topped off with my final thoughts on the Utomik Platform. It's definitely good and worth a look into even if it can be considered in its "Early Stages".

"Having a Steam, PSN, Xbox Live, Nintendo eShop as well as a GoG and a Humble Bundle account, I would recommend looking into Utomik."

- Pierre-Yves

We topped off the week with a look at the remastered Valkyria Chronicles. Hopefully this leads to a remaster of the Second and possibly a Remaster and a Localization of the Third. I know. I'm probably dreaming but crazier has happened!

"If you didn't pick it up originally on the PS3? You should do it now. If you did? You should do it again. It's worth it and just as good as the last version though more refined on the newer hardware. "

- Pierre-Yves

Article by Pierre-Yves

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Valkyria Chronicles Remastered - PS4 Review

Sega back in the earlier days of the PS3 released what has to be one of my favorite entries of that console. Having been considered a "mediocre" release, its sequel would see the PSP and its sequel by comparison wouldn't / hasn't even seen a localization. What that history it was surprising to see an HD release of the first entry of the series not long before the launch of the newest Azure Revolutions which branches off from the main line.

Valkyria Chronicles put you into the role of Welkin Gunther as he leads Galia's Militia Squad Seven from one impossible battle to the next. This militia is all that really stands between an Empire that has come steamrolling into the republic of Galia and the resources that they would take. Given troops from five specializations, it's up to you as to how to move them across the field while avoiding casualties as much as possible while still achieving your goals.

Strategy games are nothing new and come in a variety of styles from NIS/NISA's Makai Senki series (Disgaea / Makai Kingdom / Trinity Universe) to Nintendo's Fire Emblem or Sid Meier's Civilizations. Sega hit gold and I'm sad that Valkyria Chronicles did not do any better as it merged Turned Based Combat with a Third Person Shooter in a gorgeous cel-shaded steampunked rendition of World War II.

Flowing like an elaborate picture book, the story progresses in portions until it's time to take your controller i hand and order your troops on the field. Once the story segments ends and the briefing stats up you are presented with a map of your theater of war. This map shows you known enemy locations as well as the deployment locations of your forces. Any troop deployed to the field can be selected once "one the ground" as long as you have the Command Points for it. Once all of these points are spent, or you decide that you're done for the turn, it's then the enemy's turn.

Each scenario will increase in difficulty while also adding in some variety. Troops vs Tanks, Troops vs Troops, Urban Warfare, Rural Combat, Valkyria has it all. Not every stage has the same restrictions just as not every stage will grant the same amount of Command Points or possible starting locations. The difficulty does raise because there are more or less. The difficulty raises because of what is asked from you.

Valkyria blends Turned Based Combat and live action segments very well because of how it is set up. Using a bird's eye view to see the layout of the battlefield, you can plan out your strategies in accordance to the layout of the terrain and the placement of your troops before then dropping down to the field to take action. To drop down to the field you only need use one Command Point to control any of your units regardless of their class. While controlling this unit everything becomes a form of real time action for the opposing team as you move your characters around.

Out of the five classes, Scouts, Engineers, Shock Troopers and Tank Anti-Ground guns will all be shooting at you as they have unlimited ammo. The only time they'll stop is to reload. Thankfully the hardest hitters, Snipers and Lancers, do not open fire with both their limited ammo and near one shot weapons if aimed right. Getting his is very easy if you are not careful and don't take cover while running around for a  better vantage point. Each class can only move so far and these two factors alone can raise the difficulty depending upon a map's layout.

If you really need to, Gunter is in possession of his Father's tank and for two Command Points you can take it out on the field to pave the way for your foot soldiers. This machine is equipped with a long range cannon, a mortar, an anti-personnel machine gun and it can roll over enemy sandbags that were being used for cover. What it can't be is destroyed as that will result in an automatic failure. Raising the stakes is that all tanks have their generators on the back and it's easy to take them out with the right equipment. Either another tank or a Lancer's weapon as that's what they are designed for.

Using an interesting form of RPG mechanic, individual characters do not level up but instead the entire class does. This means that if you like one character more than another you don't need to level them up to meet the rest of the team. This design choice allows for a second one as each character has a personality and have something specific that can either motivate or demotivate them when they are running on the field.

Leveling up any class can be done from the training field with the experience that was gained from completing a mission. Partial levels can be put in so that you remember exactly who you wanted to level next if there was not enough experience for it this time. Side to leveling is equipping your characters with better gear from armor to their weapons that can be bought through re-research at the lab alongside upgrades to your tank.

Money, like experience, is gained for successfully completing a stage and then can be spent to buy upgrades. Unlike the experience the full bill needs to be paid and it cannot be done in installments. Checking back often is important because upgrades will only unlock after specific missions have been completed otherwise it may have been too easy.

One thing that falls into a love it or hate it is that there's more than the leveling up and getting better stats RPG mechanics in place. There's "aiming" which requires both you lining you your crosshairs which happens in a freeze time, and having the numbers crunch and actually calculate that you hit where you wanted to hit. Lining up a headshot for example is a much tougher feat that simply aiming for the body. It should be done and sometimes your lineup is perfect but if the numbers say you didn't hit then you didn't and in the case of the single shot sniper, just wasted a Command Point AND their limited ammo supply. Engineers can restock any ammo and fix the tank but generally the purpose of the sniper is to be far away so wasted shots when they should have hit can be a bit aggravating if it happens multiple times in a row.

When it all boils down to it though, Valkyria Chronicles has a good balance between the story it tells through cutscenes and the story it tells through the gameplay. When it feels too heavy on one then it makes up for it with the other. Together these originally made an awesome combination and I'm very happy that Sega decided to re-give this entry a chance at the limelight while also upgrading its performance. If you didn't pick it up originally on the PS3? You should do it now. If you did? You should do it again. It's worth it and just as good as the last version though more refined on the newer hardware.

Game Information

Platform:
Sony PlayStation 4
Developer(s):
Sega
Publisher(s):
Sega
Genre(s):
Strategy
Turned Based Strategy
Real Time Strategy?
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
Sony PlayStation 3 (Original)

Source:
Purchased

Article by Pierre-Yves

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Utomik - Software Review

I've now had the pleasure of using Utomik for three months in which the wonderfully provided trial period ends Sunday. Over the past month we've had reviews in which came from the software with some being available when I started to use the service while others, like The Force Unleashed 2 (Coming Soon), were added afterwards through partnerships. I haven't reviewed everything that I've played, otherwise I would still be writing, but I did have fun with what I had access to. Three months was a good time to put it through its paces and while some small details may still need a bit of work, the overall experience is one worth looking into especially if there are multiple titles that it has that are on your radar.

In case you originally missed it, we originally took a look at Utomik back in mid March. Utomik is a subscription based system that allows for any user to navigate the library, chose what they want to play, and play it within seconds as Utomik downloads what is needed to start off and then performs the rest of the download, especially on much larger games, in the background. Contrary to my original thoughts which I had mentioned, it is not a streaming service which means that anyone with low bandwidth caps or low speeds can enjoy the library's content just as much as someone with unlimited bandwidth and high speeds as it really doesn't take long to get a game started.

The interface is just as clean now as it was when I started using it. Games are separated by labels that can be viewed through "channels" that could either contain RPG titles, First Person Shooters, or titles that belong to specific developers or publishers like Deep Silver, Paradox, Disney (Star Wars) and THQ Nordic. Clicking on any of these channels will bring you into another window in which you can quickly see loads of thumbnails of the available titles. Want to play something? Simply click on "Play" and Utomik will take care of the rest.

If you want to know more about a title there's a Information Icon in the top right corner of any game's thumbnail. Clicking on these will bring you over to a well laid out screen with the icon of the game, its description, the built in rating system and a video. Unfortunately it still doesn't allow for the option to disable auto-playing the videos which for me isn't an issue from a bandwidth perspective but it is from a "what if I don't want to watch the video" perspective.

The auto-playing videos can also add up towards anyone's monthly limits. The reason I would clock this as an issue is that if you live around where I do, only in the past year have we started to have internet for under 100$ that gives us more than 25mbps download speeds and "unlimited". Prior to that? 100$ plans maybe gave us 20mbps with 120gb download limits. Let's say that it didn't take long before Breanna and I started to pay much more for the internet because checking the meter every day got very annoying very fast and anything that auto-played just added to the "please tell us we didn't go over. Again.

The only issue that I could have with Utomik is that if you want to install anywhere but the default folder they are going to ask for administrative access each and every time that you wish to install something. As anyone with Window Vista and up knows, even with an administrator account you aren't quite "using your admin rights" until you right click and say run and administrator. Because my PC runs off of an older and smaller Solid State Drive, all my games are on a much larger secondary hard drive meaning that anytime I wanted to download and install something new, I HAD to load Utomik with my administrator privileges instead of simply doing everything from a simple loading of the software.

Once you've selected your game and you're ready to play, just hit Play and the game will launch. Once loaded, some titles will automatically full screen while others will not. I wish there was an option on the window to do so but a quick "Alt-Enter" will do the trick as it does for most Indie RPGs out of an RPG Maker. From there on in the control schemes are at the mercy of how the title was created whether it be keyboard and mouse or if they enabled controller support.

Once you're done playing simply quit and go about doing whatever else you wish to do. Once you do come back though, Utomik has made sure that it's easy to find any title that you've already played or have loaded up in order to play later through your "My Utomik" tab. Simply clicking Play will bring you right back in and you don't need to search the library for it. Want to remove a game from your system? Simply switching the view from Dashboard to Manage games and clicking the "+" on any title will allow you to see how much space it's taking up while also giving the option to uninstall with no hassles.

Features that are there but work "iffyly" are the clocks under your profile as Aurion alone the first time that I sat down to it was for about four hours. The clock says that I have a total of four hours and I've played hours of Onion Force, Meltdown, Space Hack and Force Unleashed 2 alone. So that needs a bit of work but since it's not V1 yet that's not so bad. Trophies / Achievements are on their way at some point because everyone loves those possible bragging rights. A friend of mine sends me his platinum trophies every time he gets a new one. I think he's sitting somewhere in the seventies so they do make a good incentive for some.

There are still a few items that need to go into production as Utomik is currently sitting at Version "0.43.0", but even at that, I'm willing to score it before its full release which could take some time. Having a Steam, PSN, Xbox Live, Nintendo eShop as well as a GoG and a Humble Bundle account, I would recommend looking into Utomik. Being able to experience a vast and still growing library with a low monthly fee instead of having to buy everything piece by piece was a nice change of pace especially since there were several titles that I had been wanting to play.

Software Information

Platform:
PC
Developer(s):
Utomik
Publisher(s):
Utomik
Genre(s):
Game Distribution

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Pierre-Yves

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Tomb Raider: Legend - Retro Reflections

Tomb Raider revolutionized gaming in the nineties with three dimensional environments and challenging, complex action. Its protagonist became an iconic character, appeared in many sequels and even starred in her own movies. However, the series started to lose its originality after its initial huge success. Angel of Darkness, the first Tomb Raider for the 128 bit consoles, was not what people expected. Then, Legend came out and showed that you should never underestimate Lara Croft.

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Narcosis - Xbox One Review

Narcosis benefits from a unique environment and some really solid writing, though a short campaign and a story that loses steam detract from the overall experience. In the end, Narcosis winds up being decent, but not as great as it could have been.

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The Surge - Xbox One Review

When I first caught wind of The Surge a year or so ago I was immediately intrigued; after all Deck13 are the minds behind the success Souls-like pseudo-clone, Lords of the Fallen. Returning to the difficult twisted-dungeon crawling action-RPG genre, Deck13 brings us The Surge, a title steeped in high science fiction and it works. While I am a huge sucker for GrimDark fantasy of the Dark Souls games, the High Fantasy of Lords of the Fallen , the Cthulhu-esque setting of Bloodborne, or the Edo Period-esque world of Nioh, taking that same type of gameplay and placing it in a hard science fiction setting had my eyes alight with a ravening desire to play. After what seems to be an eternity, The Surge has released and goes to show that From Software and Team Ninja are not the only two that can do a punishingly good action-RPG.

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Outlast 2 - PS4 Review

The original Outlast was effective for a variety of reasons, from its excellent use of lighting and sound design to a genuinely creepy setting and story. The sequel title tries to ramp things up by making the story even more twisted, and the overall experience is still a solid one, if it has not really evolved much from its predecessor.

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Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada - PS4 Review

Samurai Warriors 4 was a great entry into the core vein of the series. Samurai Warriors 4-II took things a step further with some slight modifications to the experience both in terms of gameplay and narrative approach as it focused more on the people than the Dynasties that they fought for. Building further on the ideas presented in 4-II, Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada finds a balance of both while also improving upon the gameplay for possibly the best Samurai Warriors entry yet.

Spirit of Sanada focuses on the Sanada clan as they find their place under the Takeda banner and prove their worth strategically and combatively. Taking the role of Masayuki before his sons Yukimura and Nobuyuki are even born, he'll be taking to the field both as a combative participant as well as an explorer to gain a better understanding of the land surrounding the Sanada's stronghold as it grows throughout the seasons. This "hub" area creates enough of a distraction from the main events and is worth poking and prodding what is available both inside and outside of its walls.

While inside the hub, your main character (who won't always be Masayuki) can visit various locations such as the Merchant, the Blacksmith, a Jizo Statue, the library, a Dojo and a small plot of land in a farmer's field in order to plant stuff if you tire of fishing along the riverbed. Plowing a small portion of the farmer's field for example will grant a greater yield depending on how well you plowed the ground and your rewards can be used at the local merchant in order to make items that can give you an edge in battle. That or keep you alive.

Making basic healing items for example need apples while basic attack boosters need crabs that can be fished out from the local fishing spot. Fishing isn't something overly complicated but it's worth sitting down and pulling creatures from the river. If you need other types of materials that you may not have even seen yet, it's possible to leave an offering at the Jizo statue that will grant you one of three random choices that you have to play a quick game of "follow the cup that it's under".

Other facilities around the town are the Blacksmith and the Dojo. The Blacksmith will be able to upgrade a character's equipment for a small cost alongside the resources required to make the upgrade. Here is one of the first major changes as characters don't shuffle between different weapons and instead become more familiar with their own. Eventually the ability to clone your weapons and experiment with different builds comes into play but this isn't until much later.

The more familiar that they become with it, the more it can be upgraded. Basic levels offer the weapon itself, the first upgrade offers two slots for increased attack, attack speed, range and projectile which affects the distance of certain moves in a combat set. The second level opens up more slots while the third does the same and then introduces more abilities to be added such as elemental damage. Each of these requires different materials and these are shared by anyone that can take to the field alongside Masayuki.

Another big change is that characters don't simply learn new attack patterns by leveling up in battle. As they level up and become more powerful they unlock the "ability" to go train at the dojo in order to unlock these new potentials. New attack patterns, extra musou gauges, extra rage reservoir and leveling up characters with stored experience points from major battles. Short of the last one, each of these requires a small monetary compensation while the last can be done as long as there's experience left in the bank. It was a little odd to go about the skills and the musou gauges this way but it works as your character levels are generally fairly in line with the missions that you'll be going on making it that you don't exactly break the game early on by super grinding experience.

Even with these changes, and others, combat is still extremely smooth. Default attacks are done with Square, combo finishers can be done with pressing Triangle after xth amount of Square. Rush attacks to zip across the fields are still just as awesome as ever. Musou attacks, Raging, finishing Rage with a Musou attack. It's all back and while it hasn't changed everything surrounding it has.

Around the Sanada stronghold are locations that can be explored in order to gain resources. These explorable locations come up in the storyline but mostly exist to collect ingredients and materials without having to spend the gold. You are rewarded for everything you do here. There are core objectives such as collecting all the resources and uncovering all the areas just as there are special objectives that may not always show up and will require multiple, voluntary, visits. I say voluntary as there are several moments in which you are there for story purposes and your time as well as your course, are in the hands of another.

Exploring the surrounding territory is only one of two reasons to leave the Sanada's stronghold. The other is an amazing addition to the series through the form of multi-stage battles that can affect one another with the choices made in regards to the objectives that you are provided with. Some of them are nuts. Most of them are reasonable. All of them are worth doing.

When you take your character(s) to the field you will be given a set of core objectives, bonus objectives and what are known as feats. Not all of these will always be completable your first time out as you may not quite know how to handle the entire situation or you completed the core objectives before some of the bonus ones had a chance to appear. Completing bonus objectives and feats will open up options in the next battle down the line in order to give your forces a better edge from the information that they now have. This comes in the form of blocking the enemy's escape, distracting them while you're sneaking about, building a bridge to better cross a battlefield or simply reduce the enemy's health. All of these are useful but they can only be pulled off through the form of Stratagems in which you have to earn before you can use.

Stratagems are all the above options and more that can be used in battle as long as you've filled up a gauge in the form of the Six Coins of the Sanada. Filling up the gauge can be done by performing well in battle as well as completing bonus objectives and feats. It all comes together as you'll be wanting to perform all this extra work anyways in order to make the next battle easier as it opens more Stratagem options. Sometimes you'll want to let particular options go as you don't have enough coins for the amount of Stratagems but if you play your cards just right you should always have just enough to pull everything off. If you don't? You can always go back and attempt a previous battle in order to complete the missing objectives and feats.

Surprisingly, "not everything is about the Sanada" as side missions are available from time to time showcasing battles that happened elsewhere but were historically important. These battles offer up other characters as their forces clash against one another such as Nobunaga Oda and his brother-in-law as the later attempted to give the Takeda time to make it to the capital to stop Nobunaga's reign. These offer another good distraction and remind you of the bigger picture.

Now something that I thought was interesting for the overall experience is that with Yukimura is not a playable character until six or more hours in depending on if you replayed certain scenarios or went exploring enough times. In my case it was a good eight or so hours because some missions were a bit harder in order to complete all of the objectives to unlock Stratagems. Even when you first able to use him (which is much before that eight hour point) he's still a kid aspiring to one day serve his father properly. It isn't until the later chapters that he's a full grown man that we've come to know in the series where he takes to the field as a fully playable character. This is no way a complaint as it fits the experience and he's not super powerful making you need to carefully plot your moves. Leading up to that point was an enjoyable experience as it takes its time instead of simply rushing to Yukimura being a man and taking to the field.

Between the narrative scope of the Sanada and the additions of the Multi-Stage Battles and Explorations, Samurai Warriors: Spirit of the Sanada is one of the best yet. While it doesn't have a dungeon crawling tower or conquest mode for a custom character to test their might against, it's a solid experience that spans through a generation of people and the issues that they face as they tried to free Japan from one that they considered a tyrant.

Game Information

Platform:
Sony PlayStation 4
Developer(s):
Omega Force
Publisher(s):
Koei Tecmo Games
Genre(s):
Action
Hack and Slash
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
PC

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Pierre-Yves

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Birthdays the Beginning - PS4 Review

Birthdays the Beginning is a really challenging game to describe in just a few sentences. It blends some genres and will undoubtedly be a divisive title as it is a slow burn that often provides more of a passive experience than an active one. The thing is - I find myself enjoying the time spent with it more often than not, despite some of its flaws.

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Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds - Vita Review

If you’re looking for a game that’ll make you weak in the knees and have you swooning at every corner, then Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds is the game for you.

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Operation Babel: New Tokyo Legacy - Vita Review

Operation Babel is a sequel to Operation Abyss, and I'm not sure whether I'm pleased or disappointed, considering everything I loved about Operation Abyss is back. But so is everything I hated, too.

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Sunday Bites - Numina

Numina is a currently in development Indie RPG by Stardust in which their demo can be accessed through their itch.io. Before getting into anything else, like Echoes of Atheria (RPG Maker VX Ace) and Ara Fell (RPG Maker 2003) last year, Numina (RPG Maker XP) is another prime example of what can be done with an RPG Maker and should not be dismissed because of it. It is slowly becoming less of an issue but sometimes that reminder needs to be said in order to be taken seriously.

Story

If you're looking for something cute and squishy you won't be finding it here. Starting off with essentially a prison break, corpses are left in the escapees path on their way out as Numina sets the tone as it's not afraid to get its hands dirty.

Cutting from this group to another, it isn't long before tragedy strikes this one too and I hope that your emotions are steeled because they may take a hit. Maybe not as hard as Tumbling Apart but they aren't far. With all of the death and tragedy however Numina looks like it'll be action packed enough to keep things interesting and I look forward to more.

Gameplay

While moving around the different areas, transitions are some of the smoothest that I've ever seen. Once your character gets close to the edge they continue moving as the screen fades to black. Visually this elimites any possible jarring that can sometimes happen when it all occurs in a split second. The only thing that I would have against it would be that you never quite know where that line is. Maybe a small 25-50% opacity dotted line would be a good idea to show where this can occur as there were a few times that I hadn't meant to go back to an area but was moving around a monster.

Something else that I quite enjoyed is that "you" have an involvement just as you have control of your main characters. You get to play a disembodied voice and can even name yourself to be more than a figment of your character's imagination. Either that or pretend to be one as the options for dialog on your end range from being a jerk to being genuinely a nice person.

Music

The soundtrack so far is amazing ranging from light and soft musical tones for outside exploration as well as dark and ominous tracks for the inside of a forgotten temple. Each chosen track fits the environment that it was chosen for.

Sound effects are also well crafted and VERY creepy at times. Seriously you slap on a pair of headphones and tell me you didn't get creeped out.

When it comes to battle themes these are heavy and operatic in which could fit even Lost Odyssey like the combat resembles.

Combat

Remember Final Fantasy VIII where you did more damage by hitting "X" at just the right time? How about hitting "A" in Lost Odyssey when the two circles overlapped one another? While it isn't a new concept Numina uses it in order to make its battle theme more interactive instead of simply hitting "Insert your key here".

If you hit the key at just the right moment when the circles overlap your character will deal more damage. Unlike Lost Odyssey however Numina takes this a step further and does the same for defense as it does for offense. Hitting the key at just the right time will reduce the incoming damage in which you'll want to do as it obviously adds up quickly if you aren't paying attention.

Other

Stardust are not really worried about pulling their punches. Unlike Tumbling Apart however I didn't "lose my shit" as the situations were a bit different but people die left and right from both crazy zealots as well as illnesses. They also make you feel for some of those that don't make it as they are much more than throwaway NPCs. The writing so far has been very well done and I quite enjoyed toying with the main character by sometimes siding on the side of logic while other times pretending that I was nothing more than a figment of their imagination.

Final Thoughts

Numina is a title that's worth keeping an eye on. Between the battle system that keeps you more involved than the standard affair and the story that moves along at a decent pace there's a lot to look forward to especially with the awesome music that accompanies all the above.

If you want to see more head over to Stardust's Facebook or Numina's profile on rpgmaker.net. 

Game Information

Platform:
PC
Developer(s):
Stardust
Publisher(s):
Stardust
Genre(s):
RPG
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
NA

Source:
Demo available through website

Article by Pierre-Yves

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