Crusader Kings III Taking Over Territory on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5

STOCKHOLM - 26 January 2022 - The noble pageantry of medieval grand strategy is coming soon to Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 consoles. Paradox Interactive’s celebrated strategy role-playing experience Crusader Kings III will be available for consoles on 29 March 2022, giving an entirely new group of players a chance to build a legendary dynasty in the quintessential historical strategy game.

In partnership with the development team at Lab42, Paradox has adapted the dynamic and ever-changing gameplay of Crusader Kings III to a new environment, taking advantage of the unique characteristics of console play. Few other games have as rich a tapestry of strategic options, with political marriages to bind noble houses, brutal wars to enforce quasi-legal claims, personal relationships to unite a fractured realm, and even subtle scheming to undermine or eliminate rivals.

Crusader Kings III on console features an adapted interface and control scheme specifically tailored to larger screens and console gamepads. The all-new control map lets players quickly and easily navigate the game’s menus via triggers, bumpers, and quick flicks of the analog stick. The console edition also utilizes the key capabilities of the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, like super-fast load times for a seamless gameplay experience as well as Haptic and Adaptive Trigger controller feedback. Players will be able to switch between gameplay and other applications, like YouTube, using Quick Resume, where they can consult a tutorial on how to quell a peasant revolt.

PlayStation 5 users will experience the game’s stress mechanics themselves, as their DualSense controllers physically react to in-game events as they unfold. The more stress a character has accrued, the more resistance will be applied to the DualSense controller’s Adaptive Triggers, for instance. The PS5’s Activities and Game Help also provide a platform to assist new players as they take their first steps in the world of Crusader Kings.

Features of Crusader Kings III include:

●     Character Focused Gameplay: Every character you play or interact with has their own unique personality. Events and options in the game are largely determined by the type of person you are.

●     Infinite Possibilities: Play as any noble house from Iceland to India, Finland to Central Africa, over five centuries. Interact with wandering guests, stubborn children, devious spymasters, and saintly holy men in an elaborate tapestry of medieval life.

●     Waging War: Rally your vassals and raise your men-at-arms to besiege enemy castles or put down rebellions. Personal prowess on the battlefield can win you great honor, but strategic planning is the path to victory.

●     Royal Marriages: Spread your dynastic DNA throughout the world, stamping your royal seal on the crests of kingdoms and duchies far and wide. Marry for power and raise children to press claims on new lands.

●     Saints and Sinners: Keep faith with your religious leaders or perform great crimes in the interest of the state. When the going gets tough, you can always embrace a heresy or craft a new religion more in line with your character’s priorities.

The console edition of Crusader Kings III can now be pre-ordered on both Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. For more information, please visit www.crusaderkings.com.

About Paradox Interactive

Paradox Interactive is a leading global publisher of strategy games for PC and console. The company has developed and published a world-renowned catalog stretching back to 1999, with players hailing from all around the world.

The publisher’s steadily-growing portfolio includes firmly established franchises such as the critically acclaimed Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings, Hearts of Iron, and Stellaris series created by Paradox Development Studio, the Age of Wonders series created by Triumph Studios, as well as award-winning titles such as Cities: Skylines, Pillars of Eternity, and more from a network of partner studios. Paradox is the owner of the World of Darkness IPs and is publishing Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2. Today, over four million people play a Paradox game each month, and the number of registered Paradox users is over twelve million.

Paradox’s head offices are located in Stockholm, Sweden. Our development studios are located in Stockholm, Malmö, and Umeå, Sweden, in Delft, The Netherlands, in Seattle, Washington, and in Berkeley, California. We share a passion for gaming and gamers, and our goal is to provide deep and challenging games with hours of gameplay and endless variety to our ever-growing community.

For more information, please visit our forums and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Comet sighted!

Article by: Susan N.

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SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash - Switch Review

SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash by developer and publisher SNK—Nintendo Switch review written by Jim with a copy provided by the publisher.

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I always liked trading card games ever since I first played Pokémon as a kid. I was one of the best players in town winning multiple tournaments and was one of the best in the local Pokémon League. As I got older I got into other card games from well-known games like Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh to lesser-known TCGs like WWE, Sailor Moon, Gundam, Digimon, and Dragon Ball Z. If there was a card game I was willing to try it though I always ran into the problem of having no one to play with so I always ended up just making my dad play them with me. Now that I am older I am glad these games are turning digital.

SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash isn't a new game as it came out back in 1999 for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, a system I never had as a kid so I never got to play this until now. The original game came in two versions, the SNK version and the Capcom version, which are both included in this re-release and each version has its own save files. The difference between the two versions are the characters you play. With SNK you can pick from Shin (male) or Kei (female) in the Capcom version you can pick from Cap (male) or Comet (female). You can rename them if you wish. Your starting deck also changes from which version you chose as SNK gives you an SNK deck and Capcom gives you a Capcom deck. Each version also has exclusive cards available only in each version and altogether there are 300 cards to collect in total.

Aside from the SNK and Capcom cards, there are action cards that I will get to in a moment. The SNK and Capcom cards are called character cards, or CHA for short. Each character has Battle Points (BP) and Soul Points (SP). Battle points are how strong a character is in both strength and health. When attacking your BP will equal how much damage is done to your opponent. If your opponent counter-attacks, you will damage and take damage from their CHA's card BP. Each player has 2000-3000 HP depending on who you are playing against and boss characters will give each player 3000 HP while all others give each player 2000.

Each CHA card you play can give you SP which either lets you use action cards or perform union attacks. Union attacks let you attack using up to three CHA cards that are in play to add their BP's together and attack while the other player can only use one CHA to counter-attack. Each CHA card may also be backed up by certain characters. The cards themselves say who can back them up and doing so adds 300 BP to them. If a CHA card has ??? on it under backup it means you can find a character from the other side that can back them up. For example if I am using a Capcom card the ??? will be an SNK character that you must find out by trying to use it in a match. Some character cards have an ability that can be used at different times depending on the skill, some are active when you first play the card, others you can decide when to use it, and lastly are those active at all times as long as that card is in play.

Card Fighters Clash plays in three phases. The first phase is the draw phase where you draw a card from your pile as it's called in the game. The second phase is the set phase where you can set one CHA card down per turn in the ring up to a total of three. You may also use an action card in your set phase if you have the SP to use it. A CHA can also not attack after being placed in the ring, you have to wait until your next turn but you may use it to counterattack. Lastly, the third phase is the attack phase where you can choose to attack your opponent or not.

When not in a card battle, Card Fighters Clash plays like an RPG where you can go to different places each with its own theme and leader who you must beat to get a coin. One of my favorite themed places was the Resident Evil mansion. Once you get all of the coins you can enter the SC Card Clash tournament. I made it to the tournament and got beat fast by the first opponent. One of the issues with the game was you only get a few cards for winning a match and most of the time even when I had less than 100 cards I would end up getting the same cards I already had so the game has a bit of a grind factor to you.

There are other ways to get cards like a crane game where you can get one free card after each battle or trading with NPCs. Also, using a trading machine that you have to give so many cards of various rarity to get one card that may end up being one you already have, or at a shop where you can trade high rarity cards for others. You can also use both saves to trade cards from one version to the other and also fight each other which is a pretty cool feature. Another feature this game has is a rewind option although I didn't use it much it is nice to have just in case. You can also view the original manuals for both games. Some Easter eggs are hidden in the game too with the likes of voice actress Harumi Ikoma being a character in the game and even a character based on Shinji Mikami!

I may not be the most knowledgeable when it comes to SNK characters but I do love a good card game and this is a fun easy to play hard to master game. I liked this game so much that I am now looking for a copy of SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters DS so I can give that one a try even with its well-known game-breaking bug. This version however has no such bug and the only negatives were that it was a little difficult at times and the translation was never fixed which was pretty bad at times. Some may find that not being able to go full screen to be a problem but you can zoom in so that most of the game screen and not the Neo Geo Pocket is shown.

Summary

Overall SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash is a solid card game that is a blast from the past. I may have missed this when it originally came out due to never owning a Neo Geo Pocket but I sure am glad SNK decided to re-release the game on Switch. Here's hoping we see a new SNK vs. Capcom in the future or even a re-release of the Japanese-only second game that has been translated.

Score: 8 / 10

 

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GOATi Partnering Up with Cudos to Bring Free Games and In-Game Items to Digital Store

Editor Disclaimer: Here at Chalgyr's we publish press releases for anything relating to video games or media. As such, publishing these pieces do not reflect our individual views or stances on the video games or the companies that develop and publish them. Today's press release mentions the support of NFTs and Blockchain technology. Before reading on, we encourage all readers to research the conversations surrounding these technologies before making any decisions.

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MELBOURNE – Jan. 26, 2022 – GOATi’s Pavilion Hub, a digital PC game storefront for Microsoft Windows currently in early access, will provide users new games, in-game items, and more thanks to a partnership with Cudos, an open platform launchpad providing the infrastructure required to meet computing needs.

Pavilion Hub currently offers titles including The Gardens Between, the breathtaking puzzle adventure from The Voxel Agents with an 80 Metacritic score, as well as GOATi Entertainment’s own 22 Racing Series, an RTS-racer with lighting-fast speed currently in early access. GOATi Entertainment is best known for the contract work of its sister company, headed up by the same management team, helping numerous AAA projects including LA Noire, Darkness 2, Darksiders 2, and Zelda: Twilight Princess HD.

Pavilion Hub’s alpha pilot program allows the Cudos monetization application to synchronize seamlessly with the ecosystem, empowering users to earn rewards through the Cudos monetization application simply by keeping Pavilion Hub open while not playing games. Prizes are then redeemable in the in-game store.

Supported by AMD’s latest RDNA2 architecture, providing unrivaled computing power, speed, and energy efficiency, this architecture delivers high-end graphics at lightning-quick frame rates. When idle, this cutting-edge hardware can also be utilized to solve complex mathematical computations. Their outputs are then redeemable to gamers as rewards, thanks to Cudos technology.

“We’re excited to work with Cudos and AMD on this fantastic initiative,” said Garth Midgley, Managing Director at GOATi. “This partnership rewards players for making their hardware available when otherwise not in use. This is exactly the type of infrastructure/environmental/reward win-win-win play that suits GOATi’s ‘Greatest Of All Time’ company ethos perfectly.”

“We are thrilled to be working with GOATi and AMD, as we thrive to provide value to gamers globally with our technology while making the world a better place by utilizing spare compute power,” said Nuno Pereira VP of Partnerships at Cudos. “GOATi is perfectly positioned to benefit from our technology and enhance their users' experience by providing them with a new way to fund their next game, graphics card, skins, and more. We are just getting familiar with Play2Earn, earn now when you are not playing! This is all possible down to AMD, as we are both parts of their incredible ecosystem. Many of these gamers have AMD hardware, and they are always focused on providing value to their community and making their hardware more sustainable. AMD is a very strategic partner to Cudos. We are working on various other opportunities that will further enhance the Cudos ecosystem and AMD global community.”

To learn more about the Pavillion Miner and get involved, click here.

About GOATi

GOATi Entertainment is a AAA game development company specializing in engine technology, physics simulation, blockchain integration, and global microtransaction business models for games and esports. Built upon their proprietary engine ‘RevGen’, they have developed globally recognized and award-winning emergent AI simulation programs and the world’s first RTS-Racing game ’22 Racing Series’. They have pioneered the development of Smart NFT blockchain technology, and in April 2020, they released ‘Pavillion Hub’, the world’s most advanced blockchain gaming platform, which was purpose-built with ease of use sign-on, transact, play, and cross-platform connected features that make the mass adoption of blockchain technology in AAA games a near reality.

To learn more about GOATi, please visit the Pavillion Hub, follow @PavillionHub on Twitter, check out GOATi’s official website and YouTube channel, the 22 Racing Series website, and join the racing pit on Discord.

About Cudos

Cudos is powering the metaverse bringing together DeFi, NFTs, and gaming experiences to realize the vision of a decentralized Web 3.0, enabling all users to benefit from the growth of the network. We’re an interoperable, open platform launchpad that will provide the infrastructure required to meet the 1000x higher computing needs for the creation of fully immersive, gamified digital realities. Cudos is a Layer 1 blockchain and Layer 2 community-governed compute network, designed to ensure decentralized, permissionless access to high-performance computing at scale. Our native utility token CUDOS is the lifeblood of our network and offers an attractive annual yield and liquidity for stakers and holders.

To learn more about Cudos, visit its official website and Medium page, follow @CUDOS_ on Twitter, join its Telegram and Discord, check out its YouTube and Podcast, and sign up for updates via the new Cudo Compute website.

 

Article by: Susan N.

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Reverie Knights Tactics - XBSX Review

Reverie Knights Tactics by developer 40 Giants Entertainment and publisher 1C Publishing EU—Microsoft Xbox Series X review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

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If I were to have one guilty pleasure over the rest in the RPG category, Strategy RPGs would be it. Coming from 40 Giants Publishing and 1C Publishing EU, Reverie Knights Tactics scratched this itch over the holidays with bright colorful landscapes which hid a hard as hell design underneath.

Reverie Knights Tactics is the story of a scholar named Aurora who leads a small expedition to a land once ruled by Elves but which has fallen to the Goblinoid peoples that it used to subjugate. Having gone missing in those lands in search of a magical artifact, it's up to you to find your father and his expedition hopefully in one piece. The premise easily leads into the adventure as far as to start off teaching you some of the core mechanics within the introduction that will affect a variety of choices down the line.

Split between Order and Chaos, you'll have choices to make without knowing which side of the coin that they'll fall on. Choices of Order are more cold and calculating while Chaos are passionate and emotional. Choosing one or the other will define who you character is in key moments letting you know that there was no choice in this matter as this is who you've decided to be. It works but I do wish to have some inkling of which way a choice would spark as there were a few times I thought it would be Chaos but wound up with more Order instead.

Starting off at a camp once you’ve made landfall, Aurora sets out on her own in order to find her guide. To do this, a world map exists in which you’ll be traveling both direct and indirect paths towards your goal. The direct paths are easy to follow and are provided automatically by the system as new lines and nodes appear once you’ve completed the previous one. On top of those, what I'll call "sub areas" exist where while new nodes will appear, they’ll appear in branches making you wonder which way you should be heading. It's a nice little distraction from knowing exactly what you're in for and you'll be able to while exploring to find events like treasure chests or more foes that must be defeated to gain an item.

Taking a page out of the old school strategy RPGs in which "one" bad move could potentially send you to your grave, this adventure isn't one that can be casually approached. Based on an action point system, your characters will either be able to move and act, act twice with less powerful abilities, or act more powerfully giving up movement which will end up dealing more damage than they would if they were to have moved first.

Action points are nothing new but the idea of often only being able to double down was interesting as it really made you rethink at times if what you wanted to do was a good idea as once you’ve attacked, you couldn’t move. It slows the pace but not in a bad way as alongside the action points, the terrains themselves help make up for the lack of double actions with objects that can be destroyed sending out spikes to hit and poison anyone in their way. Adding bramble or thorned vines to hold someone still as you knock or pull an enemy in, there are plenty of options as long as you look around the field first.

Subtly hidden but available from the beginning, each character can be used in any order to compound their actions. Being able to do this is not very common and it was a welcomed addition with the seemingly at first often limited double down action point approach. Everything there works and works well but you have to give it just a little bit of time in order to adjust which is thankfully where meeting bonus objectives and leveling up comes into play.

Bonus objectives are probably the reason that I spent more time in battle that I maybe should have over the course of my adventure. As the difficulty is higher, anything extra is worth going out of your way for especially when it comes to getting more experience and what is known as cogni. Experience will obviously help you level up faster granting you an extra point to be used in Strength, Defense of Finesse which allows for more critical hits against others and glancing blows against yourself.

For these bonus objectives though, they’ll generally range between easy to what the hell to pull off such as being able to ram an enemy into a specific object or make sure to acquire specific items, In either case, with the extra experience and cogni, they are very much worth going out of your way to do or even redoing a stage as adding to the overall difficulty is that once you're done a stage, you're done, there's no going back so getting the most you can out of it while you can will only help in your future challenges.

So while experience helps you level up, cogni is what will be used in order to make items that boost your stats or help you resist status effects. The more powerful the item, the more cogni needed so it’ll really be down to you if you want to use what you have now for an advantage in the next battle or if you want to hold on just a bit longer for a more powerful advantage that’ll last you for many battles to come. It’s another choice on the long list of choices that you’ll make as you look for Aurora’s father.

On perhaps a final note, I wasn’t kidding when I said that Reverie Knights Tactics was hard. With two modes to play, I managed maybe half the first chapter before deciding to pack my bags and head down to the more manageable experience that is offered. As a default, Reverie Knights Tactics is exactly the challenge that I look for in an SRPG. It’s hard, it’s unforgiving, but even if a character falls in battle they aren’t permanently gone (thank you new Fire Emblem modes). What made this perhaps too hard is that in order to heal up and restore mana, you had to eat food. Berries that can be found on the ground, mushrooms in the trees, other items found while breaking objects in the environment.

This one “small” detail was enough to have me look through my inventory and wonder how the hell I was going to make it to the next battle. My party had no hit points and only half mana pools. Knowing a lot more now after the end credits, I now knew what to look for in the hubs, on the puzzle backdrops to find more to make some things easier, but still, it was tough. So, because of that I would recommend going with the “easy” mode where there’s still plenty of challenge, but you’ll at least have your hit points and mana pools restored at the end of every battle.

Summary

Overall though, a complete run with side quests and puzzles should run about ten or so hours showing you how one set of decisions pans out before going back in for the other set. Hosting a solid combat system and visual presentation followed by a good musical track, I look forward to seeing what comes next from 40 Giants Entertainment as I don’t think they are quite done yet with Reverie Knights Tactics.

Score: 7.75 / 10

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Sniper Elite 5 Unleashes Brand New Invasion Mode!

OXFORD (Jan. 25, 2022) – Rebellion, one of the world’s most successful independent studios, has today released a new CGI trailer for Sniper Elite 5, the latest installment of the award-winning franchise, hinting at the new Invasion Mode which allows players to drop into each other’s campaigns and take on the role of an Axis Sniper with high rewards on the line. Created by Rebellion’s dedicated production company Rebellion VFX, the new trailer utilizes both in-game and bespoke VFX assets with a tailored audio mix to create a stunning cinematic which can be watched here:

Rebellion has also today revealed the pack and key art for Sniper Elite 5.

Invasion Mode will bring a whole new dimension to the game’s intense drama and add increased diversity to the tactics that players will have to employ in order to complete their mission. The invading Axis Sniper will have the sole aim to eliminate the player while the Allied Sniper will gain an extra objective: take out the invader. Invasion Mode will also be available in cooperative play - increasing the challenge for the Axis invader as they now have two Allies to track down but offering greater rewards.

Chris Kingsley, CTO at Rebellion, commented: “Invasion Mode is a fantastic addition to the gameplay experience of Sniper Elite 5. A human-controlled invader can act in ways that are so diverse and unpredictable, which adds to the challenge and ramps up the tension even further. The player will be informed that an invading Axis Sniper has joined their game and from that point on it becomes an extremely intense, high stakes game of cat and mouse.”

Chris continued: “For those players who just want a solo gameplay experience there will be the option to switch Invasion Mode off, but we recommend that everyone gives it a try at some point. We have been having a lot of fun with it in the studio, jumping into each other’s games and finding innovative, stealthy ways to take each other out.”

Invasion Mode will enable some unique skills for both players. The Axis invader can make use of the AI Axis forces to help locate the Allied player. Tagging an Axis soldier will enable ‘Eagle Eyes,’ which means that if that soldier spots the Allied Sniper then their last known location will be displayed on the map. The Axis Sniper can also instruct nearby soldiers to ‘Stay Sharp,’ increasing their awareness. For the Allied Sniper, each level has invasion phones scattered around the map which the player can use to discover the last known location of their opponent. But beware, as not only can these phones be booby-trapped, but overuse will raise suspicions and reveal the player’s location.

Successful Axis Snipers will be rewarded with weapons, items, and skin unlocks while Allied Snipers can earn weapon and character skins by killing their opponent. You will also be awarded with additional XP for having Invasion Mode enabled.

Recognized for its unparalleled tactical sniping experience, Sniper Elite 5 will release simultaneously on Xbox Game Pass, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4 & 5, Epic, Steam, and the Windows Store in 2022. Players will reprise the role of elite marksman Karl Fairburne as they travel to France in 1944 tasked with the mission to uncover and destroy the Nazi’s latest plan: Operation Kraken.

To keep up to date with all the latest Sniper Elite 5 news please visit sniper.com and follow the game on social media: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

The new CGI trailer was created by Rebellion VFX. Based at Rebellion Film Studios in Didcot, Rebellion VFX has been formed from industry-leading visual effects supervisors, artists and developers. The team specializes in full CG environment builds, FX, Compositing, Environment Set Extension and Virtual Production set builds with projects utilizing both offline rendered and real-time rendered game engine methodology. The on-site capability is further enhanced by Rebellion’s award-winning motion capture and full performance capture facilities, Audiomotion.

He Sun, Head of Rebellion VFX, said: “It has been a real pleasure for Rebellion VFX to be collaborating with the Sniper Elite brand, to be involved in working on such a title was a real privilege. We wanted to create a trailer that evoked a gritty and down-to-earth feeling in its cinematography, as if it was shot with a film crew on a real location. Technically, we relished the challenge of implementing USD (Universal Scene Description) pipeline in our offline rendering workflow. It was an enjoyable creative process which will hopefully be enjoyed by our passionate community of Sniper Elite fans too.”

For the latest news and information about Rebellion VFX please visit rebellionfilmstudios.com/vfx/

COPYRIGHT ©2022 REBELLION. THE REBELLION NAME AND LOGO AND THE SNIPER ELITE NAME AND LOGO ARE TRADEMARKS OF REBELLION AND MAY BE REGISTERED TRADEMARKS IN CERTAIN COUNTRIES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

About Rebellion

Founded in 1992, Rebellion is one of world’s most successful independent studios. Its flagship Sniper Elite series is renowned for its authentic stealth and sniping gameplay with more than 20 million players worldwide. 2000 AD is synonymous with the absolute finest in British comic book art. With the acquisition of a $100m film studio and the world’s largest archive of English language comics, Rebellion continues to grow from strength to strength.

Rebellion now operates across books, comics, TV, and film, but at its core it’s still a leading developer and publisher of games. Whether it’s the breathtaking intensity of Sniper Elite 4, the face-hugging terror of Aliens vs. Predator or the grindhouse frenzy of the Zombie Army series, the Oxford-based studio is revered for creating stand-out games designed to thrill.

Article by: Susan N.

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Mary Skelter 2 - PC Review

Mary Skelter 2 by developer and publisher Idea Factory International with publisher Ghostlight LTD—PC (Steam) review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

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Mary Skelter: Nightmares, as a series, is easily in my top 3 dungeon crawlers, no questions asked. Starring a cast taken right from fairy tales that'll you'll probably know, the heroines of the tale attempt to escape the living flesh prison known as the Jail. With a revamped system from the first game, Mary Skelter 2 not only focuses on a different set of main characters (sort of), as you fight your way through body-horror invincible nightmares, you're in for a treat.

Mary Skelter 2 takes a different take on the first game, where you will focus on the perspective of Otsuu, a Blood Maiden under the purview of the Dawn, an organization dedicated to escaping Jail. Blood Maidens are those humans(?) with enhanced strength and abilities, capable of fighting the monsters that are spawned from the Jail. As the story starts, Otsuu along with Little Mermaid and Red Riding Hood (notice a pattern here) are trying to find another Blood Maiden amongst the humans that the creatures the Jail spawned, the marchens, have captured. Unfortunately, things don't go so well as an invincible monstrosity, a Nightmare, crashes the party. As a result, the party is separated, and so Otsuu and Little Mermaid must find more Blood Maidens to help them escape the Jail.

As a dungeon crawler, there are a few standards you should expect, sprinkled with a few unique aspects. As traditional dungeon crawlers go, you have the basics down: setting out from a home base to explore a map on a square-by-square basis, filling in the map as you go, and getting into random battles. Exploration of the field maps are peppered with items to recover, puzzles to solve, keys to find for locked doors, and areas to use abilities on. Part of what makes the Mary Skelter series one of my favourites is that each character is unique, and they come with a ability unique to them. For instance, Otsuu can create giant balls that can block certain traps, or fill in certain holes, and Little Mermaid can shoot an ice shot that freeze water or put out fires. Each character you collect as you progress through the story offers a different ability that helps improve your ability to explore.

As you explore around, you may come across these pink tiles. These are blood farming tiles, which is pretty much the most effective way of getting decent equipment. Through battles and completing job requests, you will build up blood crystals, which are used for a number of things, but certain types can be planted. You can then spray them with blood to improve their quality. You can plant these wherever you want, although the dedicated tiles will give you better results. You can also get items this way as well, although the equipment will probably be your main focus.

Combat is changed up a little from the first game, revamping some aspects while keeping others. Battles are turn-based, with a turn indicator on-screen, and turn is decided based on your agility stat. Unlike in the first title, you now have six potential in-battle units instead of five. You have the standard combat options, such as attack and skill, but Mary Skelter has a few more unique options, such as Lick. Basically, as battles happen, the heroines will get blood splattered on them, indicated by blood splotches under their character icon. Once this hits three splotches, you can have another unit lick the unit with the blood on them to gain the effect of the splattered maiden. Alternatively, once the splotches fill up, you can enter a Massacre mode, where you get increased stats, as well as access to some powerful skills. But be warned, because you also build up corruption, which risks entering the berserk "Skelter" mode, where the unit will just do whatever.

Now, in the first game, you had a human Jack shooting purifying blood at the maidens in order to purge corruption. This time, you've got nightmare Jack, who couples his turn with Otsuu, can ALSO go berserk, but has access to nightmare zone, which prevents a turn. It's different, and you can substitute Otsuu or Jack, meaning you actually can take two turns at once, but it can be a little more awkward. To add to this, I found corruption increased SIGNIFICANTLY faster in MS2 than MS1, meaning for me, I much preferred just licking the blood off to stop the Skelter trigger instead of purifying. On the subject of corruption and purifying, at a certain point you unlock the ability to purge at your home base, instead of in battle. This used to be a minigame, but has been removed for…censorship reasons, I believe? It's not like the minigame particularly has any plot bearing though, so it isn't a huge deal.

Now, as is typical in these sorts of things, you earn exp from fights and level up. Well, in addition to this, every so many levels you get job rights, which allow you to unlock a new job class that you can freely swap between at your base camp. Job classes have different stat distributions, but the most important aspect is that they allow you access to any skills in the class as long as you have unlocked it. These skills can be learned by using CP, which is earned from leveling, or as a bonus from blood devolution. Classes require certain blood crystals to learn in addition to job rights. Blood devolution also requires blood crystals, and will reduce your character level in exchange for a permanent base stat increase as well as some bonus extra CP. Once you have enough CP to learn or upgrade a skill, you can then learn it and assign it to a slot. If you run out of slots you may expend more blood crystals to increase the number of skill slots.

Another rather unique aspect of Mary Skelter 2 is the ability to alter the Jail. After a certain point, you can put up restrictions for the areas you enter, which will give you bonuses, such as increased critical rate or earned experience. There is also a roulette wheel that will activate in and out of battle by performing certain actions and building up a gauge. This roulette can be adjusted if you have certain "pieces" which you can slot in.

Now, you may be wondering about the invincible Nightmares I mentioned earlier. Well, when they appear, they produce a white mist. Get too far into the mist, and they start chasing you. On normal or higher, this gets rid of your minimap, and you have to run far enough away that the Nightmare stops chasing you. Alternatively, Nightmares are made of parts. Destroying a part will stun the Nightmare while it regenerates, allowing you to run away.

MS2 actually comes coupled with MS1, which has been retconned with both the system and a new ending, which is unlockable after clearing MS2, so you can catch up on the first game if you haven't played it. Also, I should mention that early game is pretty hard. Seriously, I died 6 times in the tutorial area because I kept getting bad luck on enemy spawns and frequency. It does get easier when you progress and work out a system that functions for you.

Now, as someone who picked this up on Switch initially and did the whole one hundred percent completion, there are a few things to note about the PC port. First up, there are the occasional lag spikes. Sometimes this happens when opening a door, sometimes it happens when there's a lot going on on-screen, but it can and does happen. Additionally, sometimes I had locked doors visually not render. The game treated it as a locked door, but it was invisible. I only had this happen when planting in front of a door though, so maybe avoid that. Also a bit of an issue is that you can really tell the game is ported, because a lot of the character portraits when in a dialogue scene look a little stretched. It's not enough to be a super big issue, but I did notice it. The last point I'd like to point out is that occasionally while opening a chest, the volume would get super loud for a second, then go back down to normal. On the plus side, as of writing this, patches are still being released, so hopefully some of this gets rectified.

Summary

Overall, I absolutely love Mary Skelter as a series, and the second game, while a bit different in nature, doesn't dissuade me from the franchise at all. The characters are interesting and unique, the battle system and exploration are well mapped out, the variety of job classes make any character viable to use. While the port loses a point here or there, it's all for fairly minor concerns, or temporary issues that soon resolved themselves. If you weren't able to pick Mary Skelter 2 up on Switch, or you're looking for some good dungeon crawling fun, make sure to check this out!

Score: 9 / 10

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Coromon will be Available on Nintendo Switch, PC, and Mac in March!

Zevenaar, The Netherlands – Jan. 20, 2022 – Coromon, the modern monster taming game from developer TRAGsoft and publisher Freedom Games, sets off to capture Nintendo Switch as well as Windows PC and Mac via Steam on Thursday, March 31, 2022.

Set off on an unforgettable adventure as a young apprentice Coromon trainer. Journey across the Velua region collecting fearsome yet adorable creatures with the latest creature-catching technology from the brilliant scientist, Lux Solis. Along the way, stop a shady organization from releasing the dark power of legendary Coromon Titans upon the world.

Trek across numerous locals brought to life with beautiful pixel art to assemble a squad from more than 120 Coromon composed of various types like sand, magic, foul, heavy, air, poison, among many others. Fight in tactical battles through puzzle-filled dungeons, roadside brawls, and multi-stage boss fights against the six legendary Titans threatening the Coromon’s way of life. Return to the Trainer Hub after each battle to nurse the squad back to health before setting off once more. Grow and individually customize each Coromons’ stat pool to create the perfect dream team for either casual or competitive play.

Enjoy the way you want to play with the use of three open save slots to endlessly experiment with different Coromon strategies and select between four distinct difficulty modes, including a built-in, fan-favorite “Nuzlocke” option. Craft a capable trainer at the start of their Coromon journey with a wide selection of physical and fashion options. Take an enlightening personality test that matches trainers with the perfect starting Coromon partner, or just pick the coolest looking one.

"Coromon is our modern take on a classic and beloved genre,” said Jochem Pouwels, Founder, TRAGsoft. “Everything from the built-in difficulty options to the expanded control over stat customizations, squad combinations, and more, it’s all to create a personal and tailored experience for creature catching trainers that have been asking for this for decades. Coromon is finally almost here to give the people what they want!”

Coromon comes to Nintendo Switch as well as Windows PC and Mac via Steam for $19.99 with English, French Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (Simplified) language support.

To learn more, visit the official site and join the community on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Discord, and search #Coromon on social media.

About TRAGsoft

TRAGsoft is an independent game studio founded in 2016 by Two Ridiculously Ambitious Guys, Jochem Pouwels and Marcel van der Made. Based in Zevenaar, Netherlands, the developer is passionately devoted to releasing its debut project Coromon later this year.

For more information, check out the official Coromon website.

About Freedom Games

Freedom Games is a publisher dedicated to offering best-in-class services to partners and providing players around the world with unique and memorable experiences. With over 50 years of combined industry experience at the executive level, Freedom! Games seeks to leverage its expertise to facilitate great games and even better publishing experiences.

To learn more, visit the official Freedom Games website.

Article by: Susan N.

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