Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin Review

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin by developer Team Ninja and publisher Square Enix—Sony PlayStation 5 preview written by Pierre-Yves with a purchased copy.

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes.

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Having followed in the same footsteps as their previous projects of Nioh and Nioh 2, Team Ninja this time through Square Enix had released several trial versions of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin for players to test their mettle. Having released a few months ago now, and with the first DLC of Trials of the Dragon King having recently been released, I figured now would be a good time to write a review as I've had time to really think about how I felt about the adventure.

Having streamed the first two thirds of Stranger of Paradise in co-op with Louis, I ended up both finishing the adventure and getting the Platinum post stream. Having fought side by side with a real person, and then side by side with nothing more than an AI waiting for me to tell them when was a good time to act, Strangers of Paradise felt like two separate titles. This is partly why I needed some time to think about it as while on one-hand I really enjoyed it, did I enjoy it because I was playing with a friend? Or did I enjoy it for what was being presented?

So attempting to avoid spoilers, and I'll probably fail at some point, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is the prequel to the title that started it all those years ago on the original NES. With darkness brewing in the lands it's up to The Heroes of Light to restore the balance and save the people from calamity. Though while the prophecy states four heroes, our journey starts off with only three...

Yup, you called it, foreshadowing!

Getting into the adventure itself, you'll be starting off with our protagonist Jack "Garland", Jet and Ash as they walk into the Shrine of Chaos to prove themselves as the Warriors of light. Filled with monsters, traps and ambushes, it doesn't take long for the Soulslike fangs to come out. That said, I'm almost hard pressed to even call this a Soulslite as while the difficulty is there, the rest of the elements are more of an action based RPG.

Other than the difficulty and interwoven stage designs, the reason that Stranger of Paradise maybe isn't even Souls-lite is that there are no real penalties for dying. The penalty is just having to walk back into the boss room, in shame of course, but other than that? You don't lose accumulated or unspent experience. Instead, you lose max MP bars and potions above the basic threshold which can easily be gained back by performing a few good counters for one, and slaying a few roaming monsters for the other.

Always in control of Jack, you can have up to two partners in the form of NPCs known as Jed, Ash, and later on Neon and Sophia. These partners will move around and fight autonomously unless you need them to pull out the big moves which can be done through the D-Pad. These abilities are only mentioned in a brief introduction but can be costly if you've missed it. Hours down the line and you're wondering just what is the point in leveling up an NPC's class if you're not going to sling spells!? Oops... Missed that part and while negligible in co-op it's damned near killer in single player.

That slight mishap on my part aside, you can replace these NPCs with a real player who will get to take full control of the character all while using their own Jack’s unlocked classes, skills and equipment. Now there are a few differences here. The first is purely cosmetic but kind of sucks for the person tagging along the adventure. Once in control of a chosen NPC, the other player cannot change their appearance as the appearance is set to the gear loadout you last selected for that NPC. This isn’t a game breaker, but for someone who’s going to be tagging along for the long haul? It’s a small thing that should have been thought of. Either that or replace the model with the other player’s Jack.

The second difference is the game changer. In solo play, if Jack falls, that’s that. One wrong decision, one bad dodge, one unlucky hit, that’s it, game over. In co-op mode however the party has access to three Phoenix Downs in order to get the other player back up on their feet. It’s amazing and it honestly should have been something set into the core single player experience. You can get NPCs back up with potions, but they can’t do the same for you. This changes a lot especially for some of the crazy boss fights that are present down the line. Finally, the last difference is that the players are not tied to each other. If one wants to go explore a random area away from the first to cover more ground? They can. The only issue with this is that if you are only two, the NPC will follow the leader. If you’re three, then there’s no real issue as you are all toast if mistakes have been made!

*Slight spoilers*

For the areas themselves, Stranger of Paradise is a love letter to Final Fantasy and I’m almost ashamed that it took me so long to piece together the “Dimension” numbers that are mentioned in pieces of lore and the load screens. Each stage has been designed as an homage to one of the Final Fantasy titles over the years whether from back on the NES and SNES or the PS1-2-3-4. Until I finally clued in, there was a bit of gnawing in the back of my brain telling me that I was missing something, but I just couldn’t figure it out. It was only after seeing a particular homage later in the game combined with the music that I honestly facepalmed and then applauded the design direction for real.

*End of slight spoilers*

Otherwise, the stage design for gameplay is pretty on point. Channeling the Metroidvania aspects that the Soulslike tend to use, there are often a couple ways forward and several shortcuts to unlock and areas to explore. Within these areas there are a fair amount of enemies to fight off which is where the character class system also gets to shine. Always in possession of two classes, how you go about the adventure is entirely up to you. Double melee? Might and magic? Double magic? There’s no wrong decision especially as you obtain new gear for the ride that while stat wise can make you more powerful, the bonuses applied to the character classes can make you a monster.

But was it enough? That’s where I found myself after pouring 50 hours into the Platinum Trophy after what had just been a good 68 hours into Elden Ring’s own Platinum Trophy. Completely different styles to be sure, mission based structure versus a whole wide open world, but how did it compare to something like Nioh 2 that Team Ninja had designed before it? Honestly? I think it fell short but not completely because of the gameplay elements.

Do I think that there should have been more punishment for dying like in other Soulslikes? Yes, I do as that ups the need to really learn from your mistakes. That said, I was also happy to see lighter difficulty modes for those that would want to experience the story if they so chose to. The story though is where I probably had the biggest issues. This story could have shined as there was nothing done at this prior point to the original Final Fantasy. There were tons of nods forward, sure, but the characters, and Jack specifically? He was an ass and oftentimes all you wanted to do was yell at him to stop being such a complete asshat and that's generally what the cutscenes were. I would have loved for more anything as the character writing wasn’t enough to support the rest of the storytelling which was mostly being told through the adventure's gameplay.

Overall though, I think Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin was a decent adventure. Did it live up to what I had hoped it would be? Not quite, but it was still fun to play alone and even better with a partner as some of the harder fight sequences are leveraged by being able to lend a hand instead of instantly being defeated. Would I look forward to another such adventure? Definitely. In the meantime though, this prequel chapter is closed.

Score: 7 / 10

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Azure Striker Gunvolt 3 Review

Azure Striker Gunvolt 3 by developer and publisher Inti Creates—Nintendo Switch review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

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For a long time, I had always looked back on the old-school Megaman games and thought "where can I find more games like this?", and then I discovered Azure Striker Gunvolt. Doing a great job of taking the classic megaman formula and adapting it into something new and fresh, the first Gunvolt made its way onto the scene in 2014, or there around, I believe. Now we are receiving the 3rd title in the direct series: Azure Striker Gunvolt 3.

The world of Gunvolt is a slightly futuristic world where certain humans have awakened to a new power called Septima. Humans who have gained the power of Septima are referred to as Adepts. After the events of Gunvolt 1 and 2, Gunvolt had been sealed away, but now a Battle Priestess from the group Shadow Yakumo is tasked with controlling Gunvolt's power in order to stop a potential catastrophe. While having some knowledge of the other titles in the series will certainly help with your comprehension and references, Gunvolt 3 can be purchased as a stand-alone title, so no worries if you haven't played the other titles in the series.

If you've played the previous two main entries in the franchise you'll probably have a decent idea of how the game will play, but I'm happy to note there are some changes made to the formula. For those new to the franchise, Gunvolt is a 2D action platformer in the same vein as the Megaman games, probably closer to Megaman X in nature. The main idea is that you will generally want to "tag" enemies, before hitting them for increased damage.

In the original gunvolt this was gun based, but since Kirin is the new focus, you now have a warp slash after tagging. For a little more description, Kirin can fire off her "fetters", which will stick to enemies. Once you have at least one stuck to an enemy, you can either slash them normally with the attack button, or hit the dash and attack button together to do a warp slash at the enemy, or enemies as you can target multiple. You can layer many fetters on one target, spread them amongst targets, and even charge the fetters later on in the game.

Now, there are a few things to note about the fetters. The fetters also act as your "shield" or "dodge" mechanic, provided you have a specific skill equipped. Basically, instead of being hit, you consume a number of fetters instead, reducing your fetter count. Thankfully you can reload by double-tapping down direction, which will also recall fetters attached to enemies. I actually really enjoyed playing as Kirin more than I did playing as Gunvolt in the first title. I'm not certain why, perhaps I prefer the melee bladed aspect, but I felt a lot more invested as Kirin, and the battles were more fast paced.

Something really cool to note is that the warp attack using the fetters is actually a bit of a core gameplay mechanic for the platforming segment, and a really good way of earning higher scores in stages. What I mean to say is that there are many stages with areas where it is either possible or necessary to use the warp strike to move across pits, or up vertical segments of the stages. In addition to this, using warp strikes is one of the best ways of dispatching foes without getting hit. You also get a score bonus for the more enemies you defeat without touching the ground. Since using a warp strike gives Kirin a second jump, you can chain warp strikes in order to keep off the ground for a long period of time. Fun fact: I actually managed to stay airborne for almost an entire boss fight using the warp strike appropriately.

For those missing Ye Olde Gunvolt, you can actually switch to him mid stage. As Kirin fights out on the front line, she builds a fetter gauge. As long as the fetter gauge is at 100% or higher, you can swap to Gunvolt, although the gauge will decrease over time and as you perform actions. While Gunvolt is rather powerful, he won't earn nearly as many points as Kirin. He does however have the ability to sort of float, as well as jump infinitely, making traversing certain areas much easier. More often than not I found myself only swapping to Gunvolt in order to search for these "skill tokens" that you can collect during stages.

So what are these skill tokens I'm talking about? Well, Kirin has four active skills, and a number of passive skills she can equip, although you'll have to earn them. During a stage you will see these sort of glowing two square emblem things (don't worry, they're pretty big and rather blatant in the first mission). Each one of these represents a skill. Upon completing a stage, depending on your ranking and how many tokens you've found, you'll get some of the skills. Extra skills acquired will be converted into cash. You also earn an extra skill for collecting all the tokens in a stage, as well as meeting a specific condition while fighting the stage boss. Don't worry if you don't get anything good your first time, you can retry the stages again and again in order to build up both money and to earn the skills you want.

As you earn skills you can equip them on Kirin. While the four active skills are mapped to the four cardinal directions on the right thumbstick and can be equipped immediately after earning them, the passive abilities are a little different. See, Kirin has a level value, and increasing her level will both increase her health, as well as unlock new passive ability slots. The abilities will come in different rarities, and will take the form of a "previous memory" of Gunvolt, or essentially cameos from previous games, or characters from Gunvolt 3. If you get the rarer version of an ability, you can actually expend money to upgrade it. As an example, after clearing the first stage you get the passive ability that lets you exchange the talismans for a dodge. It starts at costing four talismans, but upgrading it reduces it to three, and then two, although it does cost a lot to do so.

One of my favourite aspects of the Gunvolt series is how unique the stages and bosses are. Each stage and boss are themed and designed in different ways, and have their own gimmicks and patterns they follow. Let's take a look at one of the earlier stages, what is essentially a floating warehouse. The first portion of the stage has you hopping on boxes and pontoons to make your way inside while avoiding rising and falling water. You need to judge whether you're confident in the warp strike, or if you should swap to Gunvolt more often. Once you reach the boss of the area, they will predominantly use large masses of objects clumped together and throw them around the boss arena. The other stages and bosses don't have similar concepts, making each stage feel fresh and exciting.

Gunvolt 3, and the series by extension, is a very interesting title. While you don't get penalized for taking it slow and exploring, you are rewarded for blazing through a stage, with fast enough times giving score multipliers. Now this isn't to say you should do so right off the bat, like I mentioned you need to find some of those skill tokens, but it is nice to see your abilities in effectively clearing a stage rewarded. Additionally, once you hit 1,000 kudos, and every multiple thereafter, Lumen will appear to sing a song for you that gives you a buff. It's a very neat mechanic.

While Gunvolt 3 is fast paced and can be quite challenging at times, it is by no means especially brutal in what it throws at you. Well, intentionally anyways. The bosses will normally banter with you during a fight, which is all well and good, except their text boxes and character portraits pop up as well, meaning they can be obscured in a corner of the screen if you leave the mid battle text activated. Super annoying, but not unmanageable. Another issue I had was with how finicky Kirin's warp strike can be, or Arc Chain as I think they call it. Occasionally I would find myself either dashing or attacking instead of using the warp move. It isn't super often, and it normally isn't a huge deal, but it can get a little annoying if you do it over a pit.

Summary

Overall, I have to say that Azure Striker Gunvolt 3 is a great addition to the series, and is easily accessible to both new players and those who have played previous titles. Gameplay and combat is smooth, bosses and stages are interesting, and it's super fun to collect all the skills and see the cameos from previous titles. While there are a few issues here and there, it isn't nearly enough to truly take away from the experience.

If you've been looking for something to meet that old Megaman / Megaman X vibe, you can't go wrong with Gunvolt.

Score: 9 / 10

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Firegirl: Hack ‘n Splash Rescue DX Review

Firegirl: Hack ‘n Splash Rescue by developer Dejima and publisher Thunderful Publishing—Sony PlayStation 5 review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes. 

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Firegirl: Hack 'n Splash Rescue DX by Dejima and Thunderful Publishing is the latest version to be released of this 2.5D platformer roguelike. Set in a world where fire demons are being led by a Fire Lord and causing chaos by burninating everything in sight that would make even Trogdor proud, you're here to stop them with the titular protagonist Firegirl.

Firegirl is the kind of title that makes me think that it would have had a perfect home on the PlayStation Vita a few years back and caught my interest when Jim reviewed it for the PC. Never too heavy on the mechanics, there's still a fair amount under the hood as you'll be running, jumping, blasting water and using water to blast off all while exploring various areas to save survivors caught in the destructive fiery path of the demons currently setting the city ablaze.

What I appreciated from the beginning is that Firegirl doesn't overcomplicate itself which is great especially for a roguelike, or perhaps in this case, roguelite which in either case are designed to make you fail. Your controls themselves are fairly simple. By using the right trigger, you can shoot water forward. The harder you press, the further the water will shoot and this can be easily upgraded as time moves on. Going more vertically, Firegirl can jump, but, Firegirl can also use the water pressure of her hose in order to fly upwards and then across to make it across larger gaps in the terrain, or, to tackle enemies from above. Finally, Firegirl has an axe to break down doors and debris that are in the way of rescuing survivors and pets that are trapped in the burning buildings.

Once you've gotten your feet sufficiently wet by putting out the fires in your typical run of the mill apartment complexes though, you'll then find yourself running across a train, through a forest and through an extensive luxurious plaza which each have their own quirks. Just make sure to learn from your mistakes and check out your surroundings though as Firegirl's adventure is still a rogue-like / lite and it's not afraid to take you out if you're too overconfident.

While the initial mentioned goal of saving survivors is a simple one, it's never quite that easy. For starters, everything is on fire and running into the flames or the demon's flames will hurt you. Starting off with four hearts, you'll eventually be able to acquire more but in the meantime you'll have to be careful as there's a fair amount on the line. If you fall while on duty, you'll get a meager pay from the city but have to pay hospital bills. If you only rescue a percentage of the people, you only get money from the city but don't pay hospital bills. If you succeed? It's payday!

Like in real life, payday is the best day of the week. It comes into your bank account and did you hear that whooshing noise? Yes? That's the sound of it leaving. Much in the same way, most of the money that you'll get from the city and "fans" of your work will help to pay for upgrades. For Firegirl herself, you'll be able to get a few armor pieces before worrying about your hearts. Also up for sale is a new lighter axe which allows you to really move instead of having to stop every time you need to break open a door.

Aside from these direct upgrades which can be found in a shop across the street from the Firehouse that acts as your hub, there are a few others which will eventually become available within the Firehouse itself. Direct upgrades which can affect your performance are upgrades to Firegirl’s water tank for better spray and jump range as well as being able to hold more water in general. While useful, you'll need a bit of help to pay for these upgrades, by buying other upgrades. These other upgrades come in the form of bringing down the cost of all upgrades, increase the amount of money that you can get from the city, and finally, getting money from the above mentioned “fans”.

Fans are perhaps the most interesting element to your income which directly affects your cash flow. Starting off with none, you’ll soon be getting hundreds to thousands of them as you rescue survivors, cats and cuddly looking bears in the burning forest. These fans are where your real money will come in and will only give you money if as mentioned above, you rescue everyone that’s required AND make it out safely. If you don’t, you get nothing from them and by mid to late story, that’ll be the difference in receiving 2-6k from the city, or 36-40k on top of the 2-6k from the city to pay for some fairly expensive upgrades.

While there is a fair amount of rinse and repeat, which is to be expected in a rogue which constantly adds more every time you dive into it, it all comes to a climax once you manage to collect 12 of the 13 Fire Tomes. While mentioned a few times over the course of the story, finding them is the tricky part as it’s random whether one will even show up in the stage that you are doing which can add a bit of artificial padding. While I did enjoy the increasing challenges, having that progression locked by luck I found to be a bit annoying especially as I neared a point of having unlocked every single upgrade.

Once that’s done though, Firegirl gives it one more stellar go against the only boss fight of the adventure, the Fire Lord himself. And you know what? It was totally worth it! Once that’s done though and the credits roll, there’s still plenty that can be done for ingame unlockables that may not have been acquired and plenty of PSN trophies that will probably still be waiting for you to unlock them.

Sadly not everything on this journey was perfect while I played off of the PS5. I found myself quite a few times having Firegirl, both the character and the game, freeze on me making me have to close it, re-launch it and then re-do the stage that I was already close to finishing, or a new one, all over again. There was also another glitch where I found myself completely upside down making me have to do the same thing as trying to finish the forest stage while also zoomed out was just impossible. So while I would have liked to score this higher, the issues that I would run into, especially when grabbing a Fire Tome and having the game crash, keeps it lower than it should be.

Summary

Overall though, Firegirl: Hack 'n Splash Rescue DX is a fun little rogue-like / lite that can easily net you half a dozen hours to complete the main story before sticking around for more. With easy to pick up controls, especially with the PS5’s locking shoulders which makes shooting water that much more precise, if you’ve been looking for a bit of a challenge but not one that will cause you to rage quit, this could be the one for you.

Score: 7 / 10

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Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town Review

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town by developer Marvelous Interactive Inc. and publishers XSEED Games, Marvelous—Sony PlayStation 4 review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

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Having released last year, the latest in Marvelous and XSEED Games' Story of Seasons, Pioneers of Olive Town, was phenomenal and I had a hard time putting it down. Back again, this more relaxed small town farming simulator is now on a more powerful system making everything even smoother than it already was as you plant crops, tend to your fields and take care of adorable animals.

Seriously. They. Are. Adorable. Chickens, cows, sheep, llamas, kittens and puppies. Adorable. Also, most of these farm animals make up for a good part of the gameplay design as you tend to the land that you have inherited. Backing up just a little bit though before you even get to this point, you’ll get to decide who you are first which was also a good change for the series.

While you do get to pick whether you are binarily Male or Female which affects marriage candidates and the pronouns that are used in game, you are not locked into only male or female choices for your appearance, character voice and clothing. While not super in-depth, it helps you be more of who you want to be or in the case of my second adventure, who I want my avatar / protagonist to be.

Once that’s done you’ll be packing up everything you own into your motorcycle and heading out to this small water front town to take over what was once your grandfather's farm in a cute little montage. Once you get there though, you’ll have your work cut out for you. Having not been tended in forever, there's no longer a house, there are no pre-established fields and then there ARE weeds, trees and rocks everywhere. All of these will need to be removed if you want to get anything done, but, it's a series staple and by this point I don't know if I would want it any other way.

So starting off with a tent and a few entry grade tools, how you want to proceed in Pioneers of Olive Town is entirely up to you. You can start to chop down trees, you can start to break rocks and you can also start to till small patches of land to plant crops. From there, you can go as big or as small as you want. Smaller fields are easier to tend but will bring in less money over time for things you may want or need in shops. However, it will give you more time to work on your crafting which in turn can make crops easier to manage with a sprinkler system doing all the watering for you.

This leads into another feature of Pioneers of Olive Town that I still fully appreciated the second time around, crafting. Being given basic tools you'll eventually need to upgrade them for efficiency which will in turn help you cultivate better materials to upgrade your farm, and your tools! The reason I appreciated this system is that not everything will need to cost money and be locked behind shops that close at 6pm and are closed on certain days of the week. Instead just about everything you could need is at your fingertips and as long as you plan it out, can be done on your schedule.

Chopping trees will give you logs, breaking rocks will give you ore and cutting grass will give you… grass. Logs can be turned into usable lumber, ore can be turned into ingots and grass can be turned into various threads to make cloth and clothing. With each of these materials there are grades and each will take longer to turn into usable materials which is why I was happy to be able to tackle these at my pace.

Need to do more than one set of logs, ingots or thread? With the right amount of materials you can make new machines to do the work at the same time. What I appreciate about these machines isn't just the work that they can do for you, but you're also told how many can be out in your field at the same time. It's also a great system that lets you save money for other things such as starter seeds before making your own down the line with crops that have been harvested and a seed maker once it has unlocked.

This all helps you to do things at your own pace as there are no timelines to do things or deadlines to hand things in. Requests by fellow townspeople can be found at City Hall. If you have what they need? Hand it in for a reward. If you don't? There's no worry, they won't hate you for it. Town development in Pioneers of Olive Town was also a nicer touch as there are materials that can be handed in at certain points which spruce up the look of the town so that it evolves with you and your farm.

It all helps to wrap everything together so that there's always something to do. Waiting or materials to process? Go say hi to the townspeople or try to start romancing someone you fancy. Already done that and have plenty of energy left in the tank? You can chop down a type of tree you need as long as they've grown back in the fields, you can lay down new pathways to make sure nothing grows in those specific spots, or, you can go spelunking for all the ore that you can carry.

Or if that's really not your thing? You can raise livestock! Roaming around your fields in the beginning are chickens, cows, sheep and llamas who are just looking for a home. So it's great that it just so happens that out in your fields there are barns and coops just waiting to be repaired to give these super cute and adorable animals a home. Once they've been given a home, you can call it there, or, you can make sure that they are properly fed everyday and they'll return the favor.

Chickens, if fed and happy, will give you eggs. Cows will give you milk. Llamas and sheep will give you wool. Each of these can be processed into various items like mayonnaise, fried eggs, milk, cheese, butter for the food and then thread and fabric for the other. This again wraps back around into self sufficiency where you can cook and make your own food inside of having to go eat in town or buy ingredients to cook at home. You obviously can if you want to as these products can net a good profit if you ship them out alongside the rest of your crops.

Now to not completely recap my previous review but from a slightly different stance, as it all still stands true, here's something I didn't cover the first time as to not spoil an interesting enough element to Pioneers of Olive Town, Spirits. No, not the alcohol kind, but the supernatural kind. These little wonderful beings start showing up in the beginning as you work in your fields but it's not until you meet your guide that this all comes together.

Broken into categories, each of these small spirits can be assigned to a larger one in order to help you gather "stuff". Tree spirit will net you tree related items like sap and logs. The ore spirit will give you rocks, clay, iron, silver, gold. The angler spirit will fish for you! And the chef, to not go into all of the spirits, will give you some pretty fancy dishes so you don't have to cook yourself. It's great and as time goes forward and you visit these spirits, they'll level up and be able to provide you with either more, or better quality, items so it's a good idea to make sure to visit them almost as daily as the rest of the townspeople.

Finally, while I do still wish that there was more to do with the townspeople other than talk to them for generic NPC lines to raise their affection or friendship status, I found myself not minding as much this time. Instead, I simply looked forward to the cutscenes with these people and to the town events which were always fun especially when there's pride on the line to win first place!

Summary

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town is a fantastic experience. Whether you are looking for something to casually hold your attention in a soft roll of days forward or have grander ambitions in mind with wanting to grow all of the crops or raise all of the adorable livestock and be outstanding in your field, this is for you.

Score: 9 / 10

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Bright Memory: Infinite Review

Bright Memory: Infinite by developer and publisher FYQD-Studio and publisher Playism—Sony PlayStation 5 review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes. 

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Following up on their one person development team’s fast paced fan-freakin’-tastic Bright Memory, FYQD-Studio is back for more fast paced action with Bright Memory: Infinite. While technically a sequel and starring the same protagonist Shelia, Infinite takes a different direction than the first and again leaves us wanting more of it. A lot more of it.

Quoting the FYQD-Studio off of their Steam page,

"Bright Memory: Infinite is the sequel to the popular Bright Memory. However, the sequel features an all-new world, along with newly created improved battle system and level design.

For Bright Memory: Infinite, I wanted to focus on adding content to give players a more satisfying experience. As a result, development took three times as long as Bright Memory. This process allowed me to learn how to create a strong game while dealing with time and financial constraints. I spent a lot of time thinking of ways to maximize whatever technology and resources available to me in order to deliver an unforgettable experience through the game. As such, Bright Memory: Infinite represents the culmination of FYQD Studio's growth."

So essentially starting off from scratch, this helped me place myself in this new experience without holding out for some of the elements from the first. Set in a first person shooter style, Bright Memory, and now Bright Memory: Infinite, are anything but slow. You're supposed to move around at fast speeds shooting anything that moves and slashing anything that gets close with your sword.

Now here is where I once again find myself torn.

On one hand, you have this stellar high paced action hack & slash shooter which looks fantastic and is all done by a single person. On the other hand, the adventure when all is said and done is less than 2 hours. While 4 times longer than the original, Infinite feels like an introduction session to the main course making you want more even after obtaining the Platinum Trophy on your third playthrough at the highest difficulty.

Now while it would have made more sense to replay the original first, I didn't. Instead, I jumped back into the original after my first run of Infinite to compare and probably the biggest differences are the elements that didn't make it back for an encore. More mythical monsters such as undead warriors and chimera, a combo counter with a grading system and gaining experience like an RPG to level up your skills. Was this a bad thing? I don't think so, no, as Infinite has streamlined various elements making it almost even faster paced than the original.

Instead, you'll generally be facing off against more human-like enemies such as human soldiers and some rather imposing looking ancient warriors that can decently shrug off your standard bullets. So it's a good thing that in Infinite, Shelia is equipped with her sword that can be used all the time instead of having a cooldown. Swordplay has become almost integral to this adventure as not only will you hack & slash at your enemies, but you can also block bullets, send bullets flying back and parry blows from even the largest of foes!

Having access to your sword like this also increases the pace of gameplay as it doesn't matter if you're using your guns or your sword, you don't need to stop. Both have their uses and that's before getting into special abilities that you can unlock such as a lightning punch that once fully upgraded, can launch a fireball once its fully charged burning everything in its path. Your sword also gets some new neat abilities like being able to launch itself forward and auto attack enemies while you worry about dodging out of the way of incoming fire or melee attacks. Finally, you can perform a ground and pound for anyone unlucky enough to stand beneath where you're coming down from a jump.

To not only offer "more" of the same even with the adjustments, there are completely new gameplay elements to Infinite in which one works really well, and the other I would like to see refined if it's to be used in the next iteration. Keeping spoilers out of it, there's now a stealth section that slows down this super fast pace to something more of a walk, not a crawl, as you'll still be moving around quickly enough. This also isn't a choice as if you've been spotted you're pretty much dead. It makes sense in context and also shows that FYQD-Studio are willing to do more than just "more of the same".

The other new gameplay element is a car chase making me think that Shelia could potentially star in her own James Bond movie if that's what her Q can dish out. Super slick to look at though, sadly this is the newer element that didn't work as well for me. While everything inside of the car looked great, it was the responsiveness of the car that didn't work for me. Essentially putting the pedal to the metal didn't feel like it did anything as going from 0-60, whether kilometers or miles an hour, felt like a slow advance when it should have felt like a thrill ride. It was a slow crawl forward and with everything else so fast paced? It didn't fit as well as it could have.

Summary

Because other than that, change in design forward or not, Bright Memory: Infinite is a hell of an experience and a worthy successor to Bright Memory. I just wish it was longer in terms of everything as it does feel more like an appetizer than a main course.

Score: 8 / 10

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Urbek City Builder Review

Urbek City Builder by developer Estudios Kremlinois and publisher RockGame S.A.—PC (Steam) review written by Hayden with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes. 

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Urbek City Builder is an enjoyable, approachable and lightweight city builder that gives the player remarkable freedom to build while hiding a remarkable depth of complexity. Using a pixel-block style that brings to mind the original line of SimCity games, Urbek challenges the player to balance population, production and pollution. Players will progress through a variety of biomes with unique buildings and challenges seeking to overcome constraints to build cities that thrive in different ways.

Before getting into the meat of the review, however, I want to address something that has already been coming up in the Steam discussions of the game during these times of conflict - this is a developer out of Chile (and publisher out of Poland), not Russia. From the developer’s own post:

With a friend we used to make games when I lived in Paris, in Le Kremlin-Bicêtre neighbourhood, and as we are Spanish speakers, instead of "studio" we call it "estudio" (you know, we say stadium or star and not stadium, star, like the other languages). So we called it Estudios Kremlinois (the people from Le Kremlin-Bicêtre are called Kremlinois).

In fact, when you press the button to choose the name of the city at random, that neighbourhood appears :)

Then I went back to Chile and started making games, my friend did something else but I wanted to keep the name. Now I regret the choice of the name, but it's a bit late :/ "

Starting Out

Moving the focus back to Urbek City Builder, it’s time to jump into the new player experience. Out of the gate, Urbek will block all but the basic biome for new game selection. Designed with balanced resources, and lots of buildable or farmable area, this biome really is a good place to start new players and comes with a fairly soft-touch tutorial.

Tutorial goals are presented in an unobtrusive banner in the lower right of the screen and are context sensitive, progressing automatically as each is completed. Often, these will take the form of goals for the next thing to do - increase population to X to unlock this next building upgrade, for instance. Detection of completion for tutorial steps was quite reliable even in the pre-release review copy that the developer provided, and didn’t leave me feeling like I had to do things in one specific way.

Starting small, with the tutorial banner visible in the bottom right corner.

Location, Location, Location

As seems to be a trend in colony and building sims that I have been reviewing recently, Urbek leverages the idea of adjacency - although it uses a radius proximity rather than locking the player into specific side-by-side placements. For example, residential areas won’t increase in density unless there are enough other residential areas at a similar level of density within a certain radius. This ends up creating a very natural-looking progression of city buildings, with multi-story buildings occurring only where they form the core of a developed area. The edges of these areas will naturally begin to taper off in density (and building height) as they cannot fulfil the proximity requirements to upgrade.

You can see how the taller, more developed buildings tail off as we move away from the core.

Proximity detection applies to many of the systems in the game. Resource buildings have their own special types of housing that will evolve next to them, lending a distinct feel to the area. Pollution-producing buildings will impact what types of farms can be placed nearby, as well as directing housing evolution towards high-density tenement-style buildings instead of glittering high-rises. Even abundances of night life or religious buildings will impact what evolves nearby! All in all, Urbek has very successfully leaned into this idea, and it really gives the player great control over how their city looks as it grows.

The fisherman's houses here look different from normal houses thanks to the nearby dock.

Progression and Victory

Progression within Urbek is primarily population based. New buildings and upgrades for existing buildings will often be gated behind population values, with a secondary condition requiring the presence of a certain number of another particular building type. To unlock the hospital requires the player achieve specific population and that three medical clinics have been placed in the city, for example. Housing upgrades occur automatically as their needs are met, and this can lead to waves of redevelopment at times that provide a sudden “wow” factor and sense of achievement for the player. Seeing everything come together and ripple across the city is definitely gratifying, and helped keep me engaged for hours at a time.

Winning a map in Urbek can be done via three distinct paths in any biome, depending on what the player chooses to build first in the early game. Wealth, Leisure and Productivity are all options that can be chosen, based on what the player wants to do. A path towards wealth, for example, will require the player to build a certain amount of high-density/high-value commercial areas. This multi-path approach adds to the freedom that Urbek provides the player, and also helps to ensure replayability for each biome.

Nice Touches

Urbek City Builder ships with mod support at release, a great addition that helps to boost the longevity of many games. The developer’s Tumblr (https://urbek.tumblr.com/) goes through mod creation, and shows a pretty straightforward system that potential content creators should be able to pick up quickly. Directions on how to make new buildings within the game’s artistic style can also be found here along with step-by-step instructions on how to validate and load mods. It will be quite interesting to see what the community comes up with for the game in the weeks and months ahead.

You can even zoom in and stroll around with your Sims...er...Urbekites? Urbekians?....citizens.

Urbek’s developer has obviously put a lot of thought into the little things that affect quality of life in the game. The UI layout rarely feels crowded, with a minimum of the popups and dialogue windows that other games stack and tile over the playing area. Information windows on buildings always include links to potential upgrade paths that the player can check. Future buildings of the next tier show as greyed-out items in the menus - but tooltips still work on them and show the unlock requirements for fast referencing. Hotkeys are set up by default to navigate to menus and submenus in a consistent fashion, and building options never reorder within their menu once they appear in the greyed-out hint form.

What its Not

Urbek is not a hardcore, super-detailed urban planning simulation that is going to challenge a Cities Skylines or Cities In Motion. Roads are modelled to the level of needing them within a particular radius of a block, and having to have your road network connected into, well, a network - no isolated chunks. Traffic simply is not something you need to manage in Urbek. Sewage, pipes for plumbing, poles for power - none of that is a level of detail that Urbek requires the player to deal with. Pollution doesn’t accumulate, your sea level isn’t going to rise, nothing like that. Urbek is a lightweight, accessible city builder, and seems to be well-developed in that niche.

Conclusion

Urbek City Builder is a great entry from a small developer that is well worth the time to play. This is a game that feels like the developer knew their resource limits and kept themselves focused on what was achievable - and delivered really, really well within that.

Urbek feels well balanced and fairly polished at release, and provides ample re-playability for its maps. The player has the freedom to create and grow their city without having to worry about the nitty-gritty that some other city builders focus on. The result is a very enjoyable game that you can intend to play for 15 minutes and put down an hour later wishing you had just a bit more time available.

Summary

Urbek City Builder is a light, approachable city builder that eschews micromanagement of utilities in exchange for creative freedom for the player. Well balanced and polished at release, this game offers multiple victory paths for its various biomes and includes modding support from the outset. This is a game that knew what it aimed to deliver and hit that target in the bullseye.

Easy to learn, fun to play, and hard to put down - grab this one on Steam and dive right in.

Score: 9 / 10

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Numina (Part 1) Review

Numina (Part 1) by developer and publisher Starlit Studio—PC (Steam) review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes. 

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Having taken a very first look at Starlit Studio's Numina back in 2017 through a Sunday Bites approach, the first part of this RPG is now available with Part 2 set to drop sometime in Q3. Taking a more serious tone, RPG and JRPG fans could find a decent amount to enjoy here as there’s a good balance between the tones of the story, the elements of gameplay, and the interactive-ness of the environments.

To start off, I found it rather interesting to read through something that I had written over five years ago in order to review it today. What changed? What stayed the same? It’s an interesting approach as the Sunday Bites format was never designed to really lead into a review format within a foreseeable release date. The format was to give small currently in development projects a chance to be highlighted outside of our typical publishing schedule as they weren’t at the same point as something that launched into Early Access for example. So with a bit of reminiscing done, let’s jump into it shall we?

Designed with RPG Maker XP, Numina is an interesting RPG adventure that puts you into the role of two people. On one hand, you’ll be in control of the protagonist Shawn who will move around the maps, initiate dialog with NPCs and run into enemies in order to launch combat. On the other hand, you’re also you.

Yes you, the person behind the computer screen.

You’re also a character who gets to choose their own name and interact specifically with Shawn as their guardian spirit and then others over the course of the journey, 'if' they can hear you. While something different, it was different in a good way as while "you" may think something is a good idea, other characters, Shawn included, may not. They may also love the idea which is great! It helps to build the bonds between everyone.

The world of Numina is an interesting one and the tale begins like any good JRPG. Much darker in tone, the beginning of Numina opens up with a prison break where the characters you follow are leaving corpses or blood spatters in their path as they try to escape. Making a clean cut away from this, you are introduced to Shawn, our protagonist, who wakes up, gets dressed and ready to bring his younger sister up to a place called The Temple of the Clouds with his close friend Raph(ael).

The shift in tone felt a bit startling until things caught back up, and while still early on, I won't spoil any details but it's heavy. This takes a lot in order to get right as oftentimes what a developer aims for and what they achieve can be made or broken in the dialog and the tone that it takes. While jokes can obviously be made, they fit the atmosphere in which the characters are trying to break the tension. This doesn't always work in their favor, or if it does, it does for a limited amount of time before the reality of the situation settles back in and it works really well against the overall approach.

To get to these points and further on the fairly lengthy adventure is a rich looking world with plenty to explore. Each area will have its own quirks and can take some time to walk or run through and if you've not sure where to go? Exploration is the name of the game and there's plenty to find whether in a cave, an enchanted forest or a sewer system under a major city. Some paths forward will be blocked by locked doors requiring keys while others need a series of switches to be hit in sequence to get the appropriate bridges moved into place.

What I found neat with these areas is that it's actually hard to miss points of interest. Showing up as shining or glimmering spots, these points could be usable items, equipment or even key items as not everything is hidden in treasure chests. Just because these points of interest are hard to miss, it doesn't always mean that they are easy to get to. Hidden paths, multiple grapple points, paths from one area of a map into another, it can take some time to get to them, but like any good RPG, it's always worth picking up everything to save your money for new equipment once you hit that new town.

Before getting to these new towns to spend your hard earned money, you'll first have to fight for it. Designed with all encounters showing on the map, you can choose just how many of these encounters you want to go through while adventuring. Low on potions? Maybe it'll be best to pass on by. Fully loaded? Need to level a bit as that last boss fight was tough? There are often plenty of encounters available and they will respawn once you've left the current area and come back in. What I liked is that Numina doesn't fall into the trap of having too many random encounters because of it. Just make sure to not take these roaming foes lightly as they will chase after you.

If you do decide to get into an encounter then make sure to have your fingers ready to hit the right prompts! Designed in the same vein as a few other RPGs across the decades, Numina requires a hands-on approach to battle and depending on the actions, what's required will change. Normal attacks with a sword for example will require you to hit the action button as the outer circle crosses the inner one. Charge attacks that do more damage require holding an arrow key until a meter fills up to the specific point. Ranged attacks will have a moving line that needs to line up with a set outline.

If you manage to get relatively within the sweet spot so to speak you'll do full damage to the enemy based off of character stats which is sometimes a grand total of zero. What can I say? Sometimes a more magical based character just doesn't do the same amount of damage with normal attacks. So it's a good thing that every character has special abilities, but, in a prevention of spamming them for "instant wins" you have to accumulate the points for them first.

This is perhaps the one area that I found didn't work as well as the rest. To perform special abilities you’ll need to accumulate TP by either attacking enemies or being attacked by enemies. The better the hit, the more TP that you'll accumulate, however, there are some enemies that you'll be accumulating next to none making your spell casters a bit useless as they can do zero damage and they have no TP to cast spells unless they are hit. This really makes your healer useless in certain battles as everyone is taking a hit but your healer can’t heal them meaning that they need to waste turns using healing items instead of being able to attack.

Summary

Overall though? From my first look at Numina through a Sunday Bites approach years ago, I would say that this adventure has been worth the wait and there’s still more to come with Numina Part 2 later this year. Well written dialog in a world that is nice to look at, the gameplay is just as fun and interactive keeping you in the immersion of this world both as the protagonist, and as yourself!

Score: 8 / 10

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