Akuma Rise - PS5 Review

Akuma Rise by developer Exe Create Inc. and publisher KEMCO. PS5 review by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

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Well everyone, here we are with another KEMCO title. Last time we had a departure from classic JRPG, but this time we’re back in the turn-based JRPG genre with Akuma Rise.

Akuma Rise takes place in the Shadow Realm of Adribune, a land of various species of demons. It is here that the game starts off with our protagonist Kaine washing up on the beach of the Oni country. He is discovered by the local princess and rescued, only to discover he has amnesia! Oh no! Things couldn’t get much worse in the Shadow Realm either: the Overlord is missing and his second in command is causing trouble. Heroes from the Radiant Realm are attacking the locals, and now Kaine doesn’t really remember anything other than his name and his goal of finding some type of “fragment”. Thankfully for Kaine, the Oni princess Iroha is interested in helping out, and Kaine is interested in beating up the “heroes” that are attacking from the Radiant Realm.

Akuma Rise is a pretty traditional JRPG in the KAMCO flavouring that it’s probably become known to you by now. KEMCO JRPGs tend to come in two flavours, and this one is the standard turn-based battles with a turn order and a more “cartoonish” art style. Gameplay consists of going between towns, or castles in the case of Akuma Rise, by traversing the world map and making it through a dungeon between you and your next goal, all while completing sidequests along the way. Enemy encounters are random, but you are bequeathed a pair of boots very early that adjusts encounter rate between: normal, every step, or none (or half if you’re in an uncleared dungeon).

Towns allow you to nap at an inn for a quite reasonable charge, purchase equipment and items, or if he’s around, an old man will create orbs for you. These orbs act as a sort of secondary equipment-like accessories. While you have a weapon and armour slot, you also have five orb slots. Three of these are for equipable magic, and two are for passive effects, like stat increases or experience gain increases. Magic orbs have an element and a rank. The element is the type of magic used, for example might is fire and attack buffing spells, while rank determines how much an orb can be upgraded. Magic orbs will gain their own exp after battle when equipped, and the spells they hold will level with them, dealing more damage or reducing delay time if they don’t do damage. Alternatively you can infuse new orbs with old ones of the same element to get an exp boost.

Both orb types can be increased in rank if you have the correct items to do so. No worries about running out, as you can farm for these later in the game. For magic orbs ranking up allows them to level further, whereas the passive effect orbs will increase their effect. For example a five percent stat increase will turn into a ten percent increase. There are a bunch of different orbs with different effects, some magic orbs even combine different elements and spells, so it’s kinda fun to mix up your team every so often.

Now that you’re all geared up, it’s time to set out. Exploring the Shadow Realm is dangerous, and you’ll for sure be getting into all kinds of fights. During battle you have access to a list of commands on your turn that include: item use, defense, magic orb skills, power skills (which are unique character-based skills), and a basic attack. Enemies and allies are set on a three by three grid each, and enemies can take up multiple spaces. Different skills, and sometimes your basic attack, can hit single or multiple tiles on the grid adding a bit of strategy or forethought.

If you’ve been following my reviews on KEMCO titles for a while, you may have noticed that this style of KEMCO title usually comes with “quality of life” options for those who want an easier time and aren’t in it for the challenge. Well, it’s back here in Akuma Rise, and it’s a fairly decent midpoint between “absolutely busted” and “no help at all”. Every three battles from common enemies in-game that you actually fight will reward you with ten of a special resource. This resource can be exchanged at an in-game shop like premium currency in an online game, either to get items, adjust certain gameplay elements, or to roll for new equipment. This also applies to all save files. For example, you can exchange a set amount of the resource to increase the amount of experience earned permanently. Another option is to draw a piece of equipment from a random pool and maybe get an awesome magic orb or armour. Unlike some of the other titles, the shop and equipment selection in Akuma Rise is very reasonable and doesn’t fully break the game or offer too little if you’re struggling.

Between the freemium currency shop, the battle rate adjustment, the four difficulties offered, and the option to speed battles up to three times the speed, there are a lot of methods to cut down on grinding time. I hit level 99 well enough before finishing the game, and most enemies or bosses weren’t too much of a challenge, difficulty setting depending. That being said you can always increase the difficulty and not purchase the boosters if you’re interested in the challenge.

Sporting a more cartoonish art style and some enemies that will definitely be familiar to enjoyers of other KEMCO titles with a similar art style, Akuma Rise doesn’t really break new ground on the aesthetic side of things. That being the case there’s nothing wrong with the art style or music direction, so take it as you get it. Keep it in mind it is also available on a phone App Store.

Overall Akuma Rise is a pretty fun title to add to the KEMCO JRPG pool. While the plot is maybe a little cliché and the assets reused from previous titles, there’s enough in the new storyline and characters to keep it entertaining if you don’t think too hard about it. Definitely a pick up for those looking for a retro JRPG that want something to play in the background or casually.

 

Score: 8 / 10

 

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Dragon Spira - PS5 Review

Dragon Spira by developer Exe Create Inc and publisher KEMCO—PS5 review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

 
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes 

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Well hello there, and welcome to another review of a KEMCO title! We’ve been through a few of these in the past, each with their own charm, and now it’s time to take a look at a new title: Dragon Spira.

The world of Dragon Spira is an interesting place, where The Divine created six spirit beasts to rule over the world, along with different races for most of them. However that didn’t go over so well when the spirit beasts rebelled, and were sealed into eggs. The Divine created humans to replace them, and left them with some relics and wisdom before disappearing. One thousand years later and humanity is doing pretty well for itself, all things considered. Unfortunately, danger lurks, and a hero is needed to stand against the coming evil! (that’s you by the way).

So you end up with a traditional JRPG party of four plus a mascot creature (who is also helpful in battle at least) to venture forth. Now, most of you who are familiar with KEMCO titles should know that they generally come in two flavours: old-school Final Fantasy like or old-school Dragon Quest like. This time we’re going with the Final Fantasy like style.

For those of you new to KEMCO titles, Dragon Spira is a very retro stylized JRPG, but in a good way. You have a party of heroes that ventures out into the world to right wrongs and uncover hidden secrets along the way. Getting into random turn-based battles is a mandatory experience here, all done in a pixel-graphic and MIDI sounding adventure.

Between bouts of random encounters and facing off against powerful bosses, you will be exploring dungeons, towns, taking sidequests from characters or the guild, and maybe challenging optional areas if you’re feeling confident? You may need to rethink that last one though. When the game says “powerful enemies here”, it means you’re getting one-shot.

Dragon Spira runs the traditional set-up: visit a town, find out there’s something important to do in a dungeon nearby, find and enter dungeon on world map, clear dungeon, report in to town, rinse and repeat with the next town. It’s a tried and true formula of JRPGs through the ages. Thankfully KEMCO tends to do away with a lot of the frustration of some of the older games when going for their retro feel. Such quality of life options include: being able to teleport to any town or dungeon you have previously set foot in, indicators for where quests are available, the option to warp back to quest giver when complete from the quest menu, and many other small but handy bits.

Exploration of dungeons is pretty straightforward, where you walk around aiming for the depths and the boss that’s sure to meet you there, getting into random battles along the way, and maybe seeing a cutscene or two. At set intervals there are teleportation circles that you can use to warp between different zones, as well as braziers that can summon enemies as a set of three individual battles so you can get exp, money, stones, and RP more efficiently, more on those last two later.

Combat in these types of KEMCO games is a little interesting, as player units are in a vertical line with front and rear options, while enemy units are placed in a 3x3 grid so that they fit. Some enemies will take up multiple squares.  Combat is taken in turns based on speed of units with faster units taking earlier and more frequent turns, as indicated by a handy turn order bar at the top of the combat screen. When in combat you have a number of tactical options available to you: attack, job, unique, item, defense, summon, and if you have the mascot character unlocked summon.

Unique and Job refer to skills, which cost MP but hold special effects, deal extra damage, or multiple enemy tiles. Each move has it’s own range, so pay attention when deciding what skill to use. Unique are character specific and are solely learned by that character, but Job skills are learned as long as you have the required job equipped and at the right level. Summon just calls your mascot to stand in front of the unit that summoned it, which is also the only time you can use the mascot character’s Wonder Skill ability to help you in battle.

Yup, you read that right, we get jobs. Now, I feel no shame in telling you I’m an absolute sucker for a decent job system, and I feel like Dragon Spira delivers a decent system. You start out with a set of jobs, and a bunch of locked jobs you can’t access yet. Basic jobs can level from JP earned primarily through combat, and default jobs will level to 25. Once you hit 25, if you have a specific item, you can use it to unlock an advanced version of that class allowing you to level it to 50. Some of the locked jobs require hitting that level 50 with more than one job class. There are both active and passive skills awarded to you as you level your jobs, and your jobs can be swapped at any time outside of combat or a cutscene, so feel free to play around with them. It is important to note that jobs can only equip certain types of items, so if you make it through a good chunk of the game without getting a decent dagger and equip a thief job, don’t expect that to go super well. While job levels are not shared across party, you don’t lose anything from switching jobs, so you can always swap back if you don’t like the job you’ve changed to.

So, let’s take a poke at a really weird but interesting feature: the sugoroku board. If you don’t have any idea what that is, don’t worry, neither did I. Basically you can think of it kinda like a mario party board, or maybe a Jumanji board if that’s more familiar. As you pass over or land on certain tiles, you gain the item or stat associated with that tile. On certain tiles or at the end of the board, you may distribute all the stats you’ve earned through tiles. Yes, you can replay boards, so you can do this pretty much indefinitely. Do note that the higher the player party level the more costly it is to move tiles on the board.

So how do you move tiles? Well, you earn RP from battles, or the board, and you spend a set number of points based on board and party level to spin a roulette wheel that has 1 to 6 on it. What you land on is how far you go. At intersections where you have a choice of direction, you also spin to determine where you go. You can find items to choose a desired roll, so don’t worry too hard about missing a tile. You can always come back and try again.

So you KEMCO veterans are probably wondering at this point: does this one have the store? The answer is yes, it does. For those of you confused, these types of KEMCO titles tend to have a sort of store where you can exchange kaishin stones earned through combat or as certain rewards for either permanent cross-save game modifiers like increased exp earned, or exchange for items or an equipment gacha roll where you might end up with some ridiculously overpowered gear.

Overall I have to say I’m quite a fan of Dragon Spira. The combat is pretty fluid and has a lot of options for you, the job system is a decent mesh of easy to use and tactical options with a fair number of jobs available, and the sugoroku boards are an incredibly interesting addition to the game. The story is pretty engaging, the characters are unique in their portrayal, and each job class has their own outfit sprite in addition to the general character sprite. I would definitely recommend Dragon Spira if you’re looking for a really fun retro style RPG.

Score: 8 / 10

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Alphadia III - Playstation 5 Review

Alphadia III by developer Exe Create Inc. and publisher KEMCO—PS5 review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

 
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes 

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Alphadia III is the third instalment in the Alphadia series. Set as a prequel to Alphadia I, Alphadia III tells a story about war and how an energi clone named Alfonso looks for a future that isn’t as a weapon to be wielded.

If you haven’t played any other Alphadia titles no worries, you’ll be told everything you need to understand what’s going on as you play. You gather a caste of eclectic characters, headed by Alfonso, an energi clone, who has started wanting a life not as a tool for war but as his own person. So he sets out with the local anti-war movement to try and find a place in the world. You will end up journeying with others, a clash of unique personalities, and a lot of adventure awaits.

As for the gameplay system, it’s kind of like the midway point between Spirit Valor and Astrune Academy. If you haven’t played either or read my reviews for those, no worries I’ll outline it here. Alphadia III is a retro-style RPG similar to old-school Final Fantasy at its core. You will have pixel characters exploring a world map, dungeons, and towns, with random encounters in the first two. While exploring dungeons you can find chests, puzzles, and a handy enemy encounter adjustment device and a warp point to take you to other warp points you’ve activated in that dungeon. In towns you can buy equipment, accept and complete requests for citizens, and maybe even take part in some arena bouts.

The world isn't just a safe place to explore as enemies and monsters abound. You will either get into a fight randomly, as a scripted event, or by summoning enemies via the device I previously mentioned. Combat is turn-based with a turn-order indicated at the top of your screen where a characters agility will determine how often they attack. When one of your turns come around, you have your traditional commands such as: attack, defend, and item. You can also use Energi Skills, which is the in-universe equivalent of what mana is in most other games. Your SP skills, which are powerful moves that build a charge gauge as you take action, as well as formation and array commands.

While most of this is pretty standard for many turn-based RPGs, whether in parts or in whole, Alphadia III adds a little bit of a personal spin to it. Not only do you have the Energi skills and SP attacks instead of just one or the other, but Alphadia III actually has you playing with a six member party, something not often done. If you adjust your formation to meet certain pre-set layouts, you can activate an array which will give an effect to the party. For instance, one array may increase both damage output and damage taken, or one may increase agility at the cost of reduced energi attack damage. It’s a cool feature that may help you out if you use it properly.

Another interesting route the developers decided to go is how your energi and SP skills level. While your main characters level through exp from defeating enemies, to a ridiculously high 999, your energi element is what determines your energi skill and the number of times you use SP skills determines your SP skill level. Basically, more fights and your characters’ innate element levels up, more SP skill usage and your overall SP skill level goes up. As for the energi skills, your character is restricted to their natural element, one for each six of the party members. But have no fear, you can equip rings that allow you to use other element types, although those must also be leveled when a ring is equipped. Unequip the ring and you lose access to those skills.

The main way to get rings is by trading energi fragments with characters in the item shop for rings. Energi fragments are mostly obtained through chucking unwanted items in the Energi Crock. Every one-hundred points worth of items nets you a fragment.

Now for those of you somewhat familiar with Kemco games, yes the “sort of cheat shop” is in Alphadia III. For those unaware, as you win battles, occasionally you will get ten of a “premium currency”. You can go to the shop tab in the main menu use that “premium currency” to purchase random items (that get removed from the item pool when pulled), exchange for specific items (like a key to a storage house), or you can purchase game modifiers like exp increases or increased drop rate. Unlike Astrune Academy which pretty much shovelled these in your face, Alphadia III is much more withholding of the premium currency. Sure, if you really wanted you could grind out low level enemies for them, but it really depends on how you want to play the game.

You do have different tiered missions as well, a sort of in-game bonus for meeting certain requirements such as obtaining a certain number of fragments from the energi crock or using a certain number of SP skills. These missions can reward that premium currency or other items like consumables or upgrade materials. I’m not sure it’s particularly spelled out for you all that well, but there is a tab in your item menu called “upgrade” where permanent stat boosting items can be found. These are dropped occasionally after a fight and will usually raise your stats by a minor amount.

Alphadia III, much like some of the other Kemco titles out there, gives you a lot of ways to make your team somewhat overpowered. Whether it’s from getting a bunch of the “store” currency and buying exp/damage increase upgrades or pulling a gacha for equipment. Unlike some of its contemporaries however, Alphadia III doesn’t just shove the store currency in your face. I think it strikes a good balance between “available if you want to turn this into a casual experience” and “I want a challenge” where you can choose how easy to make the game but don’t feel almost pushed into it if you’re given a lot of store currency.

The graphics and soundtrack are good for what they are, but probably won’t hold much space in your memory. While the spritework is good, including different weapon styles, the still portraits seen during talking scenes sometimes don’t mesh properly with the background. Although it is rather faint, a minor issue, all things considered. What is distinctly more annoying, however, is that there are a few menus where hitting “back” means you need to completely exit out of the submenu, instead of reverting to a choice. An example of this is the scenario menu. Normally you can go here to read up on what has happened and where you should go, but you also go here to turn in sidequests. Unfortunately if you have a few to turn in, you need to turn in one, leave the scenario menu, then go back into it to turn in another. Also a minor issue but pretty annoying.

With a cast of interesting characters, some neat combat mechanics, and the wonderful ability to fast travel anywhere you’ve been before, Alphadia III is definitely a pleasing retro RPG style title. There are a few kinks here and there, but it’s a rather smooth experience that was enjoyable to witness. While it may not stand up to some other major games out there, it’s definitely a delightful experience.

Score: 8 / 10

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Spirit Valor - PS5 Review

Spirit Valor by developer Exe Create Inc. and publisher KEMCO—PS5 review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

 
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

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Spirit Valor is an interesting title from KEMCO and Exe Create Inc., the same people that brought us Astrune Academy if you saw my review for that. Another turn-based RPG with some twist elements thrown in, Spirit Valor is a pretty entertaining journey through a fantasy world, so let’s take a look at what it has to offer!

In Spirit Valor we take on the role of a spirit summoned by a mighty warrior to help in the defeat of an Overlord, one who controls the rise of demons in the world. Unfortunately, there is a magic outburst from the warrior, and so the spirit is stuck in the warrior’s body. Unable to return home to the spirit world, and feeling a sense of obligation to fulfill the warrior’s goal of defeating the new Overlord, the spirit inside the warrior’s body gathers three other companions to set out and save both the human and spirit world from the overlord.

So set out the warrior “Richard” (totally not a spirit, shhh), Alice, a young warrior in training, Finn, the flirty knight, and Vallerie, a spirit researcher. Those of you who remember old school Final Fantasy titles, like the first game, or who’ve played Astrune Academy will have a pretty good idea how things will play out, but for those of you who haven’t, we’ll take a look at what makes Spirit Valor enticing.

Spirit Valor has a pretty standard JRPG game loop. You go visit someone of importance and have a cutscene, you get told where to go, you explore a dungeon, you repeat. This is pretty basic fare for many JRPGs. You’ll explore a world map, getting into random fights until you either enter a town or dungeon. Feel free to explore the various local settlements at your leisure, buying and equipping new equipment, talking with the townsfolk, and picking up any chests you may see hidden around, as is pretty common in these types of games.

Once you enter a dungeon, there are a few things you’ll probably notice right off the bat. First of all, you’ll probably see a little panel on the floor and a weird floating rock tower somewhere nearby. The panel is a warp point, which will bring you to any other panel in the dungeon you’ve stepped on. If you step on it, the floating rock tower is a sort of enemy adjustment device. Basically, battles in the dungeons are random encounters, but the towers near the warp points allow you to adjust encounter rate, as well as summon a set of three battles to use for gaining levels, money, or items. While the first time you interact with a tower you can either increase or decrease the encounter rate slightly, after reaching the last tower you can either stop random encounters or greatly increase the encounter rate. This is pretty handy when you return to an area for a sidequest and don’t want to bother with way too weak enemies while looking for the sidequest objective.

So, what about when you actually get into a battle? Well, this is where Spirit Valor brings out some interesting ideas. Basic combat is turn based, with a sliding bar where both enemy and ally icons will move along indicating each turn order. Faster characters mean faster moving icons. Once it comes to your turn, you can perform your actions. While Spirit Valor has the basics, like attack, defend, and item use, it also has a pretty unique spirit summoning system going for it.

In battle, you can opt to spend a percent portion of your max mana pool to summon a spirit, at varying strength depending on your mana used. The spirits you summon however are actually somewhat random, determined by the area you’re fighting in, and will change each time a spirit gets summoned. Being a spirit himself, the main character doesn’t have that option, but the rest of your party members still do. So let’s say one of your party members summons a spirit. Well, there’s a chance the spirit will stick around and ask to make a contract with you. If you agree. That spirit will lend you it’s power. You can have up to ten spirit contracts per character, but can only “equip” four at a time. You can swap these out outside of battle.

Now, forming a contract with a spirit doesn’t mean you can summon them whenever, it actually means you can use their abilities as skills. Spirits also have levels, and as you bring them into battle with you they will level up, gain new skills, and maybe even evolve! You can swap them out and level other spirits to see if they gain skills you want. Some spirits can provide healing or buffs, and some have large single target damage.

In addition to the spirits and their skills, you also have these things called mana stones. Basically they’re sort of like discount pokeballs. You can throw one at an enemy, and if they have a skill that can be used, there’s a chance you can “capture” the monster’s skills at a certain chance. These mana stones that have a skill can be used three times before they either break or lose the skill. If the mana stone loses the skill, you get the mana stone back and can use it on another enemy. If it breaks, a spirit is released and a character can contract it, or the warrior can learn a skill from it. If you either summon a spirit or break a mana stone and receive a spirit you already have a contract with, that character’s spirit will get a power increase.

Those of you who have played Astrune Academy may remember the store system, where you can exchange gems you’ve gained for items, or permanent buffs applied to your game. Unlike in Astrune Academy however, the items don’t include primary equipment, just accessories, so it’s much tougher to “break” the game, although you can still purchase experience and money increases. These can also be toggled, so you can adjust the game to your preference.

Spirit Valor is a pretty nice retro style JRPG that still manages to put some interesting twists on things. The graphics are definitely a little more old-school looking, but fit really well with the style. As a nice added bonus, while the storyline is somewhat generic, there are still some twists, and tropes that are commonly used that are either subverted or altered in a pretty interesting way. Probably one of the more interesting storyline decisions comes in the post-game, where there is a split in how the story goes based on what you choose. I thought the choice to go this route was pretty interesting, and while I liked the split in direction it went for, being unable to carry over from one plotline to the other is a little annoying. What I mean is that completing one of the branches doesn’t allow you to keep playing with all the stuff you’ve gained in that route. You have to reload from before the branch, although it isn’t too bad, and you can earn the equivalent back on the other branch.

Overall, I actually had a lot of fun with Spirit Valor. It’s a nice JRPG with a pretty unique twist and a solid storyline. The characters all have unique personalities, the graphic style is very fitting for the game type, and there are a number of quality of life options for players. If you’re looking for a smaller JRPG to fill your time, Spirit Valor may be something for you!

Score: 8 / 10

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Revenant Saga - Switch Review

Revenant Saga as a throwback RPG adventure that gets more right than wrong and while it has seen releases on a handful of platforms, I think the Nintendo Switch is actually a very natural home for this recently released title.

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