Isekai Villain - PS5 Review

Isekai Villain by developer Exe-Create and publisher KEMCO—Sony PlayStation 5  review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes. 

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Hello everyone and welcome to the next instalment of KEMCO RPG: Isekai Villain! This time we get to witness the tale of a regular dude who gets transported into his favourite webnovel, but as a villain mob character!

Isekai Villain starts out with a guy walking home while reading a webnovel on his phone, falling in an open manhole, breaking his leg, passing out, and then waking up to find himself a part of the Crown Eaters, a gang of villains in the webnovel he was reading. The catch? He’s a low level grunt named Gray. The other catch? The Crown Eaters aren’t part of the story past the early-ish chapters. Gray now has to balance his old world sensibilities, new world budding villainy, as well as trying to survive as a villain grunt.

While Isekai Villain is pretty similar to the other same stylized KEMCO RPGs, there are a few notable differences in how it’s handled. For those who haven’t played a KEMCO RPG, well, it’s a pretty generic retro style RPG for the most part. You’ve got your random turn-based battles, dungeons to explore and find treasure in, bosses to beat, sidequests to complete, and characters to interact with. What is somewhat interesting here is that unlike in most RPGs of this nature, there isn’t a world map, just a location directory. This makes going between different areas a lot easier for sure. While you’re in a location, be it town or dungeon, you get a 2D area to explore, chests to open , and characters in town to talk to and shops to visit. Dungeons will also have those random battles.

As is tradition with most KEMCO title with the same art style, there are plenty of quality of lifestyle options for players. Getting in too many battles and need to tone them down? You can reduce encounter rate. Need to farm some enemies? You can increase the encounter rate to every step. Enemies too hard? Well, there are five difficulties to choose from. Also back for your pleasure is the “store” and all that comes with it. Essentially the store is the place where you can buy “cheats” with earned in-game currency. Every three battles in-game you get a number of evil gems depending on difficulty setting. You can use these gems to exchange for permanent passive effects, such as increased exp or money, items such as keys that let you into special areas, or you can exchange for lottery pulls, where you might win the best weapons or armour. The Evil gems are fairly easy to earn on the easiest difficulty, so if you really need the boost and aren’t playing for the challenge you can grind some out to help you out.

In terms of combat, things are mostly traditional RPG style. Combat is turn based and you have a character gauge at the top of the screen indicating turn order based on a character’s speed, with different moves available such as normal attacks, skills, items, or you can stand by to recover some MP. You also have summons you can use as well, although only once per summon and character per battle. Some stronger enemies will have a guard you can break by using skills matching the symbols under their sprite. For example, a down arrow indicates a skill that hits a full column, whereas a star symbol is a single target. When you go to use a skill it will also show you the associated symbols. Guard breaking an enemy allows other characters to chain in and use follow up moves, potentially resulting in massive damage to a strong enemy or boss.

Acquiring new skills is a bit of an interesting departure. Unlike how it’s usually handled, in Isekai Villain skills are unlocked through a skill tree. You can earn skill points primarily through reaching certain milestones such as levels, or increasing your notoriety within the villain community. Once you’ve acquired some skill points, you can unlock and upgrade skills in each character’s skill trees. Needless to say the further down the tree you go, the better the skill usually is, but the more costly it is to use and get to.

Another cool introduction is passive skills. These are earned by performing certain actions or milestones, either in or out of battle. For example, using different types of skills will increase or earn some passives, while switching your party formation to a certain layout may unlock others. These can usually be upgraded by performing the same actions repeatedly a set number of times if the skill can be upgraded.

Among the neat aspects this time around we actually have a sort of LITE base building. When you return to the Crown Eaters base, once you unlock it you can go talk to a certain NPC and get them to build stuff in your backyard. These buildings can have a variety of purposes, some unlocking stores or game mechanics, and some just giving a general stat increase to your characters. Most buildings that feature some sort of shop or gameplay mechanic can be strengthened to increase the effects, making it worthwhile to check in occasionally if you have some extra building materials.

Now, I do have to talk about the storyline a little bit here. It isn’t exactly bad, but it does have some ups and downs. For the most part, characters in Isekai Villain tend to be rather un-idealist. They're all for going for what they want, but are more than willing to recognize that things aren’t always going to work out if you don’t make changes or compromise on things, both in the heroes party (not you) and for the villains. Also props to the devs for having good and bad people on both sides of the conflict and not stacking it one way or the other. Unfortunately the translation is…pretty rough to be honest. There are a ton of awkward sounding sentences or words I didn’t feel were particularly well translated. A bit of a departure since most of the KEMCO titles I’ve played have tended to have a decent translation. While it isn’t the worst, it definitely makes getting involved in the plot a little tougher.

In case you are a returning KEMCO JRPG enjoyer, the style is in the more anime-esque style instead of the more RPG-maker more realistic style. The music, backgrounds, and a bunch of enemy sprites are certainly reused from other games, but I feel like if you’re playing these KEMCO titles you probably don’t mind too much. While the music direction is similar in that regard as well, at least all the music and animations are well fitting.

Overall Isekai Villain is a decent addition to the KEMCO RPG line-up. While a poor translation makes it a little harder to enjoy the storyline, there are a good number of features to allow you to customize your experience to create the difficulty level you want in your RPG. The colourful cast of party members are all extremely unique as well, and not very often you find their type of personalities. If you are looking for another retro JRPG to pass some spare time, check out Isekai Villain. Just remember, don’t be too evil now.

Score: 7 / 10

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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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Akuma Rise for PC & Consoles: Adventure through the Shadow Realm with three princesses!

May 8, 2026 - KEMCO proudly announces the release of Akuma Rise for Xbox consoles, including Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and Windows devices, Steam™, PlayStation®5 / PlayStation®4 (supporting Cross-Buy) and for the Nintendo Switch™ family of systems set to hit each regional storefront today. Standard price is USD 19.99. A special edition including full game and all available add-ons is also made available for Xbox and PlayStation®. Please check each store for available launch promotions.

Overview

Set in the demon realm of Adribune, this story-driven JRPG follows Kaine, a demon who awakens with no memories after washing ashore on a remote island. With the Overlord gone, rival nations clash and heroes from the Radiant Realm invade, seeking to dominate the Shadow Realm. Joined by three demon princesses and a strange mascot, Kaine searches for fragments of his lost past while fighting to protect a world on the brink of collapse.

Featuring classic turn-based RPG gameplay, battles play out in a side-view command system that rewards strategy and timing. Equip and grow magical orbs to learn powerful skills, unlock new abilities, and customize your party. Each character also wields unique POW skills that can turn the tide of battle when used at the right moment. With deep progression, charming companions, and nostalgic JRPG flair, this fantasy RPG delivers a satisfying experience for fans of turn-based battle games.

A delightful tale from the Shadow Realm
 

A realm of demons, Adribune.

The Overlord who once ruled this world has suddenly vanished. The three nations and the ruling state, four countries in total, seize the chance to start fighting among themselves. In the growing chaos, the Radiant Realm sends its heroes to take control of the Shadow Realm.
Amid the turmoil, a lone demon named Kaine washes ashore on a remote island nation. Kaine has lost all memories and remembers only his name and the need to search for fragments of his past.
Iroha, who has been caring for Kaine, witnesses the immense power hidden within him. Hoping to save her country from the heroes' advance, she begs Kaine to lend his strength.

Learn magic through orbs

Some of the orbs Kaine and his allies can equip contain built-in skills. As these orbs grow in battle, their skills become stronger and may even unlock new ones. Keep training them and unleash powerful strikes.

Unleash decisive POW skills

Battles unfold in a side-view command format. Along with orb skills, each character has unique POW skills. Build up the gauge and strike at the perfect moment.

Charming companions

Your journey includes an adorable (perhaps) mascot and three captivating princesses. Fulfill their requests along the way to grow closer, and you might find special memories awaiting you. What will become of Kaine? What choices will he make?

Age Ratings

ESRB Teen: Fantasy Violence, Suggestive Themes | In-Game Purchases
PEGI 7: Mild Violence | In-Game Purchases

Links

Official Page | Official Trailer (PC) | Microsoft Store | Microsoft Store (Special Edition) | Steam Store | Nintendo Website (US) | Nintendo Website (UK) | PS5/PS4

Article by: Susan N.

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Decollate Decoration - PS5 Review

Decollate Decoration by developer KANEKODO and publisher KEMCO—PS5 review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

 
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

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Hello everyone and welcome to a new KEMCO title! But wait a moment, this one is different to the retro JRPGs that you’re probably expecting when you hear KEMCO from me by this point. Instead what we have is a sort of point-and-click style visual novel! Something a little new and fresh coming out here!

Decollate Decoration is the story about a girl (you) and her love, life, and trying to kill the guy she likes. Yeah, I know that last one is a little weird, but hear me out. Basically, this girl died and is stuck as a ghost. She can’t bear to be parted with the guy she loves, so she wants his soul to come with her to the afterlife. Obviously that means she needs him dead so they can be together forever! Or does it? You’ll need to find that out.

The short premise here is that you only have so many days to fulfill your task before your spirit can’t stick around any longer. Your hubby can’t see or hear you, so you need to get him to notice you if you want to affect him in any meaningful way. You can take actions such as talking to him, entering his dreams, causing a poltergeist phenomenon, or cursing him. Each of these actions drains your power and you need to wait for it to recharge. You can also check items around his house at no energy charge. All this is done via a point-and-click style interaction.

There are six different endings you can get, each ending not taking too long to reach, and a prologue and epilogue that are unlockable. It’s a short and “bitter”sweet sort of story that is kinda depressing and heartwarming at the same time, depending on the ending you reach.

The story is told mostly through endings and the little tidbits you can glean between each time you have to act told through a sort of bit-like style with a sort of up-beat but creepy ish soundtrack playing in the background. It doesn’t take more than maybe a few hours to get through the entire thing, all endings and prologue and epilogue included, so make sure you’re aware of what you’re getting. Thankfully the price is pretty low, so you may want to either grab it on sale or pick it up as part of a package deal if you’re unsure if you want to play it.

As a handy note, there are a bunch of save locations if you want to try different combinations of actions, and there is a “hint” system built in to tell you what you need to do in order to get each ending, just in case you’re struggling on some. Definitely helpful on a second or third go around to make sure you’re on route for a new ending. It even tells you if you’ve seen the different endings before! The only real issue I can bring up is occasionally some words in the textboxes aren't separated properly, but that's small potatoes really. 

Overall Decollate Decoration is a pretty interesting but short title that uses a point-and-choose type of interaction to tell a narrative about life, death, and what feelings mean to different people. It’s a weirdly introspective story told in a cute art style about a not-so-cute topic. Definitely worth a go if you have the chance I’d say.

Score: 9 / 10

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Fortuna Magus - PS5 Review

Fortuna Magus by developer WorldWideSoftware and publisher KEMCO—PS5 review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

 
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

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Hello everyone and welcome to a new flavour of KEMCO rpg! Today we will be looking at Fortuna Magus, a bit of a shorter title with a more straight-laced JRPG gameplay.

Fortuna Magus tells the tale of Amane and Tia, whose father disappeared a number of years ago and their sister left to go find him. They are drawn into a struggle against the kingdom when they defend a magus, a person capable of using magic, that the kingdom has deemed a threat to the peace. Now put on the wanted list for defending a discriminated against group, Amane and Tia embark on a journey with Rett, the magus they helped, in order to learn the truth behind why their father went missing and what their sister has gotten herself into.

In this KEMCO release, we’ve gone back a little in terms of how the game plays. A traditional JRPG style with random encounters while walking around field areas and a pretty basic structure compared to some of their other titles, Fortuna Magus tends to play it more straight than adding some of the gimmicks or mechanics that have been a part of similar styled titles. All the tried and true combat is there: turn-based battles with turn order based on unit speed, normal attacks, skills that use MP, special moves that can be used when you fill a gauge similar to a limit break, defence and item commands, and different elements and attack types to play with.

What is a bit more of an underused trait in most RPGs is how you learn new skills. By meeting certain level and element requirements and performing certain actions in battle you can learn new skills. These could be improved versions of your current skills, a new special move, or maybe even a combo attack. This is labelled as the Revelation System in the game, and it can seem a little random at times, but it is pretty fun to use one move and then get a chain of other moves that completely wipe all the enemies off the screen. You don’t see this done very often, so it’s a neat addition to keep the game from feeling too lacking in interesting mechanics while still holding true to the retro spirit.

Those of you familiar with KEMCO titles should also have guessed that there is a point shop, however this one is significantly less game breaking than pretty much any other point shop in a KEMCO title. While there are equipment pieces that reduce damage taken or confer passive bonuses, items that can raise stats, and items that can raise element levels, they are largely inexpensive. But the game seems to be built around the assumption you’ll be using the shop. Seriously, some of the bosses can be pretty big bullies, so unless you spend some time grinding monsters for points to buy stat increases and earning exp to level with, you’re probably going to get hurt a decent amount.

Another interesting aspect of Fortuna Magus is that there isn’t a world map to roam around like you’ve probably gotten used to in these KEMCO titles. Instead you have a map with red and blue dots representing fields/dungeons and towns, where you will instantly go to when selecting. Add onto that the fact most fields are about three fairly small areas, and the game isn’t very long story wise, and you’ll end up with a much shorter title than what you’d probably expect. That being said it isn’t bad, just be prepared to get through half the story in a handful of hours pretty easily.

There are some sidequests available for you to participate in as you play through the game, and titles to earn that can be equipped like any other gear. So it’s not as if Fortuna Magus is particularly lacking in content for what it’s worth, despite how short it is. The story is surprisingly engaging and full of more plot turns than I was honestly expecting, so that’s also a nice bonus. On the other hand, you’ll probably be quick to notice that the assets are pretty much all very generic looking. While I can’t confirm 100% if they used an RPG maker style engine for the game, I’m pretty confident they did. Not saying this is bad, just don’t go expecting any fancy unique and flourishing artwork or designs.

Overall I have to say that Fortuna Magus was a bit of a pleasant surprise. While definitely shorter than I was expecting, the story was engaging and the characters were pretty varied. The Revelation aspect is an underused mechanic, although it tends to be hit and miss with whether you will enjoy learning skills a little more randomly than pure level requirements. If you’re interested in a quick nostalgia trip, definitely keep Fortuna Magus on your radar!

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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Hero Seekers - PS5 Review

Hero Seekers by developer Vanguard and publisher KEMCO—PS5 review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

 
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes 

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Welcome to the New Year everybody. It’s time to kick off with a new Kemco title: Hero Seekers! A story set in a world of heroes who battle against the evil demon king to protect humankind. This is a turn-based retro style RPG with a blend of old Kemco title mechanics and some interesting twists, so let’s take a look at what Hero Seekers has to offer.

Our story follows Lunette, a girl who fought the Demon King along with her two companions. Unfortunately she awakens afterwards to discover the Demon King is alive and history has changed. As the only one who remembers the past, Lunette sets out to recover the forgotten past and to bring down the Demon King for good.

Hero Seekers is a fairly traditional turn-based RPG setup, where you have a party of up to four frontliners and a reserve unit that you can swap out in battle. Battle is done through a turn order based around unit speed, and every character can act once per turn, although enemies can have more than one action. You have your standard attack, skill, defend, and item options, but there are also some quality of life additions to combat mechanics. There is an autobattle feature as well as a speed of battle toggle where you can vastly increase the pace of combat, making those grinding sessions a little easier.

Hero Seekers takes an interesting twist as you explore the land trying to figure out what is going on with the Demon King and how reality is different than what Lunette remembers. She will discover former heroes trapped in a prison of memory, and then summon them forth to aid her. Yup, you can summon heroes in a sort of quasi-gacha system. In various chests, as well as occasionally from battles, you will get memory stones. Ten memory stones can be used at a monument to summon a hero of the past.

When you summon heroes, you can get multiple of the same hero, increasing their stats and passive abilities, as well as improving skills or letting you learn them earlier. Thankfully for me and anyone else with poor luck, the hero pulls are from a limited pool, so you can burn through the common heroes to get the rare ones. Furthermore you can select a hero to “aim for”, increasing the appearance chance, even if you haven’t gotten a copy of them yet.

The basic overarching gameplay will consist of Lunette and her party visiting a town, deciding to help out with something, and then going off to find a dungeon on the world map to get through, all the while getting into random battles. Pretty standard fare, and if you’ve played a Kemco game in this style before, you’re pretty sure about what you’re going to get. Equally fair warning where it’s due, a lot of the assets in Hero Seekers you can find in other more recent Kemco titles as well. They aren’t bad, and they do have a dynamic style to them, but they definitely are reused from other games. The music too. Unlike some of the other Kemco titles, there is no “shop” for special weapons or items, although there is a merchant who will trade memory stones for items if you’re so inclined. This means you can’t turn yourself into a chapter one walking nuke, but I think I prefer this to rolling a post-game strength weapon in the “store” and then rolling over all the enemies.

I say this to let you know that Hero Seekers is a pretty generic title, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. I was actually quite fond of the storyline, and found the unique aspect of the Demon Lord’s power, how it’s applied, and the struggles of the past heroes to be rather well presented. While the theme around what most of the past heroes struggled with isn’t exactly unique, I’d say it’s often either underplayed or not utilized enough in most literature or media, so it was a refreshing experience.

I should warn you that some of the bosses can be pretty tough. When they do a sizable chunk to your health per hit and can take multiple actions, if they focus on one character you’re in for a bad time. You may need to pay more attention to the turn order that also indicates what the enemies will do in order to prepare yourself.

Overall Hero Seekers is a pretty fun title with some interesting themes about heroes and their struggles. While certainly not award winning, Hero Seekers also doesn’t fall flat in any major areas either. The hero lottery is surprisingly reasonable, the combat system is pretty fluid with some nice quality of life aspects, and the sprite and music is decent, although somewhat reused from other similar titles. Overall, I’d recommend picking up Hero Seekers if you’re looking for an older style RPG that doesn’t require heavy investment. 

Score: 7 / 10

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EnglishPortuguese (Portugal)Japanese-------- [ All ] --------AfrikaansAlbanianAmharicArabicArmenianAssameseAymaraAzerbaijaniBambaraBashkirBasqueBelarusianBengaliBhojpuriBosnianBulgarianCantonese (Traditional)CatalanCebuanoChichewaChinese (Literary)Chinese SimpChinese TradChuvashCorsicanCroatianCzechDanishDariDhivehiDogriDutchEmojiEnglishEnglish United KingdomEsperantoEstonianEweFaroeseFijianFilipinoFinnishFrenchFrench (Canada)FrisianGalicianGandaGeorgianGermanGreekGuaraniGujaratiHaitian CreoleHausaHawaiianHebrewHill MariHindiHmongHungarianIcelandicIgboIlocanoIndonesianInuinnaqtunInuktitutInuktitut (Latin)IrishItalianJapaneseJavaneseKannadaKazakhKazakh (Latin)KhmerKinyarwandaKlingon (Latin)KonkaniKoreanKrioKurdish (Kurmanji)Kurdish (Sorani)KyrgyzLaoLatinLatvianLingalaLithuanianLower SorbianLuxembourgishMacedonianMaithiliMalagasyMalayMalayalamMalteseMaoriMarathiMariMeiteilon (Manipuri)MizoMongolianMongolian (Traditional)Myanmar (Burmese)NepaliNorwegianNyanjaOdia (Oriya)OromoPapiamentoPashtoPersianPolishPortuguese (Brazil)Portuguese (Portugal)PunjabiQuechuaQuertaro OtomiRomanianRundiRussianSamoanSanskritScots GaelicSepediSerbianSerbian (Cyrillic)Serbian (Latin)SesothoSetswanaShonaSindhiSinhalaSlovakSlovenianSomaliSpanishSundaneseSwahiliSwedishTagalogTahitianTajikTamilTatarTeluguThaiTibetanTigrinyaTonganTsongaTurkishTurkmenTwiUdmurtUkrainianUpper SorbianUrduUyghurUzbekUzbek (Cyrillic)VietnameseWelshXhosaYakutYiddishYorubaYucatec MayaZulu

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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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Astral Takers - PS5 Review

Astral Takers by developer Vanguard and publisher Kemco—PS5 review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

 
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

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Hello and welcome! Today we’ve got another Kemco/Vanguard title for you: Astral Takers! You up for some old-school RPG action? Ready to explore a world fraught with peril and interpersonal challenges? Well, look no further than Astral Takers! 

If the title Astral Takers seems somewhat familiar to you, you may be thinking of a title I reviewed a while back called Dragon Takers. Yes, the games are related, no I won’t say how because of spoilers, but I would suggest playing Dragon Takers first if you care about potential plot spoilers, and if you care about that sort of thing. Astral Takers can still be played as a standalone however, so no worries if you aren’t picking up Dragon Takers.

In Astral Takers we follow the adventures of Revyse, Fio, and Aurora, a trio that developed when Revyse discovered Aurora who had lost her memories and Fio decides to help out. Plots will be uncovered, villains will be defeated, and the secrets hidden behind Aurora’s identity shall be revealed! You will visit many locations in a linear progression through the world while fighting random enemy encounters and tough boss battles (maybe).

I will tell you right now that Astral Takers is very generic and very cliché. Is that a bad thing? Well, no, not really, but it doesn’t really set itself apart in any way that matters either. This also extends to adventure and combat, not just the storyline. Towns you visit are fairly generic, and you can expect the standard fantasy RPG tropes to come alive. Like I said, not exactly a bad thing, but certainly doesn’t stand out from the crowd.

Combat will occur either when scripted for boss fights or as random encounters when you’re on the world map or in a dungeon. Upon getting into a fight, we start up the old turn-based RPG gameplay. A little bit off from the common style, in Astral Takers you determine all your actions at the start of combat and then characters take action, rather than only when their turn comes up. Higher speed stats mean your turn will be sooner in the turn order.

Taking from Dragon Takers, enemies will have elemental and type weaknesses to exploit, which you can take a peek at in the turn order, and enemies of a single type get grouped. Grouped enemies cannot be targeted individually, but can be hit with attacks that hit a group of enemies or when performing a single target action on a group enemy will be decided in the group for you. It’s a little annoying when you want to focus down a single enemy in a group but the game has your damage split between the enemies.

Unlike Dragon Takers, there isn’t an interesting skill assimilation mechanic, so everything you get is based on your own progression, whether it’s from leveling when you get enough exp or from plot progression. Thankfully the game is pretty easy to farm exp in, as you can hang around a heal point, which are plentiful, and wander back and forth for a bit. With an auto battle function that’s usually good at “nuke the enemies ASAP”, you can build up levels fast if you are having a tough time.

One of the interesting background lore pieces is that Revyse is a summoner. Whenever he finds an echostone, he can bring it to a summoning circle to summon a heroic figure, thus expanding your party roster. While you still need to equip your extended party, they can be swapped in and out pretty much at will, allowing you to get the most out of their skills. Have an enemy that’s immune to magic attacks? Swap your mage out for a physical damage unit. Enemies dodge magic? Get more melee units. Pretty handy really. Worst case you can use some of their skills outside of battle to return to a dungeon entrance or to heal party members.

There is, unfortunately, a decently big complaint. This is the same complaint I had with Dragon Takers and has not been improved in Astral Takers, but the menuing system is arse.  Navigating menus is somewhat unintuitive, equipping gear when you aren’t buying direct from a shop is a nuisance, the gear in your inventory is automatically sorted by type not by recently acquired so you could lose stuff you’ve picked up in your infinite pockets, and good lord is the border around your selection incredibly tough to see. While certainly not game breaking to any degree, it is incredibly frustrating.

As for the graphics and soundtrack, I have to say they’re pretty good. The soundtrack is pretty much what was heard from Dragon Takers, so if you’ve played that be prepared. Also the enemy sprites will actually move in combat and ally characters during cutscenes will move a bit and express themselves. It isn’t anything next gen, but it is pretty decent. I mean, it is a phone game port, so you can’t really expect too much, although there are a few improvements that would be nice to see.

On a plus side, Astral Takers is very lenient about allowing you to save. Pretty much as long as you aren’t in combat or a cutscene you can save wherever you want. It’s really handy if you don’t particularly have the time to commit to an extended period of playing. The game also autosaves a lot so losing a lot of progress is basically a non issue, which is also really nice. Couple that with being able to swap out party members really easily and there are a lot of nice aspects to Astral Takers.

Overall Astral Takers is a pretty generic RPG but certainly not a bad one. While the storyline may be a little generic and the gameplay rather traditional, there’s something to be said for that nostalgic feeling it brings to mind. While Astral Takers may not be for everybody, and won’t really offer anything new to the genre, it has a solid base that makes it pretty entertaining.

Score: 7 / 10

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