Moonlight Peaks - PC (Steam) Review

Moonlight Peaks by developer Little Chicken Game Company and publisher XSEED Games and Marvelous—PC (Steam) review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes. 

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Rune Factory 3 Special - Switch Review

Rune Factory 3 Special by developer Marvelous Inc. and publisher Marvelous, XSEED Games—Nintendo Switch review written by Jim with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

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We here at Chalgyr really like the Rune Factory games. Just go check out Pierre-Yves's Switch review of Rune Factory 5, Natasha's PC review, and Nick's Rune Factory 4 Special Xbox One review. I haven't actually played a Rune Factory game since Tides of Destiny on the PS3 but being a fan of Story of Seasons and other such games, I was really excited to try this remake out.

When starting the game like most of these games I have to pick a name for the character, I went with the default Micah. There is no option to play as a female in this game, so for some that may be a bummer. After picking a name I had to put a birthday in for Micah and away I went. Micah is an amnesiac who also happens to be half monster. One of the villagers named Shara finds Micah while he is in monster form and hurt outside. Micah is part Wooly, a sheep-type monster, who is one of the cutest monsters in the games. Shara decided to bring Micah inside and nurse him back to health. Micah wakes up shortly after as a human while no one is around and leaves Shara's house. Shara ends up seeing human Micah and asks if he is a traveler. After explaining he can't remember anything other than his name she and the village elder, Shara's grandfather let Micah stay in the village.

Micah is given a home inside the Sharance Tree and under the tree is a field for farming. After the game goes through all the tutorials on how to farm Micah will have his first fight using a hoe to attack. After beating the first few monsters who attack Micah will be given a choice of a few different kinds of weapons. I went for the two-handed sword but found out it wasn't for me as it was just too slow. I later switched to dual swords and they are much faster and stuck with them for the rest of the game.

There are four different dungeons in the game. One for each season and each with its own boss who after beating Micah gets some of his memories back. After beating the first boss Micah will be able to switch back and forth from his human and wooly forms. Micah must still keep the fact that he is a half-monster a secret so he must make sure he doesn't transform in front of anyone.

While trying to get his memories back Micah also can farm. Micah will be given the tools needed to start farming and from there he can buy seeds from the store in the village or find a few hidden under grasses and weeds that grow in the fields. Micah can grow veggies, fruits, and flowers. Micah can keep, sell, or craft with these. Everything you grow will have a level. The higher the level the better the crop is. There are items Micah can buy or craft to help raise the levels of crops. Micah can eventually buy a kitchen and kitchen tools to cook, a furnace to make and upgrade weapons and farming tools, an apothecary set to make potions and healing items, and a crafting table to make accessories that Micah can wear to boost stats. Micah will need items he finds from defeating monsters, farming, and mining to use for these.

Once Micah has a barn he can become friends with monsters by giving them food. A home-cooked meal works best and by doing this Micah can get byproducts from them like milk, eggs, wool, and other things needed for crafting. Micah can also find these by fighting monsters and they will sometimes drop the item but raising them himself can give you a better quality item.

The rate Micah can get money from selling things seemed to be just right as the pacing of the game seemed just right for me. It is an RPG so there was enough to do as Micah will get requests from the villagers through a bulletin board, Micah's mailbox, and later an owl. Finishing these quests will get you closer to the villagers and Micah will sometimes get a reward from items to money. It's a good idea to take on quests for the girl you like best as there are eleven bachelorettes. All of the characters are charming, even the non-bachelorettes. I enjoyed each one's story from the secrets one might have to just the silly moments you can have with them.

Everything Micah does in the game has a level and as his levels go up the better he will be at things or the more health or RP he will have. Lots of things cost RP: using tools, weapons, and magic. It all takes RP so leveling up lots of things is a good idea. It is easy enough to do though as there really is a level for everything in this game such as sleeping, eating, using tools, crafting, cooking, fishing, you name it there is probably a way to raise the level of it by doing it.

Every in-game month is a season and each lasts thirty days. In that season there will be birthdays that Micah will learn as he speaks and becomes friends with the villagers. Giving someone a gift that they like on their birthday will greatly raise the level of friendship with that person. There are also multiple festivals in a season from fishing, and harvest festivals, to ones with mini-games. These give a nice break from normal farming and adventuring. Winning one of the festivals will reward Micah with items though it always seemed to be cooking bread. Buying or earning recipe bread is how Micah learns new crafting or cooking recipes if his level is high enough.

Once Micah picks the woman he loves he can propose to her and then Micah will be on his last quest. Even after this quest and the credits roll the game doesn't end. There will just be no more story content after. Micah will have a wife living with him and can continue to farm, adventure, and finish any requests from the villagers. The quest on the bulletin board will be random daily. Micah can only do one request at a time and only one type of each request. So, Micah can do one bulletin, one mailbox, and one owl request per day.

One of the things Micah can do is go on what the game calls adventures. There will be a list to pick where Micah should go and each with a recommended level. Micah can get some decent loot from doing these but they can be challenging as the level layouts are always random and if Micah isn't at a high enough level he can get beat easily. Every adventure ends with a tough boss fight. These adventures do nothing to advance a story but they are fun to try out.

Micah can bring along a monster friend or a human friend to help out when you go out. They will level up as you and they defeat enemies. I got around to beating the game without them but you can also invite one of the ladies you like on a date and bring them to one of four romantic locations.

The gameplay is smooth but there are some frame rate drops in certain areas mostly in the fields. For me, there were a few spots that did it and since this is a remake of a Nintendo DS game I think the Switch would be strong enough to handle the game. Other than that one issue I really enjoyed the rest of the game. The music was good, the graphics were good when there were no frame rate issues, the real-time fighting was fun, and the characters were all unique. I loved learning about each one and then had a hard time picking a girl for Micah.

Once the game is beaten, the newlywed mode will be unlocked. This gives you a short story with each one of the bachelorettes after Micah gets married to them. They are short but fun little side stories but they end way too fast. I beat one of them in less than an hour though there are eleven of them and they all unlock no matter who Micah married in the main game. I also thought it was funny when in newlywed mode I picked the wife Micah married in my main game and some of the other female characters were asking if she and Micah had done anything 'kinky.' I wasn't expecting that from this game!

Overall I loved Rune Factory 3 Special and I am not sure how I missed out on it on the DS. I am glad it was remade on the Switch and even though I beat the story I will keep playing. It was a truly charming story with good pacing and fun to play. It felt like the length of the game was just right, long enough to feel like an RPG but not so long that it takes a lifetime to beat. The frame rate issue was the only annoyance but even with that I really liked this game.

Score: 8.75 / 10

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Loop8: Summer of Gods - PS4 Review

Loop8: Summer of Gods by developer Marvelous and publisher XSEED Games—PS4 review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

 
Estimated reading time: 9 minut

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Have you ever been doing something and thought "hey, haven't I done this before"? Have you had this feeling of Deja Vu for an entire month? Have you also felt like you've been fighting evil spirits that want to destroy the world? Well, Loop8: Summer of Gods will give you that feeling, for better and for worse.

In Loop8 you control the character "Nini", a boy who has come down to the Japanese town of Ashihara in the 1980s. In this alternate version of the world, creatures called Kegai have been running rampant across the world. Thankfully, the town of Ashihara has seen a distinct lack of Kegai activity. Well, it's lucky that Nini's been forced to show up, as the Kegai are beginning to stir in Ashihara.

Loop8 takes a very interesting stance on gameplay, having a sort of persona-esque vibe, just more of a focus on the social networking, less on the turn-based fighting. Well, let's start at the top and you'll see how things go. After you're new roommate and distant relative gets you situated and registered at the local highschool, you'll start having free time after the tutorial has run its course. During your free time you can explore the town, interact with other characters, and increase your stats. Normally I like to start broader and then get into some of the specifics, but today we're doing the opposite!

First let's talk about interactions with other characters. All the characters you can interact with have three different social values: Friendship, Affection, and Hate. Whenever you interact with someone, there are a number of options to choose from depending on their social stats. For instance, if you build enough friendship or affection with someone, you can ask them to hang out. In addition, every character will have their own mood and feeling, which will affect the success rate of your interactions. The general area you're in will also have a general mood depending on who is there at the time and their moods.

As you can probably guess, failing at an interaction usually increases hate and reduces friendship or affection. What I haven't mentioned yet is that interacting with other characters require health and stamina from Nini. As you move about the town and interact with people, your health and stamina will decrease. If it runs too low, or it gets too late in the day, you'll need to return to your room and sleep, starting the new day. Yup, that's right, it's one of those timed things. On the plus side, you can get a lot done in a day, as well as increase your health and stamina through your character stats (not the social ones).

Your character stats include such examples as Strength, Agility, and Divine Power. These determine battle effectiveness as well as increases in health and stamina. Your character stats can be improved either by interacting with specific locations around town and spending an hour and a half of in-game time or certain interactions with characters will increase both of your stats. An important note here is that even characters that won't necessarily fight alongside you still have status values. Pro tip, if you invite a character to walk around with you, they enter your party and you can check if they have any battle skills, which is a good way to check if you can have them fight with you in the combat segments.

So then, here's a question before we get into the combat type elements. Why is the game called Loop8? Well, anytime you either lose or make a request to a certain character, you will repeat the game from the beginning of August, continuing to loop until you reach an ending. Each time you do though, your stats and relationships will get reset, with two caveats. The first is blessings. As you meet certain criteria, you and your friends will earn blessings from the Gods. These blessings will permanently increase your stats between loops, giving you a higher starting value. The second is that your stats will increase at twice the rate until they reach their previous value, making future loops progressively easier as you increase your stats faster.

Alright, so now that we talked about what the bulk of the game involves, let's talk a bit about the combat portions. Basically, the world will end because an evil spirit possesses someone in town after a day or two. You have a 5 day countdown after beating a boss where that new evil spirit possesses someone. In order to start the foray into the world of the dead where the kegai reside, you actually need to figure out who is possessed and probably talk to them a few times. A portal then appears at the shrine, and you and up to two other members can venture forth to defeat the Kegai. This is where your affinity with other characters comes in, as you need a certain level of friendship and affection in order to ask others to fight with you.

Exploring the realm of the kegai is a little different than exploring the town. There are barriers around the mirror town you find yourself in, requiring magatama to unlock. You can interact with orbs in the mirror world and there are status checks to see if you get a magatama. Get enough for the barrier you want to unlock,, and you can challenge the boss. Alternatively you can talk to the shadow beings walking around to get some info on why the person who's being possessed is possessed to begin with. Or you could get into a fight.

Combat is...an interesting affair. Your party members will take action on their own initiative, while you can actually select what type of move you make yourself. You can attack with any of your social stats: Friendship, Affection, or Hate, which will have different impacts on the enemies, and bosses. If you attack with too much hate, or let it build too much from the boss, the bosses can increase in strength. Attacking with affection will lower this, but hate tends to be a stronger value, so use that wisely. In battle any moves you make will generally require stamina, except the option to restore stamina. If you get too low you will need to recover it. So you also have a health gauge, but you need to be careful. If Nini loses all his health, it's game over, and if your teammates lose all their health? They die. Like, OG Fire Emblem, they're gone for good.

Now, here is where I have to make the obligatory statement that I have no idea behind the exact mechanics of what determines the difficulty of a boss. They're also kind of randomized. For example, the first boss I fought during my first non-tutorial loop was the last one, before the final boss, during my first successful completion of the game. Now, for whatever reason, the second boss on my first loop, and the third last on my first success, were the hardest. Disgustingly so. That's where I learned your party members can permanently die. But I soloed the last three bosses no problem? Even the last boss was a bit of a pushover compared to that one specific one? It's probably related to your social stats, but I still don't fully understand just how the mechanics work. Maybe that's some science I can do later though.

Loop8 has a pretty wide variety of characters, all with  their own personalities and quirks, and it's really neat to see them all interacting with each other. That being said, you'll see that a lot, as each subsequent loop means you need to watch the same scenes over and over again while building up characters Friendship and Affection. To add to this, time passes really fast. Like, one in-game minute is one second in real time. While you'll generally be given a lot of time to deal with all the characters and increase your stats accordingly, the speed at which time moves, even in the mirror world, can seem quite pressuring.

Another bit of complaint I have is that there is a lot that is...rather under explained. While a bunch you can get from hints dropped by the divine flying squirrel that gives you your blessings, there's a certain amount of info that would've been really helpful to know a lot earlier than when I figured it out on my own. There's no real "check in here for different tips" deal either, so you have to basically just hope any non-blessing squirrel will give you actually helpful tips instead of random trivia.

Overall, I had a really good time with Loop8, despite some of the absolutely frustrating moments it gave me. I like the breadth of characters each with their own unique events, the backstories are generally either really relatable or make you feel for the characters. Well, at least some of them, yeah? The slow walking speed, the recurring scenes you have to go through every loop, and the necessity to build up relationships and stats again can feel quite off-putting at first, but it was nice to find out it just becomes easier the more loops you do.

Loop8: Summer of Gods is a rather rough game. It has some issues with pacing due to the looping nature of the game. Combat feels a bit like a slog to get through half the time, and frustrations can arise if you screw something up and find out you need to start a new loop because you aren't happy with the outcome. That being said, Loop8 is one of the most uniquely endearing games I've played in quite a while. Honestly, what you get out of Loop8 is roughly what you put into it. If you're shallow on your relationships, the game feels shallow, whereas if you ignore personal improvements, combat can become difficult. It's a very interesting JRPG take on balancing a personal and social life, more or less.

Score: 7.5 / 10

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No More Heroes 3 Review

No More Heroes 3 by developer Grasshopper Manufacture and publishers XSEED Games and Marvelous—Sony PlayStation 5 review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes

No More Heroes 3 is a wholesome tale by Grasshopper Manufacture, XSEED Games and Marvelous about a man who cares about his community. Going around and taking care of odd jobs to make it cleaner and safer for everyone, such as mowing grass,  picking up trash or unclogging toilets, Santa Destroy is a place where everyone would want to live. Kidding!

Having released last year for the Nintendo Switch, foul mouthed and hilarious fourth wall breaking legendary Assassin Travis Touchdown is back again for more over the top nonsense. With aliens having invaded earth, a new Galactic Superhero Ranking has been put into place and while Travis is not a hero, per say, Travis will need to reach the top of these new rankings to both prove he's still the biggest badass around, and save the Earth while he's at it. Just make sure to visit a washroom to save your game whenever you can!

If there's one thing that you can expect from No More Heroes, it's to not make assumptions in your expectations. Mostly? Because something else completely random is going to happen and you're just going to have to go with it. This, other than the writing, is part of the charm as No More Heroes 3 often had me thinking, alright, here we go again…? Wait what? Huh? How in the hell did… fine! Let's do this!!

Before getting to these points however, let's start at the beginning. Sitting around in his boxers and being all scruffy in his motel room, our protag Travis is contemplating how an older video game title ended as he doesn't remember and hopes to find out how with a revamped version. It just so happens that the plotline kind of follows this one. Aliens have invaded and it's up to one person to "save the day". Coincidence? Most likely, but why finish that game when you can play this one!

So with the aliens having invaded and the stakes set, there's only one thing left to do. Go make money in order to pay for your entry fees. Yup. Thought it would be easy huh? Nope. There are rules to these kinds of engagements and no money means no fight. So, to get this money, you'll have to go through both a few designated matches to prove that you can actually pull it off as well as pull off odd jobs like mowing lawns, picking up garbage, blasting giant alligators with cannons and chase down some fast and furious hooligans on a highway with your motorcycle. 

That said, making money is easy enough and won't ever feel like a slog. Can it be repetitive? Yes. There's no denying that. Where things are fun is that you can do the events that you want to do and ignore the rest if they are not your thing or they take too long for how much money you can accumulate. Furthermore these side jobs come in their own levels of difficulty so if level 3 is too much? Drop it down to level 2, rinse, repeat, and then honestly? After a good few rounds of the mentioned highway destruction, once I finished one chapter all I really needed to generally do were the designated matches in order to move on in the story. Travis was rich!

Designated matches in No More Heroes 3 are fairly standard in that you fight normal to ‘midboss’ level enemies and then get rewarded for it. This is also where you'll pretty much master the art of combat. Moving around is fairly easy and from there Travis can swing his beam katana around in normal or heavy blows as well as use the death glove for some more powerful moves. If the beam katana runs out of energy, you just need to shake it in a very suggestive fashion, as is par for the course since the original Nintendo Wii motes, and then you're good to go again!

In game nonsense aside, it works really well. As you use your beam katana and its energy depletes, odds are that you may have stunned an enemy. Stunning an enemy lets you perform a wrestling move in the form of a "throw" which both causes heavy damage and restores your beam katana's energy keeping a good flow. More than this, to keep the pressure on, as you eliminate enemies you get a slot machine spin. Known as the slash reel, as it spins it can grant you nothing, invincibility, your awesome armor to blast the crap out of everything that if can target (more on that later), or my favorite, mustang mode which allows for unlimited high speed attacks with no worry about energy depletion!

 If this was all though, it would have gotten pretty repetitive and boring as you’re basically starting off at rank 10 and have to pay for every ranked fight. So with that, and the minigames to earn enough money for a match fight? This is truly where No More Heroes 3 shines! Ranked fights are honestly like nothing you’re expecting. Will there be fighting? Yes. Will there be nonsense? Definitely. Will Travis emerge victorious in a game of, no wait, that would be too many spoilers, yes! Yes he will! As long as you’ve kept yourself on your toes of course.

Boss fights were the reason that I absolutely loved No More Heroes 3. Over the top, the mechanics are blended between the normal combat routine and other completely different styles which is something that I have to applaud Grasshopper Manufacture on. They didn’t just make “one” gameplay system, they made many and some of these elements will show up over the course of the rest of the gameplay while others will remain unique making you wonder, did I really just sit through a game of musical chairs? That makes sense… doesn’t it? There are several others all the way up to the final credits but those, those will be yours to discover as that’s not something that I want to spoil.

What’s really cool, and made me happy, is that there are some of these once cutscene or boss grade gameplay elements that will bleed over into the normal gameplay. Travis has a powered “mech” suit reminding me more of Zone of the Enders or Daemon X Machina (Digitally Downloaded) than Armored Core. In these sequences, you’ll be flying around in space dodging enemy attacks and firing off your own in either guided lasers or a full-on beam attack if the gauge is completely filled. Interestingly enough, the gauge for the beam attack is also the gauge for your thrusters so be sure you’re ready to use it or you may take a hit.

Aside from flying around in space, you’ll also get your hands on a modified mech suit for ground combat. While at first in specific sequences, it can be unlocked through the slash reel rewards for use when you really need it, or really just want to go crazy and finish a fight in seconds! The mechanics are similar to that of Travis with just his beam katana however you’re tougher, faster, and have a few select special abilities to really stick it to the enemy.

If there’s maybe one element that doesn’t work as well as the rest, it’s the space of Santa Destroy that you can drive your motorcycle around. Too big to really move around on foot, this space often just feels empty. Sure, it contains all the locations for the side jobs that you’ll need to earn money, it contains the locations for the designated matches, but otherwise? Short of a few smaller side quests and sushi shops which sell, well sushi, that can be used to heal or buff yourself in battle, there isn’t much else that the space is used for. And when you consider that you can just order sushi from your motel’s underground lab. That’s about the only part that feels long to go through.

Finally, in order to help with all of the above, Travis has access to said underground lab where he can both level himself up and make new chips for his death glove. Leveling up costs a different currency but one that can still be earned by doing side jobs, designated matches and ranked matches. You can increase attack power, your beam katana’s energy reserve and learn new moves like a running slash or improve on some others. The death glove’s chips are interesting as they are often double edge swords. Granting you more of one thing but at the cost of something else, such as taking 5% more damage for dealing 10% more attack or taking 15% less damage while dealing 10% less damage, the give and take can take some work but the results, if done right, are worth it if you offset the negatives.

Grasshopper Manufacture, XSEED Games and Marvelous’s No More Heroes 3 was awesome. From the epic voice acting, the craziness of, well everything, into the gameplay and presentation, Travis’ adventure was solid all around. Lasting anywhere between a dozen or so hours depending on how invested you are in the side content, there’s a NG+ just ready and waiting for you to go back for more!

Score: 8.5 / 10

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Rune Factory 5 Review

Rune Factory 5 by developer Marvelous Interactive Inc. and publishers XSEED Games, Marvelous—PC (Steam) review written by Natasha with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes.

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Whoever thought that combining two of my favourite genres of gaming, farming simulator and RPG, *chef kiss* Bravo! Give that person a recipe bread. You, my friend, are a genius for creating something that's part Harvest Moon and Monster Hunter Quest.

What? Never have I ever played this kind of game, you say? Well, my fellow gamers, grab that hoe and shield, strap on your best overalls and chain mail, because this game is about to teach you some life lessons.

Which is somewhere between crop managing an array of vegetables and taming monsters...

The Story

If you've ever played a Rune Factory game before, you'll know the classic tale of how the protagonist is an amnesiac with the mysterious power of the Earth beneath his dirty fingernails. You wake up (either man or women, depending on your gender choice) in a forest to the sound of someone's plea. Driven to help them you jolt to your feet and hurry to their aid. Upon a rescue attempt you are brought to the sleepy town of Rigbarth, a quiet country living neighbourhood with strange happenings going on.

As the newbie in town you are introduced and thanked from a Ranger called Livia, who is in charge of keeping the peace. Any newcomers to the village will have to prove their loyalty by drawing energy from a strange orb called the soulsphere. However, as you stand before the sphere a strong blinding light covers the whole room. Shocking to everyone, Livia mentions how you have been chosen as an Earthmate, one who brings prosperity to the land, and hires you as one of the resident Rangers. Together with the townspeople it is your job to bring bountiful harvests and discover what has been threatening the land.

The Farming Life

Ever get that itch to go and harvest the best produce you can? Well look no further, because Rune Factory 5 does a splendid job of making sure you put hours and hours into digital manual labour.

There are many aspects to farming in this game, but I'll start you off with the basics. As you begin your farmer life you'll be given basic farming tools to start off: A hoe, axe, hammer, sickle and a watering can. You're given a small plot of land to start experimenting with what you're given. Simple vegetable seeds are easily bought at the local store and each veggie has a description on how long it takes to grow and which season it thrives in. You can plant out of season, but once winter hits all your crops will wither and die.

In order to make sure everything grows properly you'll have to follow the formula of tilling the soil, planting, and watering. Once you've tilled and planted you'll have to continue watering for the next few days in order for your plant to grow.

Once your produce is ready you'll be able to harvest it from the ground and place it in your inventory, which you are free to choose what you'd like to do with it. The best choice would be to sell it by dropping it into your shipping container, which is routinely checked at 8am everyday. But you can save your produce to use in recipes or give them away as gifts.

Each time you ship an item you can view the value of that item with the info screen while holding it in your hands. Each item has a level, the higher the level the more valuable it'll become. If you continue to harvest the same vegetable long enough it's value will slowly increase.

You can also help your vegetation grow by giving it special soil, fertilizer, and liquid that could either strengthen it in stormy weather, stop it from withering, or help it grow faster by skipping a few days.

Weather plays a huge role in the game and you can always tell what it's going to be each morning you wake up. At the top right hand side of your screen, it'll display the weather conditions for the day, however, as the hours pass in mostly real time your forecast could also change. Rainy days are your best friend, considering it lets you avoid having to waste precious energy on watering.

Don't Forget to Farm the Dragon

Later, as you play through the main story of Rune Factory 5, you'll befriend a couple of the elemental land dragons that each reign over a part of region. You can look at these dragons as an expansion towards your growing farm. They'll be equipped with extra plots of tillable soil and barns where you can begin to raise livestock.

What makes the dragons different from your regular farm lands? Well, they can be persuaded to elevate the level of your fields by feeding them delicious crystals. Crystals can be found randomly during your explorations either as a whole gem or in individual shards. If you happen to collect 5 shards that represent the same elemental density you can visit the local jeweler to help craft a full crystal.

Once you have those crystals the dragon will happily help give your crops a boost. They can even change the weather with the right crystal. How glorious would that be?

Rune Points and Health Points

Considering that Rune Factory 5 is half an RPG your character will also have health and stamina.

Stamina or Rune Points (RP) is the life source to your farming. Every single swing of your tools will drain your RP, which means you aren't built like a machine and will require rest to regain any lost RP. You can do this by either sleeping in your bed or visiting the local hot springs. The hot springs are great for regaining lost RP or Health Points (HP) if you wish to continue exploring the world, but you can only use it once a day.

Another way to regain lost energy is by eating food. You can either find it, buy it, or cook it. Sometimes the food you consume will have an added status effect, which will be listed next to the item before you eat it. This could help you if you find yourself in a sticky situation.

A warning! If you run out of RP your character will start taking their energy source from your HP, which drains rapidly and can knock you unconscious quickly if you're not careful. Your HP will also drop if you are hit by enemies so it's always a good idea to keep a couple bottles of healing potion in your back pocket, just in case.

Upgrading to Better Stuff

As you work hard to collect lumber, stones, and all sorts of other goodies you can use those materials to upgrade the town or even your own home. You can also perform upgrades on your equipment, like weapons or armour. You'll have to apply for specific licenses in order to use certain work stations, gain the recipe and voila! You are now a junior blacksmith. Nothing screams blacksmith like installing an anvil next to your bed.

For each item you ship, monster you fight, or citizen you aid, you'll start to collect Directive Points (DP), which act like charity points. These points can help in further upgrading your town, equipment or even scheduling town events, but you'll have to talk to Eliza, your friendly neighbourhood wooden statue that sits downstairs in your office... you heard me!

Time to Fight

Not only are you a forget-me-not farmer (seriously, don't forget to maintain your garden), you'll also be the resident monster buster. As a Ranger it's your job to take on tasks and explore new territory outside the town.

You'll mostly travel to new locations as you progress the main story, which will unlock new areas that are otherwise blocked off until further notice, but the areas you do have access to are full of monsters, treasure, and materials.

Your field Captain can also give you some monster quests that either entail you defeating or capturing your target. Defeating a monster is pretty straight forward, but capturing them is a whole other issue. You'll be gifted a seal spell that allows you to capture monsters on the field. It will consume RP and does have a recharge limit. You can perform it in two ways. One: you can lash out and momentarily stun the enemies or two: you can capture them. Capturing them will require you to weaken them first and a little bit of luck on your side. The weaker the monster, the higher the capture rate.

Offence is only as good as your weapon and luckily for us the game has a variety of weapon styles to help you annihilate a plethora of enemies. You can be quick and nimble with swords, daggers and lances, or you can hit hard and heavy with claymores, hammers and scythes. Magic rods are also available if you're more of a distant fighter, just remember that magic will eat away at your RP. Each weapon you wield will level up, granting you access to unlock hidden abilities like a dash attack or ultimate moves.

You can also equip abilities that are related to your weapon type. These attack abilities allows you to perform a flashy move set or magic spells that can aid you in battle, but what's flashy and strong takes up more RP.

Did you know? You can fast travel in the game? That's right! You can quickly get somewhere faster by opening your map. You are limited to certain locations, but you can warp anywhere at anytime. When it comes to fast travelling in dungeons, you'll have to completely make it to the next floor in order to travel to that floor's location. Most fast travel points are always near the entrance to areas.

It's a Fashion Statement

Armour, accessories, boots, hats and gloves are equipable and available in-game. You can either find them in chests, buy, or craft them. Each equipable is different and will display its stats in the menu screen. They can also have resistances added onto them for extra durability.

You can also buy outfits that are more for a visual preference, but cost a fortune, and if you're itching to fight monsters off and greet your neighbours in your bathing suit, by all means.

Taming the Beast

Remember the sealing spell I mentioned earlier? Well, not only does it help rally monsters to your side, you can also attempt to form a bond. That bond will allow the monster you befriend to join your farm. You'll need to upgrade your Dragon Farm to have barns, but once you do you can catch and tame any monster in the game (other than the bosses).

Once you house your new monster mates you'll notice that they'll drop items. Depending on the monster you tamed, they'll drop specific items (Chicken = eggs, Goats = fur, Cow = milk, Wolves = claws, etc).

Make sure to spend time grooming, feeding and travelling together to raise their relationship levels. The higher the level the more likely they'll help you around the farm and drop higher quality items.

Levelling up those Skills

Everything you do in Rune Factory 5, and I mean EVERYTHING, is a skill. From farming, selling, fighting, magic, cooking, crafting, sleeping and walking. Everything gains exp towards leveling up your skills. The higher the skill the better at it you become... I can sleep better? Huh? You may not notice it right away, but the more you work at something, the less amount of energy you consume. Which is extremely helpful for farming.

Relationship Goals

If you've played a Rune Factory game before, or even Harvest Moon, then you'll be familiar with the dating sim aspect of this game. Continuing this, Rune Factory 5 allows you to build relationship levels with the townspeople and sometimes some of those individuals can even become your future spouse. When you open your menu and scroll over to your friendship chart you'll be able to see who is romanceable and who are neutral companions.

You can raise anyone's relationship meter by talking to them or giving them gifts. Talking will always increase the meter by a little. The best way to woo someone's heart is by presenting them with, well... a present. Each character has their own likes and dislikes, so you'll have to make notes on what that is. You can even receive hints if you pay close attention to the conversations you have with them.

Eventually, once you've reached the top level of the friendship, you'll have the option to court the partner of your choice. The bonus? You can romance either male or female, regardless of which gender you choose at the start of the game. So enjoy the married life if you choose. Having a spouse means extra hands on the farm.

What's that? We can have children too? More workers--- I mean more love to spread throughout the community.

Fighting Together

Later on, once you've raised your friendship level to a higher point, you'll be able to invite either your monster friends or town friends to join you in battle. Any monster you tame will fight by your side if you ask it to, but the towns people, specifically the bachelor/bachelorette, will only fight by your side with high friendship.

The Pros and Cons

Rune Factory 5 does an amazing job in showing you how much they have improved since the last release going from handheld to console. The graphics are more realistic, the colour is sharp and bright, the music continues to set the mood and the overall character designs and interactions are never boring.

I'm also happy to say that I like the option to marry either gender in the game. While playing older Rune Factory games where you were given either a male or female protagonist was a nice touch to the series, since older instalments only had you as male and it got boring fast only having to marry the girls, but Rune Factory 5 went above and beyond to tear down that barrier again and allow the players to have free reign over who they choose to be their partner. Well done RF!

However, the game is not without it's flaws. I found most of the flaws in the game to be small annoying details, but when there are multiple small details it tends to gather into a bigger problem.

Things like how your main character will ALWAYS shout something if you water. each. individual. plant. or seeds, or wood you chop, or stones you mine. Speaking of mining and logging, the hit box for stumps and boulders is so small that 8 out of 10 times I'll miss... even though I'm standing RIGHT IN FRONT OF IT.

I also noticed that if you're surrounded by too many monsters the frame rate drops and everything tends to move at a snails pace. You either have to run away just so the game can catch back up or kill a few in slow motion.

There was even a moment that some of the character portraits won't show up in chat scenes, making it seem like the text box is pointing to no one.

Conclusion

To conclude, Rune Factory 5 does a great job of delivering a great story and farming experience. If you find that combat isn't your style you can always turn the difficulty down to focus more on the farm life sim. Having a wide variety of events and characters you can interact with will never make a dull moment in the game.

If they had spent a bit more time polishing and fixing some of those minor bugs the game would be smooth sailing from start to finish. I'm giving this game an 8 out of 10 for it's spectacular visuals, compatibility and easy to pick up combat.

Score: 8 / 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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Games of the Year 2021 - Guilty Pleasure

Moving on from our disappointments for 2021 we now move into a category that is always an interesting one as while we do tend to cover a lot, sometimes there are titles that just make us keep wanting to go back for more. Welcome to our guilty pleasure category for the year!

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

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Pierre-Yves: Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town

I mean come on, do I even have to say why for this one? The latest entry was not only a pleasure, and a guilty pleasure at that, to sit down to in order to cover but it was just an overall pleasure between the smooth farming simulation and the adorable graphics as you got to raise your moomoos. Yes. Moomoos.

Check out our full review of Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town by developer Marvelous Interactive Inc. and publishers XSEED Games, Marvelous for the Nintendo Switch.

Pierre-Yves (Bonus): Resident Evil Village

Ok I realize that this is cheating a bit but I did put everything together so that's my excuse to add another guilty pleasure as looking at my list I was thinking to myself, something's missing. It's not that my entire list is just about Indie based titles for this year, but there was one title that just blew me away in a fun and guilty fashion. That title would be the latest in the Resident Evil series that I was ecstatic to cover even if it meant plowing through Resident Evil 7: Biohazard which scared the living hell out of me.

So with that, I'm also adding in the wicked well paced and designed Resident Evil Village as my second guilty pleasure which once again stars Ethan Winters as he hunts down those that supernaturally split his daughter into multiple pieces. Also staring long time veteran Chris Redfield, things go everywhere from the depths of a a mad genius' lair to the soaring heights of the internet's favorite super tall lady that will shred you in two if she catches up to you.

Check out our full review of Resident Evil Village by developer and publisher Capcom for the Sony PlayStation 5.

Richard: Neptunia Virtual Stars

It's a Neptunia game featuring some of my favorite VTubers. Yes, I'm a kaigainikki. Yes, I support my Hololive and Indie VTuber scene. Shut up, go away. I mean, it also helps that the gameplay was a pretty fun 3rd person shooter style with some cool mechanics, and was pretty much ragging on egotistical social media users. Actually though, while not the best in gameplay or presentation, it was legitimately really fun, and it was great seeing some of my favorite VTubers getting more traction here in the West.

Check out our full review of Neptunia Virtual Stars by developer Compile Heart and publisher Idea Factory International Inc. for the Sony PlayStation 4.

Susan N.: Timberborn

I’m all for colony management simulators, especially against games like Banished (a challenging game even for the seasoned veteran in the genre). Add Canada’s national animals to the mix, and I’m immediately sold on it. After watching some of the gameplay of a prominent YouTuber, I decided I wanted a bite at the game. Once I streamed the game a few times, I found that Timberborn is a game I enjoy playing both on stream and off. I have a save for both instances, yet somehow I managed to survive through the second drought - but only barely! I had two beavers left and needed to recolonize. It was a long process, but somehow I managed to save my colony of beavers. Now, if that doesn’t tell you how difficult Timberborn can be when players fail spectacularly, I don’t know what does. Needless to say, I really enjoy this game way more than other management sim games - even the coveted Cities: Skylines. Am I guilty for enjoying chomping down trees without a care in the world? Absolutely. It’s something I can sink my teeth into!

Nick: NBA 2K22

I almost could have put Genshin Impact in here as well. Sure, it released last year, but I didn’t get my review for it written until this year ( https://chalgyr.com/2021/03/review-ps4-genshinimpact.html ), and it’s a large, ‘living game’ that is still seeing major content updates and probably will for years. That being said, NBA 2K22 gets the slight nod from me this year, as it and Genshin are both games I log into pretty much daily. I have ground out all but a few of the trophies in NBA 2K22, still hop online to compete against others (or with online friends) and alternate between my 3-and-D point guard and athletic, bruising center just depending on my mood that day. NBA 2K still has plenty of room to improve on the new console generation, but despite its flaws – I keep coming back for more.

Check out our full review of NBA 2K22 by developer Visual Concepts and publisher 2K for the Sony PlayStation 5.

Robert: Star Citizen

Few games can sell a dream and really nail it- some, like No Man’s Sky can start way too big for it’s britches, only to then grow into a fine game, to others like The Ascent or Tales of Arise just hit the ground running and nail it out of the park from the get-go.

My 2021 Guilty Pleasure is something of a juggernaut in the independent game development world, with upwards of 500 employees and a massive project underway, Cloud Imperium Games’ Star Citizen managed to do both- be too big for its britches while nailing it right out of the park. Few games can give the sense of scale and awe that Star Citizen brings to the forefront- stunning visuals, interesting locations, a supportive and impassioned community, and on top of it all … pure, unadulterated joy.

From the moment you first step out of your hab (your apartment/bedroom), Star Citizen is shown in excruciating detail- from working lighting modes for your hab to beautiful vistas overlooking the frost-covered domes of New Babbage on Microtech, to a cave system deep within Daymar’s crust, Star Citizen is brimming with detail, and in turn, with life. I have spent more time (and money) on Star Citizen than I have in many, many years- the closest likely being World of Warcraft back from about 2004 to 2007, and I still have not experienced all that this supposed “tech demo” has to offer.

My advice? Take a minute to hop into the game during one of its regular Free Fly events (where you don’t even have to pay for the game in order to experience 100% of what’s currently offered), or if you’re an old backer that’s not been around in a while? Spend a couple hours one night and dig into the Verse- it’s surprisingly vibrant, rich in character, and an absolute bounty in detail.

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