Accel World VS Sword Art Online: Millennium Twilight - Vita Review

Accel World vs Sword Art Online: Millennium Twilight is the latest in the SAO series’ original entries. Merging both SAO and Accel World, it is up to both sets of characters to save Kirito and Asuna’s beloved Yui and both groups’ respective Online Worlds.

What I love about the SAO series, at least in regards to the gaming entries, is their willingness to explore brand new ideas instead of sticking too close to the anime seasons or the manga. Because of this the stories can be developed as the developers see fit while still using the characters and ideas that make the series was it is. Millennium Twilight is no exception - especially since they explore the idea of one digital VR MMO world invading another. After seeing the original SAO location of Aincard from the first season appear at the end of it inside of Alfheim Online the idea isn’t out of the question so to add some depth and craziness to the mix, enter time travel as the invading MMO world is from the future.

All of these factors have allowed to create an experience that is both new yet familiar as the world of Alfheim Online is still there but different. While familiar characters will be making their appearance both inside and out of the game through communication, the inside has gone through a bit of overhauling as the two worlds have started to merge. What does that mean for the players still left inside? Nobody wants to leave as this “new event” looks too cool to pass up. Unlike Aincard and those kept within once Kirito beat the game, players can log out but once they do they can’t log back in making this a quest that the main cast need to see through to the end regardless of what it does to their outside selves.

It’s a neat approach and it really comes together once you get fully hands on and get to start exploring the fields and the new city hub that is a result of the world mergers. The city offers up shops to buy new equipment and items as well as connect up online and play with other players. While there is an autosave, there’s also a location in order to manually save which lets you know for absolute certainty that your file and progress have been preserved. Finally there’s the most important factor that comes through the Quest Board that should be frequently visited between story sections in order to get the most out of it and obvious rewards for your efforts!

Now while this next statement is just a personal thing, I would love to play an original SAO title with a brand new self created character not unlike Dragon Ball Xenoverse. The reason for this is that once again with Kirito in hand you start off in the level one-hundreds. Not much is going to kill you and the beginning monsters and even boss fights are a bit of a joke because of how strong you are. That said the system in place while being in the level one-hundreds is fun.

Starting off with Kirito and Asuna it’s not long until you have Black Lotus from Accel World in your party and then other members start to trickle in from both sides. Only being able to take three members out at a time you’ll soon have enough choice for exactly how you wish to fight. Dual-wielding, larger two-handed swords, bows, quick rapiers so on and so forth are all at your disposal once they’ve joined your party. Switching between these characters is also fairly easy and once the meter is filled up joint attacks can be used for loads of damage.

There are some gameplay elements that while they work, you can tell that they were either designed for the PS4’s touchpad or were designed that way to supplement for the lacking L2/R2 buttons. While most of what you need will be found between the L or R shoulders and both sides of the controller, switching between characters and putting things in focus require tapping the screen. Now these work for the most part as long as you remember that you need to hit the screen in order to perform this actions.

Combat is smooth with a ton of skills that can be assigned to the above mentioned L and R shortcuts. Between these and your regular attacks your arsenal won't be lacking. As characters level up and use these skills they’ll obtain new ones and make the ones that they currently have more powerful. The only issue is that because of how high of a level your party is most of these mobs are basically just hanging about for you to create new skills or obtain materials as they really don’t pose a threat or a challenge and are really there for filler between main story events.

The one thing that I loved above all else are the flying mechanics. These can honestly be so hit and miss that it was awesome to be able to fly around either slowly or quickly and then just swap into battle mode without your toes ever hitting the ground if you didn’t want them to. Boss battles the same could be said with them flying around and you could attack from either above or below as you saw fit. It felt natural even inside of caves where you were limited to how high you could go since they don’t let you simply fly to the end instead of trudging over the pathways.

One major downside is that regardless of how hard they tried to make the Vita version work, the limitations of the system can be seen in the performance. Not currently having the PS4 version to compare it to, AW vs SAO can often be laggy once things come into focus or make their appearance on the maps. Monsters in the field is a common example as you are often out there and when flying around you can have multiple levels appear causing the system to slow down.

Even in town when walking into a building it can take time for some characters to finally load which wouldn’t really be such a bad thing if you didn’t need to talk to them in order to initiate a quest. While I appreciate the continuous love for the system, this is not the first time that the Vita version suffers because they tried to pack just as much in as they did on the much larger and more powerful home console.

Accel World vs Sword Art Online: Millennium Twilight is a great title though the smaller platform suffers from the lack of power that the larger one benefits from. Is it worth diving into? Definitely. If you don’t have a PS4 then I would recommend picking this one up on the Vita. If you do have a PS4 it’s probably a safer bet to take to the skies on the bigger platform unless you really enjoy the portability factor. One way or the other it should not be passed up on for fans of the series.

Game Information

Platform:
Sony PlayStation Vita
Developer(s):
Studio ArtDink
Publisher(s):

Bandai Namco Games America Inc.

Genre(s):
Action
RPG
Mode(s):
Single Player
Multiplayer
Other Platform(s):
Sony PlayStation 4

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Pierre-Yves

Read More

Preta: Vendetta Rising - PC / VR Preview

Preta: Vendetta Rising is an ambitious and potentially fascinating title, recalling popular action RPGs such as Diablo, Dark Souls and Monster Hunter. However, this being an Early Access title, there is plenty of room to grow and create its own identity as well. Still, what is here is pretty promising so far.

Read More

Gigantic - Xbox One Review

When a game tries to blend several different influences into its DNA, you run the risk of that game suffering from an identity crisis. To be honest, I thought that might be a concern for Gigantic, a new free-to-play multiplayer game on both PC and Xbox One. I am happy to say that while there are some issues, Gigantic actually does a really nice job of carving out its own niche in a genre that has been heavily diluted of late.

Read More

Children of Zodiarcs - PS4 Review

Cardboard Utopia’s Children of Zodiarcs is the next “Final Fantasy Tactics” that you’ve been waiting for. While there may not be classes for your characters to switch between, dive into a world based on dice rolls and the luck of the draw as a group of children try to survive by stealing from the rich in order to buy enough food to survive.

It’s really hard to not make certain levels of comparison to what I consider one of Square’s greatest masterpieces. While the top down third person isometric view is nothing new, there’s an immense sense of nostalgia that comes from the artwork used to create the blocky planes that your characters will travel over. There are plenty of elements that Cardboard Utopia have created to make it their own, but when it comes down to it, they’ve given us what we could have only wished Square had and I’m not talking about Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced.

Children of Zodiarcs is brilliant. Instead of just making another SRPG they’ve gone and added in multiple different ideas that work very well together. One of the biggest changes is that instead of having hidden number crunching for damage values they’ve put in a dice rolling system that allows for you, the player, to either take them and roll them across the screen or select “auto-roll” to speed up battle a little bit.

While that alone is cool, they allow you to re-roll two dice that you may have not have enjoyed the results of. In auto-rolling this is done instantaneously but rolling the dice of your fate yourself? If you throw the dice hard enough they can bounce around and possibly if you’re lucky enough chance the value of another dice already on the “board”. Just make sure not to change one that you were happy with the result of!

The dice alone were a neat addition to the style in order to make your attacks but it’s what these dice go along with that really make this SRPG a game of chance. On top of having sets of dice you also have a deck of cards to pull abilities out of. No cards. No actions. In order to do anything a character on the field needs to have access to a card before being able to roll the dice. Thankfully every enemy is subject to these exact rules which makes cards with abilities to draw extra or make someone discard that much more potent especially when extra turns are involved.

As your characters level up they gain access to new cards and receive upgrades for older ones. This makes it that older starting cards don’t become useless and are always relevant making the assembly of your deck a good thing to keep your eye on. I really appreciated this because you can “stack the deck” in favour of how you deem the character fit to be used and not some predetermined value that the developers set. While I appreciate the effort that devs can put into these situations, sometimes having your own personal flavour is what you need.

What’s interesting about the deck building is the level of control that if given to you. Each card comes in a “set” and you can chose how many of that set you wish to throw into your deck. Want six of the six healing cards stacked in? Go for it. Want to reduce that amount because that character tends to be further back and instead make sure that you have more attack cards? Go nuts. Even support cards to add or remove other people’s cards can be treated the same way and there’ll be a lot of experimentation on this because what you may think works may over saturate your deck making it a lot harder to pull off the combinations that you were thinking about.

Now just because you have a deck of however many cards doesn’t mean that you can have access to all of them on the field. A maximum of seven cards can be held at any time and anyone passing this limit will automatically discard the leftmost card(s) until there are only seven being held. Normally it’s not an issue but when it happens and you do go over by four cards due to a stellar combination of abilities and dice rolls, it sucks to see that many cards thrown out especially if you weren’t expecting it. It’s another thing to watch out for!

I was a bit worried at first as even on the normal difficulty Zodiarcs isn’t easy. Because of the luck based system in place some battles could be a bit harder than they needed to be but that’s because you really have to make due with what you have. The flipside of this is that the story is a bit on rails meaning that you simply move from one mission to the next. Getting new cards comes with leveling while getting new dice comes from winning battles. Modifying these new dice sets can be done but only if you have the materials in the form of other dice to pull it off. So where was almost the issue is that if your party’s levels are not high enough some battles are tough because as much as you need to rely on your dice rolls you also have to rely on your character attack and defense stats.

Thankfully several missions in this worry was alleviated through skirmishes that open up on previously conquered stages. This served two purposes. The first purpose was that it allowed you to level up your party, their stats and collect new dice. All of these help gear up for the later stages that really do not hold their punches. The second purpose is that it allows you to try out your new decks before moving forward to even harder situations. I wanted to say it allows you to try out new decks in situations that don’t matter but the fact of the matter is that if you don’t succeed in a skirmish, it’s game over. Elite skirmishes are also there which raise the bar and the rewards but the game over is even easier to get a hold of you and your party.

On the whole of the experience the only issue that I had was the speed of gameplay. It wasn’t as noticeable in the early stages but it does become apparent hours in when things really get “real”. Having the dice rolling automatic will save time but having to watch each and every enemy move across the map could be enough time at times to go do other things. In the later stages if I was facing six to ten enemies I would play my turn and head off to do chores or make supper. I kid you not, I had that much time. There’s no way to speed it up and it can take some serious time for EVERYONE to go through their actions. I hope that either a skip or speed up function can be added in the future.

Now while things can take some time I had a huge appreciation for the little details. Instead of simply poofing out of existence character models would either fall down where they were or fall off of what they were on. If an enemy for example was on a rooftop then they would fall off the side once they were taken out instead of just falling in place. Explosives would send a dispatched enemy flying in regards to where they were standing in relation to the blast. All of these elements were neat to see thought of instead of just models standing in place and then being gone once their hit points hit zero.

Children of Zodiarcs is a turned based strategy that I’ve been waiting for. While some elements will be familiar to fans of the style it was the elements that weren’t that made this experience a masterpiece. Rolling the dice and splitting the deck became more than simple battle mechanics but were instead much more as they alone were half the battle. Without good dice rolls or drawing of the cards an easy battle could very readily become an easy defeat.

Game Information

Platform:
Sony PlayStation 4
Developer(s):
Cardboard Utopia
Publisher(s):
Square Enix
Genre(s):
Strategy
RPG
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
PC

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Pierre-Yves

Read More

Minecraft: Story Mode Season Two - Episode 1: Hero in Residence - Xbox One Review

While I have long been a fan of the Telltale video games, Minecraft: Story Mode was probably my least favorite of their full season offerings to date. It got off to a slow start with a property that seemed somewhat ill-fitting to a narrative-heavy game. However, to its credit, I thought Story Mode got stronger near the end, finding some solid footing during the final chapter. I was hoping that momentum would carry over to Season Two, but Minecraft: Story Mode Season Two - Episode 1: Hero in Residence reminds me a lot of the first episode in the initial season's installment.

Read More

Fallen Legion: Sins of an Empire - PS4 Review

There are a lot of issues that people can be divided on: music, politics, flavors of jellybeans, and of course also ruling a country. Fallen Legion takes this principle a little further by dividing what could be considered a “split storyline” game between a Vita and PS4 version, each with a different main character and storyline, but identical play styles. While there are many things to be divided on, one thing is for certain: Fallen Legion brings a fresh yet nostalgic breath into the gaming scene.

Read More

Antihero - PC Review

“If what is currently available is any indication of the final product, Antihero is going to be good.” I’m happy to say that this statement from my preview stands. Having just released, Antihero simultaneously places you in the role of being a Master Thief and the leader of a guild as they take to the streets in order to both make it theirs and remove any competition that dares to get in the way.

One of the most notable changes from the Preview state is that the Tutorial has become the Campaign adding in some context instead of just teaching you how to play the game. Gone is the massive list of options (which at the time was only two of ten) and instead there’s a view of the city with a fog of war that covers the areas yet to be fought in. While teaching us how to use the systems is fun, and believe me needed, the story is a nice touch especially since the artstyle is so pretty to look at.

Upon final release Antihero has kept to the 1v1 aspect and I think upped the AI’s abilities. Even on a Normal difficulty I found myself getting wiped off the streets until I found myself a decent strategy to keep up with the enemy and then pass them. It’s brutal and holds nothing back. This really is one of those “easy to learn hard to master” and there’s no shame in trying things out on Easy before re-attempting normal much less multiplayer. Thankfully skirmishes exist in order to better practice your skills!

Antihero is a bit in a league of its own in the way that it plays out. It’s familiar in multiple ways if you’ve played strategy games but it stands out in its approach. Starting off you will have nothing more than your main guild and your Master Thief. From here you can start moving them around the map and uncovering the fog of war that covers it or burgle any of the establishments that are just waiting to be robbed once the fog has been lifted. Seriously they just left the door open what else were you supposed to do?

At the beginning your Master Thief only has two actions making it a hard choice as to whether you want to move twice to uncover fog / infiltrate locations or move and attack someone in your way. Even as more actions come into play attacking can still only be done once but by that point you’ll hopefully have at least one gang, upgrades can provide a second, to go around and do your dirty work for you.

In order to fund these gangs however you’re going to need money and the ability to hire them in the first place. The map that you’ll be exploring is full of locations that are simply awaiting your arrival such as houses and mansions can be looted twice with the second time yielding less money. Establishments by comparison will still be looted but once that’s done they can now be infiltrated by hired street urchins in order to continuously syphon funds every turn that they are there. Filling up a location with three urchins will boost revenue and while banks are more profitable, infiltrating churches will give you blackmail that acts as a required victory point to take the streets from your opponent for good.

Before even thinking about victory you’ve got to plan it out. You’ll need money to hire units and you’ll need lanterns in order to unlock those units for hiring. Both of these resources can be found on the field but if by the end of the turn you can’t really afford anything in the upgrade tree, such as you’re missing lanterns, you can take charity in the form of gold or lanterns to either hire a unit “now” or to make an upgrade on the next turn.

One thing that Antihero does very well is that it makes it hard to “spam”. Every time an upgrade is unlocked or a unit is hired the next one costs one more but only for that turn. Want to fully infiltrate a location and level it up that turn? First urchin you’ll need costs two gold, then three for the second and four for the third. Even with establishments that brings down the cost you need to decide if it’s worth spending the higher amounts of waiting for the next turn since you never know what you’re opponent has up their sleeve.

This is where things get dirty. Your Master Thief can move around and as the game moves on do more damage. You can hire both thugs as roadblocks to your opponent and hire gangs to go about clearing their own blockades as well as the neutral NPCs. As a gang takes out more units they can be upgraded to do more damage, make more money per kill or evict urchins from establishments. Need more muscle and thugs can be added to gangs for extra hit points but only to a certain point which is below the amount of damage that a very expensive Assassin can do which really hurts your own efforts to take the streets when it happens. From that point the only thing that matters is outwitting your opponent and hitting the map’s objectives before they do.

Antihero is great and well thought out. With multiple modes and a ton of replayability both online and off with a hotseat feature to try your mettle against a friend, there’s no way that it’ll be going quietly into the night any time soon. I just wouldn’t be surprised to see the 1v1 become a 1v2 or 1v3 later on which would truly make things both interesting and insane with that many people vying for power!

Game Information

Platform:
PC
Developer(s):
Tim Conkling
Publisher(s):
Versus Evil
Genre(s):
Strategy
Mode(s):
Single Player
Multiplayer
Other Platform(s):
N/A

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Pierre-Yves

Read More

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age - PS4 Review

There are so many Final Fantasy titles with their own followings that it is impossible to say which ones are the best and the worst, but Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age allows us to revisit one of the more popular titles in the series that has aged pretty well since its initial PlayStation 2 release.

Read More

Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles - PS4 Review

The definition of the word Yonder does the chosen title justice. Free to explore as you see fit, take control of your avatar and explore the far reaches of this forgotten kingdom as you search out exactly what really is “over there”.

Yonder is an important title because it proves that you don't need conflict, violence or combat in order to bring about a good adventuring experience. Everything that your avatar will see or do brings about a peaceful experience as you think things through and get creative in order to move forward. Need to make a bridge? Mine some stone or cut a tree (that is perhaps the most violent thing you'll do) to make the required bridge. Don't know how? Take the long way around and look for someone to teach you!

I honestly could not tell you the last time that I played something so utterly relaxing. Playing for hours on end isn’t unusual but never did I get into that “in the zone pose”. Exploring the far reaches of this island was simply an enjoyable time. Vast landscapes, various people to talk to and accept quests from, you simply explore the island while working on your true goal to disperse the “murk” that appeared some years prior. Even this is a peaceful resolution as it’s simply walking up to an instance of it and making sure that you have enough sprites to dispel it. No boss fights required.

While being open-world Yonder isn’t sandboxed. A bit like Horizon and Breath of the Wild materials can be found out and about but everything cannot be mined like you could in Portal Knights or Minecraft. Making due with what is available is big part of the experience and sometimes it really isn’t easy especially if you haven’t found someone to teach you how to craft what you need.

Could Yonder have benefited from combat? I don’t think so. Sure it could be added but then it would not have been the same experience and from that point it would have been just another one in the hat. Foregoing the combat entirely has created a relaxing experience that proves that combat isn’t always needed in order to make something great.

The only issue that Yonder really has is that it’s come out after Breath of the Wild. I say this because there are some parts of the exploration system that could have benefited from the openness approach that was taken. For example, sometimes getting around the island is an absolutely pain because a rock is just slightly higher than you can actually jump. Trying to jump up will actually send you backwards as your avatar will kick off the object that you are trying to jump on top of. They can’t simply climb it. Your avatar also cannot swim and if you walk too far into the water you’ll simply re-spawn. Sure there’s no game over but at the same time I’m sure this person knows how to swim or at least doggy paddle for two feet.

Shortcuts in order to get around the island are also sometimes more of “long-cuts” as it can take as much time to make it around the obstacles to the available shortcut than to run to where you’re going. The positioning of these “devices”, which are giant heads that you walk through their mouths, are great as long as you’re coming from the right direction. Otherwise they really don’t work and aren’t worth the effort to get to them when you could simply save yourself the time and just go the “long way”.

Short of the mechanical issues for exploration, Yonder is a beautiful and relaxing experience that I hope to see more of in the future. Who would have thought that an adventure title wouldn’t need combat to be just as compelling as one with? If anything it in some ways made it better because you weren't always having to dispatch enemies in the way of you obtaining your crafting materials.

Game Information

Platform:
Sony PlayStation 4
Developer(s):

Prideful Sloth

Publisher(s):

Prideful Sloth

Genre(s):
Adventure
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
PC

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Pierre-Yves

Read More

Week in Review - July 17th to the 21st

Welcome back to our Week in Review!

Richard started the week off with his thoughts on the latest Xanadu game Tokyo Xanadu. While those with a PS4 may want to wait until the revamp's release later this year, hardcore fans not wanting to wait or willing to do it again should really pick it up!

"While Tokyo Xanadu may not appeal to everyone, with it's lack of English voice-overs and at times clunky mechanics, but is certain to at least provide some good entertainment while waiting for your next anticipated title."

- Richard

---

Next up we had Nick's take on the latest RPG Maker FES that was surprisingly for the 3DS. With multiple members of the team being fans of the software it'll be interesting to see how well it takes off with the handheld.

"Like any 'Maker' game, you get out of the software what you put into it. RPG Maker Fes will provide owners with hours of game creation, assuming you can see past the non-existent early guidance and a couple of annoying aspects of an otherwise splendid UI."

- Nick

---

The middle of the week saw an interesting entry through a PC version of Pathfinder titled Pathfinder Adventures. Robert loved it and while I myself have mostly moved on to 5th Edition, there's no real substitute for a good Pathfinder one-shot.

"Pathfinder Adventures PC game is a wonderful port from the traditional living card game model that many are familiar with. With the excellent combat mechanics and gorgeous art, Pathfinder Adventures is a game for any fan of the franchise, and even moreso for fans of card games in general."

- Robert

---

Almost finishing the week on a high note Robert takes a look at Elite Dangerous' PS4 port.

"Though Elite: Dangerous on the PlayStation 4 is a straight port, it is an incredibly excellent release."

- Robert

---

Finishing the week on a not so high note is my review of After the End: The Harvest. Not bad by any means, this indie RPG needs polishing in order to run smoother.

"If you can get past the issues and get past the lag there's definitely a gem underneath and the developer is still working on it and providing updates."

- Pierre-Yves

---

Article by Pierre-Yves

Read More

After the End: The Harvest - PC Review

After the End: The Harvest travels into a territory that isn’t explored as much as it should be. Like Thorne, which we took a look at last year, AtE takes the RPG Maker for a spin on the more real-time adventuring side. Wielding swords and pistols to keep you alive, you will explore different planets while laying waste to the creatures that would deplete your health bar.

There’s a lot of work that goes into just a standard RPG before even adding all the bells and whistles. It’s probably because of this factor that we don’t see more adventure styled RPGs rolling out of the maker because of the pile of extra work on top of all the extra setup time. I’m saying this because with everything that it sets out to do, it does, but it does so with plenty of bugs and lag to keep you company. With two modes to chose from, I had to restart the “Campaign” Mode twice because I couldn’t get out of the tutorial because of glitches. Once I did? Things started to look up.

There are a lot of details that went into AtE and I think that’s a bit of where the lag can come from. On a snowy planet in the middle of the night without proper winter gear your health is going to drop, you aren’t going to see much in the dark and you aren’t going to see much else because of the snow blowing by. The filters for the animation can be a bit hard on the eyes at times since it feels like the image is blurry and it would have been nice for them to not be ever present.

A prime example of this is when you walk into a building and it’s still “dark” requiring you to have your flashlight on even with the interior lighting. It’s great in concept but some aspects were taken a bit too far and in the end affect the performance because the engine is trying to do too much. A dark cave makes sense but you should never need a flashlight on for light in a futuristic hotel when the lights on the walls are on!

The other aspect that could use a bit of work is the dialog. It’s not the writing that’s the issue as much as how it’s presented. Clicking “next” doesn’t always speed it along and more often than not it requires hitting “next” two or three times in order to move on to the next. Having had to do the tutorial more than once is where I originally noticed it but it kept occurring even further along within the storyline which is where one of the bugs can come into play. If your character levels it’s possible that the level up window will interfere with the dialog making you have to restart from your previous save because either your character disappeared or the event in question is no longer able to trigger.

When things work though, they work and I had a good time with the end of the galaxy. In some ways it made me think of Mass Effect when the Reapers came calling. There isn’t much hand holding and it’s pretty much figure things out for yourself such as if you choose to follow the campaign route you are given basic instructions but after a minor crash landing you’ve got to find your own way to keep protected from the cold. Leveling up sadly cannot save you as even if you do your health with not regenerate. You’ll need potions for that. Run out of those? You’ll die and it’s game over and back to the previous save. With no auto-saving you’ll want to choose carefully exactly how far that you are willing to push things.

Movement is handled with the arrow keys and they allow you to strafe with the shift making ranged combat a lot smoother than it would have been otherwise but it was good to have as it allowed for various options and play styles. Melee does exactly what you would expect but range combat offers up some variety as you can have unlimited ammo pistols but you could also have limited ammo weapons such as higher powered rifles or bows. Side to even those are the options for magic that will take away from your mana bar allowing you to cast fire at your enemies. The provided options were nice as they don’t set you into a class but allow you to play as you see fit.

Attacking enemies can be a bit of a hit and miss if they’ve already started to move from your “current line of sight” to the next one over. If you think on a number pad of 1-9, say you’re at 5, the enemy is at 8, if they’ve started to move to 7, you’ll miss. It takes some time to get used to it but the same works both ways and sometimes in your favor.

Finally there’s probably where I had the most amount of fun, playing Pokemon. Well “Pokemon”. At a certain point you get the ability to pick up a companion and not only are they great to carry around with you for support in battle, they can also old school RPG fight with abilities against other peoples companions for medals in order to compete in a galactic tournament once you collect enough medals. These companions gain experience and level up like you but they also evolve if you let them becoming more powerful, and in turn, more useful out on the field. Showing off against other being of the galaxy that your companion is more badass than theirs? That’s all bonus!

If you can get past the issues and get past the lag there’s definitely a gem underneath and the developer is still working on it and providing updates. After the End: The Harvest is an experience worth having but it may take a bit before it’s in a less buggy state in order to experience it the way that it was meant to be.

Game Information

Platform:
PC
Developer(s):
Elushis
Publisher(s):
Black Shell Media
Genre(s):
Adventure
RPG
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
N/A

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Pierre-Yves

Read More

Elite Dangerous - PS4 Review

It is no secret that I love Elite: Dangerous; I have covered it quite extensively since we first got our hands on the preview in 2014 and ever since I have been utterly hooked. Now, after what seems to me is a lifetime of waiting (it wasn't), Elite: Dangerous is now available on the PlayStation 4 and it is every bit as glorious as the other platforms and in regard to the consoles, it is far, far superior than its Xbox counterpart. With HOTAS peripheral support on the PlayStation 4, Elite: Dangerous is absolutely the game to show that space sims not only work on console, but they excel there.

Read More

Pathfinder Adventures - PC Review

I have been on something of a Pathfinder kick these past few months, likely due to a desire for some good old fashioned Dungeons & Dragons-style tabletopping. On top of this itch, I managed to really get the dungeon master itch when reviewing May's Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary 6 which had me spiraling into the Pathfinder universe. Coincidentally, shortly after Bestiary 6 released, Obsidian Entertainment, studio behind titles you might be familiar with like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, Tyranny, Fallout: New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity also released the Pathfinder Adventures PC game, which is what we are bringing you today, and boy is it great.

Read More