Dragon's Crown Pro - PS4 Review

Following Vanillaware’s port of the spiritual sequel to Odin Sphere subtitled Leifthrasir from PS3-4, Dragon’s Crown has received the same treatment and is also being released on Sony’s newest platform under the Pro subtitle. With many small upgrades under the hood, we are invited to rejoin the visually satirical mighty and magicked cast as they adventure for the titular treasure known as the Dragon’s Crown.

The revamp, titled Dragon’s Crown Pro is interesting because, unlike Odin Sphere, nothing has changed. There are still the six characters available which personify their classes with wonderfully exaggerated physical proportions and each still have their own skills and their equipment restrictions. There are no new modes. There is no new content. But it does one thing that many other re-releases do not: Dragon’s Crown Pro is not only revamped on the newest system and performing absolutely smoothly compared to the PS3, but both the PS3 and the Vita versions will be forwards compatible!

For those poor souls who do not already own this fantastic title here’s what you can expect.

Starting off inside a pub, as all good adventures do, you can choose from one of the six available classes. There are two full melee classes, two that concentrate on skill rather than might though they are just as strong (in nerd speak glass cannons) and finally there are the spellcasters. Each is labeled for their respective difficulty level to use with the Knight being the easiest and the Sorceress, aka the Necromancer as she raises the dead, as the toughest to use. Once you’ve chosen your class, name, colour palette and a message seen by players who can resurrect your dead, magnificent corpse in their own worlds to use, it’s time to grab your thief and head out.

Visually Dragon’s Crown is just as pretty to look at as a re-release now as it was when it first came out in 2013. What really aids the visual presentation however is the power under the hood of a PS4, and in my case, a PS4 Pro. Because of the added system power you no longer experience the slowdowns caused by having too many enemies or effects on screen other than the occasional boss dying animation trying to catch up because you killed it too fast (cough).

All of this power also contributes to the splendor of one of the most enjoyable facets of this title which is the stellar art that is used for the graphics. Dragon’s Crown isn’t made of some quickly thrown together sprites but instead serves your eyeballs a much more refined, hand-drawn style. Character models as well as the variety of enemies and locations are all amazing to look at whether it’s the first, second or hundredth time that you pass through a location. Regardless of their eclectic gameplay styles over the years, Vanillaware truly know how to craft a unique visual landscape. However, don’t let the shiny look fool you, this game isn’t some functionless piece of modern art.

Just because it’s amazing to look at, doesn’t mean that Dragon’s Crown isn’t a hell of a lot of fun to play. While each class has their own specialties, they all share certain game elements in common such as their movements, the dodge mechanics and the item utilization. At its core, Dragon’s Crown is a brawler that uses RPG elements in the character leveling and skill point mechanisms that allow for a variety of customizations. Characters can be completely different in the beginning but through skill points they all unlock the same options by the end. If you get bored of cleaving mobs with a sword like Braveheart you can whip out your sneaky, stabby daggers for the final boss! You’ll have more than enough skill points for both the character specific and the common trees so you’re not stuck to the style of play you started with.

Where things really get interesting in combat is in the showdown between might versus magic. Each melee class has a powerful ability in their arsenal that can be used by throwing their weapons at enemies or into the ground. These hail mary blows or shockwaves can turn the tide in even the worst case scenario, especially if you are under leveled. The only issue with using these abilities obviously is that you just threw your weapon. It’s a good thing that you have a set of fists and feet because you are going to need em!

Once you’ve thrown your weapon or have had it unceremoniously knocked out of your hands, you’ll see a cooldown for where your steel hit the ground. While that timer runs down you’ll have to brawl the good old fashioned way which is almost as effective as if you had a weapon. While you do less damage it does not mean that you are useless (at least not this time), just that you have to be a bit more strategic while waiting to get your weapon back.

Spellcasters on the other hand, will never lose their wands or their staves because they seem to be smart enough not to use them as projectiles. Because of this though, their skills in close ranged combat are not as effective and they rely more on the charging of spells and on the power of limited usage tomes for incredible feats of magic. These tomes can either be bought from the local wizard or learnt by using skill points in order to obtain and power up the spells that you want to use (stay in school kids). The difference between these methods of acquisition is that anything bought from a vendor will have limited uses per dungeon and a set number of times they can be restocked while the spells bought with skill points will recharge after and be ready to go for the next time you enter a dungeon. This removes some of your reliance on the local wizard and his fickle inventory. Melee characters also have this ability though their skills are typically used less since they rely more on simply clocking people in the face.

Where these skill point spells and abilities truly come in handy is in the setup of your various bags for adventuring. In the beginning of the game you will make frequent trips to the town where you can repair your weapons and sell your loot. As you progress, new areas are available in the combat zones opening up the world and prolonging your time in the field. Like a longer trip to the mall this forces you to carry more bags to hold your replacement gear and all the pretty stuff you pick up. Different routes contain different bosses and enemies to fight as you make your way to them so bringing weapon options and following the boy scout rule becomes essential.

At the end of each of these routes you will find a boss, a big bad, the mack daddies of evil. Not all the bosses are created equal though. The Monty Python Hare, while devastating in his own right, is nothing compared to the pissed off Red Dragon that you just woke up after punting it in the face with the challenge of “come at me bro”. The ability to choose your route and the eventual boss you must face is one of the shining points of Dragon’s Crown giving it a “pick your own adventure” feel. There are eighteen bosses to conquer before facing off against the final boss. They get tougher and tougher with every difficulty scale because where would the fun be otherwise?

This replayability factor is not just found in boss selection, it also surfaces in the sheer amount of quests that can be taken on that not only grant skill points for every character present, but also provides artwork that makes for incredible wallpapers either on your PS4 or your PC… or both. Quests can be anything from kill xth amount of a mob in a certain location to unearthing plans that happen to be hidden behind a wall that you have to blow up with a bomb. Don’t have a bomb because you don’t have a Dwarf with that skill? Then you better hope that you made the goblins drop one as you were raiding their fort.

There are a few other elements that make Dragon’s Crown stick out in its class. For one, when it was released it featured a couch coop experience in a time where the idea of people playing the same title in the same location was viewed as taboo or so 1990s. It was online or nothing. Slight exaggeration but you get the idea. Players could actually get together in the same room and play together as long as there were enough controllers for the four of you, they could *gasp* socialize! Additionally, just because one person took a character / class, it didn’t mean someone else couldn’t. If you all wanted to be four Amazons, go for it. Three Elves and a Dwarf? Why not? It was entirely up to the players which significantly decreased the rate of ruined friendships as everyone got to play what they wanted and the loot is character specific.

Dragon’s Crown Pro is a prime example of what a couch co-oped remake should be like. The amazingly designed system is just as good now as it back back in 2013 and because of the newer hardware it runs even smoother. If you already have it? It’s really up to you but fans of the title will want to see this masterpiece in its new glory. For everyone else, Dragon’s Crown Pro is exactly what a Brawler should aspire to be with plenty of customizations and amazing artwork to go with it.

Game Information

Platform:
Sony PlayStation 4
Developer(s):
Vanillaware
Publisher(s):
Atlus
Genre(s):
RPG
Side-Scrolling
Dungeon Crawler
Mode(s):
Single Player
Multiplayer
Other Platform(s):
Sony PlayStation 3
Sony PlayStation Vita

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Pierre-Yves

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Last Enoucnter released on PC! Switch, PS4 and XB1 later this year - News

While waiting for our review we figured we would share some good news! Last Encounter from Exordium Games has released today. Single player or cooped, up to four players can choose characters and ships in order to explore the galaxy as its last defenders. Are you up to the task? Don't worry if you aren't because the human race has perfected cloning and the transfer of the consiciousness. This is a good thing because you'll need it!

Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One Launching Q3 2018

ZAGREB, Croatia – May 8, 2018 – Last Encounter, the intergalactic roguelike twin-stick shooter with extensive weapon customization from Exordium Games, launches on Windows and Mac today. Reinforcements will arrive on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in Q3 2018.

A savage, technologically superior race has invaded Earth and humanity is on the brink of extinction. Thankfully, newly discovered cloning technology has given the remaining survivors a last bit of hope. Earth's remaining pilots must traverse procedurally generated galaxies to thwart the alien onslaught in a final fight for survival.

Choose from a variety of pilot clones, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Pair pilots with distinct ships rigged with diverse attributes and abilities. Salvage and combine weapon components to create the armaments of your wildest dreams and bring an end to the extraterrestrial invaders.

Brave the cosmos alone or recruit up to three fellow pilots for fast-paced, engaging couch co-op. Resources are shared, so allies must work together, managing and purchasing weapon components to fight off waves of enemies and bring peace to Earth once again.

"When playing co-op in Last Encounter, players will need to strategically use resources to best prepare for fighting off waves of enemies," said Andrej Kovacevic, game director, Exordium Games. "Whether alone or with friends, players can engage in frantic, intense battles over and over again with the joy of weapon experimentation and loads of replayability."

Last Encounter is now available on Steam for $14.99 in English. For more information, visit the official website, check out the official Discord or follow Last Encounter on Twitter and Facebook.

Article by Pierre-Yves

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City of Brass - PS4 Review

A Tasty Recipe For Rogue-lite Delight

Other than Crypt of the Necrodancer and Invisible Inc., rogue-lites usually fail to hold my attention for more than a dozen hours. I love that, like in real life, they require practice, hard work, skill, and a lot of luck to make meaningful progress. I appreciate that, on an absurdist level, any progress made, besides the knowledge obtained, is rendered nearly meaningless upon death or failure, since said failure strips you of all earnings and demands that you restart from the beginning. But the one characteristic that makes me lose interest faster than a lion loses interest in a rotten cucumber smothered in animal deterrent spray is the gosh-damn procedural generation.

In most rogue-lites, procedural generation is purported to make each playthrough "NEW!" and "UNPREDICTABLE!" and "LIKE SEX WITH A BEING COMPOSED OF SWEDISH LIGHTNING AND NORDIC THUNDER!". In actuality, it renders the environments and level design surreal in their heartlessness, exhibiting the impression that, at best, these crucial aspects received only an imitation of creative human sympathy or, at worst, that they were fabricated by a rogue algorithm inspired by the rugged uniformity of the prison toilet system. To put it bluntly, while I understand the utility of procedural generation, my soul generally flees my body through my retinas any time a game touts it as a "FRESH, IMMORTALIZING!" feature.



However, like the two games aforementioned, City of Brass - a first-person rogue-lite with a vivid Arabian Nights veneer - shows that if you have an enchanting art style, enemies that are a pleasure to duel and manipulate, and a combat system that's rhythmic and versatile yet simple to execute, procedural generation can become less like a vapid maze of eyesores and more like a tool that actually contributes degrees of surprise and suspense.

Imagine you are Aladdin, but instead of befriending an awesomely erratic genie or wooing some ironically stinky princess, your passion - no, your obsession - is to infiltrate a cursed city of treasure, loading every pocket of your fanny pack and every crevice of your toned, bronzed anatomy with ambrosial gold! Gold coins! Gold statues! Gold pottery! More gold than a hypnotized sultan could be duped into spending in 6 lifetimes. The problem is, the city is infested with a variety of laborious traps and demons, former would-be thieves who tried and failed to journey their way to the city's central trove of unspeakable riches.

Thankfully, you came prepared for such resistance; with a scimitar in your right hand and a whip in your left, you will (hopefully) be the first to slice and crack your brave bod to the heart of the city, by conquering thirteen stages (twelve stages and a final boss) with a moveset that proves to be as useful as gold is savory. You can carve and flagellate enemies. That's obvious. But the whip can also be used to stun, drop a demon on his boney buns, disarm weapons and traps, knock back projectiles, pull enemies into slicing range, collect riches and throwable items, and swing you out of (or into) deadly pandemonium.

And it can be a gosh-damn blast.

When a skirmish becomes particularly rambunctious, with five-plus demons taking swings and hurling fireballs at your unarmored loins, the relationship between the sword and whip transforms into a duo capoeira dance synchronization of crowd control. Combat is replete with situations where you will, in one sequence, push an armless demon into a spike trap, pull a sword-wielding demon into trap door, spin around and crack a fire projectile right back into the face of the wench who lobbed it, then whip-grab an explosive urn to toss it into a group of animated skeletons that the red, burly bastard-of-a-genie refuses to stop summoning.

Speaking of bastards, the enemies are just too fun to beat up on. They cover their booboos when thrashed in the head, and look as confused and frustrated as a kitten on ice every time their legs are wacked out from beneath them. And the manner in which they soar across the sand when struck with an explosive urn? Don't even get me talking about it; it's too good. Moreover, these dudes and dudettes pursue and attack you with absolute reckless abandon. As soon as they spot you, their sole mission in death is to hunt you down, pierce you with pointy objects, and (most likely) bury you up to your waist in sand (so they can presumably rub gold coins on your chest, tauntingly). And they never stop chasing you. Never ever. So if you're thinking that sprinting into another area will halt their pursuit, you're as wrong as gold is (presumably) good for the chest skin.

Of course, being a rogue-lite, City of Brass can be a disaster of difficulty. It feels like it took me just under a year to make it past the sixth stage. But don't be fearful or fretful; recall all that gold you're so inclined to collect? Well, not only does it dictate your score in online leaderboards, but it's also used to purchase all manner of helpful tools, from a phantom warrior helper to weapons and armor with elemental attributes. One of my favorite weapons by far, so far, is a mystical club that severely increases knockback, allowing me to manhandle foes from one end of a room to the other.

If helpers and weapons aren't enough to instill you with confidence, checkpoints are unlocked every third stage. That is, if you manage to best the mini-bosses that guard the keys to the path you seek. And still, if the game manages to be too difficult or too damn sissy, you can curiously fondle the Blessings and Burden settings, which lets you increase or nerf stats and characteristics, such as health, your and enemy attack damage, and enemy aggressiveness, to name a few options. A word of warning, though: if world notoriety is important to you, know that activating Blessings will disqualify you from the leaderboards. Depending on which ones you activate, they can make the game way too sissy for my taste; inversely, Burdens are only fit for the buffest or most experienced of thieves.

Unfortunately, not everything in City of Brass shines like gold polished on the chest of a subdued intruder. For one, like almost everything that operates on the Unreal 4 engine, this game makes my base PS4 run like it's attempting to initiate time travel. My PS4 sounds like a DeLorean blazing through grasslands at 87 mph five minutes after starting the game.

For comparison, God of War, one of the most visually splendid games on the console that I've had zero technical issues with, doesn't tax my system nearly as hard. I understand that this may be an optimization issue. But I definitely would not have been stymied to find myself back in the 1980's after finishing a run of City of Brass.

Secondly, character movement takes a little bit of time to adjust to. Really, the turning feels way slower than it should. Your hero turns as though he's standing nipples deep in a snowbank, and he's terrified of said snow making contact with said nipples as he's figuring out the best route to warmth. From what I've gathered online, this may be an issue unique to the PS4 version of the game, since it's the only version that runs at 30 fps. Regardless of the issue being present and baffling at first, it becomes a workable character flaw once you get used to it.

Thirdly, auto-aim and hit detection can be amazingly inaccurate and irrational on rare occasions. Regarding auto-aim, your whip will sometimes refuse to strike exactly where intended. If you're trying to, say, separate an enemy's sword from his hand, the insubordinate camera can snap from the hand to another body part. Or if you're trying to trip an enemy by aiming at his feet, the camera can snap up to his torso, causing you to miss the trip attempt, resulting in a headbutt to your chin. Regarding hit detection, enemies have managed to headbutt me from ten feet away. Enough said. Fortunately, these issues were not prevalent or problematic enough to transmogrify City of Brass into City of Irrational Ass.

You've probably noticed that I haven't mentioned anything about CoB's use of procedural generation. That's because, similar to my experience with Crypt of the Necrodancer and Invisible Inc., I was too engrossed with the gameplay to pay it much mind; it made me amnesiac to the soporific effect of the coldness of algorithmic level design. Don't get me wrong; even though CoB's environments aren't as cold in composition as most titles in its genre, thanks largely to its first-person viewpoint of an Arabian Nights aesthetic, they still feel empty of the screams and whispers, the elevating voice, of unique artistry. But that's fine, I suppose; when procedural generation has gameplay this inspiring to play off of, and when it contributes to producing moments of genuine uncertainty, it can prove to be a supplemental blessing rather than a downright visual burden.

Game Information

Platform:
Sony PlayStation 4
Developer(s):
Uppercut Games Pty Ltd
Publisher(s):
Uppercut Games Pty Ltd
Genre(s):
Roguelike
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
Microsoft Xbox One
PC

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Jedediah

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Super Daryl Deluxe - PS4 Review

Remember those weird and awkward days of trying to fit in in high school? Well, they’re about to get weirder. And awkwarder. A retro style game about that crazy and scary period of time during high school, you can follow the poster child for weird and dorky, Daryl, as he tries to make sense of his teenage years. Also, dimensional rifts and brainwashing, strange creatures, and super powers.

Super Daryl Deluxe is a really great nostalgia kick, with an artstyle reminiscent of the Saturday paper cartoon strips, some oddly apt depictions of high school, and a side-scrolling beat-em-up RPG system that makes me think back to old arcade games. We join our hero (sort of) Daryl as he enters Water Falls High School where classrooms are being locked down, students are going missing, and multidimensional rifts are opening up.

Daryl has the lofty goal of making friends, and soon becomes embroiled in a contraband textbook war between his new “friends” and the local “black market” group. There’s delusions and role players abound, and weird monsters you can beat up for change. Pretty normal high school, really. There’s plenty of gags and humor thrown in, and pretty much every caste of high school groupies appear in some form or other throughout the game. So, while the butter knife of Damocles hangs over your head, Daryl sets off to make friends. Oh, and maybe save some people, we’ll see how that goes.

Super Daryl Deluxe is what I can only describe as really freaking weird. A good kind of weird, but weird nonetheless. In order to fight off the creatures from the science lagoon, Daryl needs to use special skills that he learns from pages from a book that brainwashed the world into "world peace", which you can get by exchanging textbooks with your new business partners. You can have up to four skills equipped at once and each has its own cooldown and effective area of attack as well as effects which can be upgraded by earning skill exp which you get at the same time as the normal exp that you use to level up.

I really enjoyed gathering a bunch of skills to put together to see what my favorite string of abilities was. Super Daryl Deluxe is a pretty straight forward metroidvania, with a quest tracking system that will hold up to seven active quests that make tracking progress really easy, and a “quick map” that gets really handy when you forget where you’re going. You can collect some of the weirdest and most interesting equipment I’ve ever seen, and item drops from enemies are thankfully not as arse as I was expecting.

Unfortunately, the side quests do start to devolve into fetch quests that can get super annoying later into the game though the exp and money gained from them will generally keep the game from getting too difficult. The jumping can also get a little awkward for a 2D sidescroller, but for the most part you can get used to it rather quickly.



Side quests aside, there’s still a lot to love about Super Daryl Deluxe such as the music which is really good. The progression of my thoughts about the stage themes went something like this: This is really good, okay I’ve been listening to this for too long, this is getting annoying, this is actually pretty decent. I had a whole wrap-around about the stage themes after listening to them for too long.

I find it really hard to adequately describe Super Daryl Deluxe, because you’d be hard pressed to find something else that’s like enough to compare it too, or to truly describe the quirkiness of it. The game is really great, and while it does have some issues that a lot of games fail in, there’s a lot of positive too. Side quests are easily obtained and managed, the skill purchase and upgrade system is effective, drop rates from enemies aren’t 1% (monster hunters, I’m looking at you for those gems and palliums), the combat is fluid and the ability to devise your own combos is great to keep the game fresh.

On the negative side, side quests will start to feel like a chore eventually, getting better gear can sometimes be too far in between or a pain to get, there are enemies that can flinch lock you so easily you may cry, and the music may tend to start grating on you once you get lost in an area, but all in all there isn’t anything that’s a real turn off for the experience as a whole. Props to the developers for allowing you to re-fight bosses as well, I always enjoy seeing that in a game.

Super Daryl Deluxe is available on Steam and PS4 for a pretty decent price, and I really suggest checking it out, particularly if you’re looking for something new with a nostalgia kick to it. And if that doesn’t sell you, check out Daryl’s theme song, it basically sold me on the game straight off the bat.

Game Information

Platform:
Sony PlayStation 4
Developer(s):
Dan & Gary Games
Publisher(s):
Dan & Gary Games
Genre(s):
RPG
Brawler
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
Microsoft Xbox One
PC

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Richard

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Jaggy's Corner! - Saturday May 5

This has been a very trying week because of news that I didn't want to read. Anyways, this week I have two pieces of good news when it comes to gaming. First let's discuss Stardew Valley.

For the uneducated, Stardew Valley is the spiritual successor to Farmville. It had a large number of features that people enjoyed and other features that were despised. It set the creator of Stardew Valley on a mission to come up with a game that made the fun concepts about Farmville without having all of the irritations.

In Stardew Valley, players take the role of a person who works a boring office job, until receiving a letter from their grandfather. In it, he states that the player will inherit his farm. Because the player is so sick of the 9 to 5 grind, they take a chance and move to the farm. Thus begins the adventures of tilling soil, planting seeds, watering plants, timing crop growth, fishing and/or mining, and building relationships with the other citizens. In short, this game is rather relaxing.

This week, the creator opened up the multiplayer beta version. When in this beta mode, there are a couple of things to know like the game doesn't auto-pause when in the menu screen as it does in single player. That even includes when doing events. As the host of the multiplayer game, I'd be in a cut scene while my friend was running around doing other things. Time still passed at a regular rate.

When a player wants to end the day, all players have to be in bed and answer yes in the dialog box. The same kind of prompt occurs for the festivals, so I've been told.

Another thing to note about the multiplayer beta is that some things are shared where other things are not. Shared things include farm land space, money, and world updates. Individual things include: skill level ups, inventory space, and relationships.

During game play of the beta, I discovered that just because I was able to talk to the wizard, my friend was not able to because he hadn't yet explored the community centre. In other words, certain events are limited, where other things like museum donations show up globally.

Another interesting feature is if a person joins a game and then disconnects, the host has to give the invite code a second time. The code is not the same! And if someone else comes into the game, the houses are not exclusive to particular players. There are four total houses. The host will always remain in the large house but other players might not begin in their houses. Keep that in mind when opening up your games to other people.

I found it's much easier to play Stardew Valley when there are other players in the game. Someone could focus on farming while another can do fishing or mining. Another could head off to the community centre and blacksmith to donate items. The possibilities are endless in the multiplayer of Stardew Valley and I'm happy for it.

If you are even remotely interested in this game, it's fun to play with friends. Now you might be thinking, “How do we get into this beta testing?” First you need to know that to opt into the beta testing, keep in mind that it is only available to Steam and GOG Galaxy users at this time. And any information about how to set it up can be found here though make sure to back up saves first!

Rocket League

There are a couple of different events happening in quick succession.

First up is the Promotion Tournament for NA and EU begin today!

North America begins Saturday May 5th at 12PM PDT (3PM ET) while the European tournament begins Sunday, May 6th at 9AM PDT (12 ET). The following teams will be playing in this promotional tournament:

• Counter Logic Gaming
• Allegiance
• Cloud9
• FlyQuest
• Out of Style
• FNATIC
• Team Secret
• Servette Geneva eSports

The Rival Series will be streamed on Twitch and there will be fan reward possibilities. Make sure to link your Twitch account with your Steam to get a chance at receiving drops! And don't forget, the rewards are NOT guaranteed. Don't spam the chat peeps. It doesn't increase your odds of receiving something.

Secondly, before the Season V World Championship, there will be another Rocket League event to tide everyone over. Rocket League Esports is teaming up with Northern Arena for NARLI 2 where players get a shot at a $50,000 prize pool.

We're teaming up with @NorthernArena for #NARLI 2 this summer!

-Open Qualifiers May 17-18
-Online Regional Finals May 19-20
-Live Finals July 14-15
-$50,000 Prize Pool

Check out the blog for more details!https://t.co/xZtY3dZwLQ pic.twitter.com/YOsUJmsiYJ

— Rocket League Esports (@RLEsports) May 4, 2018

Make sure to check out the NARLI 2 webpage for more information. Also keep updated on Twitter through @RLEsports

Thirdly, LAN was announced in London, England on the June 8-10th weekend. Information about the event can be found here. It's sure to be a great time and I think the Europeans are happy that LAN has finally crossed the ocean again. Make sure to book your hotel and tickets as soon as possible because they will most likely sell out quickly!

This season is sure to excite Rocket League fans everywhere so keep up to date through Twitter for event details, articles, and schedule information.

Until next time peeps!

Article by Susan N.

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Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles is going to the Nintendo Switch - News

I'll be quite honest that everyone should play Yonder:The Cloud Catcher Chronicles. It has to be one of the most relaxing experiences that I've ever had. With me having gone through it and Lauren having platinumed it, it's fair to say that this title means a lot to the team. So we are happy to announce that this blissfully relaxing title will be releasing for the Nintendo Switch on May 17!

Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles Comes to Nintendo Switch™ May 17

BRISBANE, QUEENSLAND – May 2, 2018 – Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles, the open-world adventure from the former Activision producer and Rocksteady veterans at Prideful Sloth where players explore the vibrant but troubled island of Gemea, will offer a relaxing experience on Nintendo Switch May 17. A Switch-exclusive photo mode will help you capture precious moments and share them with your friends.

Shipwrecked due to an unexpected storm, your young hero or heroine soon learns that they're on the gorgeous island of Gemea. While taking refuge in a cave, a magical sprite explains that the land's natural beauty is tainted by a strange, dark substance called Murk. With the sprite by your side, it's up to you to both cleanse the land and assist the townsfolk and gain their trust. Farm, craft, cook, brew, and fish to restore the land to its former glory!

Wander through grand forests, resplendent peaks, and breezy shores to befriend Gemea's lively villagers and adorable animals. Eight biomes with breathtaking day, night, and weather cycles abound with sprites that will help expel the murk, offer quests to help you earn your place on the island, and an abundance of other secrets to discover at your leisure.

The delightful wonders of Yonder are like a warm hug, and the Nintendo Switch system lets you take that hug wherever you want. Kick off those shoes at the end of a long day and relax while you continue your journey of self-discovery.

"Yonder can be your home away from home on Nintendo Switch," said Cheryl Vance, co-founder and director at Prideful Sloth. "We hope to see players embrace the calming feel of the game, no matter where they are."

Yonder will be available digitally for $29.99 USD on the Nintendo eShop, and will be available via physical retail for $39.99 on June 12 in the United States and June 15 in Europe and Australia.
Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles will be playable in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, and Brazilian Portuguese.

To learn more, please visit the official site, or follow the game on Twitter and Facebook.

Article by Pierre-Yves

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Impact Winter - PS4 Review

Impact Winter make me think a lot about home. While the scale may be a bit different, the types of crazy winters that we can have in Canada and the conditions required to brave the outside can be something else. Essentially trapped inside of a church for survival during an attempt to wait out a rescue after the impact of an asteroid, you’re going to have your work cut out for you.

Impact Winter imparted two separate feelings onto me. The first was that of calm. White fluffy snow is all you can see in any direction and the soft musical score in the background just allows you to quietly and relaxingly explore outside of the church.

The second however was one of stress. You only have so many supplies and there’s no chance of them lasting thirty days. You have four other people to worry about not only from a “are they well taken care of?” scenario, but also of “a are they going to kill each other?” if their arguments escalate while you’re out. The thing is you don’t know. The wind may blow either way just as it does outside when you also have to worry about not freezing to death because the wind just knocked the temperature down another fifteen degrees and the sun is about to set.

That is one of the main focuses on Impact Winter. You simply don’t know. The only certainty is uncertainty as each playthrough is different as you never know what you may find, who you may find, or what may find you. Let’s just say that bleeding to death because bandages couldn’t be found anywhere is not a pleasant way to go. I’m still angry at you damned wolves.

There are two major factors to consider both before heading out into the cold and while out in the cold itself. Before leaving you have to check up on your fellow survivors and make sure that they will be getting enough food and water in order to survive as you’re the boss and you’re the one in charge of rations. More than this though is that by talking to your fellow survivors they can not only give you quests but items in order to help you survive just that much better once you leave the confines of the church. Tents, keys in order to bring something back that comes with its own amount of goodies on information on where to find what they need in order to in turn make your life easier. Once you’ve collected all of that, add a bit of fuel to the fire, which can only be fueled for a total of twenty four hours, and then head out.

Once you’re outside there are a lot of choices that have to be made. Where are you planning on going and what are you going there for? You’ve only got two hands and your inventory space is limited. This took some time in order to drive home because I wanted to bring EVERYTHING back. Nothing is useless. Everything that you come across can serve one purpose or another. A must to carry though are pain killers and bandages as you have health and if something attacks you, you may have to heal yourself before you bleed out on the ground. See previous comment about being angry at the wolves.

While I did enjoy my time with Impact Winter, it does have some issues. For example, and probably sounding like a broken record, those damned wolves were at the center of it. Coming across a new set of houses to explore I was chased by a pack of wolves wanting nothing more than my non-frozen corpse to eat for lunch. Well the first time it wouldn’t have even happened but now and again, as it’s not constant, when being chased you may not be able to dive into the safety of a nearby building. This can cause you to get injured and if you don’t have what you need to heal yourself, it’s only a matter of time until you die. Which leads into the next issue.

You can only save while you sleep. The reason that this is an issue is that there are some things that you consume which will bring your energy back up making it that you’re not tired enough to hit the sack. This means that as long as you are running around with over eighty percent? Saving isn’t a possibility. Also because of the nature of it, you could be going in and out of various places not thinking about it, eating or drinking enough to keep you going and then BAM. You die. Well if you’ve never slept that’s going to be bad but if you slept a few days back in game, it’ll still be bad enough. Relying on that sole mechanic instead of an autosave that would simply lock you into your bad choices may not have been the best way to go.

Impact Winter was a refreshing touch on the survival genre for me. While there are stressors, there are still relaxing elements making the experience enjoyable even while it’s out to kill you in the below zero temperatures that it provides to you.

Game Information

Platform:
Sony PlayStation 4
Developer(s):
Mojo Bones Ltd
Publisher(s):
Bandai Namco Entertainment
Genre(s):
Survival
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
Microsoft Xbox One
PC

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Pierre-Yves

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Utomik has now launched! - News

 

So I thought about saving this until tomorrow but Utomik have shown us a lot of love so why wait for tomorrow when you can do it today!

Utomik has officially now fully launched. Having recently gone through a graphical overhaul, the gaming service is now fully in the wild. We still have some coverage to come, but in the meantime check out some of our reviews and impressions of the platform.

Also, here's their press release!

--

Utomik has officially launched!

The day has finally come, and we couldn’t be more excited!

Today marks a big milestone for us. Utomik has now launched, meaning we have left open beta and are ready to take on the future! We’ve come a long way since we started in 2014 and we now have 750+ games, 100+ partners and received overwhelming support from our lovely subscribers!

Together we’ve saved Gotham in the Batman: Arkham series, become president in Saints Row IV, led an elite unit in Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, and landed flat on our faces in Human: Fall Flat.​

If you’re receiving this but aren’t currently on Utomik, it’s never too late! We still offer our free 14-day trial and you can start a personal subscription for $6.99 or share a Family Plan with three other people for $9.99 per month.

We’re excited for what the future holds, come write it together with us! <3

--

Article by Pierre-Yves

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Dungeon Stars - PC Preview

On our next episode of Dungeon Stars, PY takes to the gauntlet dressed up like a fire wielding Viking smacking anything in his way. Big, small or flying, your better watch out because he's coming out a swinging!

Currently in Early Access, Dungeon Stars is a lot of fun. Starting off with a choice between being a Warrior, Mage or Rogue, you'll then be running a variety of automatic side scrolling gauntlets in order to get out on the other side. Why would you tempt these death inducing gauntlets? For the loot of course!

Basically being a Roguelike, you'll be dying. A lot. Automatically running from one foe to the next your characters will automatically be swinging unless you otherwise prompt them for another action. Does you for have armor? Heavily swing at them to break it. Are they heavily swinging or madly swinging at you? Block. As you take on these enemies you'll be getting experience and new equipment so even if you fall, you'll be on better footing to try again the next time.

Over and over again! With the speed of gameplay however it really doesn’t feel that long as you go through floors of a dungeon until reaching the final room and the treasure chest that is your ultimate reward. In the meantime however you’ll be obtaining experience, gold and equipment in order to level and gear up your character(s). After a few stages you are given a second ally before eventually getting a third in order to raise your chances of success even further.

While leveling up is nice, ranking up is better. Requiring gold and items, ranking up unlocks greater potential to your heroes such as the ability to bring a pet along for more options which dungeon crawling. Alongside the pet, what I really liked about these, is that equipment isn’t about adding stats to a pool. It’s about functionality such as adding in freezing damage, chances to launch elemental bolts, sure adding attack and defense is there but sometimes they aren’t worth it compared to a lot of other funky abilities that you can equip.

Being Early Access there are some issues but short of one mildy game breaking one, things have been relatively solid. I had a character fall in battle and after the end of the floor where you are given a chance to heal up or resurrect allies, I couldn't proceed because one of them was dead. This shouldn’t matter as I had done it before but time to time it’ll decide that you need to shutdown in order to restart the game and thus, continue the dungeon. Thankfully everything is autosaved so it’s just a matter of how long does it take in order to reload.

The big issue that I had however is that the controller was hard to use in the sense that you have to figure out what does what on your own. The entire interface is configured and visually prompted for a keyboard and there are no settings in order to switch it so you know what you’re doing. Even after taking it for multiple spins and figuring it all out, I honestly felt more comfortable with a keyboard and mouse to go through the menus and dungeons because they were much more responsive. In order to play from further away I hope they refine their controller logistics.

Overall though, Dungeon Stars is shaping up nicely. With plenty of replay and randomness for what you’ll run up against alongside a scaling difficulty, there’s more than enough to swing at. It remains to be seen however if there will be an infusion of storytelling or if it’ll be simply a gameplay centred experience. With the artstyle? One liners and a easy going story would make for a great addition.

Game Information

Platform:
PC
Developer(s):
Furnace Games
Publisher(s):
Riposte Games
Genre(s):
RPG
Platformer
Action
Adventure
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
N/A

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Pierre-Yves

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Dark Rose Valkyrie - PC Review

Porting to PC from the PS4, Dark Rose Valkyrie makes an appearance to fight off the monsters called chimera in a JRPG brought to you by Compile Heart. Although DRV has an enjoyable story, characters, and battle system, the harshness of the port to PC just hits so much harder.

To be perfectly blunt before we begin, I wasn’t able to make it too far into the game for a number of reasons. The major reason being the grotesque frame rate drop that was almost always occurring. I think the best rate I had was around 20 FPS, and the worst felt like 4. I also had a bunch of crashes, usually occurring just after having beaten a boss, which was infuriating enough that I almost flipped at least two tables. The game itself is pretty good, but until the PC version gets a patch to improve the frame/crash rate, I can only recommend picking it up on PS4 if you’re really that interested in it.

Now, PC port aside, I found the game rather enjoyable. Like a mash-up of Omega Quintet battle system and Agarest's leveling system, one thing I’m always pleased about with Compile Heart games is the fact that they’re always willing to tweak their standard combat or game-flow mechanics, which they’ve shown in Dark Rose Valkyrie once again.

The story is, for the most part, rather cliché: a meteor caused mutations in living things, turning them into monsters, and you need to fight against them. In order to combat the mutant “chimera”, a team is assembled with your main character heading the team as the captain, for no real discernible reason. Along with your improbably female cast of teammates (at a ratio of 5 to 2), you are off to beat up some monsters and save the human race!

Game flows between spending time in your main base chatting with your teammates and upgrading your gear and purchasing bonuses with your medals you earn from completing missions, and heading out into the wilderness to explore dungeons and beat up beasties.

As is pretty standard fair for Compile Heart games, you’ll be wandering around a free roam style world/dungeon map, slapping enemies (or getting slapped) to initiate a quasi-turn based combat system. In battle you have an active gauge that will have character and enemy tokens progress up at a rate dependent on speed. Once a character or enemy hits a certain point, they can decide on an action to perform. Each action, whether it be a special move, a normal combo, or using an item, has a “combat level” value. These values determine how much further up the gauge a token has to progress before the action is performed, adding an interesting additional strategy portion to the combat, as enemy turns can get delayed while they are being attacked.

Combos are able to be edited, and there are a wide amount of moves to choose from in order to build your combos, each of which have distance values and level values that determine range and combo strength respectively. It’s a fairly standard battle system, although it has a lot of additional functions that you may need to keep track of, as each combo move can have both an element and attack type, so you need to pay attention in case you keep smacking fire/blunt resistant enemies with the attacks they can just sit there and scoff at. Some monsters also have breakable parts, which you can break to slow down or prevent enemy attack skills, or to provide a weakness for you to exploit.

One of the “selling features” of DRV is the interview system, where you try and determine who the (presumed) randomly decided traitor is, through conducting a series of interviews, and picking out which of your team members is the betrayer. As far as I can tell, the traitor is determined mostly by your actions and interactions, so the traitor may not always be the same every time you play. While an interesting concept, I didn’t really feel the interview was a really big draw, and more like a detective mini-game added in to break up the monotony. Because yes, the game will get pretty repeatable after a while, simply running to places to pick up items or beat up monsters for side missions, then going to beat up a larger monster, then back to the small monsters over and over.

While the semi-active nature of the combat system helps keep this at bay, it still gets extremely repetitive rather quick, and monsters become more of a nuisance than anything else. Thankfully, Compa has thrown in an auto-battle option, that will choose the “best fit” actions to get you through a battle, which is really nice when you accidentally get into a battle with enemies less than half your level.

In traditional Compile Heart fashion, you’ll be able to recognize the music and sprawling landscape designs if you’ve ever played a previous Compile Heart title, as the music tends to be remastered versions of songs from previous titles. On the plus side, at least they use all the best songs to remaster, so the soundtrack is enjoyable. The graphics, unfortunately, look like they’ve been ported from a Vita, with no upscaling whatsoever. In other words, the graphics are, comparatively, pretty bad. The character mouth movements are weird and nonsensical, and occasionally the world map camera will pan out to a bird’s eye view that keeps you from seeing anything halfway decently, particularly if they’re hiding in the fracking trees.

Occasionally I found the music to be choppy during cut-scenes, although the voice overs would still flow smoothly, and while I appreciate not forcing a player to go in-depth into reading every single last bit of info on the battle system, some explanation for key actions should probably be left in. On the plus side, all the main characters are pretty unique, and I didn’t really dislike any of them, which is pretty rare for me.

Overall, I’m forced to say that the PC port specifically is way to subpar to be anything other than “disappointing” in its current state. While the combat, characters, and slightly darker-than-usual Compa plotline is engaging, the egregiously awful frame rate kills any motivation I have to play Dark Rose Valkyrie for any period of time longer than twenty minutes per sitting. If you have a PS4, please go check it out on that instead, and you won’t be disappointed.

Game Information

Platform:
PC
Developer(s):
Idea Factory
Compile Heart
Publisher(s):
Idea Factory International
Genre(s):
RPG
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
Sony PlayStation 4

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Richard

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Etrian Odyssey 5: Beyond the Myth - 3DS Review

I had the chance to sit down to the demo before launch which contained the first three floors and a level cap of the final release. Easily importing that data, my characters and my progress into the full version, it was time to go further. Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth is one of the best in the main line and hopefully it isn't the last as we still don't know the fate of the handheld's successor.

In a lot of ways this latest entry into the dungeon crawler is the most accessible yet. The ONLY complaint that I have about this map drawing quest of exploration is the lack of being able to teleport to the entrances of cleared floors. EO5 has brought back the need of the Ariadne Thread if you need to make a hasty escape from the labyrinth's dangerous floors.

Short of that the rest is incredible. Atlus have added a lot of small touches that just made everything better. Item management has always been a tough one as once you really get going you'll have to make hard choices. Do you start ditching new materials and monster parts or do you head back to town to sell them for cash and unlock new items. Now available is a seperate food tab that doesn't count or clog up your material spaces and character race abilities that allow for expansions of your carrying capacity.

On the subject of the food, it has made dungeon crawling just a little bit easier as it allows for both HP and TP regeneration outside of combat. If that extra stock wasn't enough you also now have access to cooking fire and recipes in order to enhance the restorative properties. While you can't use these in battle, having them as an option can make quite the difference.

Map drawing is as robust as ever allowing players the options to do it all from scratch or to have the system do a good portion of the work. Drawing walls, coloring in the floor and adding details and notes for recurring events take seconds allowing you to either quickly recall what is available between larger breaks or help others as you recreate and post them online. If you've made a mistake on a brush stroke or a symbol placement there are erasers to erase lines and paint on the floor as well as a garbage bin to remove the symbols.

Exploration surprised me as it wasn't simple a rehash of everything previously done. There are several new elements such as:

• switches that turn roadblocks into doors;
• double triggers that change where barricades appear. These will often get in your way but sometimes come in great use blocking a FOE (Formido Oppugnatura Exsequens aka VERY BIG and on the screen enemy) from moving closer to you or in your path; and
• finally some adjustments to those FOE as some will follow their paths across land and water with splashing effects while they move through water.

So there are the elements that have made the series what it is but at the same time this newest entry hasn't sat on what it has already done but continued to push the style forward with some new surprises.

One thing about this series that continuously astonishes me is the sheer amount of time that you can spend dungeon crawling and not even realize it. Exploring floors from top to bottom and right to left ot make sure you haven't missed anything, putting in all of the details so that you remember where something was for later such as gathering points for specific items like apples or wheat and this is before grinding for experience.

Enemies obviously get tougher after every floor, bosses are always a true test of your might however they can sometimes be more manageable than a floor's FOE. A prime example of this is that after I cleared the first Stratum I still couldn't handle the giant shrimp until much later. There's a reason they show up on the screen. They really are enemies that shouldn't be taken lightly and because of this it's your choice to do so. The rewards are always worth it though.

There's not much more to say than what I've already said back in November. All of the little changes and new touches add up to make this newest entry into the series better than the previous ones. The only bonus now, compared to then, is that a new title has been announced that we simply have to wait for. Is it a new core entry or a spin-off? We know it's not an Untold so it'll be interesting to see where the series goes next as after this one, there really isn't much left that they can improve upon without making something brand new.

Game Information

Platform:
Nintendo 3DS
Developer(s):
Atlus
Publisher(s):
Atlus
Genre(s):
Dungeon Crawler
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
None

Source:
Purchased

Article by Pierre-Yves

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