So awhile back I played Mighty Gunvolt. I knew of a sequel but as far as I knew it wasn't on Steam. Well now it's been on Steam for quite awhile. While I have issues recording Luminous Avenger iX at least this game is playable by my potato of a desktop.
Story
So this pretty much has a story of Beck, Gunvolt, or Ekoro (And a cast of DLC characters) are trapped in a VR Simulation and they don't know. They only clue they have to go on is some random dark figure that looks like an edgy dark version of a different character says that they need to go through the game and reach the end.
You fight 8 bosses then one of the other characters. Once that's finished, the real mastermind reveals himself as Teseo (Which I think he's from Azure Striker Gunvolt 2). Teseo says you're never getting out of the VR space and he's using the character you're playing as to make Youtube videos and Twitch Streams (While it's not specifically Youtube and Twitch where else would he stream to?). So you work together to put a stop to Teseo.
Teseo reminds me of those Youtubers/LiveStreamers that are talked about all the time. The ones where they do something horrible but only get a slap on the wrist for it.
Teseo's speech is pretty much all internet leet speak. At this point some of this statements are outdated but this game is a few years old at the time I'm playing it. After you defeat him he decides to cut his losses and reset the VR world trapping your character in it. Which at that point they get saved by someone else. And that's pretty much the game.
Well someone has to be. I don't hate you Beck but man support for you is minuscule at the moment.
This is an action platformer so I don't expect much of a story. Just a reason as to what you're doing and some sort of purpose to keep going.
Gameplay
The gameplay is borderline hard. It's using the 8-Bit style of old platformers but rather loosely. It doesn't use super hard jumps where you have to stand at the very ledge to even hope you make it. It does have the classic knockback mechanics, where taking damage in the wrong spot means death.
There's also a customization option. So you can edit how you attack with each character. Honestly I feel like I needed this option to finish the game. Playing it with default settings felt near impossible at points. You can just go through each level with a default loadout (And there's an achievement for that), but you're in for a bad time. Or maybe a good time if you're that type of player. I do appreciate that such a challenge exist so that a player doesn't have to say "Oh this game is too easy."
I honestly felt like the game was near impossible cause of some of the cheap shots Mighty Gunvolt Burst takes at you. Even with customizations a no death run felt too hard. I gave up doing a no death run at the last stage where it's essentially a boss rush + 3 more bosses. I have to bring up the customizations. You can customize your character a lot but the problem is you have to unlock them. Some of them are unlocked by clearing the stage a few times. Others you have hunt for it. So with the stages here's what I did.
1 - I pulled up a guide that shows all the hidden item locations
2 - I ran through each stage and collected all the hidden items
3 - Customized my character with all the unlocked customizations
4 - Run the level a 2nd time.
This made things SO MUCH EASIER! There was still frustrating parts that hung me up but thanks to customizing my stress levels were kept in check.
All the characters play generally different from each other. And there's tons of customizations for each of them.
Beck - Controls a lot like Megaman with an air dash. You can also customize how each weapon fires. From trajectory, damage, elements, speed, etc. Even a charge shot.
Gunvolt - Gunvolt gets his abilities from his own game.
(DLC from here on)
Ekoro - Fires arrows and can hover. She can also activate an invicinbility mode.
Call - Can hover and air dash, She can also use a barrier to nullify attacks. Call gets little robots called Patches and they attack in a different manner depending on which one you used.
Joule - Uses her songs to attack enemies.
Ray - Fights up close and has attacks depending on burst gauge. She also slowly loses health. But she can regain it by attacking enemies. (WHY COULDN'T IT BE THIS WAY IN MIGHTY NO.9?!)
Copen - Fights with an assortment of bullets, Can dash in any direction, and has Lola to use various special attacks.
Kurona - fights like Ekoro but with a spear. She can also pierce enemy shields.
Tenzou - Fires beams from his VR Goggles like he's a wannabe Cyclops. When he activates his Doki Doki mode he'll pull out a special gun with different effects even stopping time.
So there's a lot you can do for this game. I seriously appreciate the customization options. The problem does arise that once you find the right one you never want to go back and obviously some customizations are better than others. I tried making Beck have Megaman X customizations. Making each elemental weapon do different things and having a charged version.
Music
So from what I can tell. The music in this game is essentially 8-bit renditions of Mighty No 9's OST. I like it. But it also makes me think of how I could never hear the OST in Mighty No.9 at all. Anyway the style of this game is supposed to be retro. I can't help but wonder what it would be like if it was modernized.
Graphics
The graphics for this game are pretty good. I personally enjoy the chibi-fied versions of the characters along with the 8-Bit Sprites. And while the animations are simple they work. I didn't find any problems with it.
Overall
This is an enjoyable game. And the DLC adds quite a bit more fun. Wish I had more time to play the game...or well less games so I could easily come back to this game.
MegaMan Maverick Hunter X
This was one of the many "You must have this game on your PSP" titles. At least I think it was. I mean it's no Crisis Core FF7 but this was very much anticipated among many people. A hope that Megaman X would get a revamp in it's game to keep it alive. At this point the X series was pretty much dead. X8 and X Command Mission came out not too long before this (or was it after). This was definitely on my list of games to play. I mean it's MegaMan. Why not?
Coming back it now at the end of 2019. I looked bits up on this game and well...it's not as well recieved as I thought. The main complaints I heard was that this game was too easy and that it's the same game all over again but with a new coat of paint. Wasn't this what fans wanted though? I mean this game does enough new to not say that this isn't just a simple port or HD Remake (Well remake).
Well Maverick Hunter X does some changes but the story is the more or less the same as the original Megaman X on SNES. Difference is that you have a more clarification as to what's going on in this game. Before this, all I knew was that Sigma went Maverick and has 8 robot masters to take over an island and it's X's job to stop him.
Now it's Sigma wants X to realize his potential cause he's special. Although in some cases it doesn't look like it. X apparently thinks on a different level than every other Reploid around. Which this game does go out of it's way to show that X is different. But really it just X more of a character so that you're not running into the future Megaman X games saying things like, "Man X is just a hypocrite. Always complaining that he has to fight. But shoots dudes anyway."
This game also gives more character to the mavericks. With the voice work and just there attitude on the boss encounter. Which I'm thankful for cause there description isn't in the manual. I wouldn't have thought that any of these guys were once good guys. And I'll take some dialogue over a Wiki article that I'm probably not gonna read thorougly.
Side Note: I have nothing against wiki pages. I just don't really read them. I'm there more for the images and any helpful info. I also find it rather annoying when I see LPers read word from word from the Wiki about a certain section in a game.
Music, Sound Effects, etc
It's a Megaman game. I almost never hate the music from a megaman game. I can't think of a song where I would just say it's mediocre or outrigtht hate it. I mean the music is always great.
The voice work is great too. Even if this was made in the age where any voice acting in English is automatically considered horrible unless it's voiced by one of the famous voice actors. Well if Mark Gatha isn't famous enough then I don't know who is.
Aside from Mark Gatha the voice work is great all around. Every voice on this game fits the character and gives the personality you'd expect from them.
Gameplay
While it's not perfect. It's definitely Mega Man X gameplay. Enjoyable I can't help but stress that a lot. There's a few changes to the stages as well. Such as the locations of X's armor upgrade capsules and Heart Tanks. And a few of the stages have changed a bit in design as well. Certain weapons that used to be completely broken in SNES have been tweaked so you can't abuse them.
The game does however experience lag/slowdown at points. But this is due to the PSP. Just like the SNES when there's too many enemies on screen or too many things happening all at once the game will slowdown. Rather annoying to deal with.
I want to address the reviews I read where the complaint was the game being too easy or it's all the same thing. I question whether or not those guys played in Hard mode. Hard mode definitely adds some difficulty to this game. Aside from the usual adding more enemies that hit harder. The bosses actually function a bit differently than there SNES counterparts. Either having a new attack that will catch you off guard if you're rooted in playing like this is a SNES game. Or the original attacks act in a way to where you have to respond differently to them. Storm Eagle's dive attacks now flies in different directions. Chill Penguin has an attack that ricochets off the wall making it hard to dodge or prepare to counter him.
Probably what makes people say this game is too easy besides the obvious "Oh I played it a ton on the SNES" statement. Is that bosses react to there weakness in such a way that you can almost cheese them out due to there animations. Hitting them with there weakness can pretty much guarantee that you'll win as you'll be able to stun lock them in a repeated animation.
There's also the Hadouken. Unlike the classic SNES version you can actually save that you collected this upgrade. So one hit kills for everyone.
Vile Mode is a treat. I was honestly expecting to have a play as Zero mode. But this is better in my opinion. Vile apparently has his story take place before X's story or the OVA. His gameplay is completely different from X having 3 weapons that you can customize. While they have no ammo there is a charge time and rate of fire you have to deal with. Vile can run fast but he can't do dashes like X. So you have to make your jumps precise and use your weapons to help Vile make the proper jumps. It's almost like an old school platformer. It's definitely harder since you don't always have a boss's weakness packed with you. Vile's weapons also has a ton of recoil. So using certain weapons can certainly get you killed. The end of Vile mode is a fight against X and Zero and avoiding there attacks is a pain. Even there final attack which looks to have homing properties.
So getting around to wrapping up demos. I'm rather pissed off that the one I just finished got hit copyright after I was approved to play it and the company sent me a free game code for it. But that's another story. Let's talk a Dystopian Noir Adventure. Backbone: Prologue. Cause the full game isn't out yet.
Backbone is about a raccoon private investigator named Howard Lotor and from the looks of things barely scrapes by on his job. Not cause he sucks at it but cause who really needs a Private Investigator. This is a pixel adventure game. This is the second one I've seen using this style of art. The first being Uncanny Valley. Well for Backbone instead of a horror concept we have a dystopian mafia concept. More on that in a bit.
Story or My Experience Really
So we start out and get a case from an otter asking us to look into her husband, Jeremy Green's whereabouts. While questioning her about his whereabouts she does get a bit defensive about some questions but she tells Howard what he needs to know. So it's out to the streets to dig up some info.
Where you sleep is in the same room as your kitchen and your bathroom.
The environment is definitely a dystopia. It's a rundown city that obviously has its dark corners. Chatting up with everyone here I try my best to avoid bringing up that Howard is a PI. I also try to keep things friendly so that any information wouldn't be so hard to get. Everyone here feels natural. The America Social Class system is heavily in play here. Most people you end up talking to are in the working class or worse.
There's a cop I avoid like the plague cause Howard hints that he's not on good terms with him. There's an elephant that's possibly a bigot selling papers. He hates everyone else that sells on the street cause it's ruining his business and he's pretty sure they don't have a license. Almost everyone I talk to on the street has problems with money and whatever's going on at home.
As I start digging up clues about the Jeremy. I get a clue saying that he's most likely at the club. So now I need a way in. And the bouncer isn't willing the budge. Time to find a way in. Well I tried a ticket I found in the garbage...yeah that didn't work. The bouncer realized it and wasn't gonna honor that.
Forgot the Fonzee look was thing.
So after talking to Larry, one of Howard's old friends about getting in he says to talk to some drug dealer on the street. So I chat him up. I avoid bringing the cops into the mess. Cops can mess things up quickly. Not that I don't trust cops but given the narration of the story I think things would just get hairy. Anyway the drug dealer says he can get Howard in and in exchange I leave him alone. Okay.
So in the club the atmosphere feels rather positive but suspicious. I get a lead that Jeremy did show up in here but not where exactly he left to. I then come across a girl who's too buzzed out of her mind to even hold a conversation with. Then I encounter the owner of the club, Clarrisa who also happens to be the current leader of the mafia. Oh boy. She doesn't like that I'm hiding who I am and that I'm searching for Jeremy. So she kicks me out.
Bad vibes going off immediately after meeting her.
Well gotta find another way in. After pitching ideas with Larry. He says I shouldn't press this any further. But tells me about using the back door or the roof. Well considering I just got kicked out, the back door isn't really an option. I mean if I had a gun maybe...but I would bet it's still not a viable option. Also investigating the delivery van. There's notes about the deliveries being late and having to deliver too much. Next to the van is an angry mother. She tells me that her daughter left for this place after a fight and she hasn't been allowed to see her daughter at all. She says the place is a whore house and all she wants to do is see her daughter. I agree to look for her as well, cause I'm nice. Honestly the case might be connected.
So to get to the roof I need to climb the newspaper stand. But it's managed by the elephant who's still angry. And the guy he's angry at just showed up. I can't climb the newsstand unless I help him get rid of the other guy. So I chat up the guy selling from his cart. After being friendly with him I owe him a favor for being nice. (I hope being nice isn't gonna slap me in the face later). Anyway with that out the way I can finally climb the newsstand to get to the roof of the club.
So the puzzle here is I need to find the code to open the door to the lift. The code is somewhere among all this clutter. How do you find the code?
Now the game kicks in giving me somewhat of a stealth mission. I have to sneak around a bit. I end up in a girls room. Become somewhat of a klepto taking something important from there and leave. Then I head further in. I find Clarissa's room...nothing seems out of the ordinary except Jeremy's tie is left hanging behind a painting. It's a secret passage. Well I end up in what looks like a kitchen? It's actually a freezer. And the door is stuck. After messing around a bit I manage to find a way out. Now I have to get past the kitchen staff. Not too hard but I end up stuck in a locker room. After spending near 20 minutes on a puzzle I figure a way out. So now I'm in some area really dark and its rank with the smell of drugs. In the back room I found Jeremy...or what's left of him. He's dead and being cut up. Oh dear.
After hiding in a trash can from the guy doing the disposal duty. I make my escape. The game goes into cutscene mode and Howard is outside barfing. Not sure if it's from what he saw or the smell of the drugs. The demo ends there.
I feel like this is a case where we bit off more than we could chew. Besides the lighting here. That guy lying there is dead.
I know it's not much of a summary but I was just going off what I remember and I didn't want to spend too much time talking about every little tidbit. I think other people should find it for themselves.
Gameplay
I'm supposed to assume the role of a P.I. so I gotta act it.
Well I generally explained the gameplay. It's pretty much just walking or running around chatting with people, finding clues, and solving puzzles. I do like how dialogue has multiple options. So you can easily ruin a relationship or start one which I guess would benefit you in the main game. Most games with multiple dialogue options are generally whether or not you want to die or just red herrings.
Stealth Section.
I'm also glad that there's no point and click bits. Point and click in adventure games are usually complicated in some way. Like there's parts where you have to click a specific spot to make something happen. This game does not have that from what I could see.
Graphics
Don't Shame My Fleas! Feel like a statement's being made here.
Art is our only salvation from the horror of existence. Wow that is true in so many ways.
Well Pixel based art. You either like or you don't. Actually I would say it's the amount of detail that goes into it that matters to me. This game gives me the rundown city feel and nails it. There's no AND SUDDENLY ALIENS or something weird here.
The characters stand out as well. One look at them and you can tell what's going with there lives. There's also tidbits that reach out to me to let me know there's more to this world than what you see.
Overall
I'm curious to see where this game goes. It left me on a cliffhanger and the characters were interesting enough that I didn't write them off as some throw away NPCs.
I decided to come back to Castlevania Judgement. I wasn't one of those guys that played it once and said it sucked. I generally enjoyed it. But thanks to other games and that the online playbase was a ghost town. There wasn't much fun to be had. So I just stopped. I unlocked everyone, Got a few true endings, and just stopped. Now I come back to this...Not as great as I remember.
Online
Well I can't tell you anything about the online as well it's dead. Nintendo killed it. What was it like back then? Well no one played it when I playing it back then so still couldn't tell you. I could only go off word of mouth and what I heard was that the online was no good. Pretty much like any fighting game on the Wii just not made for online.
Story
Well the story goes like this. A Time Rift has opened up gathering warriors from various timelines of Castlevania (Yet somehow skipping Soma Cruz & Johnathan's timeline as well as many others. BUT THEY CAN INCLUDE SHANOA.). A man named Aeon introduces himself to whoever you pick. He tells you in this rift of time you can find what your heart most desires, but you must pass a series of trials. The character's don't really question it and go along with it. They're actually far more accepting and understanding of what's going on compared to other games.
The story seems to range from alright to WHA?. Certain characters motives are simple especially considering the times they were pulled from. Others...well you probably want to bash your head in. Well really only one character's story makes me want to bash my head in. There's 2 others that just make me want to slap the character. At the same time I can let it go cause it's not as cringy as some make it out to be.
I personally enjoyed Grant, Cornell, and Golem's story. Grant wanted to be the one to marry Sypha but never told her how he feels nor Trevor. Cornell wants to find a way to break the werewolf curse so he can live in peace. As furry as I am hey being a werewolf obviously isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Golem wants to be human but he can only have some form of sentience while in the time rift....poor guy.
The characters in question would be.
Eric Lecarde: Jealous of the Vampire Killer he wants to prove that the Alucard Spear is superior to the Vampire Killer (the Whip). His character is very haughty basically challenging everyone expecting to be treated like a man.
Sypha Belnades: She's pulled before Castlevania 3 even happens. Being a servant of the church and judges everyone harshly. Mainly due to herself and her sister witches being killed and discriminated against. Essentially don't cross Sypha.
Maria Renard: OH JOY...So I don't want to call this wrong but I feel like this is loli syndrome. Maria still being a child wants to "Grow" bigger and is jealous of everyone else who looks better than her or essentially has bigger boobs. And the dialogue literally focuses on that.
You have to beat the game twice.
So in order for everyone to reach the true ending. You have to beat story mode with all the characters at least once. Each time you do this with a different character Aeon will appear at the end and say that the key has been collected. Giving off this vibe that he's the true villain or something. Once you get all the keys. You run the story again. But this time you have 2 more stages. Now you fight Aeon and the true final boss.
Aeon explains that in order to leave this time rift you must defeat this boss named Time Reaper. The only thing we know about the Time Reaper is that he comes from 10,000 years past or future....probably the future. After managing to defeat him you get an ending that's just a wall of text. It essentially tells you that everyone made it back to there own timelines and the character your playing as does there role in there game. It doesn't tell you the ending to the game there from. I see this as "Hey go play the other Castlevania games to find out more."
It's not bad. I mean it's a fighting game so story doesn't mean too much. At least it's not a visual novel type story. Not that I don't mind those, just that those can take forever and tend to force you down one path.
Graphics
Well these are Wii Graphics...although that makes me sound like I'm giving them an excuse to be the way they are. This was released in November 2008 in the US and later in 2009 in Japan and Europe.
First off to attempt to look at this from a pure graphics standpoint. The graphics aren't horrible. I'm sure some people will note the character default faces during dialogue. There eyes don't really move and certain other features stand out heavily. The environments/stages are alright. It also runs pretty smoothly. My main gripe here would be the camera work. Cause this is a 3D Arena fighter. The camera zooms in or out to keep both characters in sight. This can actually make things difficult as I had times where I couldn't tell if I dodged attacks properly or spaced out my attacks well enough. Hit detection I also question at times.
Now to the part that everyone focuses on. Which is somewhat strange to me. The design. In particular the character designs. I'm so used to hearing people make complaints about games not running at 60 FPS or more or that there's a lack of expression in characters, or models looking stiff. Instead this is one of those cases where the main complaint is character design.
A long time ago I did attempt a defense at this design choice. Well I was like 22 and didn't know any better. Or cared. Even now I feel a little biased. Much less than how I was back then. Let me go through these one by one.
Simon
Serious JRPG vibes coming off this look.
This feels like they should've said to the artist "please fix this" Or make it some alternate costume. This outfit looks like some sort of JRPG thing. Or a nightclub thing. It's not horrible but it's not how I want to remember Simon Belmont...and I barely played any Castlevania games. Interesting Take but...eh.
D+
Trevor
Uhhhh...Ralph??? Also looks like the kind of guy that would give you a combat tutorial. Actually he does give you the tutorial.
Strange enough I could see this look working. His other game looks feel rather generic. Here he looks like a seasoned hunter. Heck he looks like a character that would appear in front of the new guy character of a JRPG giving you the tutorial. This look could pass for a lot games.
B
Eric
Stuck up little rich kid is what this says.
Well if you wanted stuck up little rich kid asthetic. You got it. I don't really know his other games but just a glance at the wiki. I'm starting to get the vibe that person who designed this character probably didn't play Eric's Castlevania games. (Excuse me game he's only playable in Bloodlines. Portrait of Ruin he's just an NPC). Just looking at the pictures of him in his other 2 appearances. One of them definitely gives this haughty rich guy vibe.
C
Alucard
This isn't too far off from his SotN look.
Honestly...I don't have a problem with this one. While I never played Symphony of the Night (I know I know Blasphemy). This honeslty is very close to his original design. No real complaints...Except for the lack of Valmanway
B+
Grant
I guess they wanted to make him fit in with the rest of the designs...and now he stands out even more. But now on the other end of the spectrum.
I guess they really had to imagine this one. There's not a whole lot to go on. Is he trying to do Voldo from Soulcalibur cosplay? I guess if anything the look works cause his super move does go well with it.
C for effort
Cornell
We couldn't just have typical shirtless werewolf?
Well I guess they didn't want him to have his human appearance. So they gave him armor??? I guess not a whole lot to work with but. I'm not happy about the armor thing. It works...But feels unneeded. Heck just go with the Legacy of Darkness boxart. It's at least not as outlandish as some others and it works. Still rather far off from his original look.
C+
Maria
If I ask anyone about Castlevania Judgement. This always comes up and not in a good way.
So uh...what happened? Basically the game explains this as this is Maria a few years after she was rescued by Richter. But uh...This is really out there. Strange enough now that it's 2020 I'm getting a Rachel Alucard vibe. Like this is some alternate reality of of Rachel from Blazblue.
D
Sypha
Well if we wanted a female character to come from Guilty Gear that's somehow related to Ky Kiske. Well here's a look for you.
Guess this is what she looks like without the robe covering her? This looks like something that I would see in a Guilty Gear game. Heck is Sypha secretly part of Guilty Gear's Sacred Order of Holy Knights? Yeah Sypha can definitely fit into a Guilty Gear game and you wouldn't think twice about it if she was there. It's nothing totally bad unless you just hate anime. Thinking about it now. For awhile there was this mass amount of hate for anything that looked anime. I'm generally okay with this.
B
Shanoa
This says "Ass-Kicking Anime Nun". This also isn't too far off from her original game look.
It's like she's an anime nun? I guess that's what's trying to be passed off here. But honestly like Alucard her look isn't too drastic of a change. Honestly if you remove that hat she would look very close to her "Order of Ecclesia" look.
Aeon
Clocks, Swords, Stops Time, flashy clothes. You fit the Time Guy Aesthetic.
I can't really judge him off the same criteria as I have with the others. Time Lord...or watcher of time. One of those tropes. Too many clocks and watches. Stands out.
Golem
I honestly like this look. Certainly better than giant rock monster. This is actually good.
I like this desgin...I can't complain. And well...they took a generic monster and made it playable.
A+
Carmilla
Well it's either this look or have her completely naked. But man...super dominatrix look.
WTF?! Generally what I said on first look. Then discovering her other appearances. So they put clothes on her. I think I'll be avoiding the night clubs.
C
Death
We couldn't just get Death with a cape? Why this robotic look?
Well...I would prefer him to have a cloak on. He honestly seems to have a more robotic feel to me. Rather makes him less menacing than his appearance in other games.
B
Dracula
I can't really say anything about it tbh.
Not much changed from his original looks. My problem I have with him here is...He's always floating. And at certain angles he looks fat.
B
Time Reaper
Death Couldn't Look something like this?
This thing. Looks more like an undead mage than a reaper. It's just a giant skeleton with a cloak on.
Okay I'm still rather lenient on the character outfits but again. I'm not a huge Castlevania buff like many other people are. I didn't hear about the game Series until Aria of Sorrow, Soma Cruz's game. Also the hate for the anime look was during a time where a lot of people did not want anime in there games or like it. Heck on youtube there were dedicated groups to flagging/banning anything remotely anime. It's 2020, times have sure changed tbh.
If I'm to judge the character designs. I'd say the artist generally looked at maybe 1 or 2 images of the character from the past and drew there own take on the design. And to be honest there really isn't much to off on in that regard. So I could see die-hard fans getting pissed off.
*Yes I know Takeshi Obata, the artist behind Manga like Death Note and Hikaru No Go designed the characters.
Gameplay
Well I already explained the online and the story mode. There's also your basic versus, survival, and arcade mode. Then you have Castle mode. Which is like an adventure mode. You travel up Castlevania to defeat Dracula with given handicaps. There's also rewards for progressing.
Controls are more or less simple. THANK GOD there's more than one control scheme you can use. The Wii-mote with this thing is atrocious heck honestly I hate anything that pushes me to use the Wii-Mote. You can use the classic Controller, or the Gamecube controller.
I do have problems remembering moves. Like certain moves you have to leave the control stick in neutral or you have to hold down a button for a few seconds.
Another issue I have is determining hit boxes. Some characters have weird movements but you can't touch them while they're performing there moves yet I can slapped out of mine and they look quick. Stage hazards are a thing but you can turn those off thankfully. The characters are pretty unique enough to more or less stand apart from each other.
A hang up I have is certain fights. Like the true final boss of the game has attacks that you must evade or you're pretty much dead. Or there's fights where the AI just seems to know that they can punish anything I throw out. Like pretty much any given fighting game. I have more issues dealing with the random monster fights. They attack in such a way you have change up how you deal with them. I also have issues with some stages. It's so easy to get a ring out in certain ones cause you don't think about the edge of the ring during combos. Yet you're more than likely to fall out instead of your opponent cause of how a lot of attacks work.
It didn't really stop me from playing the game.
Music
Where the game truly stands out. The music for this game is great in every way. All the music are essentially remixes of themes from older Castlevania games and they're done in such a way that's made for a fighting game. Definitely one of my favorite fighting game OSTs I've ever heard.
Overall
My revisit to this game albeit short. Definitely did give me a reality check. It definitely has it's problems but it's not something that makes me hate it. Just sad that this game didn't last long at all. Maybe a few months at best. If anything should change it would be the character designs. I don't necessarily have an issue with character designs but they could be better.
Had a different game scheduled for this quickplay but that ended up getting hit with Copyright. And that game was given to me by a company. Never thought I would have to deal with copyright on that.
Anyway why not a demo of an Ys game. Holy crap Ys has been going on for a VERY long time. I mean they even have a typing game. I never played one until this demo. Gnerally they're enjoyable to watch. Every time I saw someone play this game, they play it at the highest difficulty available. It's like you're not allowed to play at any lower difficulty.
Story
I couldn't really tell you the story as this demo didn't exactly lay out a story for the game. But from my knowledge. Usually Adol Christan is on an adventure and gets dragged into a town/country's local crisis. They always seem to involve some huge demon god that Adol has to take care of cause everyone else can't seem to do so. Adol does this so much that it's pretty much a Tuesday for him. Heck honestly Adol would take on the problems guys like Link, Sora, Dante, Bayonetta, and Mario have, then just plan out his vacation.
Gameplay
Gameplay has certainly stepped up since the last time I watched an Ys game. It used to be a top down perspective. Now it's full 3D with combos. You also have party members that assist you. That's new to me. And these party members actually help. Not only that but you can command them as to how they'll attack. I can't really describe how well the gameplay is. Words don't do it for me. You'll just have to see it for yourself.
Difficulty thankfully is lenient as opposed to what I see online. Online videos show this game to be an unrelenting hellscape scenario where bosses even possess bullet hell. But really in difficulties that aren't beyond hard is just a matter of learning and paying attention to the battle.
Music
I'll have to take someone's comment I read on the OST. The Day Falcom makes a horrible OST is the day Adol can sail properly. Don't really know what exactly is meant by that. But I hope Adol stays a horrible sailor then.
Graphics
I love the graphics...Now they're not eye-popping, incredible real life graphics that everyone wants these days. But I can look at these and have a nice spark to the imagination. And I love that bosses get an introduction. More RPGs need to do this. Not the say hello I'm gonna kill you kind. The you get a view of the boss before the fight starts. There's also sections where the party will stop and look at a landmark. Which for once I don't find annoying. It doesn't feel forced like in certain other games that do the same thing.
Not much else I can talk about for this game. It is a demo. But it does make me a bit more interested in playing the Ys Series.
