This took me just over 12 hours to complete and I had fun most of the time. I didn't expect there to be so many text adventure parts where you have to select your response from a number of options. I'm not into these so they were cumbersome for me to complete. Especially one where it was mandatory and failure results in "death" and you have to replay it. The checkpoint for this is just before a cutscene which cannot be skipped so this was the most frustrating experience for me. I did encounter small bugs here and there like entering a building and my character doesn't go where I click. This is fixed by re-entering the building. There is one major bug I encountered right at the end of the game. There is a cutscene which goes into the final battle. In between that, there is a loading screen which just kept loading and loading. I had to quit the game I play from the autosave file. The autosaves are quite regular so I didn't have to repeat too much of what I did. The gameplay is fine, but I felt like it was limiting and clunky in places. Before you leave town, you can only bring 6 characters with you. At the start of battle, you can only deploy a maximum of 4 characters. The maps are also very small. Another big thing I did not like is how random hits can be. An enemy character could have 4hp left but my next three attacks could miss. Also, I'm not a fan of having to walk into characters to talk to them and that the camera is fixed. There's a mini-game that let's you build up relationships with almost everyone you meet and it was fun-ish. I think there's a lot of mechanics at play here and there isn't any one that stuck out to me. The story was ok, I never really felt my character develop much until the penultimate act. But it doesn't really take itself seriously and it pokes fun at everything. I did lose interest in the story and found myself powering through the last chapter just to finish it. If you love strategy RPGs I'd recommend that you give it a try.
Y's VIII took me 22 hours 58 minutes to complete, this included most side missions and collectables. Upon completing the game, I had explored over 95% of the map. There are some New Game+ additions but I've not delved into those and don't plan to. Not because the game isn't fun but because I've experienced the story and that is enough for me. On day one, the game was plagued with many issues. From annoying bugs like screen tearing on my 1080 at low settings, not detecting a controller and worst of all offenders game crashes. It would've been fine if it was few and far between but it wasn't. The game is in a much better state now after 6(!) patches. I played the game with Keyboard and Mouse first but after a patch update, I jumped back onto an Xbox One controller (this is my preference for action games). I have issues that quite often, the camera will focus on female breasts or bum before slowly circulating to their face as they give exposition. Whereas for men, it always starts from one side of their face to the other. It's not Bayonetta level of lewdness, it's average for a Japanese game. Whilst the fighting is fun and plentiful, I do not like how you can't cancel mid-animation to dodge or block an attack. You have to wait for the animation to complete before evading. This makes learning fight patterns frustrating especially if you can see an attack and try to react to it mid combo. It did make me consider my actions more carefully which contradicts my preferred playstyle. Overall it does have a few quirks I don't like, such as the way female characters are treated and the way evasion works, but past that Y's VIII is a fun game. I'd recommend this to anyone.
Review based on the patched version (v.23731) of Battle Chasers: Nightwar. The best part of this game is the combat system, it uses the tried and tested turn-based style with added twists that makes the game feel modern and unique. There is grinding and the amount of it wasn't too much or little, leveling felt just right to me. The fact that dungeon layouts are randomly generated makes repeating one still feel new-ish. There are a lot of systems in this game - perk skills, overcharge meter, burst, crafting and so on, but I never felt overwhelmed by it. The game did a good job introducing a system to me and then to further explore them. The pace of the game felt good, it never felt slow at any point nor too rushed. There's also a huge amount of side quests available, including a battle arena and fishing mini game that actually rewards you with something useful. There are short scenes triggered when resting at the inn at certain story points. These focus on the history and relationships between two characters at a time. I loved how these are fully voiced interactions and enrich the story behind our heroes. I chose Japanese audio with English subtitles and whilst I found it fine the accent was a little odd. I love the music in this game, especially the boss battle BGMs. It took me approx. 60 hours to complete and that is with me grinding to max level and dabbled in lots of side quests/battle arenas. My only criticism is the importance of character/enemy level. The side with the higher highest level has the advantage since they both hit A LOT harder and have more HP. At 2-3 levels difference you could potentially end the fight in the first round or be one shot. I was inclined to kept using the same three characters in the party for most of the game because of this. It would've been nice if EXP was gained outside of the party so I could plug in whichever member I wanted at any time. This game is a lot of fun and I would recommend it to anyone who likes RPGs.
