I'm on my journey through the Ys Saga, and if there are any comparisons they will be to Oath in Felghana, but I digress, what really keeps me playing these games is the combat, it's very active and fast paced, with both a block and dodge to gain a temporary buff if executed perfectly, althhough I gotta say I didn't find the block very useful, I prefer the invincibility from the dodge, plus, there are many combat skills to further the power of the characters. Graphics are good (I'm not picky, I'm more about style consistency than realism), character designs are alright, it's a shame only the weapon changes in the character model, but is not a deal breaker, music is good, there are some forgettable tracks and then there is the credits song that goes so hard I'd expect it to come from a dark fantasy tale like vagrant story, not this saturday morning adventure. Talking about the characters, there are a lot of tropes and cliches, , but at least they tried to give some voice to Adol by including dialogue choices, they have no impact in the outcome, but can offer some amusing flavor text. Unfortunately that's pretty much the extent of the positives I have to say, because good lord this game is a grind, combat skills are useless unless they are at max level, so get ready to grind, reinforcing gear not only costs ridiculous amounts of gold, but you also have to get the materials for it, so get ready to grind , It took me like 45 hours to get to the end and I swear at least 12 were grinding for gold. And beleive me, I cheesed the hell out of this game to minimize grinding, you can save after killing a monster, load the game and they'll respawn, but still, by the last dungeon I was sick of it. Here I go onto the next (I'm still conviced Adol is a dog that's leaving fatherless kids left and right, no adventurous 18 yo is gonna say no to that woman in the back alley of Casnan, but we can keep pretending that's not true, after all, Adol wouldn't lie to us, would he?)
I'm not a fan of JRPGs (although I always wanna give them a try), so expect some backhanded compliments. The game is fun, the active combat helps a lot to alleviate the grind, apparently a must have if you are a japánese game developer, but I digress, the hack and slash is good, the spells are few, but they pack a punch, and the mana works more like an stamina system so spamming them is encouraged, there is some platforming to be done, but is generally very forgiving. The leveling occurs organically for the most part, but grinding is encouraged because levels matter more than gear, you can start taking half the damage just by gaining a new level, if you don't know that going in, as I did, the first 2 bosses are gonna make you sweat blood, so if you are in a boss and you die repeatedly before reaching 30% of its life, just go grind a level and come back, since there are no consumables to heal yourself your only option is to power through fights. Artstyle is good and colorful which is always welcome, voiceovers are not stellar, but they are not terrible by any means, music does its job, but won't stick with you until you die. On the technical side I suggest to go to the additional executables options in the GOG Galaxy launcher and run the DX9 configuration tool, set Vsync on, and after that you need to launch the game using the same menu to run the DX9 executable every time you wanna play, this is crucial to avoid a game breaking bug that makes your double jump not work properly. Remember, by default GOG Galaxy will run the DX8 executable, and you don't want that. I wanna imagine Adol has an army of "faterless" kids running around with so many romantic interest after so many games, but I rant again, the game is fun to play, would be an all time favorite, but I became allergic to grind after wasting so many hours playing MMOs in my youth. I'm off to try the next game in the saga, I hope is as good.
I didn't liike the first Ys at all, the second ghame makes some basic, but very important improvements, hitboxes are a little bigger so is easier to bump into enemies wiithout taking damage, the grind has been toned down considerably and enemy difficulty no longer ramps up like a rocket. Of course the second entry also has improved graphics and allegedly better sound, but I noticed a few effects play a lot louder than the rest. Unfortunately exploration is a pain without a map, I had to do a lot of back and forth trying to find my way in the last zone, specially in the sewers. Given my overall dislike for JRPGs, the fact I actually reached the end of this one should be a high praise. Just do yourself a favor and save often, and toggle "run" in the menu before every boss fight, otherwise dodging the boseses while charging your fire spell is cumbersome.
Ok, this is kind of a hack and slash RPG, except that you attack enemies by bumping into them, is horribly balancved, in the first areaevery enemy can kill you easily and you are expected to grind to get gold and buy the most basic gear, imagibne that grinding,m on the very first screen, but it doesn't end there, levels are a huge deal, as soon as I hit level 2 I went from killing enemies in 4 hits to one shotting everything, which made the grind slightly more bearable, I got my gear and set outy to explore the world, which is full of winding paths and crossrodas with no semblance of a map anywhere so have fun getting lost, after a while I was level 6 and laughing in the face of every ennemy I encountered, I went into the mines and got oneshoted, fun times. This is an old game and it shows in the most painful ways, uninteresting combat, very unbalanced, and I already can see it will be a grindfest. I say leave it in the past where it belongs.
Everybody knows RE2, but seriosuly, this is a great entry, it plays and feels as good as 23 years ago (when I played it for the first time), get yourself the sourcenext conversion patch and the classic rebirth patch plus some HD retexturing for some crisp visuals (there's a thread in the GoG forums that explains the process), or you can just play it as it comes if you want the good old pixelated feel, either way, if you are familiar with the original you won't be disappointed.
If you are a fan of metroidvanias this game is for you, is a fresh take in the formula, an example on how changing one mechanic can make for a totally different game. So what is different from others? You can only have up to 4 hit points, but most of your defense comes from your shield, using ranged attacks or taking damage lowers it, but you can regenerate by attacking or huging your little companion if if gets completely depleted, this makes for a huge change in the pacing of the combat, and the approach to the risk/benefit balance. Make no mistake, at first bosses are pretty easy, but the deeperso you'll ahve to raly in your reflexes and the quick regen QTE mechanic that is introduced not far into the game, this makes for some brutal fights, specially the last boss. The gear you get is just elemental variations that help dealing extra damage to certain enemies and grant access to various traversal skills, there are no consumables or experience to gain so there's zero need to grind which incentives you to keep moving. However, there are some collectables to upgarde your shield, hitpoints annd attack for you to get ready to tackle the many optional bosses, there's even a boss that is just a legally distinct Death from Castlevania. All of this in a beatiful package, pixel art is mixed with modern special effects, music is superb, I was expecting something more classical since the game has multipole references to greek mythology, but after a while I could not help but enjoy the chill DnB soundtrack. And to top itoff the armors are heavily inspitred by Saint Seiya desings, something that warms my little millenial latinoamerican heart. And as you can see, the protagonist is a beautiful redhead. What can I say, this game is just the gift that keeps on giving. I only had a bug a couple of times where the game didn't launch properly so I had to alt+f4 and relaunch, other than that it was smooth as butter. Fantastic game, love Europa, highly recommended.
A tale of loss, with a beautiful presentation and music score, some may call it a walking simulator, but I always fourd that term dismissive of the value of a good mystery with some light puzzles.
What a fantastic not game, breaking the 4th wall, doing meta commentary, with great voice acting, lots of jokes and interesting puzzles, all around a surprisingly touching story, the least interesting part of the game is the clicker segment, but I'm confident that was totally on purpose, another commentary about the freetowait mobile games. Overall, this game is just fantastic, highly recommended if you are a fan of point and click games.
Another fine example of retro point and click adventure brought to use by Wadget Eye and Technocrat , I'm a sucker for cyberpunk dystopias and this game did not disappoint, the story is good, with many twists and turns, artstyle is fantastic, music is great, puzzles are not difficult so the pace of the narrative is not disrupted. What can I say?, this game got me hooked from beggining to end.
