This is with yet another low budget ero rpg-maker 'game'. If you find no value in this types of products, this one won't change your mind. But if you do find some value to them, then rejoice, because it's a surprisingly good one that achieves the not-so-impressive feat to stand out in this ocean of mediocrity. The first element that makes it stand out is its rpg system. There is a class system, with skill trees, and a variety of magic gear, which opens up the buildcrafting aspect. You can experiment with heavy healing builds, stunlock builds, self-buffing builds, beast tamer builds, evasion builds, glass canon mage builds, or any combination of the above. Don't expect too much from it, but hey, that's better than Skyrim. Everyone knows people aren't playing this game for its gameplay and spending this kind of effort on sounds pointless, but do not underestimate how refreshing it is to have something a little better than an absolute travesty of an rpg game to deliver the h-content. Speaking of which, the way the game handles the h-content is another one of its strengh. On the surface, everything is very standard. It's just the classic formula you find on all the other games of this kind, even down to the scenes themselves. The one thing it differs on, is length. The game is long. Like 25-30hours long. It took me 12h for the main heroine to the get an extra bone in her body for the first time and that's enough time to 100% 2 other standard ero-rpgm. That may not sound like a good thing for some, but it really plays to the strengh of these games : the sense of progression and escalation of the erotic content. And don't get the wrong idea, the game isn't long because of it forces you to grind or anything, it's long because there's just a lot of scenes to read through. And props to making a surprisingly positive and wholesome story when the main plot is : be the only woman in a town where everyone is a horny degenerate. The writing is better than expected.
Good VN, Good gameplay, Good buildcraft, and adult content as a bonus. This is a game that is flawed, but will fill a niche decently well. I found myself being actually invested in the story which isn't something i expected. The story does have weak moments, the final chapter of the chaos route feels very unfinished and frankly not well writen, the characters are very cliched, and the plot twists are quite predictable. But slowly uncovering the mysteries behind this world, the impending apocalypse and an actually decent main antagonist kept me going through the whole thing. It's certainly no litterary masterpiece, but it's enjoyable. The tactical gameplay is quite good, although the messy UI, and questionable tooltips makes it hard to get a good understanding of what is happening. So expect to spend some time experimenting with a bunch of stuff in order to learn how a lot of the combat-related elements works. Collecting crests and weapons and using them to build a strong party is the best part of the game imo. Boss fights are fun and you'll need to bring the tools for the right fights. There's a good amount of depth and variety and some of the more overpowered crests really open up potential playstyles. If you don't enjoy buildcraft and playing around with different setups, you'll be missing a large part of the game. The menus UI and UX are quite atrocious (really is ninetail's achile heel), but thankfully this time, we are blessed with a [?] button on the top right of the screen that does a good job of helping you understand how to navigate it. With how convoluted the menus are, this is a very appreciated addition.
Finally, a 2D sidescroller with good combat, and it comes from an obscure japanese indie eroge. I ain't even mad. This is not a perfect or even a great game. Story is essentially non-existent, the characters and the world is below bare minimum, the stages are 100% flat, it's sparse in content with a game that can be completed in under 4h while taking its time and the "ero" aspect is so light it's nothing more than a marketing stunt to tap into a demographic usually starved for good games. However, what sells the game is its combat system. That's why you play it, and that should be pretty much the only reason why you buy it. Yes, it's missing many qualities, but the one quality it has is more than enough to make up for everything else. You have a precise versus fighting combat with great flowy combat, responsive inputs, very good animation, combos galore, guard breaks, cancels, jugling... It's simply a joy to play. The enemies are also perfectly varied enough and complex enough as you progress through the game so that you naturaly want to use the combat system to its full potential. A training mode is also provided so that, like any respected fighting game, you can spend hours experimenting and practicing your combos against a training dummy. If you crave a good action game with great combat, don't look any further, this is a gem.
There's 2 types of eroge : Games with porn in it, and Porn with game mechanics. This one falls into the later category. As a game, it has very little value. It's an indie lite-rpg with a barely developped story in a barely developped world. The combat system and the questing are completely uninteresting. That said, the game design is perfectly serviceable when looking at it as a mean to deliver the H content. I'd say it's well above most H-rpg of its class, so A+ for effort. The H content will surely cater to its audience : if you're looking for a cute masochistic tomboy on a quest to see how low she can fall, don't miss out, it's worth its pricetag.
There's 2 sides to this game : One is a pretty average eroge visual novel filled with degeneracy and a great deal of high quality tentacles artworks. And the other is a furiously addicting tactical game. I will focus on the second side since that's the more interesting aspect. The tactical gameplay loop consists of 3 main phases : Recruting new units, Organizing your army, and finally, executing your strategy, wiping out the enemy army until you get to their HQ and kill their commander. 75% of your time is most likely going to be dedicated to the first 2 phases. Having a well organised army that can counter the opponent is 90% of the fight. And this is not an easy task. To put things in perspective, each unit will have a class, specific stats, a combination of 10 passive skills of various level that will determine everything it can do in battle, an active skill, and a list of affinity dictating what it is and what it couters. Each unit can then be further personalised with titles and equipement that grants more passive skills and stats. That's just one unit. Your units will then be organised into divisions that will have a specific formation, leader, and a unit order that will impact how the division function. And finally, 3 divisions form a battalion, and again, division order matter. You need to not only build synergy between units within a division, but also within a battalion. And obviously, your opponent's army is just as complex as yours. There is an absolutely insane amount of variables to take into account when organising your army which turns the game into essentially a massive spreadsheet simulator, and it's massively addicting. The big issue is that despite the in-game tutorials, very little of the game mechanics are explained. And worse, there aren't many ressources online to help you. That means, you'll spend at least a good 15-20h figuring out what works or what some of skills even means. For a tactical game, this is a criminal offense.
Le jeu a prendre pour ceux qui cherche à vivre ou revivre l’expérience Civilization classique. Certes beaucoup moins moderne dans son gameplay ou son interface que ses successeurs Civ V et VI, cet opus garde toute la richesse qu'on attend d'un Civ et c'est là l'important. Le jeu peut être joué avec ou sans extensions, et est compatible avec tous les mods pour ceux qui veulent enrichir le gameplay encore davantage.
Si vous cherchez un GTA-like old school, ne cherchez pas plus loin. SR2 est un très bon jeux... de son époque. L'histoire est plutôt prenante, et parfois vraiment brutale voir barbare du coté des antagonistes comme des protagonistes et c'est plutôt rafraichissant. Les personnages sont marquant, la ville est bien fichue et pleine de détails. Par contre, autant les graphismes ont pas trop mal tenu, autant le gameplay et particulièrement les gunfights manquent cruellement de modernité. Également à noter, la version PC est codée avec le cul. Quelque soit votre config, attendez vous à un framerate dégueulasse, des ralentissements et occasionnellement quelques crash. De ce que j'ai pus entendre, la version de gog est plus stable que celle de Steam, mais visiblement, ça n'a pas régler tous les problèmes technique de cette version PC. Dommage, car le jeux est plein de qualité.
Crosscode, c'est avant tout un petit bijoux de gameplay. Le système de combat est très agréable à prendre en main, c'est très nerveux et même s'il parait un peu simpliste au début avec juste 4 actions (CaC, Distance, esquive et bloc), il ne cesse de se diversifier tout au long du jeux, augmentant drastiquement la complexité et démultipliant les possibilités de combos tout en restant sur ce principe de ces 4 actions fondamentales. Un des grand point fort qui fait que le combat n'est jamais lassant, c'est qu'il se renouvelle continuellement, en incorporant des nouvelles mécaniques. Et c'est pareil pour les phases de puzzle, où chaque donjon vas présenter une ou plusieurs mécanique qu'il vas falloir prendre en main, et jouer avec pour résoudre les énigmes qui sont sincèrement bien pensées. Gameplay mis à part, le jeu est pas avare en contenu. Compter 70h pour boucler le tout en prenant son temps et encore plus pour les complétionistes. Là où ça penche pour moi, c'est l'histoire. Le prémisse et l'intrigue sont intéressant et les points clé de l'histoire sont bien réussi. Mais c'est dommage de pas avoir pousser le concept plus loin et la fin ressemble plus à une annonce de saison 2 qu'a une réelle conclusion. Mais le plus dommage à mes yeux c'est le rythme. Certains moment l'histoire n'avance pas d'un poil pendant un bon moment, et d'un coup tout s'accélère et on fait un bon gigantesque et puis juste après ça stagne une nouvelle fois alors qu'on veux qu'une chose, c'est que ça avance. Heureusement, les personnages sont très attachant et en particulier le perso principal. Le fait que Lea ne peux parler que quelques mots et donc sa difficulté pour s'exprimer et communiquer ses émotions rendent les dialogues parfois comique, mais surtout, parfois incroyablement touchant. Ces "quelques mots" et les sprite de Lea réussissent parfaitement à véhiculer ses émotions et ça c'est aussi un des points fort de CrossCode.
