If you’ve been playing DAEMON X MACHINA on PC and Switch, you’re in luck, as your save file can noe be transfered between the two different platforms. The update will see that fans can transfer their save files across both platforms at any time.
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Kandagawa Jet Girls from Honey∞Parade Games seeks to take the silly and goofy antics of Senran Kagura to an entirely new franchise with Kandagawa Jet Girls. Enter the jet ski based racing turned shooter, which in ways, delivers in many ways, but stumbles in others.
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Since its initial release on the Nintendo 3DS in 2013, Rune Factory 4 has captured the hearts of fans around the world, and now, it’s looking to do it again with a newly reimagined version on the Nintendo Switch with Rune Factory 4 Special.
Announced in 2019 by Marvelous USA, Inc. and XSEED Games, the duo revealed that the Nintendo 3DS, Rune Factory 4, would be headed to the Nintendo Switch. As of now, we have an official release date.
Originally released on the PlayStation 3 back in 2011, SEED Games and Marvelous USA have revealed that the game is launching on PC via Steam and the Humble Store on January 15th, 2020. Here’s everything you need to know.
Senran Kagura Reflexions is the latest entry as a side-story game, one where players will take on the role of being a masseuse for the hard-working all-female cast of the Senran Kagura universe. Find out what we thought about giving these ladies a massage and if it’s something to enjoy.
Pros:
+Amazingly well done visuals and music that serves up an enjoyable experience for any otaku.
+Dialogue is hilarious and often-times very well done.
+Animations run smooth on both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita
Cons:
-Combat is repetitious and a nuance after 20+ hours
-Enemy designs in dungeons are over-used and lacking diversity
-Dungeons could have used more diversity and difficulty between each of them
When it comes to looking for things to do outside of Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Marvel Heroes Omega; my time has been delicately consumed by games such as Persona 5. With the review period of games having come down to a slow down, it was now time for me to begin looking through before setting my eyes upon the review code for Akiba’s Beat. A game that would set forth to be the spiritual successor to Akiba’s Trip.
Over the past few weeks I’ve found myself throwing down a few good brawls as I decided to take a stroll through one of Japan’s most famous locations for anime, games, electronics, and all things fun. What I did find? My ability to strip down my enemies are now long gone. My determination to smack some punk upside the head with a computer keyboard has been taken away. My ability to even romance my characters best friend had been taken away. Instead I’ve even found my weapons had been taken away and stripped down to basic things.
This does not go without saying that Japan and its culture are wonderful. Both pieces of it are absolutely mesmerizing to folks like myself. We often find ourselves daydreaming about being that otaku is salivating at the very sight of giant mechs, games for miles, and more anime than you could imagine. We dream of the day we can get our hands on the figurines hidden behind glass panels. Such reasons are the reason us geeks are quick to admire games such as Akiba’s Beat since we get to live out our digital dream to some form by running through Japan’s neon light filled district as protagonist Asahi Tachibana, a kid who has dropped out of college and has become a self-professed NEET (Not in Educaton, Employment or Training).
If you ever wanted to see love bloom in the 20th Anniversary Entry to a series and Marvelous USA isn’t ashamed to see this happen in their latest title. This new one introduces our first five lucky bachelorettes whom players can try to win the hearts over of in STORY OF SEASONS: Trio of Towns. So lets take a look at the the the five lucky bachelorettes before going on.
Let alone do you get to meet a few lucky ladies to choose from, you also get to meet the capybara pet named “Capy-san”, which will be the highlight of the game when it releases on February 28th for Nintendo 3DS. The game will be available physically at participating retailers and digitally in the Nintendo eShop for $39.99.
Stay tuned for our upcoming review.
About the Writer:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.
Pros:
+Shinobi Girls Heart has returned from Shinovi Versus
+Tons of new stages. Eight to Nine Chapters with around 7 stages.
+Dialogue is rather hilarious. Come for the fanservice, stay for the stories
+Soundtrack offers a few standout tracks such, read the review for more on this
Cons:
-Feels more like a side story to Shinovi Versus than a proper sequel
-Levels tend to be re-used quite a bit. Only differences are mission goals.
-Background score tends to be repeats from previous titles
-Both PlayStation 4 and Vita versions suffer from minor frame rate drops
-Fanservice has gotten even worse
When you read the pros and cons above, it’s hard to not-state that the series is all about the fan service in regards to the high-school aged or slightly older girls. It’s what Senran Kagura is known for, but in this latest version? It’s getting to be just about that. When we first experienced Senran Kagura almost two years ago, the series has become one that we highly appreciate for its combat mechanics, knee-slap worthy jokes, and even the anime-esque art style that keeps the series alive. Let alone does the series keep us around for that, it also keeps us around because the combat tends to be quite enjoyable, but so does the DLC when it actually has something to offer to the game.
Having been plying the game since its Japanese release thanks to co-writer and co-reviewer Greg F, we’ve taken a note of a few things in our joint review. Senran Kagura Estival Versus has seen some minor changes to its previous title. There are a few new mechanics such as bomb throwing, wall combat, and even special knock-outs that essentially go into a cut scene and humiliate the enemy characters in the best possible way. This isn’t odd for the franchise though, it’s all about the knee-slapping jokes and the heavy fan service and these new “Creative Knock-outs” or as in the Japanese version “Purupuru” offers a unique twist to the game. The first one players are introduced to is one of the girls being knocked up into a taito drum and getting her butt literally spanked with taito drum sticks. Literally.
While it’s worthwhile that we can shake our heads and laugh about this, this is a theme that sticks around for quite sometime throughout the entry. Something we’ve gotten used to by now even, but the real look at the game isn’t the fact that the main chapters are rather short leaving players to fly through the main campaign in roughly six hours. While that can be a disgruntling feature, one that has returned and remains soft in our hearts is the return of Shinobi Girls Heart. Or as Greg puts it, “Yo dog, I heard you like side stories so I put side stories in your side stories.”
While the main story is short, Shinobi Girls Heart allows us to once more take to the side stories to uncover new side stories to each of the girls. This giving us a true look behind the events of each character so that we get a bit more of a view from their side of things related to what’s going on with Estival Versus. While this is enjoyable, it’d be nice to see the main-campaign getting much of the same treatment. However, this wasn’t the case, and that leaves us with the feeling that this game is more of a continuation of Shinovi Versus instead of a true sequel. While that can be considered a troublesome flaw, we’ll cope with it for now. It’d be nice to see a true continuation with some of the girls either graduating from their schools or even becoming “Master’s” or in their case “Mistresses” of their schools to allow for a new and more dynamic cast.
While playing the game on both the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4, both in Japanese and English versions for the Vita, we did take note of several things. The Japanese versions patch file has been staying ahead for a few weeks now. With the launch of 1.19 the game has seen a few changes while the American version is still sitting at 1.17, which only added in some of the new Purupuru Knock-Outs, a few bug fixes, and a few other behind the scenes notes. The biggest thing though is how the game has kept up since the Japanese version, which is pretty stable and runs as one would expect for a PlayStation Vita title. Just like the Japanese version, both the American PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions run into occasional frame rate drops that can make the game seem as if it were stuttering a bit. Nothing like sitting at a smooth 60fps until combat gets nuts and a lot of animated characters appear on screen knocking that frame rate down to what feels like between 45-50fps until combat lightens down a bit. While this seems like it is isolated to the PlayStation 4 variant. The PS Vita version seems to see the same framerate drops, but hardly as noticeable since that version tends to stick around an estimated 30fps. However, the PS4 version sees a lot more stability in the long run of things.
While performance does remain a question at hand, we do take a peek at the PlayStation Vita TV since Greg ran some tests on it just to ensure our review would be as accurate as possible. While we are used to seeing the PS TV get ignored a bit, the Vita TV still remains an important part to reviewing since many owners do use it and tend to prefer it so that they can play their Vita games on TV with the luxury of not staring at a tiny screen, but for those wondering if the game scales to the PS TV? You’re not getting that treatment this time around it seems. Without a post-release update, the Vita TV remains without proper scaling and looks almost atrocious on Vita TV. It’s best to get the PlayStation 4 version for the 10 USD more. Just not that the PS4 versions enemies all seem to render onscreen at once while the Vita version has pop-in enemies, rather extra waves of enemies in comparison to the Vita version. Or so it seems.
While we do discuss the video capabilities and performance, the game does continue on with traditional cutscenes that variate between walls of text, character model reactions, and well animated shorts. All of this works well for the game as the narrating remains on-par with previous titles. But the one thing that comes down to really looking at the game isn’t necessarily just the graphics and video performance, but also controls. While we’ve become used to the franchise stun-locking our characters in combat, we’ve also seen the infamous return of button mashing in order to keep our enemies at bay, the title does enter in with some new combat mechanics. This includes wall-attacks, knock-up specials, and even parry attacks that tend to leave enemies pretty much out of the fray due to their inability to fight back. Just like before, players can use things such as bombs to knock enemies away, poison them, or simply do what I prefer and blow them up.
Sadly? That’s all that is truly new to the game outside of the Purupuru finishers that leave rival school characters in rather provocative positions while being in what little clothing they have or none only to be covered by glowing gold lights. While this is hilarious, it may deter some new series adopters left shaking their head, and wondering where the series is going to go from there. For those wanting to know about the disturbing Vita groping mechanics. It’s still there and still causes us to shake our heads. At least they censored the girls ages from the Japanese version so that American fans won’t feel as if they should be ashamed of themselves at the end of the day.
Senran Kagura: Estival Versus- PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita [Reviewed on both]
Developer: MARVELOUS
Publisher: XSEED Games
Price: 49.99 USD and 59.99 USD
Released: Available Now
While there could be more to go on about, it’s going to be hard to do so without looking at all the fan-service that has been given to this game, but at the heart of it all? Senran Kagura is a brawler that tries to take itself seriously when it comes down to core fighting mechanics unlike it’s comedic narrative that could leave a grown man or woman blushing. While fighting mechanics are at the games core, they’ve not grown enough to make themselves substantially different from previous titles. However, if you want to continue on laughing, blushing, and button smashing? This is the game for you if you can get over all the tits and arse this game has to offer.
Our review is based on a review copy that was provided to us by the games publisher. For information about our ethics policy please click here.
About the Writers:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.
Greg F. is an RPG enthusiast whom absolutely enjoys the niche titles that come across from the East. When it comes to beat-’em-up brawlers such as Senran Kagura. Greg knows the titles just about as good as anyone else, but his passion not-so-secretly sits with his love for retro games from the NES and Sega period. In his free time Greg contributes to B.A.T.G.R. with his knowledge of such feedback.