Has the Neptunia franchise finally lost its steam with Super Neptunia RPG or does the 2D iteration of the game actually push the series forward? Find out in our review of Super Neptunia RPG.
Review
Review: Marvel’s Spider-Man – Man, was the web-slingin’ fun
Marvel’s Spider-Man is an open-world adventure from the studio that brought you games such as the Infamous and Spyro the Dragon franchises. Now they are back, with a one-of-a-kind experience with their take on the adventures of our favorite neighborhood Spider-Man. Now, here’s our review for the recently released PS4 exclusive.
Review: Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana – Adol has turned on his Switch
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana has finally arrived on the Nintendo Switch and with it, we’re finally getting a chance to see the game come out with all of its previously released DLC. After a boat crash, meeting some new friends, and exploring the world, we’re ready to review our latest adventure with Adol and friends.
Review: Moonlighter – A nod to all things classic gaming
Moonlighter is a throwback to the SNES and NES era of action-based games where players take on the role of a shopkeeper by day and an adventurer by night where they will explore dungeons, confront hordes of enemies, and even collect loot as you do. Find out what we thought in our review Moonlighter by Digital Sun.
Continue reading
Review: Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux is a remastering of the 2009 DS classic Strange Journey, which sees new features such as story, enemies, and dungeons to explore. But the biggest question, did this Redux actually do a solid job at delivering or does it fall short in doing so? Find out with our review.
Review: Just Cause 3 – Just Causing Some Chaos
Just Cause 3 takes places one step further as franchise hero Rico Rodriguez as he helps arm a rebellion, take down a tyrannic leader and faces down some of his most explosive tours of destruction yet. Now it’s time to see just how far he’s gone with our review for Just Cause 3.
Pros:
+Open-world activities feel like they matter based upon the side-mission undertaken
+Gorgeously crafted islands, scenery and city locales
+Movie-like graphics that help provide a cinema-like experience
+Action-packed story that delivers at every turn
Cons:
–Small frame-rate spikes during high-action sequences
–SAM turrets can get quite annoying if not taken care of promptly
–Wing-suit exploring can lead to same face splitting moments
Much like the previous couple of entries, Just Cause 3 introduces us to the franchise’s protagonist Rico Rodriguez who once more looks to charm fans with his accent, quirkiness, and his insatiable want for blowing anything he can up. His new target? Santiago Di Revello’s “charming” nation of Medici, which has fallen under his oppression and has since caused inhabitants to form a rebellion on this splendid Mediterranean like getaway.
In this visually stunning game, fans will find themselves immersed by the chaos that ensues, but also the charming cast members that help bring Medici’s struggles to life as the game plays on and becomes more like an action movie rather than a game. But that’s not why our famed hero Rico Rodriguez has returned to Medici. Instead, he is back simply because, well, things have changed and it’s once more time to bring down the next big a-hole in order to make the world a better place.
Spanning 400 square miles, Medici is by far one of the largest virtual locales that have been created to date. To simply put it? It’s a very carefully, beautiful, and rather lively 400 square miles that offer unique visuals, terrain builds, and secrets for players to discover if they are to take the time to explore the game without using fast travel or vehicles. However, the beauty is taken back when bullets begin to fly due to Di Revello’s troops who follow his insane orders to kill any Rebels on sight. For those wanting a great plot?
The game’s plot is simple as any other, which makes it dull, drab, and boring in comparison to the brilliant gameplay and open world that is given to us to take by the hand and fully explore. The plot is simple – overthrow the bad guy by blowing all his toys up and putting him in time out while joining a Rebellion and becoming its inherent leader. Simple right? Seems so as the plot will easily remind people of those movies we know as “The Expendables”, but this one is about a guy who pretty much plays the guardian role to his family and friends while blowing up the world around him.
Much as expected, players will complete the game by going through certain mission locations that can be unlocked by simply progressing through the game’s campaign. While just going through the campaign by playing does work, it’s not advisable. Instead, the best option is to take over every enemy location possible in order to overthrow Di Revello and his cohorts in order to make the world a better place. When not fighting this guys militarized morons? You can casually run up to one of the island’s inhabitants to grab them, throw them out of their vehicle, and casually drive off, fly off or simply walk away with a cheeky grin casually shown off.
While not turning zones from Red to Blue it’s almost like watching a casual game of risk that the A.I. will inherently lose since that’s well… What bad guys do. When looking away from the fact this is a trending portion of open-world games, Just Cause 3 comes with a few new additions that veer it away from the mindless shooters like the origins, and itself. The newest addition is the rather enjoyable wingsuit that can be deployed in order to assist move players across the land quicker than before. When combat comes nearby? That parachute works even better as players can arm themselves with a weapon that is a part of their own arsenal in order to dispatch groups of enemies only to watch them rag-doll across the screen while on fire.
Needing to change your weaponry? That’s easy using the Rebel Supply Drop in order to exchange your weapons for a setup more suitable for your occasion. Once setup it’s time to reign down fire upon your enemies while preparing to take off in an orderly fashion using a helicopter or a tank or perhaps a plane of some sort. If you’re one to use anything explosive it’s time to find the game comes to a stuttering halt while watching transformers, fuel tanks, water towers or what-have-you explode in order to see the enemy base turn into a ball of flames.
While console or PC begins to render the explosions, it’s hard not to cringe as the frame rate seems to dip down into almost single digits as Rico prepares his own onslaught against enemy troops or vehicles to keep his own alive. If you are unfortunate to stop Di Revello’s forces? Well, prepare for the prolonged load times that have caused a storm of frustration filled cries. With load times averaging between 45-90 seconds, these load times can be between painful and beyond excruciating when trying to quickly maneuver between missions and challenges in order to equip better perks for Rico to use.
While the campaign is almost completely forgettable to some there is a rather charming aspect to this game that has caused me to come back for the extra 40 hours I’ve give within the past week. This charm is the game’s ability to give you plenty of land and terrain to explore so that players can find those odd little tropes that may be hidden around the village, such as the hidden sunken towns that could easily represent places like the “Sunken City of Atlantis” or even the charming landscapes that go from monsoon-like weather systems to Siberian like blizzards that leave little room for visibility.
Later it’s only time to visit the sunny coastlines where players may just decide to find the nearest boat and go for a cruise. While that’s fun and all there are hidden items scattered throughout Medici such as Rebel Shrines to remember those that fell against Di Revello, weapon parts to unlock weapons, and Di Revello’s recordings, which give an insight to just how madly stupid this guy is.
Just Cause 3– PC, PlayStation 4 (Reviewed), and Xbox Onee
Developer: Avalanche Studios
Publisher: Square Enix
Cost: 59.99 USD
Release Date: Now Available
While it’s easy to say that blowing everything up in an unforgiving manner, Just Cause 3 is charming, beautiful, and a heavy improvement upon the fast titles in spite of the frame rate drops, but also the long load times. If players are capable of avoiding these moments, Just Cause 3 is a solid title that will offer quite a bit of gameplay for completionists while clocking in around 52 hours played for this review with only having completed a quarter of all the recordings as well as about a quarter of all the shrines as well as a completely liberated map.
This is surely a gem that is well worth the money even before the patches that will hopefully smooth out the load times and frame rate drops across all platforms. Even then? Feel free to take in the magnetic beauty of this carefully crafted land as well as the hauntingly realistic sound they used as the lullaby of soft guitars fills the background.
Our review is based upon the final version that the publisher provided us with. For information about our ethics policy please click here.
Final Score: 8 out of 10
About the Writer:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the borders 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 on a daily basis.
Review: Fallout 4- War, War Has Changed
Pros:
+New graphics engines are beautiful and bring the Wastelands to life
+Voice acting for main characters is spot on and immersive
+Weapon customizations and city building are welcome changes
+New perk system is spot on for S.P.E.C.I.A.L. talents
Cons:
–Frame-rate issues can pop up in certain situations
–Some load times take longer than others
–Companions can sometimes seem to be lost heading to assigned towns
Editor’s Note: Due to the sheer size of the game and massive amounts of content we’ve had to put this and file it as a review that will continuously be in progress till the reviewer feels that the review matches the quality needed to properly represent our thoughts on the game. We will keep you updated once we take the review out-of-progress and when we make changes to it. Thanks your your understanding.
Review Update #1:
As you know our review has been in progress for a couple of weeks now. This latest update, which is the first of many, will discuss the community building situation as well as the modding system for both weapons and armor as well as your Power Armor, which we are sure by now you’ve become rather accustomed to owning.
When talking about a Fallout game we aren’t talking just about how small it is, but we are discussing in general just how big the game is thanks to massive amounts of content. With Fallout 4 we’re looking at more content than I’ve come to realize it has from dungeons to explore to sheer new additions. The latest may seem familiar to some of you who play Fallout Shelter as your goal is to build a community of Vault Dwellers, to take care of them, to get them to come around and become a living and breathing entity. Fallout 4 has embraced this philosophy with allowing players to take a place such as the starting area of Sanctuary or Sanctuary Hills and build a community out of it once completing the beginning game up to a certain point.
When in the building mode, players may become familiar with a small bit of information at the top of the screen that will indicate amount of settlers, happiness, defenses, electricity/energy, food, water, beds and capacity for settlers. These both will be manageable as long as players remember to have the proper resources built into place such as Gourds, Watermelon and even Tato’s in order to properly sustain their food sources. These can later be added to as players progress through the game in time, but so can their population by placing the proper items such as radio towers that will signal survivors to their settlement. Just remember, to bring in more? You have to have more water, higher defenses, proper energy, food, water, beds and even places for them to stay. This is quite important and will require players to improvise by putting down walls, fences, building houses, establishments and even bringing vendors into town in order to sustain a usable economy. Don’t forget though, these towns can be attacked and it won’t be uncommon if or when this happens. One problem that was noticed came with texture collision when it comes to fence angles, item locations and even some terrain based problems. While these problems can be overcome with slight changes in angles or item placement, it does leave a certain irritation for those who want to be perfectionists.
When encouraging players to build a settlement, it’s quite interesting to see that both upgraded weapons and even armor won’t go to waste since settlers (your named ones) can equip these items if players talk to them in order to trade. By doing so this will provide odds that are better suited for the players advantage. For example in my own town I’ve gone as far to equip Preston (you should be well acquainted with this gentleman by now). In my town Preston is no longer in his default armor. Instead he has been heavily upgraded using Synth armors and even some other under armor from the Gunners in order to provide him better protection during any fights he may get into.
When discussing armor it’s important that players do take note that some gear with have a “+” or “-” next to certain stats. Many times this is because an armor has been pre-modified thanks to enemies and of course a players luck. These modifications provide extra energy defense as well as things such as radiation protection as well as basic damage protection. These upgrades to armor can also include poison resistance, extra damage resistance, extra carrying capacity and even lowered weight in order to help players weigh less when wearing heavier pieces of equipment or simply avoiding a strength build to start off with.
Among this unique crafting system “food items” that are collected from enemies such as Mutant Hounds, Hounds or other animals, can and will create foods that can reduce things such as Rads, improve max HP or even increase max AP in order to make characters more effective in combat. The same can go for items such as Buffout, Jet, Psycho and the likes. All of these can be modified in order to make their effects stack with each other, but only if the player has the proper components for the combining of these items.
Weapons have also gotten much of the same treatment as armor in the regards that weapons can be fully upgraded for better damage, lower recoil, bigger clips, better accuracy and silenced, muzzled or however players prefer to have them set for their situations. These weapons, all of them pretty much, can be modified in order to provide better combat prowess for players. We’ll take a deeper look into this as we begin to modify weapons such as the Rocket Launcher, Institute Pistol and even the Laser Rifle with screenshots to follow.
There was a time when I could have told you that I’ve seen it all, done it all and felt that war had finally began to change only to once more be thrown into a Wasteland that seems familiar yet very different from the ones we had seen before. Fallout has become a franchise that Bethesda Zenimax fans like myself can tell you holds a soft place in our hearts thanks to the company’s creativity and attention to detail. With this never-ending attention that they give each of their respective IP’s we’ve seen some of the most amazing open-world RPGs come to life. One of these renowned titles was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which can be noticeably seen in many respects of this game and with good reason. Many of them can be seen deep within the game’s mechanics, skill system and even the overall use of dialogue-defining choices players will make throughout the game.
For many of us Fallout 3 was the last big one we truly enjoyed and found the most creativity in and for many of us it has been a long wait to see another polished title by the amazing minds at Bethesda Studios, but a little bit has changed since our last departure from the safety of our Vault-Tec Vaults. With now seven years behind us it has come our time to place the disks in our consoles and even our computers in order to take on this large-scale experience that has been carefully crafted, but this experience as foreign as it may seem will seem oddly familiar to fans who have explored the wastelands once before. As someone who has been playing Fallout for well over ten years, the games install screen has been one of the most entertaining as the game greets players who decide to boot the game up the moment the install finishes they will be welcomed by a Vault-Tec guide to the wastelands and the stats they will use as well as how they will influence your travels through the Wasteland. The videos being what they are, reflect a 1950’s like era where animated cartoons helped illustrate the world how we should know it.
Once we’ve exited this little introductory portion of the game it’s time to get down to one of the most entertaining portions of any Bethesda game, character creation after we’ve gone through the game’s introductory sequence that helps build up where we want to see things. In these opening moments we are greeted by a married couple, our choice of Wanderers, a male and a female one. Here we get to select our gender, our appearance clear from hair, nose, lips, cheeks, make-up (assuming you are playing a female), eyes and so forth. Unlike before, the game offers us some rather unique look into the world before the bombs fell, before our characters became test subjects to whatever their vault was using tests for. What’s most unique about the characters we play is the fact they are fully voice acted. Let alone are we given a new choice system, but we are given a unique response between both of the genders. While it’s nice to see such a thing approach the most interesting part is that the voices should come familiar as Courtenay Taylor (Resident Evil 6’s Ada Wong) and Brian T. Delaney (Halo 5: Guardians – Roland). While both of these are interesting choices for voice actors they add a rather lively aspect to the game that was never there before in the franchise.
With that aside the game does seem to visit a familiar face as the game at its core remains largely intact from its predecessors where players will focus on several things. This includes exploration, quests, factions and even quests, but the major plot is completely new, original and offers a twisted view as to what could happen if your son had been kidnapped while you were in cryosleep. A large question will emerge as fans attempt to figure out how long it had been since your kid had been taken from you. What’s the exact time frame since your sons kidnapping and your awakening, how long had it been since you saw your family fall apart before you? As your exploration of the Wasteland comes underway players will find themselves going through familiar places such as Fenway Park, the Freedom Trail and even other unique locales that could very well be visit in real life. Though some of these unique places will send players into fighting things such as Super Mutants, Yao Guai and even Synths. While Synths sound like the common one, there is something rather peculiar about them that you’ll find out by entering Diamond City.
The truth? They are the new enemy, the new focal point and even our newest and greatest enemy that will come before us. The question about the Synths and their creators “The Institute” can make things a bit more interesting as we learn that humans are being replaced by them little by little with their Synth counterparts. Story wise, Fallout 4 follows the tracks just as Fallout 3 did; something has happened, you are hunting your family member and the outcome may depend on how far you are willing to go in order to solve your latest problem. This one is why your kid was kidnapped, why they would want to and the outcome to finding out the resolution.
While on your adventures it won’t be odd to not go alone. Easier than in past titles to obtain, followers become a large part of this game. You’ll meet some such as an oafish Super Mutant named Strong to the famed series member Dogmeat clear to the rather uppity character named Codsworth or even the ill-reputed reporter Piper who just seems to piss a lot of people off with her news reporting. While each of these offer unique dialogue they all have their competitive advantages. While Dogmeat is a dog, he offers a chance to snag-and-snare enemies and even disabling them in combat by doing so. While other companions have the chance to use guns as well as more armor than Dogmeat sometimes it’s nice not to hear them randomly bantering as you explore or even their feedback about quests you are taking part in. Even though it’s nice to have human interaction among the Wasteland sometimes it’s just too much depending on what is going on and how. So what has really change this time around outside of companions that can’t die?
For those of you who are familiar with the level up system, many of you are accustomed to S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system there has been a few changes since players can now choose a state to level up or even a perk to level up. Just as before, some of these perks require certain levels, certain stats and even certain requirements in order for players to progress through the game with a bit more ease than before. While many of the perks return, there are some new ones that allow for weapon upgrading/crafting, food making, armour crafting and even alchemy items(drugs, medical supplies, etc) to be created so that players may take to the Wastelands with a bit more ease. Such as crafting items to make stealth a bit more effective, pocketed armour pieces to allow for players to carry more items and even padded so that players can take a bit more damage than before while weapons see vast amounts of choices to increase damage, range, decrease recoil and the likes.
Fallout 4 – PlayStation 4 (Reviewed), Xbox One and PC
Developer: Bethesda Softworks
Publisher: Bethesda Zenimax
Cost: 59.99 USD
Release Date: Now Available
While there are flaws I could outline many of these are because of minor bugs that seem to pop up and disappear just as quickly as they first emerged. While some may find these bugs such as dialogue cut outs, randomly situated combat scenarios and even oddly placed items that may not be retrievable. While these minor things to some are critical, we do find ourselves enjoying the game in all its intoxicating craftsmanship. If you haven’t already found yourself down the rabbit hole and still falling we are sure that you won’t be landing anytime soon in regards to the sheer amount of content there is to explore. We just wish we could see the hundreds of thousands of people wandering the wastelands.
Stay tuned for further review updates that will include town building, friendships, etc. We do apologize that this bit isn’t in the review, but due to the sheer size of this game and the amount of content I was unable to include it in the initial review this far.
Our review is based upon the final version that one or more of our team members purchased. For information about our ethics policy please click here.
Final Score: 9 out of 10
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.