Category: Tier One

I swear, I’ve got like… Stockholm Syndrome with this game franchise.

Arguably, the most notorious yet most successful RPG franchise to date, everyone has at least something to say about Final Fantasy. Old-school gamers croak back to days yonder when they fought Garland on the NES, Millennials bicker about which game had the best romantic couple, and the yuppies of today just breaking into the gaming scene see it as yet another weird JRPG where characters with funny hair run around and cut things. So, bottom line is, how exactly can you tell a good Final Fantasy game from a bad one?

Continue reading “Final Fantasy XIII” →

So, this is the game that From Software was so afraid of that they rushed the release of the original Dark Souls, huh? I can see why…

Fantasy RPGs are sometimes a dangerous bag. Buy enough and you’ll start picking up on cheap stereotypes, repeated tropes and pointless filler in many of the titles. Dragon’s Dogma is a reminder of what a fantasy RPG should be. It is a tale that says “Sure, you can have your stats, your party members and your level grind… but why not make that fun?” It reasons, “Walking around the town and talking to NPCs is good because it develops the world and gives the player something to do, but why not remove the annoying bits?” It concludes, “Being able to jump off ledges and climb walls is a good part of any game, whether you play as an assassin or not… so why not add it to our game?” Dragon’s Dogma just feels like an RPG from Japan done right.

Continue reading “Dragon’s Dogma” →

Perma-death? Multiplayer? Classes, stats and real-time combat? Oh, and endless piles of cheese found in the mine? All this and more in…

Barony is an excellent roguelike. Turn on the game and you’ll be dying within minutes (if not seconds) being eaten alive by rats, skeletons or giant spiders. Something that’s important of any difficult game is a feeling of fairness–the player needs to understand why they died and have a relative understanding of what they could have done to prevent it. RNG should play a role in the game to keep things interesting, but the player generally should not feel as if they are completely at its mercy–player input must matter. This is where many roguelikes shine and others fail. Barony succeeds at both; even the early deaths in the game serve as understandable teaching instruments, generally in the form of “enemies are aggressive and you’ll need to be on guard at all times.” Likewise, RNG feels present, but never ultimately fate-determining.

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Do you want all the fun parts of QWOP without the frustration? Why don’t you try…

Octodad is a simple game. Following suit with the wild craze of “reality physics simulators” it takes actions that should be mundane and simple but makes them wildly difficult by requiring the player to input each and every movement. Games like QWOP and then Surgeon Simulator bringing popularity to these titles, Octodad may be the best realization of this genre yet.

Continue reading “Octodad: Dadliest Catch” →

And here I thought I would never play another Horror game that rivaled Silent Hill 2. I guess I don’t have to be sad that Konami’s gone, because at least we have…

So. This game is a masterpiece. I can’t even begin to say anything bad about it. Like, I am completely blown away by this title and aside from the brief moment I glanced at it on Steam and decided to buy it, I’ve never even heard of it. What the heck is this game!?

Continue reading “Pathologic Classic HD” →

I just discovered Aidyn Chronicles in space. And it is…

All right. I’ll admit it. I’m in love with absolutely terrible RPGs. This is one of them. Full warning–I’m rating this at Tier 1. This is probably not even close to a Tier 1 title for most people. That being said, here we go into the world of Anachronox.

Continue reading “Anachronox” →

I’ve been looking forward to this game.  I’ll admit, I am one of the suckers for high quality pixel art graphics, and this game offers that in spades.  You are Otus, a mute Owl-creature-scout-thing.  You fly about your town and scout for pirates, unlocking new areas by making friends and solving puzzles – until pirates attack and you are sent on a mission to save the Owl temple.

I had a lot of fun in my first hour, and the atmosphere is certainly more charming than cliche (which can be a real problem with retro pixel art games).  The music is fantastic, and the few mechanics I did unlock promise variety in combat and fascinating puzzles.  We’ll see if it can hold up through the rest of the game, but for now it is a solid Tier One entry.

Steam link

MY FATHER IS DEAD. …better open an item shop!

I’ve been looking forward to this one for a couple reasons. Firstly, I’ve played and 100%-ed this game’s… *ahem* “sister” game “Chantelise,” a game that features a young girl Chante and her fairy sister Elise who rent out a room from a woman who runs an item shop. Noticing the pattern? Anyway, reason 2 for my interest in Recettear was that it came highly recommended to me by more than one person. Reason number 3 and perhaps the most exciting, is that this is one of the few times I get to write a review following a review of Lepcis’s. This naturally brings about a certain air of… conflict… and it makes me happy to see that our opinions clash on this one–a feature that helps me both understand myself as a writer and as a game reviewer.

Continue reading “Recettear: An Item Shop Tale” →