Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.

Surprise of the Year! I wasn't attracted at all by this game, but I gave it a try and it is really fun and looks better than what static images show.

This game is made by the Fire Emblem developers and the structure is similar: Dialog -> Preparation -> Battle -> Dialog, it is also focused on strategy and has the same turn system where each player has it's turn to move all his soldiers, but it plays different.

The movement is also grid based but moving consumes steam, this same steam is required to attack and the amount of steam consumed depends on the weapon.

The combat is based on ranged weapons like shotguns, rifles, rockets, grenades, sniper, and the characters are controlled similar to a 3rd person shooter, where you need to aim and shoot. Of course it is not a shooter because it's your turn and the enemy is static so it is just to allow the player to aim to different parts of the monster in search of his weak points.

One thing that reminds me a lot to XCOM are the "counter attacks": a unit can stay in "guard" position which will allow it to attack an enemy unit that moves inside his sight during the opponent turn. Guard position requires a weapon that is able to counterattack and enough steam to shoot.

I call this an srpg though it doesn't have any level/stats progression (some people needs to see numbers to call it an rpg). The progression is made by finding "cogs" that are spread though the scenarios which rewards new weapons, and money that is earned by killing enemies, inside boxes around the scenario and you get more money for completing the misison, extra if you complete it witouth deaths and few turns. With money you get new "steam bags" that gives the soldier different effects: like more starting steam, more capacity, healing, etc.

The game is challenging, I loved the difficulty and balance of the enemies and scenarios from the start to the end. Also there's no global map/view so you don't know what's behind every corner until you come close to it, so you need to be prepared for everything!

The story is fine and there's not much dialog, but even so, I liked the characters a lot as they have a strong presence. I find videogame stories more enjoyable with images rather than text. Music has some good tunes and graphically looks better than I've seen on the internet.


Did I like it? Yes!
I think you will like it if you:
- Like srpg
- Are looking for a challenge

I rate my experience with a 8 out of 10.

Persona Q

Although this is suposed to be Persona+Etrian, this seems more like Shin Megami Tensei combats in Etrian Odyssey labyrinths with Persona 3&4 make-up.

The combats are 1st person, turn-based and the main objective is spotting and abusing the enemy weakness, it is actually very fun because the difficulty is very balanced through all the game.  All party members use what they call personas, but these really behave like demons/angels from Shin Megami Tensei as you have to keep finding new powerful demons because they become obsolete very quickly, these can be bought, obtained as a reward or by fusing 2 or more of them. All these facts make it look more like Shin Megami Tensei than Persona.

All the game happens inside of extensive labyrinths, most of these are smartly done and very entertaining to explore, although some puzzles are a bit "japanese" which made me get stuck a few times. The pace is very good, there's a small downturn after the fist half of the game that made me think about quitting, but then it recovers again with a nice dungeon.

Graphically the demons are gorgeus as usual, characters look cute and the labythings look fine, Etrian team has really improves through the years. Music is awesome as always (only if you like Persona 3&4 style).

This game took me around 51 hours to finish, I'm kinda fast completing games so I think it will take around 65 hours for the average player. The story is okay for a crossover game at least which usually is a mere excuse to bring the characters from different together. The bad point is that there are tons of dialogs, I can only guess that this is a bit of fan service as most are just the characters acting very cliché.

Did I enjoy it? Yes!
I think you will like it if you:
- Like Dungeon Crawlers
- Don't hate Persona 3&4 style

I rate my experience with a 8 out of 10.

One Piece Unlimited World Red

Best One Piece game I've played. This one mixes button mash combat, adventure and rpg elements.

The combat is combo based similar to Pirate Warriors but less massive and with harder opponents. Characters level up and can be equipped many different passive and active skills that are found through the game.

Depending on the equipped skills, the characters can perform different roles like healing, ranged damage, melee damage, support... and the player can choose to bring up to 3 of them to battle which gives a bit of strategy because choosing a wrong party can lead to a harder game. The player controls one character while the cpu controls the other two, but the player can switch between characters at any moment.

I specially had fun with the exploration to find materials for creating and improving items and skills, the scenarios are very limited and simple, though they look very good.

This mix of combat, adventure and rpg allows the game to not get repetitive because each one has a different pace and the player can choose when to do one or the other.

The game itself is not very long and sometimes gets too easy, but there are many side missions to do, items to find, improving the city and its shops, a harder new game+...

Did I like it? Yes
I think you will like it if you:
- Are a One Piece fan
- Don't expect anything like Pirate Warriors

I rate my experience with a 6 out of 10.

Final Fantasy Theatrhythm

This is an addictive rhythm game a la Guitar Hero featuring the best of Final Fantasy music. It is controlled with the touch screen using the usual gestures and where each Final Fantasy numbered game has at least 3 different stages featuring different gameplay:

- The world map: where the character roams around and the player follows an slow paced music. Controlls here are usually tap and hold&slide.

- Cinematic mode: a beautiful mode where a cinematic from the game plays while the player follows the flow with taps, holds and flicks.

- Battle mode: the 4 characters battle some enemies while the player keeps the rhythm on a fast paced music with taps, holds and quick slides while the characters attack the monsters with many known skills, magics and summons.

The game has some rpg-like customization, featuring the main characters who can level up, learn different abilities, equip item. Plus there's a ton of content to do, many difficulty levels and different modes.

Music of course is superb, featuring the most epic and remember tunes from the main games. Too bad the 3ds speakers aren't great, but the recording quality is very good because I connect the 3ds to some autoamplified speakers the sound quality experience a vast improvement.

On the bad side, there's dlc and that they "dared" to put tunes from a game that Squarenix refused to bring in english.

Did I like it? Addictive!
I think you will like it if you:
- Don't hate rhythm games
- Love Final Fantasy

I rate my experience with a 7.5 out of 10.

Shin Megami Tensei IV

An excellent game, with a very challenging combat system based on gaining extra turns by finding the enemy weaknesses while protecting yourself from your own ones.

The player can learn abilities from his demons, which are "caught" by negotiating with them in battle or obtaining them through the demon fusion system.

The world and graphics are dark as always, music and sound is good too. Demon designs are awesome as always.

This is the first numbered Shin Megami Tensei game I've played, so when I compare it to Strange Journey I find 2 negative things:

- The press turn system seems a bit more unbalanced as every time the enemy found a weakness on any of my demons, it was game over. At least I could return to the moment right before the fight by paying some Macca, this is greatly apreciated.

- The story is a bit weaker, because the player has to "wait" too many hours to reach the next dialog, making the characters more superficial. I really prefer Strange Journey storytelling.

The positive side is that the dungeons doesn't seem like the ones from Etrian Odyssey anymore, now dungeons are lighter, very entertaining and never get too tiring.

Did I like it? Yes, I love the difficulty of these games.
You will like it if you:
- Like jrpgs
- Want challenge

I rate my experience with a 8 out of 10.

Pokemon Part 2

It has some nice additions, better and colored graphics, new story, lots of new pokemon, new ways of exploration, pokemon can be equiped with one item and the game is really long. But of course it wasn't as suprising as the original.

Did I like it? Yes
I think you will like it if you:
- Like rpgs

I rate my experience with a 8 out of 10.

More things to do, better graphics but the same system and feels like nothing changed, I enjoyed it but It started to feel repetitive.

Did I like it? Yes
I think you will like it if you:
- Like rpgs

I rate my experience with a 7 out of 10.

The declive, I noticed that I wasn't having so much fun anymore and was forcing myself to finish it.

Did I like it? Yes, but got bored
I think you will like it if you:
- Like rpgs
- Aren't tired of pokemon

I rate my experience with a 6 out of 10.

I just coulnd't play for more than 6 hours, this game isn't fun nor challenging for me anymore :(

Did I like it? Nope
I think you will like it if you:
- Like rpgs
- Aren't tired of pokemon

I rate my experience with a 4 out of 10.

Not played and not gonna play it.

I may try it but I have no hopes.

Bravely Default

On one side I'm very happy about this game because it has my favorite character customization: the Job system, allowing the player to choose the character classes and combine some of their skills to make powerful and/or original combinations.

Combats are random and turn based, where aside from the usual attack/magic/item commands the player has many mechanics to use like:

- Summoning streetpass friends to do an attack, this can break some combats as a powerful ally can one shot bosses. I try to not use it.

- Sleep points: Points gained by having the console on sleep, this can be used to pause the action and allows the player to get an immediate extra turn for one character.

- Brave/Default: the main mechanic which allows to spend up to 3 extra turns (Brave) which will cause the character to be unable to act until the extra turn counter reaches 1 again. And Default which allows the character to skip one turn, increasing the extra turn counter and reducing the damage taken.

Also we get a nice and explorable world map with plenty of places to visit, the music is very nice and graphically the scenarios look pretty.

On the other side I hate the character models, they look very childish and so are their behaviors, this is a very common thing on the actual jrpgs which in my opinion downplays the game making the story less serious and transcendental.

In the end is a very nice jrpg but it lacks a lot on the plot and character development. Still, thank you Nintendo(or Square?) for bringing these games here.

Did I like it? Yes, I love the job system
I think you will like it if you?
- Like jrpg

I rate my experience with a 8 out of 10.

SMT: Devil Survivor Overclocked

I almost never check for information about games, plus this is a Shin Megami Tensei game so can't go wrong.

And It surprised me very much to find this is a tactical rpg (I always confuse tactical and strategy terms, spare me =) ), no dungeons nor random encounters this time.

Battles are tactical and squad based similar to Bahamut Lagoon, so every unit is composed by a human and its demons and it can perform 2 types of actions: One are the field skills like healing of buffing useful when there's no enemy around. The other are the direct combat that is done by the usual shin megami tensei turn-based system, but of course this only lasts 1 turn with the possibility of getting an extra attack, because it uses a weakness system similar to Digital Devil Saga, where exploiting the weak point is very important and grants an extra turn for the ally/foe.

It looks and sounds okay like any other game from the saga. It's challening, there's demons, fusing, learning abilities from other demons and the story is interesting as usual, Atlus always delivers.

Finally there's also a lot of endings but I've never liked multiple endings, requires too much effort causing me to get bored pretty soon, I just watch them on youtube >).

Did I like it? Very.
I think you will like it if you:
- Don't hate tactical rpgs
- Like shin megami tensei environment

I rate my experience with a 8 out of 10

Fire Emblem Awakening

This is a serious Fire Emblem evolution, it keeps the soul while improves on some areas to attract other users.

There are many cool features: now there's a explorable world map, not fully explorable as it's based on nodes but it's a welcome addition.

Now there are dialogs where the 3d models are shown, it is a bit different as I'm used to the 2d art but It is still nice.

Another novelty is that 2 generals can form a combined unit with increased stats, extra attacks and dodges atc. This could need a bit of balance because some combinations are clearly overpowered.
 This can be one of its problems, the game can be easily unbalanced and it happened to me. I played on hard but I kept doing most of the little events and dlc quests that I found during the game, so my party level grew too much and since chapter 5 I was easily rushing everything until the lasts few chapters where I stopped doing those sub events, so it kinda became a bit boring. I won't make the same mistake on my 2nd playthrough.

The rest is the good old Fire Emblem: spears, axes and swords, lots of recruitable characters with interesting personalities and dialogs between them, frienship levels, good epic story, long and strategic battles, etc. And it looks pretty nice on the 3DS.

Did I like it? Yes.
I think you will like it if you:
- Love Fire Emblem series
- Like strategy

I rate my experience with a 8.5 out of 10.

SMT DS: Soul Hackers

Here's another Atlus 1st person dungeon crawler with demon compedium, fusion, negotation, swords, guns, dark atmosphere, random encounters, turn-based combat... I love it.

It reminds me to Persona 2 but without the personas, shorter but intense. With a similar art style which I prefer over the anime style from the latests persona games.

The player party mixes humans and demons, one flaw I found is that the demons are weaker and have less weight in combat than in other games, another flaw are the combats being a bit easier than usual,but still challenging.

The story is interesting as always though it lacks some character development. It has some cool things like the virtual world, street pass functions (3DS version), 2 types of currencies, one used inside dungeons and demon related things, while the other currency is for the usual shopping.

I had plenty of fun, I have inconditional love for Shin Megami Tensei.

Did I like it? Yes.
I think you will lke it if you:
- Like Shin Megami Tensei atmosphere
- Don't mind 1st person dungeons

I rate my experience with a 8 out of 10

Tales of the Abyss

This game starts very good, combat is very fun though bit "button-masher", there's nice exploration, dungeons, good customization, looks great on 3ds, everything was in the right direction.

But then after 30 hours the game seemed to force its length by keeping me busy at any price, and that killed the game for me. For another 30 hours I was doing boring repetitive quests, travelling from Daath to Baticul to Yulia and then Daath again, I won't forget the those names, ever. I really really had to force myself to finish this game, thats why all the good things about this game got void by this bad memories.

About the story, it was interesting but I think I may be getting tired of the "Tales of" saga, the main reason are the character behaviors, I find them utterly unrealistic and exaggerated and this makes me loose interest in their development, therefore I loose interest in game's story too.

Did I like it? Nope, it sickens me.
I think you will like it if you:
- Have inconditional love for "Tales of"
- Haven't played any "Tales of" before

I rate my experience with a 3.0 out of 10

Project X Zone

I could say many flaws about this game, boring story and dialogs, can get repetitive and I think needed more customization; I could choose the equipment of every squad but I couldn't choose the squad members, only its support unit.

But I was so addicted to the battles and combat system that I could ignore any flaw this game has, that once I turned on my 3ds I couldn't stop, I loved the the strategy, the cast, the combos, tons of damage. It's pretty long too, it took me around 70 hours.

The battles are the usual srpg, but the combat system is based on doing key combinations that need to be correctly timed to create bigger combos, there's also support actions and special attacks to increase the possiblities. 

Still this can get a bit repetitive, because the battles and the combat system are the things that kept me playing because the story is never amusing and lots of chapters are clearly fillers to extend the game's length.

Finally there's a wide cast with characters from Megaman, Resident Evil, .Hack, Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Street Fighter, Devil May Cry, Xenosaga and many more, with some suprises as I didn't expect to find someone from Fighting Vipers ^^

Did I like it? Hell I was addicted.
I think you will like it if you:
- Have fun with the combat system
- Know most of the cast
- Like srpg
- Don't mind the lack of costumization

I rate my experience with a 8.0 out of 10

Etrian Odyssey IV

I wasn't very hyped by this game, I skipped Etrian Oddyssey III due lack of time so it has been a long time since I played this game series and I forgot many things about it.

I forgot about how addictive it is; time flies while exploring the dungeons, the turn based combat, evolving the characters and getting the right group setup. This last part is the one I enjoy most, there are a few classes but thanks to its customization it allows classes do different functions depending on the skill choices, for example I went with 2 Snipers, 1 specialized in binds and other in dealing critical damage and extra shots.

 This gives a lot of valid group setups and choices, like going or not with a pure healer, tank or no tank, binds or status effects, etc. These choices mean lots of different fight strategies which is what I value the most on a rpg combat system. 

Oh and I forgot, at a certain point of the adventure you're able to choose a subclass.

I also liked having a world map to explore, there I could find quests, dungeons, some tough aggressive insta-kill monsters and loot that got changed for money once I got back to the city.

But I also forgot about having to draw the dungeons, auto-map helps but I still needed to draw walls, passages, doors... I'm not comfortable with that as I'm playing all the time with my hands on the buttons, so every time I wanted to add a door I need to change my hands position (maybe I'm lazy :P)

 And I forgot about how I always ignored its story, the game is nice per se but maybe having a better story would get it to a new level.

Finally frustration, getting the party wiped out means to do everything again since the last time you saved, which is usually okay but I felt like that I died every time I took a risk like "one more floor" or "I can beat the boss", so it got a bit frustrating.

Did I like it? Yes though I got burnt many times.

I think you will like it if you:

- Are a dungeon explorer 

- Love Atlus challenging difficulty

- Don't mind grinding from time to time

- Liked other Etrians

I rate my experience with a 7.5 out of 10.