Citizens of Earth

A jrpg-like that tries to be inovative with very nice ideas:

- A crazy story: We're the President of Earth and have to deal with the daily citizen problems in form of quests.

- Turn-based combat with a "combo point" system with abilities that generate points and other abilities that spend them.

- Lots of recruitable characters with unique skills in combat and also out of combat perks like the "breadman" that will sell you... bread of course.

But everything falls appart because of how the game is designed, it is not fun to progress through the game and I think it is because it has a bad pace and poor level design. In the end it becomes the typical game plenty of delivery quests in a plain scenario like many modern rpgs.

Graphics are 2D and I have no complains here, same with music and sound.

Did I like it? Got bored after 2 hours, and after 6 hours I hated it.
I think you will like it if you:
- Haven't played many rpgs

I rate my experience with a 3 out of 10.

Grand Theft Auto 5

I definitelly don't like the Grand Theft Auto saga anymore.

I started with IV and I'm feeling the same way with V, the world is awesome and Rockstar puts a lot of attention on all the details, I even have a cinema to watch original (short) movies!

The characters are very unique and well developed too, but the big bad thing for me is the progression through the story because I found most of the missions very boring, I was driving for most of the mission length where nothing exciting happened, this kills the pace for me. The only missions I really loved where the heists and there are very few of them and I still hated the preparation missions (more driving...)

So no more GTA for me, I have more fun playing Sleeping Dogs and Saints Row games.

For the trolls: I did finish the game and all the optional events/missions (took me 10 hours per character).

Did I like it? I liked some characters and exploring the world, but not the "main game".
I think you will like it if you:
- Aren't tired of the GTA formula.

I rate my experience with a 4.5 out of 10.

Atelier Shallie

And another cute Atelier game!

As Escha&Logy, this game has 2 protagonists to choose from with very different personality. I choose Shallotte and I had a lot of fun, the other Shallie seems more of the "innocent" kind, I didn't try it for enough time.

It has been a long time since the last time I played an Atelier game and I noticed that alchemy has really evolved a lot, there are a lot of variables to play with that makes the item creation very entertaining.

I started playing this game because they removed the time limit factor, now I can choose when to advance into the next chapter giving infinite time to explore everything I want to. Of course some players may prefer the time limit setting and I think it should have stayed that way because we already have lots of games without time limit ;)

The combat system is turn-based with an use of turns similar to FFX and Lost Oddyssey where the order depends on the skill used and can also be pushed/canceled with the right skills. Also the game has an original way to use the party members on the reserve that makes the battles very dynamic and fun. A game with this battle system, the right budget and thematic, would be a masterpiece (I mean, an Atelier game is not very commercial).

Graphically looks okay and has a few technical issues but nothing unplayable. The music is very good, a few songs have entered into my favorites list ;), the voices are okay too.

The story is good enough though the chapters pacing is a bit weird, some chapters are very long and others extremelly short or irrelevant.

Did I like it? Yes.
I think you will like it if you:
- Don't hate "light" jrpgs

I rate my experience with a 7 out of 10.

Bloodborne

Bloodborne is a new game made by From Software based on "Dark Souls gameplay", with a few tweaks. Here is my review whining.

The combat is faster and more hectic, forcing you to be more agressive and dodging instead of blocking. I always played the Souls games with a medium shield but it didn't take me much to get used to dodge, it feels pretty natural. I had more problems with being agressive and taking the iniciative, but It stopped when I learned my weapon's swings and how the "stuns" worked.

The weapons now transform and it's pretty cool but it is not much different from the switching from 1 hand to 2 hand in Dark Souls. Also there aren't many weapons, so the progression isn't made like the usual rpgs where you find a more powerful weapon every few hours, instead they offer really different play styles and it's up to the player to become accustomed to one and stick with it.

The difficulty, I've come to the conclusion that it isn't very balanced, because:

- On my first playthrough, I played at my normal pace and I found that the game was a bit easy. Only blood-starved beast gave problems, I killed the rest of bosses on first try. Then I started NG+ which I beaten quickly and without problems. Now I'm on NG++ and don't have many problems either. I'm sure it was not due the AI bug because I kept moving the PS4 from one room to another, shutting the power in the process.

- Then I've started a new game from scratch, I played at a higher pace and I had a lot of trouble beating any boss, they kept one-shotting me all the time and I wasn't really that underleveled plus I went straight to find and upgrade my favorite weapon and leveling the correct stats and my insight was always low. I couldn't believe that I was having a harder time than playing NG+ and NG++... maybe it's a bug.

The levels are visually stunning buta bit confusing, it took me 2 playthroughs to get used to some levels. I find it hard to orientate when parts/decoration of the level look very similar, I had the same problem with Lords of the Fallen.

And my last complain is that the game is a bit short, my first play took 17 hours where I only left one boss to kill, my second playthrough took me 12 hours, where I killed everything and got the Platinum Trophy. For comparison's sake: DeS took me 24h+15h, DaS 34h+29h, DaS2 36h+42h (first play without the dlc, second play with all the dlc)

I complain a lot but the game still is very fun to play, I prefer Bloodborne over any other modern game.

Did I like it? Yes, but in some aspects less than other Souls games
I think you will like it if you:
- Like challenges

I rate my experience with an 8 out of 10

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.

Terra Battle

This probably the only android game I've played for more than 5 minutes.

The gameplay of this game is original though is a bit hard to explain, basically it's a turn based game where you have a limited amount of time each turn to move your allies trying to surround the enemies, which will cause the allies to attack. You can surround lines of enemies and also in different directions creating chains of attacks which enables the use of different skills like powerful attacks or healing.

The rest of the game is kinda poor, the story is told with text on a static background, I had no interest at all. Graphically is very simple too, the designs are nicely done but everything is very static. I can't give any opinion about the music or sound because I always have my cellphone muted.

As most mobile games, the core is about a simple but entertaining gameplay that progresses through short stages. This is fine for a few chapters but then it starts to become really repetitive because it hasn't anything else to offer.

The player can also recruit different characters, level them up and promote their class. I never dedicated time to that I just went with the flow and my starting characters were powerful enough for most of the game.

This game also have the usual "energy" that if it depletes you need to wait or buy more with real money. I never bothered about it either.

Did I like it? I got bored.
I think you will like it if you:
- Play it once in a week or so

I rate my experience with a 4 out of 10.

Driveclub

This is one of the best arcade racing games I've ever played.

The controls may be a bit tight at first, but the learning curve is excellent, giving an strong sense of progression through the events. And even that the controls are very arcade, the game has a penalty system which makes you try to drive correctly by penalizing tricks like car raming or hitting walls at high speed to reposition the car through a curve.

The events also contribute to the sense of progression, they are really challenging and events that seemed impossible at first, they slowly become doable as you get used to control the cars and learn driving tricks. There are 3 kinds of events: race, timelap and drifting. At first drifting events seemed the hardest ones until I learned how to drift, timelap are definitely the hardest ones now.

Graphically the game is really beautiful, he illumination is really realisting specially while raining and snowing. Music is not very good on menus, and there's no music while racing but I strangely didn't notice until a friend pointed it out.

About the online mode, I've tried a few challenges but I'm an average driver and see to motivation on what the online modes offers me, I prefer to play the offline events because the difficulty is very adjusted to my skills.

This game is extremelly fun, I apreciate it not being "open world" because I don't like roaming around, on an arcade game I just want quick-plays. Also it's a shame that this game released the way it did and gained many negative reviews because it affected a lot to its sales and the possibility of a sequel.

Did I like it? Yes!
I think you will like it if you:
- Like arcade racers

I rate my experience with a 8.5 out of 10.