B-Project Ryusei Fantasia is a fascinating sort of visual novel. It’s not an otome game, though you do get to spend time with and send messages to 14 single young men who seem to adore your character. It’s not like most visual novels, as many of the choices are tied to earning stories for the singers in the group and there aren’t many decisions influencing the endings. Also, while it involves an idol group, there’s no rhythm gameplay like in Jack Jeanne. Add in the fact that you really do need some awareness of B-Project to really enjoy it, and you’re left with one of the most niche games I’ve played in a while.

In order to really understand how big of a deal B-Project Ryusei Fantasia is in a way, you have to understand exactly how big the whole property is. It’s been running since 2016, after all, with Mages starting it with an anime and manga. Since then, there have been CDs, multiple games, and stage shows. A lot of it hasn’t been localized! Though if someone wants to prepare and get familiarized with the world and its characters, Crunchyroll does have B-Project: Zeccho Emotion and Passion Love Call streaming on the service.

Simply put, it’s a lot to take in. The best advice I can recommend going in, if you aren’t familiar, is to know the general premise. Haruhi and Yuduki Teramitsu, Akane Fudo, and Miroku Shingari were in a group called Killer King. Ryuji Korekuni and Tomohisa Kitakado performed as a duo called KitaKore. The group Moons consisted of Hikaru Osari, Kazuna Masunaga, Mikado Sekimura, Momotaro Onzai, and Tatsuhiro Nome. Finally, Thrive was a trio made up of Goshi Kaneshiro, Kento Aizome, and Yuta Ashu. Gandara Music decided to bring them all together as one big group, and the player character is essentially in charge of them. The visual novel follows you helping them prepare for more shows, while also offering a brief flashback at the start to help familiarize players with the situation.

You’re going to know in the first hour of playing B-Project Ryusei Fantasia if it is for you or not, which makes it a blessing that a PC demo is available on Steam. I’m not the biggest fan of the execution, but feel like it might work better for fans. Basically, it begins in the thick of things. You watch as four boy band idol groups called Killer King, Kitakore, Moon, and Thrive perform as the supergroup B-Project. As you celebrate with a number of young men who all are praising you, an artist & repertoire expert who worked with them come together, you flash back to the beginnings. It’s honestly throwing a lot at you at once, with no introductions to the characters or groups immediately, which may put off people unfamiliar with it. I watched some of the anime on Crunchyroll ahead of time to prepare, and I had trouble following and recognizing some people. 

I will admit that there are some minor production decisions for B-Project Ryusei Fantasia that started to get to me the more I played and added to the issue, with some being on Mages part and the other a result of a means needed to make the game work. While in the CGs and certain segments, you can really see how each member of the cast stands out, there are times when the portraits for characters have this uniformity that feels a little off-putting. Like if someone dragged and dropped pair of eyes A and hairstyle B in certain colors onto a sprite to create one person, and then pair of eyes A with hairstyle D for another. Characters are distinct, but when dealing with such a large cast I started to notice commonalities.

The other involves the text boxes. There are times when the font is a perfect size and there are two or three lines in a box. Things look fine! But then, there will be an especially wordy explanation or long-winded response. Since PQube is working within certain confines, it means getting three lines in a box and it gets difficult to read. 

However, aside from that, the execution of B-Project Ryusei Fantasia is quite fun. Using the heroine’s cell phone as the UI works well. Especially when you get Join text messages, calls, and voice mails. It helps with the immersion in the moment. The general art direction is very crisp. While some music can feel a bit generic, actual B-Pro songs sound great. The pacing of the story, once you get past the introduction and flashbacks, is also good. I’d even say once you get to personal stories, it feels a lot stronger.

B-Project Ryusei Fantasia is one of those games that is ideal for what it is for those who are aware of B-Pro and the many projects tied to the series. If you “get” it, you’ll love how it handles things and the chance to more closely interact with your favorite characters. For those who aren’t aware of this Mages project, the entry barrier is pretty high! Not impossibly so. I think it feels like PQube was aware of this and released the demo so early ahead of launch as a result to help people prepare. For those who love the series, it’s a lot of fun. I do think people curious about it should give the free trial and anime a chance, as both would really help you when it comes to deciding to pick it up.

B-Project Ryusei Fantasia will come to the Nintendo Switch and PC on July 15, 2024. 

The post Review: B-Project Ryusei Fantasia Is for Fans appeared first on Siliconera.

Following in the footsteps of other visual novels like VA-11 HALL-A and Coffee Talk, Tavern Talk places you behind the counter of a medieval fantasy inn where you'll meet and serve a gaggle of adventuring customers. You'll hand out quests, as well as advice and drinks, influencing how various stories will play out from behind the counter of your cozy bar. While the tropes and motifs are well worn, they're also fairly well-executed and the game as a whole avoids slipping from "wholesome" to "cloying" as some of its fellow travelers do, even if it can play it a bit too safe at times.

Tavern Talk is primarily a visual novel during which you also have to serve drinks to your patrons, brewed from a number of stat-boosting ingredients. These start out simple enough. A patron asks for something to boost their strength, and you make the drink with a lot of the strength ingredient. Naturally the difficulty increases as you unlock more recipes and the requests get less obvious, but the game also mixes things up with the quest system. As the natural hub for adventurers in the region, your tavern also serves as a place for people to post missions (or for you to post ones pieced together from a the ramblings or rumors you pick up). Other patrons can then pick up these quests, but before they go they will often ask for a drink for the road. Whichever drink you serve can alter how they go about completing the quest and whether they succeed.

It's serviceable, but rarely challenging. Even with the addition of infusions, you rarely need to make more than the odd adjustment to a recipe. The entire time, I kept thinking back to a Honkai: Star Rail event called "Vignettes in a Cup," which had a similar, but slightly more involved, drink-mixing minigame that served as a more substantial puzzle. That said, you could make a good argument that a more complex system would only slow this game down and keep players from getting to the real draw: the characters.

Tavern Talk features a robust gallery of rogues (or fighters, or clerics, or... detectives), and each feels like they could be someone's player character. There's a grumpy dwarf that has no time for worldbuilding and wants to get on with the game, the stuffy cleric that rigidly obeys their alignment, and a changeling with the most rancid vibes I've ever seen. They bounce off each other well too, and sometimes buddy-up with interesting results. The edgy rogue and the optimistic kitten were a fun pair, as was the anxious elf taking charge of the imposing warrior woman. Their interactions also helped sell me on the setting, which I otherwise found to be fairly typical high fantasy fluff. The more I saw of how they talked about the world at large, the more lived in it felt.

Patrons can even bring back decorations they find on quests to spruce up your bar, though you don't get to place or customize them yourself. It's also a nice touch that Tavern Talk lets you open up a logbook at any time to read a bio on all your regulars, including their class and alignment. That last part was actually interesting to observe in the dialogue, as there were more than a few times I found characters agreeing (or perhaps, aligning) on certain topics despite having vastly different personalities. I usually despise the Dungeons and Dragons alignment system as limited and limiting, but here it felt less obtrusive and more like a consistency.

My biggest criticism of Tavern Talk is just that it doesn't really step too far outside that cozy comfort zone to re-evaluate things. To bring back a previous reference, VA-11 HALL-A (for all its problematic elements) used its 'worms-eye view' to show a different side of its cyberpunk setting, where you rarely have all the answers about whats going on and can do precious little when something happens to your friends and colleagues. It made the rapport you built with your regulars more meaningful, and in the end it felt like you had fostered a community that could mutually assist each other against the horrors of corporate dystopia. I never quite got that same feeling with Tavern Talk despite it hitting similar notes, or perhaps even because you have that little bit more agency in the story.

That's not to say the game fails, in fact Tavern Talk accomplishes everything it sets out to do: it has coziness in spades and plenty of entertaining characters to encounter. If you enjoy a gentle ride and the odd tabletop RPG, Tavern Talk will feel like ordering a favorite drink from your regular watering hole. It won't challenge you, but it might be just what you need to refresh after a long day.

Tavern Talk is immediately available on PC and Nintendo Switch.

The post Review: Tavern Talk Is Comfy, But Not Very Adventurous appeared first on Siliconera.

When I first played The Exit 8, it was on the Nintendo Switch. I loved it. The idea of going through, picking out what is obviously or not-so-blatantly wrong was a lot of fun, and sometimes fascinating. After playing The Exit 8 VR on the Meta Quest 3, it felt like a natural, comfortable fit and really made me feel even more pulled into the experience. 

You are in a subway tunnel. To get out, you must reach Exit 8. However, this isn’t as simple as walking down a hallway and making the right turns as you follow a map. The only way to get to the exit you need is to successfully pass through a repeating space enough times leading up to it, starting and 0. If the hallway, its layout, and its occurrences are all identical to your first walk through it, you are safe to go through and continue, and the next time you pass the Exit sign it will say 1, 2, 3, and so on. If you go through and something seems awry, you need to turn back.

Those anomalies are what makes The Exit 8 fascinating in all of its incarnations. This is essentially an observation game. You need to pay attention to your surroundings. Are the posters the same? The lights? The tiles? Is the other person who keeps walking down the hall behaving normally? Do you not hear any unusual sounds? If even one thing is awry, you need to turn around. When you do, you’ll find yourself passing another Exit sign, only with the number increasing to show you’re on the right path.

It’s simplistic, but that’s the what makes The Exit 8 VR, and the game in all its forms, work. You can’t actually interact with anything. You can walk or run forward, but that’s it. Since the space is focusing on a single hallway, it can feel fairly realistic. Though admittedly, I did encounter anomaly that seemed a bit sillier in VR than it did on the Switch. 

It’s because of that simplicity and execution here that worked favor of The Exit 8 VR. The nature of the Meta Quest 3 headset and playing it in a quiet room really made the sound design stand out. Every audio cue was easier to hear and made me felt even more like I was walking down the hallway. This also helped with anomaly spotting. It also made certain visual anomalies a little more fun to experience. Being able to see them so closely in front of me made them feel more real or even unsettling. It’s immersive in a way that was impossible on the Switch, and I enjoyed it so much more as a result.

There are a few elements that might make it a little more difficult to get into The Exit 8 VR on the Meta Quest headsets like the 3. At least, perhaps initially. It’s very easy to get accustomed to moving forward down the hall and sprinting. However, if you use the left joystick to move the camera to look, it’s a bit halting and might keep you from actually seeing something when the position snaps into place. It’s helpful at reducing VR motion-sickness, but takes getting used to. Also, when I encountered an anomaly like ones that involved an incredibly speeding retreat, I noticed it took me about an hour of playing and getting adjusted to the controls and atmosphere to recognize and extricate myself from the situation.

MyDearest and Kotake Create really did a fantastic job of pulling off The Exit 8 VR on the Meta Quest 2, 3, and Pro. I mean, I’m sure it helps that the base game isn’t the most complex title. Even so, I felt no VR sickness or discomfort. It’s so easy find yourself immersed in it. It’s even easier to spot and experience the anomalies, thanks to the sound design and execution. Going through The Exit 8 in VR is now my favorite way to play.

The Exit 8 VR will be playable in VR on the Meta Quest 2, 3, and Pro on July 11, 2024. 

The post Review: The Exit 8 VR Hits Different appeared first on Siliconera.

Even if a VR adaptation of a game isn’t perfect, sometimes it feels worthwhile due to the nature of it and effort put into making it work. Riven is a great example. We already know the game is a fantastic and beloved adventure. The core of the experience is tried and true. The VR adaptation of Riven at times is incredibly impressive on the Meta Quest 3, especially if you played the original game in the 1990s, even if there are some issues with loading, textures, and properly keeping notes to help you on your way.

Riven picks up after the events of Myst, but the execution is such that someone unfamiliar with the lore could jump in and appreciate the puzzles and adventure without knowing all about Atrus, Gehn, and the nature of the linking books in the world. The important thing to know is Atrus seeks the player’s help in saving his kidnapped wife Catherine from his father Gehn, who brought her into the collapsing world known as the Age of Riven. Since Atrus needs to try and keep the world stable, it is up to those of us playing to head in, find Catherine, and imprison Gehn, solving many puzzles along the way.

While Riven began its life as a point-and-click adventure, the VR version succeeds in making it feel a bit more like a traditional adventure game filled with puzzles. You’ll explore the five islands in the world, solving puzzles that help you proceed, learn more about the situation, and carry on. It’s a much more tactile experience on the Meta Quest 3, which suits the game even better than I expected. After all, you need to look through environments and interact with what you find to constantly learn more about the age. The controls feel natural. The puzzles and nature of it all is also very freeing, with someone left to essentially learn by doing, which makes it feel even more satisfying when you see the influence your actions have.

However, I experienced many moments when I honestly would have preferred to be playing Riven in a more traditional way and not in VR on my Meta Quest 3. Some of it involved the pitfalls that can come from VR games in general. That is, your degree of comfort may vary, and I found it wasn’t as good as accommodating my needs and warding off potential motion-sickness as Asgard’s Wrath 2. (I still consider that the pinnacle of comfort in VR adventuring.) This is a your mileage may vary sort of issue, as others might feel more at ease with it. Plus, you can mitigate it by playing in shorter sessions. However, the extent of it can also depend on the randomized solutions for some puzzles or how observant you are when figuring out what items to find and use. 

Which brings me to the more pervasive issue with Riven in VR on the Meta Quest headsets. In the more traditional and PC versions of the game, I always felt like it was fairly easy to see when I’d need to find especially notable objects or switches in the game. I also played both Myst and Riven with actual physical notebooks by me, so I could jot down places or things I needed to remember. These are really thoughtful games that demand a lot of your attention. You need to be able to remember and reference things easily. While I could take screenshots of moments to help recall things I needed to know, it pales in comparison to taking more detailed notes. It isn’t as easy to keep track of what I’m doing. I did find myself actually sitting down while playing at one point, taking notes on paper as I played, and it ruined the immersion and moment as I kept taking the headset on and off. (Not to mention it ended up being a bit disorienting!)

If you can get past those things, Riven is really something in VR. Especially since it generally looks really great. Cyan Worlds and Starry Expanse Project did a fantastic job of turning the original game into an actual world we can move through and explore. There is occasionally a loading issue with some elements of the world, not to mention when you’re actually getting into things. I did notice some textures might not look as good as others, and it does feel a bit like some of the personality of the characters is lost with the new models that needed to be used. But considering the age of Riven and the feats needed to bring this VR version to life, it feels like a small price to pay for something that does look and feel as immersive as it does. Not to mention, it’s a testament to how enduring the design of the original game was.

Riven may not be perfect on the Meta Quest 3, but the VR version is worth experiencing if you love the game and series. Considering what needed to be done to bring it to life, it feels incredible to actually be walking around the Age of Riven’s five islands. It’s enough to make me forgive the smaller technical issues and shift to character models from FMV. However, it can be more difficult to play due to it not being as easy to keep track of what you’re doing and work out solutions in optimal fashions, especially since the nature of the medium could mean you’ll have some trouble finding what you are looking for or interact with to proceed.

Riven is available on the Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest 3, and PC and Mac with VR support.

The post Review: Riven Remake Is a Noble VR Endeavor appeared first on Siliconera.

While there are exciting, thrilling moments in the lives of spy Loid Forger, assassin Yor Forger, and telepath Anya Forger, a lot of the series is a day-by-day, slice of life experience. Spy x Anya: Operation Memories, the first major Spy x Family game, really gets that by putting the focus on Anya attempting to complete a school assignment. While the nature of getting every photo does mean a bit of repetition and there is an awkward launch into it, it ended up being a fun little sim about family and photographing Anya at key moments like she’s an ever-present Pikachu in Pokemon Snap.

I was actually a bit thrown when Spy x Anya: Operation Memories began, since there was no introductory story setting the stage for the Spy x Family game. Rather, Anya Forger was in her class at Eden Academy and a tutorial went over controls right away. It didn’t even explain the whole purpose of the game until I went through learning how to move Anya, the camera, talk to people, and head home. It’s only once she was back home with her parents Loid and Yor that the whole purpose of the game was revealed in a flashback. One of her latest assignments is to create a diary. Because she wants to make it awesome and impress “Second Son” Damian Desmond to help her actually-a-spy father with his mission involving Donovan Desmond, her family agrees to help her with outings to create memories.

It’s an awkward choice, to be certain. I’m very familiar with Spy x Family, thanks to reading the manga and watching the anime, so I had no problem immediately catching up with what’s going on in the game. However, people who don’t have that familiarity are going to be completely left in the dark. Something as simple as a brief introduction with Anya explaining who she is, her telepathic powers, why her “father” Loid created the fake family, and that her “mother” Yor is actually an assassin, would be a big help and would help make the transition into the experience easier and smoother. 

Once you get past the many tutorials, it becomes fairly clear that Spy x Anya: Operation Memories is a Pokemon Snap sort of game that mixes minigames and opportunities to socialize with the cast of Spy x Family with dress-ups and photo ops. Anya will take part in a family meeting, during which the destination of the next outing will be selected. While waiting for that day to come up, she’ll go to school and spend time at home. At both locations, there are opportunities to talk with members of the series’ casts to form relationships with them and chances to make memories. There will also be chances to interact with items Anya finds especially interesting for a photo for her diary.

Said photos are their own minigame. You need to get the shot in focus, ensure the angle is correct to be able to catch all people or points of interest, then nail the timing to get the perfect shot. A visual indicator of three light-up frames let you know when that moment arrives. That’s also paired with multiple opportunities to repeat the moment, so you can be assured you’ll get a perfect three-star picture photo for the diary showing the focus, angle, and timing is just right. You get to do one of these at school each day, and another one at home every evening.

In the case of the outings in Spy x Anya: Operation Memories, those are a bit more involved. You get a chance to buy items from the in-game store with points earned from photos and minigames. These can be used at certain points in outing locations for special memories and photo ops. It also makes the prospect of purchasing or earning extra raffle outfits and accessories more appealing, since everyone’s appearance changes when you do. There are missions with rewards like raffle tickets for completing certain tasks. Plus taking photos with all three special items assigned to an area unlocks an additional shot. 

Unlocking actually comes up quite a bit, but it’s handled in such a way in Spy x Anya: Operation Memories that it doesn’t feel too burdensome. New outing prospects open up as you get through the tutorial and view existing ones. More clothing, accessories, and items do as well. Though honestly, in the case of the cosmetics, they’re more of a nice bonus than a requirement. Given how cute Anya is and how faithful Loid and Yor’s appearances are, it’s totally fine and doesn’t feel terribly limiting if you don’t completely splurge. 

The additional outings and such also unlock new minigames, which Anya can play in the evening to earn Play Points to put toward items in the store if she uses earned Eurekas. The qualities of these vary, to be honest. I wasn’t a fan of the Cooking with Yor experience, as the timing seemed awkward for cutting vegetables. I did enjoy the rudimentary beat’em up involving Thorn Princess taking down waves of enemies as she headed toward a boss. Dodgeball Day at Eden College and the Loid’s Escape stealth minigame also weren’t too bad. I appreciated there was an attempt to offer more variety and experiences tailored to the series than in most minigame collections. 

I suppose where Spy x Anya: Operation Memories succeeds is that the game really does feel like a true Spy x Family experience. It’s cozy in its way, mimicking what daily life is probably like for the Forger family. Anya is allowed to ham it up as a character, and her personality helps carry it. It also looks spot-on, with some fantastic recreations, and the voice acting helps sell it as well. The only downside is the repetitive nature, since you will need to repeat outings and go through a lot of the same minigames and motions to unlock everything for Anya’s awesome diary.

Still, I enjoyed Spy x Anya: Operation Memories more than I expected, even though this Spy x Family game occasionally feels a bit awkward and repetitive. I would have appreciated an easier introduction to the experience and less hand-holding, but it’s thoroughly pleasant and true to the series its based on. As long as you’re not trying to speedrun it or marathon it in a single weekend, I think it’d be a lovely game to play at a relaxed pace.

Spy x Anya: Operation Memoriesis available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC. The Spy x Family anime is streaming on Crunchyroll, while Viz Media handles the manga outside Japan. 

The post Review: Spy x Anya Is a Spy x Family Pokemon Snap Game appeared first on Siliconera.

Ever since Suika Game became a phenomenon, we’ve seen tons of similar watermelon matching games. (Or ones involving matching Vtubers or Azur Striker Gunvolt elements.) With Fruit Mountain, we have a Suika Game type of title that still involves matching fruits until you reach a coveted watermelon, but the 3D element and execution makes it feel much different.

As with Suika Game, there is no story to Fruit Mountain, but we are presented with more of a motivation for why we are chucking produce like a blueberry, strawberry, peach, or apple at a plate to make a watermelon. In the background is a painter working on a still life. We are preparing the “model” by putting the fruit together. So it feels a little more unique and like we have a greater sense of purpose.

Two modes are available. One is an untimed, relaxed mode, while the other is a timed one in which you need to stack as many fruits as you can as the clock counts down. The gameplay mechanics remain the same throughout, though the pressure is on in the latter mode. When you toss fruit onto the plate, you can move left or right around it and select up or down to determine the height and position of the throw. The physics of it all mean everything tends to stay where you chucked it, though it does seem like it does congregate toward the center. Which is great, as that divot gives you a bit of leeway and security in knowing things may roll a bit into the center.

The fruits chosen and execution actually allows for a little bit of strategy in Fruit Mountain, perhaps even more so than Suika Game. You have blueberries, strawberries, what look like durians, peaches, apples, oranges, pears, dragon fruits, pineapples, melons, melons, and watermelons. The pears, dragonfruits, and pineapples especially help with positioning as you attempt to create a stack, so it really does become possible to pile up on the plate. 

What’s also nice is the combo element. If you can create a chain of fruits matching together one after another, you get a score bonus. So even early on as I started Fruit Mountain, I felt like I accomplished something even if I didn’t reach the melon or watermelon and still got to see higher scores. 

There are some elements that would benefit Fruit Mountain that aren’t here, but would be helpful. More or improved leaderboards would be handy. I’m not the biggest fan of the music, but most of the time I did end up just muting it and playing while I had some mindless TV show on or other music playing. I also found that Fruit Mountain can sometimes feel a bit too easy, once you get the hang of it, compared to Suika Game and other watermelon or fruit matching titles. However, it being a title in the space that is cozier and more relaxed could make it perfect for people.

I know we’re bound to see plenty more Suika Game clones, but as long as we get genuinely creative takes on the watermelon matching formula like Fruit Mountain, I’m okay with it. It absolutely feels like one of the more relaxed and cozy options in this new subset of the puzzle genre. The presentation looks good. Plus the implementation of tossing fruits in a 3D environment with no “walls” around a box really adds a new element of strategy to it. 

Fruit Mountain is available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC. 

The post Review: Fruit Mountain Adds Depth to the Suika Game Craze appeared first on Siliconera.

After years of development, Zenless Zone Zero is finally ready for public release, and it’s one that I feel like will be really hit or miss among the general HoYoVerse fandom. On my end, the snazzy aesthetics, fast-paced battle system, and interesting characters are enough to outweigh any oddities present.

The story in Zenless Zone Zero follows a pair of siblings who work as "Phaethon," a Proxy whose job is to guide people through Hollows. Hollows are like interdimensional spaces. People go in there for a variety of reasons, such as for investigations. It’s more urban sci-fi than a grandiose space opera like Honkai: Star Rail. While there is an overarching storyline regarding a mysterious AI and some conspiracies that you discover, it progresses in episodic bites, introducing factions that hire or work with Phaethon due to their credible reputation.

Like in other HoYoVerse games, you can choose which sibling you want to play as. But unlike the other ones, the one you don’t choose still plays a key part in the story, along with serving as the main mission control at times. It plays very similarly to Fate/Grand Order, where the Master you choose only affects who you see and control in the main story. Phaethon characters, as a Proxy service, never actually appears as controllable allies in battle. So in my opinion, there’s less pressure. Mind that the Phaethon you choose is still the one you have to look at in the main menu (until you unlock more characters to set in the screen), as well as the character you control, so you should still put some thought into whose visual you prefer.

The Phaethon siblings and Fairy have a really fun dynamic together. They have a really endearing bond. Fairy’s oddly antagonistic relationship with your sibling feels more akin to a sitcom nemesis as well, making their occasional barbed comments at each other funny rather than uncomfortable. Starting from Nicole’s Cunning Hare and then the bizarre members of Victoria Housekeeping, the characters in the game all have fairly fun quirks. It makes them seem a lot more cartoonish at times compared to characters from previous HoYoVerse titles. Anby, for example, seems like a cold, stoic girl hiding a dark past. But she quickly reveals herself as a pretty silly movie otaku who delivers ridiculous lines in an earnest deadpan. That’s not to say the entire game is a joke, though, as it still goes through themes like corporate corruption, with playable characters affected by these injustices.

There are three main types of quests you can partake in: story, exploration, and combat. You should take note that certain quests are only available at certain times of day. So for example, if there’s a quest in the afternoon, you might need to kill time in the morning with another quest or something before you can move onto that. It’s never really an issue, but I remember feeling a little overwhelmed at the sheer number of quests you can get at once. As far as I saw, none of them were time-gated or anything, so you can definitely take your time without worrying about missing one forever. As a note, the game will provide a summary if you decide to skip all the cutscenes. So if you don't feel like reading or don't care, you can still have a basic understanding of the plot.

The combat in the game is the best part. It’s fast, stylish, and fun, even if you don’t fully grasp what a character’s kit can do. There’s more emphasis on the order of your team, as you only have one button to swap between the characters. So if you, for example, lower an enemy’s DEF with Nicole and then want to immediately swap in your attacker Billy, you’ll want to make sure they’re next to each other in your roster. It’s not that big of a deal if you forget though. The swap is seamless enough that one extra button press won’t cost you.

I'll say that doing a lot of combat can be killer depending on who you're using and what mode you're playing. Shiyu Defense, for example, is this game's version of Forgotten Hall and Spiral Abyss, essentially. You can play through nonstop combat rounds without having to load too many times in between. But my goodness, Nekomata teams and Soldier 11 teams made me feel like I developed carpal tunnel. This is unfortunate because their play styles are some of my favorites and always have been. I had to really readjust my posture when playing it on the mouse, so I feel like this game is better with a controller. Or, at the very least, a wrist brace.

What’s unfortunate is that some characters have very complicated kit descriptions in the menu, which can make them feel unapproachable or difficult to use. It’s far easier to go into the character’s individual tutorial in the VR Mode to get the summarized version. A more concise description of their various abilities would be nice. Aside from a character-specific tutorial, you can also go into free training mode. This is a nice way to enjoy the combat and let off steam without worrying about things like a time limit in Shiyu Defense. You can also use it as a way to better learn your characters and enemies, such as memorizing attack patterns for certain enemies if you want to main Nekomata (who gains enhanced attacks after dodging).

Aside from combat, the grid exploration aspect is still here in story and exploration commissions. When you enter Hollows in story quests and other commissions, you’ll need to go through a “map” of TV screens. In the closed beta test, I really hated these segments because they felt long and tedious. While I do think they’re still on the boring side, the option to fast-forward the animation makes it feel like less of a slog. It might also be better on a more powerful machine, as I played Zenless Zone Zero on a 5-year-old gaming laptop with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 inside of it. It’s not the most powerful machine in the world. So the load time every time you had to do an enemy encounter was not great.

I mentioned earlier that the characters feel a lot zanier in this game, making them seem like cartoon characters. The animation style definitely feels like it’s leaning into that. I can’t quite place my finger on which Cartoon Network show it reminds me of, though. The characters move a lot more than I expect in the cutscenes though, and their facial expressions can be on the more exaggerated side. This isn’t a negative, per se, but it can be surprising if you’re used to how the characters move and talk in previous HoYoVerse games.

Finally, I love the aesthetic of the game. It’s a perfect mix of retro and modern—like Y2K retrofuturism. Though it takes place in an obviously futuristic world, the Proxy siblings work in a video rental shop and can offer suggestions on old (fictional) movies for their patrons to watch. This is kind of oddly specific. But the heading font in the game reminds me so much of those Jampack demo catalogues or old skater aesthetic stores in the mall. It’s so charming in a nostalgic way, and I love how the UI looks. I’ll say that it was kind of hard to navigate at times because I wasn’t sure where anything is, but I’m sure it’ll be easier to do so with time.

Zenless Zone Zero is a snappy action game that feels rewarding to master. Though the story can fall flat at times, the characters are so fun that it’s fun to see their reactions. The presentation of the plot—the comic book format and the colorful animations—keeps it entertaining and fresh. Instead of appealing to everyone, it feels like it’s striving to hit a particular audience and I personally am one of those people. Hopefully the dailies won’t be too hard to manage on top of everything else in the market.

Zenless Zone Zero is available on the PS5, Windows PC, and mobile devices.

The post Review: Zenless Zone Zero Forced Me to Fix My Posture appeared first on Siliconera.

Wuthering Waves is a visual delight of a game, making full use of Unreal Engine. But even in Version 1.1, it's still got lots of growing to do before it can live up to its fun concepts.

At launch, many people complained about the confusing, jargon-filled first act. My problem with how Wuthering Waves starts has less to do with the number of proper nouns and game-specific terminology, and more to do with the lack of direction. In Fate/Grand Order, you know that you’re the last Master humanity has. Even though you aren’t qualified or trained to tackle on the Singularities, you have no choice but to do so. Genshin Impact starts with your chosen protagonist’s twin going missing after fighting a goddess. Then the Mondstadt arc introduces you to a fairly stereotypical plot about saving a town from a corrupt, dangerous dragon. They're simple stories, but there's nothing wrong with that if you want to pull in as many players as possible.

In Wuthering Waves, we are the Rover, who awaken with no memories and the mysterious power to absorb Tacet Discords, or monsters. While you do visit the first city of Jinzhou to figure out some answers about yourself, the plot feels like it loses track of itself fairly quickly. The scavenger hunt Sanhua and Jinhsi make you go on felt so long and tedious, especially for a group of people I have no reason to trust or care for. Near the end of the launch patch, there's a war scene that would feel impactful if I cared about the characters or world. In an Avengers-like sequence, playable characters work together to defend Jinzhou. Yet it came across more like Suicide Squad. I just don't know these people enough to give much of a damn.

Kuro Games did have to rewrite the plot due to feedback from the closed beta, though. So I’m willing to believe that this was a major issue in why the story isn’t very engaging. You’ll see throughout this review that those dratted rewrites are the likely cause for a lot of problems.

The thing with F2P gacha game stories is that they need some time to hit their stride. This could be due to growing familiarity with the world (thus needing less exposition), or simply that the writers need several patches' worth of time to cook. Fate/Grand Order was boring until Camelot, for example. But the market for F2P gacha games is not the same as it was in 2016. In 2024, there is a veritable treasure trove of free gacha games to enjoy that there’s no need to sit through a poor story (if that's what you're looking for). Those who dislike gacha games have an even wider selection to choose from. Surely those people wouldn't be reading a review about a gacha game though, right? Gacha games need to hit that initial impression if they want a foothold in this over-saturated market, and Wuthering Waves is just not doing it for me on almost all counts.

I was hoping Version 1.1 would improve on the storytelling, but perhaps the rushed fixes delayed development. At the beginning, Abby asks Rover, "Hey, do you remember that dream you had?" and then summarizes it. This was news to me, despite the fact this scene takes place literally two seconds after a conversation with Chixia and Yangyang. When, pray tell, did I have this dream? This “tell, don’t show” method is incredibly lazy and it’s worse because the dream sounds legitimately cool. Why couldn’t we have seen it? “Show, don’t tell” is one of the most rudimentary rules of writing. It’s not a good sign that they’re relying on this form of storytelling so early in their game.

The translation for Wuthering Waves Version 1.1 is much better than 1.0. Version 1.0 was rife with obvious MTL, as well as multiple problems that showed a lack of quality assurance. For example, the same character would have their name be different in the exact same thing. Dashbon turned to Dashi Bang whenever he jumped away while Minghu turned to Minghe in a dialogue option. Commas and periods appeared outside of quotation marks, as well as other little grammatical errors like using the wrong "its." In 1.1, the characters’ dialogue feels more natural and approachable. There are still issues with the map and character information not using the same names for farming locations, as well as very awkward phrasing in the Items menu. But considering all the issues Kuro Games had to fix since launch, this is something it’ll hopefully iron out in time.

Something that genuinely makes the game enjoyable is the combat. I did not like it before 1.1 because I have a very low tolerance for a camera I don’t have complete control over. Even after turning off any option that could move the camera, it would sometimes pan on its own or lock onto the furthest enemy from my character. After Version 1.1, the game plays like a dream in battle. It’s more fun to wander around the game’s map and kill whatever I see than to progress the story or complete side quests. The fast-paced battle system with so many rotation and combination possibilities is super addicting. I will say that even with the improved camera, depending on the terrain, it can get a little wonky. Anywhere with elevation or hills or just too many bushes can be frustrating.

Another thing I do like is the visuals. Changli is the only character whose design I like, but everyone has such a beautiful character model. The Unreal Engine and the developers' skill when it comes to things like sculpting and shading make the game look fantastic. I'll note that for a while, there was an issue with my screen bugging out in Version 1.1 only when fighting the Mourning Aix. This was a consistent issue since the Version 1.1 patch launched until today, when it suddenly fixed itself. I'm assuming Kuro Games implemented a hotfix of some kind, which is very nice. Kuro Games is very responsive to feedback and criticism, as we've seen in the past. And for the most part, it moves fast to get rid of the most annoying or gamebreaking bugs.

A trend I do worry about is in how Kuro Games (or, let's be real, Tencent) seems to prioritize a small yet loud subset of entitled male gamers. Frankly, the zipper in front of Scar's crotch was ugly. People made fun of it for a reason. But the zipper existed in his character design for years before the game even came out. Yet Kuro Games removed it, apparently at the behest of Chinese incels. This change was not a welcome one in the general community. Plenty of videos on Bilibili also mourn the loss (in both a legitimate and a joking way).

There were a lot of things subpar about Wuthering Waves prior to launch and in the first patch. Many people filed pretty reasonable complaints. But incel players tend to be loud. The inexperience of the team shows here in that it's taking a lot of feedback and implementing changes, but it's not always taking the time to think of the best way to do so. While the complaints about the story weren't all from the incels back during the beta and technical tests, the characters changing from being kind of rude to nonstop gassing the Rover up does make them easy scapegoats for the rewrites. Perhaps the character designer felt hurt by the crude nickname the fandom gave Scar's zipper. But the sudden change to a beloved (for better or for worse) part of his design, again, makes it seem like pandering to those loud players.

My general view of Kuro Games and Tencent right now is they’re putting a Bandaid on a lot of open wounds in Wuthering Waves. These measures are fine in the short run, but I worry they’ll damage its reputation in the long run. A free 5-star as compensation for the disastrous launch was probably the only way to shut players up long enough for Kuro Games to code hotfixes. But a gacha game fandom is like a toxic boyfriend. Give them an inch, and they’ll take a mile.

It’s unfortunate because Kuro Games feels really sincere in wanting to provide a fun experience for its players. It didn’t have to give the Japanese Amazon gift cards after the Verdant Summit fiasco. But it did. It didn’t need to give everyone so many rewards for something out of the developers’ control (the rushed schedule). But it did. It seems to me that the decision to use UE4, as well as the tight development cycle it's in as a result of Wuthering Waves being a F2P gacha game, are causing a lot of issues. Despite my general misgivings and dissatisfaction towards Wuthering Waves, I sincerely hope them the best.

Wuthering Waves is readily available on the PC and mobile devices.

The post Review: Despite Its Luster, Wuthering Waves Remains Dull appeared first on Siliconera.

When you have a handheld installment in a series, especially when its a less powerful platform than its counterpart or it involves a unique gimmick, it can be easier to accept accommodations or quirks. Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon is a good example. You could accept the approach to castle exploration and certain design decisions because, well, that’s what Next Level Games had to do to get it to run on the 3DS. While I appreciated seeing Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD again on the Switch, the new platform made some of the earlier inconveniences more difficult to bear.

Professor E. Gadd, now famous for his ghostly research, was working peacefully alongside the spectral counterparts in Evershade Valley. It was all thanks to the Dark Moon hanging in the sky. However, after it is shattered by King Boo, all of the ghosts turn hostile. E. Gadd (forcibly) call in Luigi to head into five locations in the valley to collect the ghosts and Dark Moon fragments.

The general gameplay for Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD isn’t markedly different from the other entries in the series. After reclaiming the Poltergust 5000 and Strobulb from the Gloomy Manor, you can get to work stunning ghosts with lights so you can suck them up, triggering switches or other puzzles with light. The Dark-Light Device also involves revealing hidden objects. So you’re still searching for ghosts, trying to get through dilapidated buildings, and also collecting treasures to upgrade your equipment or repair the valley’s moon.

What makes Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD feel a bit dated and occasionally out of place is the structure. Both the first and third entries in the series involved a more open approach. Luigi could explore the locations as you saw fit, progressing deeper through locales. You could take your time with things. The penalties for facing ghosts didn’t feel terribly drastic. Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon adopted a mission-based approach. So you aren’t just going through one whole manor as you see fit, tackling all of its tasks in a leisurely way and going back and forth between them.

You pick a quest. You go in and accomplish it. E. Gadd plucks you out again. While the general idea is still fun, it hurts the immersion a bit. It was more than fine for the 3DS too, since we were dealing with smaller screens, potential battery life issues, and maybe even going to the handheld for shorter play sessions. Given since the Switch already is home to the exceptional and perfectly paced Luigi’s Mansion 3, I felt it made the pitfalls of this format stand out.

This isn’t to say it isn’t fun! Perhaps that’s why it can feel like an issue. The different types of places Luigi goes on his journey to restore the Dark Moon are all quite varied. There are some challenging ghosts to fight, forcing you to think strategically when trying to approach them, stun them with the light, and suck them up. It requires thought and is enjoyable. So when you can’t just keep going and need to report in to E. Gadd after doing when you came there to, it’s like your mom calling you inside to play when you know your friends (or in this case more ghosts) are waiting for you.

The other issue stems from a similar issue. There aren’t checkpoints during missions in Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon. Tantalus and Nintendo didn’t add them for Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD. It’s fine. I mean, this is clearly defined as an HD remaster, after all. However, once you get to the latter third or fourth of the game, there are some missions and situations where that kind of accommodation would have been helpful.

However, I will say that Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD both looks great and I enjoyed the ScareScraper multiplayer mode a bit more this time around. Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon was a really vibrant and expressive game the first time around, especially when it came to Luigi and Polterpup’s expressions and animations. That remains unchanged here, though I will say you can tell from the textures and designs that it started as a 3DS game and not, say, a console one. As for the ScareScraper, which involves four people working to catch ghosts either in set blocks with certain difficulties or endlessly as it gradually grows more challenging, it felt easier to play and like I had a better time. Perhaps that’s due to a wider multiplayer pool at launch? Maybe! I just know I had a better time going through it together, though I did prefer the newer Luigi’s Mansion 3 take on it with its additional goals.

I suppose what really hurts Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is that Luigi’s Mansion 3 is on the Switch and feels like the definitive entry in the series. It’s great to be able to go back to the earlier installment on the system. Especially since it is fun for what it is. It’s still enjoyable, and it looks great. I suppose my only regret is that the format of it felt better on the 3DS, and the limits of the more mission-based approach are more strongly felt on this console.

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is available on the Nintendo Switch. Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon is available on the Nintendo 3DS. 

The post Review: Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD Felt Less Limiting on the 3DS appeared first on Siliconera.

When you first get Rolling Hills: Make Sushi, Make Friends, that title is not kidding; you truly spend your time in Rolling Hills making friends and making sushi. Despite its simple gameplay loop and plot, Rolling Hills is a relaxing game that finally made me understand the appeal of the so-called “cozy” genre.

The game Rolling Hills follows Sushi Bot, a sushi-making robot, who moves to the titular town of Rolling Hills. It’s kind of an obscure place, but the residents hope the novelty of a sushi-making robot can revitalize the town. As you play through the story, you meet lots of newcomers to town, as well as learn that there’s a curse over Rolling Hills, dooming it to obscurity. Well, that’s not good! With the help of the citizens, you work together to complete several rituals to lift this curse and put Rolling Hills back onto the map. At its heart, it’s a story about community. The writing is very simple and it wears its themes on its sleeve. But complexity doesn’t always make a story better and Rolling Hills is testament to that.

Rolling Hills: Make Sushi, Make Friends has a very addicting gameplay loop. I often found myself thinking that I wanted to go in and make some sushi for a bit to unwind after work in real life. Each day is fairly short, as there’s not much to do in the game. Every day, you can purchase items from the various characters around town, spend some time with them in the cafe, and then it’s back to the grind. Meal service lasts about three rounds, but customers tend to only eat three plates of food before they leave. Because of how short and bite-sized each day is, it was pretty easy to play for hours on end without realizing it.

As for the meal service portion, Sushi Bot is not actually making any sushi. Another robot is, making several plates at once and then putting them all out on a conveyor belt. Sushi Bot’s job is closer to that of a waiter. When a customer comes in, they order a flavor, along with a quality. For example, they might want a Veggie dish with a quality of 5. Your job then is to find a corresponding dish and give it to them.

If there aren’t any dishes that match the customer’s description, you can either bite the bullet and give them another one that’ll net you less stars, or you can restock the conveyor belt. Truth be told, I’ve given a customer a meal under the quality they wanted, or a meal that was the right quality level but a different flavor. There's no real downside to this, as far as I could tell, outside of the customer giving you less stars for that meal. They pay when they walk in and bad reviews don't give you less foot traffic. I suppose this was a way to keep the game from being too frustrating.

As you level up your restaurant level, you have to start juggling more than just orders. Customers can fall asleep or take flash photography of Sushi Bot (which can stun him). I understand customers complaining about dirty tables, but some customers give me a bad review if I don’t wake them up when they fall asleep at the table and they leave early. It’s hilarious because they really don’t need to. Sushi Bot doesn’t chase them out or anything. I assume it’s like an all-you-can-eat or buffet where there’s a time limit (especially since customers in Rolling Hills pay at the door). But the image of someone writing a bad review on Yelp even though they were the ones who fell asleep at the restaurant is so funny to me. It’s ridiculous, but I can definitely see people raising such an absurd complaint in real life.

These recent years, “cozy” games have become something like the “soulslike” genre. A lot of companies sell their games as a “cozy” one, even if it's not. Rolling Hills really did feel like a cozy game though, in the actual meaning of the term. Everyone in town is very nice and sweet, the game doesn’t punish you for your failures, and there aren’t very high stakes. Stardew Valley, for example, is a pretty famous cozy game, but the unerring passage of time can make it a little stressful. I always want to make my money’s worth when it comes to both profit and harvest. Animal Crossing too sometimes became less than cozy due to mechanics like flower breeding and island creation. In that sense, the game’s simplicity and lack of a calendar system made it easy to just focus on making sushi every day.

For all the praise I heap on Rolling Hills, it does have its share of minor issues. This is a personal preference, but I don’t like the method of resetting your conveyor belt. It looks like the sushi disappear into space, so it’s not as if Sushi Bot trashes them. However, it still feels a little bad to see perfectly good sushi going to waste like that, especially if an entire conveyor belt of sushi has to go due to customer demand. I know it’s not real, but it’s still bad to see in the early levels when there’s more time to hang around and zone out.

As well, after meeting Gibson, you can unlock a little helper robot. Even after leveling up Gibson’s friendship, the robot is more a hindrance than anything. It’s supposed to help Sushi Bot by cleaning and upgrading furniture around the restaurant. But it’s too slow to get at tables before customers complain (meaning it’s easier for me to manually take care of it) and it can block both Sushi Bot and the customers’ paths. I wish I could sell it for scraps.

Rolling Hills: Make Sushi, Make Friends is a sweet and cute game with an easy gameplay loop that keeps me coming back for more. With all the customization options, as well as so many different recipes to max out, there’s quite a lot to do even if you’re not interested in the story. Just make sure you have the number of your local sushi shop on speed dial! You’re going to want a plate of nigiri or two while playing this game.

Rolling Hills is readily available on the Xbox One and Windows PC. Windows PC version reviewed.

The post Review: Rolling Hills Is a Sweet, Relaxing Way to Unwind appeared first on Siliconera.

I know a game captivated me when I find myself wishing there was more to it. It usually doesn’t mean I literally want it to be longer, but rather that I find myself utterly charmed with the experience. However, when it comes to Duck Detective: The Secret Salami, I genuinely want to spend more time with Eugene McQuacklin, crack more cases, and find out more about the enigmatic and dapper detective. At its core, the story presented in the game is as simple as its title implies. Eugene is going through a rough patch, with business going as worst as it’s ever been and no work prospects on the horizon. That is until he receives a call to investigate a salami-related robbery turned conspiracy.

My first impression of the game was of total delight upon finding out that all dialogue is fully voiced, with veteran voice actor Sean Chiplock giving life to our protagonist Eugene with a rough caricature of a performance, among many other recognizable voices. The comedic tone is immediately set, with some of the tropes it tackles riffing on typical hardboiled detective drama stories. As an example, Eugene is addicted to bread crumbs, a very unhealthy food for ducks, with the detective himself commenting on the shame he feels for his habit and how it damaged his relationship to his ex. If you enjoy this type of humor, you’re in for a good time, as the game delves into plenty of classic tropes of mystery stories coupled with more topical and modern topics.

After arriving to the scene of the crime, a bus company, Eugene gets to work. His first step is figure out who hired him to investigate the disappearance (and reappearance) of a piece of expensive charcuterie, and unveil the overarching conspiracy lurking in the shadows. The gameplay loop consists of talking to suspects and asking hard hitting questions. By talking to characters and addressing the mysteries available, players get a set of words that they can use to fill in the blanks to make “de-duck-tions.” These deducktions start easy, with Eugene needing to develop profiles and figure out the identities of everyone in the offices, as the characters are not particularly cooperative. Shortly after this introduction, the game throws more words and ideas to use your skills, and it can get somewhat tricky as the plot thickens.

However, there is never an unfair difficulty spike or a moment in which the mystery or any given question feels unintuitive. While there were moments when I felt a bit unsure of what the answer at hand was, the nature of the deducktions helped me piece together the puzzle. It's possible that the number of information and words you eventually get to handle, coupled with a few red herrings and character relationships clashing, might feel confusing. Which is why you have to pay attention to what you’re being asking to unveil at any given time.

I would say that the game is on the easier side, but it never reveals each mystery before you put it together yourself. In a way, Duck Detective: The Secret Salami feels like the vertical slice of a bigger game, a self-contained Ace Attorney case of sorts. In between deducktions and asking questions, you also have some investigative parts. These are sections in which you observe a character or a piece of the environment up close with your trusty magnifying glass. The art style here shifts between a more complex and detailed one when looking up close and personal, and the regular style the game uses.

The premise of the mystery in Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is simple and lighthearted, and it is never uninteresting. It helps a lot that the cast of wacky characters have very marked personalities and fun relationships. By the end of the game, I came to care for Eugene and the great cast of the game. The game lasts roughly between 2 to 3 hours, and it is the perfect length for the story it aims to tell. However... I want more! Considering how the game ends, I can imagine seeing more of Eugene McQuacklin, maybe with a new sidekick and putting his life back together. And I think the world in general deserves more Duck Detective.

Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is readily available for the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC via Steam.

The post Review: Duck Detective: The Secret Salami Is a Short and Fun Case appeared first on Siliconera.

SunnySide falls into the age-old trap of being a game that isn’t quite ready for most players to jump into at this point. This ambitious farming sim and RPG contains an unbelievable amount of depth and systems, but every aspect of from the UI to how it plays undermines its promise.

If you’ve played games like Stardew Valley or Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, you’ll recognize the impetus for the plot. You move from the big city in Japan to a small town in the countryside to start over. Your highly customizable player character inherits an extremely empty piece of land to farm and build up to your liking.

To SunnySide’s credit, this game is about as freeing as it gets when it comes to the genre. You can truly make your character look like you or whoever you want due to so many aspects to tweak, from weight to facial features to hair to even gender identity. However, the 3D graphics look a bit bland, especially when it comes to character models. This is a shame, since the actual 2D character portraits look fantastic. That said, the welcome depth of customization helps to somewhat offset that. After all, your farm is a blank canvas to call your own. You can build every inch of your farm and house from a lowly tent to a burgeoning mansion. In this way, the game feels like a survival crafting experience, but this is only a sliver of the experiences SunnySide has to offer.

There is also the entire farming aspect, where players plant seeds, water them, and sell them to make cash to unlock more materials, buildings, gifts, and upgrades. If that isn’t enough, there is even simplistic turn-based RPG combat. However, it feels like even more of an afterthought than similar battle systems in other games like Stardew Valley. You can go dozens of hours without really diving into the linear dungeons and straightforward fights. There is little depth to this outside of a few commands and the deck-like system of collecting different Ofuda for effects. Collecting Ofuda starts out fun, but the relatively breezy difficulty ensures it doesn’t feel as necessary as it could. I wish the turn-based combat had more of a prominence in the overall progression of the game.

All of these different aspects are wrapped up in a smartphone-based interface, which feels intuitive. However, it is SunnySide’s ambition that is also its downfall. While I am grateful to have so many different activities, none of them feel complete or worth diving into. A huge part of this comes from how poorly everything runs. This game is sometimes a challenge to play due to how it barely chugs along, especially in the outdoor, open-world areas. Yet it even takes its time loading and running at a snail’s pace at times indoors as well. This could be because I spent most of my time on Steam Deck, where the frame rate is all over the place. To make matters worse, the frequent pop-ins and sluggish loading hurts it even more.

To give it a fair shake, I booted SunnySide up on a beefier gaming PC. Unfortunately, it didn’t fare much better there than on Steam Deck. It ran a little smoother in some areas, but still had major visual and performance hiccups. Without a doubt, this game has some of the most atrocious optimization I’ve seen in a while.

Sadly, the problems don’t stop there. While the game has controller support, it doesn’t work all that well. The general movement controls are fine and using tools feels acceptable, but the interface is a mess to deal with. Most of the menus use a cursor to deal with the menu, inventory, and even phone. It is pretty slow and imprecise, leading to me wasting more time in the menus than necessary. This is even worse when you consider how almost everything is in the phone menu, such as messages and even the world map.

However, there is one element that may never get a fix, and that is the romance system. Having 25 romanceable characters sounds impressive, but this hides some serious issues with dating in the game. Every character has a dating preference on the gender expression scale. This scale is what players use during character creation to determine their identity. Basically, you have a 10-point scale for masculinity, 10-point scale for femininity, and non-binary right in the middle. You can pick your gender identity anywhere along the spectrum, which is quite neat. However, there are some issues with this system, and that's mostly in it's execution.

Fall in love with Hanako, for example, but aren’t feminine? So sorry, but you’re out of luck. I think the idea of centering around this isn’t inherently bad; after all, other farming sim series locked romances behind gender in the past. The problem is you have to research each character ahead of time to know their preferences, and there is no way to change your gender identity at this time once you've left the character creator. This actually feels ironically backwards in a way, since gender identity can be fluid and offering a way to change your gender identity within the game would let players experiment.

It is a shame, too, since the most joy I had with this game was speaking and hanging out with the characters. You can tell SunnySide’s developer took notes from the Persona series. Each character has different levels to their friendship where you get to learn more about them. Some of the stories are pretty emotional, genuinely funny, and quite diverse.

The writing, in general, is actually quite brilliant. It just sucks that there is so much frustration with the controls, performance, and UI the vast majority of the time to get to that slim payoff. In the end, this makes SunnySide the epitome of “wait and see” early access title. It simply does too much from its survival mechanics to building to RPG combat to farming and relationships.

While there is so much to see here, rarely does anything work properly to make the experience feel worthwhile. I do believe there is a solid farming sim RPG in the making with SunnySide, but it could take a long time and plenty of updates to reach that potential. For now, I don’t recommend giving it a look unless you’re okay with quite a lot of grievances.

SunnySide is available right now on PCs via Steam.

The post Review: SunnySide Is Ambitious, But Underwhelming appeared first on Siliconera.

There are times when a game will fall into the farming or life sim categories, but might not exactly feel like it’s totally about that. Rather, it might be about capturing a moment, setting the stage for an era, and giving the player a chance to feel what life might be like if they were a certain person growing up at a specific time. That’s what The Palace on the Hill feels like. The Wholesome Direct 2024 shadowdrop is a soothing, low-pressure opportunity to feel what life is like for a teenager growing up in India, and it feels like it is about enjoying the moment and his story rather than really trying to min-max your life sim to earn a lot of cash or befriend people. 

Vir is a young man with a bright future. He’s a talented artist. However, due to his family’s farm having a bad year, he immediately finds himself farming himself and taking on odd jobs to help support his family during his summer vacation. It’s while doing so that he runs into a former classmate named Savi. She’s in town to investigate a palace and its ruins, hoping to find out secrets about its past and perhaps hidden fortunes. In so doing, we not only get to help Vir through his daily life as he earns money, but get to see how his relationship with Savi develops and learn more about the background of the town. 

The Palace on the Hill can feel like an adventure game that features some life simulation elements tossed into it, rather than a more dedicated farming sim. You’ll need to go around town, farming, gathering items, crafting, running errands for people, and working at the tea shop to gather necessary materials and ingredients for various quests. By carrying out tasks and going through your mission checklist, you’ll eventually grow closer to everyone around and learn more about the ruins and old kingdom. Naturally, along the way, you’ll also find ways for Vir to earn money and succeed, which provides even more of a sense of accomplishment. From time to time, he’ll also have tasks to do that involve drawing, which means getting inspiration as you explore. You don’t need to worry about relationship values. You’ll eventually earn the money you need. Just take in the moment.

The downside to it all is that The Palace on the Hill can feel a bit effortless. Yes, we know Vir’s family is in dire need of money to keep going. Working is a priority. However, the actual gameplay doesn’t feel stressful in any way, and sometimes it feels like things don’t connect in the way they should. Farming feels a bit isolated, aside from a means of earning money. It’s very barebones, so much that I didn’t even feel like the watering can upgrade was necessary. The tea shop has some shop management elements, such as creating certain orders and making sure you are prepared for certain customers. However, I always had more than enough ingredients due to how plentiful foraging tended to be and there’s no real challenge to it.

This is coupled with The Palace on the Hill occasionally feeling a bit clunky. The game looks fantastic and I didn’t have any issues with it breaking or crashing. However, it doesn’t always introduce concepts well. For example, farming is very easy to do, but since it doesn’t work like other farming sims and isn’t well explained it might take you a minute to learn how to plant and water crops for the first time. The same can happen the first time you’re getting inspiration for one of Vir’s paintings. It comes up a little, but I feel like it is more of a reminder this is an indie game from a newer developer, rather than a failing on Niku’s part.

Especially since the team does a great job of ensuring other elements of The Palace on the Hill come together. The art direction is fantastic. I love the style of the game and the depiction of the town and its characters. It stays true to the area and time period, which is important. It’s also quite a welcoming experience with clearly defined characters, ingredients, and goals, so it really compels you to keep going.

The Palace on the Hill feels like the sort of game where Niku Games wanted to tell a specific story, and the farming, shop management, and life sim mechanics surround it to propel you forward. They aren’t taxing. They won’t hold you back. However, they do provide a sense of ambiance and let you know what life might feel like for Vir in India at that time. You’re experiencing a brief moment in his life, and I do mean brief as I finished in under eight hours. However, it definitely feels like your time is well-spent.

The Palace on the Hill is available for PCs.

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The Legend of Heroes: Trails series of games is something of a paradox. It's both underrated, yet somehow recommended to the point of annoyance on JRPG forums. As a longtime fan, I can vouch for its depth, intricate storytelling, and beloved characters. The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak not only honors this legacy, but it elevates the experience to something new.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak begins a new story arc of the Trails series in the Calvard Republic. The game follows Van Arkride, a young man working as a Spriggan, essentially a sort of mercenary-detective hybrid. This game ushers in the second half of the Trails game series, which began in 2004 with Trails in the Sky. This means it features interconnected story arcs set in different nations on the continent of Zemuria.

The first thing that sticks out about Trails through Daybreak is its scale. It's not just that it seems bigger than past games, you can actually feel the greater scope in every way. Van's story starts in the capital of the Calvard Republic, and from the jump, it feels alive and detailed. Per Trails tradition, the NPCs and world-building are on point here. However, here it feels richer and deeper than ever.

One of the standout changes in Trails through Daybreak is the introduction of a second combat system. Initially, I was skeptical about having two separate forms of fights: Field battles (real-time) and Command battles (turn-based). However, my trust in Nihon Falcom was well-placed. Field battles are primarily for dealing with mobs in the overworld, while tougher enemies are handled in Command mode. Bosses fights take place exclusively in Command Mode.

So, If you’re concerned that the series is moving away from turn-based combat, rest assured. The tactical, turn-based system we love is still here, and it is improved and faster than ever. The link system from Trails of Cold Steel returns, only it is more fluid and allows for on-the-fly link formation. Field battles significantly speed up traversal, a huge improvement in a series sometimes criticized for its slow pace. In older games, crossing the map meant multiple drawn-out battles. Now, Van and company wipe mobs quickly in real-time.

If you have to switch to a turn-based fight if a field enemy is really giving you trouble, a single button press launches you into Command mode completely seamlessly in Trails through Daybreak. There is no loading and hardly any transition at all. In fact, this can even be a strategy. If you manage to stun an enemy in Field mode, then launch Command mode, you'll begin the turn-based fight with the advantage. However, the opposite is also true. If you get knocked below a certain health threshold in the field, you'll be forced into Command mode. This time, however, enemy gains the advantage. The whole system adds way more depth than I expected. There are so many occasions where figuring out how to approach enemies and which mode to use and when determined me getting past an area.

The completely overhauled and simplified orbment system is another major highlight in Trails through Daybreak. Gone are the days of flipping through help screens to figure out the exact combination of quartz to get the spell you need. While Trails of Cold Steel made strides in the right direction, this game goes even further. Slotted Quartz shards now give buffs and passive effects. Each shard contributes to your potential "shard skills" based on their layout. This retains the strategic depth, without locking essential spells and attacks behind complicated setups.

Van's party gains magic through the use of drives. Each character equips a drive with a set loadout of magic attacks. Also, there are a couple of empty slots for "plugins" to further customize abilities. As someone who could easily spend up to an hour tweaking orbments in past games, this method is significantly faster while still allowing for detailed character customization.

It's just so incredible to be playing a Trails game that looks this good and is this fun to play. Trails through Daybreak has bells and whistles I hoped for in past games, and it just feels like a fresh take on the series. I've reached the point with the series' gameplay that I'm not even sure what I could ask for to make it better. Trails through Daybreak is just damn good.

Playing on PC, I never encountered technical issues. I'd call the game very well optimized. However, one aspect that new players might find surprising is the sparse voice acting. Despite the series' acclaim, Trails games are relatively budget titles compared to their JRPG peers, resulting in limited voice acting. With a massive as the script in Trails through Daybreak is, it's no surprise. This has been the norm since the Trails of Cold Steel arc. It's just the nature of these games production and doesn't detract from the game. However, for new players it may take getting used to.

Trails through Daybreak's storyline nails the pacing. In true Trails fashion, the game starts simple and builds to a grand climax. It’s darker than many previous entries and seems to be steering the series in an intriguing direction. I'm eager to fan discussion about the game after playing it.

Van's cases as a Spriggan frame the story and lead him all over Calvard with a variety of different characters. New to the series, Van can actually make choices in these cases that affect his "alignment". This system can unlock specific dialogue with certain factions and can affect who will work with Van at certain points in the game. The system does not effect the ending.

The cast of characters is incredible, every bit as lovable as in past entries, and some are even more memorable. Characters from past games make appearances, and while new players may miss some nuances, the game does a good job of establishing their importance. Newcomers might find this extensive backstory daunting, as the game follows several games' worth of story and conflict. Be prepared to miss some character development and events if this is your first entry, especially from returning characters. However, if you can't or don't want to go back to start Trails in the Sky this game really works hard to keep you in the loop. It's not exactly perfect place to start, but if you're going to hop on at the new era, this is where to do it.

Trails through Daybreak builds on everything I love about one of the the greatest JRPG series of all time. It's such a grand adventure, and I can't wait to see where the rest of this arc goes. if you're already a Trails fan, picking up this game is a no-brainer. You likely already own it in Japanese. For new players, this might be the game that finally gets you to check out the series.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak will come to the PS4, PS5, Switch, and PC on July 5, 2024.

The post Review: Trails Through Daybreak Elevates the Series’ Legacy appeared first on Siliconera.

Reading through Tsukihime: A piece of blue glass moon, with its colorful cast of characters and intriguing story, serves as an unforgettable experience for veterans and newcomers to Type-Moon games. Though it does not tell the complete story of Tsukihime, due to missing the Far Side routes that focus a lot more on the Tohno mansion, it still provides a hefty amount of action and romance to bite into.

The plot of Tsukihime: A piece of blue glass moon follows Shiki Tohno, whose family disowned him seven years prior to the main story after suffering through a near-fatal accident. Among the aftereffects is his ability to see “lines” that exist in the world and even on people. Cutting through these lines, even with something as dull as a plastic knife, can cause them to break apart. Thankfully, young Shiki received a pair of glasses that prevented him from seeing the lines in his day-to-day life. Since then, he managed to live as an ordinary student. That is, until his family called him back to the Tohno mansion following the death of his father.

However, a chance encounter with a mysterious woman—Arcueid—on the street pulls Shiki into the supernatural conflicts that are occurring in his city, yet outside of the perception of ordinary people. For example, the serial killer murdering hapless women and draining their blood every night is actually a vampire,. Meanwhile, another vampire is in pursuit of them. People he thought were normal civilians—including himself—have a hidden connection to these magical beings and wars. It’s everything that you might expect from this genre of urban fantasy, though with a horror bent to it.

For reference, I did not play the original game myself. I watched my friend play through Tsukihime as a kid, though the language barrier prevented me from understanding it. I knew the general gist of it after getting into Type-Moon thanks to online translations, as well as the anime. So because of that, I couldn’t tell which parts of the story were from the original and which were new additions. I could tell that scenes with the new characters were new (of course), as were references to more modern technology or media that didn’t exist back in 2000. Personally, I didn’t find the addition of the new characters to be very jarring. They fit into the overall lore and story very well. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d be under the impression they've always existed in Tsukihime.

I personally really liked the story in Tsukihime! It feels like a good look at the Nasuverse as a whole, especially compared to more contained stories like Witch on the Holy Night. The chemistry between the characters was really nice, though I enjoyed Ciel’s route more than Arcueid’s. I was hard-pressed to really dislike characters, but I found Arach the least tolerable. Her voice actress (Mamiko Noto) did a great job portraying her. But the combination of her character design, her way of talking, and her word choices were pretty vile. Speaking of Arach, her design really drew my attention to the way that some of the female characters’ breasts are drawn. Their apparent lack of a bra at times was distracting and not in a good way. I’m sure it’s meant to titillate male players, but as someone with breasts, I kept thinking, “They don’t work like that!”

As for the gameplay, it's a visual novel with several routes and endings. At times, you'll need to choose between several options. You can check back at any time in the flowchart what you chose at certain scenes. Some scenes have prerequisites. For example, you need to make Mio scold you when you're with Ciel on the train to unlock another event later. Some endings might lead you to a dead end, in which case a humorous section with Miss Ciel and Neco-Arc will help you figure out what you needed to do instead. Of course, you could also be like me and kill Shiki on purpose in order to see more of this comedy duo. It added a level of replayability that I appreciated, since it was fun to explore and look for the different possibitilies and conversations.

In my review for Witch on the Holy Night, I noted that while the game’s presentation and story were fantastic, the localization felt rushed. That issue does not persist in Tsukihime: A piece of blue glass moon. There are barely any typos or unnatural phrasing, barring ones that people would expect from Nasu’s writing. It definitely felt like the localization team gave the translators and editors more time to perfect the translation, and the end result was worth it. Even without the kinetic format of the visual novel, it was easy to lose myself in the snappy conversations, poetic descriptions, and heart-pounding action.

This isn’t anything to do with the localization team, as I believe that the Japanese version did the same thing, but something to watch out for is in the prologue. To convey the confusion and trauma of the scene, the voice over and the text that appears on screen don’t match up. I think this is on purpose in order to show how jumbled the character’s thoughts are. However, there aren’t any translations that appear for the voice-over. Unfortunately, no one has posted a Let’s Play of the remake version of Tsukihime: A piece of blue glass moon and I can’t go back to check the prologue even after starting a new game. So I can’t double check what the text on screen was in Japanese.

The one thing that I think Witch on the Holy Night did better is accessibility. Tsukihime: A piece of blue glass moon was not an easy read at times. In comparing my screenshots with Witch on the Holy Night, the backgrounds and characters felt more transparent. So when the text appeared over the artwork, it was legible without much strain. In docked mode, sometimes the text would meld into the backgrounds or characters. It's much better in handheld mode. Either they need to make the screen between the text and the artwork more opaque, or they need to raise the transparency on the artwork when there’s text above it. Hopefully this is an issue unique to the Switch; it would be dreadful if PS4 players have to just deal with it on a bigger screen.

Tsukihime: A piece of blue glass moon is a great entry game for new Type-Moon fans and a fantastic remake for old ones. Though players can dive right in without A Witch on the Holy Night, I do recommend playing that one first if you haven’t! It helps to further your understanding of the story and world. The explanations and narration from Shiki’s point of view make it a really easy story to digest, as new fans of Nasu’s works might feel daunted by how complex the in-universe systems can be. The magic of Nasuverse is on full display in this beautiful remake, and it’s my new recommendation for those who want an action-packed visual novel.

Tsukihime: A piece of blue glass moon will come out for the PS4 and Nintendo Switch on June 27, 2024.

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