The Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster on PlayStation 4 is a simple remaster. The graphics are greatly improved from the NES original but is far from the best looking remaster,even of this game.
It has several quality of life improvements however including the ability to turn off random encounters and to be able to turn off experience and gil gain and multiply them by up to 4. This makes the game as easy or as hard as you want, and if you put them to times 3 or 4 you can basically play the game normally without ever having to grind. However any grinding with those settings will turn the game into a breeze. Even the final boss becomes a joke as you can easily hit level 99.
This is why the game is a Trophy Hunters dream. There are a million guides for this game considering its age and you can beat the game and get through it’s story in probably 8 hours for the platinum with only maybe 1 or 2 enemies to complete the enemy list trophy posing any challenge.
The game play itself is a simple turn based RPG and there isn’t exactly a lot to say on this game. For about $12 it was a fun game to play. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Cocaine Bear is a 2023 movie that is yes, legitimately based on a true story, with quite a few liberties taken. For example the part about someone tossing massive amounts of coke out of a plane and a bear getting into it is absolutely true, there is even a museum in Lexington Kentucky where you can go see the bear they found in the woods that ate about 15 million dollars in that beautiful white stuff.
Now on to the movie, which quite honestly is a big old pile of what the fuck did Elizabeth Banks just make. I mean that in the best way possible. This movie is gory, it is funny it has some great acting for a movie that does absolutely nothing to take itself seriously. The bear also looks pretty good for a pretty low budget movie.
The story itself is actually very simple, a plane is going down so a man tosses duffle bags of coke off the plane. He dies when his parachute doesn’t open so a cop that knows what is going on rushed to find the drugs. The cartel that owns the drugs also wants to find the millions in drugs. Unfortunately a young girl and her male friend also skip school to go paint a waterfall after the mother breaks a promise to go paint the before mentioned waterfall.
As the name of the movie implies,a bear eats bags of coke and becomes all coked up and decides to kill everyone in his way of, you guessed it, eating more coke that it is now addicted too.
Small things you get to enjoy is a bear doing a line of coke off a severed leg if you pay attention. A drug dealer constantly complaining about his favorite jersey getting messed up (but not his missing fingers) and possibly the last movie appearance of the late great Ray Liotta. (He did finish filming numerous projects before his death but not all were movies)
The movie is a ton of fun,I won’t say it is a good movie, but God damn it was one of the most fun movies I have seen in years.
Embark on an adventure in the newest installment of the Utawarerumono series, Monochrome Mobius: Rights and Wrongs Forgotten!
The quiet life of Oshtor, a young man living in the frontier province of Ennakamuy, is abruptly shattered when he encounters a mysterious young girl named Shunya. She informs Oshtor that his father, whom he had thought was deceased, is actually alive and currently in the land of Arva Shulan–a mystifying country that doesn’t appear on any maps. Guided by his morals, Oshtor joins Shunya and embarks on a journey to discover the truth behind his father’s strange circumstances.
Monochrome Mobius: Rights and Wrongs Forgotten is coming to PS4™ and PS5™ in fall 2023!
Steel Defier is another game tossed my way by the fine folks over at Ratalaika Games, and we all know how much I love those guys. They always toss me such fun little gems to check out. Last week they hooked me up with Ultra Pixel Survive and over the weekend I spent some time playing Steel Defier.
Steel Defier is a simple game, you are trapped in a malfunctioning space ship and as the sole survivor your mission is to escape. Each room is a slightly more difficult wave of sliding boxes, lasers and other assorted defenses to stop you as you collect 15 key cards to unlock the doors.
Seeing this means new power up
There is no real guesswork involved,it has a map that is easy to follow to the exit and the game isn’t overly difficult. Not to say the game is easy, I was able to complete it in less than an hour and get the platinum in not much longer and all through normal gameplay. Simply collect all the power ups and complete the rooms on the ship and escape. Hop on over to the survival mode and collect 50 key cards in one run and boom, easy platinum.
The game cost about $5 (US) and was honestly a good looking game with a nice a nice sound track, and I was able to get both the PS4 and PS5 platinum. I played a few runs even after I got the platinum to see how long I could last in survival mode (72 for those that are curious) Definitely pick this one up, especially if you are a trophy hunter. For what this game is definitely a 9/10 must buy for anyone looking for something to just pick up and play or that is looking for some easy platinum trophies.
Ultra Pixel Survive is another indie title Ratalaika games was nice enough to send me to check out, and I always appreciate that.
This title is a bit different from what they normally send my way, it is a simple side scrolling survival game. At least it seems that way at a glance.
The Bunny girl is one of many fun characters
The game features many characters,from simple swords men and lumberjacks to dragon knights (don’t get excited it’s a guy with a spear not a real dragon) and even a plague doctor. The premise is simple, you can chop down trees, but up rocks and various other things to create spike traps, walls or food to protect your house and survive as long as possible. These materials can also be used to build anvils and such so you can upgrade your equipment.
At the start you will notice you only get one character and you will need to unlock the rest with these red gems that are rare to come across during game play. You do have to buy these,but the coins you earn in game is the money you use to buy them, no real money is used to do this. Simply kill monsters, save your money and use that money to either unlock new characters or power up your favorite characters so they start each run stronger and stronger.
This woman offers advice and occasionally scolds you for hiding out
I have in essence explained the entire game to you,and truthfully it’s not exactly much harder to master. But damn if this game isn’t addictive. I tossed this title and told hey check it out and toss us a small review. Instead this game quickly sucked up around 30 hours of my life over the course of my daughters spring break and shows no sign of slowing down. I definitely recommend picking this one up when it launches April 14th. It is an easy 9/10, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Experience Rhapsody II & III for the first time in the West! Following the events of Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure, join young Kururu, the daughter of Cornet and Ferdinand, on her quest to find true love in Rhapsody II: Ballad of the Little Princess! Then, gear up for another dose of musical adventures as the songs and stories continue in Rhapsody III: Memories of Marl Kingdom!
Once again we are back with Monster Friday, and this time we are going to talk about The Loch Ness Monster, Nessie. Now before we go any further, I should acknowledge scientist have many times debunked Nessie’s very existence in a variety of ways. In fact aside from the Vox article above here is a clip from the Today Show. This isn’t to say I believe these articles simply they exist and can be used to start your debunking search.
The modern Loch Ness Monster story goes back over 80 years to what is known as “the surgeons photo.” It was published on 1934 when a doctor by the name of R. Kenneth Wilson sold a photo to the Daily Mail that became the face of Nessie for decades to come. It is 100% fake, and you can read an excellent article from PBS for all the small details, but essentially a man named Ian Wetherell convinced Dr. Wilson to help take the photograph and sell it as his own, and since he as a respected doctor nobody would really question it.
Surgeons Photo
One fake photo doesn’t prove the creature doesn’t exist however, even Alastair Boyd the man that managed to find everything that proved this photo was a hoax firmly believes in Nessie.
Possibly an Eel or snake
As for what Nessie is, many think of her as a plesiosaur, others as a giant eel or snake. In 2018 scientist conducted DNA surveys of Loch Ness and didn’t find any sign dinosaurs or giant sea creatures. Eels however are still a possibility as several species do live in the loch.
As many of you are aware back in 2021 Steam was given the Pixel Remasters of Final Fantasy 1 through 6. This was met with plenty of mixed emotions by many since veterans of the many other remasters felt the graphics weren’t good enough or they didn’t add enough new content (or any at all) or that they removed some things other remasters had.
Other people pointed out that these were Pixel Remasters of the original versions of the games and were simply graphical and musical improvements of those. I obviously have no opinion because I have not played them, but now console games, at least Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch players will soon have the opportunity to do so. Coming April 19th the Pixel Remasters of Final Fantasy 1-6 will be coming to console. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Pearl is the prequel to X and basically tells the story of how Pearl ended up on the farm with her husband. If you recall Mia Goth played both the main characters Maxine and Pearl in X and in this one also plays Pearl once more as a young lady.
Pearl has a much different time than X, taking place during the Spanish Flu of 1918 while most of the men are away during the first Great War it starts out quite happy as Pearl dreams of escaping the family farm for a life of dancing like the girls in her films.
We quickly find that her father is confined to a wheel chair and has very little know of what is going on and needs constant care and her mother, Ruth, an older German woman is quite the uncaring woman. She is constantly speaking down to Pearl and her dreams and simply wanting things done because that is what is best. One example of this was when Pearl rode her bike to town for more medicine she stopped for a show and didn’t bring back 8 cents. Ruth noticed this forbid Pearl from eating dinner and she was only allowed to eat this for breakfast the next day to make up for the money she spent.
This is where we see the madness in Pearl go from subtle to more and more pronounced as she desperately wants to leave this farm and her family behind.
The movie is great and makes an excellent edition to the series of films and there is more to come. It perfectly captures the feeling of the early 1900’s without resorting to using far outdated technology or anything silly like that. This one is definitely worth checking out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Every so often I get the chance to review an Indy title with an interesting concept that seems a bit off,but I need to know more. Black Salt Games and Team17 were awesome enough to toss me a copy of such a game,and that game is DREDGE.
The idea is simple, and it plays just as simple as it sounds. You are a fisherman, who crashes their boat at a small port town of Greater Marrow. You are quickly given a new boat and told you can pay it off as you help out the town.
You will start by meeting the townspeople, they are nice enough people that are willing to fix your ship and buy your fish along with selling you upgrades and sending you on some fetch quest. Oh and they do give you one small rule, don’t go out at night.
Rule 2: be careful what you try to investigate
The fishing is done with various mini games, timing hitting buttons with the green box, or hitting the circle when it lines up or in the case of dredging up new items making sure you don’t hit certain spots on a spinning sort of dial. It is all very well done.
I did get a little tired of simply fishing during the day and decided I needed to see what would happen if I went out at night, because like anyone else told not to do anything I have to try it out. The darker it got the higher the level of panic level went. The fish also became more rare and sold for more money.
This is when things started to get weird. Eyes began to stare at me from a distance. Red smoke would begin to follow me and attempt to overtake my boat as I would flee not wanting to risk losing my days haul. The longer you spend out at night,the worse these things become until the stop being things that watch you and become things that can end your game prematurely.
That’s probably ok right?
The game isn’t perfect,I wasn’t a fan of the inventory system. Imagine the Resident Evil cache case. I often found myself having to toss out fish or wood I needed for upgrades because I needed something else just a little bit more. It made the game more difficult than it needed to be in some aspects when other things were made quite simple and relaxing.
The graphics and sound could have been better I’m sure,but personally I loved them both. I don’t think I will ever forget the first time I heard a foghorn in the night or when an arm of what I can only describe as a kraken crushed my ship because I decided to try to rush back to port in the night.
I know I haven’t mentioned the story and that is intentional. First, you are either going to love it or hate it and second I feel like it should be seen blindly just like I did.
I do however feel comfortable saying this game is a great buy. 8/10 with ease,and at $25 this is one of the better Indy titles on the market.
Savior Gaming 