Category: Game reviews

As always I like to get my full disclosure out of the way, Far: Lone Sails is made by Okomitive who was kind enough to give me a review copy of the game. It is always appreciated.

Far: Lone Sails is a simple concept. Take your machine (shown below) and travel this seemingly post-apocalyptic world.

You have quite a bit to manage between keeping your engine going, picking up the items you use for fuel and not smashing into things. The further you go however you can upgrade your ship. I won’t spoil what upgrades you get, but they do make certain things easier or give you fewer things within your ship to focus on, but this does come with a trade-off. While things are easier within your ship things outside get a bit tougher.

The game, however, is never all that hard, and I don’t believe it is meant to be. I had quite the relaxing time with this game. Watching the scenery go by was amazing and beautiful. The weather changing, the ever-changing world as amazing to look at.

The sound was also nice, the chugging of the engines the steam pushing the ship faster, me slamming it into a wall. All the sounds in game served their purpose well and the music set the scene in ways I never expected going into it. I was constantly thinking about what could possibly have happened to this world, wondering why it became what it is, where am I going, where did this ship come from? These are the questions I had kept me going. Are there answers? I won’t tell you. I knew nothing about this game going into it and you shouldn’t either. The true joy of the game is simply going and seeing it all.

The game isn’t perfect, as no game is but I truthfully can’t point to anything truly wrong with it aside from it being rather short and for its price point ($14.99 I believe on Steam and consoles I believe) that isn’t an issue. This one is a solid 9/10 worth buying. I greatly enjoyed it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

7’scarlet is the newest game developed by Idea Factory and published by Intragames, who full disclosure tossed me a copy to review. I am also kinda glad they did because I truly never would have bought this type of game in a million years. I would have seen it, thought it looked interesting but never got around to it. Why you may ask, well it plays out like a visual novel. I have no issue with visual novels, by the way, they just aren’t my thing. This game may have changed that tho.

The story starts off explaining what is going on, which is you are laying the role of a young woman searching for her brother with her friend from when she was a child. This will lead you to the town of Okunezato which is surrounded by all kinds of mystery and intrigue. From the political atmosphere to the odd relationship between the owner of the hotel and the police officer. I know this all seems pretty vague, but it has too. The entire point of this is the story itself, and it would be wrong of me to spoil that and it is worth the experience. In fact, it is designed to be played multiple times as there are multiple paths to take with various characters. This will allow you to see the entire story and adds plenty of replay value.

The game is also quite beautiful to look at which I feel is pretty important for this style of game since you wouldn’t want to feel like you were reading a book instead of playing a game. That, however, is my only complaint. As aesthetically pleasing as the game is to look at, and as enjoyable as the story is, it is still a lot of reading and kinda felt like one massive cut scene even tho I did have to make choices at times. If you like to read books or visual novels this is a great game, it also was nice to relax with. It just wasn’t very exciting, and if you are used to shooters or action games this may not be for you.

As always tho I judge the games I play based off what the designers were creating and the functionality of it, and with a great story, no serious technical faults that I ran into and nice visuals I feel comfortable giving this one an 8/10, but pointing out it is not for everyone. Enjoy the trailer below that I added because honestly, I love the music. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Caligula Effect Overdose was originally released back in 2016 in Japan, then simply called The Caligula Effect. They have added quite a few things to the game, but before we get to that once again a huge shout out to NIS America for hooking us up with yet another game. Nothing but love for you guys. In the past, they have let us check out Disgaea 1 Complete (PS4) and The Lost Child (PS4) so it is always a pleasure to hear from them.

Now for the added stuff, first you can now choose to play a boy or girl and playing as the female protagonist does change many of the character interactions. There are also 2 new members of the Go-Home Club which is the group you are in as well as an entirely new story path in the game that lets you get to know the musicians. They have added quite a bit to this version of the game and admittedly it adds a lot of replay value.

The gameplay itself reminds me quite a bit of the Persona series. It is very Japanese in nature, in fact, all the voices are in Japanese with English subtitles. At first, this was a bit distracting to me but I did get used to it pretty quickly. It didn’t take away from the story at all so, in the end, it doesn’t really matter. The story itself is rather interesting as you are trapt in Mobius and you in the other members of the Go-Home Club attempt to track down the musicians that brainwash all of its inhabitants so you can find their leader and force them to take you home.

The battle system is pretty original. On the surface, it may look like a standard JRPG with a turn-based system, but if you look under the hood there is a ton more going on. As you pick moves you will get a small preview of the following action. This represents how the turn will go if things go pretty much perfectly. Things won’t necessarily play out this way but it gives you a good idea. Some actions will also pop enemies into the air while other actions cause more damage to airborne enemies or that have fallen on the ground. So it is pretty handy that you can delay a character’s actions until after someone else with just a push of a button. So person one can pop an enemy into the air, delay the action of the next and shoot them while they are in the air causing massive damage. It functions very well and may be the best part of the game except for one small detail we will get into later.

The graphics and sound are great with the music being even more outstanding when the musicians are on a map. They all have their own distinct style that matches their characters. Speaking of characters, while I don’t like most of the characters, they are well done. Also, the reason I don’t like them has to do with the very reason Mobius exist in the first place and is very much by design. One of the musicians, Stork, is legitimately a pervert and sends his time attempting to get a free peep show from women. This is, in contrast, one of the ladies in your party absolutely HATES men with a blinding passion. All of this will be explained throughout the game, and it all has a very good reason, but many of the characters are simply not good people. It is, however, fascinating to see and learn.

The game does have some issues I will admit. For example, as great as the battle system is, unless you are playing on the hardest difficulty setting you won’t be overly engaged. In fact, I won the first few boss battles by simply holding the X button to quickly input commands while playing on normal. There is a pretty significant difficulty spike from there tho. Also, there are certain doors locked by special words that the game never truly explains very well how to get, tho if you make a lot of friends and help them on their side quest you should get them just fine anyway.

Now for the reason, you all came. Should you spend your hard earned money on The Caligula Effect Overdose? This one is a hard one for me to answer. The game has a fun story and battle system but there are long periods of simply going through the motions. JRPG fans will enjoy the game, however, I think most people may be a bit hit or miss with it. The game is a solid 7 out of 10, and a great example of what an updated version of a game should be. I personally would be happy to spend money on it, and fans of other NIS American fans will enjoy it I believe. Others looking to break into the genre tho are probably better off looking at a different game, however. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.