Savior Gaming

New GrimGrimorie Once More PS5 Review

Once again NIS America was nice enough to toss me a copy of their new game, GrimGrimorie Once More to check out,which of course is always appreciated. This one is a bit different from what they usually send me.

You play as a new trainee magician named Lillet Blan at Silver star Tower. The game starts out like many PS2 games, and that’s what this is. A beautiful remaster of a PS2 game many of us missed. It is a real time strategy RPG that is almost like a tower defense.

The game is simple and straight forward, you use some units to collect magic powers or mana (which ever is easier for you to think of them) which are then used to create new magical circles or buildings. (again however you want to think of them) These act as either towers to defend your base or to create new units, all of which are magical creatures with their own strengths and weaknesses. They range from elves to fairies etc.

This isn’t to say the game is simple,just that the concept is. And while the game is fun (if not a bit repetitive) and the story is intriguing, the mystery of who the ghost in roaming at night and why there is a devil teacher is pretty nice it does show its age in a few areas.

Graphically and music I have no complaints. They did a nice job bringing it up to date. The game play itself follows the same pattern and gets dull fast. Mine mana, build the same buildings, send the same creatures up and down a 2D surface to kill the enemy, repeat. Every so often they add a new enemy or unit. The game isn’t bad,it just wasn’t my kind of game.

We all know I won’t punish it for that,fans of the original GrimGrimoire will appreciate this,and it is a solid 7/10 and worth checking out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

New Transport Fever 2 Console Edition Review (PS5)

We all know my love of these types of games, and Urban Games was awesome enough to hook me up with a review code for this one.

The idea behind this game is pretty easy, deceptively so. The map is covered in different cities and different businesses. Each city in Transport Fever 2 wants something from these industries, it might be food or construction materials or even liquid gold, I mean of course fuel. You have one job, bring all these things together in the best way possible and make millions.

This is more fun than it looks I pormise

The problem is, everything is easy when you say at first but actually do it,not so much. You can start basically at any time between 1850 and 2050 and the technology will match. 1850, all you got is his horses and some basic trains. Now do you use trains to get wheat from the farm to a bakery then use some trucks to ship it to a nearby city? How you do things means as much or more than what you do.

My first free play game I had a nice run going. I had 3 trains set up running crude oil to turn it into oil. Then one that ran it up to a fuel depot and turned it into actual fuel to be delivered to a nearby down. Eventually I was making money hand over first and decided I could make more money by upgrading my trains.

This is when I didn’t realize the oil cars I had would transfer to the new train and I went bankrupt. You live and you learn I guess.

That is the basics of the game, how it plays is what matters. I am happy to say it plays beautifully. As much as I love these games historically they don’t play well on consoles, which has been changing lately thankfully. Transport Fever manages to nail putting the controller in this format. I never felt like I was held back not having a mouse. If you do feel that way, good news, that’s an option here.

Yes you will see wild animals if you look

The game looks beautiful as well,more than once I’ve just rode one of my trains and watched the trees or occasional animals go by. In the 1850’s seeing the horses just troy along and the people jumping in and out of the carriages is simply mesmerizing. It doesn’t change with the time either, watching trucks show up to drop off merchandise or pick up a load of logs. It never seems to get old for me.

Normally at this point I would start to wrap things up, but I do want to offer some advice to anyone playing this game. First,start with the campaign. Even if you don’t finish the campaign it acts as the tutorial. It will teach you everything you need to know about getting things set up,setting up lines for your vehicles and what connects to what to make some money.

Second,don’t feel obligated to play on normal or hard. Start in easy and work your way up, even doing things right on the higher difficulties doing it at the wrong time can be just as bad.

And last but not least, money made is based on distance traveled from point A to point B, but done as the crow flies as they say. Going around mountains and such won’t help, the faster you can get from point A to point B the better.

Now those looking for a score in this one, this is probably the best simulation style game like this I have ever played. It’s a 9/10 must buy for fans of the genre. It has vehicles from the US and Asia and Europe, different animals and cities etc. Definitely check this one out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

New The Guise PS5 Review

The Guise is a new metroidvania game from our friends over at Ratalaika Games and they were nice enough to send me over a copy to review. Now at a very reasonable price point of $6 U.S. dollars, and the company it was coming from I expected exactly what was advertised. A short but solid Metroidvania game that would be fun to play through,get a pretty reasonable Platinum trophy for trophy hunters and be a fun little story.

What I got was a pretty reasonable Platinum trophy for the hunters, a fun dark fairy tale about an orphanage of kids going into a room they shouldn’t have and one of them being trapped in the body of a monster and of course some solid,but not perfect by any means gameplay.

During the boss fights it always seemed like dodging didn’t quite go as consistently as it really should have. This caused a few deaths that were a bit annoying. Nothing that stopped me from enjoying the game of course, far from it. It was easy to adapt to in fact,just be aware of it.

The sound however, chefs kiss. It is the perfect level of sinister for what the game is trying to portray. It was actually my favorite part of the game,aside from playing as a creepy monster that can eventually spit acid on things.

All in all the game is fun, cheap an reasonable Platinum and most importantly it is fun. I can easily recommend this one for fans of metroidvania games, trophy hunters or just someone looking for something new to check out. 8/10, pick it up and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

New Shark Side of The Moon Review, Tubi Original

When I first heard about this movie from a friend, I did not believe it was real. A quick google search ends up at imdb and discover hey Dark Side of the Moon is very real. The reviews are horrible, and rightfully so, but we will get to that in a bit.

The story for Shark Side of the Moon is simple, and completely bonkers. The movie starts a long time ago in the USSR, right after America landed on the moon. After winning the space race, the USSR decided it would claim the moon for itself. It would do this by creating a human/shark hybrid that could survive pretty much anywhere and just ship them to the moon.

This ends about how you would expect, a scientist scares another as a joke, a bucket flies into a pool and hits a laser which leads to their escape. Two scientist eventually board a conveniently placed rocket and take these things to the moon, you know the moon the USSR couldn’t get to in the first place?

I wish I could say this is was the most ridiculous part of the movie but truthfully its not even close. I didn’t even mention any of the stuff on the moon and that is where all the real what the fuck happens.

Visually this is some Grade A high quality B movie stuff going on. Straight out of the 80’s here, and the sound was basically there to match. The acting was actually pretty well done, you can tell the people in this movie weren’t just phoning it in for a pay check.

This movie truthfully got some horrible reviews, and rightfully so. From a technical sense visually and such it wasn’t a good movie. However I was movies to be entertained , and this movie did that better than most AAA titles out there, It was just fun. If you can go into a movie expecting a fun movie, this is worth watching. It is sort of like Sharknado in that regard. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Friday Monster- Kraken

Continuing my weekly monster post, last week I bought you something from close to home with the Trotterhead and this week I want to bring you to the open seas by releasing the Kraken.

The history of the Kraken is well established in lore from Scandinavia sailors, to Clash of the Titans where Zeus himself controlled it. It’s worth noting however that in traditional Greek mythology the Kraken itself does not appear. (Sea monsters do exist just not that one specifically)

Known to resemble a giant octopus or giant squid the power of a kraken is so immense that it easily sinks the biggest ships simply by wrapping its testicles around it and squeezing. Why it does this is also under much debate, some say it is simply a dumb creature that mistakes the boats for food,others that it simply is defending its territory.

Interesting enough the Kraken while believed to have been about a mile long with a body that could be mistaken for a body of land, it is the one mythical creature that not only could be based on a real creature, it was also based on a giant version of 2 real creatures that were thought to not exist for a time that later were proven do in fact exist.

While humans have known about octopuses (yes that is the plural of octopus, despite popular belief octopi is not. I’m as shocked as you) there the Giant Pacific octopus wasn’t really known about then.

The record for one of these is 30 feet and 600 pounds

The chances of one of these taking down a ship is obviously pretty small, though I suppose it might take down a row boat. If you have never seen something like this and it climbed up on your boat it would scare the hell out of you and to have it described to you would be pure nightmare fuel.

The second candidate and far more likely however was a creature discovered within the last decade or so and hunts whales. I am of course speaking of the giant squid.

Unfortunately this one probably didn’t live long

The giant squid is a living monster, fully capable of fighting a sperm whale,and winning. The longest giant squid was about 43 feet, while sperm whales are about 60 feet. With a ship in the 1700 and 1800’s only being about 75 feet at the most for big ones, it’s easy to see why catching sight of one of these rare things would cause the scare it has.

This is part of what makes the Kraken so scary especially back then. It wasn’t really far fetched,most people that lived by the sea probably saw an octopus or squid. They also knew fish further out into the sea were much bigger. So why couldn’t there be a massive monster out in the deep sea waiting to rip a ship apart?

The Kraken is easily one of the scariest monsters in history because it is both easy to see where it came from,and that it wasn’t too far off from the truth. I hope you enjoyed this one,best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

New Nightmare psychological thriller Stray Souls comes to PC and Consoles in 2023

Fans of the horror genre have something new to look forward to when Jukai studios and Versus Evil release Stray Souls later this year.

Dive into the mind of Daniel, a teenage boy who inherits a home from his estranged grandmother. As he moves in, Daniel meets the enigmatic Martha who knows more about the house than he would expect. As night falls, dark secrets hiding within the dwelling and Daniel’s past come out of the woodworks – secrets Daniel cannot seem to outrun…

I personally can’t wait to check this one out when it releases on PS 4/5 or Xbox series S/X. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Legend of Heroes:Trails to Azure (New review)

NIS America was kind enough to once again toss us a review copy of this one,much like they did the first installment of the Crossbell series, The Legend of Heroes Trails From Zero Review and that is always appreciated.

The first thing you need to know about getting into this, you don’t technically NEED to play Zero to play Azure. You can read through much of the in game text and such to get a general idea but to be honest you are much better off playing these two games in order.

The second thing you need to know,if you want to play them both you are probably looking at 40-50 hours each. And it is worth every hour of it.

The story starts up about a month after zero ends and continues the saga of a corrupt government, admittedly seemingly less so at first. It doesn’t take long for things to go bad however. This isn’t strictly true, there is a lot of lore packed into this one. Long conversations and some of it is quite heavy. I don’t say any of this as a bad thing, the story is quite amazing and easy to get into.

Graphically the game does show its age and the sound does leave much to be desired at times. The voice acting and the music could be hit and miss, nothing that takes away from the enjoyment of the game but it does exist and would be dishonest to pretend it didn’t get up to some weird things at times.

As we all know any RPG is only as good as the combat. The combat reminds me a lot of the original Grandia. You walk around the map,and touching an enemy changes the battle screen and from there you can move around to fight enemies. It isn’t quite a tactics style battle, the battle maps are way too small for that but it is turned based and and positioning does matter for a lot of reasons. It is really well done and a lot of fun, but depending on how you play it can feel a bit slow. Thankfully quality of life improvements have been added that have taken care of that.

To be short and sweet about it,the game is highly recommended especially to anyone that enjoyed the Cold Steel series. 8/10, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Guise Trailer

Indie publisher Ratalaika Games, together with talented developer Rasul Mono, is delighted to announce The Guise, a stylish and dark Metroidvania fairytale about a boy trapped in the body of a monster! Coming on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Microsoft Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch it is due to hit digital stores with a release date of 17th March.

Setting the Scene

The Guise is a distinguished looking game in which ‘evil’ has apparently already won the day. In the world, where the player is taken, there is almost no light and no hope for anything good. Dying settlements, dark forests, winding dungeons, and deadly valleys full of demons are abundant.

The action begins in a children’s home, perhaps the only bright and warm place in the game. It is there in the room of the owner of the orphanage that a boy named Ogden finds a strange mask that turns him into a monster. The game is based on Ogden’s new appearance, his new abilities, and his relationships with the unfriendly world that surrounds him. The goal of the frightened and bewildered Ogden, who has become a monster, is to regain his human form. The player’s goal is to get the most out of the monster’s appearance.

An ancient conspiracy of local gods prevents Ogden from turning back into a human, and almost everything alive and inanimate is against him staying in the monster’s skin. The player must get used to his new body, master new abilities, and try not to lose the remnants of his humanity.

Winning Takes All
You, the player, assume the role of Ogden, our hero, who has animal agility, monstrous strength, and abilities that are not available to ordinary people. You will have to learn various skills, such as running on the ceiling, finishing moves, acid spitting, bomb belching and a lot more As in any ‘metroidvania’, to obtain a new ability, the player will have to defeat a certain boss. For example, after Priscilla, the rat queen, dies, we will be able to climb walls and run on the ceiling, which will open up access to new locations.

Venture Forth
There are a number of exciting and challenging side quests, some of which are related to the life of the orphanage (although Ogden has become a monster, the children in the orphanage still see him as a friend). For example, one quest is to help a mad cultist who wants to destroy the remaining angels in the world.

The world of The Guise consists of seven large regions, each with 10-20 interconnected locations. Some locations have multiple paths thanks to forks, multiple entrances, and exits. All closed exits can be unlocked by obtaining a certain ability (for example, after getting the “Spider Legs” ability, the player can overcome a water-filled gap by simply running along the ceiling above the gap). Secrets, hidden passages, and secret rooms containing various treasures are scattered throughout the world.

Features/Elements:

Beastly Abilities

Cool Battles

Great Challenges

Monsters!

Appealing Graphics

Atmospheric Music

Finders Keepers

Exploring the game world, the player will gain access to resources that strengthen the protagonist. Thus, in hidden chests or as a reward for side quests, the player will find amulets that complement his combat abilities (for example, he can stink up the area, causing damage to those around him). And the reward for defeating enemies will be their eyeballs – the local currency – which can be spent on improving the abilities obtained from the Eye Collector.

In this hostile world, almost everything is out to get you!

Monster Friday -Trotterhead/Trotterkopf

Last week I started this new series with Monster Friday Wendigo and this week I wanted to continue with something much lesser known,and from my home state of Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania dutch,who are oddly German, bring us the legend of Trotterhead. (Trotterkopf in German)

Trotterhead is less a creature and more of a spirit but if what it is often debated. Some say it was the spirit of a witch trying to do harm while others say it was actually a spirit sent by a witch for the same reason. Either way you kind of need to upset a witch for this thing to show up and bother you.

As for where this thing would live or what it would eat, obviously one would think they don’t live anywhere but allegedly you could visit 2 of these creatures in Quaker Cemetery on Quaker Church Road in Perryopolis Pennsylvania. I have never been there myself,it’s in western PA and I’m in the North East, but I know the stories of the place. Apparently you disrespect the cemetery they will push you down and do all sorts of scary stuff.

Is this real or just the story of old time religious folk? My guess would be the latter, but they are interesting none the less. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

New Age of Wonders 4 Reveals Upcoming Expansions and Premium Content

Age of Wonders 4 invites players to rule a fantasy realm of their own design, in a blend of strategy, role-playing, and turn-based combat. Powerful Wizard Kings have returned to the realms to reign as gods among mortals, and players will rise to challenge their rule using Tomes of Magic to unleash arcane destruction and evolve their armies, gaining new abilities and forms. For the first time in the series, players can create their own custom factions, and leave their mark on countless worlds through each choice they make.

In the Age of Wonders 4 Expansion Pass, players will receive the following content:

Archmage Attire: The Wizards of Magehaven dress to impress, representing their grand personalities and ambitions. This outfit pack unlocks a new set of clothing you can wear as a whole, or to be mixed and matched with other in-game items. The Archmage Attire pack will be available instantly with the launch of Age of Wonders 4 for all Premium Edition players.
Dragon Dawn: Embrace the power of the Ancient Dragon Lords in the Age of Wonders 4: Dragon Dawn Content Pack. From your Dragon Throne, forge empires inhabited by reptilian minions and use draconic magic to evolve your people into dragon hybrids. This content pack includes a new Dragon Ruler type, a Reptilian Form, and New Tomes of Magic, and will launch in Q3 2023.
Empires and Ashes: The empires of mortals resurge after the devastation brought forth by the Wizard Kings! In the Age of Wonders 4: Empires and Ashes Expansion, players fuse magic and steel to unleash devastating war machines to drive the Godir back into the Astral Sea. This full expansion, slated for launch in Q4 2023, includes a new Culture, new Tomes of Magic, new Empire Building options and a new Story Realm.
Primal Fury: Channel Nature’s Spirits in the Age of Wonders 4: Primal Fury Content Pack. Create races using new beastly forms and a primeval culture, with new Tomes of Magic that tap nature’s hidden powers and the Fey realms. Your surroundings will be able to contain new forms of wildlife, creatures and bountiful resources. Primal Fury will become available in Q1 2024.
Eldritch Realms: The Age of Wonders 4: Eldritch Realms Expansion opens portals to realms filled with arcane marvels and unspeakable horrors. New forces threaten the rule of the Godir of Magehaven. With new strange monsters, new racial forms, magical realms and locations, this full expansion will bring a new dimension to the game in Q2 2024.
In addition, pre-orders of both the Standard and Premium Editions of Age of Wonders 4 will award players with an additional ruler and armor set: Aric Rex, a Tigran High King, and his elegant Lion Plate armor, Imperial Cape and Athlan Crown. Age of Wonders 4 can be pre-ordered today for a suggested retail price of $49.99 / £41.99 / €49.99 for the Standard Edition, and $89.99 / £74.99 / €89.99 for the Premium Edition.
For more information about Age of Wonders 4, visit https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/games/age-of-wonders-4/about.
In addition, pre-orders of both the Standard and Premium Editions of Age of Wonders 4 will award players with an additional ruler and armor set: Aric Rex, a Tigran High King, and his elegant Lion Plate armor, Imperial Cape and Athlan Crown. Age of Wonders 4 can be pre-ordered today for a suggested retail price of $49.99 / £41.99 / €49.99 for the Standard Edition, and $89.99 / £74.99 / €89.99 for the Premium Edition.
For more information about Age of Wonders 4, visit https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/games/age-of-wonders-4/about.