Circus Electrique is a new RPG from Saber Interactive and they were gracious enough to toss me a review code for this one.
The game takes place, you won’t believe this,at a place called Circus Electrique. You play as the niece (Amelia) of the owner and noted journalist. As always I won’t waste too much time on the story because I don’t want to risk spoiling anything. It is safe to say it is full of twists and turns and well worth a play though.
The combat is a lot like Darkest Dungeon but replaces the dark stuff with strongmen and fire breathers. In total there are 15 different archetypes of characters. One of my favorites are the clowns. They have a mood that increases the morale of everyone and snacks people with hammers.
The game takes place over the course of days. First pick a circus act to earn money and items. They all have different sets of attributes you need to reach to be allowed to use them. They all have different requirements and each character has things they are better at and people they get along with.
Really the only thing left to cover is the graphics and sound, both of which are solid. Neither one is anything to write home about but they don’t disappoint. I also never ran across any glitches or crashing and in the era of gaming it is hard to come by. The difficulty is fantastic. It starts off simple enough but it does spike later on. It is a great 8/10 and I definitely recommend RPG fans, especially if the Darkest Dungeon sort checks this one out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Giraffe and Annika is a game NIS America gave me a long time ago and I never got around to reviewing, but hey no day like the present right?
This game is short, you could probably blow through this in five to 7 hours without trying very hard. The game does have two endings to give it some replay value.
The story itself is pretty basic. Annika wakes up with no memory and searches the island of Spica and will eventually meet Giraffe. Giraffe will need Annika to enter dungeons, five of them to be exact since he can not. I won’t spoil why for you but it is all explained to you.
The best part of the game is the looks and sound, however. Seriously if you like studio ghibli movies this is something you might enjoy. The sound most notably feels like it. Graphically it has the same feeling though admittedly it isn’t quite as good.
The game has some big downsides for me, unfortunately. The game for example has no real combat. Even the boss battles are basically just a rhythm game. I know it is technically possible to die in this game, but even if you do restart a short way back and don’t lose any real progress. There just isn’t any real incentive to worry about it. The game is actually kind of just walking around and exploring. It is not a bad game, it just isn’t a great game. It is at best a 7/10. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
As always with these I’d like to give a Huge shout out to NIS America for tossing me a copy of this one. As always it is greatly appreciated.
The Prinny Presents games always feature two classic games, this time we played La Pucelle: Ragnarok and Rhapsody: A musical adventure. Both are pretty niche titles with huge fan bases within the tactical RPG realm but outside of that most people will never have heard of them.
La Pucelle is a pretty straightforward story of a journey to battle a dark prince. You battle through various levels and attempt to recruit or “purify” enemies to increase your ranks.
There are different ways for each chapter to play out that I won’t spoil,but it is worth exploring each one. It is also worth noting if you only played the earliest versions of this, it is based on the PSP version with all of the extra content such as missions and many quality of life improvements that never made it to our side of the ocean.
Rhapsody is probably one of the easiest NIS America games ever made. I don’t say this as a bad thing, the story is cute there are some cheap laughs to be had and honestly it’s a nice history lesson.
The games however do feel their age. Both are well over 20 years old and play like it. While I enjoyed my time with them, they could have used a bit more touching up. I definitely recommend playing them though. They are a solid 7/10. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
As always I would like to thank the people over at Plan of Attack for hooking me up with a review copy of this one.
Cursed Golf is as the name implies, a golf game. You will start out learning how to play during a golf tournament where your character is attempting to prove he is the best there ever was. A lightning storm takes care of that possibility however.
After this untimely death, our golfer finds himself in purgatory. This is where golfers go and play golf until they can win 18 holes and return to the world of the living. Admittedly I Couldn’t do it,my golfer is still in purgatory.
The story is simple just like the graphics, which work just fine for what the game is. The game is first and foremost a rogue like. A very frustrating one at times. You must beat 18 holes in one go, these holes will change each time you try.
There are also an assortment of bosses to play against every few holes that are broken up by assorted other spots such as treasure or cards that can be used for bonuses. These bonuses can include anything from splitting the ball into multiple and choosing which one you will keep playing with. Other abilities include making the ball change directions, not bounce at all etc
This game can be hard though and very unforgiving. A few reviewers made it to the last stage and lost and had to start all over again. I never made it that far however. I don’t admit this lightly, I greatly enjoyed the game and still do.
In fact I will even give you my score now, 8/10 highly recommend it. The game is fantastic the graphics are cute and serve their purpose very well. At the price this game is sold for,it can’t be beat. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
I am going to get a few things out of the way before I even start. I am not a reader of the Sandman comics. I have read Lucifer (comes from Sandman) so that is the only character I will mention any accuracy on. (Spoiler alert, the guy that wrote the character and helped with the show did great)
Another thing I will not get involved with is “woke politics” if you have read Neil Gaimans work you knew what you were getting into. This was his stuff before being “woke” was a thing.
Also it’s Constantine as in TINE/ WINE not Teen. Him and his comics said so.
Ok now that we have that out of the way,on with the show. It all starts out pretty trippy as you would expect with a series about an entity known as an Endless, Sandman (also called Morpheus) and his family exist to rule over certain things, Death,Desire etc. Sandman attempts to find an escaped nightmare and Magus who is upset over the loss of his favorite son casts a spell to trap Death and instead catches Sandman.
This is actually only the first episode and encompasses about 100 years of his imprisonment where is mostly stripped of his tools and powers. The rest are locked away with him inside of a magical seal which he can’t really escape.
This does an excellent job setting up future episodes, done as chapters, by letting us know the Endless are all extremely powerful but are not gods. They make mistakes,they change and grow as living things and most importantly you should not piss them off.
The show can’t go on without his escape which does eventually happen much to the regret of his captors. This will bring us on a journey to gather his tools back which includes sand, a mask and a sort of amulet. This brings me to my first issue.
Going into this we saw all sorts of previews and posters discussing Lucifer ( Gwendolin Christie) and Johanna Constantine ( Jenna Coleman) both only appear in a very limited capacity. (In fact Jenna technically only appears once as 2 different characters with the same name) and this really seems almost like a bait and switch. Clearly the show is about Sandman ( Tom Sturridge) but to make them seem like costars only to have them barely be guest appearances at best seems a little dishonest.
That aside, every character is played amazingly. At first I was a bit worried about John Constantine being done away with completely but him being gone may actually be an improvement. ( The John Constantine character could not be used for legal reasons so he was replaced with Johanna,another character in his family from the comics)
Morpheus and Johanna
Before I get more off track however, finding his tools is how he meets Johanna and later Lucifer.Johanna happens to now own his sand which she happily returns, if by happily we can say as happy as anyone would like to visit an ex-girlfriend that left without any notice or phone call. And Lucifer, well Lucifer is the devil. Her and Sandman basically kick the crap out of each other and he gets his mask back as Lucifer swears to see him later.
Lucifer and Morpheus
I won’t go further into the story because I don’t want to ruin it, but for something that is only 10 episodes I was hooked from start to finish. It is absolutely worth checking out, just don’t go into this expecting anything other than a dark (and I mean morbid) story. Morpheus is not a hero, or even a villain. He simply exists as a force of nature in control of a realm. He isn’t Batman or the Joker or anything in between. He is just there to do a job,and sometimes people get in the way, other times he can help. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Don’t forget if you want to support Savior Gaming please consider buying our book
As always I like to thank Ratalaika Games games for tossing me a copy of this one. I always love working with these guys and gals.
Long Live the Queen is a strange combination of RPG, simulation game almost like a virtual novel. You will make decisions that will play with your mood.
Each mood can be changed I’m various ways depending on choices you make and places you choose to visit. This can be anywhere from the dungeon to the courts or gardens. Your mood is important because it will give you a bonus (or a debuff) to certain abilities when you train them.
These stats are important to the story. Every decision you make will have to be run past these skill checks sort of speak,and these can end anywhere from simply upsetting people because you can’t dance or straight out getting your princess killed.
The story is actually quite interesting and branches in numerous ways. It also isn’t very long which is nice because it gives you the chance to explore plenty of the options without feeling overwhelmed with how long it takes. The graphics are honestly quite cute and the sounds are nice.
I greatly enjoyed this game,and I still haven’t seen everything it has to offer. I’ve died a few times in unexpected ways and even become queen. This is definitely a solid 7/10. It won’t be for everyone, but for those that like this sort of game it should not be missed. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
As always I would like to take a moment to thank the great people over at Curve Games for hooking me up with a review copy of this game. It is always appreciated.
Now let me start by saying this,I’m not sure a game has ever made me this mad and kept me coming back without being made by FromSoftware in a very long time. And I mean this as a compliment in every way possible.
You will start as a lone traveler setting down on a planet that you will need to set up shop on. The tutorial will set you up with a solid foundation on how to get started with building your first few robots and how to get them chopping down trees, replanting them and how to build tools and such. It will also show you how to get people and research going.
This however as they say is only the tip of the iceberg. My first run I thought I was doing well,but it never occured to me I could have my robots break down the logs into poles and such for me and then store them. So I did a lot of that myself while also making tools for my robots as they broke. This is a very viable option. But it is time consuming,as far as I can tell you can’t truly lose this game so much as you can back yourself into a corner that makes the game harder than it needs to be.
So after fiddling with very easy to use and intuitive not programer that essentially boils down to show the robots what you want them to do and change a few commands to how often and when you want them to do it. I finally had everything going smoothly on my second attempt. At least that is what I thought. I had trees being chopped, tools being made and stored and as they broke my bots were coming for new tools,I thought. Then I noticed it all fell to pieces. When I wasn’t looking all it took was 1 robot to run out of materials,in this case sticks. Tools stopped being made trees stopped coming down sticks ran out and it just went from there.
That is when I learned in this beautiful little game things don’t all move at the same speed. Trees come down faster than they can be planted for example,so you need multiple bots working on some things and fewer working on others. The graphics are cute,and I loved watching my little person and bots especially stomp things into existence. Outside of a few minor camera issues where things would be annoyingly stuck behind trees I had no complaints. If you love games like Factorio but need your fix on console, this is your game. It is definitely a 9/10 and gets my full recommendation. This is one of those games I will be playing for a long time to come. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
As we all know, I truly love working with NIS America. They tossed me a review copy of Disgaea 6 for the Nintendo Switch when it came out and they were awesome enough to give me one for the PS5 as well. A huge shout out and thank you to them for that.
I will tell you this right out the gate, having played both versions of the game the complete version is truly complete. Right from the start, it is possible to go and get a ton of DLC characters from the older titles. I won’t spoil the who, but the list is pretty solid and had some of my favorites. That being said, while one of the more fun things to do in the Disgaea series to do is more or less breaking the game with insane character levels and damage output this specific version is by far the easiest.
If you don’t want to walk through the game with ease I suggest going into the settings and turning off using the bonus tickets the game gives you. Within a few fights, my character levels were in the hundreds, and even cranking up the enemy levels to the highest never really did much for the challenge. There is a challenge dungeon to unlock and an extra difficulty setting where the big challenge begins, and you will be leveling your characters up into the literal millions.
With all that aside Disgaea 6 is the usual Disgaea. You will start out as Zed, an angry little zombie trying to destroy the God of Destruction. You will eventually find out exactly why he is going through Super Reincarnaction to do this but to be honest you will probably figure it out before then anyway. The story is solid enough and is good for a laugh, in fact, I rather enjoyed it.
The graphics and sound are also great, I don’t ask much from a tactical RPG besides looking nice and this one certainly accomplishes that and all the special attacks and spells are up to par as well. Nothing here is pushing the performance abilities of the PS5, but I wouldn’t really want it to. The voice acting is also well done.
All in all, I have to recommend this one to any fan of tactical RPGs or the series. Easily an 8/10. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
As always I want to thank the fine folks at RoomcGames and Versus Evil for tossing me a review copy of this one. It is always appreciated and definitely doesn’t go unnoticed.
Hand of Merlin plays like a lot of other RPGs. You create a party of three heroes then move around a map to individual places ( think Slay the Spire) and make decisions. Maybe it’s to help some poor folks find a wagon wheel or save them from bandits. Solving these will many times get you money, or fame. Fame is used to level up all of your characters at once.
Battles themselves play out in a tactics style and won’t win any awards for creativity. If you are a fan of them there is nothing new here to enjoy. The usual hit points and armor are present with hit points not coming back between battles outside of certain ways of healing and armor completely replenishing.
I don’t say this is a bad thing, the battle system is a lot of fun and I greatly enjoyed it. I just don’t want anyone to go into this thinking the wheel has been reinvented so to speak.
The story itself is quite basic but it serves its purpose. Inspired by Arthurian legends, Merlin is attempting to save the world from a terrible event. That is where the rouge-lite experience comes into play. Each time you fail, and by the way, losing the Holy Grail also results in a game over. I discovered that when I sold it. Anyway, if you fail Merlin will simply take off to a new part of the multiverse where you will start all over again. You pretty much lose all of the progress you made except for any heroes you unlocked or spells you unlocked.
Oddly, I don’t really have anything bad to say about this game. It is essentially average in every way I can think of. The sound, the graphics, the gameplay. It is all good. Just that, good. It isn’t in any way special or unremarkable. It is a solid 7/10 and great for any fan of rogue-lites.
As always with these things,a huge shout out to the ladies and gentlemen at Thundeful Publishing and Thundeful group as well as everyone working with them to hook me up with a copy of this one. It is always greatly appreciated.
Did you ever want to play a game that would basically tell you how the story, the basics on how to play then just let you go? No I don’t mean any of the souls games, I mean one that is easy to just pick up and play without someone screaming “git good” when you get frustrated.
Enter Source of Madness, a side scrolling rouge lite where you WILL die,and that’s ok. You will start out with a bit of lore, escaping to a sort of keep after picking a character and setting out into the Loam Lands. In true Lovecraft style you will collect blood to level up. Each run ends when you die. Any money you make and items you find are gone, but the blood you make can then be used to unlock new skills or items.
With your character dead you will pick from a group of new randomly generated characters and set of once again into the procedurally generated world for the next run.
The combat in game is a lot like the graphics, simplistic yet effective. The visuals are the perfect mix of spooky and creepy while not being so dark things are hard to see which is an issue I think to many games try to do. It’s the creatures here that take center stage. You never know if something with far to many arms is going to come out of that rustic building and kill you or if a blog of tentacles is going to come sliding down the next hill.
The combat itself is simply a matter of dashing around and attacking with the appropriate buttons, usually one of the trigger buttons. This sounds easy but it is far from. The timing of it means a lot and messing that up can mean losing a nice chunk of health you can’t really afford to lose.
The game takes some time to get used to,with each run teaching you a little more and helping you get a little further into the game itself and it’s mechanics. I’ve probably got about a dozen hours in and lost about as many characters and I am still figuring things out,and that to me makes this beautiful game worth playing. This one is a great 8/10 and at it’s price point is a must play for fans of rouge lites or side scrollers. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Savior Gaming 