Reviews – Page 55 – Savior Gaming

The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015)

The Blackcoat’s Daughter is a 2015 horror movie about two girls stuck over a holiday at an all-girls Catholic school with something dark and sinister. The movie starts with two girls finding out their parents aren’t going to show up. One because they are stuck in a storm, the other because she lied to her parents about what day to be there.

The movie after that jumps between the 2 girls at school and Joan, a girl traveling alone with a husband and wife that are making their way towards Bradford, where the school is, to leave flowers at the grave of their deceased daughter.

The movie is less interesting than it sounds. It takes forever to get going and even when it does it is never all that interesting to me. The ending also felt like it was tacked on and my girlfriend and I saw it coming around halfway through the movie. There wasn’t anything wrong with the acting or the effects or any of that. I personally just didn’t like the story. By all means, give it a watch, I can’t really say there was anything inherently wrong with it, I just didn’t enjoy it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Super Dodgeball Beats (Review)

As always, huge shout out to Playstack to hooking us up with a review code for this one. Always an honor to be chosen to review a game and this one is no exception.

I am going to preface this review by saying this, on a personal level I did not enjoy playing this game. Rhythm games are always hit and miss for me and this one was a huge swing and a miss for me. My personal enjoyment out of the way, everything after this will be based solely on the game itself because I do have quite a few positive things to say about the game.

First, the music in the game is catchy. It matches the atmosphere well and I was never sitting there wondering why it was chosen. I even found a few times I just left the game on while I was doing other stuff listening to the music because honestly I kind of suck at the game anyway and my daughter liked dancing to it.

Graphically the game is also very nice, I loved the art style and how the story played out in a sort of graphic novel comic book effect The gameplay itself is on the surface pretty simple at least to learn. The characters on your side of the screen are lined up in the same order of the buttons, for example on PS4 the circle square triangle and X buttons. (I’m not calling it a damn cross) As the white circles get where they need to be you hit the corresponding button. Sometimes you need to hold the button or use the left analog stick.

The game itself is pretty well made and as the difficulty ramps up it can become insane, challenging and frustrating in a good way. While the game was not fun for me, I understand the appeal and I would never discourage anyone from buying it. It wasn’t fun for me, but it will be for many others. The game is a solid 7 of 10. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Final Fantasy 8 Remastered

Oh Final Fantasy 8, how I have loved thee since I was a child. The GF’s, the characters, the world itself and the monster designs. As a kid, I used to love these things. However, did this translate to modern times and how did this remaster come out? According to my Platinum trophy pretty damn well.

The story is as you remember, that hasn’t been altered. You play as Squall Leonhart. Student of Balamb, member of SeeD. After being sent on his first mission and meeting Rinoa Heartilly things suddenly take a weird turn and our crew ends up on a quest to stop the Sorceress.

The story aside that I don’t want to delve into deep. The graphical upgrades to the characters are amazing, tho I am a bit disappointed the same treatment wasn’t given to most of the environment. The upgrades to the combat system are nice for an odd reason. You can up the game speed by 3 times, have no encounters and easy combat which basically makes you invincible unless you get killed in one hit, makes your gauge charge almost instantly and your limit breaks will always be charged. This makes the game a breeze to play outside of certain battles. However, if like me you are impatient and hate how long drawing all the magic takes, you can now do in minutes what used to take hours. That alone for me is worth it.

For the trophy hunters in this group, I won’t call this one easy but I will call it straight forward. Only about 3 of them are missable and if you are careful, those aren’t hard to get anyway. You only have to go slightly out of your way for them the benefits for doing so are pretty worth it.

The only issue is if you use the 3X speed upgrade, the game feels really slow in combat when you stop, and it’s really tempting to use the combat assist to heal yourself. Unless you are strong-willed or just want to experience the story avoid using them at all.

I did, however, love the game and have no real complaints with the remaster itself. I for one am glad to finally see this on a modern console and encourage everyone to give it a shot. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Evil Dead 2 (1987)

Evil Dead 2 has been a pretty debated movie believe it or not. It all comes down to the opening of the movie. It starts with Ash back in the same cabin, with an entirely different group of people. Found the same book, but the reading happened in a different place. This has lead to the debate of is it a remake or a sequel?

The answer is actually quite interesting. The short answer, by the way, a remake and sequel simultaneously. See as it turns out they couldn’t get the rights to their own movie. The way around this was when they made Evil Dead 2 they opened with a rehash of the last movie, and changed it. The same general idea, different actors (except Bruce still plays Ash)

Interestingly enough they did it in such a way that if you skip that intro and pick up where the first movie left off and just play Evil Dead 2 from where the entity hits Ash at the end of Evil Dead (1981) it actually makes perfect sense.

This one, however, is a bit different. It starts with Ash being possessed by an evil as the sun comes up, which pushes it away. Meanwhile, we discover that the owners of this cabin are about to have visitors that found more of the book of the dead. These pages are being brought to the cabin so they can be read by the owner that Ash discovered mysteriously disappeared.

Like the first movie the charm of this cult classic is that the effects, story, and acting are all about as cheesy as they come. They aren’t cheesy in a bad way tho, the whole thing is entertaining. The best part is Bruce Campbell however, he truly seems to love the role and his fans.

As the movie goes on and everyone meets up at the cabin, we discover the older couple is trapped in the basement, dead and possessed by evil. This evil wants to kill everyone in the cabin and take their souls, while Ash is determined to survive and the new pages of the book are the way to do this. I won’t spoil the ending but I will encourage you all to see it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Evil Dead (1981)

Bruce Cambell as Ash Williams. (check out @torstenvblog coverage Evil Dead ) This is one of those cult classics that most people have either seen and love or seen and hate. I have seen it and love it. What is not to love tho? The special effects are cheesy as hell, the story is almost nonsensical to the point of hilarity and I dare you to watch this and not love Ash.

The movie starts off with our group going to an old log cabin for a weekend getaway. During this night of fun, they discover a book in a basement. Now, most people would be smart enough to not read from the book with a face on human skin in a creepy language but these idiots do exactly that. This releases an evil entity that goes on a killing spree and the dead come back to life.

The movie is on Hulu and is a must-see if you are a horror fan. It resulted in multiple sequels and a TV series and even a game. It can’t be bad to get that kind of results right? Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Archery Go (Mobile)

Archery Go is one of those games you see an think I’ll give it a go, then after you do you wonder why the hell you did this. Then you keep playing for a while. The game functions fine, tho sometimes its a bit annoying trying to shoot with your own finger in the way. The game, however, is challenging and fun tho and has plenty of variety. You will be shooting at balloons, bottles, and even moving targets.

The game is free so give it a shot and see if you like it, but certainly, don’t spend money on it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

1st Summoning (2018)

1st summoning is a movie about a group of filmmakers investigating a town and the rumors that if on October 6th at exactly midnight if you perform a specific ritual you can get an answer to any question you want, for a price. So they pack their gear, hop in their camper and drive there, interview some town members and a priest and head to the warehouse.

The issue is, the movie sucked. There is no nice way of saying it. The movie struggled between trying to be a sort of mockumentary and a legitimate movie about them making one. The characters themselves make no damn sense, the priest is creepy as hell and sets the plot up nicely but then he is just gone. The one female character is basically made out to be kind of a slut because she dated two of the 3 guys in the group. She constantly disagrees with the idiotic ideas they have, only to do it herself anyway.

The movie is also boring for 90% only to get exciting at the very end, and then never be explained how or why things happened. There is also a necklace that again, never explained in any capacity. There may or may not be a demonic element, or it could just be human interference. You are just left to figure it out with no real info and for no real reasoning. I was actually glad this movie ended. There is no real reason to watch this, Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Black Desert (PS4)

As always with these reviews, huge shout out to Pearl Abyss for sending me a review copy of Black Desert. It is always appreciated when a company takes the time to reach out to us and hook us up, and I like to be upfront about that. So how was the game? Let us discuss it.

First the story. The story starts when you wake up with no memory and a dark energy speaks to you. This leads you on a journey to rediscover all you have forgotten as well as for more dark energy. There is far more to the story, but this is just the opening act. I don’t want to give to much away as the real hook to any RPG whether it be MMO, action or turn-based is the story.

I bring that up because this game is at its core an MMO but the combat is pretty action-based. R1 and R2 are your light and heavy attacks for example with L2 being used to dodge and L1 being a different attack depending on the class you pick. You can also use different combinations of buttons to use different attacks still. There are still hit points and magic points, of course, tho you won’t be able to see the enemy HP at first. There is no special skill required, just knowledge gained from fighting more and more enemies.

The combat works pretty nicely and I actually found myself enjoying it more than I expected I would. In fact, I have no real complaints in the combat or story area. They both function pretty well and while they aren’t perfect, after all, nothing is, they do add to the experience.

Graphically is where my complaints come in. The game looks good, but there are some glitches that I think should have been dealt with prior to release. They aren’t huge issues nor are they exclusive to this game, in fact, they have been present in most open-world games that have released. Numerous times tho I have gone to talk to a character and their characters either aren’t there or basically just a shadow. Here are a couple examples of what I mean.

Black Desert_20190830000214

Black Desert_20190829235826

They did pop in shortly after, but it was still a bit disturbing the first time you walk up and see this. There was also an occasion where a random NPC was just hanging out floating in the air. Also not a rare glitch, and quite entertaining, but it is a thing.

Also don’t mind that my character at this point kind of looks like Gandalf the Grey, that was 100% not on purpose, but it was appreciated. This is him a few hours in.

There is a lot to do in this game by the way, easily hundreds of hours of content if you feel like doing it. There is crafting and fishing, houses to buy, trading to do and this is without getting into guilds and multiple characters. I am playing as a wizard but there are archers and warriors as well as berserkers and they are adding more characters as time goes on. The PC and Xbox version have far more as of right now but they will be making their way to the PS4 in future updates I am sure.

The game isn’t great, and it is far from the best MMO on the PS4. However, if you are a fan of them, this one may be worth checking out for you. It can be a grind, but its a grind many people do enjoy and so far I have liked my time with the game and will continue to play it well after this review is done so look for the occasional update. For now tho because of the graphical issues and the occasional connection issue I have to give this one a 7/10. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Hearts of Iron IV Review, Sort of.

I call this a Hearts of Iron Review sort of because this one of those games where honestly if you play it for 20 hours (like me) or even 40 you probably aren’t truly qualified to truly review it. I can tell you about it of course, for example, it is a grand strategy game from Paradox or that the game basically starts just before World War 2.

I can also tell you that you will need to research new technology, build both civilian and military factories and when it comes to war it only becomes more complicated. You will be drawing front lines for your troops to defend, telling them where to attack as well as managing how when and where your planes will be attacking. That isn’t even touching on all the things you will need to do with the Navy at your command.

The issue is this all sounds like its pretty simple, but even getting the general idea on all this could be rough. I lost in the tutorial for example. Not my finest moment in gaming. Recently playing a game with my friend went a bit to hell. (Hey Cody how are you) we ended up starting a massive 3-way world war as I lost 500 thousand men in South America (I was North America) to Guatemala and El Salvadore. This was before I ever made it across the Atlantic to join the fight against Germany that as you can imagine, did not go much better for me. I am not very good at drawing front lines and such yet, or keeping my troops where I want them. Or building my divisions.

There is so much to learn here that you will want a friend to play with probably, and youtube will be a godsend when you try to learn. I haven’t even touched the Focus trees and how you can turn some countries from one country into another form entirely. For example, I turned America into a fascist country so I could invade South America in hopes of uniting with the UK in taking over Europe. I failed at invading Cuba, but it is what it is.

All in all the game is a blast to play and learn, but it will take some patience. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Pokemon Masters (mobile)

Pokemon Masters is the newest game to hit the mobile market, and this time around we have a huge tournament where the best trainers from around the world have come together for 3 vs 3 tournaments. You will start out with a Pikachu and with two partners, Brock and Misty. You will then use all 3 pokemon to battle 3 other pokemon choosing which pokemon will use which attack in a sort of real-time battle that uses one gauge to determine how many attacks you can use. Each attack takes up a certain amount of the bar and you will have to wait as it charges,

After spending a couple hours with the game I have to say it functions far better than I expected. It is smooth and the battles are pretty fun while the story is pretty much what you would expect from any episode of the show itself. This can be good or bad depending on how you felt about the show, but it is a far cry from lack of story in Pokemon Go, which we all know I love. I am not sure how long I will play this one for, but it is in my rotation for a bit at least. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.