Shining in the Darkness is one of my favorite RPGs - love me a good dungeon crawl - and this is a remarkable direct sequel. It provides enough context to be a stand-alone game, while both serving as a direct sequel to Shining in the Darkness, and as a prequel to Shining Force III. It's an remarkable balancing act but they pull it off.

Entirely first person, we can now explore towns, castles and other interiors in addition to the dungeons and caves. Greatly expanded in scope, there are now numerous caves, shrines and other dungeons to explore, a contrast from the monolithic labyrinth of Darkness. Similar to the Shining Force games, the environments are packed with secrets that encourage and reward exploration, and with so much more area to explore, there's a lot more to find. Notable is the unusual but brilliant fairy system that serves as our preemptive combat strike, rewarding bonus XP and gold.

The dungeons are all very unique and superbly designed. Every one has new ideas packed into them, from finding new passageways and boats in the waterways, to having to weave navigating on the ceiling and floor in another. And the music is simply incredible throughout. A couple of personal favorites:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEfows0mD6A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwY1csmv4gs

The quest is long, tough, varied and packed with great characters and ideas. I love that while there are more party members than you can have active at once, even those that did not participate in battle will level up with you, so no one falls behind. You never get locked into a core set and can adjust the party on the fly as needed - which is frequently needed due to the very challenging boss fights.

I love everything about this game. The lone major flaw in the performance: combat in particular suffers from frequent slow down. With some additional optimization, the game would run so much better. Still, this is one heck of a great dungeon crawl and worth playing any way you can if that's your jam.

This feels like an overall improvement over the original with tighter controls, branching paths (not to be confused with branching stages), better visuals and just better balance.

I still have no idea what's going on in the story besides good dragon shoot down bad dragon, but the world has such a cool otherworldly design that I didn't really care. This also features much cooler setpieces than the first game.

The shooting is easier on the hands to fire rapid shots which my thumb is grateful for. Shooting things down is much more satisfying with better feedback and good visuals.

My only complaints are similar to the first where it is really short for an on-rails shooter. At least there is more replayability here with branching paths in levels. My other issue is the fact that the dodge button is tied to hitting the movement pad twice, which is not convenient and screw the flow gameplay up, as opposed to pressing a single button to dodge (seriously there are so many unused buttons here).

This is a very good on-rails shooter with some great atmosphere and music. Worth a play for rail shooter fans. I look forward to delving further into this world as an RPG with Panzer Dragoon Saga.

The first few minutes of Panzer Dragoon when your blue dragon majestically soars above the rippling water to the tune of Flight define a classic video game introduction that I doubt I will ever forget. A part of me expected the experience to be steadily downhill from there given the common complaints that I’ve heard, but to the game’s credit, it quickly established its defining hook and never let go. Panzer Dragoon was one of the first games to take total advantage of its 3D space, and it does so through its ability to rotate the player’s aim in 360 degrees. The catch is that while you can’t aim sideways/behind the dragon when looking forward, there’s a trade-off in that you can’t steer the dragon and change its mid-air position while in first-person aiming around the sides of/behind its body. As a result, there’s a precise science to swapping between these two camera modes. The macro never gets complex (shoot everything in sight while dodging and shooting down enemy attacks), but the micro is just involved enough to where there’s little downtime as you constantly peruse your surroundings and systematically pick off your foes. This is a game that wants the player to be aware of everything around them, and Team Andromeda was more than happy to let them soak in the sights given that the minimalist UI (simply consisting of a radar for spotting enemies and a player health bar) never really gets in the way. Even today, I find Panzer Dragoon to be an absolutely gorgeous game, and I can only imagine how people in 1995 felt playing this for the first time.

I’ve been warned that Panzer Dragoon’s difficulty can be a significant roadblock, but after a few playthroughs, I think it’s definitely conquerable. Besides mastering control of the player reticle/camera, players need to recognize when to utilize the homing laser lock-on (holding down the fire button) versus mashing to quickly fire the player’s handgun. The homing laser is great for getting rid of enemy swarms and easily targeting moving foes, while the handgun is a godsend for melting beefy mobs and bosses while sniping faraway targets that can’t be locked onto. In particular, Episode 3’s jumping ship boss is a notable chump check if you refuse to lock-on, while Episode 5’s airships will overwhelm you if you don’t mash. Additionally, I’ve also heard that Panzer Dragoon can feel very unforgiving since the player is allowed only one game-over before they have to restart a run, and the game only regenerates half of the player's health upon completing a level. However, given that the player can earn an extra credit per stage if they manage to shoot down more than 85% of the enemies in a single episode, I'd say there’s enough leeway given if the player takes the time to master its controls and meticulously defeat enough enemies instead of simply playing entirely defensive.

The only real gripe that I’d have is that enemy attacks sometimes blend into the background (ex: black cannonballs on top of dark environments) and can be tough to spot, especially when obscured by smoke effects from already defeated airships. I can still dodge most of these attacks with enough experience, having learning the enemy spawn positions, though it takes time to master given that players need to adapt to the game’s weightiness and natural response time. After all, you’re controlling a rider controlling a dragon rather than controlling the dragon itself, so it takes a bit more time to shift the model away from incoming barrages. As is, I’d still prefer if all enemy attacks were distinctly colored to stand out from both my own projectiles and the surroundings. Regardless, Panzer Dragoon was a breath of fresh air and I don’t mind its relative simplicity or brevity when it manages to succinctly capture an enthralling rail-shooting experience that I’ll gladly replay just to see myself visibly improve with every new run. All I can say is that this was certainly no flight of fancy; if the base model was this good, then I can’t wait to see what Team Andromeda/Smilebit have to offer with Zwei and Orta.

I actually think about Juice Galaxy a lot.

It's a weird little game that wears it's weirdness on it's chest like a badge, giving it's world a slew of different scapes while never missing that "Juice Galaxy" vibe.

I'll be honest, at times I thought the combat was a bit cumbersome, and even after beating every boss with a multitude of weapons, I still think that. But I couldn't imagine a combat system more fitting than one where you kinda just flop your weapon around and smack the hell out of shit. Imagine if they built this whimsical and weird world and gave you the basic slash, shield, dodge roll, and parry button that so many Action RPGs love to dish out.

For an early access open world game, you'd expect there to be more dull moments as you traverse the foggy and mostly unchanging over world, but I was constantly at awe when I was traveling. I've told one of my friends about this twice now, but somehow Juice Galaxy perfectly that "Adventure Time vibe" without really trying at all. I think the OST plays a big part in emulating that vibe but even on it's own, just walking around the over world made me think of the Land of Ooo. (The OST is fantastic btw)

But the real meat of this game is in it's boss battles, which combat wise can still be cumbersome, but their presentation tends to kick ass. Traveling through the Wawsp nest swatting away low level wawsps as the music builds up and you're greeted by an open room and the one who controls them all, The Wawsp Queen. I'll never forget my first time fighting her, the tense build up to her theme and the fact that she actually got hands! I died at least 4 times before killing her.

Every boss fight in this game feels like some grand battle, even though you're a floppy weird guy fighting another probably floppy weird guy. I love it so much.

I will be watching this game with curious eyes, I'm excited to see where Fishlicka takes it!

I actually didn't realize that Detective Grimoire: Secret of the Swamp was a sequel to an original flash game. Luckily, I already had flashpoint installed, so I figured that checking out the original likely wouldn't be a waste of time.

Yeah, this is definitely a flash game alright. Animations include a lot of obvious tweening, the voice over has a couple of Newground's elites, and the gameplay is very simple. Honestly, for the time and environment that it was made in, I think it works rather well.

[David Byrne Verse]

And you may ask yourself:
"High on what?"
And you may ask yourself:
"Why do they always say 'Get smoked'?"
And you may tell yourself:
"My god, the mexican is called Maria Juana!"

[Chorus]
Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground

Great new cast of characters, Kasuga Ichiban and his gang are lovable and are well written. I though this game was fun and charming with a great twist on the Yakuza combat system. The story was fairly deep and interesting, however it can be quite dry at times.
The RPG elements were cool but a bit too simple. I tend to do all the available side quests before moving through the main story and this left me painfully over leved. The only challenge i face were damage sponge bosses that posed little to no threat. That being said i really enjoyed the minigames. The dragon kart and business management were my fave, although they left me craving a deeper experience.

Over all i had a great time. I sunk about 40 hours into the game, completing all the minigames i liked and about 60% of the story. It was at this point that i became totally burned out. I love Yakuza, but i think the days of me being able to complete games like this are over. To many new things to experience.

I'll probably try the sequel at some point, hopefully the mechanics have some more depth.

I’m gonna be completely honest, this score is 100% pure nostalgia. Growing up playing this game with my friend and going to find all the Easter eggs and getting all collectibles are memories that I will cherish forever and hold close to me. I have sunk way to many hours into this game throughout my life that it’s unhealthy, what makes it crazier is this time replaying is the first time I fully 100% the game. I can’t even begin to give this an objective look I love everything about it. I love the movement that’s a million times better than the other games as well as some of the greatest destruction in any game ever made. The story is a million times better than the other games as well and though the dialog is super corny it just adds so much to the charm. This is easily one of the best open world games ever made and one game that will always hold a special place within my heart.