After being astounded by the sheer SOUL that Ys I and II and Xanadu Next exuded, the Ribose gene inside me awakened and I craved more Falcom. One HG101 article later and I learn about Sorcerian Original, the 2000 remake an 80s 2D ARPG originally released on the PC-88, and the fifth installment in Falcom's seminal Dragon Slayer series. I saw a few screenshots, listened to few tracks, felt the pure SOUL course through my veins, and I knew I had to at least try it out. With the power of the Google translate app, no Japanese characters were gonna stop me.

The preparation phase of the game works just like Wizardry; you can go into town to create and organize a party of four with different sexes and races, buy equipment, appraise items and get magic, and train to raise stats or learn new skills. The magic system in particular is relatively fleshed out, as you can enchant equipment with "planets" to increase certain stats and allow you to use some of the surprisingly large amount of spells in the game. There's over a 100 you can mix and match, although you'll probably settle on a few mid-game, as the different offensive magic is by and large redundant, and experimenting is expensive and time-consuming.

The actual gameplay, on the other hand, controls kinda like Zelda II. You run and jump around exploring the dungeon, fighting enemies, and helping NPCs. Combat feels extremely haphazard; because enemy behavior is so erratic, damage is low, and your melee characters' ranges are extremely short, evasive manuevers are useless and fighting mobs (and bosses) quickly devolves into just running into them and staying on their ass while you spam everything. Dungeon exploration feels more deliberate, with branching paths, puzzles, secrets, loot, and backtracking. A TON of backtracking. EVERY quest had you going back and forth for whatever mandatory reason. It didn't bother me much, especially since you move so quickly, but it can be annoying since the game can get pretty obtuse. It's REALLY bad in some quests, like the murder mystery on the boat, which was made especially painful by the seemingly random triggers to progress.

While the assessment so far might seem pretty negative, I really did have fun with this game. Outside of the great, memorable soundtrack, Sorcerian excels at leveraging your imagination. The idea is similar to that of the earlier Wizardry or the later Etrian Odyssey; provide the player with a basic quest storyline and the tools to make a party, and let their imaginations run wild and fill the blanks. The simple fetch quest of the first mission can quickly establish archetypes and characterization for your blank slate party. Characters even age after quests and training, and can become middle and old-aged, and even die, leaving behind a successor, further encouraging players to write their own personal stories. The game even comes with a little handbook that fleshes out the backstory for quests and describes items and enemies, and a "Book of Magic" that describes what each spell does and how to make them. Makes me feel like an adventurer, reading notes and doing research before I embark on quests.

At the end of the day, although it's rudimentary and rough around the edges, I've never played a game before that so purely served as a vehicle for your own creativity. There really is great value in exploring Falcom's (and in turn, JRPGs') roots, and playing an untranslated late 90s Japanese Windows game feels so nostalgic. There's even demos for the future games Lord Monarch and Brandish VT on the disc. Hopefully one day they remake all of the expansion pack missions in this style, or at least release them in English.

"Erm... 'war is bad' is kinda cliche... and uhhh if they like peace... why are they fighting??? 🤓"

Yeah whatever poindexter, if the beginning of mission 27 didn't at least make you smile, then your joyless, jaded ass better stick to Drakengard and keep that mouth shut. Out here we EMBRACE the cheesiness.

With that being said, the scripted nature of the game leads to missions that feel just a little too long, and in the event that you die, replaying them can feel like pulling teeth.

Ambulating baked goods guy was right. Puzzle Bobble with rhythm game elements and Touhou remixes. Genius idea. The single player is really fun. ZUNTATA went crazy on their Necrofantasia mix. Playing it with your friends is the best part, especially if you beat them Parsec'ing Ryujinx with 10 frames of input lag and stick drift. They should make one with Armored Core tracks next. I do wish there was some way to sort by original tracks, like based off the original song titles or even the original games.

May this piece of complete dogshit be the Ark that delivers Capcom back into the hells of abject failure, full of horrors they haven't seen since the 7th gen. I want this bastard company dashed across the fucking rocks and scattered into the wind, just as they did with Mega Man. Inshallah the locusts will devour the flimsy goodwill they gained (certainly not earned) over the past several years, so that their cowardice will be layed bare to even the redditors that kiss their feet. Inafune was never the problem, just a symptom, and I want the disease GONE.

"Atsui~
Atsukute hikarabisoouu~
Ugoite nai no ni atsuiyoo~"

One of the greatest voice lines in all of video games. I needed it for myself. Dumped 200 rolls on Mika's banner the other day. Mika's cute and all, and the 6% rate was tantalizing, but what I was really chasing was that heat. Even with so much saved, it was still a 0.3% rate. Fate/GO players shot for the stars with more, and died in disgrace for less. It was a steep price to pay for missing the train back in January. I wasn't a believer then, but half a year of Twitter art forces a man to acknowledge the sheer strength Blue Archive commandeered as the head honcho of the cute and funny genre. Come April, I knew what I had to do. I installed, started grinding, and bided my time until the fated day would come. Ohhh I waited. Banners came and went, and my gem stock slowly grew. They called me a fool for skipping Himari. But there is no virtue chasing higher ranks in a future without Summer Hoshino. Days became weeks. Weeks became months.

Until Judgement Day. 7/25. The red carpet was rolled out for Mika. Fanfare, Twitter campaigns, displays, advertisements. She had it all. Even Arona Hot Dog was there. But I was only concerned about my pink, 0.3% prize. I only had a 45% chance to get her. I had nothing else but hopes and prayers; I prostrated before the numbers, completely at the mercy of a coin flip. And it flipped.

It was a silly little thing. One moment I didn't have her, and then in the next, I did. 70 pulls in. It's an unbelievable feeling, to entrust the culmination of several months of dreams on a dice roll, and win. At that time, at that place, for a fleeting moment, through no power of mine, the whims of reality and my wordly desires were one and the same. With no rhyme or reason, the Mandate of Heaven bestowed upon me Hoshino. Don't you see what this means? I walked the path forged by the stars, and it was written in indelible celestial text that Victory was my lot.

Anyway +3 stars for Ui, she's my favorite.

Mega Man fans are too receptive to Capcom's bullshit. Their sheer incompetence during the 7th gen has been well-documented, and all they've done since to rectify their countless missteps is a single Mega Man game. Despite the fanbase turning around and making MM11 the best-selling game in the franchise, we're at 5 years since its release, the 35th anniversary has came and went and Capcom has shown no sign of a new game. Instead, we got X Dive.

Now unlike most people, I'm no stranger to gacha games. I've tried many, and I've enjoyed many. As a result of my lack of seething hatred for them, I was more hopeful than most when the game was first announced. I went into it with an open mind, lasted about a week, and then dropped it out of boredom. It's not a good gacha game, nor is it an acceptable Mega Man game by any stretch of the imagination. Haphazard level design that felt AI-generated. Grindy progression that is simultaneously boring and tedious. Borderline incomprehensible english translation. From head to toe, the game hardly had any redeeming factors. Playing as various characters across the entire franchise would be neat, if not for the fact that playing the game itself is a complete slog. I would genuinely rather beat X6 and X7 back-to-back than consider booting this garbage up again. And then they had the gall to charge 30 bucks for this slop, despite essentially just removing the gacha system and leaving the rest of the game's myriad problems. You can buy entire series' in the franchise for that price.

The existence of the game is damn near insulting. Hell, we can't even say the game is funding new projects, like the Star Ocean gacha or Fate/Grand Order did, given the game failed and died after a woeful 2-3 years (and there are no new projects to speak of). Not to mention they're making and selling NFTs to promote it too.

It's basically another episode of Bad Boxart Mega Man. The fanservice at least could've been cool if it weren't for Capcom's continued incompetence and the franchise circling the drain. And if I hear one more Capcom cockguzzler say "this should be the standard for mobages", you're gonna see me on the evening news.