tantaclaus
34 Reviews liked by tantaclaus
made it about to mission 13, doing an ironman and got my shit scuffed
i think that everything that made rekka no ken great is here but this is three failed playthroughs now, two out of apathy and now this one. the maps are too big, i feel like the enemy power ramp is too quick, i dunno. i remember running into this even when i was reloading fights, it just required too many reloads of long fights. and i refuse to get better or smarter!
to be real tho i really do like the idea of doing ironman playthroughs in these games, but without the freedom to train back benchers (they get mulched by a random wyvern knight) its pretty precarious. i might try rekka no ken this way, we'll see if that works out better.
stray thoughts:
1. its cool that roy can marry his social studies teacher
2. echidna is the baddie of all time
i think that everything that made rekka no ken great is here but this is three failed playthroughs now, two out of apathy and now this one. the maps are too big, i feel like the enemy power ramp is too quick, i dunno. i remember running into this even when i was reloading fights, it just required too many reloads of long fights. and i refuse to get better or smarter!
to be real tho i really do like the idea of doing ironman playthroughs in these games, but without the freedom to train back benchers (they get mulched by a random wyvern knight) its pretty precarious. i might try rekka no ken this way, we'll see if that works out better.
stray thoughts:
1. its cool that roy can marry his social studies teacher
2. echidna is the baddie of all time
Dragon's Crown Pro
2018
like if shadows over mystara was unbelievably sick. getting the wallbounce off the dwarfs throw is str8 ropes every time
Felvidek
2024
I'm not typically a fan of RPG maker games by their gameplay, but definitely the vibes can win me over, and Felvidek has some unique vibes. I was happy to be running around the little late-medieval kingdom fighting off heretical demons with my priest buddy for a few hours...
I kind of got lost in all of the names and factions, but the game was the right length that it wasn't really a big issue.
I kind of got lost in all of the names and factions, but the game was the right length that it wasn't really a big issue.
i love the frantic action of this game. shrunken basketball rocks. this guy was playing against the computer at the arcade and I joined in and won by two points... a great time.
Unicorn Overlord
2024
This game felt pretty good but when I realized how easy it was to break it and that I didn't really care for the story I lost a lot of fun. It was already relatively easy on expert (highest difficulty before NG), but I would have to limit myself to have any challenge.
They present you with an open world but there is a very clear linear path they expect you to take as the areas are set to specific levels that will give you a hard time if you attempt to overcome them. Even so, it's very easy to come up with a good strategy for one unit and stomp over higher level enemies until you yourself are too high.
I tried very many combinations and there's a lot to work with so it can feel pretty good to come out with something cool. That being said, the game expects you to build around countering specific units, but with a good team and maybe some overleveling, the counter system doesn't really matter. It doesn't feel good to have a few units who just decimate everything and have some units who might be good against a specific type of enemy. Cavalries are stupid broken.
Eventually, your army will grow very large, and it can be extremely cumbersome to have to manage 40-50 people at once. This could also be a part of the appeal, as the tactics system is pretty neat and it is fun to work with usually.
The animations are really good but at some point just feel time consuming and I ended up skipping all of them which is a bummer. The art style in this game is top tier, thank you Vanillaware. That being said though, a HUGE amount of character designs feel undermined by the fact that they look largely the same as mercenaries/common hired units. I was so disappointed when I learned one of the characters I started this game for, Yahna, was basically a carbon copy of the witch mercenary. I think if you someone to care about a character, having them be visually indistinguishable from NPCs is not a good idea.
I think the story ends up being pretty barebones, which is a shame because the rapports/supports and small character moments were all pretty great. The music was nothing to write home about imo but it wasn't bad either.
Overall, I think it's a decent game that I think falls short in aspects that I crave in a tactical RPG, being challenge, story, and music. I could see someone loving this, but for me its a bit too slow and long, with mostly good aspects but nothing great. I feel like I dogged on the game a lot in this review but it does genuinely have good things going for it and I would play it again. This is still the dumbest name I have seen for a serious game. At least you can marry your cousin.
They present you with an open world but there is a very clear linear path they expect you to take as the areas are set to specific levels that will give you a hard time if you attempt to overcome them. Even so, it's very easy to come up with a good strategy for one unit and stomp over higher level enemies until you yourself are too high.
I tried very many combinations and there's a lot to work with so it can feel pretty good to come out with something cool. That being said, the game expects you to build around countering specific units, but with a good team and maybe some overleveling, the counter system doesn't really matter. It doesn't feel good to have a few units who just decimate everything and have some units who might be good against a specific type of enemy. Cavalries are stupid broken.
Eventually, your army will grow very large, and it can be extremely cumbersome to have to manage 40-50 people at once. This could also be a part of the appeal, as the tactics system is pretty neat and it is fun to work with usually.
The animations are really good but at some point just feel time consuming and I ended up skipping all of them which is a bummer. The art style in this game is top tier, thank you Vanillaware. That being said though, a HUGE amount of character designs feel undermined by the fact that they look largely the same as mercenaries/common hired units. I was so disappointed when I learned one of the characters I started this game for, Yahna, was basically a carbon copy of the witch mercenary. I think if you someone to care about a character, having them be visually indistinguishable from NPCs is not a good idea.
I think the story ends up being pretty barebones, which is a shame because the rapports/supports and small character moments were all pretty great. The music was nothing to write home about imo but it wasn't bad either.
Overall, I think it's a decent game that I think falls short in aspects that I crave in a tactical RPG, being challenge, story, and music. I could see someone loving this, but for me its a bit too slow and long, with mostly good aspects but nothing great. I feel like I dogged on the game a lot in this review but it does genuinely have good things going for it and I would play it again. This is still the dumbest name I have seen for a serious game. At least you can marry your cousin.
Unicorn Overlord
2024
The developers should've put more time in the world building and story because this game is insanely generic and not that engaging, especially with how the game's main conflict is happening because of possession spells
The game gets points for its visuals because duh Vanillaware and there's a good foundation on the team building and gambit system. Just kind of wish there was a bit more to the gameplay.
The game gets points for its visuals because duh Vanillaware and there's a good foundation on the team building and gambit system. Just kind of wish there was a bit more to the gameplay.
Ping Pals
2004
Ping Pals: 0/10
PringLes: 9/10
PringLes: 9/10
Atuel
2022
throughout the journey, from the Andes to the city, I kept seeing faces in wilderness; the mountains, the cliffs, and the trees were watching my movements. they didn't judge, however. they just watched. Atuel introduces the concept of a "documentary video game" and does an amazing job at personifying the river and letting the player reflect on the past, present, and future of the world's bodies of water.
durante todo el viaje, desde los Andes a la ciudad, vi caras en la naturaleza; las montañas, los precipicios y los árboles miraban mis movimientos. pero no me juzgaban, solo me miraban. Atuel introduce el concepto de un "videojuego documental" y cumple un gran trabajo de personificar el río y deja que el jugador reflexione sobre el pasado, el presente y el futuro de las masas de agua del mundo.
durante todo el viaje, desde los Andes a la ciudad, vi caras en la naturaleza; las montañas, los precipicios y los árboles miraban mis movimientos. pero no me juzgaban, solo me miraban. Atuel introduce el concepto de un "videojuego documental" y cumple un gran trabajo de personificar el río y deja que el jugador reflexione sobre el pasado, el presente y el futuro de las masas de agua del mundo.
Virtual Hydlide
1995
The SEGA Saturn's answer to King's Field and Ocarina of Time. If it was released today it would be called a Soulslike and a Roguelike.
Virtual Hydlide has quite a few baffling design decisions and the Saturn can barely run it, but it has that special something that makes you want to keep playing despite it all. The game looks beautiful at times and can really draw you into it's world when it wants to. Give it a try!
I recommend you play on Normal or higher. At easy difficulty the game is so easy it becomes boring.
Virtual Hydlide has quite a few baffling design decisions and the Saturn can barely run it, but it has that special something that makes you want to keep playing despite it all. The game looks beautiful at times and can really draw you into it's world when it wants to. Give it a try!
I recommend you play on Normal or higher. At easy difficulty the game is so easy it becomes boring.
Kick Bastards
2024
If anything it made me truly appreciate how elite Neon White and Ghostrunner are and how they perfected the first-person parkour gameplay.
En Garde!
2023
When it works as it should, the game is really fun. Unfortunately the targeting system is really janky which makes the game frustrating and unfun. If I kick a box at a guard and stun him, I usually don't want to attack the other guard standing next to him, and yet!
Pyre
2017
This review contains spoilers
Supergiant Presents: Final Fantasy X-1 2: Oops! All Blitzball
Franchise modes in sports games rule. There was a time where the GM mode in 2K might've been the summation of all gaming's best things. Buttery-smooth hooping ensconced in fricative layers of Koei-esque simulation, and you could play it with friends!!!
2K has, of course, stumbled into the era of GaaS (games as a slot machine) taint first, succumbing to the same perineal perforation as all of its peers. Man-hours of digitial labor that could have been poured into making NBA 2K something like Crusader Kings but with Slam Dunks instead enriched the digital soil that glorified lobbies bloomed in, rife with real-money currencies and in-game advertisements.
I think of the story of my Milwaukee Bucks in NBA 2K15. By then the rot was already present, but I had not yet reckoned how bad it would become. My thoughts were filled only by the multi-season epic of Giannis Antetokounmpo's meteoric rise (I had to fudge his stats, Visual Concepts are not as good as determing Who Is Actually Good as I am), the unlikely success of Jabari Parker as his second-banana, the Nate Wolters Game, the succession crises of max contracts as injuries caught up with my aging roster over 10 seasons in...the retirement of Larry Sanders, NBA Champion. Indelible, unforgettable moments conjured out of a few dressed-up spreadsheets. I could only imagine the glory next-gen gaming would bring to the GM Mode, unaware of the horrors to come.
Pyre feels like the promise of this utopian franchise-mode future, reduced on medium-high until thick. It does not feel like a sketch, like somehow the team at Supergiant arrived at sports as a venue for Persona-esque RPG antics by accident. It feels as if they saw the same glittering possibilities as I, but instead worked to capture that promise in a contained narrative. And as such, it is one of the Best Games of All Time. It is relatively simple, on its face, sport-as-religious-rite entwined with a narrative of rebellion against empire. Honestly, like most games of its ilk, the 'plot' is interesting, but mostly acts as a sounding board for what you think of as "your" character, and how they establish relationships with the rest of the party. The characters are good, but not all created equal. This is important. There are characters that loom large over the story, rebels fighting for a cause like Volfred (the Volfman) and Jodariel (Jody Highroller). There are characters that seem almost incidental but are no less loveable, like Sir Gilman (the Gil-o-tine). The game reveals that the winners of the proverbial Larry O'Brien trophy get to send one of their players back to the Imperial core, where they will presumably further the cause of revolution and its somewhat vague goals. So, you have to deal with managed retirement, which is mind blowingly good. Like, what if in Persona 4 you were halfway through the game and it was like, one of these teenage motherfucks has to stay behind in the TV forever, their story will no longer advance, you can no longer use them in your party. Wild!!
The thing about it is, is that even as a somewhat contained narrative, it still allows for an amount of that good Crusader Kings style self-directed storytelling. Like, I put up Big Jody in my first run as the candidate to get sent home. This was mostly because I don't think she was a great hooper. She's like if Charles Barkley had no mobility. Not a champion. And as such (and also because I was not ready let's be real), we got smoked, the big demon guy got to go to heaven, and the cycle continued. Ok, next time through, I send my man Rukey even though I DO like him both on the court and off, because Jodariel is not a starting player, and the normal guy (I forget his name but he is based for dating a harpy) at this point is central to my gameplan, a little strategy I call "Pass the Ball to Shae". But I get thinkin'...I'm basically the Downside Pat Riley at this point. The Rites are what I live for. They're going to lower me into a coffin still holding the Book of Rites and my wife orb. I don't know how much I give a shit about the empire anymore, To Be Honest. So...I shifted my priorities.
The revolution was job 2. Winning basketball games was job 1. I'm pushin' through ready to send up Sir Gilman, cause at this point I'm not liking his playstyle (I eventually Figured It Out), but...Pamitha walked into my life. Now, I was in a commited and ironclad relationship with my orb-dwelling shooting coach, but Pam was great hangs, immediately climbing to the top of my "good locker room guy" rankings. I put her in with Shae and Sir Gil in the final rite, since I had influenced the standings to force a climactic encounter with Pamitha's sister, Tamitha. Pamitha stuns me before tip-off. "Let my sister win. Send her home so she can redeem herself." Bruh...I mean. Winning is job 1...but could hanging with the homies be job 0? I lost the match. I don't know if it was on purpose or not. Pamitha thanked me profusely. Gil probably felt some way about not winning, didn't really ask him.
We did the rites until they ran out of rites, and in the end I sent Big Jody and Pam home. I wanted Pam to try and patch things up with her sister. The game let me decide to prioritize the sisterly bond of one of my favorite characters over the main story it was trying to tell, and that rules!! There were also characters like Shae (Grey Mamba) and Ti'zo, hoopers of the first degree that were never going to go back home. I was the proverbial Tom Thibodeau, and they were going to play. Often until they were not physically able! Did I feel bad that they'd never get to go back up to the land of milk and honey? No! They were born to play!! Literally in the case of Ti'zo! But it was fun that the game was even playing at this question. Are you going to spoil a chance at the good life for one of your players so your so you can win more rings? (Yes.)
The ending is a bit of a mixed bag. I think the concept of who 'deserves' to go home culminating with a previous winner who got shafted showing up demanding his spot is a fun little twist, especially if he beats you and you mind-control him into giving up his spot anyway. Sorry Oralech! I missed Jody and Pam after all! And no one likes a two time loser. But the denouement of the 'revolution' is basically a prolonged fart. I truly didn't care, outside of the impact it had on my homies. I did love the story about Pam and Tam both fighting for the revolution, but still not patching it up all the way.
I think after all that, the fact that the game has a multiplayer mode with the full roster available from the very beginning of the game is the strongest possible statement at how fun this game is to play. Leaping over a defender, shooting a bomb from the logo, it's...joyous. Some may feel that the game is actually fun to play secondary (like the Persona games...bazinga!!!) but...to me it's not. The characters live in my head both defined by the things they said and did, and also by the way they played ball. That's an achievement. They really tackled a SUPER GIANT task here, and you can go play it right now. Slam in the hollowed grounds your forefathers did, Jam in the echoes of your teammate's hearts.
Franchise modes in sports games rule. There was a time where the GM mode in 2K might've been the summation of all gaming's best things. Buttery-smooth hooping ensconced in fricative layers of Koei-esque simulation, and you could play it with friends!!!
2K has, of course, stumbled into the era of GaaS (games as a slot machine) taint first, succumbing to the same perineal perforation as all of its peers. Man-hours of digitial labor that could have been poured into making NBA 2K something like Crusader Kings but with Slam Dunks instead enriched the digital soil that glorified lobbies bloomed in, rife with real-money currencies and in-game advertisements.
I think of the story of my Milwaukee Bucks in NBA 2K15. By then the rot was already present, but I had not yet reckoned how bad it would become. My thoughts were filled only by the multi-season epic of Giannis Antetokounmpo's meteoric rise (I had to fudge his stats, Visual Concepts are not as good as determing Who Is Actually Good as I am), the unlikely success of Jabari Parker as his second-banana, the Nate Wolters Game, the succession crises of max contracts as injuries caught up with my aging roster over 10 seasons in...the retirement of Larry Sanders, NBA Champion. Indelible, unforgettable moments conjured out of a few dressed-up spreadsheets. I could only imagine the glory next-gen gaming would bring to the GM Mode, unaware of the horrors to come.
Pyre feels like the promise of this utopian franchise-mode future, reduced on medium-high until thick. It does not feel like a sketch, like somehow the team at Supergiant arrived at sports as a venue for Persona-esque RPG antics by accident. It feels as if they saw the same glittering possibilities as I, but instead worked to capture that promise in a contained narrative. And as such, it is one of the Best Games of All Time. It is relatively simple, on its face, sport-as-religious-rite entwined with a narrative of rebellion against empire. Honestly, like most games of its ilk, the 'plot' is interesting, but mostly acts as a sounding board for what you think of as "your" character, and how they establish relationships with the rest of the party. The characters are good, but not all created equal. This is important. There are characters that loom large over the story, rebels fighting for a cause like Volfred (the Volfman) and Jodariel (Jody Highroller). There are characters that seem almost incidental but are no less loveable, like Sir Gilman (the Gil-o-tine). The game reveals that the winners of the proverbial Larry O'Brien trophy get to send one of their players back to the Imperial core, where they will presumably further the cause of revolution and its somewhat vague goals. So, you have to deal with managed retirement, which is mind blowingly good. Like, what if in Persona 4 you were halfway through the game and it was like, one of these teenage motherfucks has to stay behind in the TV forever, their story will no longer advance, you can no longer use them in your party. Wild!!
The thing about it is, is that even as a somewhat contained narrative, it still allows for an amount of that good Crusader Kings style self-directed storytelling. Like, I put up Big Jody in my first run as the candidate to get sent home. This was mostly because I don't think she was a great hooper. She's like if Charles Barkley had no mobility. Not a champion. And as such (and also because I was not ready let's be real), we got smoked, the big demon guy got to go to heaven, and the cycle continued. Ok, next time through, I send my man Rukey even though I DO like him both on the court and off, because Jodariel is not a starting player, and the normal guy (I forget his name but he is based for dating a harpy) at this point is central to my gameplan, a little strategy I call "Pass the Ball to Shae". But I get thinkin'...I'm basically the Downside Pat Riley at this point. The Rites are what I live for. They're going to lower me into a coffin still holding the Book of Rites and my wife orb. I don't know how much I give a shit about the empire anymore, To Be Honest. So...I shifted my priorities.
The revolution was job 2. Winning basketball games was job 1. I'm pushin' through ready to send up Sir Gilman, cause at this point I'm not liking his playstyle (I eventually Figured It Out), but...Pamitha walked into my life. Now, I was in a commited and ironclad relationship with my orb-dwelling shooting coach, but Pam was great hangs, immediately climbing to the top of my "good locker room guy" rankings. I put her in with Shae and Sir Gil in the final rite, since I had influenced the standings to force a climactic encounter with Pamitha's sister, Tamitha. Pamitha stuns me before tip-off. "Let my sister win. Send her home so she can redeem herself." Bruh...I mean. Winning is job 1...but could hanging with the homies be job 0? I lost the match. I don't know if it was on purpose or not. Pamitha thanked me profusely. Gil probably felt some way about not winning, didn't really ask him.
We did the rites until they ran out of rites, and in the end I sent Big Jody and Pam home. I wanted Pam to try and patch things up with her sister. The game let me decide to prioritize the sisterly bond of one of my favorite characters over the main story it was trying to tell, and that rules!! There were also characters like Shae (Grey Mamba) and Ti'zo, hoopers of the first degree that were never going to go back home. I was the proverbial Tom Thibodeau, and they were going to play. Often until they were not physically able! Did I feel bad that they'd never get to go back up to the land of milk and honey? No! They were born to play!! Literally in the case of Ti'zo! But it was fun that the game was even playing at this question. Are you going to spoil a chance at the good life for one of your players so your so you can win more rings? (Yes.)
The ending is a bit of a mixed bag. I think the concept of who 'deserves' to go home culminating with a previous winner who got shafted showing up demanding his spot is a fun little twist, especially if he beats you and you mind-control him into giving up his spot anyway. Sorry Oralech! I missed Jody and Pam after all! And no one likes a two time loser. But the denouement of the 'revolution' is basically a prolonged fart. I truly didn't care, outside of the impact it had on my homies. I did love the story about Pam and Tam both fighting for the revolution, but still not patching it up all the way.
I think after all that, the fact that the game has a multiplayer mode with the full roster available from the very beginning of the game is the strongest possible statement at how fun this game is to play. Leaping over a defender, shooting a bomb from the logo, it's...joyous. Some may feel that the game is actually fun to play secondary (like the Persona games...bazinga!!!) but...to me it's not. The characters live in my head both defined by the things they said and did, and also by the way they played ball. That's an achievement. They really tackled a SUPER GIANT task here, and you can go play it right now. Slam in the hollowed grounds your forefathers did, Jam in the echoes of your teammate's hearts.
truly great game, just a masterclass in having a few good ideas for your game, sticking to them, and executing. fun single-player, great split-screen multi. a true forgotten gem.
Killer Instinct
1995
complete ass to play, can barely determine what is going on as the digitized sprites smudge their way across digitized backgrounds, replicating what it must feel like to be in the front row at a ufc fight with partially detached retinas
some of the best game boy tunes around though
some of the best game boy tunes around though
I once imagined buying "Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection" in 2009 that this Phantasy Star was the only one I was interested in playing. On paper, it sounds the most interesting of the bunch; a branching narrative of generational struggle, 6 years before Fire Emblem would try the same thing in Genealogy of the Holy War. I never got very far, completing most of the first generation in a few drunk nights after my grocery store shift. Still, I think the promise of getting to Phantasy Star III was part of the reason I picked up the Sega Ages release of Phantasy Star.
I loved PS and so, I decided to play through the series. As I get older, my tolerance for grindiness has gone up, and being able to play games like this and Final Fantasy 8 with a speed-up feature makes it a breeze. Pop on some TV! Crack a brew! Phantasy Star was a revelation. It truly felt that if I had access to it (especially with the FM soundtrack) I would have been into totally different shit growing up. Phantasy Star II was good! A step down from the first, perhaps, but sweeping in a way that still feels ahead of its time.
In comparison, Phantasy Star III feels...cheap. The promise of a story told over generations quickly dries up, as it seems the main benefit of this was for the dev team to increase the length of the game without making too many locations or music. And even if there are more characters than Phantasy Star II, I feel like there's maybe 1/3 of the text and dialogue?
It's not all bad. The combat is snappier, and there is at least one standout character in Lyle, the buddy/uncle who can turn into a dragon. He owns. Play the game until he dies then turn it off, that's my review.
I added half a star because the 2 second loop that plays at the start of random battles is hard as hell.
I loved PS and so, I decided to play through the series. As I get older, my tolerance for grindiness has gone up, and being able to play games like this and Final Fantasy 8 with a speed-up feature makes it a breeze. Pop on some TV! Crack a brew! Phantasy Star was a revelation. It truly felt that if I had access to it (especially with the FM soundtrack) I would have been into totally different shit growing up. Phantasy Star II was good! A step down from the first, perhaps, but sweeping in a way that still feels ahead of its time.
In comparison, Phantasy Star III feels...cheap. The promise of a story told over generations quickly dries up, as it seems the main benefit of this was for the dev team to increase the length of the game without making too many locations or music. And even if there are more characters than Phantasy Star II, I feel like there's maybe 1/3 of the text and dialogue?
It's not all bad. The combat is snappier, and there is at least one standout character in Lyle, the buddy/uncle who can turn into a dragon. He owns. Play the game until he dies then turn it off, that's my review.
I added half a star because the 2 second loop that plays at the start of random battles is hard as hell.