Recent reviews by RKasa

(Received as a gift.)

I'm not sure what the intended audience is for this game. It's much too difficult for casual players, not to mention complex. For hardcore players, it's much too bland. I consider myself to be somewhere in between these audiences, and didn't get a lot out of it, either.

About the difficulty and complexity: there are four weapons, each sharing the same energy bar, and the basic cannon has a separate cooldown. Additionally, there's two movement controls, one for changing direction (that's right, this isn't a twin-stick shooter!) and the other for dashing, which also has a cooldown. The frantic battles mean that it can be easy to get various controls mixed up. There are also no ways to upgrade weapons, either within a level or overall, or gain extra hit points and/or lives. You get what you get, and that's energy refills, the rare hit point refill, and that's it. There are checkpoints during each stage, but if you run out of lives (you get a total of three, each with three hit points), then you have to start that whole stage over again. Very arcadey, and to be expected from a shmup, but not being able to gain more hit point slots and/or lives is annoying.

About the blandness: one reason I enjoy shmups is that, at their best, they're exciting. Cool weapons, special attacks, challenging bosses, and beautiful bullet patterns are some of the features I look forward to in these sorts of games. Graceful Explosion Machine has none of these. Well, maybe it has bosses; I never got to the final stages of any of the planets to find out. Anyway, the on-screen action is nice to look at, but that's all. The four planets are mainly differentiated by color and a few unique enemies. You have the same weapons the entire time, and no upgrades. There's nothing nifty in the game to make you feel powerful other than little sound effects when your combo meter reaches a milestone. Like I said, it's bland.

One final note: despite what it says on the store page, Steam Cloud does not appear to be available for this game. I tried playing on my PC this past weekend, and couldn't carry over my save progress from my Steam Deck.

If you're down for an unexciting but challenging score-chaser of a shmup, by all means pick this up. Otherwise, I really can't recommend it.

I'd heard (mostly) good things about the Gundam Breaker series for years, but didn't get around to actually trying it out until this new installment. I'm glad I did, and had fun with the main campaign. Said campaign's story is in the mold of Build Fighters/Divers: Gunpla enthusiasts playing together, making friends, and confronting challenges. This type of story is well-suited for the game's theme. If you had put Gundam pilots from the main shows in some crossover story, they would doubtless be horrified at the core conceit of mashing together Gundams and other mobile suits into Frankenmecha (though the thought of Char ripping off an RX-78-2's arm and head to slap on his own suit's torso would be pretty funny). Anyway, the story is good, lighthearted fun, with a smattering of typos here and there. It also serves as a decent enough introduction to the world of Gunpla and the concept of kitbashing.

Speaking of, I'll get it out of the way right now: there's a roughly 50% chance your favorite mobile suit is in the game. If it's a Gundam piloted by a main character, bump that up to maybe 80 or 90%. Despite that, there's a lot to play around with, including several SD Gundam kits and some oddities like Ball, Fuunsaiki, and Super Fumina (as a mecha musume/MS Girl fan, and a fan of that suit in particular, the inclusion of that last one made me really happy). The customization options are fairly deep, and you can easily spend half your time in the game, or more, tweaking builds to be as pretty or as horrifying as possible. After building, you can pose models for photos or place them in dioramas (and take even more photos). It's all much cheaper and less time-intensive than real-life Gunpla building.

Outside of virtual Gunpla assembly, there's a button-mashy action RPG to be played. As long as you keep your parts leveled up to meet the recommendations in the mission descriptions, this portion of the game should be fairly easy. There's a lot of controls to wrap your head around, but if you aren't an idiot like me who chose to play another action RPG at around the same time, said controls should soon become second nature. As in the Front Mission games, the real meat of the gameplay lies in how well you assemble your loadouts.

The music is fine, but there is a bug that crops up at times which affects how it loops. The graphics are fine as well, though it was a little odd that lip flaps weren't animated for every variant of every character's static portrait. The sound effects have that Gundam feel, which is the most I could ask for, and though I can't speak for the English dub, the Japanese voice acting is decent. It's fun to play, and very easy to lose track of time in when it comes to the Gunpla customization. Gunpla fans, and mech fans in general, would enjoy this one.

This was one of my very first console RPGs, and as such, I had fond memories of it. The last time I played Grandia II, you could still buy a Dreamcast in department stores.

So, has it held up? For the most part, yes. The voice acting is often stilted and wooden, the FMVs blurry, and the spell animations too long, but in those ways, Grandia II is very much a product of its time. The battle system still kicks butt after all these years, with its emphasis on good timing, and the dungeon design remains great to this day. I played the whole thing on normal difficulty, and while the regular battles are on the easier side, the boss fights make up for it. The story is your typical circa-2000 era JRPG tale of melodrama and cheese love and friendship and saving the world. It's fairly linear and light on side stuff compared to others from back then, but that's not a bad thing at all.

FMVs aside, the HD visuals look very nice, though there are two notable issues: the small character portraits during battle have been smoothed out so much that they look blobby, and the change in aspect ratio means that some things that were originally offscreen, such as NPCs popping on during some cutscenes, become visible. Audio-wise, some sound effects are a bit too loud, so you'll want to tweak those settings until they're manageable. On the flipside, Noriyuki Iwadare's soundtrack is as good as I'd remembered. There are a few bugs here and there, but I didn't run into anything truly game-breaking.

If you're nostalgic for running around a colorful fantasy world with Skye and Millennia and the others, definitely pick this up. If you're curious about what JRPGs were like during the Dreamcast era, definitely pick this up. If you want an enjoyable, and not too long, retro JRPG, yep... you may want to pick this up.

One of the best rhythm games I've ever played, and given that I'm extremely picky about rhythm games, that's saying something. Received as a gift from a friend who plays way more rhythm games than I do.

The number one greatest thing about Trombone Champ is that it's enjoyable for players of all skill levels. For filthy casuals who like rhythm games but are generally bad at them (like me), the accessibility options are incredible, and allow you to tweak the gameplay to your exact liking. If you have RSI (also like me), this game works wonderfully with the Xbox Adaptive Controller; I played using this controller for button presses and a mouse for movement. For hardcore players with healthy hands, you can also tweak the settings to your liking, plus there's in-depth info about how the scoring system works, and detailed data-filled charts generated after each played song. You too will love this game.

The songs are mostly public domain classics, including several national anthems and folk tunes, plus a handful of original numbers. The familiarity of most of the songs is another point for accesibility; no matter who you are, there's at least a handful of tracks in here you'll surely recognize.

Trombone Champ is also pretty funny most of the time, although I wasn't big on the toilet humor. You will never play another game this singularly obsessed with trombones, baboons, and hot dogs, and the DDR-style background graphics are often hilarious and/or bizarre. Progress involves more than just playing songs, so be prepared to keep an eye out for subtly hinted-at secrets.

A fun, unique rhythm game for everyone. Yes, even you! That is, unless you're allergic to trombones.

An excellent sled dog racing sim, with multiple variables to account for-- both for the dogs and the races themselves. Plus it's got a catchy soundtrack and lovely graphics (the dog portraits are particularly delightful). There really isn't anything negative I could say about this game. Wish I'd played it sooner!

(Received as a gift.)

If the phrase "experimental minimalist hardcore dungeon crawler made by Square Enix" interests you, definitely check this out.

Square Enix's more experimental games can be hit or miss, but this is one of the good ones. It's a bit like a cross between Etrian Odyssey and the old browser game Parameters, with Active Time Battle that's as hectic and fine-tuned as in any older Final Fantasy, coupled with a unique handling of attack/defense stats. There's hardly any story to speak of, just exploration, combat, easy-to-difficult puzzles, and some fiendishly tough endgame/postgame stuff. A certain area is rather tedious, but overall, the good outweighs the bad.

A great RPG to zone out to and not have to keep track of a bunch of plotlines. Especially recommended if you love dungeon crawlers. I wish Square Enix made more weird stuff like this.

P.S. - All praise Sir Cat :3

(Note: received as a gift from a friend, which is why I marked this as a freebie)

First off, this port is not well optimized. I tried a bunch of stuff to get it working smoothly, and this is what helped the most:

1) Launch the game. Wait until the opening menu shows up.
2) Without closing the game, go back to Windows and open Task Manager.
3) Click on the Details tab. To save time, change the application listing to reverse alphabetical order.
4) Right-click on Yakuza: LaD in the Details list. Select "Set priority" and change it to High.
5) Right-click on Yakuza: LaD again. Select "Set affinity" and choose all processors.
6) Return to the game and enjoy. Note that you have to do all this every time you launch the game.

With that out of the way, this is a fantastic JRPG. The only Yakuza I had played prior to this one was Yakuza 0, and although I enjoyed it, I was not fond of the brawler-based battle system. This entry switches to turn-based with some simple timed commands thrown in, which is much more my speed. It's implied that the battles play out in such a manner thanks to protagonist and (fellow) Dragon Quest fan Ichiban Kasuga's imagination. There are many other nods to Dragon Quest and JRPGs in general-- some subtle, others not so much, and none which I will spoil here-- that are a real treat to longtime fans of the genre.

As far as the rest of the game goes, if you're already familiar with Yakuza/Like a Dragon, you know what to expect. If not, then prepare yourself for a serious, complex crime drama unlike any other in the JRPG or open-world genres, filled with both grit and heart, alongside incredibly funny and creative side stories and a management sim good enough to be a standalone game. There's also kart racing in this one, and it too is good enough to be its own game. References to previous Yakuza games abound, but you do not need to know about these to enjoy this particular entry. There's a few frustrations and technical hiccups, but nothing truly bad (save for what I've already mentioned).

This is the ultimate JRPG for Grownups, and I can't recommend it enough.

Does what it says on the tin. Like many minigame collections, and much like in an actual mobile game, this is best played in short sessions. The controls aren't the best, but it works well enough with both controller and mouse/keyboard.

I hope the devs and/or publishers try to get this onto Apple Arcade; it would do very well there.

I also hope the devs release some DLC with more mobile ad minigames being skewered. I want to rescue hot zombie hunters from prison with match 3 gems, shoot bullets off of angled walls to hit a dancing pirate, gather coins for the freezing mom with the power of gravity, do some horrible makeovers, and SAVE THE KING.

A good, but short, puzzle platformer. If you're comfortable with WASD + mouse controls, that's what I recommend using. Combat and movement are a little fussy, but the puzzley bits are enjoyable, and the graphics and music are quite nice. This is a fun way to spend a weekend afternoon.

(Received as a gift from a friend.)

If you're curious about Mystery Dungeon-style roguelikes, this isn't a bad place to start. It's very cutscene-heavy (more than it needs to be, really, even for a comedy), but as far as the core gameplay goes, it's slightly more forgiving than others in the genre.

The main reason why I say this is because of the hunger mechanic, which takes the form of Kuu's "Kindness" meter here. As in other Mystery Dungeons, this meter will gradually deplete, but instead of killing you when it's completely empty, instead, you'll merely be unable to leave the floor until Kuu is revived. On top of that, Kuu can eat anything, with varying results, so keeping this meter full isn't much of a problem. The most dangerous aspect of this meter is that once it lowers to a certain point, Kuu will start deliberately attracting monsters. There are a few other things that help lower the difficulty as well, such as designated escape floors and inventory preservation items.

Other than those, this is more or less your standard Mystery Dungeon clone: hard inventory limits, randomly-generated floors, rudimentary crafting, and so on. This isn't as good as the actual Mystery Dungeon/Shiren games, or even other clones like Touhou Genso Wanderer Reloaded, but it's decent enough, and also not all that long, optional dungeons notwithstanding. As a reboot of sorts for the main Sorcery Saga (aka Madou Monogatari) series, it's also an interesting historical curiosity; as other reviewers have noted, this is the series that Puyo Puyo was spun off from a few decades ago.

This isn't a must-play for experienced Mystery Dungeon fans, though it should keep you amused for a little while. Despite the lowered difficulty, it's still possible to make dumb mistakes and have to start a dungeon all over again. The graphics are fine, though the music and sound effects are so-so, the former sounding like a poor man's Tenpei Sato (famed Nippon Ichi Software composer). Not too shabby overall.