Recent reviews by BAI GAMING

Visions of Mana is the latest entry in the Mana series. Like its predecessors, it has a very vibrant and whimsical atmosphere and extremely addicting action combat. Although it's a AA game in its budget, it really stands out and makes an impression compared to most other JRPGs on the market. Although decades have passed, the series is extremely faithful to its roots and this game is definitely a JRPG at its core.

The artwork in Visions of Mana is phenomenal. The main cast of 5 characters are all very uniquely designed to be a variety of races around the world. Each of these playable characters have 9 job classes, which is a unique outfit for the character. These class designs are some of the best class outfits I've seen since Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea.

These classes are based on elemental magic in the game, namely fire, water, wind, earth but also more interesting ones such as light, dark, wood and moon. Each character and class has its own nuances and as you unlock more passive and active skills in each class you can then keep them as you change classes, somewhat like Final Fantasy 5's job class system.

The system makes it very fun to experiment and it's never overly complicated. Characters each generally have 3 different kinds of weapons (depending on their class) but they each have only 1 armor and you can purchase better gear as you progress through the game.

The premise of the game is simple. It's about representatives of each element (called Alms) going on a pilgrimage to sacrifice themselves to the Mana Tree along with Val, their Soul Guard, so they can prevent a calamity. It's very similar to the premises of Tales of Symphonia or Final Fantasy X.

The introduction to the game is very boring and cliché, with characters acting extremely one-dimensionally and being fine with the culture of their world. All I can say without spoiling is that the game does subvert this in Chapter 3 and there are amazing twists afterwards with characters actually having personalities afterwards and the plot really picking up.

Unlike Trails of Mana, you don't have to pick a protagonist. The story you experience will be the same no matter what with Val as the protagonist. It was disappointing in the previous game because your plot would change depending on your protagonist, meaning you'd have some plot arcs that would be introduced but not concluded - like if you wanted to see Belladonna's conclusion you'd have to pick Hawkeye or Riesz as your protagonist in Trails of Mana. I was saddened at first that you couldn't choose between different protagonists, but when I played through the game I realized that the writers wanted to narrow their scope and focus on writing a story on Val.

The gameplay is the high point of this game. It's action combat where you choose your character's class, upgrade their class abilities and level up, as well as increase your level. In battle you can do simple combos and it's fun to juggle enemies.

The game is on the short side, taking us about 30 hours to get through the story including an extra chapter of post-game. The game didn't require any grinding and generally you'd get a full level up or two from just defeating each boss.

The Japanese voice acting is amazing. The English dub is somewhat poor such as Careen's country accent. I can understand why the developers did this because in Japanese you can dialects that sound like country accents as well (like a Kansai dialect). The lip-sync in certain scenes can be bad for the English dub as well.

I was disappointed there were only 5 party members. Although it's impressive there are so many possible classes for each character and all kinds of abilities and builds, I really would've liked to see more party members. There was one important character who tags along who I felt could've definitely been a full-fledged party member.

The dungeons and cities are colorful and fun to explore. Unlike most games everything is marked on your map such as treasure and elemental job points, meaning you don't actually have to search every nook and cranny - but you can turn off the hints and maps if you don't like this. I found this to be amazing because I wanted to get all the treasures to build my characters but didn't necessarily want to explore everything.

The dungeons have a lot of soul and it was fascinating to see the ideas the developers came up with - this game had no bland dungeons at all and the gimmicks are easy to navigate through without feeling labyrinthine. The world is connected together and you can eventually unlock a boat and an aircraft. This is one of the few modern JRPG releases that actually has a world map to explore! The developers really did remember the roots of this franchise.

The soundtracks are great, though the sound effects can be loud during battle. We had to turn down the sfx in the audio settings so the combat sounds didn't overwhelm us.

One big criticism we had is that the game does nag and handhold you a lot. For instance, the cast of party members tell you too frequently to check your equipment and buy items when you have a chance. Often this is integrated in the story cutscenes as well. I felt that they could've just done this in the beginning and endgame portions instead of all the time.

Sometimes the gameplay loop would involve going to a story NPC, having a cutscene, then going to another story NPC, back and forth several times. I think that the flow could've been improved because it felt very annoying to keep getting the gameplay interrupted every few minutes. It sounds like a silly complaint, but if the cutscenes were group together and longer instead of going back and forth it would've been more fun to play.

The NPCs and sidequests are bad and generic. We tried a few sidequests and they're just generic "kill 10 monsters" and most of the NPCs don't have any plot relevance.

You don't need to play any of the other Mana games to understand this game's plot because it's a stand-alone plot with only a few references to the previous games such as the flamingo-like birds and the mana tree. It's neat that the developers included references to Final Fantasy, such as having a moogle status condition and black mages as enemies.

If you played the demo of the game on PC in the past it had stuttering issues, where any time the game loaded something new it would freeze up for a few milliseconds to load it. But the full release of the game runs flawlessly with no stuttering issues because it preloads the shaders when you start the game.

I didn't like how the endgame recycled assets, such as the levels and the bosses. The endgame has a boss rush where you fight leveled up versions of old story bosses and it can be repetitive. The endgame level curve is bad since it's so compressed. The final region is recycled and you keep fighting bosses to get guaranteed levels, for us it was level 50 to level 66.

The ending is extremely satisfying, but it does take some repetitive gameplay to get to that point. There is an extra chapter that is post-game with fully voiced cutscenes that is a side story taking place before the ending that was fun to play through - this post-game recycles bosses again but in this case since it's extra content it's fine.

Visions of Mana does have a limited budget and does make a few mistakes, but it's still a very fun JRPG to play and the action-based combat is very addicting. I think its stand-out points include the job system, where you can make so many different kinds of builds. Although the graphics aren't cutting-edge, the visual direction is astounding and this game has some of the best character designs and beautiful landscapes I've ever seen. The story does start off generic and will make you want to roll your eyes at first, but when the plot gets going it really gets going. If you love JRPGs and are willing to overlook a few missteps, I'd strongly recommend checking it out.

The Thaumaturge is an RPG set in a politically charged Europe, blending both historical fiction with fantasy. Its strengths lie in its rich characters, factions, and dialog choices, accompanied by immersive voice acting. Despite its lower budget showing at times, the game offers a compelling experience with diverging routes and impactful decisions.

The protagonist, Wiktor, embarks on a quest for a cure and finds Rasputin, a man who can perform miracles. The game explores themes of thaumaturgy, demons, and societal tensions of the early 1900s. You're able to recruit salutors, spiritual beings who help you in combat and can unlock more dialog speech check options.

While the graphics can be lacking (isometric like Diablo games), the art direction effectively conveys the gloomy atmosphere of Warsaw. The dialog presents moral dilemmas and meaningful interactions and this game has some of the game developers who worked on The Witcher series. A lot of the dialog is very harsh, which I liked, and even children will try to rob you. Everyone is struggling and I like how the game shows conflict.

The turn-based combat system adds depth, allowing strategic choices and utilizing salutors with unique abilities. The game's leveling system is generous where any action will give experience. You need to recruit more salutors by progressing both main stories and side quests and this will unlock more skill trees. I found myself with an excess of skill points and had to progress the main story a bit to unlock the skill trees.

Quests require evidence collection and deductions. It can be excessive at times but the story and dialog are top notch.

The game's branching dialog and multiple endings provide significant replay value and it reminds me of RPG classics. Despite pacing issues and missed opportunities for additional activities, The Thaumaturge delivers a unique and enjoyable RPG experience, showcasing the developers' bold creativity and narrative depth. It really is a one-of-a-king game and it's refreshing to see a new IP that takes many risks.

This review has been shortened, For our full review please see: https://bai-gaming.com/the-thaumaturge-review/ .

In our review, we won’t give you any story spoilers for this or any of the other Trails games. We’ll only give you a basic premise of the first few hours of this title’s plot.

Trails into the Reverie is an amazing conclusion and epilogue to both the Erebonia and Crossbell arcs in the Trails series (or Kiseki as it’s named in Japan). It’s a very fun turn-based JRPG with many customization options for making distinct character builds, many difficulty options, many collectibles and many quality of life improvements making the gameplay the most fun it’s ever been.

This is the 10th entry in the Trails franchise and in all honesty this wouldn’t be the best place to start if you’re new to this game series. The plot of this game follows from Trails of Cold Steel 4, which follows from 1-3 of course, and it also follows from Trails to Zero and Trails to Azure. It follows from Trails in the Sky 1 to 3 as well, though the other arcs are extremely important to complete. So in a way, this game actually concludes two arcs rather than just one making it even more important to play the older games. While I used to suggest you could play the earlier Cold Steel games without playing the other games, this game really feels like the “Avengers” of the Trails games, with an all-star cast of characters solving a new conflict in Crossbell.

In this game you actually have three parties of characters, meaning you have three protagonists. You can switch between these groups after the prologue at almost any time barring certain exceptions. Some dungeons later in the game actually require multiple parties to explore at once to trigger switches for the other party, which is not something I seen in JRPGs too frequently and is certainly welcome (Infinite Undiscovery is one rare game that did this a while ago with great dungeon designs).

It’s really fun and novel because you can do whoever’s story you’re interested in first, and if you even feel like just changing your mind you can just switch whenever and not lose progress. At first I was overwhelmed with all of the equipment and quartz I had to manage for all of the characters, but I got used to it quickly and even though there are three parties of characters you get used to them quickly.

You play as Rean, Lloyd, and the mysterious character “C” who I won’t spoil of course. The former two are the protagonists of the Cold Steel and Trails to Zero/Azure arcs, respectively. If you’ve played those games (and I won’t spoil them of course) you’d probably be wondering where the plot would go from there because those arcs seemed to conclude rather nicely. But this game starts off with Lloyd in Crossbell, and managed to introduce a new conflict well without making it feel forced.

I was also a bit tired because I thought there would be character bloat with the addition of a new protagonist “C” and his new party of members. But surprisingly, C along with their group ended up being my favorite characters in this game! I can’t elaborate more on this without giving spoilers and the C reveal is the main reveal of this game, but they have really great character development and their attitude and how they approach problems is very different than Rean or LLoyd, who are both very plain “straight shooter” kind of characters.

I genuinely wouldn’t have minded if the entire game was centered around C and his party, that’s how interesting he was as a character! The routes definitely don’t have the same quality, but most of them are generally well-made without being too repetitive. Whereas Cold Steel 4 had a rushed ending, Trails into Reverie actually helps flesh it out and fix the ending of Cold Steel 4, retroactively fixing rushed plot points.

There are numerous callbacks to older characters from the series as well and this game ends up being an opportunity to showcase combinations of characters you don’t get to see interact. All of the Trails games have NPCs that tell you about the world and current events, and you can talk to them after every plot event for completely new dialogue, resulting in hundreds of pages’ worth of extra dialogue and world-building if you choose to pursue it.

I’m not too crazy for that, I generally talk to all NPCs in a new area before and after a big plot event and that’s about it, but I noticed this Trails game did one thing different: it has a lot more important NPCs such as old playable characters or old major supporting characters from the older games which is a very great attention to detail.

The art style is very charming, and with every new title released the graphics improve more and more. There’s no 2D sprites or clunky models anymore, the characters all have really great designs and models. The cities genuinely feel like large bustling cities, while the rural towns and villages manage to capture a beautiful rustic feel.

The soundtrack manages to capture the moods of the areas and many tracks in this title are from older titles, but re-made with modern technology such as in many of the districts of Crossbell or St. Ursula Medical College.

There aren’t too many criticisms I have regarding this game. A small issue is that this is a shorter game compared to most mainline Trails games. Usually Trails games have very long main story modes and when you do sidequests you’d end up with an 80+ hour playthrough. This game’s main story isn’t so long though, taking us about 30-45 hours to complete. There is a lack of major story sidequests like all other Trails games (but you do get character episodes to compensate). I was also disappointed by the lack of Divine Knight battles, which was basically fighting in giant magical mechs in all the previous Cold Steel games. It is a little odd seeing Crossbell facing another dire situation, considering how many back-to-back hardships the country has had in the past few games.

But although the main story of this game is shorter, this game makes up for it with the “True Reverie Corridor”. It’s tricky to summarize what the TRC is briefly, but it’s basically a non-canon area you can warp to anytime during the game. Plotwise, everybody loses their memories temporarily while in the TRC. You can use all your party members, or basically any playable character from the older titles, to explore randomly generated floors to get treasures and you can grind and buy new equipment as well as complete missions for rewards.

If you care about story, there are memories in the TRC which are sorted into episodes that explore certain supporting characters in-depth. There are post-game bosses as well.

Trails into Reverie does an excellent job of placing the player into a beautifully crafted world filled with well-developed characters, intricate storytelling, and addicting gameplay.

Trails into Reverie improves upon the older titles on a technical level, and all of the returning locations from older games feel visually distinct and character models have are more detailed than ever. Having three protagonists was ambitious, but it worked out well and the new cast of characters in C’s route are extremely interesting, with distinct personalities, motivations and backstories. The turn-based gameplay is fun, but also accessible and if you want to break the game you can. There’s a lot of customization through equipment and quartz which changes the spells your characters can use or you can grind levels to gain stats. The soundtrack features both new original tracks as well as re-made tracks from older games and they really manage to capture the emotional moments in the game. This isn’t a perfect game, as some of the routes do drag on for a bit too long and it is true that the game does recycle certain areas in a bad way such as the highways you always see, but generally it’s not too egregious. Just be certain to play the other games first, as this game really feels like a conclusion, or even an epilogue to the old Trails games.

Like A Dragon: Ishin is a action-adventure video game developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and published by Sega. The game is set in Japan’s late Edo period and features a unique blend of action-packed combat, an engaging storyline, and a wide range of side activities.

The combat system in Like A Dragon: Ishin is a major highlight of the game. The game features an action-oriented combat system that allows players to switch between four different fighting styles, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. The four styles are swordsmanship, hand-to-hand combat, firearms, and dancing style (a combination of swordsmanship and firearms).

The combat system is challenging on harder difficulties, but also incredibly satisfying, and the variety of fighting styles ensures that combat never feels repetitive. There are easier difficulties as well if you’re not familiar with action-based combat. Heat is gained from defeating enemies or from eating or drinking certain foods (usually alcohol). The Heat moves are flashy and over-the-top.

The game’s storyline is also a strong point, as it features an engaging plot that keeps players hooked from beginning to end. The game’s protagonist, Sakamoto Ryoma, is a historical figure who is caught in a plot where rebels want to overthrow their government. The story is filled with political intrigue, personal drama, and plenty of action, making for a thrilling experience and a fun history lesson, though of course the historical events are exaggerated.

One of the strengths of the game’s story is how it shows historical events but with Like A Dragon characters instead. The game’s developers have done research, and many of the characters and events in the game are based on real-life Japanese history but it’s really interesting that the characters are represented with Yakuza and Like A Dragon characters (and it works surprisingly well).

In addition to the main storyline, Like A Dragon: Ishin also features a wide range of side activities to keep players entertained. These include gambling games, fishing, dancing, and farming.

Substories or sidequests are an integral part of the Like A Dragon series, and they offer players a wide range of optional activities to engage with while exploring the game’s world. These sidequests typically involve helping out various NPCs around the game’s world. They’re fully-fledged side stories that often involve a series of quests that are linked by a common narrative thread.

Dojos are specialized training centers where players can improve their character’s abilities and learn new moves. Dojos are scattered throughout the game’s world, and each one is dedicated to a specific type of combat style or weapon. The sensei will offer a series of training exercises or challenges that the player must complete in order to improve their character’s skills. You can then purchase new abilities after completing the training.

The types of training available at each dojo will depend on the combat style or weapon that the dojo specializes in. For example, a dojo that specializes in hand-to-hand combat may offer training in martial arts moves or techniques such as counters, while a dojo that focuses on swords may offer training in different sword styles and techniques such as parrying with the sword.

The friendship or bond system is a key feature that allows players to build relationships with various NPCs throughout the game’s world. As players interact with these NPCs and perform various tasks for them, their friendship level with them will increase, unlocking new rewards and benefits.

One of the benefits of the friendship system is that it provides additional incentive to explore the game’s world and engage with NPCs outside of the main storyline. By building relationships with various characters, players can unlock unique insights into the game’s world and lore, as well as unique rewards that can’t be obtained through other means.

The farm is a key feature that allows players to grow and harvest various crops which can be given as gifts or sold for money, as well as raise and care for animals which you can befriend. By managing their farm effectively, players can produce a variety of resources and items that can be used in the game’s crafting and cooking systems allowing for the creation of more powerful weapons, accessories, and food (healing items).

By managing their farm effectively and growing a variety of crops and raising animals, players can become more self-sufficient and profitable, providing an additional layer of depth to the game’s economy and resource management systems. Like how Yakuza games in the past often had businesses for you to manage, in this feudal Japan era game you instead have a farm to manage!

The Battle Dungeon Missions are a set of challenging combat scenarios that can be accessed by speaking to a specific NPC located in the game’s world. These missions offer players a unique way to test their combat skills and earn valuable rewards and experience points. The Battle Dungeon offers players a set of increasingly difficult missions, each of which consists of a series of battles against powerful enemies leading to the superboss of these games.

The Diligence Records is a system that tracks a player’s progress and achievements across various activities in the game. These records are essentially a form of achievement system that can be viewed in the game’s menu, offering players a way to track their accomplishments and earn rewards. Diligence Records are divided into various categories, each of which tracks a different aspect of a player’s progress.

In addition to substories and bonds with friends, there is a wanted system that allows players to hunt down and defeat powerful criminals who are causing trouble in the game’s world. These criminals are known as “Wanted” targets, and they can be found throughout the game’s various districts. These battles are typically more difficult than regular battles in the game, as the targets have higher stats and unique abilities that make them formidable opponents.

However, the game does a good job of gradually introducing players to its various systems and mechanics, so even inexperienced players should be able to enjoy the game with some patience and practice. One nice aspect of this title is that there’s no missable content unlike the older games, so if you want to do the main story first and then tackle the substories that’s perfectly fine.

In terms of graphics and sound, Like A Dragon: Ishin is top-notch. The game’s visuals are stunning, with detailed character models, gorgeous environments, and impressive special effects. The game’s soundtrack is also excellent, with traditional Japanese music that perfectly capture the game’s blend of historical authenticity and over-the-top action (like in the bathhouse fight scene).

Another criticism I have is that there is unfortunately no English dub, you’ll have to play it with Japanese voice acting and English subtitles, which is too bad because we’ve been spoiled with English dubs for several games now.

As far as I know, there really is no other game that fills the niche that Yakuza, Judgement, and Like A Dragon does. When I was much younger, I had a lot of fun in Shenmue not just playing the main story but also have fun with optional content such as playing in arcades, and over 20 years later I find myself feeling the same when I play Like A Dragon: Ishin. I really enjoy the dramatic cutscenes and the art style, specifically how the characters look realistic.

Like A Dragon: Ishin is a very fun game that offers a unique and engaging experience for fans of action-adventure games and Japanese history. With its challenging combat, many different combat styles available, an addicting crafting and upgrade system, engaging story, many mini-games and substories, and attention to detail, it is a must-play for anyone looking for a satisfying gaming experience.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is an action RPG Souls-like video game developed by Team Ninja. Wo Long plays like a spiritual successor to the two Nioh games, except the storyline is not related to the Nioh series. Rather, this game’s story is heavily influenced by Chinese mythology and legends set during the time period of the Three Kingdoms in China.

A succinct explanation is that this game is similar in gameplay to Nioh, but with historical figures from the Three Kingdoms in China, so think Dynasty Warriors’ characters (Lu Bu and Cao Cao just to name a few historical figures). This is a surprisingly fun combination!

The combat system that is intuitive and very easy to learn. It is a Souls-like game, meaning you explore areas and fight enemies and collect items, as well as unlocking shortcuts as you progress through the levels. One difference though is that unlike Souls games the areas are all stages, meaning you can’t explore the entire world at once.

There are flag checkpoints you unlock (flags you place in unique locations are the bonfires of this game) and rest at as you progress through the stage, allowing you to respawn there instead of at the beginning of the level and you have healing items that replenish when you rest at the flags just like estus flasks from Dark Souls. If you rest though, enemies will respawn. Typically there will be a boss at the end of a stage and sometimes some stages have a boss in the middle as well.

As you perform main missions you can also have followers accompany you who will share useful insight with comments such as “Watch out there’s a powerful enemy ahead” or “I think there’s treasure nearby,” just to name a few. You don’t have to go out of your way to unlock followers because they are unlocked just from progressing the main story.

In missions where you’re not automatically assigned followers you can choose up to 2 followers to go with you on missions. This makes the game much easier as you can have them distract the enemies, though they’ll generally die on bosses so you’ll still have to do due diligence.

There was one house with a locked door, but there were tiny gaps so I could see a treasure in the house as well as a ladder leading into a sewer. Later in the level I found a sewer, so I was able to find a branching path leading to the ladder and the house, also opening another shortcut for me. It was a nice touch and the level design is never labyrinthine.

In addition to enemies and bosses you can have real-life player invasions, which can be turned off. There are AI-controlled player invasions too, which is just a computer controlling an human avatar NPC enemy rather than a regular monster enemy, but these were never hard.

Like in Nioh you can see graves where other players were killed and how they were killed. You can offer up a healing item to player graves for accolades, another type of currency that can be used to buy randomized equipment. You can also see the enemies who killed another player, and if you kill that enemy that’s another way to get accolades. There was no better feeling than killing a group of enemies who killed dozens of players!

This game also has a unique morale system, represented with a number from 0 to 25 that you and enemies have and resets with each stage. If the enemies or bosses have a higher morale, they will be tougher. It’s not a bad system at all, by defeating enemies, parrying their attacks, and placing flags are some of the ways you can increase your morale.

The game’s combat system is fun and keeps players engaged. There isn’t a stamina stat like other games. Rather, there is a unique “Spirit” system. Spirit is basically like posture and both you and the enemy or boss have it. If you land attacks on enemies their spirit decreases and yours increases and vice versa. You can also parry enemy attacks by dodging when their attack is about to hit you, decreasing the enemy spirit significantly. If the spirit bar is empty then the enemy (or you) get staggered (like running out of stamina in Souls-like games).

Without spoiling, I’d say that the first boss (the tutorial boss) is probably the hardest in the game because it’s your first time playing the game and because you didn’t have the opportunity to create a character build and you can’t grind too easily. However, once you get past that most of the bosses are extremely reasonable.

I suspect that the first boss is difficult because the developers want you to get the hang of parrying attacks. With the exception of the first boss, the enemies and bosses become increasingly challenging as players progress through the game. There is new game plus available with a harder difficulty as well.

The game’s character development system is also well thought out. You can level up their characters by earning experience points from completing quests (there are main and optional stages) and defeating enemies. The game’s character development system allows players to tailor their characters to their playstyle and preferences.

Players can choose from different kinds of weapons, different kinds of stats to invest into (the five Chinese elements of Wu Xing - Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water). You can also invest into a magic skill tree, with a wide variety of abilities.

One of the game’s most impressive features is its visuals. The game’s art style is heavily influenced by Chinese culture, with intricate details in the architecture, clothing, and weapons of the game’s characters. The game’s attention to detail extends beyond the visuals and is evident in the game’s combat system. The game’s combat system is visually stunning, with each hit and attack feeling impactful and satisfying.

The game’s environments are also well-designed, with each location feeling unique and immersive. The game’s world is vast and varied, with different regions of the world featuring different environments, from forests to wintery areas. My favorite stage was one that started off flooded, so you had to carefully jump across an archipelago of bridges and boats. Then you find a way to drain the water, allowing you to explore an entire area underneath the flooded water you were jumping over before.

The game’s soundtrack is also noteworthy, featuring a blend of traditional Chinese music and modern sound effects that add to the game’s overall immersion. The sound effects are particularly impressive, with each hit and attack feeling impactful and satisfying, especially during boss encounters.

The game features an English dub by default, but it can be changed to Japanese or Chinese. Most of the voice acting is well done, but there are a few voices of a few side characters here and there that are a little poorly acted.

The game’s story is engaging and will keep players invested in the game’s world. The game’s story draws heavily on Chinese mythology and legends, which adds depth to the game’s lore. The game’s story features various twists and turns, with the player character encountering various characters and factions from the Three Kingdoms that have their agendas and motivations.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a very fun game that features a well-designed combat system, a vast and immersive world focusing on Chinese mythology, an engaging story, and high replayability. The game’s visuals are stunning, with a unique art style that is heavily influenced by Chinese culture. The game’s sound design is also noteworthy, with a blend of traditional Chinese music that really ramps up during the boss fights and dramatic cutscenes. There are a few missteps such as no skill trees for weapons, only for magic skills, but there’s still plenty of character customization available.

Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters is a very fun and light-hearted action JRPG that I strongly recommend you to check out. The humor and writing is the best part of the game because it parodies the real life video game industry. The Neptunia games are JRPGs but with a big twist: the protagonists and supporting characters are all personifications of video game consoles (as well as publishers and IPs) and the wars in this game reflect real life “video game console wars”.

One question you may have is if you need to play other Neptunia games to understand the plot in this title, and no it’s not necessary. Writing this review in 2023, there are a lot of Neptunia games, which are divided into both “mainline” and “spin-off” Neptunia games. To confuse further there’s remakes of the earlier games. But in short, no, you don’t need to play other games before this one because Sisters VS Sisters is technically a spin-off title.

If you don’t play the previous games, you may be confused at first because the game will introduce a lot of characters at once, but the introductory cutscenes do a great job of summarizing the world of Gameindustri and you can pick up who the characters and what their traits are pretty quickly.

I will only give you a synopsis of the first half hour of the game to give you an idea of what to expect without giving away any of the plot. The protagonist of this game is Neptune’s younger sister, Nepgear, who is based off of the Sega Game Gear. The major supporting characters are Neptune, Vert, Noire, and Blanc who represent Sega, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. They are Console Patron Units (CPUs) who rule over their respective lands – Planeptune, Leanbox, Lastation and Lowee. They can each be thought of like a head of state, but in this case they make decisions on what games can appear in their lands and what consoles they’ll release in the future. They also each have the ability called Hard Drive Divinity (HDD), allowing them to transform into powerful goddesses to vanquish their enemies.

One aspect of this game that I enjoyed was how modernized it was. The old Neptunia games are getting dated now, where they were released in the late 2000’s and had characters using flip phones. This game, however, has plenty of social media and smartphone jokes. One of the big conflicts of this title is how the r-phone is taking over, and all of the CPU leaders need to find a way for their game consoles to co-exist with the emerging mobile game market.

The gameplay is not traditional turn-based combat like in mainline Neptunia titles. Instead, the combat is action-based similar to some Tales of games. In this title you have AP that is spent for each move you make. You make combinations of moves to put in a combo string just like mainline Neptunia games (which can vary between break, power and rush which do more guard damage, regular damage or quick moves for building gauges, respectively).

Discs are present in this game in a new form. Like old games, you can equip discs to characters to gain many kinds of bonuses, such as gaining an experience bonus or increasing a character’s maximum AP just to name a few. You create discs by selecting a genre, selecting an NPC, and selecting a support item and then by waiting a period of time, roughly 10 to 20 minutes. It’s not too hard to make discs because the game rewards you with plenty of NPCs who work for you and plenty of support items.

The graphics are not cutting-edge but the areas are colorful and charming. The levels are more lengthy than the previous games and the art direction looks great. Each world and dungeon looks distinct, from forests to caves to even cities. The oldest Neptunia games were notorious for recycling the exact same level layouts and just giving them a different name. It’s not like that in this game. The dungeons will have the occasional corridor or room that’s copied and pasted a few times, but the developers were much more liberal in the use of recycling assets this time around.

This game has lengthy visual novel style cutscenes with characters talking. The characters are animated to look like breathing 3D character models. This game has better models and animations than the previous games. There are many optional cutscenes in the game as well marked with blue objective markers, which often have funny banter between characters or worldbuilding. There are both dub and sub options available for voice acting. The game defaults on Japanese voice acting. I played the first hour with English, and most of the major scenes are voiced, but not all of it unfortunately. I switched back to Japanese voice acting with subtitles and there was definitely more voice acting present.

There’s a new smartphone app in the game used to take optional quests. The sidequests in Neptunia games, including this one, are generally not good. They don’t have good dialogue and they’re usually just “fetch quests” or “kill x number of enemies”. But they’re a good way to get extra items or level up from defeating enemies between lengthy story events. The phone app in-game also lets you like your friends’ or enemies’ social media (tweets, but I’ll keep referring them as chirps).

It took me 30 hours to beat the game and get the true ending. The game has multiple routes – I found a normal route and a true ending route. It is actually very tricky to get the true ending to the game and it’s meant to be done on a new game plus. Like other Neptunia games, this game uses the “shares” mechanic to determine your ending.

To get the true ending, you need to keep the meter balanced (you want video games and consoles to co-exist with mobile games). In this game, it’s extremely easy to get goddess shares, from just main story events to completing optional quests and also liking your friends’ chirps. But it’s not so easy to get r-phone shares (the only method I could find is to like the enemies’ chirps in the phone which is very slow). That means if you do to many optional tasks you’ll be stuck with a very high amount of goddess shares, meaning the bar is not balanced and you’ll get stuck to the normal ending route. There is a way to fix this, if you keep liking the enemies’ chirps you can reduce the goddess shares, it’s extremely slow but it’s possible to do.

All I can really say is don’t stress out about getting the true ending on your first run, since it means you can’t do any sidequests and such. The normal ending is a perfectly good ending to the game. The new game plus of this title is also well executed, where you carry over your levels, equipment, items, all your combo settings and even the maps are filled out.

This game has many quality of life improvements compared to older Neptunia games such as more save points. You can also edit your party formation, moves loadout and equipment before every boss battle. The exclamation points are used to trigger the next story event, but the range of them are more well-defined and they’re clearly marked with lines too. As a result, you don’t need to worry about accidentally triggering a fight like you would in older titles.

All in all, it was a really fun game with great humor. I’d rank it as one of the best Neptunia spin-offs. It genuinely has really good writing and I kept grinning from ear to ear listening to the dialogue and real life references to anime, Japanese culture, and the video game industry. Many off these references were also extremely recent references compared to the older games. I was really impressed with its world-building and its very likeable protagonists. Whether you’re a Neptunia fan or not it’s definitely worth a buy because the dialogue is just that good.

Our review of this game will contain no spoilers. I’ll cover a brief synopsis of the characters and plot presented in the first half hour of the game and any screenshots shown herein will be spoiler-free.

Spongebob is a cartoon that has lasted over a generation. When I watched the original episodes that aired back in 1999 I was a child, but now I’m well into my 30’s and I could show modern episodes of Spongebob to my kids. You’ll be happy to know that The Cosmic Shake would be a great game for audiences of all ages. It’s a very light-hearted and colorful platformer that never gets too difficult and has all the great mainstays of Spongebob, from its silly characters to the countless memes that have been created over the years.

There have been many Spongebob games released, from Revenge of the Flying Dutchman that released in 2002 (which my first Spongebob game) as well as Battle for Bikini Bottom in 2003 and the Spongebob Squarepants Movie (the game) released in 2004 just to name a few. The Cosmic Shake is more of a successor to Battle for Bikini Bottom speaking strictly in terms of the gameplay – it’s a platformer in the same vein but it also improves upon Battle for Bikini Bottom’s original formula with different abilities and many modern quality of life improvements.

The Cosmic Shake has a completely original storyline and you don’t need to have played any of the Spongebob games or have even watched the show to understand the plot, but I guarantee that you’d definitely will find the game much funnier if you catch the references.

The premise of the plot is that Spongebob and Patrick meet a travelling saleswoman named Madame Kassandra who sells them a mysterious jar of gooey fluid. Spongebob uses this liquid to blow bubbles, but it somehow ends up covering the entire town with goo and also creates alternate dimensions that trap his friends, as well as turn Patrick into a bubble.

It’s up to the duo to explore these realms and save their friends. The story is quite basic but very child-friendly and the game has plenty of funny dialogue from classic Spongebob characters, such as Mr. Krabs being cheap, Squidward wanting peace and quiet and Plankton not putting any effort into his restaurant.

The game features a hub area, Bikini Bottom, as well as seven other dimensions to explore. As you progress the story you unlock more dimensions and more areas of Bikini Bottom are unlocked for you to explore.

This game is not quite a “collect-a-thon” like Battle for Bikini Bottom. Rather, this game is much more linear with a few branching paths for collectibles. You progress the story by continuing forward and you’re never blocked by gates requiring you to collect a certain number of collectibles, but you do need to complete earlier worlds to unlock later worlds. In fact, you could progress the entire story without completing any secondary missions if you wanted to. You can’t also choose to go in the levels in any order, you have to progress through them linearly in this title. Thankfully a marker shows where you need to go to progress the story if you get lost.

Collectibles in this title include globs of jelly, which is used to purchase outfits for Spongebob. Spongebob is the only playable character in this game. To unlock the outfits for purchase, however, you actually need to collect doubloons, which will unlock sets of outfits for Spongebob in sets of ranks. These outfits are purely cosmetic and don’t affect the gameplay in any way, but they are a neat throwback to the show, with many funny costumes such as Spongebob’s maid outfit from the episode “Can you spare a dime?"

There are other upgrades such as Spongebob’s golden underwear, found sparingly throughout the levels. Spongebob’s health meter is represented by the number of clean underwear he is wearing (how many hits he can take), and you can get more of them as health pickups.

In terms of difficulty, this game is really easy, with checkpoints almost everywhere and if you fall into a pit you’ll respawn on the ledge you just came from. One great addition is that Spongebob can even grab ledges if you were about to barely miss a jump, not present in Battle for Bikini Bottom.

As you progress through the story you get new abilities for Spongebob which makes the game more fun and they are very different to his abilities in Battle for Bikini Bottom. His regular moveset is very basic such as swinging his jellyfishing net to attack enemies. You will eventually unlock the ability to karate kick enemies which is basically a homing attack to close the distance between you and the enemy quickly and is extremely useful.

As you progress you see a wider variety of enemy types, all themed around cosmic jelly. One annoying enemy type was the glob of enemies wearing an anchor hat that spawned other enemies because anytime you’d hit it it would stun you and I couldn’t find a workaround to avoid getting stunned. This was annoying because while being stunned I’d get attacked by other enemies. But overall the game was easy including the combat as well.

Other new abilities include riding a seahorse, which can be done in the hub world to travel around quickly as well as certain story areas. The controls are not the best and it’s tricky to collect all the cosmic jelly on the seahorse, but it gets the job done and mixes up the gameplay loop. Another new ability is being able to roll on a spherical rock, which is very fun – usually you roll on the rock over a hazard such as lava, and you avoid enemies and pick up collectibles. You can also use hook swingshots and glide, making platforming easy.

The worlds are also very colorful and distinct. Rather than just visiting different areas in Bikini Bottom, they’re also set in varying time periods, including a Wild West Jellyfish Fields, a karate film set version of Downtown Bikini Bottom, pirate Goo Lagoon, Rock Bottom during Halloween, a prehistoric Kelp Forest, and a medieval Sulfur Fields just to name some examples.

The only other gameplay mechanic I found annoying was that if you wanted to do a lot of the secondary objectives you have to revisit the levels. There are many collectibles you can get on your first run through a level, but there are also many collectibles that require powerups from later levels to get them. The problem is that this game isn’t quite open world. After completing each world you can warp to any checkpoint in the level, but it still feels annoying having to replay a portion of the level to get to the secret areas.

Battle for Bikini Bottom was slightly better in this regard because you collected spatulas in a nonlinear world and you could warp back to any spatula you wanted to if you didn’t have the correct abilities at the time. But in Cosmic Shake, you somewhat have to progress through the linear levels again a bit to get to the secondary objectives. The checkpoint warps certainly make it easier but it does feel like backtracking. It’s never mandatory to do secondary objectives though. The game took us 10 hours to complete, but if you go for more secondary objectives it’s possible to spend 15-20 hours on it.

Despite just a few missteps, the game is really fun whether you’re an adult who grew up with the show or if you want to purchase it for your kids or children in your family. It’s never a tricky game and the visuals and distinct worlds look bright and amazing with today’s technology compared to older Spongebob games. I really recommend you to pick up this game and give it a shot, it’s a very fun game and it was great to immerse my self in the world of Spongebob again.

Elex 2 is a very fun third-person action RPG. There are many impactful choices your character can make in dozens of quests. Although the combat can feel low budget at times, the skill tree allows you to make your own character specialized in how you want to play the game. I won’t list plot-specific spoilers in my review, but I will give a brief synopsis of the plots of Elex and Elex 2. I won’t cover past the first hour of plot from either game in case you wanted to play the original game after reading my review.

Elex 2 is a direct sequel to 2017’s Elex. You don’t have to play the original game to understand this game, but it would definitely be beneficial because the series has a lot of unique lore to understand and there are plenty of references and returning characters from the original game.

If you choose to play the original Elex, note that this sequel will choose certain canon choices even though there are multiple choices to choose from in the original game. For example, even though there were multiple romance choices in the original game, this sequel already chooses who the protagonist had a kid with.

The game’s protagonist is Jax, who was previously a commander of a faction named the Albs. Although he had great strides by the end of the original game, he left his old life behind and moved into a secluded hut.

In the beginning of Elex 2, Jax’s home is invaded and he is attacked by aliens called the Skyands. Jax gets infected in the attack with Dark Elex and passes out. Adam saves Jax’s life and shows him an area called Bastion, which serves as the player hub.

Throughout the game Jax needs to find allies for Bastion so that they are prepared to fight the Skyand invasion. I’m purposely keeping the synopsis simple and spoiler-free, but the game quickly turns into an amazing adventure.

Right from the onset, there are five level of difficulties you can choose from, which can also be changed at any time. These difficulties include a story mode where you can enjoy the story without stressing about the gameplay.

After going through the game, this title is not as hard to get into compared to the original Elex, and the developers have learned from their missteps.

If you weren’t familiar with these kinds of action RPGs from Piranha Bytes, who developed the Risen and Gothic games, they can be challenging in the beginning, and many people can get frustrated and put off by these kinds of games very quickly. In Elex 2, however, the beginning of the game doesn’t have such a bad difficulty spike at all.

Your central hub is called Bastion. You can recruit companions throughout the game and send them to Bastion to rest or you can take one with you. You can carry only one companion with you at a time and they will occasionally make a few comments when you visit a city.

The playable world only has a few cities, which are essentially faction hubs where leaders and members of each faction congregate together. Each of the faction’s city hubs feels very distinct. For example, the Berserkers are in a hub called The Fort, which looks like a medieval castle with bridges all over.

The Elex games are AA games. They’re not indie titles, but they’re also not AAA titles either. They have a budget that is on the lower end, but these games have a lot of charm in them. Just like the original Elex, this game plays “janky” as well.

The conversations Jax has with NPCs is similar to that of The Witcher, Mass Effect, or Dragon Age. Jax will generally talk to the NPCs one-on-one, and you’ll be able to choose dialogue options. The game also doesn’t show Jax’s equipped helmet in the cutscenes and you can see his expressions without worrying about awkward looking equipment.

If your attributes are high enough, you can even unlock unique conversation options. One event that happened to me was when Jax was mugged by highwaymen. Jax had the option to say, “Are you sure you want to try to rob me?” because his strength was high enough to intimidate his pursuers.

The NPCs have a lot of dialogue, and a lot of them feel like actual characters with their own personalities and stories. The amount of quests can feel overwhelming at times, but the developers are masters at their craft. All of the quests had branching options because of the choices you can do. You can almost always choose to help cover for someone or betray them, for example, and your end result will differ depending on your choice. The optional quests are never generic at all, there was only a few of the generic “kill 3 monsters” kind of side-quests out of the hundreds of quests present in this game.

The jetpack is a unique mechanic that I don’t see in video games except for maybe Dark Void. You have a jetpack that automatically recharges fuel that can be used anytime. It starts off by letting you fly for roughly 5-10 seconds but can be permanently upgraded to last longer.

The game will keep pushing you to join a faction as early as possible, but you don’t have to do it early in the game if you don’t want to. You need to join a faction by the end of chapter 3, otherwise you will be locked out of them. This is more than enough time because chapter 4 consists of mostly endgame missions.

The five factions include the Berserkers, Albs, Morkons, Outlaws, and Clerics. Each of these factions have their own different beliefs and civilizations. The Berserkers, for example, prioritize magic and don’t use technology. The Clerics, on the other hand, prefer using technology and use technological weapons in combat. The Morkons focus on melee and believe getting riches from combat (they are like something out of a Mad Max movie). The Outlaws craft chemical drugs to become stronger. The Albs use Elex to become tougher (at the cost of their emotions) and also use technological weapons. All of these factions are at odds with each other and from the premise of the game it looks like there are tensions between them.

The game has a morality system called “Destruction”. If you make peaceful or respectful choices your Destruction goes down, but if you make violent or rude decisions your Destruction goes up. It’s important because you can only choose certain factions if your Destruction meets their requirements; for example, joining the Morkons requires a high Destruction.

The dialogue is also done well because if you did a questline in a different order, the NPCs will actually acknowledge it.

To avoid blackouts, you need to do mental training by talking to one of your companions in Bastion. The thing is, you can’t really do the mental training in advance, you can only do it when Jax feels the onset of a blackout. It’s tricky, I would’ve preferred if they kept Jax being infected as a narrative element, but removed the gameplay element of him being infected and suffering from blackouts.

The final 5 or so hours of the game has a lot of amazing twists and the lore as well as all the mysteries get explained and wrapped up succinctly. If you do buy this game and are getting bored, it’s definitely worth it to keep going through it because there’s a big pay-off in the end and the final battles are epic.

For the most part, the voice acting is performed well. The main characters and important NPCs do an amazing job.

Elex 2 really has a lot of passion put into it. I’ve spent hours just listening to all of the characters and their dialogue. The game is more polished than the original Elex, but this game still does have a few missteps. There’s a lot of small glitches such as characters running into the character you’re talking to.

It really isn’t too hard to get into Elex 2 and it really has a beautiful world with many biomes, rich lore, interesting NPCs, and a very engaging story. This is a game that’s easy to get hooked on once you understand its mechanics and I cannot recommend it enough. Just be aware that you do need to overlook some of its shortcomings.

Chronos: Before the Ashes is a souls-like game, but with an extremely interesting twist on the formula. Instead of losing currency or unspent experience points when you die, your character will age permanently! Out of many different souls-like games we’ve played, Chronos: Before the Ashes takes a very unique approach on the genre.

Chronos: Before the Ashes is actually a remake of the Chronos video game that was released in 2016 on the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. We’ve never played the original; however, virtual reality games often have a stigma associated with its games such as being called “walking simulators” because they often have long narratives with little gameplay.

When we played through this title however, we wouldn’t have been able to tell it was ever a virtual reality game! It plays completely like a regular action game with a great variety of enemies and bosses scattered throughout. You play from a third-character perspective, the combat is very fast-paced and responsive, and the level design is top notch with many fun puzzles including optional puzzles that will allow you to acquire extra bonuses or lore.

The puzzles are very fun because you find items around the levels, and you can use them on items, as well as combine and sometimes dissemble. So at first you may think it’s completely unrelated to anything, but then you find a place where it makes sense to use it. Combine this with an interconnected level designs and you have great world-building.

Though there is no side content such as side quests or extra objectives, there are a few puzzles you can optionally complete for extra goodies. For example, we found a wind-up key near the beginning of the game, and we could not find anything to use it on for quite a while. We were just stumped on what it would be used for.

Near the ending of the game we found an inactive robot you could use it on, and doing so would let it walk in a straight line to a button, which it would press to open a wall with extra items such as extra weapon upgrade materials.

This game is on the shorter side, with it taking us 5 hours to play through to the end, but at the same time that is this game’s strength because it’s not bloated at all. The graphics are not impressive from technical standards; however, the art design is wonderful and you can see the environments and races you meet have very wonderful designs with distinct styles, such as starting out in a futuristic hospital, then moving to fantasy settings later on in the game.

As well, the lore of the game is rich. Like a Souls-style game, you don’t have lengthy cutscenes or anything or that nature; instead, the story is sprinkled throughout the game and is not fed to you. You can find many notes scattered around the world, as well as a few NPCs that can reveal a lot about the plot.

There isn’t much voice acting, but when there is voice acting it’s well-done and professional. One downside however is that the game could’ve used more NPCs around the world to interact with. The soundtrack is top-notch and reflects the mood of the game.

The difficulty of the game can be chosen, so the game is extremely accessible, even if you’re not familiar with Souls-like games. It’s important to note that this game is actually part of a franchise, and is a prequel to the game Remnant: From the Ashes that had released in 2019.

As someone who has played through Remnant and all of its DLCs, we can say that you will enjoy the references contained in Chronos: Before the Ashes much more if you played Remnant beforehand, but it’s not at all necessary to play to understand the story.

We previously explained that the game is less bloated than a Souls game. There are only two weapons you can choose from when you begin the game, but you can find many different kinds of weapons as you progress through the game. There is no currency in the game, but there are two kinds of weapon upgrade materials you can use to upgrade your weapon of choice.

You can also find dragon hearts across the world, which are basically your health potions. There is no armor you can equip sadly, and no accessories either. You can level up through defeating enemies and bosses, and spend skill points in four easy to understand categories. Because this game has a smaller scope, it’s very accessible and easy to get into. Dying does not make you lose skill points or anything like that.

At the same time, there are warp crystals scattered throughout the world of the game to help you quickly move between areas. Just because you finish one area of the game doesn’t mean you never have to return to it.

Interestingly, using a warp crystal doesn’t restore spent dragon hearts. Only dying will restore your spent dragon hearts and will respawn all of the enemies in the world. It’s a very interesting decision choice because if you play well, you will never have to worry about having to defeat or run past respawned enemies.

The age mechanic is the most unique feature of the game. Each time you die in the game, your character becomes a year older, starting from age 18. The game developers put a lot of detail in this mechanic and we were amazed when we saw it.

We finished the game at about age 28, and we saw that our character’s body and voice were very different compared to the beginning of the game! As your character ages, level up your Strength of Agility will cost more each time, but other skills such as Wisdom will cost less each time.

Your character’s age will result in a tradeoff when spending skill points, but there’s also unique skills you can choose from as you hit 10 year milestones, starting from age 20, onwards to age 80. It’s actually a safety mechanic, the unique abilities you get at every age interval are only beneficial for you and never a negative.

After completing the game, I died on purpose another 60 or so times to get to age 80, and without spoiling anything, you’ll get a special surprise at age 80! We won’t reveal spoilers, but the game is extremely reasonable and is you won’t get screwed over, even if you make the worst mistakes!

In short, the game is extremely approachable and it’s not easy to mess up! Think about it: if you die too much and become older, you will get extra abilities to help you through the game! “Give the squeaky tire the oil!” as they say, the game developers know what they’re doing, this isn’t a game where you die and get punished. If you’re feeling stressed out at the aging mechanic, don’t be stressed at all, the game is short and simple even for newcomers to these kinds of games.

All in all, it was a very fun game to play through. The gameplay is not hard, and there are many unique enemies and bosses throughout although the game is on the shorter side.

There are puzzles throughout and you can pick up and use items, which allows for puzzles to mix up the gameplay a little, such as entering rune symbols into a mirror that lets you teleport, or using a sliding puzzle to make a bridge through the sky.

We’re giving the game an 8/10. Our only criticism is that although we enjoy the art direction, technically the graphics are not the most exhaustive and there weren’t many NPCs in the game. There also aren’t that many levels in the world.

Although we love the simplicity of the game, it does feel like there could’ve been more meat in the game such as more levels. For instance, the game could’ve been longer, at only 5 hours it’s not a stretch for one to beat the game in perhaps two sittings.

As a fan of Remnant series, having the opportunity to play this game was a really wonderful experience and we really enjoyed such a fresh new take on the Souls-like genre.

We really recommend you try giving this game a shot, it starts off slow because there is exposition before you’re able to pick up a sword/axe and defeat enemies, but once you try the combat we guarantee you’ll be hooked until the end!

In our review of Blue Reflection: Second Light we will provide no spoilers. We will only provide a brief synopsis of the first half hour of the game’s plot and characters. Overall, Blue Reflection: Second Light is a very lighthearted game, just like the original Blue Reflection. The developers have really learned from the missteps of the original Blue Reflection, and have made many improvements to the gameplay to make this title more fun and approachable.

The cutscenes in the game are all voiced in Japanese, which Gust have been doing since the release of Atelier Firis and Lydie. All of the main story cutscenes are voiced, but the optional character event cutscenes and optional request cutscenes are unvoiced which is reasonable.

All scenes will have English subtitles. The translation in this game was handled very well. The lines of dialogue flowed very naturally and there was no awkwardness in the translation. All of the cutscenes, both voiced and unvoiced, have a convenient auto-advance dialog option, so you can sit back and read as you progress through cutscenes.

I really enjoyed the work from the Japanese voice actors/seiyuus because you can really hear the passion they put into this project. My favorite in this title was Rena’s voice actor, Maki Kawase, who, without spoiling, did a very good job of voicing several impactful scenes.

In the beginning of this game we’re introduced to a new set of characters: Ao, Rena, Kokoro, and Yuki. Ao is the protagonist and is the controllable character. The girls have only met each other 3 days ago in a school and they’re getting along quite well. For some reason, the school has no other students or teachers.

To put it briefly, our cast of girls find themselves in a strange world. The exit of their school has been destroyed and is surrounded by an ocean of blue, and they refer to the area as the Oasis. From Oasis, they are able to enter different worlds as well, which have a surreal combination of real-life and fantasy elements.

These explorable areas seem to reflect the memories and emotions of our cast of characters as well. Our cast of girls need to survive by gathering resources from these worlds. They continue to explore farther in hopes of finding a way to escape from this mysterious world.

Ao remembers that she got an app called FreeSpace (parody of Myspace) when all these problems started happening. She talks to someone or something called ReSource, who teachers her and the other girls how to fight demons and survive in this strange world.

As you progress, you will recruit many more characters and you’ll also learn about each character’s backstories which you’ll confront and solve. Although the premise I’ve explained is simple, the plot is full of many twists and there is definitely seriousness to the plot during the main story.

In addition to the main plot, there is a lot of side content. If you’ve played Gust’s other games such as Atelier Ryza, you’ll know that their JRPGs are full of optional events involving the cast of characters, and this title is no exception. This game has a lot of lighthearted fun with the cast of young adults with great dialogue and banter.

Talking to characters level up the T. Level, or Talent Level, which unlocks Talent Points you can use to get more Talent Skills. These Talent Skills can include permanent passive bonuses to characters as well as improving how well they can create items.

Your friends will also have optional requests for you to do. These include collecting items in dungeons, defeating a number of a certain type of enemy, or even sneaking through previously explored dungeons to find an item they lost.

As you progress through the storyline you’ll unlock more types of buildings, some of which get pretty funny such as a Comiket market (indie comic stand), a giant teddy bear to hug, and even beds you can sleep on and watch the stars. You only start the game with a few spots you’re able to build in, but as you progress you can demolish useless areas to make room for many new structures.

By making more buildings, you’ll be able to hang out with friends who are interested in that kind of activity. By using more materials, you can upgrade these properties to make their passive effects even stronger.

When you’re out in the levels, you collect blue and gold orbs as collectibles. Collecting materials in this game is similar to modern Atelier games, but if you’re not familiar with that series, you collect items for item creation. The items you can create can include consumable items or new buildings for the school.

There’s a new stealth mode added to the game, where you can crouch and see the enemy detection range as a glowing red colour on the map, but you cannot dash while doing so. It’s mandatory to sneak in one of the earlier game segments, but from there on it’s only used in optional requests afterwards.

The item creation mechanics in this game are not as detailed as in the Atelier franchise. Rather, in this game it’s just basic crafting of items. You can have properties on the items you synthesize, but your materials don’t have quality or traits so to speak.

The combat in this game is turn-based, but the turns are not discrete. Rather, you, your teammates, and your enemies are on a continuous timeline. You choose when to have you and your teammates have their turns, so if you want to wait to do a more powerful skill, you can do so.

You also have a combo meter, and as you perform more skills you actually build up a damage multiplier. Enemies and bosses will telegraph “powerful attacks” as well, but you can use certain skills that allow your combo meter to remain unbroken from your enemies’ attacks.

While in battle you will control three characters of your choice. You’ll always control your main character you select, and you’ll also control your two partner characters using the left and right triggers. You can set the battle to Auto to have your two partner characters do actions automatically.

Still, the game was easy to the point where I still set my partner characters to Auto even on the bosses. Like Atelier games, you can craft items to buff your characters or even debuff enemies in battle, and you’ll be thankful to know that even bosses aren’t immune to all ailments all the time like in most other JRPGs.

You can also knockdown enemies with repeated use of skills. Each time you defeat enemies and bosses you will level up your characters, which will let you permanently gain stats like any other JRPG. You can level up to a maximum level of 50.

The soundtrack of this game is really great. It matches the tone and atmosphere of this game quite well. Many somber scenes will have a sad piano playing.

It took me 50 hours to complete the game with all sidequests and all optional character events. It may be possible to beat the game in perhaps 20 hours if you’re rushing through it and not pursuing optional content, but this game is a lengthy JRPG no matter how you approach it.

The optional events are intertwined with the main plot. Say you’ve finished a dungeon and are returning to the school. You’ll probably get approached by a character who wants to talk to you.

The game also offers a New Game Plus mode, where you’ll carry over Fragments and also carry over half of your team’s Talent Levels, as well as all your Database entries so you won’t have trouble finding where everything is again. It offers an extra layer of replayability to the game.

In the end, Blue Reflection: Second Light was a very fun JRPG to play through. It has a great mix of content, from funny optional content to a serious overarching storyline. The character designs are beautiful and the enemies look cryptic. I always felt that the original Blue Reflection video game was rushed, but this game has a lot of improvements.