Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

Platinum achieved on The Last Of Us Part II, now time to start writing up the review!

@DonJorginho Well done! How many playthroughs did it take, and were they mainly for the collectable trophies?

... Was that a cheeky little Mr Benn reference @RogerRoger or is my mind making a very strenuous and very loose connection there?

As I revealed to Ralizah on the previous page this monster post was originally going to include Iconoclasts as well and with Sonic CD it would've pushed 4,000 words instead of only a meagre 2,500.

And the original plan would've meant Days Gone, Nier Automata, Resi Revelations 2 & The Last Of Us all would've been in there too.

It may've just pipped Ralizah's gigantic Fire Emblem: Three Houses 10 page bumper spread special!

I'm glad you enjoyed reading it.

I did completely rewrite the Saints Row 4 review in fact after I'd put out my Days Gone piece (Which I think shows a little compared to Shining Resonance) and found it fairly enjoyable to write in this much more loosey goosey and more personal style compared to the more informal and technical style I had previously last year (Though that style did give a little more weight to my objective score I feel)

It's nice to be writing again after those five/six months of writer's block!

I have nothing really to say to your counterpoint other then that was a well made point and I'm certainly not gonna argue with you to stay on track with my resolution!

... Though my joke review of Divinity Original Sin II I made ages ago definitely doesn't count!

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Making up for lost time, I see.

That's a whole lot of "meh" and "eh" reactions in one compilation, though. I actually really like writing scathing reviews, but I rarely get the chance because, typically, if I dislike a game that much I stop playing it, so my critical energy gets expended on games that probably don't deserve to be picked apart, like The Witcher 3.

RE - NieR: Automata
Kudos on playing, replaying, and then replaying again a game you clearly couldn't stand. I wouldn't have it in me to do that with a game I disliked as much as you clearly dislike this one.

RE - Resident Evil Revelations 2
I think it's easy to grow tolerant to the faults of series we otherwise have a soft spot for. Have you ever played Revelations 1? While I think it's an amazing technical showpiece for the 3DS and probably the best RE game released after 4 up until that point (2013? something like that), I didn't think the chapter-based format did much for that game either (I won't say episodic, since that game released as a complete package from day one).

RE - Saints Row IV: Re-Elected
Interesting review. I'll confess I'm a fan of Saints Row 2. It was defo a GTA clone, but it filled an important function at that time: it was a GTA-style game that remembered these games are supposed to be fun. GTA games have long had a goofy, tongue-in-cheek aspect to them, but that side of the series was almost completely abandoned with the dour GTA IV, which features a depressing story and irritating social sim elements. But SR2 kept itself reigned in enough that the goofiness didn't overwhelm the experience.

SR3 "drank the goofy juice," as you so aptly put it, and turned into a parody of itself, so I COMPLETELY lost interest in the series from there (it reminded me of 'bad movies' that deliberately try to be stupid and just end up being obnoxious, like Sharknado; a genuinely fun bad game, like a bad movie, must be made with love and passion). It sounds like SR4 dials it down a bit, so I might actually try playing the series again (although, based on how you describe it, it sounds more like an InFamous clone than a GTA one at this point?).

Also

😂😂😂
The upside to having a gamer mom: Being able to bond over a shared hobby
The downside to having a gamer mom: You ain't fooling anybody.

RE - The Last of Us
So, at the time, I had a really poor reaction to this game. I still don't really like it. Looking back, though, I can sort of see its strengths. But I think people talked me up on it too much. It was this amazing, cinematic, emotional post-apocalyptic father/daughter epic, and I end up with... well, what I thought was a decent but somewhat tropey zombie movie. Well, it would have been decent if it didn't feel like half the game was moving ladders/boxes/planks and sneaking around tediously dispatching post-apocalyptic raiders/mooks. And, like almost all of ND's pre-Uncharted 4 games, the entire game feels like you're being funneled through a tunnel of sorts.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who wasn't really wowed by it.

RE - Shining Resonance Refrain
Yeah, I've not heard great things about this game all-around. I guess I can sort of see why it wasn't originally localized. Granted, in the JRPG desert that was last gen (on home consoles, at least; the NDS was still getting great JRPG support), it would have been welcome. But in the modern landscape with Persona 5, Dragon Quest XI, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Octopath Traveler, Ys VIII, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, etc.? Nothing special.

I think it could be fun, though, once I've played all of the hype JRPGs I'm actually excited for. The demo was reasonably fun, if nothing else.

-

Fun read overall, Foxy! Especially the SRR section, which was conversational, but still discussed game mechanics and whatnot. Glad you're back on the review horse.

Right, time for a bit of catching up here..

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I liked the brief write up of Iconoclasts but still had plenty of thought in it. I like the look of it and I'm sure this is one I've hovered over purchasing without knowing much about it. What is the "tweaks made" part from the ending results there?

@Th3solution I liked the different layout for the thoughts on Death Stranding and it's a game I flip flop between wanting to get and thinking I should just give a miss. Your thoughts on the ending being one that stuck with you is probably the thing that would make me pick it up though as there aren't many games that manage to do that.

Your subsequent thoughts (and other peoples' comments) have piqued my interest a little more too. The explanation of how player made structures work was really insightful too.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Imagine throwing Nier and TLOU under the bus like that and still be able to show your face on this forum!

I have literally no idea I just read with regards to SR4 though Each sentence sounded completely detached from the one before and the game sounds bonkers. I hope it makes more sense than it sounds! I liked your backstory to the series as well.

SRR sounds interesting and the screenshots look nice, even if you weren't overly taken with the game as a whole.

@JohnnyShoulder Thank you! I've played through the game three times almost at the time of writing.

One for the experience, one for the analysis and testing out things for a review, and now am doing a collectable run and upgrade run to upgrade everything I couldn't before.

wow you lot are finishing the game fast!
i am still on my first playtrough 5 days later! (almost at the end) and yes i play atleast 4/5 hours per day.

granted i do a LOT of exploring though.

@DonJorginho I'm considering doing another run for collectables, but I know you can do a chapter select, but don't know if that works for the trophies.

@jdv95 Same here! Think I'm almost at the 18 hour mark now.

@JohnnyShoulder chapter select works for the trophies.

@jdv95 Cool, thanks!

Shantae and the Seven Sirens

Platform: Nintendo Switch (also on: PS4, Xbox One, Windows PC, iOS)

Playtime: 10 hours

Shantae and the Seven Sirens is the fifth Shantae game to release in the series since the Game Boy Color original in 2002. As in other games in the series, you play as the titular half-genie Shantae, who, this time, is invited out to the tropical Paradise Island as a guest of honor for a Half-Genie Festival. When her fellow half-genies are kidnapped before festivities can kick off, however, Shantae takes it upon herself to find the missing girls and inadvertently stumbles upon a larger mystery involving the history and nature of the island itself, encountering old rivals and new enemies along the way.

As a brief bit of background: the first three Shantae games connected narratively and formed a trilogy of sorts. The fourth game, Shantae: Half Genie Hero, functioned as both a soft reboot of the narrative as well as a pretty dramatic shift in game design, abandoning the free exploration of previous entries for a mostly linear adventure. This shift in design didn't sit well with a number of fans (including yours truly), so I was happy to see Seven Sirens not only return to a more exploratory form of gameplay, but actually draw primarily from the very first Shantae game as its primary source of inspiration. While the first three games all focus on exploring environments and using transformations or tools to access new areas (heck, even Half-Genie Hero features this, to a limited extent), the series drifted away from the connected world of the GBC original, which featured multiple towns and themed dungeons, over time. The second game, Risky's Revenge, was a smaller-in-scale DSiWare title that didn't feature multiple towns or elaborate dungeons, and the third game, Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, featured a more contained hub world design, where the player would venture out from one town to multiple, elaborate themed islands. Seven Sirens marks a reversal of this trend toward increased linearity, and features a fully inter-connected world map in the style of the original Shantae, along with the return of multiple towns and more elaborate, themed dungeons.

The most immediate change from previous Shantae titles is in the setting. This is the first title in the series to not take place at least partially in Sequin Land, and the iconic Scuttle Town is abandoned as well in favor of fully focusing on Paradise Island. This gives the game a chance to focus on crafting an entirely unique new environment, which it mostly does. It was interesting to see an entire Shantae game with a tropical/aquatic theme to it.

In addition, this entry has seen a complete revamp of the animal transformation system that has featured in almost every Shantae game (except for Pirate's Curse, where she temporarily loses her half-genie powers and is forced to rely on pirate gear from her long-time pirate arch-rival, Risky Boots) to date. In previous games, Shantae would have to stop and perform transformation dances to assume different animal forms in order to progress through environments. While fans often tend to love this aspect of the series, many felt like it slowed down the pace of exploration overall and were spoiled by the comparatively lightning fast gameplay of Pirate's Curse, where pirate gear can be instantly used without needing to interrupt the flow of gameplay. WayForward clearly took this feedback to heart and crafted a clever have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too solution to the problem of transformations in this game. Via the use of "fusion coins" that you gain for rescuing and completing a task for each of the other kidnapped half-genies you rescue, you can now initiate animal transformations at will, temporarily, based on the use of context-sensitive button presses. For example, the newt transformation can be instantly achieved by air dashing toward a wall, when you hit the wall, you'll be in your animal form, but when you feet touch the floor, you turn back into half-genie form. While this sacrifices the ability to wander around in your transformed state (which there is usually no real reason to do), it allows this new game to preserve the iconic animal transformations that are part of the series' core identity while also allowing for the more fluid and dynamic gameplay introduced in Pirate's Curse. Shantae still has her dances, but they're reserved for separate magical ability now, such as revealing hidden platforms or filling the screen with electricity.

I'd briefly like to mention that I love how, in another aspect that's similar to the original, WF brought back a sort of dancing minigame to earn money.

(this video completely destroys the aspect ratio of the GBC original, but it serves its purpose)

The distinguishing gimmick introduced in Seven Sirens. though, comes in the form of monster cards. When you kill an enemy, there's a random chance that it will drop a collectible card. Depending on the requirements (some cards are usable when you collect only one; others require the player to find several duplicates before they can be used), you'll be able to equip these cards to Shantae and boost one of her stats or abilities. These can vary from increasing climbing speed when transformed, to boosting the power of certain types of magic, to allowing Shantae to auto-smash pots she runs across on her journey. A handful of monster cards are more powerful and are only obtainable by trading items to obtain them. While I liked this extra wrinkle that was added to the gameplay, the game is easy enough that it never mattered too much, and the monster cards don't really drastically change things up enough to make different card load-outs feel like they deeply impacted the gameplay.

And, to segue quickly into my biggest complaint about the game, Seven Sirens is too easy. Partially because of the way the game throws food at you constantly when you're killing enemies. In previous games, if you ran out of potions, you'd have to tediously farm enemies for heart drops. In this game, though, you're always stacked with various sort of food that heal a TON of the player's health, which means there's never really reason for the player to die. New Game Plus mode (no idea why it's called this, considering nothing seems to carry over; really, it's just magic mode from previous games) tries to balance this by making Shantae take more damage from enemies, which definitely leads to more deaths early on, but it doesn't really address the underlying balance issue with food drops.

Additionally, the boss encounters in this game, while not mind-numbingly easy, don't really feel particularly threatening, either. Partially because you'll always be stacked with healing items, and partially because there's nothing particularly brutal about them in terms of their patterns and attacks. I will say, though, and this is leading into a broader discussion, I LOVE how bosses are introduced in this game. Seven Sirens, in a series first, makes use of fully-animated video clips throughout the game (akin to ones seen in JRPGs like Persona 4 or Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete), and it does a lot to make the game feel more... premium? A lot of care has gone into the presentation of this game, and that extends to this element as well. Before encountering a boss, you'll be treated, each time, to a short video clip showing off Shantae's first interaction with her enemy. They're both fun to watch and do a great job of building a sense of anticipation for the coming fight.

The character models and backdrops in this game all look quite sharp, and, especially in handheld mode, Seven Sirens is a stunning little indie. The game also seems to run at a perfect 60fps all the time. Musically, the game is a bit less impressive, thanks to the departure of the series composer Jake Kaufman for this entry. His work is iconic, and it's really noticeable when that particular brand of Shantae music fans have been used to hearing from game to game is missing. The compositions in Seven Sirens are not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but I can't help but notice the lack of his peppy, middle-eastern inspired tracks, which fit well with a series that had a half-genie as its main character. There were also a number of tracks that were nearly identical from game to game, which helped to give the series its sense of identity. What we get here is... different, although definitely still trying to sound like Shantae music. It's pretty good, actually, but I do hope Kaufman returns for the next entry.

What particularly took getting used to was the new boss theme, which had been the same or extremely similar from the GBC original on.

Compare:

7.5/10 (outdated score; see edit)

edit:

I don't usually adjust years-old reviews, but I wanted to adjust my review and score of Shantae and the Seven Sirens in light of the "Spectacular Superstar" update that released for it, which prompted me to actually replay the game and judge the effect of the improvements first-hand.

The meat of this update, arguably, and what I'll primarily be discussing, is the way this updated version of the game (now dubbed the "Definitive" version, although the older, unbalanced version of the game is still preserved in a Legacy Mode) rebalances certain aspects of the game. The biggest improvement address my biggest complaint about the game: the food drops. Food drops WAY less often now, and heals significantly less damage than it did previously. This seems like it should be a small thing, but it really is transformative to the experience, as the player can no longer casually tank endless amounts of damage because they have piles of food in their inventory to rely on. Additionally, the player seems to take more damage from small enemies, and bosses have been made more aggressive in their attack patterns. All this adds up to a more satisfyingly challenging dungeon-crawler, as the player will actually need to deliberately stock up on restoration items if they want to make it through a dungeon without seeing a Game Over. And the player will see this a lot more, frankly.

Now, the game can still easily be trivialized, as the player seems to be able to still buy endless amounts of health and mana restoration potions, auto-potions, upgrades that reduce damage taken and dealt, etc. I'm not a huge fan of being able to easily buy enough materials to tank damage endlessly. But, see, here's the thing: before this update, I never even bothered buying health portions, because I always had tons of food drops to lean on. The vastly more balanced food item drops now make it where I actually had to stock up on materials from time to time, and could even talk about this aspect of the game as a result.

If the player is swimming through this game by tanking damage now, they're making the deliberate choice to stock up on tons of items to do so. It's extremely accessible, but also easily makes it where more skilled players can still experience a challenge without feeling like they're gimping themselves or not engaging with the game's mechanics (like, the game would be difficult in any mode if you never increased your health, for example, but at that point it just feels like you're handcuffing yourself in order to be able to enjoy the experience).

And, frankly, that's not always even a guarantee. I stocked up materials as needed (not a crazy amount, but far more than I did in the rest of the game) before the final boss, but the increased difficulty meant I'd burned through the majority of my resources and was actually at risk of dying by the time I made it through the final dungeon and confronted the last boss. That's... nice. Shantae games aren't the Dark Souls of Platformers or whatever, but they have traditionally demanded a modicum of skill from the player. This update brings Shantae that much more in line with the best games in the series.

It's probably worth mentioning that bosses have a bit of dialogue and actual character portraits now. These don't add a lot to the game (you get, maybe, 10 lines of new dialogue overall per boss encounter), but it does add that tiny little extra bit of polish to the experience. It's appreciated.

On top of this, three new modes have been added, although they... don't do much for me. Full Deck mode allows the player to start the game with a full deck of monster cards. As I mentioned in my review, those don't tend to dramatically alter the balance of the game, so I'm not fussed about this. Rule Breaker mode allows the player to equip as many monster cards as possible at once (up to 50). This seems like it might be fun to experiment with if you're into experimenting with different set-ups, but it primarily just makes the player character vastly unbalanced again, which isn't really appealing to me. Finally, an easy mode was added, which seems... unnecessary to me, but I guess it might be good for small children. Legacy Mode is already easy enough, though.

I'm bumping the score for this game up to an 8.5/10. There are certain design issues that mean it'll never be my favorite game in the series, but developer WayForward has done a good job of fixing the core issues I had with this game. It was already a very decent Metroidvania, and now it's an extremely decent one. Really enjoyed my time with this update.

So there's a upgrade system of sorts called "Tweaks" @Thrillho that are made with the 3 types of materials you find along the journey.

Spin your wrench for a longer time, nullify a point of damage, hold your breath longer are just a few of the upgrades you can get.

You can only have 3 tweaks equipped at a time and tweaks are represented via symbols underneath your health bar.

Getting damaged however will temporarily remove a tweak, getting hit again will remove a second and obviously getting hit three times means they're all gone.

You can however get ivory from killing enemies, destroying an object etc which will build up the tweak's bar and eventually replenish one of your tweaks should you have lost one (Or two or three)

You can see it how it's represented clearly in this picture

You can make Tweaks at various benches, find new schematics along the way for more tweaks and you change your equipped tweaks at any save point.

That's kinda it really.

Hope that explained it clearly!

Last of Us gets a seven or so were I to score it. It was a good experience.

The game that shall not be named is kinda thrown under a bus though!

... I'd like to say it does but I can see where you're coming from after that

It's a very inoffensive game and the biggest fault it has overall is probably a lack of ambition (A small budget probably didn't help the smallish scope)

... Yeah can't argue with that @Ralizah! 😂

My Let It Die review last year was rather fun to write I'll admit!

In fact that's the only game I haven't technically finished that I did review... I was not going to grind for hours just to beat that last boss though!

And I don't think you picked apart the Witcher III that badly (And it does have a few fairly useless systems as you pointed out)

... But that's the last word about NieR Automata!

I haven't played Revelations 1 but from the sounds of things I think the chapter based system might work a little more in it's favour then the 4 episodes of Revelations 2 with the structure not really adding anything at all. (The dual narrative does but the episodic nature was more because Capcom were being rather weird back then)

.... Especially when I just have the disc version with everything on and the "next time/previously" sections were completely redundant seeing as it played it within the space of a week.

Oh and to bring back the slight running gag we had. There's a few invisible monsters through the campaign (with instakill too) that I did freak out at quite a bit. I am so not playing the invisible zombie mode it has either, especially in a more actionised resi game! 😂

I'll admit it's been forever since I played the second (& the third) so it's quite hazy in my mind and I should probably retry them.

I also admittedly like the goofier nature of the later 2 titles in the series myself (I find the 3rd rather juvenile in tone though (Like the certain baseball bat you get in that or the blow up doll collectables) which was my main problem with it. Killbane was not a good villain either)

... I haven't played inFAMOUS so uhhh... I can't quite compare that. Sorry Ral. 😅

I can't in good faith say you'd like the 4th anymore then the 3rd as the 4th is honestly still fairly wacky with a lot of pop culture references or parodies of other games.

But as I said the writing does get more mature.

I mean it doesn't become Shakespeare or anything but it does come up with decent character development for why Shaundi changed so drastically (I'm terrible with names and I didn't actually realise she was in the second with how drastically she chamged in the third), what the various members of The Third Street saints fears are etc.

Despite it looking/sounding the most disconnected to the previous games (And playing fairly differently too) ... It does actually require knowledge from all the previous titles in the series as a number of characters are brought back even in one time roles (It's a shame Michael Clark Duncan sadly couldn't come back to voice Benjamin King that would've been amazing)

Your reaction to TLoU sounds an awful lot like my experience with FF7 more or less! But I do see where you're coming from even if I enjoyed TLoU more then yourself.

It was a fun and good time overall. Comparing it to say Tales Of Xilla which I did play last gen (Or FF XIII / FFXIII-2) I did enjoy SRR more most definitely.

The lack of ambition/budget (and the typical anime character clichés if aren't charmed by the characters) is probably the biggest knock against the game which does sort've result in a just above average game as it fairly safe but enjoyable.

I'll read your Shantae review later Ral!!

“Have you ever played Revelations 1? While I think it's an amazing technical showpiece for the 3DS and probably the best RE game released after 4 up until that point (2013? something like that), I didn't think the chapter-based format did much for that game either (I won't say episodic, since that game released as a complete package from day one).”

RE1 was my favorite game on the 3DS. Great game. Too bad it didn’t sell. Loved the 3D effect on that game. Because of a lack of more quality titles like this one I bought a PSVITA.

Finally read your Shantae and the Seven Sirens review @Ralizah

Lovely stuff there with some very nice music throughout the series and some good looking screenshots to boot.

I quite like the little rocking back and forth Shantae seems to do whilst talking, giving her a nice little bit of personality and charm.

I'm looking forward to trying the series myself at some point

One thing I will ask is this was on the Apple Arcade first before it went to consoles/PC If I'm remembering correctly?

Now I'm probably underestimating the power of the most recent smartphones but do you think that decision of going mobile first hampered any of the design decisions of the game at all?

Is that maybe why food could be so abundant for example? Or as a made up example maybe backgrounds aren't as varied as they could be?

@PSVR_lover Honestly, I can't think of a handheld with a stronger library than the 3DS. If the PS1/PS2 weren't around, I'd say it was my favorite gaming device overall.

Solid props to Vita for being able to function as a portable PS1, though. That functionality, in and of itself, earned it a permanent place in my home.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy These games have always featured fantastic and lively animations for the characters. This was particularly impressive in the original, given the limitations of the GBC technology.

And yeah, the first half of this game was available in a sort of early access state via Apple Arcade for almost a year. iOS also got the full game a few weeks before the other platforms did, I believe.

With that said, regarding your question about the platform and the design of the game, I'll refer to a recent (within the week) NL interview with the game's director:
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/06/feature_shantae_and...

In particular, this section -

Nintendo Life: "The first part of Seven Sirens initially launched on iOS last year alongside Apple’s subscription service, with the second part launching in March this year. From the developer’s perspective, how does it feel releasing a game in ‘parts’, as opposed to putting out the finished product all-at-once? What are the pros and cons of working that way? Do you see yourself doing it again in the future?"

Bozon: "It worked out fine in this case, but think I prefer keeping the whole game hidden behind a curtain for as long as possible. Not saying we wouldn’t design an episodic game again someday, but this one was always intended to be one whole adventure. So it’s nice to have it complete and available everywhere."

This bit, along with the fact that, unlike the previous game, it's a full-on Metroidvania with interconnected areas, some element of non-linearity to the progression, and a larger scale overall tells me that this game was never designed with mobile in mind, but that Apple probably made WayForward an offer they couldn't refuse when it comes to the distribution of their newest Shantae. It's also worth mentioning that another WayForward game, Spidersaurs, which seems like a spiritual successor to Contra 4 (I believe the same development team even worked on both games), is exclusive to Apple Arcade, which I'm unbelievably annoyed about (I LOVE Contra 4; IMO, it's the best game in that series). Apple was definitely throwing money around when it came to securing games for Apple Arcade.

So no, I don't think the overabundance of healing items is due to the mobile launch. If anything, it's probably designed to limit irritation, considering how often one needed to farm hearts to restore health in the previous games. But some level of tedium is satisfying in video games overall, and it certainly hurt boss fights (you could purposefully restrict yourself from eating food during boss fights, I guess, but that seems like a sort of nuzlocke-y, make-your-own-fun approach that covers for inherent game design flaws; I like to go all out when I play a game instead of tying one arm behind my back).

And I'm fairly certain high-end smartphones have been more powerful than the Switch since the launch of that console in 2017, so you're definitely underestimating the power of mobile devices. Still rubbish as gaming devices, though, since they're designed primarily for multimedia use and require special equipment in order to be able to play games properly.

Thanks for reading! If you do decide to play it, you shouldn't have a hard time accessing the games, considering four of the five Shantae games are available on PS4 (you'll need a 3DS to play the original via its virtual console release, unless you want to sink several hundreds of dollars into a used original Shantae cartridge ).

@Ralizah It’s nice to hear the latest Shantae’s pretty good then, I’m about halfway through the original and really quite enjoying it. Good to hear more love for Contra 4 as well, what a game! RE: the whole 3DS vs Vita thing, I love both but the 3DS and its combined library with DS makes it the best handheld, if not console, ever made. Backwards compatibility absolutely made that console even better and a major strike against Vita is not having access to FF7 CC and KH BBS without a jailbreak.

@nessisonett The original is one of my favorite GBC games, although the scale of the environments make it feel like it more of an SNES game crunched onto a tiny handheld display.

Contra 4 was the game I bought my NDS to play, and I have no regrets. It's so well-designed and replayable, and it was REALLY cool at the time that the cartridge included full versions of Contra and Super Contra on it that you could unlock. The challenges were neat, too: those pacifist challenge runs really made you appreciate how well thought out the level design and enemy placement was.

One of my big issue with the Vita is one exclusive to the U.S. For some reason, our PSN restricts access to a bunch of PS1 Classics that are available in other regions unless you transfer the games to it via a PS3. So I can play stuff like Crash Bandicoot, Silent Hill, etc.

With that said, pretty much all of the big JRPGs that were the biggest draw of the PS1 are available here.

I also HATE the back touchpad. It's so easy to accidentally hit it and trigger something.

I really wish the PS Vita 2000 had included an extra set of shoulder buttons, too, like the New 3DS.

Oh very interesting read @Ralizah regarding the "in parts" stuff and a good interview in general. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

It's good that they managed to nearly port everything over to the ps4 in the series. My 2DS unfortunately bit the dust so... Looks like I'll have to skip the first game

Have you seen the Zero punctuation review for Seven Sirens? I just found it this morning and he really focuses on one thing about it.

Well two things really

Obviously expect the usual from Yahtzee. NSFW.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I'm... surprised he bothered reviewing the game, actually. It doesn't seem like the sort of game he'd typically play (indie platformer, anime aesthetic, etc.). I guess that's a good sign; the series is attracting attention from outside its niche.

I'm not surprised that he didn't seem to enjoy it, but I'll admit it hurt my soul a little when he briefly lavished praise on Half-Genie Hero.

Anyway, yeah, much has been made in the past about the full-figured female character designs (when Pirate's Curse came out, the talking point was about "3D boobs," because the character portaits popped out from the screen when you had the stereoscopic 3D enabled), although, being an anime fan who has become somewhat desensitized to cartoon boobs over the years, it barely even registers with me.

Ever since he played Persona 5 @Ralizah and somehow loved it he's got a fair bit softer towards the ol' anime asethetic. Though it's naturally still quite ripe for jokes.

I'm not sure about platformers but he does review a fair few indies from what I recall. He's made a few himself and I saw he had/has a series about him making 12 different games in 12 months which sounds interesting.

I'm not quite sure what to say about that... Luckily I won't be playing that on 3DS? (At least I assume that's the function is from)