Now Playing: Senran Kagura - Estival VS

Here we go again....

 Let it be known that I bought this game purely for research purposes, again. I mean, first time around I bought it because I had to see if they were as bad as I claimed due to my prejudice. Now because I have to see if the sequel improves upon the game. The life of a blogger is a hard one.

 And guess what? This time around I'm not skipping the story!.... yet. I'm gonna give it another chance, if it gets too dumb I will start skipping it again. And so far it's a bit dumb, I found myself laughing because of how dumb it all was, although the game did earn some honest laughs from me.

 Now, gameplay, I just did all five introductory chapters, and it's a bit better and a bit worse. Super attacks now occur in real time as opposed to cut-ins, which keeps the action running and feels much better. Aerial raves seem to be easier to pull off as well. All that said, the game runs a bit poorly on the Vita, I'm pretty sure Shinovi VS had a better framerate. It's not unplayable by any means, but it leaves something to be desired. On the other hand, graphics look slightly more detailed and crisper, and the 'cannon fodder' enemies' clothes break as well. Speaking of torn clothes, the 'torn' effect looks much better now.

 So, Estival VS looks like an average sequel. Some improvements here and there, a few hiccups, etc etc, still, I've barely played 5 stages so far, so maybe there's some mechanics still left to be introduced, and at least one of the new girls is a blast to play. Speaking of the girls, they have unashamedly placed all purchasable DLC characters on the character select screen, which is just tacky.

Month Overview: March 2016

 Tally:
Super Mario Land 2 - 6 Golden Coins(Virtual Console)          6.0
Devil May Cry HD Collection                                                  9.0
Devil May Cry 4                                                                       8.5
DmC - Devil May Cry                                                              8.0
Dishonored - Game of the Year Edition                                   9.0
Bioshock Infinite - The Complete Edition                               8.0
Fist of the North Star - Ken's Rage 2                                        2.5
Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme Vs Force                                  4.5
Under the Skin                                                                          5.5
Ar Tonelico Qoga - Knell of Ar Ciel                                        3.0
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale                                          8.0
Digimon Story - Cyber Sleuth                                                   8.5


 Despite a few blunders and a few disappointments, it was an overall strong month. I finally went over the entire Devil May Cry series, finished my adventures on Bioshock and came upon Digimon Story - Cyber Sleuth, which was a fantastic RPG... when you weren't grinding like a degenerate.


 Game of March:

 Devil May Cry 1 is fairly dated, but it's still rather good. Devil May Cry 2 is not as good as DMC 1, but not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. And then there's Devil May Cry 3 which is one of the best action games I've ever played. Combat is fast and furious, the story... the story is dumb, but cool dumb, so even if what's going on is dumb, it looks cool.

Runner-up:

 I really wasn't expecting to like a Stealth game so much, but lo and behold, Dishonored held me by wrists and never let go. The amount of ways in which you can tackle each mission, and the variety on how you clear them is staggering. Then there's the freedom you get when developing and equpping your skills, making it easy to tailor Corvo to your playstyle.

Review #315: Digimon Story - Cyber Sleuth

 Looks like the finally got a winning formula for Digimon.

 Digimon is a franchise that has had a bit of an identity crisis, not unlike Sonic, reinventing itself with each iteration. Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth is the latest RPG of the franchise, and I think Namco finally got itself a winning formula.

 Cyber Sleuth takes place in Modern Day Japan, with a twist, digital interaction has advanced so much that you can kinda project your consciousness into an avatar. Playing as a somewhat mute hero, that can be a boy or a girl, you meet up with your friends in the digital world, where you get attacked by an Eater. Now your body lays comatose, but your conscience managed to arrive into the real world as data-only. Fixing yourself a temporary body and employed by the detective Kyoko, it's up to the hero to solve the mystery behind the Eaters and the apparition of Digimon. It's a rather fun story, with some very Shin Megami Tensei-ish touches, like a S&M inspired boss, and the story can get rather dark, with suicide and even implied organ trafficking. The supporting cast is pretty engaging as well, albeit rather plain; there's Nokia, the girl that keeps talking about her 'hot bod' but is considered, in-universe, as not all that pretty, and Arata, the loner that actually cares about his friends, and the shy girl with a quirk to her personality. But that's alright, even though the supporting cast is a bit plain, the story is very engaging. That said, the localization leaves a lot to be desired. The most notorious problem is that the heroes sometimes refer to the Eaters as 'Bakemonos', or monsters in English, but the translators thought they meant 'Bakemon' as in the Digimon 'Bakemon', so now they refer to Eaters as 'Bakemons', which is such a dumb, hilarious oversight. There's also a few non-issue issues, where 'multiple dialogue choices' are made up of a single line of text divided onto two or three lines. These mistakes are rather surprising, since the text is very colorful, they clearly had fun writing the text for the game.

 The game is divided into 20 chapters, and on each you have to solve a few cases. While there's about 2-3 mandatory cases per chapter, you are free to tackle side-cases as well, with randomly generated green quests that.... are rather dull and repetitive. Yellow and Blue cases are much more fun and won't advance the story, while red cases are required in order to advance. The hero's unique physiology allows him to 'connect' onto the Digital World, and travel through digital roads, which serves him just right as his quests usually involve Digimon. You've also got access to a few skills, which change depending on your party set-up, that are needed in order to solve puzzles. 'Decipher' allows you to read data that contains clues to the puzzles, 'Copy and Paste' is used to copy colors and paste them on special platforms, 'Wall Break' is used to break walls(D'oh!) and there's a few others like increasing the amount of random encounters or forcing one.

 Not only does it employ random encounters, but fights used the tried and true turn based system. While you active party is comprised of three Digimon, you can carry up to eight reserve Digimon, and you can change any number of them on just one turn. You can also use your turns to use items, attack, defend or use mana-consuming spells. Party composition plays a big part to how battles play out, there's a rock-paper-scissors system around Digimon types(Vaccine, Virus and Data) that halves or doubles damage taken and received, as well as a fourth, neutral type. But there's also a secondary elemental affinity(Like Fire, Water, Light, etc) that could make the difference between dealing/receiving 0.5 or 0.75 times the damage against a Digimon with an advantageous type, or between 2 or 3 times against a weak type. Fighting the same Digimon many times will 'capture' their data, allowing you to 'load' them on the Digi Lab, and add them to your party. Digimon also come in different ranks(Baby, In-Training, Rookie, Champion, Ultimate, Mega, Armored and Ultra) and each one has a different weight. Weight comes into play due to the memory limit, which means that if your memory limit is 10, you can't bring a Mega(18) Digimon with you. While I understand that it was probably done for balancing issues, so that you don't curb stomp the competition too early, I thought it was a bit limiting. And, luckily, once you get further into the game, memory upgrades are easier to come by.

 But Memory Capacity is alright, ABI is what really takes the cake when it comes to annoyance. ABI is a stat that only increases when digivolving or devolving your 'mons. Why would you want to devolve a Digimon? Besides the required ABI, you can take your Digimon through another evolution line and thus earn more skills! That should've been a rewards in itself, but nope, they had to make it annoying. Y'see, you won't be able to reach most Megas on your first time evolving your 'mon, so you will have to devolve it once or twice. And then get them back to Ultimate, which means relevelling them back to level 30... it's a huge, annoying time sink. ABI is the one thing I truly, decidedly disliked about the game. And to add insult to injury, sometimes your 'mon won't reach the minimum stat requirements for a Mega Evolution, which means sending your 'mon to train on the DigiFarm, which can take from 30 to 60 minutes of real time, and it might need multiple sessions. Does that sound like fun to you? Honestly I can't see what they were thinking when they came up with this whole system. Oh, and lest I forget, the stat upgrades you get through the Digi-farm? They are limited by the amount of ABI your Digimon has, so maybe you'll need to devolve even further in order to then spend time to level it up, and then spend time on the Digifarm. The truth of the matter is: getting your party up to the point where you want them to be can get a while, a long, long while. These were the only moments I didn't like about the game.

 While the game is a bit flawed, this is easily some of the most fun I've had with a VITA game(Although, sadly(?), this is not an exclusive). Heck, this is easily my favorite Digimon game I've played(Which, frankly, is not a lot, but still). For people missing the good old days of Japanese RPGs, like I was a few days ago when enduring Ar Tonelico 3, this is a fantastic oldschool JRPG that gets almost everything right.

 8.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Digimon Story - Cyber Sleuth

 They almost got it right! Almost!

 While Pokemon has kept the same formula since it's creation, Digimon has always struggled for an identity, reinventing itself with each game. Heck, while the Pokemon anime has been kept stagnant since, like, forever, recycling the same formula over and over again, Digimon has had clearly defined seasons, with its own concepts, heroes and stories.

 And now we get to Cyber Sleuth, and I'd say Namco finally got it right. Kinda. Y'see, the battle system is fantastic, it flows fast, but has depth and it's actually fun to play. I also love having my 'mons running behind me, it helps that I've always loved Digimon's designs far more than Pokemon's. The game's story is surprisingly dark, with a few rather mature themes mixed with the more lighthearted otaku-culture centered set-up. The supporting cast is a bit bidimensional, but I can forgive that.

 But where the game falters is with how raising Digimons work. Firstly, the memory capacity is a total downer, since Digimon have different 'sizes' and you can't go over the memory capacity, and each digievolution makes them heavier. It sucks. It's specially annoying when 'Hacker Skills', which are needed to progress through dungeons are tied to how many Digimon and of which type you are carrying. To add insult to injury, there's an 'ABI' stat that rises every time you digivolve or devolve your 'mon. Chances are you won't be able to reach Mega on your first time through, so you'll have to devolve your mons, which translates into a ton of grinding. I just spent about 5 hours grinding, and even after meeting the ABI requirements, some of my stats didn't, which meant I had to train my 'mons on the Digifarm, and training requires at least half an hour of real time. It's really annoying. Specially because De-volving should be a reward in itself, since you can go through alternate evolution paths and get different skills this way. It works really well, but the ABI requirements are just ridiculous. FIVE HOURS GRINDING. FIVE.

 I actually got jealous of an NPC, while I had to devolve my Metalgreymon. TWICE(Which meant getting Greymon to level 30 three times total, which isn't fun) in order to meet the ABI requirement, and NPC gets an Agumon turned into a Wargreymon. For free. FOR FREE. Like, seriously? I've to grind my butt off and she just gets him for free? SERIOUSLY?

 What I liked:
- The story. It's relatively interesting, with surprisingly mature themes thrown into the mix.
- The combat. It's fast and fun.
- The Digimons. They look badass and you can have them running behind you.
- The presentation. The game looks beautiful, both character models and environments.

 What I didn't like:
- The ABI stat. It translates into grinding, and that's its only purpose.
- The translation. They... they goofed a lot. For instance, there's a Digimon called Bakemon, and Bakemono means monster in Japanese. Well, when talking about the Eaters, a special kind of enemy, sometimes characters refer to them as 'Bakemono' or 'Monsters'... the translators didn't get the memo, and call them Bakemon. They.... they really screwed up. I also came around about three different instances of having to pick an option from between two or three... except that it's only ONCE sentence that takes up two to three lines on the text box. Seriously? And it's a bit surprising, since you can tell that they had fun writing the dialogue.
- The DLC. Getting the Asia version means that I couldn't get the BlackAgumon and BlackGabumon DLCs, but even worse, there's paid DLC Digimon. Just imagine if Pokemon started selling their mons? At least they've patched some free Digimons, but still....

 What can I say, after playing the horrible Ar Tonelico 3 I kinda lost all hope on modern JRPGs, but Cyber Sleuth is really good. Like, REALLY good. Sure, some of the character designs are a bit pandering, but they don't go overboard with gratuitous camera angles or anything of the sort.

Review #314: PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale

 The first worthy rival to Smash?

 When it comes to games trying to be like Super Smash Bros, I feel like none has ever come close. And then came Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale. What is PASBR? It's four on four fighting game, with simple controls, stage hazards and items to grab and cause havoc on the arena. Just like Smash, there's no life bars here, but instead of having to throw combatants off the platform, you have to land Special attacks to score points. Something to keep in mind, buying the PS3 version allows you to link the disc to your account, which nets you a free downloadable copy on the PSVita!

 When it comes to modes, the game skimps out a bit when compared to the competition. There's Tournament Mode, which is online only and seems to reset every few weeks or so, Offline and Online VS, which can be played against up to three CPUs as well. As for Single Player, there're Trials, a 'general' set of trials as well as trials specific to each character... although they are more or less the same to be honest. Then there's Practice, Tutorial and Arcade, Arcade having unique, fully voiced, intros and endings for each character, even the four DLC characters. Mind you, their stories are nothing to write home about, but they bothered to do them, which is nice. I didn't play the Arcade Mode on the PS3 as much as I did on the Vita, but on the Vita version, every now and then, the Arcade Mode would glitch and I would get no voice overs during the intros, endings and rival cutscenes, and no music during fights.

 The game offers 20 characters, plus 4 DLC characters. As far as DLC characters is concerned, the first two were free for a limited time, and the latter 2 could be gotten for free by buying one of the God of War games, so it's not too bad. Each character also comes with an unlockable costume, as well as purchasable costumes. Normally, I wouldn't complain about cosmetic DLC, like costumes, but Sony went out of their way to be as much in-your-face as possible with it. Going to a character's profile will have the costume listed, with the unlock condition being 'purchase at the Store'. Selecting a character will allow you to go through a character's DLC costume, alongside a conveniently placed button that takes you to the store. CPUs may wear DLC costumes during battles as well. It's incredibly tacky, and feels like Sony is constantly tugging at your wallet, trying to make you cave in and purchase those costumes, which I find it to be ArkSys-level disgusting. That aside, the character roster leaves a bit to be desired as well. Where's Crash? Spyro? They defined Playstation during its first console. And what is a Big Daddy or Isaac Clark doing here? If you were gonna have third party characters at least add characters like Lara Croft, who was synonymous with Playstation back in the day(Even though her games were on PC as well!), So yeah, the roster could've been better, plus, I feel like none of these characters have as much star power as Nintendo's classics, though maybe that's just the Nintendo fanboy in me talking.

 When it comes to gameplay, you have three attack buttons at your disposal: Triangle, Square and Circle, and holding different directions when pressing the buttons performs different attacks, for a total of 15 different attacks per character, not counting the aerial attacks. Something that I thought was genius, due to how simple yet fun to perform is, was having throws being done by tapping the right analog stick! IT works fantastically and made throws fun to use! L button guards, and tapping a direction in conjunction with it performs a dodge, there's even aerial dodges! Lastly, the R button performs the special attacks. Controls, as a whole, are spot on, and characters have diverse movesets. Plus, the overall 'feel' of the game is very, very tight. No other Smash-like game has gotten the physics so right before, movement is as fast and as loose as a game like this requires, and the physics are floaty enough as to allow for aerial combos, but it doesn't feel awkward. It's hard to explain, but if you play... say, Cartoon Network Punchtime Explosion and then Playstaton ASBR, you'll notice how much better it feels.

 Landing attacks doesn't cause damage, but instead increases your AP meter, which has three levels, each one corresponding to a different Special Attacks. And landing these are the only way to score points. Special Attacks are very different between each other, but as a general rule, Level 1 Specials are hard to land, and easy for enemies to hit you before you land them and thus cancel them, Level 2 Specials are instantaneous and cover a wide area while Level 3 affects every enemy. Honestly, I felt like Specials were a bit uneven, both between character and between the specials themselves on a single character. Take Heihachi's level 3, he instantly kills everyone for a total of 3 points, and that's it. While Isaac's or Sackboy's gives enemies a chance to avoid it, but allows you to score even more points! But let's go back to Heihach, his level 2 has the potential to net you more than three points, since it's active for a while, in which Kuma comes to aid you, and any enemy he attacks, he instantly kills for an extra point. And if you have two levels on the AP gauge, you can't just use a level 1 special twice, you have to use the level 2. Still, it's a bit of a conundrum, I feel. If you make all the Special attacks identical between characters, then you lose individuality, but in this case some Specials are blatantly better than others. And you could argue that Smash Bros Final Smashes have the same issue, which is true, but Final Smashes aren't as integral to scoring points as specials are on this game. But I digress, I think, considering how the game works, they did the best they could.

 And you gotta give them bonus points for the Stages, each stage is a fusion of two franchises. God of War and Patapon, Parappa the Rappa and Metal Gear, Ape Escape and Killzone, etc. And yes, there's a ton of clashing between visual styles, but it's not jarring, it's fun, specially if you know what comes from what franchise! And using a character nets you points, and as you 'level up' your rank, you unlock an extra costume, more taunt, more victory music, more victory poses, etc. It's a lot of extras for each individual character!

 Alright, so the PS3 is the ideal version to play the game, but only because it looks better. And offline multiplayer. And I mean that, the Vita version, while it doesn't look as good, runs very smoothly, and it has everything the PS3 version has, only that the graphics aren't as good. Loading times, on the Vita, can also be a bit long, but it's not too bad.

 I feel like Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale is the first worthy rival to Smash Bros. It feels really good, controls are tight, and a lot of creativity went into the different stages and character movesets. The Character roster could've been a bit better, there're a bit too many guns(Radic, Drake, Dante, Ratchet, Jak, Isaac and Sweet Tooth all have guns as part of their movesets!) and not enough iconic characters(Big Daddy? Isaac? New Dante over Classic Dante?(And I liked new Dante!) Raiden? Gimme Crash, Lara Croft, Solid Snake, how about a Final Fantasy rep?) Still, overall it's a fun Smash-like fighter, with a bit less party, but a bit more 'fighty' feel to it.
 8.0 out of 10

Now Playing: PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale

 Surprisingly good.

 So, funny story, I actually bought the PS3 version, but it comes with the Vita version, for free, so I kinda downloaded it on the Vita, and started playing it there and... it seems that's the version I'm gonna play until I dabble into multiplayer!

 I've played a ton of Smash clones, and they always get the 'feeling' wrong. Movement always feels too floaty, too loose or too stiff, and it happens to every single one of them. Onimusha - Blade Warriors, Cartoon Network's Punchtime Explosion, Jump Ultimate Stars, TMNT Smash up, TMNT - Melee, Tales of Vs.... none get it just right, unless they do their own thing(Like, say, One Piece Grand Adventure, the Godzilla Gamecube games(Which, although I disliked it, at leas movement felt right) or Powerstone). Bottom line is, Smash Clones always feel off, always.... Until Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale came along. Damn, they got the movement just right. It's tight, but fast, the jumping is just the right amount of floaty to allow juggling without feeling weird. So right off the bat, extra 10 points for getting it right.

 Still, my biggest beef comes with the roster. Playstation's most iconic? Big Daddy, the guy from the multiplat Bioshock franchise? Is Fat Princess really that important to Sony? Raiden over Solid Snake? And Reboot Dante? I like new Dante, and I understand Capcom had to promote their new game, but classic Dante, the 'iconic' one, not even as an alternate costume?? And where's Lara Croft? Crash? Spyro? But more importantly, who thought giving Cole two different spots was a good idea? If he has a 100% different moveset from regular Cole I'm gonna be a bit bothered, since it means that he could've taken the spot of another character(Even though reusing a character model is cheaper than making a new one from scratch) Something named 'Playstation's All Stars' carries a certain expectations, and those expectations are not met. Not for people following the brand since its roots. Or since the Ps2, like I did(I've always been more of a Nintendo dude).

 As for the overall gameplay... I liked it. I only did the tutorial and a few of Dante's trials, but they gave me a clear idea of the overall gameplay, and I like it. It's similar enough to Smash Bros so as to make Smash players feel comfortable, but different enough as to maintain interest. Did you know? There's three attack buttons here, even though there are not tilt attacks(Or rather, Smash attacks?). As for the special attacks, I think it could've been handled better. Giving each character different Specials means that not all specials are equally as useful, but the problem surfaces when it comes to a character's specific specials. Take Dante, his level 1 is much more useful than the second one, since its easier to aim, but if you've built 2 bars of specials, you can't use the level 1 move twice, instead, you have to use the level 2 special.

 Still, overall, I'm impressed, I like it.

Review #313: Ar Tonelico Qoga - Knell of Ar Ciel

 A sad reminder of what JRPGs have turned into.

 A few years ago I played Ar Tonelico 1. While I was bored with it every now and then, it wasn't too bad. Then again, Ar Tonelico was one of the Japanese Fanservice waifu moe games™, which is the kind of games I dislike, so I skipped the second one. And then I saw gameplay from Qoga(Ar Tonelico 3), and damn, it looked just like Tales of! I had to play it. And play it I did.

 The story.... the story is Ar Tonelico 1 gone full Japan. Seriously, I felt like I was playing Ar Tonelico 1 all over again. Let's start with the three Reyvateils(Basically, Songstresses), Finnel(The brunette) is a flanderized version of Mischa from AT 1, Saki is a flanderized version of Aurica, and the third Reyvateil looks exactly like the third Reyvateil from AT 1. Even their backgrounds are VEEEEEEERY similar, only more moe. There's also an Ayatane look-alike, because why not. It's hard to explain, but the way the story progresses also feels a whole lot ton like Ar Tonelico 1. Then we have the 'Vanguards', also known as the 'three other guys that form the party'. there's the main character, Aoto, who's your generic 'I WANT TO PROTECT X!!!!' anime hero with not a single drop of originality to him, there's Tatsumi, who's plot twist is given away 4 hours into the game, and then there's Gojo who barely gets any development, and what little development he gets, its during non-voiced cutscenes, because who cares about Gojo? As for the dialogue, it was laughable, I found myself laughing out loud at times, due to how cringy or stupid it all was. It's also filled to the brim with generic Anime situations, like the accidental boobgrab and what not. Not to mention the plot threads that are mentioned but kept.. dangling never to be addressed again, right Aoto? The cosmospheres are back, which are basically sidequests which delve deeper into a Reyvateil subconscious... which can be funny, but they are a way to simulate character development, except that at the end of the day, its just filler, the girls will behave like they've always behaved. They don't grow, they don't evolve, they stay as generic waifu stereotypes. Did I mention that this game goes full Japan? The girls get stronger as they get rid of their clothes. Yup. And instead of costumes, now the girls get 'personalities', which is a way to get even more generic waifu stereotypes into the game, the 'mature sexy lady', the 'sexy secretary', the 'sexy assassin', the 'sexy cat-like nekomimi girl', etc. Which, y'know, there's definitely an audience for these games, except that I'm not part of it. Now then, if you happen to like this type of game, there's about 8 different endings depending on when you finish the game, and a few choices you get to make throughout the game.

 I've stopped talking about graphics when it comes to games because it's something entirely subjective, and unless I want to note how much I enjoyed the visual style, or the art direction, I don't usually bring it up. But Ar Tonelico 3 looks incredibly underwhelming. I hate it when people say 'it looks like a 'insert a console' game', but Ar Tonelic Qoga does look like a PS2 game, a very sharp PS2 game, but a PS2 game nonetheless. Environments are simple to a fault, while dungeons are fully 3D, the towns are completely done in 2D, so you've got 3D models running around 2D planes, which looks terrible. The character models are disgustingly simple as well, with little in the way of shadows on them, and are very non-detailed. Dungeons are pretty bland as well, not only will they bring back memories from AT1(Which might be a good thing?) but sometimes they are even interchangeable with each other, with little to set them apart between each other.

 It doesn't stop there, the game feels fairly amateurish as a whole. When moving around dungeons, you'll notice a few hiccups. For instance, the jump button will have a hard time working when you are walking down a slope. Or running down stairs will have your character running on air for a few seconds. And try to aim a jump towards an object, it's not unusual to be able to stand on the side of an object. These aren't very annoying, since they have no negative, or positive, impact on the gameplay, but.... on battles, your attacks may not come out if you are too close to an ally. Y'see, when you press square, your character automatically runs towards the enemy before executing an attack, but if an ally is in the way, instead of running around him, your character will stop dead on his tracks in front of said ally. Fun. Once, my CPU ally stopped moving after I run onto him, and I had to move out of the way in order for him to remember how to move. This doesn't happen on Tales of games!

 And it's a valid comparison to make, seeing how it seems to borrow so much from its combat system. Battles are engaged through good, old, random encounters, and they take place in real time. Your party is made up of three vanguards and one Reyvateil(There's only three vanguards, but you can switch the Reyvateils, from each of the three girls... and their personas), the Reyvateils starts singing automatically at the start of a battle, and she confers passive bonuses to the rest of the party, although you can order her to shoot her magic at your will. As for the Vanguards, you can play as any of them, and they deal close-ranged attacks, their job being to protect the Reyvateil. Except that there's not much  they can do to keep enemies away from the Reyvateil. Y'see, in a Tales game, you can usually see everything that's going on, not so much here, the camera is zoomed in too close to your character, so you'll never have a clear picture of where is each enemy. I mean, you could press X to freeze the action, since its the 'Use Magic' button, see where is everything, and then cancel out of it. The targeting system is terrible as well, because there's none. When you press Square, your character will choose an enemy to attack, based on... I don't know what. Vanguards have a basic three hit combo with the square button, and holding a direction on the directional pad while pressing Square will produce a special attack. It sounds decent, but there's no combo system, no nothing. There's no nuance to the combat. Oh, wait, pressing Square according to the songs tempo will enlarge the heart gauge faster, allowing you to 'purge' the Reyvateil's clothes faster, which makes them stronger. Yeah... Japan. Except that you purge by holding a shoulder button and shaking the joystick, which isn't very responsive.

 Did I mention that your vanguards have a hard time keeping the enemies away from the Reyvateils? That's because A) The camera is terrible, so it's easy for enemies to get to them while you can't see them. B) The AI is terrible, so you can't count on them, nor can you tweak their strategies. C) Your attacks have no knockback. If you, and the CPU, decide to gang up on an enemy you can stunlock him in place though, but if an enemy decides to ignore you and make a run for it, they are gonna get to the Reyvateil. Mind you, the circle button is an 'emergency attack' that will knock back the enemy, but it has a cooldown period. Still, the combat is so easy, that even if they get to the Reyvateil, you'll never be in danger of losing a battle. But I don't mind the combat being easy, I mind it being so limited and dull. The combat is not fun, there's no strategy, and there's no style, which turns combat into a chore. I found myself longing for Ar Tonelico's 1 combat, at least it had more substance to it.

 The exploration is dull as well. Towns have very few secrets, if any at all, so exploring them isn't very fun. Dungeons are dull and tedious, sometimes with labyrinthine roads, probably to make up for the tedium of them not having any sort of puzzle or stuff to solve. As mentioned previously, they aren't even interesting to look at or memorable. The only thing that made them stood out was how much they reminded me of Ar Tonelico 1's dungeons. And for whatever reason, when buying equipment, you can't compare the stats between the item on the store and what you've got equipped. It's Final Fantasy 1 all over again, where have all those years of evolution the JRPG genre went through gone to?

 I've admitted that Ar Tonelico 1 bored me at times. This is Ar Tonelico 1 all over again, times ten. It's even worse thanks to how dull the combat system is. How boring dungeons are. How stupid the story and its characters are. How creepy the premise is. Ar Tonelico Qoga is nothing more than a sad, sad reminder of what JRPGs have turned into. Breath of Fire IV, I'm sorry for calling you 'ordinary', compared to this, you were a shining diamond.
 3.0 out of 10