Review #482: Bloody Roar 2

Furries rejoice!

Hey, there, Gado, I heard you are the new final Boss now?

 Bloody Roar 1 was a very original fighting game back in the day, I mean, you could turn your humans into furries versions of themselves. It was definitely a button masher, not much depth to it, but it was fun to play thanks to the long combo strings each character had and the simplicity of it all. Bloody Roar 2 is exactly the same in that regard, it's not deep, it's very simple... but it's also a load of fun.

 The game offers these modes: Arcade, an 8-man ladder, Story, a 6-to-8 fight ladder accompanied by fantastic hand-drawn stills, Survival, self explanatory, VS Player and Custom VS. Custom VS can be played against another player or another CPU, and it's a mode in which you can alter a few mechanics, like turning on side-stepping, making everything cancel into everything or having characters look super deformed, these options must be unlocked, however, by fulfilling a few conditions like clearing Arcade without using a continue. As for characters, Yugo the Wolf, Alice the Rabbit, Gado the Lion and Long the Tiger return, Jenny the Bat takes Fox the Fox's place, while Stun the Insect and Busuzima the Chamaeleon borrowed some moves from Greg the Gorilla and Mitsuko the Boear, then there's a teenage Bakuryu the Mole, the successor to Bloody Roar 1's Bakuryu. There're three other new charactes with new moves, kinda, Shina the Leopard, Uriko the Half-beast and Shenlong the Tiger, who actually uses Long's BR1 moveset. It's a neat 11-character roster

This game's aesthetics are fantastic.

 Bloody Roar 2 plays pretty much exactly like the previous game, there's a punch and a kick button, while circle is used to turn into your beast form, and then acts as a third attack button. Beast Mode lasts as long as your beast gauge has some energy in it, but you lose it as you get hit, once out of Beast Mode you must fill the entire gauge again, by landing hits, in order to transform again. Beast Rave has been removed entirely, and in its place are Beast Drives, devastating super moves that drain your gauge completely and turn you back into a human. Beast Drives are much better than Beast Rave, if you ask me.

 Bloody Roar 2 looks much better than the first one, animations are smoother and the character models are prettier. Moves flow much better into each other, and it feels like a faster game. The character designs are much better too, I don't miss any of the characters that didn't return since their successors are much cooler or interesting.

Japanese fighting games don't tend to have this much blood in them.

 Bloody Roar 2 is so much better and polished than the first game that it makes it hard to go back to 1. Sure, it's missing a few characters, but I'd rather play as any of the newcomers from the sequel, plus, Beast Rave didn't work too well while Beast Drives are an interesting new mechanic. The game is still a button-masher, however, so people looking for something deep should look elsewhere.
 8.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Bloody Roar 2

 How can a roar be bloody? You spit blood as you roar?

Gado looks just like Rugal now.

 I don't know on which game I spent more time playing back when I was younger, Bloody Roar 2 or 3, but dang, is 2 good.

 Apparently, the game's reception was... lukewarm to say the least, people said that it was the same game but with more characters... but it isn't. Kinda.
 First of all, they got rid of the sillier characters(Fox, Greg, Old Bakuryu and Mitsuko(Which I think was the only interesting design of the four)) and replaced them with newer, cooler characters like Bakuryu 2, Jenny the Bat, Shina the Leopard(Quite badass), Stun the Insect and... well, Uriko is kinda cute and Buzusima is weird, but the game needed a weirdo. The artstyle is so much better, the game looks so much better, moves flow into each other much more smoothly and the game feels much faster.

 Like, the game isn't so different from the first one, but all the little enhancements and tweaks do add up for a much better game. And, by the by, this game totally fits into my October Halloween Extravaganza, I mean, I've braved Vampires, Skeletons, Deadites, Ghosts and even Natural Disasters, now I have to take on werewolves.

...and werelions. And wereleopards. And weremoles. And insect people.

Review #481: Raw Danger!

 Open the floodgates!

Just so you know, the Localization Team made everyone blonde because 'Murica.

 Welcome to Raw Danger, a survival game in which you must survive a flood catastrophe. It's a very original and unique game that's pretty much one of a kind on the PS2, barring the original game of course.

 The story takes place in an Island City, in which a dam breaks and the whole city starts falling apart. There're 6 different scenarios and 6 different characters, all of them intertwined and taking place throughout the 24th, 25th and 26th of December. What really makes this game special is how choices you make affect the subsequent chapters. Each chapter has a ton of choices for the player to make, some are merely cosmetical or superfluous, while others can either impact how the present chapter pans out or things about the remaining stories. Heck, there're a couple of different endings for every chapter as well as the overall ending, and depending on what you do on the first chapter, you will get an alternate chapter 6 with an alternate character. Frankly, the story itself gets sillier and generic-er as the conspiracy starts unraveling but, but the way the game treats your choices makes it very enjoyable to go through, it's always fun seeing how something you did before is affecting this other character. Which also means that there's a very high replayability factor here.

There's rarely a dull moment in Raw Danger!

 What you should know before taking the plunge is that the game is very wonky at a technical level. The game is very, very ugly but to its merit, it completely nailed the atmosphere it wanted, everything looks and feels cold, damp and wet, so bonus points there. But even setting aside how ugly character models are, the clunkiness extends to the gameplay, as you'll notice that collision detection can be a bit off at times. The game is very forgiving, and the poor collision detection can either work in your favor or against you. Oh, and pushing objects around is horrible, luckily it's not something you'll be doing very often. And then there's the framerate, which can get pretty horrid pretty often, all the rain and water effects do take a toll on the poor, ol' PS2.

 But if you can look aside its technical flaws, you'll discover a very enjoyable survival/adventure game. There are no enemies to be beaten, although villains are involved, you don't have any means of offence, instead, your main objective is surviving. There's no traditional health meter in here, but rather, you must keep your Body Temperature(BT) in check, as the rain and/or the flooded streets will dampen your colds, in turn making your BT decrease faster. As it lowers you'll lose the ability to run, and eventually, fall unconscious(Meaning, Game Over). Luckily, the game is very forgiving, at least on the normal difficulty setting. Savepoints are rather frequent, and they can dry all your clothes and fill your BT gauge to the top, hassle free.

Water's your biggest in the game.

 There're a ton, and I do mean a TON of items laying around that you can pick up, but do be careful, carrying capacity is limited. Heck, often times you're better off leaving items on the ground, as you'll come back to a few places with the other characters, and you don't want to leave them without supplies, now do you? There're a few Trash Containers in which you can deposit items for other characters to pick up if they come across the same container, or drop them with a recurring NPC. As for the items, they come in a wide variety, you've got the mandatory key items require to handle obstacles, there's food that can be cooked for a temporary BT protection, as well as heat pads or energy drinks that also prevent your BT from lowering for a while, as well as various clothes. Clothes are either cosmetics or some do offer some extra protection from the water and cold.

 Overall, Raw Danger is a fantastic, unique game on the PS2. All the choices you can make, all the items there're for you to collect and the interesting mechanics make for a very engaging experience that makes no two playthroughs the same. That said, you've got to be willing to forgive its technical shortcomings.
 8.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Raw Danger!

 And not it's time for natural disasters.

Look at their hands!

 It's still October, and I've fought Skeletons, Vampires, Psychic nutjobs and zombies, but there's one type of horror I haven't delved in yet.... Natural disasters. I actually wanted to play Disaster Report first, but it's a bit hard to find, so the sequel will do for now.

 I just spent 30 minutes, a few more if you count the tutorial, and damn boy, where has this game been hiding all my life? The entire set-up was brilliant, the whole party thing, having to act like a waiter, a ton of different decisions(Some that alter how things play out!), attention to detail(I grabbed the bag before the game told me so, so guests asked about it!) and then, the arrival of the flood. The pacing and the setting make for a sublime first impression.

 Movement is a bit clunky, to be fair, and moving stuff around(That step ladder!) is an absolute nightmare, but I think the game's charm and originality will pull through its technical problems.

Review #480: Resident Evil 6

 It only took me, what? About a year?

That's the ugliest 6 I've ever seen.

 Resident Evil 6 was very polarizing to say the least. Back when it first released, it was subject to either very high scores or very low scores, Destructoid's Jim Sterling even gave it a brutal 3 out of 10. After playing through the game.. I think it's high time people realized that Resident Evil was always about the action first and stop being so harsh on 4, 5 and 6!

 The story... is divided into 4 interwoven, 5-chapter campaigns. First we've got Chris and Piers', who you are told is the most action based... which is a lie, it's got as many chase sequences and vehicle sequences as the rest, and it even has its slow, horrory moments. Then there're Sherry and Jake's, who's campaign follows Resident Evil 3 scheme... except not, the Ustanak, this game's 'Nemesis', is just another element of a bigger setpiece, always appearing when the script says so, and there's always one way of taking him out or avoiding him. There're chase and vehicle sequences too. Leon and Helena have the next campaign, touted as the one focused on horror... which is not true either, the first two chapters are glorious, yes, but the next three feature just as many vehicle and chase sequences as the rest. The final campaign is unlocked after finishing the other three and is the plot dump campaign in which the 'why' and 'how's are explained. There're vehicle and chase sequences too. What I mean to say is... the idea that all four campaigns are focused on different themes or gameplays is a lie, all four campaigns are pretty much the same. As for the overall story.. it's pretty silly, although it tries to take itself more seriously than ever before, there're no crazy scientists, mad dragqueens or weird, pale midgets. Overall, the story was entertaining enough, but not something that moved me or hooked me.

The chaos had never been this much wide-spread before. The stakes are higher than they've ever been in REvil.

 I think that dividing the game into four campaigns was a mistake though. I would've much preferred a more focused campaign, and one that didn't move in a breakneck speed. Y'see, something that will probably turn off quite a few is the fact that the game advances in a set-piece to set-piece fashion. There's never a dull moment, and if the action slows down is because something is about to happen soon. Even Leon's first two chapters, which are rather slow-paced, are like this. Sidenote, the first two chapters in Leon's campaign are exactly what a story-driven Zombie game should be like. Overall, the game is rather lengthy, chapters take about an hour to complete, Leon having the longest chapters(Some going as far as 1:30) while Ada has the shortest(Most shouldn't break an hour).

 As far as gameplay goes, it's pretty much an evolved version of Resident Evil 5's over-the-should third-person shooting mechanics. There're a ton of new maneuvers, not only can you move while aiming, you can also dodge to the sides or even jump back. You can lay on the floor or roll on the floor as you aim and shoot! While characters are as heavy to turn and as agile as a sack of sand, the new abilities do make for more frantic action. Melee can now be performed at will by tapping R1, although the really strong melee moves are reserved for dazed enemies, by hitting their limbs. There's a new stamina gauge that governs how much you can use your melee attacks, so you can't just spam them. Overall, I adored the new additions to the gameplay.

For as many complaints as the camera received, I felt it was just fine.

 One thing I really liked were the new enemies, the J'Avo. These monsters will mutate in different ways depending on where you harm them. Hit their torsos? They might develop an armored body. Hit their legs? Now they turn into half-man-half-flesh-grasshopper-thing. While there's not a huge amount of variety, there was enough to keep things interesting. Leon and Helena get exclusive enemies in the form of zombies, which may mutate into red zombies, as well as fat and screaming zombies, but I didn't care too much about them, same old, same old.

 There's a new Skill system in place too, sometimes enemies or boxes may drop skill points when felled, which can then be used on different passive skills. While you can only have three at a time, finishing the game lets you have up to eight different, three-skill sets to switch around mid-gameplay. A ton of people disliked the new system since 'you may be running out of ammo or health and get skill points instead', but... how the hell did you run out of ammo? Health is restored to full upon dying and restarting on a checkpoint, so being low on life is no excuse, and as for ammo... if you are using your melee attacks, which if you've been playing REvil since 4 you should know how strong and useful they are, you shouldn't be hurting for ammo. I will admit that ammo is limited, but I never, EVER found myself without ammo. EVER.

Some setpieces are shared between campaigns, if you play online, you can have four different players together at times!

 I've heard horror tales about AI Sheva's uselessness in REvil 5, but I found AI allies to be pretty darn useful. They've removed their inventories, so the will never pick up stuff, which is good news for people that play in Single Player, although the real-time menu remains, which is kinda annoying in my opinion. They've tweaked how herbs work, and you must now store them in your pellet case and then eat them as individual pellets? It's kinda cumbersome, since it involves going through a second inventory(Directional pads switches weapons, triangle is your entire inventory) just to put them inside the case. It also doesn't make much sense what your maximum capacity of pellets is, since sometimes it wouldn't let me store them even though I shouldn't be hitting the max. Weird.

 Still, the worst returning offender is, or rather, are... the QTEs. There're way too many QTEs, and they are incredibly annoying, as per usual. And you CAN turn them off... if you set the difficulty to amateur. Seriously??? I read some complaints about the camera, and while it is true that I felt that your character took up way too much screen time, it never got in my way. I always knew what was going on and didn't have issues figuring out where to go, and no, I didn't have the patch that let you zoom-out the camera. My only issue with the camera is during the way too frequent chase-sequences. which have you and your partner escaping from different things while the camera does its best to disorient you. Speaking of disorienting, Capcom thought it'd be cute to give all four couples a different HUD, which can be a bit of a shock until you get used to them.

The game looks amazing, and the framerate is pretty stable to boot.

 Mercenaries return, although there are only 3 scenarios. Mercenaries is a mini-game, unlocked from the start, that has you trying to defeat as many enemies that you can while under a time limit, which can be extended in various ways. There're unlockable costumes for every character, but the guys get stupid, joke costumes and the girls get fetishistic slutty cop costumes, basically, none are worth it. There's a new, online-only, mode, 'Agent Hunt', in which you can invade other people's campaigns and play as the monsters, trying to kill the players. I didn't get to try it out, but it sounds amusing.

 In an era where games had already started to be released incomplete, Resident Evil 6 is quite the package, featuring a very lengthy campaign, with a few neat extras. Look, if you're a die-hard Classic Resident evil fan, this game won't sway you, and the new setpiece-to-setpiece pace will probably alienate a few, but as someone who likes this brand of third person shooters, with heavy and slow characters and the horror elements.... I can't help but like the game a lot. That said, I think I prefer Resident Evil 5 for the simple fact that it had a more focused campaign, and one that had much better pacing. Look, the setpiece-to-setpiece approach makes for a very exciting game, but there's not much build up, and as such, these epic, semi-scripted moments lose a lot of their impact. And as much as I adored the new gameplay elements, the campaigns get very repetitive with the multiple tacked-on vehicle and chase sequences. And the QTEs need to follow in the way of the dinosaurs.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #479: Corpse Party - Blood Drive

 This game is a corpse, but there's no party to be had playing it.

Damned, tempting extras at a low price!

 So there I was, browsing Play-Asia for a new purchase and I came across Corpse Party Blood Drive's Everafter Edition at 20 bucks. 20 bucks. It came with a fancy box, an artbook and a soundtrack CD, of course I had to buy it. I had to. Plus, it was a franchise I was looking to get into, even the 3DS re-release of the first game was on my sights. Was. After playing through Blood Drive I've no intention of ever dabbling in it again. Ever.

 I came at Blood Drive knowing NOTHING about the previous games... which is a big mistake. Blood Drives assumes you've played previous games, even the ones that never made it outside Japan, and if you want to get the full experience, it's better if you've dabbled in side material too. Still, while I got half the plot, what little I got I despised. Where should I start? There're overly long drawn-out descriptions of things that happen all the time, which are so boring to read. And this comes from someone who adores visual-novel styled games like Phoenix Wright, Danganronpa and Lux Pain, to name a few. The dialogue and script are very poorly written, it's hard to take anything that's happening seriously when everything sounds so... like it's trying so hard to be 'cool' using profanity and expletives, which has the offset of coming out as very cringey since the game uses a super-deformed style for the 3-D graphics, and the 2-D art is so childish and looks like your average, generic anime. And it tries so hard when it comes to describing gory stuff, it tries SO hard, but it's so hard to take seriously. And the characters? Every single character is a walking anime trope. You've even got Magari who represents everything wrong about anime, walking in a glorified string bikini while inside a zombie infested, decrepit and rundown school. It makes no sense and looks so stupid that makes it impossible to take anything that's going on seriously. As for the plot itself, EVEN if I knew the series' background I would have found it boring and cliched, ending with the characters having to save the entire world. I'm not kidding.

Ayumi is an idiot, coming back to Heavenly Host was a big mistake, and so was joining her in her quest.

 And when the game isn't boring you to tears, you'll be walking around the Heavenly Host high, a rundown highschool filled with zombies, ghosts, fleshy red things on the walls and broken floors. The entire gameplay portions of the game takes place in here, and all you'll be doing is running around, collecting items, solving puzzles(all of them are of the 'put the correct item in here' variety) while avoiding pursuers and traps on the ground. But nothing works well, nothing.

 Let's start with exploration: You've no map and everything looks the same. Seriously, there's no way to know where you are because there're no unique landmarks or what have you to guide you. And you have to go round and round and round searching for objects that need to be used in different places in order to proceed. The game is divided in 10 chapters, and every single time you'll have to retread old ground since for whatever reason objects appear out of thin air from chapter to chapter. It doesn't make sense. It's particularly egregious in a few chapters that after triggering something, new stuff appears in rooms you've already been to, with no hint whatsoever, so you are expected to go round and round and round and round again, examining every single room, again. It's so boring.

It looks scary, but it isn't. Trust me, I was deceived too.

 You are given a flashlight, which runs on batteries, but.... by pressing Select you can make batteries unlimited. Just like that. Your character also seems to run out of stamina pretty fast, which is supposed to make it so that you simply can't run away from pursuers, but... it makes exploration a drag, since you walk oh, so slowly. Plus, every now and then you'll be given choices 'enter the hole or 'do nothing', 'trust her' or 'ignore her', and if you choose the wrong answer... you lose. Just because. It's not fun, these 'bad endings' are interesting either since you don't even get a CG, just a boring, over-drawn description of what murdered you. Hopefully you saved earlier, because it's always fun to lose because of a random event that has a 50-50 chance of survival.

 As mentioned before, there're pursuers in the game, usually black ghosts. Once one tracks you, it will pursue you until you die or you run an absurdly long amount of time. You can hide in closets, but every single time I tried it I got caught, or... you can run towards a save spot, save and reload. Bang, the pursuer is gone. That's what I did, once I figured it out, since pursuers are relentless and once one spawns there's basically nothing else you can do, unless you have a Talisman which will instantly kill it. It's particularly bad because you also lose health from various traps laid on the floor, such as broken glass or splinters, which are hard to avoid when you're running away... which is probably why save spots heal you completely.

As dangerous as a super-deformed mannequin can be.

 Alright, so the exploration is boring, the chases are a drag and the visual novel parts put you to sleep, what else could the game screw up? Well, it runs like hot garbage. There're load screens everywhere: Open the menu? Loading screen. Use an item? Loading screen. Enter a room? Loading screen. And these are pretty long, 4-5 seconds affairs(Sometimes more) and they pile up because they are so frequent. The framerate is particularly pathetic, but once you turn on the flashlight, oh boy, does it get bad, hopefully you like playing as if your characters were underwater. Pro-tip, turn Flight Mode On, it makes it run a tiny bit better. I heard that the game was also prone to freezing, but I didn't come across any, albeit I did use Flight Mode most of the time I played the game.

 There's a bunch of extras to collect, like extra chapters, which are entirely in visual-novel form, and 'Name Tags', from dead alumni, and each tag comes with a colorful description of how the person died. And that's about it.

The game is probably more enjoyable if you can't understand the drivel they are spewing.

 Corpse Party - Blood Drive is a bad game. It is. Even, even if you liked the story, maybe you've never watched anime before so everything seems new to you, or maybe you're a hardcore anime nut and don't care that anime recycles tropes and cliches, even then... the game runs so poorly, it's an absolute dredge to play through. There's not a single redeeming quality in Corpse Party, and I usually like to find redeeming qualities. But there's none here. This game should've stayed in Japan, alongside the other games in the franchise that never made it through.
 0.5 out of 10

Review #478: Galerians - Ash

 Pretty Psychic Boys return, now with more Aliens and less Friday the 13th.

Now with more sci-fi and less horror.

 Remember Galerians? You probably don't, it was this obscure PS1 survival horror game featuring kids with psychic powers. But that's OK, the game uses footage from the movie, Galerians - Rion, to provide a lengthy recap... or you could read the game's instruction booklet for an even lengthier recap. The game spoils the original, so I will do so as well.

 Six years have passed since Rion gave up his life in order to stop the evil super computer Dorothy, however, Rion, being an AI, got stuck in a loop fighting her inside the data world. Lillia accesses the data world and managed to pluck Rion right out of it and download his conscience into his body, which she preserved after that faithful fight. Everything would be honky-dory, but the last remaining humans are now trapped in a building as the Last Galerians are making their way up, and guess what, only Rion can stop them. Remember how creepily eerie the first game could be? That's done, Galerians - Ash went towards the sci-fi route, specifically, Aliens. You're still fighting psychic loons and the such, but the ambiance and setting have much less horror in them, and it's more about surviving alongside the group of soldiers that distrust Rion. As for the plot itself... try not to think too hard about it.

Even the monsters lack a je ne se quoi that made the menagerie so much more creepy in the first game.

 Much has changed, but much also remains the same. Let's go over combat first: Rion now has 180 degrees of freedom when it comes to fighting, tank controls are gone, you can lock-on enemies, strafe around them, dodge around them(Circle button) and even guard by holding R1. Whereas in the previous game you had different levels of charge for your attacks, in here you have to charge the entire gauge before attacking, Nalcon being the only power that can be used with a single tap(But it's better if you charge), which takes a while getting used to if you come directly after finishing Galerians. Nalcon, Red and D-Felon, you psychic powers, return, but there're two new drugs, Bustanor, homing energy boomerangs of sorts, and Breakaron, devastating lightning. Bustanor is incredibly useful and Breakaron is incredibly powerful but you'll rarely get to use them since they come in very small supply. Also, I think you can accidentally skip them if you don't talk to the right NPC when they become available. Speaking of skipping, the Skip drug returns and now it can permanently boost any five of your powers and your shield, up to level 3, you usually get them after finishing a boss, but there's four hidden ones.

 The combat is much more fun than before, that's for sure. Each power takes a different time to charge, and you get rooted to your place when charging, but you can cancel it at any time by dodging. It's faster, and you gotta consider that every enemy is particularly susceptible to different powers: Bio-Plants fall faster to Red, human-like enemies get wrecked by D-Felon and robots can't do a thing about Bustaron(But you'd better save it up for the final bosses), and while Nalcon isn't particularly effective against anything, a few enemies resist it rather well, a tradeoff for being so plentiful I guess. There're RPG elements in place here too, every single enemy you defeat will drop a supply item or a permanent upgrade, either to your HP, AP or your maximum capacity for every drug, which means that the more you kill, the more each drug refill will last you and the more damage you'll be able to resist. Nalcon, Red and D-Felon are plentiful enough so that you can take a break to grind for stat upgrades or hope for recovery items and don't be too concerned about running out of ammo, just don't take it for granted. And the game sorta wants you to do it, enemies will respawn for a long, long while before stopping, heck, one of the hidden Skips requires defeating 600 enemies in a particular room. Yes, this means that the game went Resident Evil 4(Focusing on Action, and making ammo more plentiful) before Resident Evil 4, fancy that eh!

And you thought the Arabesques from the first game were tough!

 The AP gauge returns, for the uninitiated, AP is a gauge that once full will make Rion go berserk('Short'), he becomes invincible and every non-boss enemy dies by just looking at him funny... but it constantly saps your HP, you're reduced to a very slow walk and can only get out of it by taking a Delmetor or getting to one of the very rare, only two in the entire game, 'glowing lights' that restore your HP and AP. The system has changed a bit, for instance, you AP threshold can be extended by defeating enemies and how fast your AP rises depends on the 'radiation' of the zone you're in, other factors that make it rise higher is taking or receiving damage, shielding and dodging. While you'd think that Shorting would be beneficial for grinding, enemies defeated while Shorted drop smaller stat buffs.

 By now you probably think that the game is a banger, since the combat system is so much better. But it's not. The exploration aspect of the game is absolutely horrid. Let me tell you how the game works: You're stuck inside the top floors of a building, you are briefed at the top of the building(Floor 4) and must now find your way to floor 1(Lots o' walking and loading screens) to do whatever you need to do, many times you'll have to travel between floors doing busywork before being allowed into floor 1, afterwards you complete the mission and... must go all the way back to floor 4 and be told of some new development which has you... going down to floor 1 again, but probably taking a new route since the previous one is now blocked because reasons. That's the entire game. Well, there's another area, the Uranium Depository which must be visited twice, and the Data World which must be visited three times, and you have to repeat the same puzzles all three times because you're interrupted the previous two. But of course, you have to reach the place that you were at during your last visit and then do some more busywork. LAME. It's incredible how the got away with that one.

You make their head spin right round and round like a record baby, ro....

 Not that the puzzles are any good either, let me show you how the first 'big' puzzle in the game goes. You start off on floor 4(of course) and must get to a Warehouse. You try to open the door and it's a no go, of course, so you need to turn on the Power Generator. The next thing you have to figure out is that you have to interact with a door's button and not the door itself, otherwise it will appear as 'locked' in the map and you won't be able to open it. Fun. Now you are in floor 1, and there's no explanation as to why. Well, maybe you came across a certain key when you first came here, but since you didn't need it the game didn't let you pick it up, so hopefully you remember where it was. Alright, whatever, you're a psychic so you figure out that you need a key and that the key is here. you fetch it and go back to Floor 2, which isn't as simple as climbing a stair, you have to go from floor 1 to Laboratory 2 to Floor 3 to Floor 2. Fun times, I tell ya. Alright, you get to the generator, you enter the Start menu go to the Item label and use the key. You think you're done so you go back to the warehouse and... still no power. You go all the way back to the generator, but now you spot a broken cable. Maybe you came across a spare cable that the game didn't let you pick up because you didn't need it back then, but you remember where it was, somehow, so you go fetch it and... nothing. You actually have to examine the goddamn broken cable, because even though you aren't blind, Rion is, so unless you interacted with the broken cable you can't pick up the new spare cable. Alright, you interacted with it, got the spare cable and now you go into the menu and.... you can't use it. You have to turn off the generator, use the cable and then turn it on. You think you are done, you really think so, but... nope, now someone is standing in your way towards lab 2. So now you have to figure out that you have to talk to the dude guarding the stairs to floor 1 because NOW he feels like letting you in. I wouldn't blame you if you gave up during this entire waste of time.

 The game is very obtuse in telling you where it wants you to go next, or how to get there, so if you want to use a guide feel free to, the game loves to waste your time, be it having you retread old ground in the Data World, having you go up and down the same four floors or having incredibly annoying puzzles. Scratch that, use a guide and don't waste your time.... which is not to say that the game is devoid of fun ideas, there's a very fun mindscrew 3/4ths into the game, and it features a very WTF ending, although, all things considered, the ending is rather unfulfilling. And don't try to think too hard about some of the things that happen, or you'll find out that they make no sense or aren't properly explained. And as an added note, the game loves to be cheeky, so items only appear when you get annoyingly close to them, forcing you to comb areas if you want to find supplies.

These psychic-plants reminded me of REvil 2's zombie-plants.

 Galerians - Ash is a bit of a mess, but a mess I liked. Kinda liked? Sorta-somewhat liked at times. I liked having a bunch of new Galerians to fight and I somewhat liked a few of the characters, like Cas and grown-up Rion. Combat was fun too, thanks to the audiovisual feedback, it feels so good to shoot giant waves of fire, or have your enemies spinning up on the air. That said, Galerians Ash is for hardcore fans of the original only, and even then I'm sure that the it won't satisfy everyone, a lot of the horror elements are entirely gone, and the plot will be very hit or miss depending on your sensibilities(Yaoi fangirls rejoice), finishing the game I was left feeling unfulfilled, and the more I thought about the plot... the less I liked it.
 4.5 out of 10