Review #804: Remember Me

 Ironically forgotten by time.

 Ever since I finished Final Fantasy VII Remake I've been itching for a linear action game, the likes we don't really see anymore but FFVIIR reminded me of. Well, there was this little game nobody remembered, published by Capcom but developed by Dontnod, of Life is Strange's fame, called Remember Me. This is a very linear beat'em up with a very pervasive narrative and the mandatory parkour then-modern games made mandatory since Uncharted.

 You play as Nilin, a Memory Hunter that peculiarly got her memory stolen from her, but a mysterious character named Edge aids her in recovering her memories and finishing what she started: The dismantling of Memorize, the company that has turned memories into a currency that people sell, delete, change or trade at will. I found the story itself OK, and a few reveals later down the line felt a bit half baked, but it's alright. That said, the story had a bit more potential that wasn't explored. For instance, throughout the game Nilin will remix the memory of some people, like turning an enemy into an ally by altering their memories so that their significant other was murdered by Memorize. This character never finds out  their lover is actually alive and that their new ally, Nilin, actually tempered with their memories, how great a plot point could it have been? That aside, I enjoyed the world of New Paris, it's very Cyberpunk, with androids co-existing with civilians, while the lower class people have to be wary of Leepers, broken people that abused their memories too much. Plus, I enjoyed the fact that Nilin is kind of an anti hero, the way she manipulates peoples' minds is all sorts of screwed up!

 The narrative is a big part of the game, so if you hate it when your action games have forced walking segments.... look elsewhere, as calls between Nilin and Edge are fairly frequent. There are also a very few, very simple puzzles to solve, most of them involve using the Spammer, a digital weapon attached to Nilin's arm that works like a machinegun and runs on a gauge that refills over time. You'll have to find switches to shoot with it, objects to pull and push and, sometimes, take away the 'energy' from a machine and put it in another. It's all fairly basic and easy to figure out. On the other hand, there are a few story segments, four in all, in which you remix a person's memory, this involved a small fragment of memory that you have to remove or push forward, searching for memory glitches, which are things you can affect and alter in order to change how that memory works, the objective being finding the glitch combination that'll alter the memory in the way the game tells you to. It's not hard at all, although, to be honest, I felt they were a bit dull, I mean, I didn't care too much about these segments, although I enjoyed the concept of the Hero manipulating a character's memories.

 Movement in the game is fairly stiff, which makes the parkour climbing bits a bit spotty. A few times my jumps should've made it onto a ledge, but they simply didn't. Other times, the game auto corrected my jump while I was on the air which looked SO weird. Once again, where to go is quite obvious most of the time. That said, exploring is in your best interest, since you can find permanent upgrades to your health or your focus.

 Combat feels like a stiffer version of Batman Arkham's, tap the attack button to attack enemies, while being on the lookout for Red exclamation marks, in which case, press X to dodge. It's got a twist, however, as you can create combos using the Square and Triangle buttons. Initially, you start of with a 3-square hit combo, but as you go through the game you'll unlock a five hit combo, a six hit combo and an 8 hit combo, these latter three also using the triangle input. Defeating enemies earns you PMP points, which can then be used to unlock different combo attacks, called Pressens, that are pre-set to either Square or Triangle. Every attack deals the same damage, so it's about cosmetics... and typing. There are four types of Pressens: Power, which deal extra damage, Healing, that heal you, Cooldown, that reduce the cooldown on your Super attacks and Chain that takes the type of the attack that came before it but potentiated. It's a very interesting system, but I think it would've been even better if we could customize the inputs of the combos themselves, like, getting a three hit combo and not a 'three square combo'. I understand why this was done, it's a limitation, since a Pressen can only be in one combo at a time, so sometimes you'll have to pick whether to keep your trusty 3-hit combo or use those inputs for the longer combos, at least until you level up and can get a new Pressen.

 Throughout the game you'll also unlock 5 different S-Pressens, or Super moves. Each super move consume a Focus slot, which refills as you take and land hits, as well as its own cooldown. Cooldown Pressens will reduce the cooldown on every S-Pressen that are in cooldown period. It's a decent system, but... some fight rely on you using super moves, which sucks because it means there's a lot of cooldown waiting between your moves. For instance, the only way you can deal damage to the first boss is by using the Rage super move, that means that you have to use the super, and then.... use your combos as he blocks them in an attempt to reduce the cooldown on the super so that you can use it again. At first I couldn't believe so much of the fight was just waiting, but that was how you were supposed to fight him. Robot enemies are introduce later in the game, and they can only be hit with the Spammer, and every now and then they'll pop a barrier.... so more waiting for the barrier to go down. There were a lot of instances in which battles required some kind of waiting or trying to reduce the cooldown on you super moves, which I felt didn't jive very well. Heck, aiming with the spammer at enemies is sometimes a bit annoying, as it can be hard to get the lock-on to focus on the enemies that you need it to. Later in the game force-field enemies are introduced, which take health away from you on every hit that you land on them. This means that as soon as they are introduced you have to dedicate an entire combo string to healing pressens, otherwise you'll be fighting them at a loss, which was SO dumb. Eventually you get a Super move that can instakill any single enemy, but still.... I shouldn't be forced to retool how my combos work just for a single enemy type, I think that goes against the creative premise behind building your own combos. Oh, and by the by, every boss ends with a QTE. At least they are not too long, but still.

 Besides how janky and stiff both combat and exploration feels, I had the game crash on me once, and from what I could gather, it seems crashes are not a rare occurrence with the game. And chapter 5 has a song track SO bad I thought my disc was faulty, so I searched for a let's play and... nope, it's just that bad.

 They had a vision, they had the budget, but I don't think they had quite the technical know-how to produce the game they wanted. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad game, and it has some very neat ideas, but it feels like it was a few tweaks away from being a more memorable game.
 6.0 out of 10

Review #803: Freedom Wars

 Forever prisoner of the Vita.

 The Vita might not have had a Monster Hunter to call its own, but it sure as hell had a lot of clones, and Freedom Wars was one of the last ones to hit this underrated handheld. Think of Gods Eater meets Attack on Titan with a speck of Danganronpa, in the form of a dystopic bear mascot and you've got Freedom Wars.

 The story is set in a world in which resources are scarce, and if you're not very bright you're a Sinner who must prove its worth to its Panopticon by defeating giant monsters, called Abductors, as well as Sinners from other Panopticons. The story is kind of a mixed bag, you play as a mute amnesiac hero who slowly climbs through the ranks, gaining access to tougher missions. There's a very plain supporting cast that gets some lines here and there, and there's a bigger overarching plot regarding a mysterious waif that warns you about your destiny as her chosen one. It's not very interesting, and at times, the plot gets in the way of the game. Plenty of times before unlocking more missions you'll have to go through a ton of "Go X and speak to Y" sections that drag on for a bit too long, doesn't help that the dialogue isn't very interesting nor is the story. The setting fares a bit better, thankfully, since as a Sinner you have to earn points in order to earn more rights. Initially if you try to even walk more than 5 seconds straight you'll get a penalty in the form of added years to your sentence, and yes, it's kind of annoying, but missions are very generous with the years they take off from your sentence.

 The game plays as you'd expect: Take on missions fighting giant enemies, harvest their parts and use them to craft better equipment and then set out on harder missions. It's a satisfying gameplay loop that has proved its worth countless times already. You can take up to two different weapons with you, with could be a gun and a sword, two swords, or two guns, anything is fair game as well as a few combat items, such as health packs or grenades. You can also pick up to three different NPCs to aid you in missions, they are not completely idiotic, and if anything, they are decent bait and will regularly try to revive you before you waste a continue, plus, their deaths don't remove continues. Lastly, both you and your party have 'accessories', which are androids that you can customize who'll check that you're not breaking rules, but in combat can be customized to carry a single weapon of your choice, and, unlike other party members, they will always put reviving their Sinner as their priority.

 Every Sinner also comes equipped with a Thorn tool, of which there are three varieties: Binding, which is better at bringing abductors down, Healing, which can be used to heal other Sinners and Shield, that can be used to cover yourself as well as your allies. The thorn looks like a thorny vine gripped on your wrist, and you can use it to climb on top of Abductors or to cling on to any wall or floor. Once you get the hang of it, you can use the thorn to quickly zip around the battlefield, and it's quite fun to be honest. Instead of jumping onto an enemy, which can be useful to sever their arms, you could also use the thorn to drag them down in order to gain a few seconds worth of free hits. The more you drag them down the more resistance enemies get to the feature, but the other sinners can cast their thorns as well in order to help you.

 There's not much enemy variety, which kinda sucks. There are both biped and quadriped abductors and artillery abductors, and the game tries to add variety by equipping them with various sorts of weapon pods: Missiles, Grenades, Lasers, Shields and Miniguns, but in the end, they all work quite the same, except maybe when they come equipped with Shields, in which case you must sever those pods first if you want to inflict any damage. Afterwards, you'll fight Flying Tiger abductors, Spider abductors and, during the post game, a guest from Soul Sacrifice. And that's it. Probably, in order to add some sort of variety, they added a few different mission types, such as rescuing civilians, some which may be found inside the Abductors' bodies, in which case you can opt to either slay the Abductor or just focusing on severing the cage and rescuing the civilian, as well as missions in which you only fight other Sinners.... which are the most annoying kind of enemy to fight with Heavy Weapons, since its slow, deliberate attacks are better suited for larger targets. Thankfully, allied Sinners are really good at fighting enemy sinners. There are also some boring stealth missions, which are incredibly easy and incredibly boring. Oh, and the pick-up civilian button is the same as the pick up item button which is the same as the USE item button, which was as annoying as it sounds. Eventually I settle for bringing an open slot on my item pouch I could default to when I didn't need to use healing or to having Heat blades on my inventory, which are used to sever limbs and wouldn't go to waste if I pressed circle while standing on the ground.

 The upgrade system is, quite honestly, completely outta whack. First you need to create Weapon Facilities, since a facility can only work on a single item at a time. There are also Munition, Augmentation and Hospital facilities, and there are about 16 slots I think, and once again, each facility can only work on one request at a time. After you select what weapon you want to craft or upgrade you have to... wait. That's right, the game could have you wait anything from 10 to 22 minutes. What were they thinking? If you have time management civilians rescued you can use them to speed up the process, but still. At least the time counter goes down while the Vita is suspended, but this system is completely idiotic. Why do I have to wait before I can use my new weapon or my upgraded weapon? If I didn't have to partake in the dumb "Go X to progress the story" segments I'd just turn off the Vita for a spell and then return to the game, which is such a horrible design choice. And don't even let me get started on how hard it is to figure out what you need to kill in order to get the material you need. Sometimes it'll be called something like "Carapace: Marksman mk2", which means that now you know you need to kill a Marksman mk2.... but which mission had those? Who knows, screw you. And then you'll get something like "Synthetic generator" which doesn't even begin to clue you in on what you need to kill.

 All in all, Freedom Wars is not half bad, but I think it's far from the best Monster Hunter clones the Vita has to offer. After I finished the Story I played a few post-story missions before concluding that my time with the game had ran out and it had nothing left to offer me. I think zipping around monsters and buildings with the Thorn was pretty fun, and the combat itself is quite decent, but the game could've used more variety and better designs choices when it came to everything else.
 6.0 out of 10

Review #802: TimeShift

 Ironically forgotten by time.

 Last year I made a thread asking for a very specific kind of game, games like Dungeon Siege or Half-Life 2, in which you are always moving forward, and always in control, y'know, a game that feels like one big whole. This first-person shooter, TimeShift, was recommended, and right after the third stage I knew... I knew that it definitely wasn't what I wanted. That said, I'm not disappointed in my purchase, because despite it being another grey fps in a grey-and-brown world it has a few original mechanics and ideas that make it rather fun.

 The plot of the game was hard to follow, but you play as a mute scientist wronged by another scientist named Krone. Both were working on Time-shifting suits, the Alpha and the Beta suit, and for an undisclosed reason Krone betrays you and steals the Alpha suit. Now you get the Beta suit and track him through time in an effort to stop him destroying the lab and killing everyone. Kinda. You travel to a very futuristic looking 1939 and assist a resistance group in stopping the new Krone world order. Throughout the game you'll get flashbacks to before the big betrayal, but nothing of worth is told, it's pure fat. The game is 24 missions long, which is pretty decent, sadly, multiplayer was online only, so no offline versus.

 At first glance, this is just your every day modern FPS, with regenerating health and a three-gun limit, which is one more gun than most modern fps. Every gun has an alternate fire, which is a pretty neat throwback to classic FPSs and melee doesn't instantly kill your enemy, so it's more like a last resort kind of tool. What set this game apart is the ability to Slow, Pause and Rewind time, thanks to your suit. There's a blue gauge shared by all three abilities that dictates when and for how long you can use these abilities, and it regenerates over time. I think that it refills a bit faster when you're getting hit, but it might've felt like that. Using these time abilities is paramount for your survival, because despite having this amazing suit you are quite fragile, and triggering any time ability will also boost your regeneration speed.

 The suit will autoselect the most 'appropriate' power for the situation you're in, so that you can just press L1 to activate, but if you disagree, just hold L1 and press the designated face button. For the most part, it'll default to Slow, it will go towards Pause when dangerously low on health and will select Rewind if a grenade is coming your way. Pause and Rewind may seem similar, but they have different uses, Slow actually makes you faster and lasts way longer than Pause which is why it makes it so useful when you need to retreat for cover, as it'll give you ample time compared to pause. Pause is better when fighting smaller groups of enemies or when fighting enemies that can also slow down time or teleport. Rewind was my least used ability in combat, and only used it because the game defaulted to it sometimes.

 Another way you can toy with your powers is by pausing time and stealing the weapons from your enemies' hands. Or you can just shoot them out of their hands too if that's your approach. Enemies explode in satisfying chunks of blood after being pelted with bullets while in Time Pause which never ceases to be fun. Most enemies are immune to headshots, justified by helmets, and was probably done to compensate for your time controlling prowess. There's a fair amount of different weaponry in the game, my favorites where the Shotgun, which felt so good, and the machinegun that had a flamethrower alternate fire. While your character is frailer than a CoD protagonist, the game feels more close to games like Painkiller and Doom, with fast paced shooting mechanics that feel nice... but as a whole feels a bit weird, since the gameplay almost makes you want to start circle-strafing everyone to death, but that will only get you killed in seconds flat.

 There are a few simple puzzles in the game that task you with using your time powers, they are pretty simple and the game usually defaults the right power, so you can easily figure out what it entails. That said, there are smart uses of your powers, such as two levers needing to be pulled at the same time, so you slowdown time and run to the other lever and pull it. Or use Rewind to make a turbine blow you upwards instead of vacuuming the air. Or pause/slow down time in order to cross through a board balancing on a pivot. They are not hard to figure out, but they make sense for your powers, which is pretty neat. I had a few iffy moments with some of the platforming elements, but nothing game breaking.

 While it wasn't anywhere near close to what I wanted, TimeShift was very fun in its own right. Time Shifting was well implemented, and easily sets it apart from other games.... although it seems that that just wasn't enough to stand out when your game looked like every other grey-and-brown shooter of its era.
 7.0 out of 10

Review #801: Call of Duty Black Ops - Declassified

 There's a reason this game got declassified.

 I'm not a Call of Duty, I'm really not into the whole 'realistic military shooter' genre, as I find it quite dull. But maaaan, Black Ops was something else, it offered so many neat extras, like the fantastic zombies mode and the top-down shooter secret mini-game, it felt like an altogether fun game. And color me surprised, the campaign wound up being so interesting thanks to the plot twist! It wasn't your average military shooter, and that's why it was so good. Call of Duty Black Ops: Declassified is a spin-off set between Black Ops 1 and Black Ops 2, exclusive for the VITA, by the creators of Resistance Burning Skies, which wound up being much better than reviews led me to believe...sadly, this is not the case.

 The game's story mode is not an story mode, but a mode called 'Operations', being made up of 11 6-minute missions. Since this is a handheld game, bite-sized missions was probably the right idea, but the execution is not, as it ends up feeling very disjointed. Basically, you'll play as either Frank Woods or Alex Mason, the final mission being played as an undisclosed agent, and every mission is pretty much "This is why Alex/Frank is so awesome". I think the correct approach would've been a proper story campaign, although divided into 6-minute chunks. Then there's Time Trial, in which you get about 6 missions of running around shooting at dull cardboard cutouts. The last Single Player offering is Hostiles, which is an endless wave survivor mode which isn't half bad. That said, when it's all said and done, you're looking at about 3 hours worth of Single player content, which just doesn't cut the mustard. Hostiles does have some longevity, but it's not random enough and you can't even select your initial load out, and while Operations is made in a way to be replayed to get better times... why would you? There are no rewards. The game used to have Multiplayer, but it's pretty much dead.

 The basic gameplay is pretty good, they managed to capture how CoD feels, you've got your 2 weapon maximum, your iron sights to aim, regenerating health, etc. Melee and grenades are relegated to the touch screen, which works pretty decently. It's not a perfect solution, but it works. Sprinting is automatic by default, but you can change it to pressing down on the DPad, which works really well due to the analogs placement, that said, I think it's better to turn it off because movement feels very slippery as it is.

 Alright, so while the basic gameplay nailed how CoD works... the rest of the game didn't. The AI is relentless, as soon as you kill any CPU, all of them will automatically know where you are, and they are incredibly aggressive, they'll empty their entire clips onto the walls you are hiding behind just because. They don't attempt to flank you or find you, except in hostiles mode, they'll just shoot and shoot and shoot. Sometimes they'll crouch behind cover and.... start shooting against the wall that's right in front of them trying to... reach you? They are dumb, but deadly. This also means that most missions in Operations Mode will play out exactly the same because the CPUs will always be more or less on the same exact places, trying to empty their clips on you or your cover. In Hostiles the enemy is actively trying to find you, so they behave much better there.

 Black Ops on Vita is not terrible, but it's very forgettable. There's not enough Single Player content for someone playing on the go, and what little content there isn't particularly good. Considering that they managed to capture the feeling of CoD, ignoring the terrible AI, maybe the game fared better in Multiplayer, but considering that's no longer a selling point.... the game just isn't up to snuff, which is kinda pathetic considering how decent the DS CoD games were, at least the one played.
 4.0 out of 10

Review #800: Trials of Mana(Playstation 4)

 Glory of Mana.

 This year, and on the very same month, Square decided to remake another of my favorite JRPGs of all time, Trials of Mana. And just as with Final Fantasy VII Remake, they promised a remake... and in this case, that's exactly what they delivered, to the point that this feels like a very 90's game made in 2020, the amount of care and love that went into translating everything into 3D is remarkable, dungeons, maps and animations are extremely faithful, so while the layouts are different, they still feel the same. The first few chapters of FFVII Remake had me smiling all the time since they were what I wanted, a remake that captured the original game's feeling, but that only lasted for so long. In this case? It kept me smiling the whole way through.

 Just like before, the story is set-up in a way that you pick three characters between a total of six, the first character you pick being the hero of Mana. There are three main routes depending on which character you chose as the hero: Angela/Duran, Kevin/Charlotte and Riesz/Hawkeye, and they mostly change the final dungeon and boss, although a few events play out differently as well. That said, there are various small tweaks to a few scenes depending on which characters are in the party, so there are quite a few different dialogue variations. All in all, differences are quite minimal for the most part, but it's still a neat addition. On the other hand... this was a SNES RPG, so characters are rather flat, and that hasn't changed, although a few steps were taken to make them a bit more endearing. Now you can play every party member's prologue instead of the main character, and a ton of different post-battle voice lines referencing current events were added for every character, as well as small dialogue exchanges every now and then while exploring. Heck, every time you enter a town your party disbands, and you can talk to them for a one-line insight into what's going on. These addition make characters a tiny bit better, but they are still fairly plain for modern standards.

 The game clearly wasn't given even half the budget that Final Fantasy VII Remake had, but they did the most with what they had. It's a very good looking, colorful game, but you can tell that some cutscene animations are very last gen and texture quality is a bit mediocre, thankfully, the style triumphs over its technicalities. Thankfully the game offers dual audio, because the English dub is very, very bad. I mean, a few characters like Angela sounded amazing, but Duran and Kevin? Uh oh.... they gave Kevin this very odd cave-man speech, which sounds even worse than it looks, and it's so weird because no other beast-man speaks like that, so it makes NO sense. Charlotte was also terrible. There were also quite a few ocurrences in which the animations didn't match the emotions behind the voices, which was SO jarring. When I replay the game later on Switch I'll be turning on the Japanese voices since there's no way they could get worse than these. As for the game itself, it runs at a smooth 60 fps, but loading times were a bit on the lengthy side.

 It's incredible how good of a remake this is, as the brunt of the game is pretty much identical. It being an RPG you're to walk from town to town, talking with NPCs while battling in dungeons and open zones.There's one tiny little change that might irk some people the wrong way... The game always tells you where to go and what to do, including the exact, specific NPCs you need to talk to in order to further the story. Yes, your hand is held the entire way through.... but honestly, I didn't mind it. Do you really want to talk to every single NPC searching for the one that will let you go on with the story? And it's not like there's no reason to talk to NPCs, some may reward you with equippable Skills. Want to do the bare minimum? Follow the stars. Want to involve yourself with the world of Mana? Go to town. It's not like there are invisible barriers preventing you from doing what you want to do. Want to visit places out of order? Go ahead, try your luck.

 Battling in this game is amazing, just like in the original, battles take place in real time, but the entire system was overhauled. Circle are your weak attacks, triangle are your strong attacks, that can be comboed into from weak attacks changing how they behave, square is a dodge and X is jump. L1 can be used to select your super moves, by spending energy from the CS gauge, which fills as you land attacks and recover fallen gems from monsters, while R1 can be used to quickly select spells or items you've added to the shortcut palette. Up on the digital pad opens up the ring item menu, to use items, while down on the digital pad opens up the ring spell menu. Lastly, L2 and R2 can be used to swap the character you are controlling. It plays fantastically, it really is fun. If the camera ever gets in the way, just press R3 to lock it onto an enemy. You can customize how the CPUs play, and to be honest, it's not perfect. I had Duran prioritize healing over attacking, but often times I found myself low on health with Duran preferring to attack enemies instead of healing me. I mean, I can order him to cast the spell, but I wish they were a bit smarter. All in all, the game feels SO good to play.

 The level up system was changed too, it's a bit better in some ways, and a bit worse in others. You still gain skill points when leveling up, which is neat, and you can then put them on Stats: Strength, Stamina, Spirit, Intelligence and Luck, however.... It's not a direct relationship between your actual stat and these stats. Putting points into Strength, for example, means that you'll unlock passive strength bonuses as well as certain spells or Skills when you reach certain thresholds. There's a list on the right side of the screen showing you what things you can get and upon reaching what amount of points invested. I wish it worked like in the original, but oh well, at least now we have skills. Each character can equip two skills, and gains two more every time you go up in Class, and these range from passive bonuses such as extra damage, to utilities such as spells sapping health from party members in order to make them stronger or even party-wide buffs! It's really neat, you could, for instance, make your glass cannon equip abilities to strengthen him when his health goes low, or equip survivality skills on your spell caster so that she doesn't die so easily.

 Upgrading your characters' classes works pretty much in the same way. upon reaching level 18 you can use any Mana Stone to either pick the Light or Dark class for your character, and then, upon reaching level 38 you can pick for the Light or Dark variations to the class you've got, but you need to get the right item from the ??? Seeds. What item you get is still random, but the game guarantees that the first six ??? seeds you get will yield all the items you need for either upgrade on every character in your party. And, in this game, you can reset your classes and your stat points, so if you want to try something else... you can. Every time you you upgrade your class you get more basic combo moves, an extension to your CS gauge, a new super attack and a new innate passive skill, the last two being unique depending on which class you chose. Oh, and if you liked how your character looked before a class change... you can pick any costumes from the classes you went through. I kinda wish I could pick any costume from any route, since while I like Light Kevin I prefer his Dark costumes, but oh well, I'll take what I can!

 After you finish the game you can partake in a new chapter that adds a 4th class change. Each character has to go through their own 1 on 1 boss fight and afterwards they can upgrade into Class 4. There are two Class 4 per character, which depend on your very first class choice. This new final dungeon is made up of recycled assets, but it's not too bad. Finishing the game unlocks New Game+ which retains your character levels and items, so you can try out new characters with your previously leveled characters or just try the other 3 characters you didn't choose. The final new addition is a sub-mission finding Li'l Cactus, every 5 times you spot him you get a neat new bonus, and the final rewarding is the best skill in the game, so good luck hunting.

 When Square-Enix promised new remakes THIS is what I wanted. No overly pompous pseudo-sequel bullcrap divided into multiple installments, but rather a modernization of the entire game while being as faithful as possible to the original. This game manages to capture what made the original SO good while changing mechanics to make them more fun due to modern standards. What needed streamlining, like Kevin/Charlotte's final dungeon was streamlined, what needed tweaking was tweaked and what should've kept the same was kept the same. In my eyes, this game completely replaces the original, and I'm looking forward to playing it again on the Switch. Provided my girlfriend lays off Animal Crossing.
 9.5 out of 10

Review #799: Assassin's Creed Unity

 The dad joke has gone on long enough.

 A lot has been said about Assassin's Creed Unity, and... well, I decided to play the game unpatched, as I always do, and it turned out not to be all that bad.It has issues to be sure, but it's a solid entry into the franchise. To think that back when this game was first announced I was midway through Assassin's Creed IV and it looked so good that I wanted to get a PS4 just for this game alone.... which I wouldn't do until a few more years passed, and not like it would matter since it received very poor reviews.

 The story pits you as Ezio Auditore da--I mean, Ezio's expy, Arno Dorian, another rich kid who's dad gets murdered by Templars, and later on, his adoptive dad gets murdered by the Templars which kick off his revenge story set during the French Revolution. Heck, even Arno's personality matches Ezio as a loveable rogue, albeit with a bit of a loser's streak. Arno even looks like Ezio when unrobed, and to be honest, I think it was done on purpose since they were playing it safe. Y'know, ever since they killed Desmond and ruined any potential the present-day sections had, the last few entries(IV, Rogue) were very cheesy in how they played out, and the whole Ubisoft as Abstergo and the player playing a videogame being part of the plot thing feels like a dad joke that has been going on for too long. Ubisoft didn't know what to do with Desmond, now they don't know what to do with Juno.... so just ax the modern day segments, we're here for the past adventures. Regardless, the modern day segments in this game are very brief, but just as cheesy, cutscenes of the Assassin Bishop contacting you and asking you to play through Arno's memories for her. I mean... I think I'm OK with this. All that said, as much as I ribbed on Arno's story for being a new take on Ezio, I actually thought the plot was decent, and I enjoyed the supporting cast. It's not the best plot of an AC game, but it's entertaining for what it is.

 Unity feels a lot like Assassin's Creed 2, and I say that as a good thing. It's been a while since we had a proper Assassin's Creed, as much as I enjoyed III, the buildings just weren't as tall as we had gotten used to, and IV and Rogue were brilliant, but they didn't really feel like Assassin's Creed. Paris is gorgeous and it's a blast to explore, this might very well be the largest map in an AC game yet. Heck, it might be a bit too big, for the first time in an AC game... I actually gave up on collecting every needless short dopamine burst collectible. But then again, I got a bit annoyed at the fact that revealing a district, by climbing to a particular tower or high building and "synchronizing" didn't reveal every single collectible or mission in the district. It'd reveal a few, but not all of them, and aimlessly running around hoping to come across one of the hundreds of useless collectibles isn't really my idea of fun. Plus, the map lies, sometimes it might tell you that you're missing a mission or two in a district.... but that mission is actually found on another district. It made no sense, it annoyed me and thus, I gave up. It's OK, I got most of the cockades, which unlocked colors for Arno's clothes, and got 80%+ of the chests, chests that only give you a modest sum of money(Although a very rare few contain equipment pieces). Speaking of chests, man, were Ubisoft really hoping you'd play their game online! Some chests can only be opened through Uplay and others can only be opened by playing on the companion app, Initiates. I did neither, screw you, Ubisoft. An annoyance of their push towards online on a mostly Single Player game comes in the inability to Suspend the game. That's right, you can't suspend the PS4 with this game running.

 Collectibles aside, the rest of the game plays as you'd expect, it's a parkour heavy open world action adventure game in which you accept missions and pursue the story. Besides the collectibles, there are a fair amount of side missions to partake in: Murder Mysteries, which get a bit tedious since the hint popups overlap each other during investigations, Riddles, which are incredibly hard to figure out without a guide, various assassination/robbery missions, Building renovation missions(Just pay a fee and then complete 3 side missions) and Helix Rifts, which are silly timed maps in which you must gather "data" before exiting. There are also two types of multiplayer missions, which can thankfully be played offline although their size makes them kinda boring in single player, Heists and Co-Op. Heists are about collecting valuables while trying to remain unseen, while Co-Op missions are more akin to normal side missions but bigger in scope, albeit with cringy introductory dialogue by Bishop. Since Ubisoft really wanted you to play online, each co-op mission has exclusive skill points to find, so you'll want to play them to upgrade Arno, as well as equipment rewards... with three rewards per mission, although you can only get one, so if you want every reward you have to play every single co-op mission three times. Lame.

 Ubisoft made a big stink out of animations being expensive being the reason for no playable female assassins but.... I recognized a ton of animations from previous games. At least the new animations are pretty neat, Arno likes to twirl sometimes when climbing roofs. Parkous has been tweaked a bit, Arno is, like every playable character before him, still a bit sticky, so controls aren't perfectly smooth just yet, sometimes you'll get stuck trying to climb things or trying not to climb things, which are things that I feel are unavoidable when making such a free flowing parkour system that lets you climb pretty much anything. The new tweak comes in the form of Parkour Up and Parkour down. Holding down the X button while running will make Arno take routes that go up, while holding circle will make him take routes that go down. It's a pretty small tweak, but I think it works pretty well. Combat is like AC IV but less rigid, enemies are back to health bars, thank god, so you no longer need to 'finish' them in order to kill them. Initially Arno can only attack, parry and dodge, but through Skills you can get a few more abilities, such as heavy slashes and staggering blows. Sometimes it felt as if my parry inputs didn't register, but it might be a framerate issue, since the game tends to stutter and fall below 30 fps every now and then.

 As for tools, Arno can equip a one handed-blade, a heavy weapon or a long weapon as his main weapon, and a pistol or a rifle for a side arm. It seems that by this time double hidden blades went out of style, so you only get one, but in this era it can be turned into a mini-crossbow, the Phantom Blade, that can also use Berserk Blades to make enemies turn on each other. Them you get smoke bombs to make an escape and cherry bombs to make some noise and distract guards. Rather skimpy, isn't it? Well, everything else is a Skill you must learn by spending skill points earned from story and co-op missions. Heck, the pistol/rifle equipment is a skill. This... this is a bit lame to be honest, y'see, I wanted to get health upgrade skills and lockpicking skills, which meant that for most of the game I had little to no tools. No poison gas, no disguise(Which is a fun new tool!), no money bags. Even double assassinations and air double assassinations, series mainstays since 2, but be gotten as a skill. And double assassinations felt a bit tricky to pull off, something I never felt with previous games.

 Customization was a big selling point of the game, and it's alright but with a few caveats. There are many different pieces(Hood, Chest, Arms, Belt and Boots) you can find, purchase and equip, and a lot of them are really cool.... but they affect your stats, so it's not like you can really equip anything you want. I mean, you can, but you'll get murdered very quickly. As per usual, as soon as I was given control of Arno I opted to do every bit of side content I could before starting the story, although level 3 lockpicks kept me from getting everything, but Sniper enemies could take me out in one shot because my armor wasn't up to snuff. So your stats matter, so taking that into account, the pool of equipment pieces you should use gets reduced quite a bit depending on how useful they are. On another note, the stat bars next to the equipment's description are a LIE, they symbolize how much they affect the stat, if you really want to know what your equipment piece does, you need to read the numbers below the lying stat bars. So a large "Stealth" bar doesn't mean you are stealthier, it could mean that it has boosts to how Eagle Vision works.

 And now.... performance. The game can run very, very poorly. I turned off the internet connection and I don't know if it was a Placebo effect, but the framerate seems to have gotten better. And while it struggles to match 30 FPS, it runs pretty much like AC 2 did on the PS3, so I'm used to it. Frame rate aside, the game only froze once, although a couple of side missions got bugged due to an NPC not spawning correctly or what have ya, so I had to reset the game... because there's no in-game reload checkpoint when not in a Story Mission nor is there a 'Back to main menu" option. The last cutscene in the game became hilarious in my playthrough, because Arno got bugged and his lips wouldn't stop moving, so characters were talking to him, or he was trying to be somber... but his lips wouldn't stop moving! One time, I killed an enemy on the roof, and I went to loot him, but Arno hadn't exited combat yet and something weird happened.... the camera got fixed in its place while Arno started running ON the air towards nothingness. If I stopped touching the analog stick he'd stop, but it didn't matter where I pushed the analog stick, Arno would only run forward. I hoped that I'd make Arno run out of boundaries, but even tough the textures of the Area the camera got stuck in unloaded.... Arno never got out of boundaries, so I had to reset the game. Lastly, the bug I came across the most, sometimes Arno would get teleported somewhere far behind where I was standing. I think it had something to do with an NPC that WASN'T in contact with me pushing me anyways, but I'm not sure, and it happened about 4 times. All in all, it's hardly as bad as people make it out to be. And I'm not claiming that the bugst that were reported weren't real, because there's video footage of it, but it doesn't seem to be as common as most people reported it to be. As for the rest of the game, it's on par with most modern open world games, so it didn't bother me too much. At least I could finish the missions, unlike, say, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot.

 Assassin's Creed Unity is a really good Assassin's Creed game. Not the best, not the worst. Paris is an absolute treat to explore, this is one of the most gorgeous game in the series, if not the most. That said, it's quite easy to see that they played it very safe and hoped that multiplayer would carry it. Arno is very similar to Ezio, and the changes to the basic gameplay were pretty small, although very welcome, I quite liked the Parkour up/down system, and I'm so glad we're back to enemy health bars!
 8.0 out of 10

Review #798: CIMA - The Enemy

 This game is the enemy of all mankind.

 CIMA: The Enemy looks pretty cool, I mean, just look at the game's cover, or search for footage or screenshots, and this game looks like a pretty decent JRPG, even the game's back-cover calls it an RPG. But it isn't. This game is a lemmings ripoff, a route coordinator simulator, a do the Macarena game if you will. You don't level up, you don't make choices and you don't save the world, you just set routes for people to follow. This is not an RPG, but this is one of the worst games I've ever played on the system. And the cherry on top? It's one of the GBA's uncommon games, often fetching undeservedly high prices.

 The game pits you as Ark, a 'Gate Guardian' that fights CIMA, human-looking villains that live off the despair of humans. While en route to their base on a train, the entire vehicle gets transported into a CIMA realm, and now Ark and Ivy, his partner, must reunite all 14 civilians and get them out of the CIMA dungeon. The game is 13 excruciating hours long, probably more if you decide to farm for items on previous dungeons. Every 'dungeon', of which there are about 15 or 16 is more or less the same, following the same exact formula: An introductory floor, you meet a civilian, and must rescue him or her on the next floor, then the party gets separated and you play a short bit as another civilian, then you play as Ark again and reunite the party, and it's usually on one of these segments that you find the key to the boss' door, and if you don't, tough luck, go up the dungeon until you find it. If you ask me, they were pretty hard to miss, I only missed the key on the first dungeon since I actually didn't know it was something I had to find, but I had no trouble afterwards.

 The gameplay is so bad because the entire game is an escort mission for an ever growing amount of idiots. Ark slashes with his sword with the A button, although other playable civilians have different weapons, as well as a charge attack. Each character has their own inventory, even the characters you don't get to play as, as well as a 5 item B-button item palette. NPCs, as well as playable characters that you aren't playing as at the moment, will automatically use this items if needed, while when characters are under your direct control you need to press B to access them. Heck, during boss fights you can't access your inventory, so these 5 items is all you get.

 Civilians can be freely allocated between four groups of up to four persons, although there are only 14 civilians, so one or two groups will be missing people. The L button is to swap between groups, because you can only issue orders by one group at a time, and the R button is used to set their walking routes, with up to three different 'stops'. You can either direct the entire group or issue commands one by one. Most of the time you'll be issuing commands to the entire group, but there are a lot of puzzles that involve pressure plates, so you might need to find the correct amount of people needed to step on a switch while other characters, or yourself, do something through a bridge said pressure plate activates. There are also two kid characters that are the only characters that can walk on brittle bridges.

 Some characters have special abilities. Emerle can heal anyone's poison if they stand next to her for a short while, and, supposedly, the Priest makes it so that enemies don't get close to him.... which is a bold faced lie, since enemies went after him and his group anyways. Also, most characters can't defend themselves, so try to put each group with at least one characters that can fight back. Not that that helps, because they are useless and they will get hurt anyways. Heck, a few puzzles are impossible to complete without getting someone hurt, which is completely stupid. Particularly because there's a garbage affinity system at play. As you slay enemies from endless enemy generators they may drop any of four gems which can then be used to craft consumable items. But only characters that "like" you will let you craft items. Every time they get hurt you'll lose affinity points, while if you kill an enemy close to them they MAY get a few affinity points. Oh, and most characters start off hating you. Truth be told, you only need Emerle and her husband to like you, since they can craft potions, but still. Even though characters may sometimes NEED to take damage to clear a puzzle, the affinity system is broken because you can just stick all civilians next to an enemy generator and pummel enemies ad-infinitum until they like you. I hate this game. Oh! And if ANYBODY dies it's game over, no ifs or buts.

 So, let me tell you how the game works. You move a group of people to a spot, and while they slowly make their way there, you spam the A button on top of the enemy generator/s that is/are on their way. Once they finally get to where you need them, now you press L and pick another group and do the exact same thing. Then the third group. Then the fourth. Initially it's not too bad, but every dungeon adds a new civilian, so the process becomes slower and slower. It's an incredibly boring game. Oh, and be careful with diagonals, characters love getting stuck on those, so you might need to alter their route on the fly. It sucks when you have to send NPCs through routes you can't access, because enemies WILL spawn, and even if these characters can fight back, they will still get hurt because they suck, and it will cost you affinity points because screw you. Speaking on that, sometimes you might not get a pressure-plate puzzle to open a door, but instead you have to defeat a number of enemies.... and they spawn out of thin air. It's very possible, and annoyingly common, that they will appear right on top of you, costing you a few health points, because that's how this poorly made game rolls. Oh, and sometimes you'll have to defeat an X amount of enemy generator enemies in order to proceed. The game doesn't change the music or give you any hint that this is what you need to do, you'll be aimlessly walking around, searching for a switch while battling endless enemies until the jingle sounds and the the way opens up. One time near the end of the game I was stuck for the longest time and I didn't know what I was supposed to..... turns out I had to hit an enemy into a pit. Maybe the game had other puzzles like this that I accidentally cleared, I've no idea, but it was so incredibly dumb and no hint to what the solution was.

 Oh, and I haven't started with Ivy yet. She's yet another handicap, but unlike the rest of the NPCs, she's always following you, occasionally shooting at enemies, but getting hit most of the time. Which, y'know, sucks a lot because if she dies you die and it's game over. The thing is.... she has trouble following you at times, so she might get stuck behind you, and while she's busy trying to walk through an invisible wall, she'll get hit by enemies endlessly spawning behind her. The parts with moving platforms are SO bad, because, as I implied, these platforms move, so if she gets stuck behind... she'll have no way to reach you anytime soon. And getting her on this platforms is SO finicky, if she doesn't get stuck trying to get on the bridge, you might not have walked far enough on the platform for her to hop on. And that's finicky as well, because if you move too far you may fall and lose health. IT'S SO DUMB!! This game is horrible, I can't understand how it got such decent reviews.

 And the bosses, oh god the bosses, each one has a very annoying pattern that is sure to kill you a few times. And the best part about it? You can't skip the lengthy cutscenes before each fight, so they are extra vexing. That said, bosses do get easier as you go down the later levels, not because you get stronger, not because you understand the game better, but because their patterns become fairer. It's like the developers slowly became better at designing fair bosses. But still, I wouldn't blame you if you dropped the game after the first boss. I had to had my hand held by a boss guide on the first 8-10 floors because having to endure the same cutscenes over and over again became intolerable.

 I have played a lot of bad games on the Gameboy Advance, I mean, just look at all the licensed games I've played this year, but CIMA: The Enemy is worse than most of them. The gameplay is SO slow and the mechanics are so poorly thought out and implemented that it won't be too soon if I never see this game again.
 2.0 out of 10