Reseñas recientes de TheDarkPhantom

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle is 2v2 tag team fighting game starring characters from 4 different franchises: BlazBlue, Persona 4 Arena, Under Night In-Birth and RWBY. To be honest, ArcSys has done a great thing here; they have gathered multiple franchises and formed a big crossover fighting game. But is it good? Well… if you want detailed explanation, continue reading and if you just want the TLDR version, skip to the end.

The game's story is non-canon. Multiple characters from all of the franchises included in this game, suddenly find themselves in a strange place. A voice tells them that they are now in some kind of tournament and tasks them to take a certain item of theirs to the goal to be able to go back home. But in the process of doing so, they might get attacked by others and have to defend themselves by only using tag battles. To be honest, the story is not long, engaging or deep, but it's fun and enjoyable, has lots of references to other games, and also the English dub is back and it's very good! The only problem I have with the story, is the portraits they used for VN sections. I mean, I'm not saying the developers had to deliver BlazBlue quality for VN scenes of this game too, but couldn't they come up with a better way than using the very same pictures they used for advertising and character select screen, and adding different facial expressions to them? Couldn't they use the same portraits that were in UNIEL, BB and P4A? Sure, the styles for those portraits are different, but it would have been better that way. I simply don't like that for example, Hyde summons The Insulator while it's still in his hands.

Enough ranting about the story. Now about the characters. The choice of characters in this game is questionable. We have some characters nobody thought would be in this game (Nu instead of Lambda? Really?) and there are a lot of fan favorite characters missing (Where's Bang?). Needless to say, the DLCs in this game are not handled very well. Half of the roster is locked behind a paywall (only 20 characters can be used in the standard version) and what makes matters worse, is that some of the DLC characters like Kanji or Carmine are in the story mode! Other than that, I know I WILL get a lot of hate for this, but why RWBY? Why not Fate? Or Arcana Heart? Or Melty Blood? Or even Double Dragon? ArcSys owns DD now so why not? I would have bought this game day 1 if Billy, Jimmy, Marian or even Abobo & Skullmageddon were in it!
These new characters also make one of the game's flaws more visible: the sprite quality. Just start the game with a high screen resolution setting, go into a match against RWBY characters and you can clearly see what I mean. Except for RWBY characters, none of the character sprites in this game are new. So they don't look good at all and in case of BB characters, it gets worse.

Enough of that, let's talk about the gameplay. This time, the control scheme is nearly similar to the Stylish combat style from GGXRD and BBCF. Each character has 2 different combo strings by constantly tapping A or B button. You can also switch between the keys mid-combo, but the results don't change. The C button is used for "Clash"; an attack that has different properties for each character and upon contact, allows you (and your tag partner if available) to do a cinematic attack and cause a lot of damage to your enemy. It can also be used to perform powered up versions of your special attack which uses a bit of your energy bar. And finally, the D button is used to change your character, so your switched character has a chance to recover its red health. There's also a P button which is used to call your tag character to attack the opponent, and the type of attack differs depending on which direction you are holding while pressing the button.
I don't get into the details here, because there's a lot to talk about and I don't have a lot of time to spend writing. Overall, while the combat system is dumbed down and I know why they went this way with it, it surprisingly has a nice depth to it. There's a lot to do in this game. You can change characters in middle of a combo, you can use both characters to attack, you can do a Distortion move and then bring in your other character for a second one. The amount of stuff you can do in this game is surprising and watching the chaos unfold in front of your eyes, is very entertaining.
But while this chaos is entertaining, it lacks something big. This excitement and entertainment is only temporary, because the player is not the person in control, the player is not the person doing those amazing combos, it's mostly the game itself. We are just button mashing and all of the excitement after finding a big combo and performing extraordinary moves is gone. Therefore, even those who like simple controls might stop playing it after some time. What makes this worse is the way some mechanics are tweaked. Now, not only characters always run/dash while moving forward, but they also dash-in before performing a grab! Seriously, why there's a running sequence before grabbing the opponent? Why make them automated? Why eliminate even the simplest of challenges?

What makes the matter worse is the amount of content this game has. This game is very poor in terms of offline content and replay value. The game lacks a proper arcade mode and only features these modes: Episode (The story mode which is VERY short), Versus, Training, Survival, Tactics (Tutorials & Challenges) and Online. And guess what? If you're not planning to go online (which is region locked to your download server for some reason), you can finish every single player content this game has in FOUR HOURS!

Also, the money you get from the matches is only used to buy colors and multiplayer stuff (Lobby Avatars, Profile Icons, etc.) since Gallery does not have extra purchasable content in it (like unlockable arts and music tracks) and only consists of story pictures, character renders and opening/credits movies. A massive downgrade compared to other BlazBlue games.

In case you are reading this Shini, I'm so sorry, but I have to talk about this as well. The game might suffer from certain performance problems on some systems. For example, you might see a massive frame drop upon entering the character select screen (which also happened in Central Fiction and I believe that is because of character pictures) or the HUD "might" impact the performance by 10-20 fps on some systems. Also, you cannot set your desired fullscreen resolution in-game and have to download a mod in order to do it.


TL;DR
BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle is not a bad game; It's fast, fluid and entertaining. But in the end, enjoying it depends on players' taste. If this is your first time trying a fighting game or you don't want complex mechanics, then you will have a lot of fun. But if you prefer technical controls and the same amount of content and quality that was available in the past BlazBlue titles, you will be disappointed.

Note: I played the game during the EVO 2018 free weekend period.

"Updated on August 10. Reason: Slightly edited some parts & fixed some typos."
"Updated on August 15. Reason: Slightly edited some parts, provided some extra info about roster & added a new section about sprite quality."
"Updated on August 18. Reason: Fixed some typos and grammatical errors."
"Updated on August 31. Reason: Added a note about the region locked online mode."

I wish there was a ((Meh)) option in addition to the regular ((Recommended)) and ((Not Recommended)) so I could have chosen that instead. This game really game left me with a mixed feeling.
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BlazBlue Centralfiction is the latest entry in the series. It's the title which finishes Ragna The Bloodedge's story arc. However, as a fan, I'm really disappointed with this game.

Let's start with story mode. The story is completely linear now and that's not good. If you remember, the last game sometimes had branches in the story mode and each one of them was focused on a certain group of characters and what they did. Everytime you finished one of them, you had to complete other ones before being able to progress further. This way you knew exactly what each character was doing. But now there's a linear path which only focuses on Ragna and everyone who is with him or has some very important role in the story. Want to know what Bullet, Amane, Platinum The Trinity or Carl were exactly doing since they were not actively present in the main story? You have to go and watch every single one of the sub stories to find out; And you have to do that by navigating through every single act. (Can you believe that after some time I forgot Platinum, Mai and Bullet were in the story mode and the ending movie suddenly reminded me of them?!)
For the story line, I can't help but feel unsatisfied. I don't know why, but I can't find the story really interesting like the previous games and I still have a lot of unanswered questions. This might be because I still haven't finished the sub stories, or maybe because of the lack of English dub (which I will talk about it in a moment). I will update this part of review after 100% completion of story and probably arcade mode.

Before we get into other things, let's talk about the most discussed issue about this game: The English dub. For me the English dub was an important thing. I started to play Airdashers was because of BlazBlue Calamity Trigger. It had a great dub and I really liked it. And then what ArcSys does for the forth and the most important title in the series? They remove the exact reason I started to play and like BlazBlue! They remove the English dub ((to release the game faster for west))! I don't find this acceptable because they did this after 3 games which had English dub. And if I remember correctly, Continuum Shift only had the English dub and Japanese dub was DLC!
I know some people will try to tell me ((Hey, Japanese dub is not that bad)) or ((You can get used to it)). But believe me, I tried so hard to accept Japanese dub and like it; But I couldn't. So I had to mute voices and guess what I found? Muting voices also mutes all of the movies in the game INCLUDING THE OPENING MOVIE! I understand why story movies got muted; But the opening movie? That does not make any sense to me. It's just a music. I have no problems with it because none of the characters are talking in it.

Now, about the contents of the game. Currently; I've only completed main story mode (not 100%) and Ragna's Arcade mode. So I can only say this game has a lot of content (Like Arcade - Abyss - Missions) and lacks a lot of other content (like Unlimited Mars - Teach Me Ms. Litchi). This time, each character has THREE ARCADE ACTS. That means for each character, there are three arcade ladders with different final bosses. Abyss mode is also changed. In the last game you only had to raise your stats by completing matches or equipping some special items. But now you have to use different types of Grimoires instead of those items and you can tamper with those Grimoires in multiple ways to unlock more powerful effects for them.

Now you might ask ((How is the port?)). Game's performance was horrible at launch: pixelation problems, frequent slow downs, glitches, graphical problems ( see one of them here - this happened before 1.03 patch), lack of some graphical options, etc. Now a lot of those problems are fixed but some of them still remain; Like the weird slowdown on character select screen.

Gameplay is still like the old game with numerous changes (which I will not list them all here because this review is already too long!) and overall, I can say that it's really enjoyable. However, I think Active Flow is the worst thing that is added to this game. Active Flow rewards the player who's attacking rapidly by increasing the damage of their attacks. So if you play against a player who's really skilled and you're not that good, you WILL get destroyed because he constantly attacks and also Active Flow gives him more power to kick your ###.


Final Thoughts:
Overall, this game is a very good fighting game with lots of content; But I find it a disappointing BlazBlue. Final chapter of Ragna The Bloodedge's story was not as epic as I thought it might be...
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Note: If I made any mistakes in the review (like the reason about the absense of dub), feel free to notify me of them and I will correct them.
Note 2: As usual, I will make updates to this review after playing more.


EDIT 3 - Reason: Fixing some typos, again.

THOTH is a challenging shooter game but unfortunately, its levels have high difficulty and this factor combined with some other issues, can easily dispirit you from continuing the game. If this is your first twinstick shooter game or you don't have enough experience in this type of games, you better not play this game for now. But if you're experienced, then get ready to test your abilities.

UPDATED ON MAY 13
NOTE: This review will be updated as more features get added to the game with updates.

Honestly, I was truly shocked when I found out this game was released on steam without any news. Unlike other Guilty Gear games, this is not a fighting game. It's actually a 3rd person RTS game. I know you are wondering how this can be good but believe me, this game is so much fun and tactical when you get used to its mechanics.
In this game, you have to control a Master (your character) and summon Servants (troops) to take down the enemy's Master Ghost (base) while protecting your own master ghost. Summoning servants is done by entering the Organ menu mid-battle and spending Mana. There are various types of servants available (ranged, magic, etc…) and all of them are weak against some types of servants; so if you want to win, you have to pay attention to servant types. If you don't want to bother yourself with summoning servants or have trouble doing this in real time, you can activate Organ Assist and Organ Wait which summon servants automatically and stop time while in organ menu. You can also carry about 6 items with your master. The items can be found in chests in the maps or can be purchased from organ menu.
The controls are a bit wonky, especially when you have to run and drift around; but there's a high chance you get used to them. I wasn't comfortable with the controls at first but now I'm drifting around the maps without a problem.

PROS:
- Very fun to play. I never had this much fun for a long time.
- Like always, SOUNDTRACKS ARE F###ING GREAT!
- Great story (The story is Xrd's prequel. So if you want to know the full story, you must not miss this)
- Runs at solid 60 FPS (Probably because it's originally a 2007 Xbox 360 game?)
- Very nice support from the developers: A few days after people complained about the blurry graphics, they fixed it. (Thanks Shini!)


CONS:
- Ally AI in campaign mode: Seriously, WTF IS WRONG WITH ALL OF THE ALLY AI CONTROLLED CHARACTERS IN GAMES?! I was so close to controlling every ghost in the 8th mission of campaign two times and I got defeated in both of my tries because of an idiot named Dr.Paradigm who asks for help but instead of backing off, jumps right in middle of the combat!
- Campaign's 13th mission: You will not be notified if an enemy is attacking the gate. So, you will play the mission and then suddenly see that half of the gate's life bar is gone thanks to the enemies that appear outta nowhere!
- Item usage problems: I found this recently. If you get hit by an enemy during the process of using an item, the item won't be used (for example, Sol's Dragon Install won't activate) and goes immediately into the cooldown state. (This can sometimes remove the items from your inventory)
- Not complete: Yeah, the game lacks many contents (for now). But if you trust in Arc System Works, you'll be sure they will add them to the game after some time.
- No proper mouse and keyboard support (was going to be fixed in End-April update, but it got delayed to an unknown time. Keyboard keys can be changed by modifying a config file for now)
- No graphical settings (going to be fixed after May. You can switch to full screen with Alt+Enter for now)

NOTES:
- Permanent buffs/debuffs are fixed now.
- English voices are added now.

This game is very interesting.
The story is about a space cop who is hunting a villain named Grigori. But after a fight with him, his space ship gets badly damaged and both land on a same planet. Main gameplay begins here and you have to find a light orb to fix your ship and defeat Grigori for good.
Gameplay is really nice. you have a teleport gun which is frequently used in the game and nearly all of the puzzles must be solved with it and a gauss gun to kill enemies. After progressing further in the game, you will encounter new enemies, three types of lightbeams, mirrors, breakable objects and moving platforms which add to the challenge.

PROS:
- Nice gameplay
- Great soundtrack
- Collectables affect how much hard the last fight will be
- Can 100% the game easily with a little skill and patience

CONS:
- Short (Can be completed in 14 mins to 75 mins on first playthrough)
- You HAVE to lose in the first encounter with Grigori and you can even lose at the beginning; but it's not clear. So you do your best to take him down and after a lot of minutes you find out it was a complete waste of time.
- Some rare achivement problems: One of the achievement did not unlock until I did it's required action for the third time.

VERDICT:
This game is really nice and definitely worths trying but it's short and after you unlock every achievement, you may not want to play it anymore.

What is INK - Short Version:
INK = Super Meat Boy + Ink colors (Splatoon?) + Harder difficulty

What is INK - Long Version:
INK is a very hard platforming game. If you have played Super Meat Boy before, you know what to expect. But this game has something that makes it harder (especially for those who want to pass levels without dying and getting some of the game's achievements) and it's the addition of ink colors. At first, you see nothing on screen but the cube you are controlling and some enemies; and you have to reveal the platforms and traps by spreading ink drops using double jumping, killing enemies, dodging projectiles or dying. As you progress through the game, the levels become harder and harder with the addition of enemies (you must kill them all in some levels to activate the exit gate) and hazards like normal/homing projectiles and spikes. Also you get to face some boss fights which I found them to be VERY EASIER than the rest of the game.

Verdict:
If you enjoyed Super Meat Boy or like hard platforming levels, I think you really should try this game. But keep this in mind: This game only has 75 levels and some of the late levels are just the same levels from before with additions like homing projectile launchers. So if you are experienced you can clear most of the levels (or all of it) in a single playthrough and it can be finished very soon. However, the developer is planning to add several new features to it like workshop support, multiplayer, speedrun mode, etc... to it.

As someone who played the first Strider game on Sega Genesis, I can say this game is truly perfect. It starts with the modified version of the same music and cutscene that plays in the beginning of the first Strider. However, It's A LOT EASIER than the first game which I don't consider it a really bad thing. At least you can finish the game!
Also, to be honest, I had a lot of fun playing this game; Just run and slash everything that stands in your way.

If you like fast platforming games, I think you really need to try this game, And probably you will not be disappointed.

Let me tell you something: If you're a fan of fighting games, you HAVE to play this game.
If you played previous games before, you notice some changes in Xrd. First, Multi pathed story mode is removed (from what I've seen so far) and for a better understanding of the story, you have to complete arcade mode with all of the characters first and then move on to the story mode. Second, Unlike the previous games (or BlazBlue series), Xrd has 2.5D visuals. Third, Because of changes in story mode system, arcade mode is changed too and you don't have to face Ramlethal (A.K.A. The boss character) for every character. I mean, with some characters (like Slayer), you never get to fight her.
Now for the story... From what I read, the story begins after the events of Guilty Gear 2: Overture (which I never played :( ) and tells the events of.... Well, I better not spoil it here. Also, Xrd has very great surprises for you if you have played GGXXAC+R on Steam. like: Chipp is now a president! and you can unlock several musics from AC+R for matches. (like The Midnight Carnival)
Gameplay is still the same: Fast and hard to master. And everything is still in place: Instant kills, Roman cancels, Dust move, Burst, etc...

Overall, It's a very great game and this port had a way better launch on PC than Lag Kombat X. Sure, It has some problems (that I know will be fixed) but it's playable. Also, some of those problems are fixed now (like the ugly looking HUD) after the 3GB update (large size, don't you agree?).
Okay, let's finish this. You want to have a very good fighting game? Then buy this game AND GET READY TO ROCK!
Oh, and by the way.... Thank you Arc System Works for bringing this great fighting game to PC platform. I'm looking forward to see BBCPE and Xrd Revelator!

In this game there's only two buttons: One to jump, and another to kick. You think this makes the game easy? You thought wrong...
I have to admit, I become very tense when playing this game; because it's one hit and you're done for. And In addition to that, you have to be fast or the timer runs out and the closer player to the middle of the arena wins.

Currently it looks like people are not playing this online anymore. However, you can buy this game to play locally with friends.
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Update: If you want to get this game, get it for multiplayer. Singleplayer becomes ultimately boring after some time.

I like this game's aesthetics. I like its dialogues. I like its easter eggs. However, I cannot recommend it because of the story: The main thing this game is providing to us as players.

At first when I played this game, I was certain that it was a good game. I got an ending where I felt like the result is justified. That was until I played it a second time, changing my choices to see what happens, and then I found out that no matter what I do, the narrative and ending will not change. The store page claims "choose your path through the branching narrative", but there's no real branching narrative! You can be a neutral person throughout the game, not accepting any kind of responsibility, just for Emily to tell you the same things she did in the first playthrough and then finally claim that you promised to be there for her whenever she needs you and now you're not, effectively putting all the blame on you. Basically she does something that does not even make a shred of sense.

If you want to play this game for the story, don't. It WILL disappoint you. The easter eggs can be enjoyable though. Will net you a few achievements and an easily 100% completable game to add to your collection as well.
I do hope the next games in the series are better than this when I get to play them.