16
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148
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Recent reviews by brianbcdefg123

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Showing 1-10 of 16 entries
1 person found this review helpful
0.0 hrs on record
This is included in the VIP edition of the base game that you would have probably bought only for the extra songs DLC, which poses a problem. Roughly half the achievements are linked to unlocking modules/accessories, and are INSTANTLY unlocked by starting the game with this DLC installed. You are able to disable the unlock key by accessing the DLC settings for the base game within Steam. If you are able to do this before starting the game the first time, congrats, the achievements won't instantly unlock. But if you, like me, don't do that, you can still disable the unlock key and the modules/accessories will still need to be unlocked with DP as usual. You'll still have all the module-related achievements, but it does not take any particular skill to get them the normal way anyway, just racking up playtime.

An unlock key like this would not be a major problem if it was not included in a bundle.
Posted 12 February, 2024.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
169.1 hrs on record (13.6 hrs at review time)
DJMax finally has a PC game that releases in America! The fact that half of my DJ Max games are imported should be enough to describe how much I'm into this series, but what of this game?

DJ Max is a rhythm game with a familiar setup. Depending on your mode, you either have 4, 5, 6, or 8 tracks with falling notes for you to hit. Luckily for beginners, DJMax Respect V is a love letter to the entire franchise, in that it contains the vast majority of songs from games that came before, only a couple of which have previously been given a proper release in the US. Respect V is an enhanced version of Respect, originally released for Playstation 4 a few years back. With the base Respect V game, you get all the songs from DJ Max Portable 1 and 2 (two early series games, many of them which appeared in DJMAX Fever on PSP, the series' first US release). You also get a collection of tracks composed specifically for Respect.

All together, there's over 150 songs for the base game already, although close to 100 of these need to be unlocked as you level up. DLC is available to nearly round out the entire DJ MAX library: Trilogy, Technika (1-3), Clazziquai, Black Square, Emotional Sense. A few later games are not adequately represented yet, but since there's still a steady stream of updates and DLC, that could only be a matter of time. There are also DLC songpacks for crossovers with other games, like Deemo, Cytus, and Groove Coaster. And then there's the V Extension pack, which gives you another collection of newly-made songs. Many DLC packs also have extras like gears, missions, and even UI themes. The UI themes for past game packs are quite nostalgic, as they emulate the look of the previous games, complete with bringing back old menu music. That, along with the many references like achievement and mission names, make the DLC a special trip down memory lane.

Respect V's Air mode gives you the ability to drop in and out of play pretty much at will, you'll play an endless playlist and the tracks will be autoplayed whenever you do not wish to play. This is good for when you want to start playing quickly and don't really care about what you play - you do get to choose your button mode and general range of difficulty, but the song selection is more or less out of your hands.

Freestyle is the ability to play any unlocked song. Here you can raise your overall score, unlock album images, accomplish in-game objectives, beat your highest scores, and increase that all-important combo counter.

Online mode consists of either ranked battles where you play best-of-3 matches to raise your tier, or free matches where you play any songs you like with others and ranking is not affected. The ranked battle system is pretty fun in my opinion.

Finally, mission mode has you trying to clear specific challenges - and they get pretty serious pretty quick.

Those familiar with DJ Max games will recognize certain flaws: in 10+ years of DJ Max, it appears Neowiz still lacks a truly experienced/native English speaker on their team. You'll find odd grammar quirks throughout, and this even extends to achievement descriptions that are ambiguous. DJMAX also has a history of not being the most technically polished game series (one of the gears in the PSP Fever game actually froze the game whenever you attempted to use it), although I have not had this game long enough to know if it's a problem. One of the current worst things performance wise is if your computer doesn't meet minimum specs, you will experience the elements of the song and video getting out of sync with each other. Which might not be a big issue, except the game seems to take more resources than it should need. My Surface Pro 3 struggles to keep up unless I turn off the BGM. Looking around on the discussions, performance seems to have gotten worse after updates, so there's always the hope that it can get better again.

Despite the flaws, this game is still a wonderful celebration of DJ Max, a fantastic entry point for beginners, and an incredible value for anybody (especially on sale). I highly recommend it.
Posted 2 January, 2021. Last edited 7 January, 2021.
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3 people found this review helpful
9.7 hrs on record (4.6 hrs at review time)
The first game I actually bought for VR (I did have those free games for activating the Oculus Rift, but this was the first game I actually CHOSE). $30 seems a tad high, since my general thought is anything above 1 song = 1 dollar in these kinds of games is too expensive. Hence, I jumped on this when it was on sale for $20.

Airtone is a rhythm game where you fly through landscapes to the beat of one of 25 different music tracks (no ability for custom music). Take something like Guitar Hero or DJMax's note track and adapt it to VR, and you're pretty close to what you'll be playing. Notes can be activated by shaking the controller in a particular direction or pointing and pressing the trigger, depending on the note. You start with one track, but unlock the rest as you play through them and gain points. You'll also advance through a story that unfolds by interacting with items in a hub area between songs. You'll also unlock other fun items, such as furniture, the ability to change the look of the room, and things like a graffiti pen and camera to capture pictures in the hub and post them on the walls. Changes to the room brought about by the last category of items, oddly enough, will be reset after the next song, which was a bummer after I carefully captured some pictures after unlocking the camera.

During the game, you'll be accompanied by Neon, an android. Watching her fly around you during music and wandering around the hub area are both really neat. If you don't care about the notes, you can even look to the side during songs when she flies there and you'll see her waving and smiling at you. Her English voice actor, however, sounds like she has a slight cold and is not too emotional (for the latter, Neon IS an android, so I suppose you can make a positive case there). There are options to turn on her Japanese voice and English subtitles, but the subtitles pop up in the center of your vision, likely obscuring something in the process. This is an odd development choice, and you'll just have to pick your poison here (I stuck with the English VA).

As for how you'll feel when playing it, Airtone is not generally a dizzying game. On the easy levels, you fly forward in a straight line. The notes will come at you quick, but the scenery is usually so vast and distant that it barely moves and likely won't bother you. One exception is a city background to portions of some songs with towers to the left and right that WILL go by you faster and may produce a mild sense of disorientation. Nothing I had to sit down for, though. Additionally harder difficulties will introduce mild curves into the note track, but no problems with those. So in general, most people shouldn't experience ill effects.

And finally, the difficulty. When I started, I couldn't take anything above, say, level 4, which is consistent with other rhythm games. It's easy enough to start getting Perfects on the first difficulty level, though, and currently I can pass the simplest songs on hard. Once I got the hang of harder songs, it gets quite fun taking on a quick barrage of notes with precision!

Overall, I definitely recommend Airtone at $20, and possibly even at $30 as well. The developer has stated back in April that they want to include DLC for additional songs (whether paid or free I do not know), but since this is November and it hasn't happened yet, take that as you will. It's a great rhythm game, a great stress reliever, and even a half-decent workout as well on the harder difficulties.
Posted 23 November, 2017.
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2 people found this review helpful
0.1 hrs on record (0.1 hrs at review time)
Doki Doki Literature Club... I almost skipped it because it looked like a cookie-cutter VN, but a friend pointed it out to me and said I would be interested. I didn't particularly know why, but then

> delete review.txt
> copy Monika.chr Monika1.chr
> copy Monika.chr Monika2.chr
> copy Monika.chr Monika3.chr
> copy Monika.chr Monika4.chr
> copy Monika.chr Monika5.chr
> copy Monika.chr Monika6.chr
> copy Monika.chr Monika7.chr
> copy Monika.chr Monika8.chr
> copy Monika.chr Monika9.chr
> copy Monika.chr Monika10.chr
Posted 22 October, 2017.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
33.5 hrs on record (27.4 hrs at review time)
I loved this game when it was originally released on the GameCube. The main story is about 40 hours long (and supposedly 80 with sidequests), and takes you for an absolute ride, with twists and turns in ample supply. The game has aged fairly well, and while this version was lacking polish on release, they managed to fix it up to the level of a perfectly serviceable port (even if the 30 FPS here compared to the original 60 FPS on the GameCube is somewhat baffling) - just compare the 73% total review score to the much-improved 97% recent review score.

Tales of... series games are action RPGs. Instead of turn-based combat, you'll be running around and attacking in an arena with your foe(s). You can choose which character to control, with each having their own unique class (swordsman, magic-user, healer, etc.) and attacks. This helps keep combat fresh and exciting over a traditional turn-based RPG. Outside combat, you have a world filled with secrets and a few ways to make the story different.

Tales of Symphonia is popularly considered one of the best, if not THE best, in the franchise so far, and I certainly agree with that statement. Now stop reading and buy it. Now. Do it.
Posted 25 November, 2016.
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6 people found this review helpful
79.3 hrs on record
As a spinoff, it's not everyone's Final Fantasy. But it does attempt to rectify some of the problems that XIII had.

First, the story, which is a weakness. I do not believe XIII-2 or Lightning Returns should have been attached to XIII. Each of them convolute the story so much, adding and changing the mythos in unnecessary ways. Personal beef aside, XIII-2 takes place... uh, anytime and everytime after XIII. That's right, you'll be traveling through time. It continues after XIII and retcons the happy ending. Series heroine Lightning has disappeared, and as her younger sister Serah, the only one who seems to remember her, you need to team up with Noel, the last survivor of humanity in the far-off future, to find the source of a timeline disturbance and fix it.

The combat is similar to XIII, which is a more dynamic version of the ATB system from many other FF games. The difference here is that you always play as the same two characters, plus your choice of captured monster. In this game, you can recruit enemy monsters, each with a specific combat role (medic, physical attacker, magic attacker, etc.), as opposed to Serah and Noel who can change roles. You can change combat roles for your party on the fly during battle to react to the situation.

Exploration is limited, each area is self-contained and you travel between each area/time via a menu. Some locations are used more than once, and you can explore them in different times to reach new areas and quests. Also unlike FFXIII, you can get sidequests from the beginning of the game. Completings quests will get you fragments, the chief indicator of progress. There are 160 fragments to collect. On the surface, I like the concept of fragments, reminiscent of Sonic Adventure's emblems. Most are single challenges. You'll have about half of them or maybe less if you're just gunning for the end (if memory serves). There is a meaty postgame, but it does get slow and annoying at times (but not as slow as FFXIII) and the fragment that has you logging battles with every single monster will be annoying, but perfectly passable with a guide. The Paradox Ending concept is also annoying too. Oh, and the quizzes in Academia. You would probably not know how to get all of them without a guide. Also unlike FFXIII, levels are not just single tunnels, but Academia (all time periods, really) is an unneccessary overcompensation. It's huge and confusing.

Ah, almost forgot! The port. Both XIII and Lightning Returns are better that XIII-2. Nearly everyone has encountered slowdown with this game. It is simply not optimized well. That said, it never became unplayable for me, and I mean ACTUALLY unplayable instead of 'OMG it's 59 FPS instead of 60 FPS' like some people who use that term. This does dip below 30 FPS at points where I could run XIII at a pretty smooth 60 throughout. I can deal with that, but some people can't. It does not excuse Square Enix from doing that to us. The game's $20, though, so yeah.

In summary, the game is worth the price. You'll have to deal with lag and a story that simply didn't need to happen, but you have a fun battle system and more exploration than FFXIII in return.
Posted 29 December, 2015.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
12.1 hrs on record (11.3 hrs at review time)
While this game does have its moments, they're buried behind some bland missions (collect the flags!) and WAY too much time spent running from guards. I would not hold your breath for a resolution of the present-day story anytime soon, and the Altair storyline is light. The core gameplay, running around, hiding, and climbing is a good idea, but is not refined until later games. By comparison, Assassin's Creed II is far better.

On sale, however, this game may be worth it.
Posted 29 December, 2015.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
18.7 hrs on record (11.4 hrs at review time)
Mini Metro is a minimalistic casual game that's great fun. The goal is simple: you manage a subway system starting with only three stops, and see that it succeeds as the number of stops grows. Rather than being a subway simulator, the game is a simplified, more gamey version of that. Each week, you get additional resources (extra subway lines, passenger cars, etc.) to help you. The passengers keep coming faster and faster, stops will gradually be added or changed, and when you get too many passengers for too long at one stop with your limited resources, you lose! Each game is perhaps 10-30 minutes depending on how good and how thourough you are (you can pause time to lay down lines more strategically at any time). There are a couple different modes to change how difficult the game is. The gameplay is fairly addictive, and the acheivements add interesting new challenges to each level. Hopefully the Overwhelmingly Positive review rate also makes you give it a look.

Also, it's great to play on a tablet!
Posted 29 December, 2015.
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8 people found this review helpful
1 person found this review funny
0.0 hrs on record
A pack of 46 alternate costumes that have a slightly different air to them than the ones in the game already (a lot of the males have more intricate armor for a more regal feel). Much easier to justify the cost than some of the other costume packs, but it still feels weird buying DLC for a so-called 'complete edition' of a game.
Posted 25 August, 2015.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
6.9 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Ignoring the very painful fact that this game has been in Early Access for more than 7 years - before Early Access was even a thing - and hasn't been updated since 2013 while the developers have gone on to release a couple more games since, this game tries to be somewhat like the developer's previous 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAA' games, which were genuinely quite fun... but it never succeeds in being like that. The developers say as much - they never really found that special formula for this game which could contribute to it being abandoned.

You're falling down a structure, and your goal is to weave back and forth to pass by as many parts as possible without hitting anything. The interaction with music never really seemed to be meaningful compared to other games of this type - usually what you end up going down is on the sparse side, and not too challenging either.
Posted 4 June, 2015. Last edited 13 November, 2018.
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Showing 1-10 of 16 entries