January 2024 results

The feeling of playing through Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - Reunion is comparable to the feeling of watching a bad teen anime, in which everything is so exaggerated that it is simply awkward, but not enough to truly enjoy what is happening. If it weren’t for the combat straight from the Final Fantasy VII Remake, it would’ve been a completely sad sight.

I want to yell at the people who ported this game to PC. No, technically the port is fine, no crashes, anything tied to the frame rate and all sorts of exclusive bugs that break the playthrough, but the control on the keyboard is just some kind of horror. Actively used keys are scattered throughout the keyboard, thanks for at least not touching the NumPad. Attacks and special moves are assigned to C, E, X and, suddenly, the down arrow. You need to navigate through menu items using Page Up and Page Down. Running and rolling on the left Ctrl, the left Shift is not used at all, who does that? The special move key is adjacent to the character change key, and, naturally, you will regularly accidentally press the wrong thing.

I got the impression that initially, mouse support was not planned at all and it was added at the last moment, without adjusting the layout to it (it’s not just that you can rotate the camera to I-J-K-L, it feels disgusting, by the way). In some situations you can switch between the same menu items with the mouse, but in others you cannot. The cursor consistently reminds of its existence in cutscenes and disappears only on rare holidays, and in segments where you need to point at a point on the map, it also bifurcates. If you exit the menu and immediately move the mouse, the camera begins to circle around the character. These are all, of course, little things, but they regularly catch your eye and spoil the overall impression.

The game itself is fine, not the best from this studio, but fine. Essentially, this is the same as The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, only you have to clear dungeons in real time. Exactly the same everyday life of a schoolboy who loves to run around on other people’s errands in his free time. Exactly the same bunch of well-written characters, creating the appearance of a living world. Collecting collectibles, hanging out with friends, some monsters and even one story character are not just exactly the same, but literally taken from the first Cold Steel - if you’ve already played it before, then you’ll feel right at home in Tokyo Xanadu eX+.

However, in general, Tokyo Xanadu eX+ looks better than the Trails of Cold Steel I-II. This game is more compact, there are much fewer characters in it, both main and secondary, due to which they are written better, and your head will not swell from their number. Plot and everyday episodes are distributed more or less evenly, there is no that monstrous bias towards everyday life from the first Cold Steel. And the story itself, although it uses Falcom’s favorite tropes from TLOH (miraculous rescues at the last moment; characters hiding their identities; main characters making fiery speeches at the first opportunity, etc.), but it is done much more elegantly. If in Cold Steel I-II all these cliches and conventions were dumped on you as is, head-on and without any measure, then in Tokyo Xanadu they are less common, look more appropriate and are not so obvious. Yes, the plot itself is simple, but it is well told and works quite well within the framework of this particular game. Although at some point in story claims for something more arise, but, unfortunately, they remain at the level of claims.

The combat system here is simple and competent enough so that battles do not turn into a tedious chore, but rather clumsy in order to get genuine pleasure from it. There are no less than six playable characters to choose from, each of which feels different, and you can switch between three in battle. Some heroes are useful against some enemies, others against others, combine and act according to the situation. Here’s a melee attack, here’s a ranged attack, two special moves and one ultimate. There is no block, you can only roll, learn timings and guess the enemy’s actions. There is a lock on the enemies, but you can’t switch between them, so fight the camera or attack the void. A bunch of dungeons lasting 5-15 minutes with bosses of varying degrees of honesty. Is it exciting? Yes. Is something annoying? Yes.

Quite a good action-RPG, for a strong 7/10. If you are already familiar with the games from Nihon Falcom, then you will get exactly what you expect from Tokyo Xanadu eX+. This game is just for those times when you want something from them, but all the officially localized Trails have already been completed, and you have to wait at least another six months for the next one. If not, then it’s quite suitable for jumping into games from this studio. Most likely it will not hit you to the core, but you will have a general idea.

This game has a horrible start (because the boring linear long stealth segment in the first chapter is exactly what you expect from a bloody shooter) and a horrible ending (the boss is so fat that for some time you don’t understand whether you’re fighting him correctly, because he doesn’t react in any way to your attacks and just gets angry, while there’s no special approach to him, you just run back and forth and shoot). Everything in between is pretty fun stealth action/bloody shooter, whichever you prefer. Dynamic, varied and not tiresome.

It’s kinda awkward: the name of the game includes the famous alien killing machines, but for some reason the nameless expendable shines in it. Aliens vs. Predator has three campaigns (for Alien, Predator and Marine), and the one from which you don’t expect anything special turns out to be the best. Episodes as a human is a strong budget shooter of the late 2000s, the general sloppiness of which was successfully covered up by a variety of events. In three hours you have time to survive alone with a pulse rifle in your arms and a motion detector with a signature sound, and to take part in a stubborn but unsuccessful defense against Aliens, and to fight a Predator one-on-one, and to visit a hive, and much more to do.

After such a vigorous campaign, you expect something at least at the same level from the remaining two, but in the end you are left disappointed. In episodes as the Predator, you have to engage in clumsy aggressive stealth and even more clumsy platforming, and when playing as an Alien, stealth ceases to be aggressive, because a representative of a terrifying species, whose embryo is capable of making everyone present in the same room with him piss out of fear, dies almost instantly in an open fight, and therefore he has to shamefully crawl along the ceiling, hide in the shadows and cut out people one by one. This could even be fun if the levels were designed for this type of gameplay, but they aren’t. The absence of any interesting situations and the short duration of both campaigns does not really help.

Even if this game did not have a beautifully told semi-detective story in which all the shots are fired, in which the comedic and dramatic elements are well balanced, in which the narrative is perfectly maintained, never gets lost or sags, and in which there are no frankly unnecessary characters, but there is the most outstanding Pomeranian in the industry

Even if this game didn’t have logical puzzles with simple but fun mechanics to solve them

Even if this game didn’t have amazing smooth animations, outstanding visual style and memorable soundtrack

Even if this game did not have any of the above, but there were chicken-eating animations in the form in which they are present now, then Ghost Trick would already be worth checking out just for them.

However, the game has all of the above, so there are many more reasons to get acquainted with Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. Great game, don’t ignore it.