Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

Expand

The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince

Platform: Nintendo Switch

Level of Completion: 100%. All trophies unlocked and all collectibles obtained. It's on Switch, so no Platinum trophy or anything to show off, but I do have these screenshots!

Synopsis: A wolf monster, disguised as a human princess, leads a local prince she accidentally blinded through a dangerous forest to a witch's cabin in order to have his vision restored. But the prince doesn't realize that his mysterious benefactor is the selfsame monster that robbed him of his vision in the first place.

Genre: Puzzle-platformer

-
-
ART AND MUSIC: The presentation, while undoubtedly low-budget, is a highlight of this title. The game's expressive character sprites and cohesive art design makes it a game that's constantly fun to look at. Forest backgrounds, while not terribly varied, are atmospheric and sometimes creepy. The muted colors work well in this respect. The character designs are cute, but not obscenely so: their chibi-esque stature doesn't detract from their dramatic presence in the story. The effect of the art is also heightened by a short but excellent score that really highlights the emotional highs and lows of the journey.

-
-
STORY: The story here is concise and basic, not unlike one you'd encounter in a fairy tale. Yet, like any decent fairy tale, there are a plethora of themes that resonate universally: self-doubt, the search for one's place in life, the centrality of memory to emotional life and personal identity, the immutable differences that divide us from one-another, questioning the most basic assumptions about our existence, and the need for unconditional acceptance and love from those we care most about.

Complimenting the fairy tale-esque nature of the plot is the way it's conveyed to the player. Dialogue, character thoughts, and plot activity are all narrated in story book fashion by an omniscient third-person narrator, with charming illustrations that have a sketch-like quality to them. The effect, then, is not unlike having a parental figure read a bedtime story to you as a child.

The cast is limited. Aside from some monsters and disposable humans in the background, the only three characters in this game are the Wolf/Princess, the Prince, and the Witch. And the Witch is more of a plot device than anything, and only shows up near the beginning and the end of the game. So the entire focus is on the eponymous duo. It's a genuine pleasure to watch their relationship evolve throughout, especially when it examines the changing attitudes and moral struggles of the "Princess," who is entirely unused to the needs and habits of actual human beings (there's a charming scene where she discovers that, to her shock, humans don't just go out and consume the raw flesh of animals they've butchered; to the Princess, who is actually a wolf, eating raw meat is just second-nature, part of her automatic and unquestioning relationship to the universe around her). It's an interesting twist on the Beauty and the Beast concept. There's also a Disney's Little Mermaid element here: the reason the Wolf and the Prince meet in the first place is because of the Wolf's beautiful singing voice, which the Prince would travel to the forest every night to admire, not knowing she's a monster. She accidentally blinds him by trying to cover his eyes so that he can't see her for the beast she is when he tries to find her one evening, and, like Ariel in The Little Mermaid, she sacrifices her most precious possession, her singing voice, in order to assume a humanoid form and escort the Prince to the Witch. Unlike Ariel, though, she isn't really seeking to woo a man or break free from the trappings of her childhood. Rather, she's on a quest motivated by love and guilt.

One complaint, though: given the fact that the actual story is limited to a relatively minor amount of narrated dialogue, it would have been great to have this narration in English. I'm sure the Japanese voiceover is fine, but when someone's telling you a story, you want to actually understand the words you're hearing. It's a small thing, and would have improved the presentation fairly dramatically.

There's a lot of self-doubt in the Wolf's heart; could the Prince ever learn to accept her for who she truly is?

The game's tone is one that mixes somberness and an almost childlike whimsy to often great effect.
-
-
GAMEPLAY: While everything else is positive, the downside of the game is found in its gameplay. It's actually not a bad game , but the very basic nature of the gameplay fails to live up to the excellence found in the rest of the product. The entire game is one escort quest. The main character can switch between Wolf form, which she'll need to do to clear certain obstacles and keep enemies from mutilating the helpless Prince, and Princess form, where she'll be able to grab hold of his hand and lead him forward in the level. The Prince himself is little more than an accessory used to activate switches most of the time (which makes sense, considering he's totally unable to navigate by himself), although, over the course of the game, you'll unlock the ability to tell him to walk a certain distance on his own and have him carry certain light objects that are needed for some of the puzzles.

The puzzles themselves are primarily of the environmental form, with you having to figure out how to get the Prince through certain tricky obstacles without enemies or the environment killing him. And he will die a lot, as falls of more than a few feet tend to be fatal, and there's a LOT of jumping around in this game. You also have riddles of varying quality, though. They tend to be either incredibly basic, to the point where they might not even be there, or occasionally inscrutable to the point where you have no idea how to even tackle them.

Levels are clumped together in themed environments, with each one individually taking no more than a few minutes to navigate. There really isn't much in the way of variation between these areas, though, and the gameplay is samey throughout, despite the addition of a few mechanics here and there. Moreover, it never feels like you're really being challenged with a series of increasingly complex levels. It's easy to go on mental autopilot as you navigate these simple challenges, waiting for the next story segment to show up.

Controls, while not terrible, don't fare especially well, either. The Wolf should be a thrilling character to control, but she just feels sort of... clunky to maneuver.

I should also mention that, even for its diminutive $19.99 price tag ($29.99 if you buy it physically, lol), the game has little to offer in the way of unique content. It probably took me between 3 - 4 hours to complete the game, and then another 2 or 3 to complete all of the trophies and side content. So, best case scenario, you're looking at 7 hours of playtime. It's a charming story, but there's just not that much to this game.

I love how the Prince and Princess both smile when they're holding hands. It's such an adorable touch.

If you allow the Prince to die somehow, the Princess will sob in grief for a moment before you're restarted to the last checkpoint.
-
-
Conclusion: The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince is a cute, charming fairy tale with a lovely style of presentation but little in the way of substantive gameplay content, challenge, or longevity.

A good visual metaphor for the lovely couple's relationship
-
-
Verdict: 7/10 (subtract a point if you're not a sap like me and don't tear up by the end)

Expand

Yakuza Kiwami 2

Indeed

Completion: About 60hrs (I think) with roughly 80% trophy completion (my best yet for a Yakuza game!)

Sometimes you do need to take a break from all the double crossing and exposition

Story: YK2 (as it shall be known from here on in) picks up not long after YK1 (I'm sticking to it) and the plot is just as good as the previous game. Unsurprisingly, it's a tale of double crossing, slow reveals, and occasional moments of melodrama. The game does well to bring back plenty of characters from the first game but also introduces lots of new characters, none more so than the main protagonist Ryuji Goda.

The main story bounds along nicely and flits between Kamurocho and Sotenbori, with the option to freely move between the two as you like. Occasional deviations take you into different areas, particularly the Tojo clan headquarters, but for the main part you'll be covering your old stomping grounds from Y0 and YK1.

The story gets a little silly towards the end as it seems every other character is a member of the Korean mafia that are the behind-the-scenes baddies here but on the whole the story is solid. The addition of the Majima storyline to fill in the gaps for him is a nice little addition that adds a couple of hours on but it is a bit light on content.

Sadly, no using the tiger drop on an actual tiger

Combat: The combat here is much more streamlined with only the one combat style, rather than the three to four from previous games. This surprised me slightly and the combat feels quite repetitive early on as you only have the one style and few moves to go along with it. However, the combat upgrades work much better when not spread across the different styles, and there are a hole heap of heat actions (special moves) to keep combat fresh. In particular, there are useful additions to help in crowd control situations which are very welcome. Majima also has reduced combat styles which is disappointing and given the lack of upgrades to his style, it feels a bit boring compared to the bonkers styles he has in previous outings.

The same problems persist from previously, however, particularly that the camera seems to sometimes manage to find the worst possible angle for fighting and that the method of locking on to enemies is a bit rubbish. The health regen moves for bosses from the previous game have gone thankfully though, and the main boss fights have unique heat moves to finish them which was a nice addition.

Cabaret club is back!

Side content: A big part of the Yakuza series is the [s]nonsense[/s] extracurricular activities there are to partake in.

The sub stories here felt a little lacklustre as they mostly felt like quite short affairs which were frequently mob fights. There were some exceptions to this but the in depth sub stories of Y0 and YK1 felt missing.

The cabaret club mini game makes a triumphant return with its own storyline. While little is different from Y0, it felt a bit more of a chore this time around but of course I still completed it and raked in the cash while doing so.

The new Majima construction was a bit of a chore though. You oversee your merry construction workers (with their catchy Majima construction theme tune) and move them around to defend your construction lot. Strategy comes into play with the make up of your squad, upgrading characters in battle, and unleashing special moves at the right time. It is fun to start with but quickly becomes repetitive.

Speaking of repetitive, there are additional bouncer missions which plonk you into a small section of the map and have an almost Streets of Rage style mission as you clear these areas of enemies (in slightly different ways) before finishing with a boss. These are good fun to start but each level has three difficulty rankings, although I never noticed too much difference between them, and there are 25 levels altogether I think. So yes, 75 levels altogether. Sod that.

The coliseum is also back with a fun array of battle types but the overall difficulty here felt lower than previous games. This was fine by me as I actually got to complete it for once.

Yakuza is going to Yakuza

Overall: YK2 doesn't reinvent the Kiryu shaped wheel but tinkers with it enough to feel different from previous outings and makes it look better than ever. The story will drag you in but the extra content will keep you there.

Expand

So, onto the next review with bigger images! (but less of them..)

Observation

First off, a little context. I played this in one sitting in one of my pre-night shift gaming all nighters. I previously did this with Hellblade and thought I'd have another go at completing a shortish story focused game in one sitting. This is quite cool to be able to do but may be responsible for some of the feelings I had towards the game, particularly as I'd been awake for almost 24hrs as I completed the game.

And shoutout to @johncalmc whose review I read again after completing the game (and who has much better pictures than me).

Completion: Finished the whole thing in about 7-8hrs. About 50% trophy completion as they are mostly story based but almost all are secret trophies and I didn't do the random tasks for some.

Security Cam: The Game

Story: This is definitely the strength of the game and I can't talk about story without really talking gameplay as well.

The USP of the game is that instead of playing as a human character, you play as SAM (Systems, Administration, and Maintenance) the AI for the ship you're on. So instead of having a physical body to control, you control the security camera network for the ship which allows you to jump from room to room and scan/interact with items in the rooms. Later on in the game, you get given control of a spherical robot that allows you to move around the ship as well.

The game kicks off with Dr Emma Fisher rebooting you and trying to make sense of what the heck is going on as the rest of the crew are no longer contactable and the ship's systems have gone kaput. Oh, and you're now orbiting Saturn rather than Earth and apparently that was something you did for reasons you don't remember. Good work SAM.

From here, you get into increasing problems and things go rather loopy. But in a rather interesting way that can't really be discussed without spoiling things too much.

The gameplay is mostly jumping from room to room to solve problems of varying levels. Some of which are fairly straightforward, some of which take a bit more thinking (more on this later).

Stuff what I liked: So, the story is cool. The game also looks great for the most part. The security cam effect is done really well with image stuttering and all sorts rather than just giving you a plain screen. The lighting is really atmospheric too and the views when you leave the ship for the few moments spent outside are really special.

The relationship between Emma and SAM also build really well to the point where you do feel like you care what is happening to you in a way that made me think of the bond you make with Trico in The Last Guardian but with a character not so prone to the mental farts that Trico suffered from.

Not a great day at the office for Dr. Fisher

Everything else: Oh boy, this could take a while.

Seeing as the game is essentially one puzzle after another, you spend a lot of your time doing the same few tasks over and over. While I get that unlocking doors is a bit of a routine thing for an AI system to be doing, having to use the same method to do this throughout the game gets a bit repetitive. Probably 80% of the puzzles revolve around the same couple of game mechanics.

But at least it's clear what you're supposed to be doing. There are plenty of times when you have no idea what it is you're actually supposed to do or how to actually do it and there's no way to get any help other thank asking Emma to repeat what it is she wants you to do. A high end AI system would probably realise the communication module is in their own subsystems but how are you supposed to know this when you've never used it before?

Certain tasks are also a pain in the derriere and I specifically noted one that requires you to find co-ordinates on a map that looks like a monochromatic Jackson Pollock painting being particularly frustrating and John also mentions the exact same moment in his review.

And this is all assuming you even got to the location of the puzzle in the first place. Movement in the game is really clumsy when you're controlling the sphere and I spent most of my time bouncing off the walls of corridors (not helped by the mood lighting). If there was a security bot floating past, they'd probably have breathalysed me.

Don't expect the terrible waypoints to help direct you around, if you even have a map to work of at all. One late part of the game had me flying/bumping backwards and forwards for ages trying to find where to go before turning to YouTube for the answer. All of this isn't helped by the fact that in zero gravity you can't even rely on up being up to help you get your bearings for where you're going.

More security cam gameplay pics! I should have remembered to get a bit more variety really..

Overall: The story and idea behind the game here are really different and I'm glad I did give the game a go but the annoyances just became too much for me in the end. Had I taken a break from the game, then the urge to jettison SAM into deep space (bouncing off the airlock as he goes) may have faded. Towards the end though I just turned to a guide to get me over the finish line as my poor sleep deprived AI module/brain had had enough.

The payoff for the story was just about worth it. Most reviews don't seem to be so down on the game as I was though but it's been a while since I've got so exasperated with a game.