NIS America Game Reviews
Review Operation Babel: New Tokyo Legacy (PS Vita)
Mission: Aborted
Operation Babel: New Tokyo Legacy is the follow-up to Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy - a dungeon crawler which arrived on the PlayStation Vita in 2015 to some fairly average review scores. Experience Inc. has released some really good dungeon crawlers on Sony's handheld, so you'd hope that for Operation Babel it would take some...
Basket case
The Silver Case is one of the early titles developed by renowned auteur Suda51 and his studio Grasshopper Manufacture. Unsurprisingly, the ticks and quirks that have come to define his recent output are present in abundance. Indeed, this is a profoundly strange game, and one that – for both better and worse – often feels...
Review Birthdays the Beginning (PS4)
Life finds a way
Birthdays the Beginning is a pretty strange title for a pretty strange game. It’s a god game in which you manipulate a cubic world in order to create new lifeforms. As far as elevator pitches go, it doesn’t sound terribly interesting, but it does just about enough to hold your attention – if only for a short time. You...
Review A Rose in the Twilight (PS Vita)
The rose beyond the wall
Nippon Ichi certainly knows how to tell gruesome tales featuring adorable looking young girls! The creators of Yomawari: Night Alone have returned with a brand new puzzle platformer, A Rose in the Twilight. It's a tale of innocence, friendship, and blood. A young girl with a thorn upon her back awakens in the rubble, deep...
Review Touhou Genso Wanderer (PS4)
Boo-hoo
Rogue-like role-playing release Touhou Genso Wanderer follows the story of adorable protagonist Reimu Harukei. Reimu becomes entranced by the 'golden sphere' that soon-to-be antagonist Rinnosuke Morichika is holding, and tries to steal it from him. Clearly under the sphere's spell, Rinnosuke fights back, and Reimu soon finds herself away...
Review Danganronpa 1&2 Reload (PS4)
The kids aren't alright
The Danganronpa series is built around a deliciously gruesome premise: a bunch of high schoolers are held captive - in a school in the first game, a tropical island in the second - and they're told that the only way they'll ever be allowed to go back to their normal life is if they kill one of the other members of the group...
Review Yomawari: Night Alone (PS Vita)
Horror never looked so cute
Yomawari: Night Alone tells the haunting tale of a girl, seemingly alone, trying to find her sister and lost dog Poro in her small town. As our heroine's adventure beginss, it's clear from the offset that the town is haunted, and she must go on her quest without being caught by the many ghosts that roam the streets...
Review Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters: Daybreak Special Gigs (PS4)
Hits some good notes
Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters: Daybreak Special Gigs is billed as an enhanced version of the original Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters, which was released to Western audiences only last year on the PlayStation 3 and Vita. The story, played out as a visual novel, is developed through chapters, and is a fairly formulaic affair. New...
Review Criminal Girls 2: Party Favors (PS Vita)
I hope that's a PS Vita in your pocket
The original Criminal Girls: Invite Only game was a fun, turn-based JPRG dungeon crawler released on PSP and then reworked for the VITA. Lots was made of the added, er, tactical 'rubbing' of the naughty girls in your party to power them up, which formed a series of slightly dubious minigames alongside the main...
Review Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness (PS4)
Don't worry, be happy
Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness takes place in the same universe as the popular anime show, Psycho-Pass. Set in the year 2112, an always online system named Sybil is constantly monitoring the mental state of the entire population, and pointing out individuals who are psychologically likely to commit a crime in the future. As a...
Review Stranger of Sword City (PS Vita)
Outsider art
Stranger of Sword City does a great job of living up to its name. Trapped in a weird, rather haunting fantasy world, you're constantly made to feel like an outsider – someone that's stumbled into a series of events that they can't quite comprehend. This is a dungeon crawler with an atmospheric edge, and although it doesn't do a great...
Review The Witch and the Hundred Knight: Revival Edition (PS4)
It's a remastered kind of magic
By the pricking of our thumbs, something remastered this way comes. Yes, Nippon Ichi Software – the developer of the superb turn-based strategy role-playing Disgaea franchise – has decided to polish up its real-time battler The Witch and the Hundred Knight, adding Revival Edition to its already lengthy name on the...
Review Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance (PS4)
Revenge is a dish best served on the PS4
In a genre that prides itself on balanced gameplay and character building, you can always count on the Disgaea franchise to be the outlier in the strategy role-playing realm with its ability to not take itself too seriously. If you've played previous instalments, you'll know that a wacky cast and...
Review Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls (PS Vita)
Hell is whenever
As sinister as it is completely crazy, Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls is very much birthed from the same minds as the other games in the series – except that this time around, courtroom class trials and detective work are replaced by linear third-person action. It's a gameplay shift that paints Ultra Despair...
Review The Awakened Fate Ultimatum (PlayStation 3)
Fateful random encounters
The conflict between Heaven and Hell is a theme often explored in video games. Is Heaven really made up of pure righteousness, and conversely is Hell really founded solely on black malefic intent? The eternal struggle of good and evil, polar opposites clashing against one another in a battle to the death – it can all be...
Review htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary (PlayStation Vita)
Fly away
With a title like htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary, this latest PlayStation Vita puzzle platformer seems like a strange fit for the Western market. However, niche publisher NIS America has made its name by bringing quirky little curios overseas, and Sony's handheld is certainly a haven for the unusual. The game sees you controlling fireflies –...
Review Criminal Girls: Invite Only (PlayStation Vita)
Crack that whip
There's a classic feminist anthem by Devo which goes into great detail on what one ought to do when faced with a problem. Criminal Girls: Invite Only isn't the long-awaited JRPG based on that classic musical achievement, but there are similarities. In fact, put the song on in the background as you play and, like Dark Side of the Moon...
Review Fairy Fencer F (PlayStation 3)
Caught off-garde
Sometimes the best way to succeed is to stick to the bread and butter of the genre, rather than mess about with weird gimmicks. In Fairy Fencer F, developed by Compile Heart, it aims to do just that in using fairies, furies, and fencers. Upon overhearing a rumour, our hungry hero Fang removes the sword in the stone to get his one...
Review Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (PlayStation Vita)
Hello addiction
Anyone who played and enjoyed Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is likely to mention one of its greatest strengths when praising the game: its ability to make you think about and consider the title's events, even when you're not playing. Its narrative structure and cast of interesting personalities meant that you'd end up pondering...
Review Battle Princess of Arcadias (PlayStation 3)
Such a peach
Being a princess is overrated. You’ll soon wear out your waving hand, you have to speak to poor people (which even poor people hate doing), and the occasional gifted helicopter from the in-laws does little to take the edge off. Being a battle princess, alternatively, is a completely different affair. It means you get to go out and hit...
Review Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection (PlayStation Vita)
Let's nep nep
The colourful lands of Gamindustri are once again under threat – not from an evil organisation or an enraged Histy, but rather by an influx of idols in the charts. One idol group in particular, MOB48 – a take on the insanely popular Japanese girl group AKB48 – have been causing a bit of a kerfuffle, having stolen all of the CPU's...
Review Mugen Souls Z (PlayStation 3)
The questionable quest for cute
There aren’t many games as unusual as Mugen Souls Z. Its main character is a young goddess who carries around a coffin, not for any reason in particular, just because the writers needed some kind of container and that seemed to make sense. That’s not the weirdest thing that you’ll see either. Charged with...
Review Demon Gaze (PlayStation Vita)
Should have gone to Specsavers
When Demon Gaze first burst onto the scene in Japan last January, it sold 25,316 physical copies in its first week alone, outselling Compile Hearts' Monster Monpiece which launched on the same day. Subsequently, PlayStation Vita owners outside of Japan rejoiced as Kadokawa Games’ dungeon crawling success story was...
Review The Witch and the Hundred Knight (PlayStation 3)
Swamp thing
Nippon Ichi Software has a reputation for the absurd and strange, and while The Witch and the Hundred Knight initially seems poised to continue that trend successfully, the game’s humour soon turns dark and indignant – and its minor flaws begin to stack. Make no mistake, there’s a solid action RPG hidden beneath this title’s...
Review Ys: Memories of Celceta (PlayStation Vita)
Never forget
The Ys series has a peculiar past consisting of large gaps between sequels, a slew of different developers creating non-canon side projects, and an overall lack of localisation in Europe and North America. However, despite all of this turmoil, its refined mechanics and generally dependable quality has earned it a loyal following all...
Review Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (PlayStation Vita)
Addicted to despair
Hope's Peak Academy: a social melting pot for Japan's best students, and home to a horrific killing game that provides teenagers with the motives for murder. This is Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, a title that's part visual novel, part point-and-click adventure, and part courtroom craziness. But is this sinister scenario worth...
Review Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness (PlayStation 3)
Explosive penguins, dood!
Strategy RPGs aren't usually known for their humour. Sure, Fire Emblem: Awakening inspired the odd chuckle, but for the most part, devising grid-based battlefield attacks is serious business. Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness on the other hand is chaotic, nonsensical, and absolutely mad – and we mean that in the most...
Review The Guided Fate Paradox (PlayStation 3)
Fate fighter
The Guided Fate Paradox starts incredibly slowly. Tutorials hold your hand for the first hour, with only a mere sliver of actual gameplay putting in an appearance. Even when it's over, there's still more to learn, although these intricacies are thankfully taught through a staggered approach over time. This initial phase is also thick...
Review Time and Eternity (PlayStation 3)
Love will tear us apart
Naughty bubble-baths and tongue-in-cheek dirty jokes are often commonplace in the JRPG genre, but they don't typically accompany an array of mature issues, such as the death of a loved one and secrecy. This is because contrasting potty humour with a deep storyline rarely works, as it’s difficult to empathise with any...
Review Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory (PlayStation 3)
"Is that your 'please punish me' face?"
Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory is a hard-sell. It’s what reviewers like to call ‘a niche title’, meaning a game that the majority of PlayStation 3 owners will pick up and then swiftly put back down. Set in a land governed by gaming tech, it's the third instalment in the Neptunia JRPG series, a franchise...
