Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree’s Woe And The Blight Below PS4 [REVIEW] | #musoumay

RPGs aren’t really my bag anymore, not because i dislike them, but because they’re way too much time consuming for me nowadays, they simply are, and while i make some exceptions.. i usually don’t bother because i know i will most likely lose interest or be forced to play something else that i can finish in far less time so i can write a review for it and have it out in a reasonable timeframe.

Dragon Quest doesn’t need presentation nowadays, as is THE quintessential Japanese RPG series since its heyday, arguably even more than Final Fantasy in the land of Nippon, but since i’m not familiar with it, i won’t be making any presentation, even more so since this title is clearly catered to hack n slash fanatics that might or might not have played at least a Dragon Quest game, meaning it’s a gateway title for musou fans or general audiences that have some understanding of the series only through pure gaming osmosis but not had any chance or big interest for the series itself.

Which leads us to the plot being a spin-off affair with an original story that does the “multiversional tango”, as it custom to most of these Warriors crossover games overall, in order to have an ensemble cast of heroes from the various mainline games enter the fray alongside original protagonist characters and a fairly generic common threath for everyone to band together against the baddie responsable, in hope this can also sent the various heroes to their home world/dimension.

Works for me.

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[EXPRESSO] Metal Slug Attack Reloaded STEAM | Freemium Free

So, yeah, this was unexpected, not unprecedented, but definitely unexpected, especially due to how quickly modern SNK put out and closed these free-to-play Metal Slug spin-offs.

But yeah, now the second tower defense Metal Slug title (Metal Slug Defense was a bit too old and kinda left unsopported for years, so it made sense to bring this one out of the freezer) is back as a 10 bucks single purchase, no microtransactions, timers or limited energy to play, none of that.

I’ve actually played quite a bit of the game when it was free-to-play on iOS, so it’s both kinda cool and weird to see it back as an actual game, you know, the ones you pay once and are actually meant to be played without the serpent of Eden asking for your credit card info.

I find it’s actually playable now, as the original release was notable worse in fighting anyone that didn’t wanna pay up, incredibly aggressive, a lot worse than Metal Slug Defense was, too.

Still, it’s a fairly mindless tower defense title, somewhat enjoyable despite very little strategy and little depth to it (which was also true of Metal Slug Defense, btw).

That said, it’s not a remake and it serves as a testament that nothing is actually free in free-to-play, because the design is untouched, meaning that the game is still unbalanced, heavy on difficulty spikes and grinding, holdovers that make littles sense without the F2P monetization, like the gacha to recruit units for which you’re given a fuckton of what was the “premium currency”.

Kinda odd as they also kept in the PvP online battles, but i guess why not, it’s not like they were gonna even try to balance this thing, it would have required pretty much making a new game from scratch.

P.S.: This review was made after playing the game a little after launch, pointing this out because this review has been (coincidentally) posted just before SNK announced in late November a vague free update coming in the future.

Dead Island Riptide (Definitive Edition) PS4 [REVIEW] | #deadislandretrospective

Aka the “actual” Dead Island 2, as time would eventually tell.

Technically not, but actually yes, since it’s developed by Techland and in terms of story it’s a direct sequel, following up immediatly (after a brief recap) where we left off that unremarkable (to be kind) narrative, which means the group of survivors gets aid by an american Navy ship but it’s immediatly captured by one of the side villains from the previous game, Serpo (guess Betraldo didn’t have the same ring to it), intenting of using their immune blood to concoct a cure and a weaponized bio weapon, or something. Doesn’t matter much, as you shipwreck into a nearby island in the archipelago, where the zombie epidemic has also spread after the incident in Banoi, and learn that they plan to nuke the entire island in order to contain the zombie plague.

Yeah, the story it’s about as crappy and easy to completely not give a shit about, with the obvious twists seen coming miles and miles away, but i’d argue it’s actually, objectively worse since there is barely a plot in Riptide, like, at all, aside from the beginning and ending, where a side character in the first game becomes the main antagonist… barely, so you can say this game does recycle too much from the first, even in this regard.

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[EXPRESSO] Arknights iOS | Medicated Nation

Arknights ios splash screen.PNG

So yeah, Yostar’s new gacha game, looks a lot more like Girls Frontline (or an anime take on The Division) than Azur Lane but isn’t any of that, it’s a tower defense thingie with people befitted of the ever popular animal ears, because. The vague plot sees you as the amnesiac leader of pharmaceutical-commando company Rhodes Island, in a world afflicted by Catastrophes, bringing destruction and the precious mineral known as Originium, which infects people with the mysterious disease of “Oripathy” ( awakening powers but also being lethal in the long run), and you fight the other factions at play, the cultish Reunion and the military force of the city of Chernobog.

Plot is decent, character design good for this type of game, and gameplay wise – as i said -, it’s a tower defense affair: you put units on the available grid spaces to stop the enemy units from entering through the gate/s at the end. If anything, the surprisingly long tutorial-prologue will get you up to speed to the basics and Arknight’s minor but nice additions to the formula. The usual free-to-play bullshit isn’t that bad either, as the game gives you useful items to start with (not just crap), but of course wants you to roll the gacha for characters with an alluring design by using real money.

Aside from some inusual design choices, like characters who don’t receive exp directly from fights (instead you gotta use xp item received as rewards to level them up), Studio Montagne’s game is fairly good in itself, with a good introduction of new enemy types and objects to keep things interesting, using actual gameplay to keep you coming back, instead of just using the typical psychological hooks to make you log in something way repetitive that basically plays itself (hi, Azur Lane).

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