Final Fantasy XIII-2

Warning: This review contains spoilers of Final Fantasy XIII.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 continues the story of the first game, right after the ending cutscene of the first game. A new era has begun, where people are no longer under fal’Cie control. With their providing masters gone, people now have to find their own means of survival on Gran Pulse.

The game follows the footsteps of Sarah Farron, the sister of Lightning who was formerly frozen in Crystal Stasis. The actions of Lightning & co. released her from her crystal prison and is able to wander the world as a normal human being again.

Now living in New Bodhum, a replica of Bodhum established on Gran Pulse, Serah seems to remember things that are not quite right it seems. She remembers reuniting with Lightning and the others, but Lightning is nowhere to be found, and her friends at New Bodhum tell her Lightning went into Crystal Statis together with Fang & Vanille to keep Cocoon from crashing into Pulse.

On a fateful day, an unusual lot of enemies start attacking New Bodhum. Just when things start to look bleak, a space-time rift opens, and a young man comes to their aid. He is Noel Kreiss, a warrior from the future who has witnessed the end of humanity and is on a quest through time to prevent this outcome from happening.

After the fight, Noel explains Serah & the NORA crew that he is from the future, that Lightning is alive and sent him to Serah over the timeless world of Valhalla, and that someone else has been meddling with the time lines. As a result, gates to the Historia Crux started appearing in different areas and times, which allow time travel to times and places where a paradox has manifested itself. With a new ally on her side, Serah decides to join Noel on his quest to resolve the paradoxes and find Lightning. And so their time-travelling adventure begins…

Gameplay

Combat & leveling

Being a sequel to FF13, the gameplay didn’t change a lot. The game still promotes auto-battle style combat with heavy focus on the Paradigm Shift system from the first game. If you want more details on the Paradigm Shift mechanic, please read our review of Final Fantasy XIII, which has a section explaining it.

Combat in this game isn’t very different from its prequel.

Initiating combat has changed completely. This time, RNG encounters are applied like FF games usually have. When triggering an encounter, enemies spawn around you which you can either avoid by running away (if the enemies aren’t too fast), run into them to engage combat, or attack them to start with a pre-emptive strike.

Another new addition in combat is the use of quick time events during bossfights. This makes the combat a bit more interactive, and using the auto-battle command is no longer your one-way solution to everything.

Quick-time events add some action to the combat.

The Crystarium system (which is used to level up your characters) has changed a bit. The basic idea remains: After completing a battle you get Crystogen points which can be allocated to one of your available roles. Leveling up a role grants you new skills for that role. However, 2 things have changed compared to the FF13 Crystarium. The first one is that the Crystarium is no longer a multi-level spiral, but simply a circle of a fixed amount of nodes you iterate through multiple times. Every time you spend enough Crystogen to complete a circle, your Crystarium level goes up by one, and a special ability is granted to you which you can choose. This is the way to unlock extra roles, role levels, ATB gauge segments and accessory capacity. A higher Crystarium level also causes the Crystogen cost per node to increase, so make sure you choose your upgrades wisely, as grinding towards the next level may be a painful task.

The Crystarium has changed significantly.

In this game we only have 2 main characters instead of 6, so to fill in the missing slot, Square Enix decided to add a monster capturing element to this game. When completing a fight with a high rank, there is a chance that you will capture a monster which you may use in battle. Each monster has only 1 role they specialize in, unlike the 6 accessible roles of the heroes of the game. However, you may define a paradigm pack of up to 3 monsters, allowing you to use at least 3 of the 6 roles for the 3rd character slot in your paradigm setups. This is a small restriction compared to the first game, but it doesn’t have a impact too big.

Collected monsters can be levelled and used in combat.

Sarah and Noel level up using Crystogen points, but monsters must be upgraded with monster materials. These are items you can find or buy and only act as food for your monsters. Instead of a number of crystogen points, the monster Crystarium requires a certain amount of items to level up. The Crystarium of monsters also works with Crystarium levels, allowing you to upgrade the monsters role level and ATB gauge.

Exploration

The way the world is laid out is totally different from the first game. The entire story progresses through smaller areas which can be accessed from the Historia Crux. Each area is either a different place, or the same place in a different time. As a result, you may have to explore the same place multiple times, every time with areas and quests that can be accessed only in that specific time. Sometimes you have to go to the past to change something in the future and vice versa so you can proceed.

Navigating through different times and areas is done with the Historia Crux menu.

A large part of making progress consists of traveling back and forth between times and finding items. The finding items part can be a real pain in the rear sometimes, because some of the items are hidden in awfully painful places to discover by yourself, and the amount of hints is really down to a minimum. I had to use a guide to find some of the items to progress through the main story line.

The game provides a variety of combat, exploration and puzzling.

On the brighter side, the areas are interesting and well designed. You get to revisit some of the areas of Final Fantasy XIII, but slightly modified. The game also introduces a lot of new areas, like the future city of Academia and the Augusta tower.

Content

The plot is well made and very interesting, having both interesting heroes which are deepened out over time, as well a remarkable villian, who ends up being a “hero with a different vision”. He is comparable to what Dhaos is in Tales of Phantasia.

The time to complete the main storyline is significantly shorter than what the prequel had to offer. I completed FFXIII in about 60-70 hours, while completing the main story of this game took less than 40 hours. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing: A lot of the tedious things present in the prequel have been cut from this game. The travelling required for the main story is kept short and clean for the most part. However, if you decide to do the side missions, be prepared to do a lot of walking and trying to find items.

Along the way through time you’ll meet old friends again.

Once the game is completed, you get an item called the “Paradox scope”. This allows you to replay already completed sections and obtain an alternate ending. This is kind of cool, because it shows you what could’ve been different, or the things that could’ve gone wrong if our heroes didn’t do what they had to.

Even before completing the game, there are areas that you can discover that are not connected to the main story line. These usually contain an entire branch of side quests leading to some conclusion of a side story.

Last but not least, there is the Requiem of the Goddess DLC which features a minigame where you play as Lightning in a battle against the final boss. It gives conclusion to the entire story and sets up some plot for the third game in the FFXIII trilogy.

Sound & Graphics

The music of Final Fantasy XIII was excellent, and this game performs equally well. Both emotional and more upbeat tracks manage to set the feel for the events that are about to unfold.

In terms of graphics the game doesn’t perform that well. The impressive landscapes that Final Fantasy XIII had are missing in this game. This is partially due to how the maps were designed, usually covering map boundaries with mountains, or being in an area where such views make no sense.

Detail rendering like hair & shadows seems to be rather glitchy and inaccurate and is easily noticed. Kinda ruins the cutscenes where a close-up of the characters is shown, and the hair is starting to defy the laws of physics.

The real killer is the vast amount of frame drops. In this game, I’ve suffered from frame drops both in large and smaller areas. Even in combat, the graphics engine seems to have trouble keeping up with the frame rate.

Conclusion

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a big improvement compared to the first game. The story has a lot more to offer than the first game, with clearly established characters and motives that grow and change over time. The little tweaks on the combat & levelling system require some time getting used to. While the main story may be a bit shorter than its predecessor, the game provides enough content both pre- and post-game to keep you entertained.

The only hiccups the game suffers from are annoying item searching, harsh level spikes which require some grinding and frame drops. The first level spike happens pretty early in the game, whereas the following sections are too easy due to being overlevelled.

The game is currently available for €16 on steam, which is an alright price for the game, not considering the frame drop flaws. If you think you can overcome the frame drops somehow (or it gets fixed finally), this game is a good purchase. You may need to look up a guide to assist you on the item hunting though.

 

Final Fantasy XIII series reviews

Final Fantasy XIII

Deathsmiles

CAVE has recently announced that DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsu will be coming out on Steam. Great news for bullet hell fans just like me and hopefully you. In this review however, I will take a look at a CAVE SHMUP that is already available on Steam.

Gameplay

Deathsmiles is a horizontal SHMUP featuring 4 (5 in the Mega Black Label version) playable characters vanquishing the evils from the land of Gilverado, and trying to stop the source of all monsters. The game is laid out in 7 + 2 optional stages varying from fights in a town to entering a volcano. You get to select the stage order in a Megaman-like fashion. The difficulty can also be set per stage, allowing you to go for big scores on the levels you breeze through, while downtoning the bullets on more tricky stages. Some of the levels feel a bit short sometimes, but are still packed with action.

Final Fantasy XIII

Final Fantasy. A long running RPG series known for its godly gameplay and storytelling. Originally coming from Final Fantasy 4, 5 and 6, I took quite a leap here. Even though I read that it wasn’t exactly the best Final Fantasy game around, I found a reasonably cheap bundle containing both XIII and XIII-2. And besides, it can’t do any harm finding out why people say the title doesn’t live up to its name, right?

The game throws you right into some action as you see the heroine Lightning knock out some guards on a train traveling to Cocoon, attempting to escape their execution. After that, the train is being attacked and derailed by Sanctum forces, trying to kill everyone aboard in the process. It is then that you get to play as Lightning and Sazh, trying to escape the assault.

As the game starts, you’re navigating through a very linear section, battling enemies you encounter on the way. Battles start off simple, consisting of attacking enemies and healing up with potions. The game uses its famous Active Time Battle system, where you do not attack in turns based on speed, but fight in real time.

Story

Final Fantasy XIII’s story is about the people of Cocoon, the fal’Cie that provide their needs and the l’Cie they fear. This is pretty much what the first 15 hours tell you about the universe. Poor early storytelling and not explaining the key concepts of your universe makes this one heck of a confusing telltale to follow.

Reading the datalog early on will help you understand the story.

So, to summarise that which the game only does much later in the game: The Sanctum fal’Cie are God-like creatures providing the people of Cocoon with their basic needs. They do not meddle with human concerns like politics and ethics though.

The Pulse fal’Cie brand people as l’Cie, humans with magical capabilities and a task (a Focus) they must fulfill. If they succeed their task, they transform into a crystal, being granted eternal life. If they fail, they are being transformed into Cie’th, beings of eternal suffering and hatred. Due to the “crystal or suffer” outcome of being a l’Cie, people fear Pulse fal’Cie and l’Cie, fearing they would be branded next if they get in touch with l’Cie.

Before the point where the game starts, a Pulse fal’Cie was awoken on Cocoon. As a safety precaution, all people near the fal’Cie area had to be removed, thus starting the Purge. The people (including our heroes Lightning and Sahz) had to board a train which would move all the people to Gran Pulse. And from then on the game starts.

Once you understand what the heck is going on, the plot doesn’t advance that much any more. Everyone starts off in a panicking/demoralized state but eventually they get over it. Once they learn everything about the origin of Gran Pulse and Cocoon, they decide to stop the fal’Cie madness once and for all. The story has some minor arcs for each character or character pairing, telling you more about the individuals themselves.

Gameplay

Combat

The battles are very different from its older counterparts. You only control one character while the rest is AI-controlled. In order to get them to do what you want to, you have to set up and switch between “Paradigms”, battle strategies that force a character into a role. You can compare this to a simplified version of the Final Fantasy 5 class system, where every character could switch its class. The difference in 13 is that you can switch paradigms during a fight, allowing you to buff up your team with Synergists and Medics, and then swap to a full Ravager team to dish out a lot of damage in a short time frame. Switching paradigms is essential for getting high rankings after a fight, as well as telling your AI what it needs to do.

Setting up the right paradigms can make fights a lot easier, allowing you to obtain a higher battle ranking.

As you can tell by now, the gameplay mechanics have changed a lot, and we’re still not done here. The game doesn’t use mana, which means that only the ATB gauge is your limiting resource for casting spells and executing attacks. In order to limit the usage of really strong abilities, Technique Points were added. You start off with 5 TP and use some of them if you use a special ability like Libra or Summon. TP doesn’t replenish during battle, and the only way to replenish them is by getting high battle ranks. Libra used to be a “meh” spell as it only gave you info on enemy HP and weaknesses (and later on was needed for completing Bestiaries). However, in this game you need it as you need to tell your AI what the enemy’s weaknesses are and this is the only way to do so. Aside from using Libra, I’ve completed the entire game without using a single summon or technique (although Adamantoises require a summon to defeat).

Roles

There are 6 roles that a character can use. Commando’s specialize in high non-elemental attacks. Ravagers are able to cast strong elemental magic like fire, lightning, blizzard and water. Sentinels are masters of defense who try to pull aggro away from teammates and guard allies from targeted abilities. Medics are the white mages of the game and use healing spells and get rid of debuffs and status ailments. Synergists are experts at buffing allies with both offensive and defensive enhancements. Saboteurs try to undermine enemies with debuffing spells, as well as inflicting status conditions upon them.

Improving roles and character stats is done by spending Crystogen points in the Crystarium.

The characters have only some of the roles available and unlock more as the game progresses. The Crystarium allows you to develop each of these roles with Crystogen points (experience points), allowing you to unlock stronger abilities and attributes for each class. Note that the characters do not have a character level like the other Final Fantasy games. Upgrading your characters is done by grinding Crystogen points and spending them in the Crystarium.

Lack of non-linear gameplay?

Many reviews will bring critique about the linear start of the game. The first 20-25 hours of gameplay indeed are nothing but hallways, with the occasional off-branch with an item. It’s a test of patience, but once you reach Gran Pulse, you’re in an open area, free to go where you please.

Gran Pulse has a fair amount of exploration options, as well as things that can be unlocked as the game progresses

Gran Pulse has a fair amount of things to offer in terms of exploration, and not everything is covered when simply playing through the story. The Cie’th stone missions range from easy to extremely hard battles. The area is full of hostile creatures of varying difficulty. Gran Pulse also provides a handful of collectible weapons and accessories that can be upgraded to better versions. Some of these things can only be done if you’ve completed the story, covering the end/post-game activities.

Doing a few side-quests alongside completing the main storyline racked my playtime up to 70 hours. If you ask me, that is still about 2/3 of not running in hallways excluding post-game time.

Music

If there is one thing in this game no one should complain about, its the music. The soundtrack consists of a mixture of classic and electro music composed by Masashi Hamauzu. While not the well known Nobuo Uematsu from the older Final Fantasy games, Hamauzu managed to provide a soundtrack that rivals Uematsu. They are great moodsetters and amplify the feeling of the surroundings like the pressure of a boss fight, or the mystery of an undiscovered dungeon.

Some songs are remixes of, or implement “Blinded by Light” or “Promise” in one way or another, making those 2 pretty much the theme songs of this game.

Graphics

The game provides good looking scenery to explore, but it’s usually the smaller areas that have something worth sightseeing. The character designs balance on the edge of original and stereotype, which isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing. The enemy designs are average, but some of the bosses are really cool though (especially the Eidolons).

Some areas are really impressive.

The Crystarium is a really nice way of presenting a skill tree, consisting of multiple levels with each role being a main branch. Unfortunately, the navigation through such a menu is annoying. A list menu on the side for navigation would’ve solved that problem. Another flaw here is that the pc version seems to suffer from frame drops when navigating through some stages of the Crystarium, making the navigation even more tedious.

The larger portions of storytelling is presented with video cutscenes.

Conclusion

Overall is Final Fantasy XIII an average Final Fantasy game. The linearity of the first quarter of the game alongside some immature characteristics of our heroes makes this a true test of endurance. Still, the story and curiousity of wanting to know what’s coming next is what kept me going.

The paradigm system is a refreshing way of battling enemies, but is not flawless. The AI locking into specific patterns results in sub-optimal fighting, and is sometimes an outright annoying experience. The inability to tweak AI behaviour is also a big miss in this game.

The story of 6 heroes turning into the very enemies they have sworn to fight against enables a lot of character development. The game exploits this in a somewhat wrong way, by giving the characters some annoying personality traits early on. Once they get over their problems, the characters turn into likeable heroes though.

The music is great, but the pc port has some flaws regarding the graphics. Certain areas and menus suffer from frame drops, even 2 years after release.

If you’re a fan of the Final Fantasy series and you think you’ll manage through 20-25 hours of linear gameplay together, you might want to give this game a try, but do not count on epic storytelling, which is the selling point of the Final Fantasy franchise. It’s not horrible, but seriously suffers from a tedious start alongside some porting issues and minor gameplay nuisances. I enjoyed the battle system for the most part, but it may be something not everyone likes.

 

Final Fantasy XIII series reviews

Final Fantasy XIII-2

Pneuma: Breath of Life (Xbox One version)

Time for a new review, and this time I’ve chosen an Xbox One title. Pneuma: Breath of Life is a first person puzzle game. The game revolves around a main character that creates his own puzzle world, but seems to gradually lose control over it…. If he had control over this world in the first place.

In this game you play through temples and gardens which seem to be strongly inspired by Roman and Greek architecture. A variety of puzzles block your path to the next chapter. The puzzles are most of the time something that gets manipulated by your field of view. Looking at a door may close that door, so you have to enter backwards without looking at the door for example. It’s an interesting take which strongly differs from the “press buttons & push blocks” approach most puzzle games take, although this game has a few of those as well.

Game development blog: GameTechShark

TheSharki, a good friend of mine who introduced me to the Devil May Cry games and CloudBuilt, started his own blog about game development. GameTechShark is a blog about little game projects he makes alongside the technology he uses and struggles he encounters. He is currently working on a PhD study about automated game content generation, so it is certainly a blog you want to follow as researching game technology is his daily job.

Visit GameTechShark here.

Evoland

Evoland is not your usual game. It’s a really interesting take on guiding a player through the evolution of game technology, without being just an educational game.

In terms of gameplay, Evoland is a mash-up of a classic RPG and a classic adventure game. You start off in a monochromatic world, playing the game in what resembles the first Legend of Zelda on the NES. After roaming around for a bit you’ll find upgrades. Not the traditional upgrades that make your characters stronger though. In Evoland, the main point of upgrades is to alter the gaming experience. You’ll find items that color the world in 8, 16 and 32-bit textures, upgrade the music in similar ways and ultimately break the boundary of 2D to 3D. You’ll also unlock turn-based battles for the overworld, which lets you play the game in a Final Fantasy style (Active time battle system included).

Planetarian ~The reverie of a little planet~

planetarian ~the reverie of a little planet~ (planetarian ~Chiisana Hoshi no Yume~) is a kinetic novel/nakige made by Key, a company well known for its great visual novels like CLANNAD and Angel Beats!. The game was released in Japan in 2004, and got a world-wide release in 2014.

30 years before the events of planetarian, humanity failed to manage natural resources and overpopulation. As a result, a bio-nuclear war broke out, erasing almost the entire human race. The planet is in a horrible state, being covered in rust, dust and debris while a constant poisonous rain falls.

Tough times…

Of the few survivors, some people called “Junkers” go scavenge valuable items in the ruins. This hunt is not without risk, as there is the poisonous rain, destroyed buildings that may collapse and remaining combat robots that are still active and kill any human on sight. The protagonist of the story is one of these Junkers, and the story begins as he is inside an abandoned building that looked like a military base.

Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition

I learned about Devil May Cry at the start of 2015, making this one of my more recent game series I’ve been playing. The Devil May Cry games are a series of beat ’em ups where you play as a half-demon named Dante. He is the son of the legendary demon lord Sparda who fought against the demons and separated the human and demon worlds. Certain event caused this separation to break, and demons move freely around the human world again. Dante now follows his father’s footsteps and tries to drive the demon horde back.

For those who haven’t played DMC4 yet…

Devil May Cry 4 introduces a new playable protagonist named Nero. He is part of a cult that worships Sparda as their savior. During a ceremony, the priest Sanctus is killed by Dante, the protagonist of the previous DMC games. After a small fight between him and Nero, Dante runs off, telling him “He’ll come to learn the meaning soon enough,” as to why Sanctus was killed. Nero is then ordered to find out Dante’s whereabouts and capture him.

Gamescom 2015: A gaming weekend

Back from a busy weekend, and back to writing! Despite being not as large as the 2014 edition, Gamescom 2015 was still a blast and had a lot to offer. Here’s a run-down on what I saw and tried this weekend.

Saturday: Arrival

The first game we encountered after entering hall 10.1 was Elite: Dangerous, a space shooter. The place was fairly filled and I didn’t feel like playing it, so I skipped this one. A bit further ahead was the Kalypso stand with Grand Ages: Medieval as playable game. I took a look at it but didn’t really go in depth. The game is a town managing game which had similarities to Rome: Total war. In a new game you start off with a single town hall where you can build other things to expand the town and hire people to work for you.

Grand Ages: Medieval

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Big hype is going on about MGS5: The Phantom Pain since the recent E3 presentation of the game. MGS5: Ground Zeroes looked promising, and so did the trailer of MGS5: The Phantom Pain. The game still has to be released, so I’ll take a step back and take a look at Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

MGR is an action beat ’em up which puts Raiden in the spotlight after the Guns of the Patriots incident. Raiden now works for a Private Military Company (PMC) called Maverick Security Consulting and is currently tasked with protecting N’mani, an African prime minister who has made big steps towards peace in Africa. The mission goes haywire when they are being attacked by another PMC called Desperado LLC. N’mani gets kidnapped and killed, and Raiden almost loses his life as well in a battle against Desperado member Jetstream Sam. Raiden now wants to avenge the loss of the president and has some personal beef going on with Sam. Armed with a state-of-the-art cyborg body, he goes after Desperado to stop their act of terrorism.

NEKOPARA Vol. 1 (Steam version)

I learned about Sayori and NEKOWORKS when I was looking for a new Touhou-related wallpaper. She is an artist who makes quite impressive anime-styled drawings, but she is specialized in the production of adult content. NekoPara was originally an adult manga/art series about an unnamed owner and his catgirls Chocola and Vanilla who are having some spicy adventures together. NEKOPARA Vol.1 is NEKOWORKS’ first adult themed kinetic novel which features Chocola and Vanilla, as well as some new catgirls. This review will discuss the censored version of the game sold on Steam.

The story is about a guy named Kashou Minaduki who moved away from his parents to start his own western-style patisserie. His catgirls Chocola and Vanilla secretly joined him by hiding in boxes that were moved to his new place. From then on its kind of a slice-of-life story telling you about Kashou, Chocola and Vanilla’s daily life at the patisserie. Every now and then he is being visited by his little sister and her catgirls, who try to support him and help out whenever possible.

Jigoku Kisetsukan: Sense of the seasons

Jigoku Kisetsukan: Sense of the seasons is a free to play bullet hell shooter created by indie developer Emad and was released a month ago on Steam.

As you may see in the screenshots, the game is heavily inspired by Touhou project, emphasising on pattern memorisation and dodging. You get to play as some different cute female characters just like in Touhou.

Freelancer

Freelancer is a space combat & trading simulator, and a sequel to Starlancer, both created by the disbanded Digital Anvil. It was published by Microsoft game studios in 2003, making this one of the older games I’m writing a review about.

Note: I own the German version of the game, so the text in the screenshots is in German.

In Freelancer you get to play as a space pilot in an open-world solar system. There is no real final objective in this game. You can choose to take out pirates or join them, transport goods between planets or explore the unknown and dangerous boundaries of space.

First impressions: Touhou 15 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom (Demo)

Another Reitaisai went down, and we didn’t get one, but TWO Touhou games this time. The first is the full release of Urban legend in Limbo, which I may or may not review in the future. The other game is the demo for Touhou Kanjuden ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom. This game is going back to the SHMUP genre like every main Touhou game. While the game still sticks to its main concepts, a fair amount of new things were introduced as well.

Some incident involving Gensokyo and the Lunar Capital happens, and Reimu sets out to solve the problem in her usual “peaceful” ways. Marisa, Sanae (The Moriya Shrine maiden who was playable in several newer Touhou titles) and Reisen (A former moon rabbit introduced in Touhou 8) join Reimu on her quest for fixing whatever went wrong this time. From the boss dialogues I have understood that the Lunar Capital wants to purify Gensokyo, which basically means either destroying it or changing it in such a manner that it annoyed Reimu enough to intervene.

SHMUPs 101: A beginner’s guide to 2D shooters

While cleaning out my bookmark mess I found a detailed and well written article about SHMUPs. Being a great fan of the SHMUP genre, I found this article to be very interesting as it tells you something about the evolution of the genre, and clarifies some essential points when making your own SHMUP.

If you want to know more about the genre or want to start making your own SHMUP, this article is a must-read.

– Herr Nyani

Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius

This time I’ll be taking a look at another Visual novel-hybrid game. Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius is a mashup of an anime-VN and a turnbased strategy game made on the Ren’Py engine. You play as captain Kayto Shields who just got assigned to the new prototype space battleship ‘Sunrider’. As he’s about to launch the Sunrider for a test ride, Shields and his home planet is being assaulted by PACT, an army who wants to take over the entire universe. Seeing as the odds are heavily against him, he escapes the sector using the Sunriders warp drive. Being the only surviving crew from the assault, captain Shields & co are now working as freelancers in order to gain funding and allies to fight back against PACT and reclaim his home planet.

Woolfe – The Red Hood diaries

It’s finally here. The game that was shown at GamesCom 2014 by the Belgian indie developer GriN Multimedia got released a few weeks ago. And here I am, prepared to slice this beauty apart and check if this game matches the quality of our French fries, chocolate and beer.

Woolfe’s story is an original retelling of the fairy tale of red riding hood, borrowing the characters but putting them in a new context. Red’s mother disappeared, and her father was killed. The only thing known was that “he died from a work accident”. Red stayed at her grandma’s place until now. She sets out to find the truth behind the death of her father and wants to bring B. B. Woolfe to justice… with her axe [Insert His Axelency’s seal of approval here]. The story is being told from Red’s point of view, and is actually like a big poem. I can’t remember fairy tales being recited as a poem, but it’s a little extra that adds some charm to the game.

1 year of Axe ‘n Nyan

On march 29, 2014 we posted our very first reviews for the games Aura Kingdom and eXceed 2nd.

One year has passed since then and a lot of things have happened. To put it in numbers:

• 45 published posts (34 reviews)
• 950+ visitors
• 1600+ views
• 13 WordPress subscribers
• 16 Facebook followers

While these numbers may not seem big, they are an achievement we did honestly not expect. The blog hasn’t really been advertised anywhere but in our circle of friends. Looks like most people found this place through search engines or a link we posted on Steam or Raptr.

I haven’t posted anything about the reason why we started the blog and the like. So let me tell you a little story…