Amaterasu Blog

Ikusa Megami Zero Review

Here we have a traditional medieval fantasy story with some JRPG gameplay thrown in for good measure. And it is quite good.

Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first. Most of the characters are not particularly deep or interesting. Some of the plot twists were rather obvious. A significant number of details were given either incomplete or convenient explanations.

The good news is that the main plot is actually very clever and interesting. The protagonist definitely felt like a relatively normal human who, through some very unfortunate events, rose to the level where he could literally fight gods and goddesses and affect the history of the entire world, and as a result I genuinely cared about seeing what happened to him and helping him defeat the bosses (especially the final one). Also, every important plot thread got its fair share of closure by the end, and it always felt either satisfying or sad when it did (even when it was quite obvious what would happen).

Although the first chapter was a slow start (for good reason), after that the plot moves pretty quickly, making it easy to focus on the positives mentioned above. The gameplay also does a nice job of not dragging out, except for a handful of deliberately hard boss fights which were quite satisfying to beat. Last but not least, it did feel like significant effort was put into fleshing out the fictional world, which (like in any other decent fantasy story) helped in a lot of ways.

Score: 8.5/10

Polarization: (+0.5/-2)

First, some people might have a strong positive or negative opinion on the gameplay. I can't tell you how good or bad it is by any objective standards, because I don't play JRPGs.
Second, several event cgs and character designs are comically stripperiffic (sometimes even topless). And there are forty-one lengthy sex scenes.
Third, if you've played any other Ikusa Megami games before this one, you probably know the biggest spoilers already.
All of these might be pluses or minuses to different people.

Routes/Endings Played: Mostly Linear, did not attempt to get all alternate branches and sidequests, about 80-90% completion.

BALDR SKY Dive2 “Recordare” Review

It's almost exactly what we wanted it to be.

Most of what I said about Dive 1 applies to Dive 2, so let's review. Amazingly fast pacing. Gameplay seamlessly integrated into the story. Nice and complicated plot with plenty of clever twists. Routes build on each other perfectly. All characters are significant and memorable and entertaining. Sufficiently troperiffic that it occasionally becomes a bit predictable but is usually executed too well for you to care.

Now for some differences. Let's start with the good ones. They can pretty much all be summed up by saying this: Dive 2 answers everything. Also the ultimate conclusion to the series is quite satisfying. For many of you, that's all you really needed to know right there.

Now the two bad differences. First, some of the biggest reveals were made annoyingly obvious before they actually got revealed (one of them has been obvious since Dive 1). Second, Sora's route takes a bizzare and inexplicable nosedive in quality of execution around the 2/3 mark (seriously, what the hell happened there), but it does mostly recover after a chapter or two so it's not a huge problem.

Despite those nuisances, I still found the game consistently addicting and satisfying throughout. The good differences definitely outweigh the bad ones.

Score: 9/10

Polarization: Low (+0.5/-1)

Same as with Dive 1.

Routes/Endings Played: All

Comyu -Kuroi Ryuu to Yasashii Oukoku- Review

A random group of misfits and the uber-powerful dragon they can summon team up to......do nothing in particular. And it's awesome.

Coμ uses (and sometimes lampshades) everything that's good about typical shonen action, and either averts or subverts (or even explicitly mocks) several of the common pitfalls. The former means that all the battles are cool, and some are downright epic. The latter means that, among other things: there is a lot of disagreement and infighting among the protagonists, there is often no identifiable villain to defeat or objective to complete, it is often unclear what if anything would be morally right, and the protagonists are powerless to stop most (but not all) of the tragic events.

Fundamentally, everything is character-driven, and the characters are excellent. They all have different opinions and motivations which can and do clash, none of them are useless, and none of them are idiots (in a bad way). Also, they're all capable of being funny, especially when grouped together, which is important given all the slice of life scenes.

There are no dull moments in Coμ; literally every scene is entertaining. But the game is not flawless. Most of the truly awesome events are in the final route, so a couple routes never get very far above "entertaining". There is also a mild degree of predictability throughout. And some of the choices are stupidly misleading. But that's it.

Score: 9/10

Polarization: (+0.5/-1)

The predictability might be a non-issue for some of you. On the other hand, there are a handful of tropes which are played perfectly straight that some people might find annoying, and there are a few others which some may find underwhelming (though that last one ends up completely justified). Finally, some of the dialogue and narration can sound pretentious.

Routes/Endings Played: All five routes and all bad endings.

P.S.: Might as well include an explicit comparison to RuiTomo. The plot is very good this time, and it was flat out bad last time, so that's most of it right there. I would have to say Coμ isn't as funny as RuiTomo, but only because plot keeps happening; the actual characters and writing are just as good.

Rewrite Review

First of all, the title is NOT a reference to any sort of time loop. Don't choose to read or not read this game based on that misconception.

So, we have the writer of Higurashi/Umineko and the writer of Cross Channel/Saihate teaming up with Key in an attempt to make some kind of epic plot on top of their usual slice of life and comedy stuff. Everyone with half a brain should at least be curious to see how this turned out. And the short answer is: for the most part it succeeds, but it's no masterpiece.

The common route is the usual marathon of slice of life and comedy that everyone should be expecting from Key. Also as usual, it is quite good. Most of the comedy is amusing, some of it is hilarious, and the Mappie system gives you a plethora of silly little choices and secrets to kill time with. Overall it was enjoyable enough I went back to find more stuff after finishing.

Then we have the serious plot in the five character routes and two true routes. It's full of well-executed shonen action and nakige tragedy tropes, and is very ambitious in scope (half the routes literally involve the world ending). Thankfully, every character route adds a great deal to the setting, no two of them ever overlap more than they should, and the characters' personal stories are in fact interesting. The metaplot in the true routes also has plenty of depth to it, and does a great job of delivering a satisfying and conclusive ending which ties together all of the previous routes. Although a number of things were left unexplained, none of them were important or unguessable enough to bother me.

The problem with Rewrite is that there just weren't many scenes or events which truly impressed me. And for every one that did, there was also a scene earlier in the game which dragged on too long or outright bored me. It's hard to explain why, but I think the best way to put it is: there was definitely enough detail in the game to fill up the time in which I played it, but not much more than that.

Score: 8.5/10

Polarization: (+1/-1)

This pretty much comes down to your personal taste for the aforementioned action tropes and tragedy tropes. If they don't bother you at all, the game will feel more original and complex than it did for me. But even if you're sick of them, everything else about the game is good so it shouldn't be too hard to put up with it.

Routes/Endings Played: All 7 routes, all bad endings, and the oppai ending.

Omega no Shikai Review

One of the most unforgettable mind screws I've ever read.

The writing in Omega is absolutely ridiculous. Tons of cryptic language, abstract ramblings, maybe a hundred arc words (whose meanings you have to figure out), kanji and non-kanji puns, furigana abuse, stuff that looks like gibberish but isn't, random assortments of the above, and on occasion it seems to be outright mocking your ignorance. Between this, the good soundtrack, the unique and memorable art style, and the actual plot connecting all that nonsense together, the game is thoroughly immersive and addicting. Anyone who likes mind screws will have a very strong desire to unravel the mysteries, no matter how long it takes or hard it is to do so. And it is very possible to work out a lot of it by paying sufficiently close attention (and taking a few notes).

The flip side of this is that there is an insanely large amount of this cryptic text. So much so that it ends up being a bit of a chore to read through all of it. Though it is a satisfying chore, answers and plot developments really should have come at a slightly faster pace, and by the end there are simply too many questions left hanging. The ending itself was also a slight disappointment in some ways.

The strange thing is, in retrospect, it's hard to care very much about those faults. Puzzling out what I could was just so satisfying (in that trying harder really did consistently result in more understanding) that I still love the game even though I'm probably never going to get complete closure on it.

There's not much to say about characters since they, their actions and their motivations are all so thoroughly integrated into the mysteries (whether you know it or not). But I liked a lot of them and there are no clear faults to pick with any of them.

Score: 8.5/10

Polarization: (-4/+1)

For many this will be an unrewarding, convoluted, slow-moving, pretentious mess and nothing more than that. For a few, this could be weeks or months of happily piecing together obscure plot points. Hopefully you'll be somewhere in the middle like me.

Routes/Endings Played: Mostly linear, both endings

Warning: When you save your game in Omega, you're making a save at the start of the chapter, not at the exact line you're currently on. I don't know why either, but that's how it works. Fortunately there are a hundred or so chapters.