As a Persona 3 Portable player, I never experienced the FES version and its signature exclusive The Answer content. Fortunately, with the release of Persona 3 Reload: Episode Aigis - The Answer DLC as part of the expansion pass, I am now able to finally see what it has to offer. Unsurprisingly, Episode Aigis just feels like more of the same base game, for better or worse.

This doesn’t sound initially like an issue! Persona 3 Reload is an excellent remake of this beloved JRPG. The problem comes from what Episode Aigis doesn’t emulate. This entire DLC is like a brand new Tartarus dungeon to explore, but it might not be exactly what people want.

Editor's Note: There will be some mild spoilers for the end of Persona 3 Reload below.

Without spoiling too much, the Persona 3 Reload Episode Aigis DLC expansion takes place after the events of the base game’s storyline. As such, the original hero isn't available as a playable character. Instead, Aigis is the new protagonist. Just when the heroes of SEES think everything is over and are saying their goodbyes, a new dungeon called Abyss of Time and character named Metis appears. Everyone is trapped in the S.E.E.S dormitory and a time loop. Said dungeon has multiple different doors to go through, with unique areas and plenty of floors to explore, but it all ends up feeling pretty familiar.

Everything about this DLC is pretty akin to the dungeon-crawling gameplay of the original plot. Almost nothing substantial is added. As such, if the repetitive nature of Tartarus bothered you, I don’t have good news for you here. This is the same old run around, look for the stairs, open up some chests, battle some enemies, and repeat.

Except there’s a gaping hole that Episode Aigis has that wasn't in Persona 3 Reload. It has all of the Tartarus-like content from the base game, but none of the other stuff that made the title feel fuller and more alive. No social links being present is unsurprising, but the story is pretty basic and often barebones. Almost all of the character development happened before the events of this expansion, so in many cases there is much to see here.

Persona 3 Reload benefited from the ebb and flow. Spend a couple of hours in Tartarus grinding floors, Personas, and levels. Then spend a few hours hanging with friends, going to class, and doing requests. See major story segments as you do. That brilliant cycle doesn’t exist here, and it is what helped this game to not feel as repetitive as it really is.

There is almost nothing to break up the monotony of grinding in Abyss of Time besides the occasional cutscenes. What I will say is there are optional items you can get through locked treasure chests. These are like books or movies, which you can enjoy alongside the other cast members. Unfortunately, these little moments don’t amount to much at all in Persona 3 Reload Episode Aigis, which is a shame.

The only real shakeup to the whole system is playing as Aigis for this DLC episode. This provides a unique perspective and allows for a new party member to arrive in the form of Metis. Metis, as a sister android to Aigis, is a bizarre character. I hate to compare her to Labrys in Persona 4 Arena, but it feels like that foil is a much stronger and more fleshed out attempt at giving Aigis a more interesting family member. Metis is just a bit too one-note in her obsession with Aigis, instead of putting her unique story at the forefront as it should’ve been. Given certain things, this can be understandable.

While I feel like the story took too much of a backseat here, even still, it can be quite enjoyable. Especially if you are an RPG masochist like me and love the grind. Aigis is the wildcard now, so she is able to fuse, visit the Velvet Room, access the Compendium, and all that. In addition, Elizabeth gives optional requests, like finding items or fusing a certain Persona, to provide more of a point to explore the new dungeon. However, like everything else, this lacks the extra meaningful story element that would make it more worthwhile.

There are positive changes to Episode Aigis from what I can tell, though. You have access to all of the major additions in the base game’s grind, such as Theurgy and quality-of-life changes. This also means this DLC can be as easy or difficult as you want it to be. You do have difficulty options as well, so you can breeze through or crank it up for the ultimate challenge, which I liked.

Persona 3 Reload Episode Aigis - The Answer DLC is the best way to experience this additional FES storyline. It doesn’t quite carry over the same excellent narrative, character moments, or daily life from the base game. What it does do is offer the most straightforward dungeon-grind experience. If you love a challenge, this is the DLC for you. For everyone else, this is a possibly an add-on that is okay to skip.

Persona 3 Reload: Episode Aigis - The Answer DLC releases for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC as part of the Expansion Pass on September 10, 2024.

The post Persona 3 Reload: Episode Aigis – The Answer Feels Like More of the Same appeared first on Siliconera.

Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection is a great collection of some fantastic, over-the-top, and fast fighting games. By simply putting all of these games in one place with an affordable price tag it was already going to be a worthwhile purchase for me, but with its wonderful additional content, it makes buying this collection a no-brainer.

This collection puts together seven different Marvel fighting games, capturing X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men vs Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter, Marvel vs Capcom, and Marvel vs Capcom 2. Plus there is The Punisher beat ‘em up, which is an odd addition. But hey, why not? If you just want to bash heads to burn off steam by punching thugs after Cyber Akuma has stomped you flat for a few hours, it’s a nice thing to have. Having all of these games in a single package is fantastic for those who don’t want to have to hit the lottery to buy copies of them all. As well, having online without having to jump through certain hoops is really nice as well. Being able to launch all of these from one game is just really nice in and of itself.

There’s some fun extras to further entice you to pick up the Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection. The game features a museum for each of the titles that contains old pamphlets, marquees, comic ads, design documents, rough stage/move/character drawings, and other fun oddities from the game’s past. While most of it is in Japanese, it was neat to look back on how a lot of the moves and stages came together as the games were created. The museum also lets you play through each game’s soundtrack as well, which is a fun addition if you just want to enjoy the tunes without having to avoid Wolverine’s Berserker Barrage.

The marquees in the museum are especially important, as you’re going to need to take some time to introduce yourself to each game’s unique mechanics and tools. If you want to learn about what the Infinity Gems do in Marvel Super Heroes or what the various assist types do in Marvel vs Capcom 2, you’re going to want to check out your move list or the game’s specific marquee. There’s not a ton of wild mechanics, but it’s enough that you’ll want to take a bit of time in the basic move lists to see what you’ll be running into in each game. A part of me wishes that each game had a little introduction to its mechanics (maybe just some still images) for new players to know what to expect, but what’s in place is functional.

With Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection, Capcom does offer new players (or Street Fighter 6 players who use Modern controls) the ability to perform easy special moves and supers. On Switch, hitting the L button plus a direction allows you to do a special move. Hitting ZL allows you to do your Hyper Combos and Supers (sometimes with a direction involved if you have multiple buttons). This allows you to do pretty much any special move with ease. What’s unexpected is that there doesn’t appear to be any change in damage to the moves if you use the regular directional input versus the one-button method. I thought this might be pretty controversial, but it is locked out for Ranked play online (but can be turned on or off for Casual Matches or Custom Rooms). It’s a shame this couldn’t be worked into something resembling Modern controls in Street Fighter 6, but given the catastrophic possibilities it would add to balancing the moves in these older games, I understand why it was done this way.

For those who want to get their execution down for Ranked play, the games all have their own practice modes complete with hit/hurtboxes, on-screen inputs, attack data, and some dummy behavior you can set up (including recordings). It’s wild to me that I can go in and set up a training dummy doing specific moves in games that are this old, but it’s a really solid training mode that is a welcome feature. Far better than what I used to do when I set it to two player mode and then just beat up on the second player. Holding up with your toe on the second controller to make them jump was always a pain.

And once you get your moves down, whether through practice or just fiddling with the one-button specials, you’ll be able to hop in and have a great time with all of the fighters in the Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection. These are games I used to have a blast playing just by mashing buttons because they were fast and looked great. Each have their own visual quirks, but overall they are filled with big, detailed characters with flashy moves that are fun to see in action. I love them all in their own ways, so it’s fun to just bounce around them and enjoy how they look and feel. Considering you can queue for multiple games in the Online mode at the same time, you can also just see what games you get tossed into and enjoy.

If I had one gripe, it’s that the collection features a single quick save across all of its titles instead of having a save for each game. So, if you’re being menaced at high levels near the end of Arcade mode in more than one of the titles at once (or if you have a save in The Punisher), trying to save any other game overwrites it. It’s mildly annoying to be stuck having to finish one game before moving to another, but again, only a minor issue.

As for The Punisher game, it’s such an odd addition, but as far as a beat ‘em up goes, it’s good fun. Making use of guns periodically adds some good variety to punching thugs, and the enemy variety is fairly decent, digging into the character’s odd array of villains and some other weird Marvel bad guys. If you get kicked around by the enemies too much, you can even do a little rewind of the action by holding L and try again. Overall, it feels super out of place in this game, but as a little free addition that can be entertaining, I really can’t complain.

Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection is just a highly impressive collection of some of the most over-the-top and fun fighting games that have ever been made. By creating easier controls, it allows all of those button-mashing newcomers (like I once was) to hop in and have a great time. With its new practice mode, it allows those of us trying to get serious a means of practicing so we don’t get annihilated by the stone cold killers who’ve been playing the game for decades. It’s just a celebration of some of the greatest titles in the genre.

Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics will be available on Sept 12, 2024 on PS4, the Nintendo Switch, and PC. It will be made available on the Xbox Series X in 2025.

The post Review: Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection Is a Great Ride appeared first on Siliconera.

We’re pleased to announce that Siliconera will be offer its own free email newsletter. Every week, you can get one installment of Siliconera Speaks Up in your inbox to catch up with all the gaming news, reviews, and features you might have missed during the week. 

What can you expect? Good question! Primarily, this will be a way to help you catch up with something important you might have missed. We’ll curate a list of our most popular articles of the week, so you won’t miss out on major announcements and news stories. Did a big game drop? Links to our reviews will be there in case you want more insight into the title before making the plunge. 

Each week, there will also be an exclusive feature found only in our newsletter for subscribers. So if you sign up for the Siliconera Speaks Up newsletter, you’ll get an extra article to read in your email that won’t appear anywhere else. 

Finally, at the end of every newsletter we’ll name a few games (or game updates) coming up in the next few days. That way, you’ll never miss out on a possible title.

Here’s how you sign up:

Our first issue is coming soon, and we’re looking forward to providing easier access to news and articles soon!

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Pico Park 2 randos are the worst. Do you know how many multiplayer sessions I went into with the general public? About 20. Do you know how many of them were successful? Seven. In some cases, that only happened because everyone except for one other person and myself stayed in the level to finish it. Conversely, playing the game two-player with another trusted individual ended up being quite enjoyable! Truly, Pico Park 2 is a Switch game where who you play with and how matters.

Pico Park 2 looks a lot like the first game, and it plays a lot like it too! Each person in a session, which supports up to eight people, picks an animal-like avatar. Your goal is to either get through the 60 World levels, face off in the eight Battle games, or continually go through the Endless challenges. You’re often working together, aside from Battle, but the thing about the title is that it could be good at ruining friendships or making you hate other players depending on how well everyone cooperates. 

In general, each Pico Park 2 stage involves acquiring a key so you can open a door and progress. How you get that key can vary. Some involve platforming challenges. You may need to dodge, move into certain positions, hit switches, work with your fellowing players without touching them, or complete tasks in a timely fashion. Others can feel more like minigames, with tasks such as getting a certain time together, aiming balls at baskets, or shooting down opponents. Stages are typically rather short, so you can go through a lot together! This is especially beneficial in World or Endless modes, when you’re picking at stages or just continually playing. In the World stages it can make the experimental nature of some situations, during which you find out where the dangers lie, easier to bear. The concepts are fun, you can really feel how it built off the original Pico Park, and it is generally enjoying.

In most cases, the challenge comes from three points. One is figuring out the controls, as stages that involve shooting or other actions won’t tell you which button to press. (It’s X on a Switch!) Another involves gauging distance or momentum, as there will be jumping challenges where factoring in character placement or physics can determine your success. But the real difficulty comes from other people. 

Even if you do play Pico Park 2 in an ideal situation like I did, with someone who you can trust to make good decisions, sometimes it is frustrating! There are certain levels that can be infuriating due to the parameters, execution, or limitations regarding timing or distances. When I played, 50% of the time I worked alongside someone who was as practical, reasonable, and experienced as I was. There were still some stages, especially in the final area in World, that felt unpleasant. Even when we did manage to accomplish the goal, get the key, and reach the next task, it was so annoying that I felt a handful of stages weren't much fun. The 50% of the time I played with random people in a public match, it was infuriating if it wasn’t a Battle stage.

What I will say is that if you aren’t doing well with your chosen group playing, it won’t be due to connection issues. Whether I played alone with randoms in a public game or privately with one other person, the Pico Park 2 connection was fantastic on the Switch. My ping was routinely in the 40s, and even sometimes in the low 50s! Considering you’ll always be playing with others and very likely often online, that’s quite reassuring.

It means that Pico Park 2, much like the original game, is a “your mileage may vary” title depending on who joins you when you play. If you have a group of four people who can all be in the same room together, it might be absolutely incredible. Especially if they are all familiar with the series and experienced with how games like this work. If you’re only playing with one other person, it could still be great! But you won’t get the full experience and might be frustrated sometimes. I 100% suggest not playing this with random individuals. Even though the in-game messaging system is competent and I had a decent ping playing on the Switch against others, randos are a nightmare in Pico Park 2 and ruin the experience.

Pico Park 2 is available on the Nintendo Switch, and it will come to the Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC on September 12, 2024. 

The post Review: Pico Park 2 Is Great in Certain Situations appeared first on Siliconera.

When Sonic x Shadow Generations was first announced at Sony's State of Play in January, I was shocked that Black Doom had been revived for the upcoming game. Honestly, I'm still shocked even now, several months later. Black Doom has only appeared in one game in the Sonic franchise before this, and it's a spin-off title, Shadow the Hedgehog. But considering that Black Doom encourages and coerces Shadow to go on a killing spree in some timelines, it was a villain I thought Sega would have wanted to keep dead and buried.  

Back in the early 2000s, Shadow was at the height of his popularity thanks to the success of Sonic Adventure 2. Because of this, Sega Studios USA wanted to create a game centred around Shadow. They decided to base the game on the events of Sonic Adventure 2. This decision actually made a lot of sense, as the overall plot of Sonic Adventure 2 had massive potential to be expanded and developed upon, including the Space Colony ARK, Guardian Unit of Nations (G.U.N) and the backstory of Gerald Robotnik.

Now, everything stated above sounds completely reasonable, right? But anyone who played Shadow the Hedgehog knows the game is a startling contrast to what we had seen in previous games. To explain how strange it was, when the trailer initially dropped for Shadow the Hedgehog, fans were convinced it was some convoluted joke, as the plot and gameplay seemed miles away from what we had seen in any traditional mainline game.

The story follows Shadow, who is suffering from amnesia and lacks clarity on what happened at the Space Colony ARK. An alien race called the Black Arms has landed on Earth, causing mayhem and destruction to human civilisation. The leader of the Black Arms, Black Doom, approaches Shadow and tells him to collect all seven Chaos Emeralds to fulfil his "promise". With Black Doom clearly knowing about his past, Shadow decides to collect all the Chaos Emeralds, but how he goes about this is entirely up to you, as you can choose to be the hero or the villain in the story.

To complete the level, you can either kill the Black Arms aliens that are attacking Earth or kill the human G.U.N soldiers trying to protect the planet. You can even pick the anarchist option and choose to kill everyone you come across. Depending on your actions, it will result in different timelines, with ten possible endings you can achieve. One of the endings even results in Shadow striking down Doctor Eggman in what appears to be his demise. Not exactly what you expect from a Sonic the Hedgehog game. But this is not where the oddness ends, as this is still not the most contentious aspect of Shadow the Hedgehog…you can use guns. Yep, you read that right. You can travel across the stage and pick up guns to shoot down your adversaries.

The first level of Shadow the Hedgehog, Westopolis, is distinctively memorable because it really shows you what the game is about. It starts with you abruptly freefalling from the sky and witnessing the devastating explosions tormenting the city as an eerie red aura consumes the sky. When you finally land on the ground level and dash through the stage, you see the full extent of the carnage, as the city buildings and road structures are turned into derelict dust. You then have multiple opportunities to pick up weapons from the G.U.N soldiers or the Black Arms aliens to take whatever action you see fit. The first stage is a great indicator of whether you will like the overall atmosphere that Shadow the Hedgehog is trying to achieve.

Even though Shadow and the stages are obviously selling points of the game, Black Doom arguably steals the show. Black Doom is a classic villain with no admirable characteristics. There is no divine or symbolic meaning behind his actions. He simply wants the humans as livestock for his race and will do whatever it takes to achieve this goal. This made the timelines where Shadow picked the bad options feel even more sinister because it was leading to Earth's demise. It felt like you were genuinely succumbing to the dark side whenever you did an action that pleased him. Shadow the Hedgehog would not be the same experience if you took away Black Doom.

As you can probably tell by this point, this is not the most kid-friendly game, and there is a reason for that. Takashi Iizuka wanted to create a Sonic the Hedgehog experience aimed at an older audience, emulating action films, which might explain the game's dark undercurrent. In fact, Shadow the Hedgehog was heavily edited to ensure it kept at the E10+ rating.

When Shadow the Hedgehog first came out, I was a few years away from my teens but had already entered my rocker phase (and I still haven't left) and had begun listening to rock bands like System of the Down and Nine Inch Nails. I was their prime audience on paper. So, what did I think of the game? I fell in love with Shadow the Hedgehog for all the above reasons. I found Sonic Heroes a bit too cheesy, so I appreciated the darker tone, and I liked the concept that I could carve out my own destiny. I remember my older sibling raising an eyebrow at me whilst playing the game, questioning why Shadow has a gun, but I completely disregarded these concerns because I enjoyed the game so much.

But I also distinctly remember the first time I saw Black Doom. It may sound silly, as Black Doom's voice, in some ways, is rather comical in how deep-pitched it is, but the kid version of me found it terrifying. His appearance was also menacing, as he was a floating entity with multiple red eyes. They nailed the ominous alien look perfectly, as he was scary but cool at the same time. I wanted to know his backstory and history with Shadow and Gerald Robotnik, which motivated me to complete all ten endings and unlock the true ending.

Looking back, I can appreciate that a few bugs held it back from greatness and begrudgingly agree with my sibling that the guns were unnecessary, but I still have a strong affiliation with the title to this day. I'm not the only one, as Shadow the Hedgehog has cultivated a strong cult following throughout the years.

But since Shadow the Hedgehog was released, which was nearly twenty years ago, the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise has gone back to its roots and embraced a more kid-friendly atmosphere (at least regarding the games and TV adaptations, the Sonic the Hedgehog comics are a conversation for another day). The recent Hollywood films have solidified this tone even further. It's a hilarious segment, but Jim Carrey doing the floss as Doctor Eggman definitely appeals to younger audiences. But it's also because of these films that Black Doom has returned.

The upcoming film Sonic the Hedgehog 3, set to come out later this year, sees the introduction of Shadow. To complement the film, they clearly wanted to bring Shadow back to the forefront of the games in some capacity. The result is Sonic x Shadow Generations – a remaster of Sonic Generations with a parallel story featuring Shadow. But what was one of the best qualities of the first game that featured Shadow as the protagonist? Black Doom.

Now, do I think Sonic x Shadow Generations will feature guns and the option of killing human G.U.N soldiers? Absolutely not. If anything, looking at the gameplay trailers we have so far, it appears it's tapping into Sonic Adventure 2 more, as the iconic boss battle Biolizard has even been included. But I'm still surprised Sega has revived Black Doom. They could have easily conjured up a new villain, but clearly, even though they have no desire to emulate Shadow the Hedgehog's dark and gritty tone, they couldn't ignore that Black Doom was a pivotal reason for the original game's success. And I'm happy that a new generation of Sonic The Hedgehog fans will be introduced to Black Doom and his ominous voice.

What are your thoughts about Sonic x Shadow Generations bringing back Black Doom? Let us know with a comment below.

Sonic x Shadow Generations will be released on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and Xbox One on 22 October, 2024.

The post I’m Shocked That Sonic x Shadow Generations Revived Black Doom appeared first on Siliconera.

Sometimes, the official description for a manga or anime doesn’t do the series justice. I’d say The Hachioji Specialty: Tengu’s Love is a manga where that especially apt, as the first volume’s summary don’t really capture what’s going on in the lives of its main characters. Because this series is more than it seems like. It isn’t just a love story between a human and a supernatural being. It’s also about the two growing as individuals, finding new freedoms through their relationship with each other, and coming to terms with traumas they might not know they have.

Editor’s Note: There will be minor spoilers for the first volume of The Hachioji Specialty: Tengu’s Love manga below.

Kotarou is an orphan. He’s returned to his grandfather’s home, where he spent time as a child, now that he’s grown up and found a job. However, now that he’s returned, he also gets flashes of memories from when he was lost in the woods. They’re of a woman with wings. It’s only after properly moving in that what was lost comes rushing back and he reunites with Hime, a tengu who found him and cared for him when he was little, alone, and scared.

However, there’s a catch to them reuniting. She tried to warn him back then and now. But because they met again under a certain tree, tradition dictates that the two of them marry. Her family and clan encourage this, given she’s the princess and leader of the group now.

It seems like a set up that is perfect for a romantic comedy! Except, not quite. Tomo Nanao instead goes a bit deeper by taking other elements into consideration. As a result, Kotarou and Hime feel like deeper and more realized characters in The Hachioji Specialty: Tengu’s Love manga. As I read, I found myself hoping that the two would recover from their troubled pasts and grow because of each other, rather than just get together as a couple.

In the case of Kotarou, it’s clear he’s dealing with trauma from being orphaned and alone. During moments both on his own and with Hime, Nanao conveys his loneliness and situation with the art. He’s clearly unaccustomed to the sudden company she provides. He’s recovering memories, happy ones, and shocked when people from the area remember him from his brief time there. I also felt like he was sometimes surprised by Hime’s care and enthusiasm. 

With Hime, we’re seeing a woman who is finally getting a chance at both freedom and doing things she only dreamed about. She always wanted to see what the human world was like. She craved chances to engage in experiences we take for granted. Because of the circumstances in her clan, she’s needed to carry a load and responsibilities for the sake of others and not do things for herself. Meeting Kotarou again isn’t just a chance to fulfill a promise the two shared. It’s an opportunity to make her dreams come, especially in a way that will allow her to be safe and not a spectacle due to being a tengu. 

Going through the first volume of The Hachioji Specialty: Tengu’s Love, it is pretty obvious to know what’s going to happen with the characters in the manga. The fact that there is this “promise” between Kotarou and Hime, as well as obvious attraction, makes it feel like a given. But I feel like the fun of it will come from the growth and recovery the two will get to experience as a result of the developing relationship.

Volume 1 of The Hachioji Specialty: Tengu’s Love is available via Yen Press, and volume 2 of the manga will appear on December 10, 2024. 

The post The Hachioji Specialty: Tengu’s Love Manga Prioritizes Character Development appeared first on Siliconera.

Fairy Tail: Dungeons offers quick, snappy roguelite deck-building for someone looking for a few quick hands of high-stakes cards. Strikingly simple, but with some great depth to the systems you can quickly pick up, it’s highly entertaining whether you only have a few minutes to play or if you want to spend a good deal of time in its dungeon depths.

As someone with no knowledge of the anime, the game offers a fast introduction to some of the characters that felt like just enough to get you rolling. I was concerned that I’d be totally lost after the last few anime games that I’d played when I didn’t know the show, but this title doesn’t really need you to know much. It gives you a handful of playable characters (as well as some other ones you meet), but all you really need to know is their play style and how they fight. As this game is light on plot, it feels like you don’t lose anything from not knowing the show and you still feel like you “get” everything that’s happening. That said, this game is extremely light on plot, but I didn’t find I needed a story.

Instead, I was more focused on the card play. In Fairy Tail: Dungeons, you get a small deck of cards to play with at first. You get a mixture of attack cards that deal damage to foes as well as defensive cards that will block incoming damage. These cards area dealt to you four at a time, and you’ll start each round with a full hand of four. You’re given three MP every round you can use, and you get to decide how you spend those MP with your cards (most of which cost one or two MP to cast).

As for what you should do with your MP every turn, that depends on what your enemies are up to. The game will indicate some damage numbers beside the monsters if they’re going to attack you. If they’re not, you can select an enemy to figure out what sort of defensive or buff spells they may be casting instead. Enemies can also prepare highly-damaging attacks that come with unique ways of stopping them (play X number of attack cards, for example). Knowing everything your opponents are doing helps guide you in what you should do each round.

And while you only have four cards to choose from each round, it feels like you really need to think about what to play – you’ll agonize a lot over that simple hand. Should you bulk up your defenses? Try to kill something before it hits you? Prioritize playing the right cards to stop and incoming big hit (always do this one)? Your life points persist across the dungeon, so you can’t just blunder through a fight and then recover afterwards. Mistakes pile on, and if you take too much damage over several fights, you’ll be back to the start of Fairy Tail: Dungeons.

You’ll agonize quickly, though. With only a few cards to play, things move briskly through the game. There’s only so much you can do with each hand, so things hurry along. You can spend a bit of your life to redraw your hand if it’s utterly useless, but usually you’ll want to play what you have. This means you’re not usually taking too long to make your decisions, but there still feels like there’s a great depth every round despite the small hand size.

The real depth lies in building your deck and planning what possibilities you want to have in Fairy Tail: Dungeons. As you explore the dungeon map by choosing tiles to visit, you can pick up cards after fights, events you can stumble across, or shops that appear. Now, I loaded my deck with high-damage cards whenever I came across one, and while it worked great for a while, it eventually meant that my defensive cards didn’t show up as much when I was in combat purely because I had more attack cards in my deck. It was a pure probability thing that I had foolishly ignored in hopes of just slamming enemies. Not that playing more defensively got me any further a few rounds later. Still, I really liked that I had to consider how I was composing my deck for probability.

And there are several ways you can shape your deck. You can improve some of your capabilities in combat or add better abilities to specific cards using an upgrade system that costs Lacrima, a currency you pick up as you play. You can also just outright refuse some of the cards you’ve been offered, as well as prune a card from your deck at specific points. After a short time, it felt more important to remove cards, refuse to take them if I felt I had too many high cost cards, or to focus on just improving what I had to better know what to expect each hand rather than continually expand and mess up a predictable probability of getting the cards I wanted.

Still, there are some cool things that may make you really want to take that new card. Some cards can play off of one another to cause improved effects (Magic Chains), so you’ll want to ensure you get those often. But is adding a new chain worth it if it bloats your deck? Alternatively, you might unlock a new chain in your upgrade tree that you’ll wish you had picked up a card for earlier. It gave me a lot to think about as I sat mulling over whether to take a card or not.

How you stack that deck also depends on the character you use in Fairy Tail: Dungeons. Natsu plays offensively but is still more an all-rounder, but Gray plays more defensively, stacking up huge amounts of protection against damage. Lucy offered some more buffs and support casts. The playable characters give some fun options on how to play and build your deck, and their abilities all look very different from each other’s adding some nice visual flair and variety.

You also have a fair amount of wiggle room in how you play based on the map as well. Not every tile you can reach is an encounter. There are spaces that have you meeting other characters and having events, tiles with Lacrima on them, and shops as well. You can only see so far ahead so you can’t fully plan your route, but you can shoot for paths with fewer fights to preserve life (or more if you want better rewards). How you walk matters as much as how you play your cards.

And when you die (and I died a lot), you gain points towards a rank that unlocks amulets for future runs. These rarely offered extreme bonuses, but can give you little boosts in health, the probability of getting zero cost cards, the ability to carry more items (which is limited gear that can also give you some nice effects), and more. They don’t really break the game so I never felt like I was gaining overwhelming power, but it was enough to get a little leg up here and there.

Fairy Tail: Dungeons feels like a straightforward, but still nicely tactical, deck-building game. Being able to play a few quick hands in a fight was great for moments when there wasn’t much time to play, and the ability to dive right in and pick up the rules in seconds made it easy to just jump right into. Even so, the systems underneath had enough depth that it kept pulling me back in to reshape my strategies for the next run.

Fairy Tail: Dungeon is available for PCs.

The post Review: Fairy Tail: Dungeons Satisfies With Quick Card Battles appeared first on Siliconera.

Back in June 2024, Yen Press announced that it would release manga based on the Dark Souls series called Dark Souls: Redemption. I’ll admit I ended up feeling a bit apprehensive when I heard about it, given it’s being written by Julien Blondel, an author who wasn’t involved with the games. However, I was delighted to see how true to the concepts from the game this new story feels. 

Editor’s Note: There will be some minor spoilers for the first volume of the Dark Souls: Redemption manga below.

The first moments of Dark Souls: Redemption are hauntingly familiar. A tomb. A body on a slab. The horrors of waking up alone, with no memories or sense of self, in a crypt. Venturing out to see absolutely nothing but desolation. If you didn’t know this involved an introduction to a manga, it might sound like the start of someone’s retelling of their personal Dark Souls playthrough. But here we are. Ira’s journey begins much like our own, which I think helps the story since we can see ourself in it.

It also helps that it is accompanied by some ominous hints at Dark Souls: Redemption’s lore. Rather than us immediately starting with Ira, we see Lord Gaalor and his knights growing alarmed at the sign of a flame revealing that “the Scourge” awoke and returned to the land. Seeing as how he and his Grey Cinders group immediately head to Ira to face her, it’s clear to the unfamiliar reader she’s tied to or the cause of it. The fact that it is also in the name of the dragons makes it more curious, propelling you forward for a taste of truth.

From there, the pacing is absolutely perfect. Much like the Dark Souls games, the manga gives us no quarter. We’re immediately thrust into danger and mystery. From the ghostly dog that seems friendly to Ira and the old ally Eudo who used to be tied to Gaalor, but pledged to protect her, to the new threats she faces from the Grey Cinders, a dragon, and her knowledge of the unknown, it’s absolutely captivating. Part of this is due to Shonen’s art perfectly capturing the ambiance, both with imposing warriors like Eudo and more unholy menaces like the first golem threatening Ira and Ar’vrark.

I would say that the fact that Dark Souls: Redemption keeps us so in the dark, gradually revealing more, helps the manga as well. My the end, we’re aware that Ira was a person of some importance. She did something which many consider unforgivable. However, one closest to her doesn’t see it that way and was so dedicated that they swore an oath that would physically hurt them to keep the secret. The place at which the first volume end results in Ira being posed as a very formidable warrior, even with her amnesia affecting her, and sets the story up to tell a tale like similar to the ones in FromSoftware’s works.

It feels like Dark Souls: Redemption could have all the elements to help ensure the manga feels right when compared to the FromSoftware games. The opening moments mimic the ones our avatars experience in Dark Souls. We start to see a story filled with concepts of betrayal, corruption, greed, and of course malice. There are daunting opponents, as well as the potential for morally grey decisions and plot beats. I’m excited to see what future volumes could bring and how elements like the Darksign and Hollowing come up throughout, as well as see the rest of Ira’s story.

The first volume of the Dark Souls: Redemption manga is available now via Yen Press, and there’s no word on a release window for the second installment yet.

The post Dark Souls: Redemption Manga Starts an Engaging, Original Story     appeared first on Siliconera.

After literal decades, the original Fate/stay night is available on modern consoles in English, and it serves as a fantastic introduction to the grand (but not that complicated) world of Fate. Outside of very minor technical issues that were more than likely my own fault rather than the game’s, it’s a smooth and gripping experience for both veterans and novices of the series.

The overall premise of Fate/stay night is one that even non-fans should be familiar with at this point, considering how many adaptations and spin-offs there are. It follows Shirou Emiya, a deceptively ordinary high school student who finds himself wrapped up in the Holy Grail War. The Holy Grail War is a war between mages, fought by summoning historical or mythological heroes as Servants in order to obtain the titular Holy Grail. As Saber’s Master, Shirou somewhat reluctantly joins the war in order to prevent tragedies that may occur as a result of it.

There are three routes: Fate, Unlimited Blade Works, and Heaven’s Feel. Each route feels wildly different in terms of themes, main characters, and storyline, yet the game still meshes together in a cohesive manner. As for the actual gameplay, it’s similar to previous Type-Moon titles like Witch on the Holy Night and Tsukihime where you mostly make decisions at key junctures in the plot. Outside of those occasional key inputs, you can sit back and enjoy the show. I personally enjoyed the Unlimited Blade Works route a bit more than the other two, but they’re all very interesting stories with their own unique motifs and themes.

It’s actually very interesting reading Fate/stay night so soon after the Tsukihime remake because I can see how Nasu improved as a writer. However, I will also note that it can be hard to compare since as the introduction to the Fate franchise, Fate/stay night naturally had to be a bit heavy on the exposition. Things that we Fate fans think are common knowledge—True Name, Holy Grail War, Bounded Field, et cetera—were probably really confusing back when the game first came out.

Nonetheless, the narrative can feel a bit slow at times due to Nasu’s focus on either explaining the magic system or delving really deep into internal monologue. The second thing isn’t bad, since it provides insight on characters in a way that animated adaptations could never. Speaking of the narrative, I realized how much of my disinterest in the Fate route was from the Studio DEEN anime. Sure, ufotable has its problems when it comes to adapting Fate works but I still hope it decides to make a new anime for the Fate route one day.

I played the game after the issues with the English version were patched out. So I didn’t get the authentic experience of playing a Japanese visual novel. Though I did run into some performance issues, I’m pretty sure they’re avoidable if you don’t do what I did (thus it won’t affect the score). For one thing, playing the game on a second monitor doesn’t work in fullscreen. It keeps minimizing. I played Ace Attorney Investigations on a second monitor in fullscreen and it ran fine, so this is unique to Fate/stay night. Even windowed, issues cropped up. Letters would be missing or entire lines would run into each other. I know this is a problem with the monitor rather than the game because if I took a screenshot or dragged the window to my main screen, it looked fine. Moral of the story? Fate doesn’t like playing second fiddle.

Fate/stay night is a great read and introduction to the Fate franchise, and all three routes maintain the same quality in terms of the plot and themes. Personally, I don’t think any route was bad. It just falls to personal preference. Compared to Type-Moon’s newer games or stories, yes, it can be overly wordy. And yes, it looks dated in both Takeuchi’s art style and in the Powerpoint-like transitions. I honestly found it charming though, and it works in the context of such a classic game. So rejoice, Fate fans. Our wish has finally come true.

Fate/stay night Remastered is readily available on the Nintendo Switch and Windows PC.

The post Review: Fate/stay night Provides a Sturdy Foundation appeared first on Siliconera.

Sony’s latest attempt at live service success has proven to be the exact opposite, as Concord has been shut down after only two weeks of its release. Initial reports on its sales were not promising, with player counts for the Steam version barely breaking 700 concurrent players.

The shutdown of Concord is almost certainly some kind of new record. The only game I can think of with a launch this bad was Crucible. Don’t worry if you don’t remember it, I’m sure I’m one of a handful of people who do. That said, I don’t remember anything about the game itself, just how badly it did. Released in May 2020 as the first game from Amazon’s publishing division, Crucible was pulled back into closed beta a month later and then canceled entirely by October. And yet, it still lasted at least two weeks longer as a public release than Concord.

There are many things that led Concord to do this poorly. The characters were bland and uninspiring, revealing little about the character personalities (if any). Its most prominent trailer was misleading and suggested a narrative-driven experience that the game wasn’t going to deliver. It charged money up front as a new IP in a market full of free-to-play alternatives. All these reasons are contributors to Concord’s demise, but mostly, it’s simply a victim of the realities of the live service gold rush happening within the games industry.

Big companies are desperate for their own live service game. It’s easy to see why from an executive perspective. A quick glance at the billions of dollars being made by the likes of Fortnite is enough to make any investor ask why their money isn’t going towards the same thing. When a live service succeeds, it can be a huge earner, bringing in a lot of regular income. However, these seemingly obvious calculations frequently collide with the cold, harsh reality of the market they’re trying to get into.

The truth is, the live service market has proven itself to be a gamble. Sure, there have been big success stories. But for every game that makes it, there are significantly more live services like Concord, crashing and burning within months, and now even weeks, of their release. I already mentioned Crucible, an uninspiring hero shooter with PvE elements, but the list goes on.

Let’s not forget the likes of Anthem or Babylon’s Fall, where studios known for single-player games were forced into making live service games that no one cared about. What about Hyper Scape, where Ubisoft boldly asked, what if Fortnite had exactly zero personality? Even within the last twelve months we’ve seen mass indifference to Foamstars and the cancelation of Sega’s Hyenas after it became obvious that no one was going to pay much attention to it if it did release.

These games are just the tip of the iceberg. There is a parade of live service games that have been sent out to fall right into a mass grave sitting off to the side of the games industry. The live service market is one where success can be lucrative, but the failures are crushing and much more likely to happen.

The live service market is wildly oversaturated. Not just because everyone’s chasing after Epic’s V-Bucks but also because the nature of live service games means that there simply can’t be that many out there at any given time. Live service games demand your constant attention, with daily login bonuses, time-gated events and other requirements to keep coming back and make the game your exclusive forever game.

When a standard single-player game releases, the time commitment is only as long as the game’s story. An RPG may be a long experience, but once it’s done it’s easy to hop into another game in the genre. For something like horror games, their shorter length means horror fans can easily jump from one game to the next. And what’s more, a lack of players at launch isn’t a death sentence, as players can discover the game months or years later while still getting the exact same experience.

For any given live service game, you have to convince people already invested into the existing similar games to simply stop playing and move over to your project. Players certainly don’t have the time to play more than one, maybe two, at a time, so if your game doesn’t match up, it will simply be ignored. And without enough other players, these games simply aren’t worth playing. The fewer players there are, the quicker those players will disappear and accelerate the game’s demise.

It’s not impossible to succeed, just highly unlikely. Fall Guys and Helldivers 2 show that having a unique enough hook can bring people in, while Valorant and Apex Legends show the importance of good community engagement during development or around launch. But even some of these games are operating at significantly reduced player numbers from their hugely successful launches, while other games which could have succeeded, such as the unique dodgeball battler Knockout City, failed to achieve much success at all. The idea that there is a magic formula for success has simply not played out in reality.

The live service gold rush has been a disaster, and Concord is merely the latest casualty of it. Talented developers have wasted years of their lives working on canned projects, resources have been funneled away from games with more community interest and the few players who have paid into these have simply lost their money to a game they can no longer play. It’s an unsustainable strategy driven entirely by the pursuit of short-term profits. Profits that also have failed to materialize, raising the question of who, if anyone, has gained anything from this strategy.

With Concord shutting down in such a short space of time, I hope it’s the final nail in the coffin for the live service gold rush. While I don’t believe it’s the end for these games altogether, I hope the sheer numbers of them get reduced. And in the process hopefully more publishers will allow developers to build on their strengths and make much more appealing games for their audience.

The post The Failure of Concord Highlights the Flaws of the Live Service Gold Rush appeared first on Siliconera.

I miss Castlevania games. I’d love to see an entirely new one. But failing that, I’m also incredibly excited when Konami remembers that people would really like a chance to return to older installments. When it turned out Castlevania Dominus Collection ended up being a Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase shadowdrop, I was thrilled at the prospect of playing three beloved older games on the Switch alongside a new remake of Haunted Castle. Turns out, the DS games hold up incredibly well, and Haunted Castle Revisited is an absolute delightful revival of a game most people probably didn’t get to play.

With the four games in the collection, we’re getting glimpses back at different moments in Castlevania history. Chronologically speaking, and in terms of actual age, Haunted Castle’s events come first. Simon Belmont heads off to confront Dracula after his wife is kidnapped. From there, we see Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia’s events. Since there are no Belmonts present, the titular order intended to use the Dominus glyph against Dracula should he return. However, when one of two students steal the three of them, an amnesiac Shanoa must pursue him and retrieve them for her mentor and to save kidnapped citizens. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin is another entry without a Belmont, with Jonathan Morris and Charlotte Aulin heading to Dracula’s castle to face another vampire named Brauner who moved into the more famous vampire’s old haunt. Meanwhile, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow takes us into the future with Soma Cruz, the reincarnation of Dracula, dealing with a cult trying to turn him into Dracula. 

While there are unique mechanics in each one, the three Castlevania DS games in Dominus Collection play similarly. In Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, we’re heading to the cult’s mansion and journeying through it. As Soma is the hero, his ability to absorb enemy souls is the method of getting stronger, unlocking new abilities, and gaining new types of attacks. With Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, we head into paintings to visit different realms to deal with bosses within and seal them away, and there are often puzzles or situations where switching between Jonathan and Charlotte is needed to progress. In Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, we have elements of both previous games present, as Shanoa gains new abilities and attacks by absorbing glyphs found or dropped by enemies in a fashion similar to Soma, but she’s also going across a region and traversing smaller spaces instead of a single, giant mansion.

My first concern when I heard about the Castlevania Dominus Collection is how well it would work on a console like the Switch when Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia were all Nintendo DS entries. Well, it works flawlessly. Which I should have expected, considering M2 was involved in the process. On the Switch especially, it is fantastic. The main “action” appears in a larger screen on the left, while on the right you have two additional screens constantly showing the map and character details. It’s absolutely fantastic to have all this information on-hand at once. And if there were moments that involved touchscreen functionality, there are either now button inputs or an option to use the Switch touchscreen or buttons to make up for those moments.

I also felt like Castlevania Dominus Collection is a perfect example of including a game for someone at every skill level while also showing the progression of the handheld entries in the series. I feel like Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin can be quite accommodating, perhaps even more so than I remembered, due to the nature of the second character and the structure. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is for someone more accustomed to the series and interested in perhaps mastering and finding every soul. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia can be far more challenging than the other entries in this collection, due the way Shanoa’s glyphs work, the MP needed to use them, and the decisions you need to make to keep her alive when first starting out. Meanwhile, if you play them in the order they released (Dawn of Sorrow in 2005, Portrait of Ruin in 2006, and Order of Ecclesia in 2008), we can see the progress in terms of character designs, castle design, gameplay, and execution. So we can see Dawn of Sorrow’s souls influence on Ecclesia’s glyphs. Likewise, we can see how the paintings and smaller locations in Portrait of Ruin perhaps affected Order of Ecclesia’s locations.

Simply put, the three existing games part of the Castlevania Dominus Collection on the Switch? It’s absolutely fantastic. All of them are great. They’re fantastic fun, no matter which order you play them in. It’s a wonderful deal.

As for Haunted Castle Revisited, it’s just a lovely surprise. My experience with it is fairly fleeting, as I’ve only played it a few times when visiting Galloping Ghost Arcade. It retains much of what we remember from the original. There are six stages which you must get through in a timely fashion, with bosses at the end of each one. However, I found it felt a little more forgiving and like a traditional Castlevania experiences in some ways. For example, I found chickens to restore health sometimes, which was especially helpful in the first two stages as I got reacquainted with the title and last level. You can also upgrade the whip and get sub-weapons, which helps with additional tactics when facing foes. Not to mention it looks absolutely fantastic, especially when you play the also-included original Haunted Castle to compare.

Basically, Castlevania Dominus Collection is another fantastic compilation of Castlevania games. The three DS titles returning here are all wonderful games in their own ways, and they play quite well on the Switch thanks to M2’s efforts. Haunted Castle and Haunted Castle Revisited feel like a fun bonus and a way to bring the Belmonts into a collection that otherwise focuses on other heroes fighting Dracula and his forces. It’s a worthwhile bundle of titles, especially on the Switch.

Castlevania Dominus Collection is available on the Nintendo Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC. 

The post Review: Castlevania Dominus Collection Games Still Feel Essential appeared first on Siliconera.

2024 has been a fantastic year for Ace Attorney fans, between the Apollo Justice Trilogy in January and now Ace Attorney Investigations in September. As Miles Edgeworth, you get to prosecute criminals and bring them to justice. Psych! No you don’t, but you do get to solve cool mysteries, overwhelm opponents with the might of logic, and look snazzy with a fancy cravat and sleek new visuals. As a longtime fan of the series and a big Edgeworth fan, I can say with absolutely no bias at all that this was well worth the wait.

The plot of Ace Attorney Investigations focuses on Miles Edgeworth, one of the main characters from the original Ace Attorney trilogy and Phoenix’s rival. Though he is a prosecutor, he never goes to court in the games. Instead, Edgeworth focuses on solving cases outside of the courtroom. The cases all connect into an overarching story compared to somewhat more episodic first trilogy. It plays very similarly to the main series though. You still have to collect clues, put them together, and find contradictions in testimonies. Edgeworth’s unique mechanic of Logic doesn’t introduce anything too radical like the Emotional Matrix from Dual Destinies or the Jury of The Great Ace Attorney. But it’s still a fun way to advance the story and shake things up.

When I first played Investigations in high school, the story didn’t really resonate with me. At first, I thought it was because I liked how the more episodic first trilogy allowed for "breather" cases. However, the port helped me to figure out my initial disinterest. The setting for the duology reminds me a bit too much of how 5 and 6 became way grander in scale.

Edgeworth is a prosecutor, yet he’s doing work that seems far beyond his pay grade. I don’t know how the rules work in Japanifornia, but prosecutors leading a criminal investigation into an international smuggling ring seems pretty divorced from reality. Not that the games were ever trying to be realistic, but there was still some degree of credibility. It’s like watching CSI or Criminal Minds. I doubt those agents in real life go out in the field and apprehend criminals. It’s easier to accept Edgeworth doing this now than it was back then. I suppose I have 5 and 6 to thank for that, since those games jumped the shark in a way that nothing can really surprise me anymore in Ace Attorney.

This is subjective, but I really enjoy the cast of characters in the second game. They’re so much more colorful than ones in the first entry. The story is also a lot better, in my opinion, and I can see why some consider it one of the top three games in the entire franchise. I’m also a lot more receptive to Lang this time around, since I’m no longer a diehard Edgeworth-stanning teenager. Now I feel bad that the first thing I said when Lang appeared was, “Was he always this ugly?"

Something I vividly remember from when Ace Attorney Investigations first came out was an interview with the development team. Someone mentioned that they put a lot of care into Edgeworth’s running animations to make it look natural and effortless. The updated sprites in the game make those animations look even better than they were on the DS. He looks great jogging around, as do all of the characters. At no point did I ever feel like switching back to the original sprites and, during the brief period I did, it looked so wrong that I had to go back. It’s when the portraits appear that they revert to the ye olde “three frames per action” style of the DS era. The change is a little jarring, I admit, but not enough that it actively bothers me.

The little avatars on the field are so cute, especially now that we can see so many more details. I love Edgeworth’s smug little face when he does that annoying shrug. I love Gumshoe’s pathetic cringing animation. The guys in this duology are really lovable this time around thanks to their overall goofiness and the new sprites. I’ve liked Edgeworth and Gumshoe since the very first game, and this one really reinforced my affections for them. As for Eustace, he's a ridiculous clown boy but I adore him all the same. He was one of the things I was most excited for when Nintendo first announced this port, and all of his scenes were as delightful as I hoped they'd be.

The girls are no slouch either in that department, especially with Kay’s lively little animation cycles. She’s so similar to what Maya and Trucy (and later Athena) brought to the table though! It’s way too late now to complain about the writing, but sometimes I wish that they’d gone a different route with her personality. Her rapport with Edgeworth was fun regardless and I enjoyed her integration into the overarching lore. So this isn’t me pushing an anti-Kay agenda, mind you.

One thing that kind of takes me out of the experience is the occasional wordiness in the localization. This is only prevalent in the first game. I decided to reread my review for the Apollo Justice trilogy while writing up this one and to my shock, I realized I repeated my past mistake. Once again, I chose to replay a bit of The Great Ace Attorney during Investigations, and the memory of that game affected my impression of this one. I should stop doing that. While the localization for Investigations is strong, there are a few points where a different translation might have been snappier to read. The sentences can be long to the point of awkwardness, making them feel unnatural for dialogue.

It's one thing if the lines are, say, Edgeworth's. He talks in an overly stuffy and formal manner in the Japanese as well. But it's another thing for random characters who should be a lot more casual. That being said, I don’t believe that the occasional odd line is detrimental to the overall experience, especially if you’re someone who doesn’t work with words and writing all the time. It’s also a personal preference thing. I firmly believe all periods and commas should be in quotations, and that people should use harebrained rather than hair-brained. But according to my research, some people don't share this opinion.

Ace Attorney Investigations is a fantastic port that looks and plays beautifully on modern consoles. I’m so happy that people can finally experience the second game with an official localization! So happy that we can finally see that little wiener Eustace in HD glory! It strikes that perfect middle ground between the old Ace Attorney (the original trilogy and I argue even the fourth game) quality and the new Ace Attorney (Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice) zaniness that most fans of the series can enjoy it, so long as they suspend their disbelief. Just pretend you’re watching something like Criminal Minds!

Ace Attorney Investigations will come out on September 6, 2024 for the PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Windows PC.

The post Review: Ace Attorney Investigations Can Get Pretty Wild appeared first on Siliconera.

Behaviour Interactive allowing Supermassive Games, who previously developed the 90's slasher inspired Until Dawn, to create a more "cinematic" title set within the Dead by Daylight universe seems like an optimal choice. However, Supermassive Games carries in the same flaws and meandering and uninteresting direction that has plagued the developer since The Dark Picture Anthology's Little Hope.

Within the first hour of trudging through The Casting of Frank Stone I was so bored I was on the verge of tears. Because while the game does have some interesting narrative threads (particularly the stuff concerned with lore connected to Dead by Daylight's mysterious Entity), the character writing is cliched and at worst, just uninteresting. The tale begins in the 1960's, where players assume the role of a sheriff sent to investigate the disappearance of an infant. The game warns you that your choices will have consequences, much like every Supermassive Game, place a deep emphasis on player choice and how these actions could ripple outward.

From there you bounce between the 1960's, 1980's, and 2024 — with a different cast of characters to play in each decade. Something as simple as trusting a character with a bit of information impacting characters you meet throughout the established timeline. However, this isn't always the case. It felt like some decisions were just there to add tension when there wasn't any, just to warn me that I might have done something wrong or potentially killed a character when all routes ended up leading to the same outcome anyways. There are a few deviations here and there, but when I had to figure out how to get my hands on a new camera for an aspiring group of filmmakers, there wasn't much actual choice to be had.

All of these characters are also interconnected through the titular character, Frank Stone, in some way, and a supposedly cursed movie that was filmed where this mysterious killer met his end. Which I guess is supposed to make the narrative more compelling, but it all felt kind of lazy. It felt like a way to try and add stakes and pull something out of the player when something bad does happen to a character. I won't be elaborating on this for the sake of spoilers, but this was definitely something I was able to spot a mile away. Which isn't a bad thing. Cliches and tropes have existed in media and continue to exist in media for a reason, and when these ideas are executed on properly, they can be extremely compelling! Even in B-horror films, or games that give off the same kind of vibe.

But this has always been an issue for Supermassive Games, and continues to be an issue here. Along with the general pacing and direction of scenes. The game either goes at a breakneck pace or is agonizingly slow. The two hours of the game after the prologue chapter had me falling asleep in my chair, even if the narrative kept dangling bits of more interesting story or gameplay in front of me. Because The Casting of Frank Stone is as it's best when it's more Dead by Daylight than one of Supermassive Games' attempt at making a playable horror film.

I loved the little touches that reminded me of a game I enjoyed significantly more. The incorporation of scratch marks (a mechanic from Dead by Daylight that shows a killer where you've been sprinting towards survival) or little bits of lore tied directly into Behaviour Interactive's asymmetrical horror game. You can pick up little artifacts throughout the game that are nods to the game's Killers, and the antagonist of The Casting of Frank Stone does shed some light on the ominous Entity that has pulled some of the most twisted individuals and their soon-to-be victims into these weird little pocket dimensions that have been frozen in time that exists in a realm beyond ours.

But scenes drag on, the motion capture in a lot of them have prioritized facial capture over refining the whole of the performance of the actor, and transitions after making choices can be clunky and awkward. For those unfamiliar with Supermassive Games' catalogue, their games function are playable films where you do some light walking and exploration while choosing how to react to characters and do a QTE here and there to ensure the survival of the cast. It's sort of like a choose your own adventure novel, just a lot more linear. It worked for Until Dawn, even if it isn't my favorite horror game or kind of horror game, because of how it managed to balance these systems. The Casting of Frank Stone has an uneven mix, and you'll be sitting through characters chatting amongst one another for upwards of twenty or thirty minutes before actually being allowed to do something, until maybe something more exciting happens that has you interested, only for it to cool down again or for you to be forced to solve uninteresting puzzle or engage in boring combat.

If you do want to see how a different decision might have shaken out, you don't need to play the game again at the very least. Instead you can take advantage of the "Cutting Room Floor" option, which allows you to jump in at specific points in the story to see how a different choice might have gone. Unfortunately, you cannot skip cutscenes or right to the decision in question, even if you've seen the scene before. So you're stuck there waiting for fifteen or so minutes of the same, grating dialogue just to see if deciding to repair a camera at an old curio shop or the local pharmacy will have any other real outcome.

The game also has some issues when it comes to textures popping in, and was struggling on my PC even at medium settings. Thankfully the subtitles are easy to read, but there were some inconsistencies in terms of how the subtitles would display actions. Sometimes they would be in brackets, other times they wouldn't. But the game does have a fair amount of accessibility options ranging from text size, controller vibration, and even changing the kinds of QTE's you can get, or if they can time out.

For those that want to loop their friends into the fun, there is a multiplayer mode that facilitates five different players. However, there is only local multiplayer, which means that you have to physically hand over your controller to whoever you're playing with. I imagine players on PC might be able to finagle something where you'll be able to remote play with friends or family, but I didn't test that out.

Overall, The Casting of Frank Stone is an interesting attempt at feeding Dead by Daylight fans more lore through different means. I think there's a lot of potential there, but so much of the game could have just remained on the cutting room floor, tightening up the tension and overall experience to make it a more engrossing B-horror flick. Because there isn't anything wrong with bad or corny, it just isn't enough to be so bad that it's good. It's just kind of there, and it's a game I won't be playing again.

The Casting of Frank Stone is available for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X.

PC Specs:

• Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core Processor
• RAM: 32-GB
• Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

The post Review: The Casting of Frank Stone Meanders too Much to be Thrilling appeared first on Siliconera.

The latest Pokemon TCG set, Stellar Crown, brings the world of The Indigo Disk to cardboard, so what are the best cards to pick up? The expansion offers different options for different audiences.

The coolest Pokemon TCG Stellar Crown cards

Would you believe it if we said the Illustrator Rares are cool again? We say that almost every time, but hey, it’s still true. The art takes aesthetic risks that seem to be too much for The Pokemon Company on its standard-issue versions, and we love to see that. This time, we in particular like the high-wattage look of Zeraora, Joltik and Galvantula, as well as Gulpin eatin’ a whole cake.

In terms of gameplay, we really like the new Raging Bolt card. One-prize attackers really shine when they have no ceiling, stacking damage with each additional energy until they can take out the biggest foes. Its Thunderburst Storm attack lets you target that damage anywhere you want, chipping away at supporters and damaged retreaters as much as you’d like. (Also the art looks rad.)

The most interesting Stellar Crown cards

We’re intrigued by Kofu, a new card-draw Trainer. The effect is simple enough: put two cards from your hand onto the bottom of your deck, then draw four. It trades the third card draw of a standard friend supporter for filtering to find what you want! But what makes it most interesting is that there’s a power referencing it. Food Prep, found on Veluza and Crabominable, decreases attack cost by one for each Kofu in the discard. Veluza in particular is most intriguing, since it’s a Basic and could theoretically just attack for 110 damage for free!

Stadium card Area Zero Underdepths was clearly built with Terapagos ex in mind, but could have wider implications too. It expands the bench to 8 as long as you have a Tera in play, allowing for extra bench-multiplied damage for attacks like Unified Beatdown but also giving you room to play a bunch of support effects. Terapagos in particular might want to use that space for Bouffalant, which shields 60 damage from colorless Basics if you have two in play.

The most meta-relevant Stellar Crown cards

New supporter Crispin really only works in dual-energy setups, but it offers both energy search and acceleration and could be a staple in a lot of decks. It lets you search for two different Basic Energy cards, putting one in your hand and one on a Pokemon.

Running any ACE SPEC card is generally better than running none at all, but Stellar Crown introduces a few more options to let you find the best for your build. Deluxe Bomb puts 12 damage counters on an attacking foe once, useful both as damage and deterrent. Sparkling Crystal makes a Tera Pokemon’s attacks cost one energy of any type less, which is especially useful for those new three-type attacks but generally helpful for acceleration regardless! And Grand Tree, the new Stadium of the bunch, lets each player search for and evolve creatures, even twice in a row, once per turn.

The cutest Pokemon TCG Stellar Crown cards

It’s something of a cadre of usual suspects in this set, but that works for us when they put the effort in! Among our favorites are the ever-adorable Fidough, an Alcremie baking up some treats, a starry-eyed Wooloo and an Eevee enjoying nature. In terms of unusual suspects, the real-world medium of the new Chewtle suits it well! Some Illustrator Rares of note: a sleepy Bulbasaur, a pastel Milcery and a Dachsbun living out its baked goods dreams.

The latest Pokemon Trading Card Game expansion, Scarlet & Violet — Stellar Crown, launches September 13, 2024. For more on the Pokemon TCG, including a full overview of this new set, check out our archive.

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When Sticky Business launched, one of the things I wanted most was more parts to make stickers either via free updates for DLC. Well, we’ve seen that! The first one, Plan with Me, felt more practical. After all, it was about planners and scrapbooking sorts of things. Meanwhile, the Camp Zinnias DLC feels a bit more practical and versatile, due to the number of animals, plants, and landscaping additions it brings to Sticky Business.

The premise behind Camp Zinnias is that players are now preparing summer camp stickers for customers. While that means more obvious things like merit badge-inspired iconography, there are also items, animals, plants, natural objects, and other elements that are all tied to those kinds of great outdoors adventures. This also means a whole new sticker category, indicated by a tent. In total, there are 104 sticker parts and 10 new customers who will make certain general requests involving those elements and discuss camp life when they do.

So I’m obsessed with these new parts. The execution means they transcend the whole camping theme. All of the new animals, birds, and fish are creatures that could pair well with any of the existing items in the game. The new outdoors elements and badges also go so well with the things in the base game too. This is truly the type of pack you dream about. It might seem like it’d be too focused or niche. However, once you get into it, you find all of these ways to make the elements work with existing pieces. 

This also means the new customer objectives seem really manageable. In some situations, I might have felt forced to clutter up my virtual shop and waste my time on designs I didn’t really want to make to advance. Due to the range of elements in this add-on, that never came up. It’s a nonissue. Whatever requests people might have feel really easy to work with and make your own. 

The Camp Zinnias Sticky Business DLC is really handled so well. Spellgarden Games packed it full of a lot of parts that are so practical and fun. The design and execution makes it easy to find a way to make them work for you. There’s a lot to it. Especially considering the low price. If you wanted more natural or animal elements for your design, I think it is worth your time.

Sticky Business and its Camp Zinnias DLC are available on the Nintendo Switch and PC.

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