Reviews

If only I wasn't such a scaredy cat!

After recently taking up archery in real life I decided I wanted to take it up in virtual life also and found this game. After going through the tutorial (which is great!) I was super excited to play. I moved along the different platforms shooting the enemies in the distance feeling like Link, as I entered the first castle a knight appeared a few metres in front of me and my heart started racing! I shot several badly aimed arrows at him panicking then heard something in my ear, swung round to find 2 zombie type creatures right behind me, flung the headseat off and nearly cried in fear. I felt slightly disheartened after this, too scared to give it another go, and was tempted to take oculus up on their no quibble refund policy. HOWEVER, after a bit of researching I found a DLC level designed for people like me. Scaredy cats! (and fun for brave peeps too!!) Siege of heavens, which lets you stay atop a platform for away from all the scary creatures and enjoy perfecting your aim and trick shots. I've played this same level over and over again and because it is procedurally generated, it feels different every time. Although my back and shoulders absolutely hate me for it, ive decided to keep it in my collection and can see it becoming a regular in my VR sessions. Originally published on 10 February 2022.

Just one more song...

This game has me repeatedly throwing off my headseat after failing at an expert level 5 times in a row only to pick the headseat up again 2 minutes later to have another go. Highly addictive and fun! My only negatives are that the 1 in 100 times I'm winning an expert online battle , spoil sports can just exit the song leaving me playing on my own! And also that my boyfriend is a lot better at it than me and constantly beats my scores. Great game to show off VR to newcomers and replayability is great. Originally published on 10 February 2022.

The reason I got a playstation

For years I have researched different games despite not owning any form of gaming console; reading reviews, watching youtube videos, scrolling through discussion after discussion on reddit and comprised a list of games that appealed to me. 90% of those games were Nintendo so I went ahead and got a Nintendo switch. After a full year of lockdown and furlough, I had pretty much played through all the games on my list, more than once, but number 1 on that list kept coming back to me- Persona 5. However, it wasn't available on the switch. I had to decide was putting the money towards a playstation worth it basically for one game. Two weeks of 24/7 playstation 5 hunting, one stressful amazon delivery, 2.5 hours download time (the woes of not wanting to spend too much on internet!) and 115 hours of persona 5 gaming later- I must say, it definitely was worth it! I had never played a persona game before and really didn't know what to expect. I discovered I was playing as Joker, a teenager with a troubled past that lead him to Tokyo to live for a year whilst under probation. The game consists of everyday school life such as exams, reading books, getting to know the teachers (some extremely well cough Kawakami and her extremely useful massages), and meeting up with new friends all around the city such as in the arcade, cafe, underground malls and some seedy bars. All these tasks contribute to your knowledge, charm, proficiency, guts, kindness and social links which eventually aid you in the Palaces. Every month or so you find yourself in a Palace in the metaverse, where you and your new friends become the Phantom Thieves and use powerful creatures called Personas to take down baddies and change the hearts of the Palace owners. Sounds complicated? Well it is, but it all makes more sense thanks to my favourite character Morgana, a strange cat who teaches you how to fight and guides you on your new adventures.  Visual design: I am completely in awe of JRPGS, I appreciate the graphics and realism of games such as The last of us/God of war, but nothing quite steals my heart as much as these quirky, oddly dressed anime characters with hilarious dialogue. The sheer number of Personas and their individual designs are incredible, even if some are slightly questionable. Yes I’m talking about you “Throbbing King of desire” . Sound design: The music in the game is one area where I may be in the minority, I have read people frequently have found themselves listening to the music post game completion on youtube, but for me it became slightly repetitive. Although I may be prone to saying this more because my boyfriend would text me from the next room saying “are you still playing that game?!” because he recognised the music! Gameplay: this has to be separated into two parts of the game, daily life and dungeon crawling. -Daily life: I initially found it quite difficult to fully appreciate the calendar design of the game where most activities took up a whole afternoon or evening and I felt I had wasted precious time. I would read a book to try to increase my knowledge, get half way through, then Morgana would tell me I looked tired and send me to bed. Once I understood the importance of my time I became pretty good at managing it and enjoyed picking and choosing which of my friends to hang out with. It really added a sense of realism to the game. - Palaces: I absolutely love turn based battle systems, I am useless at first person shooters and fighting games so to be able to battle solely based on strategy is a massive bonus for me. Each baddie you come across has specific weaknesses and abilities which you have to figure out and change your persona to suit. If you want to kill them you can do that, if you want to barter with them for money or an item you can do that to, or the most satisfying is negotiating with them to come over to join your side and use them for future battles. -Longevity: Over 100 hours on my first run-through says enough, and the fact I am already considering downloading persona 5 Royal to start all over again. -Fun: YES! One of my all time favourite turn based battle games is fire emblem Three houses, and persona 5 made free time 10x more fun and the ability to explore the palaces instead of just battling gave me a lot more satisfaction. Overall: 9.3/10, I was very upset when the game ended and it was completely worth the ps5 purchase for a ps4 game, no regrets. Originally published on 4 May 2021.

5th Time Lucky

I started XC2 5 times, hence the title, before I finally understood peoples love for this game! A few things put me off the game initially when I first tried to play: 1. The horrific voice overs each character had in the English version, especially Nia where a very thick Welsh accent just didn't fit the theme at all! 2. The sheer number of tutorials which I admit I skipped through and massively learnt my lesson not to do a few hours in when I had to restart to understand what I was doing. 3. The size of the world, the number of side quests, and the amount of monsters strolling around everywhere!! I love RPGs so I was surprised I didn't like this aspect but when I was one shotted by a Level 89 monster within the first hour of gameplay several times, it started to become frustrating! 4. The combat system just seemed confusing and slightly boring. So 5th time game along and I was determined, I did a lot of research online of many people assuring me that after 8 hours of play I'll finally understand the beauty of this game, and sure enough 1 week later and 80 hours put into the game I completed it! So what made me fall inlove with it? 1. Yes, the voice overs were still annoying as hell but I put that aside and just sat back and enjoyed the story and fell inlove with Tora, Poppy, Rex and especially Nia!! 2. I spent more time watching the tutorials and fully understanding all the complex mechanics involved in this game! The excitement of pulling a rare blade from a common core crystal because I understood how to use Luck and Boosters was extremely satisfying!! Spending hours searching for 5 specific beetle types to increase the skill tree of one of my characters! Forcing Pyra to try every new drink I bought to work out which was her favourite! 3. The size of the world, the number of side quests, and the amount of monsters strolling around everywhere!! This quickly turned to a positive once I just learned how to avoid catching the attention of the level 89 monsters!! 4. The combat system just keeps getting better and better!! Giving each of your drivers the perfect blades to be able to execute break, topple, launch and smash and the perfect chain attacks was so satisfying! Yes its complex and very tricky and confusing but once you master it, I don't think I've seen a better battle system (Unless I include turn based because Fire Emblem Three Houses can't be beat in my eyes). My rating had to be lower than 7 overall however due to the difficulty and grind over the first few tries or hours of gameplay to fully get invested! So I have completed the game now what?? Well I have downloaded XC definitive edition and have become addicted very quickly (making sure to actually take my time and understand every aspect of the game!!) Originally published on 8 September 2020.

What have I done to myself...

I am writing this review on one of the lull periods in Animal Crossing New Horizons, which I am very grateful for or I would rarely put down my switch! I didn't jump on the Animal Crossing hype straight away because I didn't understand the premise, especially considering my most recent play-throughs on switch have been Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Zelda BOTW. Drastically different style of games. But with being an avid Reddit reader and having friends who have spoke highly of the game, I decided to take the bait... all I can say Is, what have I done to myself?! (And also, I really hope it isn't just another sea bass!!) I found myself debating over player name, island layout and island name far longer than I probably should have, but I felt from the moment I started the game I was trying to think 10 steps ahead to what I wanted my finalised island to represent. Unfortunately I should have been thinking 200 steps ahead! Every small decision seems to matter, where I placed my tent, what fish I decided to sell, what hemisphere I wanted to live on, who I invited to live on my island, what tree I decided to shake to get my tree branches etc, you get the point! For now, I am thrilled with my Fire Emblem theme (helped by the ability to download designs via QR codes).  I completely understand peoples frustrations with the real time aspect to this game, and there has been times I have been tempted to time skip, but I have found some positives to not doing this. Since lockdown begun, I woke up the earliest I have done this morning, just to check which creatures roamed my island in the early hours of the morning. I settled down to a no distractions movie last night because I had completed all the necessary tasks I had to do during the day on my island. Finally, during the pretty insane times we are living through at the moment, its quite nice to know you have some surprise waiting for you the next day in your mailbox or the excitement of how a construction site will end up looking once its complete!  I find the online game play with friends just hilarious, why does sending a text message to someone seem so much better when its taken you 5 minutes to type one sentence via the friends app on your nook phone?! Also purposely and wastefully spending your bells on buying clothes just to annoy your friend by stealing their style!  I only have a few negatives about this game, I do not like the fact you cannot freely change the camera angle as you wonder, I keep missing weeds behind trees!! Secondly I find it slightly annoying to hear the same sentence from a character if I'm selling or donating several times in one day. Lastly, I wish they would allow even small shifts in layout and design because I don't want to spend loads of bells just because my first two neighbours houses are one step out of sync with the other!! Although there is no deep strategy involved in this game, this makes it a real gem for me. I so often rush through games just to say "Right well completed that game" so when there is no actual end game, it makes gameplay a lot more relaxing and enjoyable. I guarantee I will spend many more hours and days on this game, finding myself in wonderful and sometimes very strange/creepy places..... (I'm talking about you Harvey!)  Originally published on 29 April 2020.

Finally found a game I love even more than BOTW!

Best game ever! Originally published on 14 March 2020.

A game that grew on me

I bought this game and they didn't play it for a few months because the first level felt simple and with no real goal. However, I came back to the game recently and ended up playing it for hours, realising the difficult grew throughout the levels and I'm at the point now where I am actually stuck! Therefore, I haven't actually finished the game but it is one that I will continue at some point and it has made me consider buying luigis mansion as it seems to be a similar type of game. Originally published on 10 February 2020.

First and best game in years!

I bought a Nintendo Switch and BOTW at the same time. It had been a long time since I had a game console and didn't know what game to choose but this was recommended to me. It was fantastic and it was hard for me to put down. It didn't feel too heavy and there is so much to do in the game. In comparison to some other games I liked that even though I had the freedom to go where I wanted in the world, I still had clear objectives to complete. I cannot wait for BOTW 2. Originally published on 10 February 2020.