Vitamag #18

EGX RECAP! HUE! INSIDE!DEFENDER' S QUEST AND MORE!

LIMITED RUN GAMES WITH US! WIN!WINFIND OUT MORE ON PAGE 39!

100% INDEPENDENT AND FILLED WITH VITA CONTENT!

‘s

Vitamag

REVIEWED!

Welcome

Hello Vita Gamers!

mag! As I write Welcome to yet another issue of Vita returned e just this introduction Charlie and I hav game selection the h oug alth and , EGX r the ano from e for those sav ent abs was slim and the Vita was games still e wer re the ght brou that the visitors Paul Murphy news bad nt rece available that are Vita-bound. The PMurphy1978 the fact that nder regarding releases can't detract from Fou the s coming to there are still many great experience g you all the news as you'd expect! handheld and we will be here to brin r the latest reviews gathered togethe That continues in this issue, with e pag on st Bur e Rag 2: er title God Eater for your reading pleasure with cov the hin Wit e. gam the ut abo had to say 18 and you can read what Charlie X, ews for Hatsune Miku: Project Diva revi find also will you es pag following ers. oth y Anniversary among man Claire: Extended Cut and Sky Force in the Gundam Breaker 3, so if you were We also have an import review for tI wha see tic fighting then you can market for some customisable robo . not should import it or thought about it and whether you icks, e developer features with Fiddlest As well as our reviews, we also hav as Hue er form rming and colourful plat the team behind the upcoming cha s er' end Def , title ng about their upcomi well as Level Up Labs talking to us Vita ng omi upc r you ure feat you want to Quest. If you are a developer and get in touch! se plea ers, own Vita y game to man eit recap, with six titles discussed (alb Rounding off this issue is our EGX st late and s ase rele new s, pick as our hot one has already released) as well and ch tou n that's on your radar? Get in news. Is anything new coming soo let us know! next e, and I hope to see you here again I really hope that you enjoy this issu time on November 14th!

WANT TO JOIN OUR AWESOME PSVITA TEAM OF ENTHUSIASTS? WE ARE LOOKING FOR NEW TALENT FOR THE WEBSITE AND THE MAGAZINE! IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, PLEASE VISIT WWW. THEVITALOUNGE.NET/JOBS FOR MORE DETAILS! PLEASE CONSIDER SUPPORTING OUR PATREON – IT WOULD REALLY BE APPRECIATED AND WOULD GO A LONG WAY TO SUPPORTING WHAT WE DO! FOR $9 PER ISSUE YOU WILL GET A PRINT COPY OF THIS MAGAZINE DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR! YOU CAN FIND OUR PATREON PAGE AT WWW.PATREON.COM/THEVITALOUNGE 11 Re 11 Re 13 Re 10 Re 10 Re views views views views views ! Dev ! Dev ! Dev ! Dev ! Dev elope elope elope elope elope r Fea r Fea r Fea r Fea r Fea tures tures tures tures tures ! Late ! Late ! Late ! Late ! Late st Ne st Ne st Ne st Ne st Ne ws! ws! ws! ws! ws!

REGULARS 04 BITE-SIZED NEWS

BITE-SIZED NEWS

06 NEW RELEASES THESE GAMES ARE RELEASING THIS MONTH. ANYTHING FOR YOU?

07 PLAYSTATION PLUS WHAT'S NEW IN THE IGC THIS MONTH?

08 EGX 2016 WE WENT TO THE BIRMINGHAM NEC TO PLAY SOME UPCOMING VITA-BOUND TITLES

11 HOT TEN THE VITA GAMES COMING SOON THAT WE ARE MOST EXCITED FOR!

38 THE ARE THE BEST VITA GAMES RELEASED SO FAR THIS YEAR. HOW MANY DO YOU HAVE?

39 PATREON STARS

T T The V T T ita Lo he Vita Lo he Vita Lo he Vita Lo he Vita Lo unge unge unge unge unge M A G A Z I N E

EGX RECAP! HUE! INSIDE!DEFENDER' S QUEST AND MORE!

LIMITED RUN GAMES WITH US! WIN!WINFIND OUT MORE ON PAGE 39!

100% INDEPENDENT AND FILLED WITH VITA CONTENT!

M A G A Z I N E

M A G A Z I N E

M A G A Z I N E

The Vita Lounge Magazine

THE LATEST VITA NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD!

M A G A Z I N E

Issue 18 | October 2016

THIS MAGAZINE EXISTS BECAUSE OF THE AMAZING PEOPLE. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

@PSVitaMag

‘s

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EDITORIAL TEAM Executive Editor / Paul Murphy @pmurphy1978 Editor-in-Chief / Kyle Wakeling @teflontactics 8 6 7 Deputy Editor / Charlie Large @CharlieLarge Deputy Editor / Jenny Jones @Kitty_has_Klaws MAGAZINE DESIGN Art Editor / Jhonatan Carneiro @JhoCarneiro

REVIEWED!

WEBSITE TEAM Timmy Garrett @timmygarrett40k Reece 9Heyworth @rheyworth07

CONTRIBUTORS Brandon Crisp @crispyn64 Kresnik Ahtreide @Kresnik258 Jamie Saul @TheJamieSaul Ethan Zeigler @dandycrocodiles Jasper Bekema (Vitamag+) Brad Gruetzmacher @ vongruetz (Vitamag+) Brian Sharon @ThatBShar (Vitamag+)

to your

Magazine!

DEVELOPER FEATURES

12 FIDDLESTICKS

14 LEVEL UP LABS

HUE IS ALL ABOUT SHIFTING COLOURS TO SOLVE PUZZLES AND IS OUT SOON. WE CATCH UP WITH DEVELOPER FIDDLESTICKS TO FIND OUT MORE

DEFENDER'S QUEST IS COMING TO VITA! WE SPEAK WITH DEVELOPER LARS DOUCET TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE GAME!

REVIEWS 16

Gundam Breaker 3

23

MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death

30

Claire: Extended Cut

32

Wanderjahr

18

God Eater 2: Rage Burst

26

Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA X

34

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II

20

Gal*Gun: Double Peace

28

Mutant Mudds Super Challenge

36

Sky Force Anniversary

thevitalounge.net SPECIAL THANKS Henry Hoffman @HenryHoffman Fiddlesticks @HueTheGame Lars Doucet @larsiusprime Level Up Labs @LevelUpLabsLLC Limited Run Games @LimitedRunGames and Play-Asia.com @PlayAsia

@TheVitaLounge COVERAGE Are you a developer? If you are working on PSVita content and want to get it covered for FREE in either the magazine or on the website, then we would love to hear from you! Please send an email to press@thevitalounge.net and add us to your press lists. If you have a game coming out soon and want us to tell other Vita owners, get in touch!

patreon.com/TheVitaLounge DISCLAIMER The Vita Lounge is an independent PlayStation Vita enthusiast website and magazine. All content featured is used with permission, and is used to promote existing and upcoming titles for the PS Vita. We are not endorsed or affiliated with Sony or PlayStation, or any of the companies featured. © 2015-2016 The Vita Lounge

BITE-SIZED NEWS

Chroma Squad is coming to Vita Bandai Namco Entertainment America have announced that they’ll be bringing Behold Studios’ Chroma Squad to Vita early next year, are you in?

A tactical RPG, Chroma Squad follows five stunt performers who quit their jobs to start their own Power Rangers inspired TV program. From casting actors, to purchasing set equipment and upgrades, you’ll have to make it work behind the scenes before you can make it in front of them.

When everything’s ready behind the scenes however, all your hard work culminates in a turn-based RPG battle – the five members of the Chroma Squad controlled by you! The game will be out next year.

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Hyper Light Drifter cancelled

Koi swims onto Vita

It’s official; Hyper Light Drifter has been cancelled for PlayStation Vita. The developer (Heart Machine) issued an update video on his Kickstarter page and in the video the cancellation and its full reasoning was explained. Featuring regularly on our "Hot Ten" lists, it's a massive shame. Are you disappointed?

Circle Entertainment has announced that Koi is coming to PlayStation Vita, bringing with it the Zen-inducing mellow-out style gameplay we’ve come to expect from the PlayStation 4 version.

Vitamag

Koi is a hypnotic Zen-inducing trip into a pond full of China’s favourite experimental carp. You’ll have to complete puzzles, open flowers, and dodge predators in this chill new title from Oasis Games. thevitalounge.net

Bloodstained pushed into 2018 IGA has provided an update on the game’s development process, and in the process has revised the title’s release date aim into 2018.

Bloodstained has just had its sixth development update, and with it comes some bad news for those hoping to play sooner than later – not going to happen. Due to wanting to keep the quality up on the game, and the amount of time things are taking currently, it looks like the title won’t be hitting anyone’s collection ’til at least the first half of 2018.

Shu arriving in Q4

Slain release date announced

Coatsink has given 2.5D platformer Shu quite the overhaul, ending up with something true to their ideas but just a little different than we’ve previously seen.

Digerati Distribution has announced that the Vita version of Slain: Back from Hell will be coming this November 1st.

Inspired by the games of Rayman, Klonoa, and Sonic, Shu is a 2.5D platformer with beautifully vivid 3D environments.

As the titular Shu, you’ll have to run, jump, glide, and use special abilities (gained from villagers) to try and outrun an apocalyptic storm hell-bent on consuming the world.

Shu is headed to PlayStation Vita sometime in Q4, priced at $11.99 US. It’ll be cross buy with the PlayStation 4 version of the game (which launches October 4th), so don’t worry about having to double dip!

Slain: Back from Hell is described as "A heavy metal inspired arcade combat with puzzle elements and gore galore" and features "Stunning visuals and true old school gameplay accompanied by the most metal soundtrack you’ve ever heard."

Have you been looking forward to Slain?

Berserk dated for the West Koei Tecmo has unveiled the full name for Berserk (Working Title), and has dated the title for release early next year. It'll be officially titled Berserk and the Band of the Hawk in the West, and this newly named title will be released digitally on February 24th in North America and Europe. @PSVitaMag

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5

Criminal Girls 2: Party Favors

Dragon Quest Builders

October 11th NA

October 11th NA / October 14th EU

Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky

October 18th NA & EU

Superdimension Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls

Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters Daybreak: Special Gigs

World of Final Fantasy

Yomawari: Night Alone

Hue

Lichtspeer

Space Overlords

NOW WE ALL KNOW THAT SOME GAMES CAN APPEAR OUT OF THE BLUE AND RELEASE ON OUR FAVOURITE HANDHELD WITH ONLY A FEW DAYS NOTICE, BUT HERE ARE THE KEY TITLES THAT WE CAN EXPECT THIS MONTH!

Valkyrie Drive: Bhikkhuni October 11th NA

October 21st EU

October TBC NA & EU

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October 25th NA / October 28th EU

October TBC NA & EU

October 18th NA / October 21st EU

October 25th NA / October 28th EU

October TBC NA & EU

thevitalounge.net

Actual Sunlight

Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~

4.1 “Actual Sunlight is a serious game for those that like inward thinking. While the gameplay is solely clicking and interacting with people and objects, you will find that the reflection invoked makes up for it.” - Zach Price

Your say!

4.4 “Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ is an otome visual novel that has a lot more depth to it than you might expect. The stories are intricately interwoven, the characters are varied and well developed, and the setting is fantastical and unique; all adding up to an experience that you’ll never forget – whichever suitor you choose.” - Kyle Wakeling

Polls Apart!

@TheVitaLounge I played Actual sunlight when it released. Really good game about depression. Well written. Shootout to the dev @willoneill

October's @PlayStation Plus titles for #PSVita are Code Realize and Actual Sunlight. Are you happy with these?

Let us know your thoughts!

— Durantx8817 (@Durantx8817) September 28, 2016

— The Vita Lounge (@TheVitaLounge) September 28, 2016

@TheVitaLounge, Actual Sunlight is a socially important game. Code Realize is a Japanese game, which caters to the Vita's audience. Not bad.

— Marcos Codas (@MarcosCodas) September 28, 2016 @TheVitaLounge @PlayStation any of these visual novels? Last months offering had a very easy plat lol — Mike mahoney (@Mikemah48933691) September 29, 2016 @TheVitaLounge Really wanted those games, so very happy.

— Thomas Würgler (@trezzer) September 28, 2016

@PSVitaMag

Source: Twitter 624 votes.

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Paul Murphy Founder The Vita Lounge PMurphy1978 PMurphy1978

EGX IS THE UK'S LARGEST GAMING EVENT AND ONCE AGAIN PAUL AND CHARLIE HEADED TO BIRMINGHAM TO SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING FOR THE VITA. ALTHOUGH NO VITA UNITS WERE AVAILABLE (NO SURPRISES THERE) THERE WERE GAMES PLAYABLE THAT ARE VITA-BOUND. SO WE PLAYED THEM!

YIIK: A Post-Modern RPG We had a new build to play, which was the version produced for PAX Prime and was built especially for events so that spoilers would be avoided. We got to grips with interacting with the environment before setting off into a dungeon and experienced the many puzzles and battles on offer. The game looks and plays incredibly well and only increases our excitement further. We simply cannot wait for this!

Expected: Q4 yiikrpg.com @ackkstudios

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VA-11 HALL-A Once again Ysbyrd Games were in attendance with Va-11 HALL-A, which is described as a "booze-'em-up" and sees you engaging in "Waifu Bartending". As was the case in April, this was not a new build so we have nothing new to add, but it's an incredibly interesting concept and we can't wait to find out more. Expected: Q4 waifubartending.com @ sukebangames

thevitalounge.net

World of Final Fantasy This was our first opportunity to go hands-on with World of Final Fantasy ahead of its October release and to be honest it wasn't what we were expecting. A very limited demo saw you exploring your surroundings, watching clips of what the game had to offer and engaging in simplistic random encounters similar to PokĂŠmon and Digimon. We hope that the full game has more to offer than was on show here.

Expected: October 25th/28th worldoffinalfantasy.square-enix.com/gb @FinalFantasy

@PSVitaMag

Shu Coatsink were in attendance once again with their colourful platformer, Shu. The studio told us that the Vita version was well on track to release during Q4 and runs at 60FPS, with little noticeable difference with the PS4 version. In Shu you control a variety of hand-drawn characters as they run, jump and glide across an ancient environment pursued by a mysterious storm. In a change to what we published in Issue 13, Shu will no longer be arriving on PlayStation Plus and will be Cross-buy with the PS4 version. Expected: Q4 coatsink.com/games/shu @Coatsink

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Space Overlords Excalibur Games has a PC build of Space Overlords to play, and although the Vita version is devoid of any multiplayer features Charlie and I both got stuck into that here. The aim is to destroy everything in the environment and any enemies you encounter before the time runs out. The game felt very slow paced and it was hard for us to find each other to fight, but that won't be a problem in the Vita version... Expected Q4 spaceoverlords.com @12HitCombo

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Laser Disco Defenders As this game is out, we didn't actually play it, but Excalibur Games did tell us that many of the things that Timmy noted in our review were being worked on in a patch. The difficulty being tweaked and power-ups being added and in addition to this, developer Alexander Birke said that PSTV functionality is likely in a future update. laserdiscodefenders.com @AlexanderBirke

thevitalounge.net

Ho eN THE VITA GAMES WE ARE MOST EXCITED FOR!

WORLD OF FINAL FANTASY

worldoffinalfantasy.square-enix.com @square_enix_eu

YIIK

ackkstudios.wordpress.com @ackkstudios

COSMIC STAR HEROINE

zeboyd.com @ZeboydGames

DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS

dragonquest-game.com @DragonQuest

SALT AND SANCTUARY

ska-studios.com/salt @skastudios

STEINS;GATE 0

@PQubeGames

NEW DANGANRONPA V3

SWORD ART ONLINE: HOLLOW REALIZATION

swordartonline-game.com @BandaiNamcoEU

@spikechunsoft

DRIFTER

celsiusgs.com/drifter @celsiusgs @PSVitaMag

TOKYO XANADU

@aksysgames Vitamag

11

Fiddlesticks

huethegame.com @huethegame

HenryHoffman

Creative Director @HenryHoffman

Hello Fiddlesticks! Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. Can you tell us a little bit about your studio and how you got into developing games?

Hey Vita Lounge! Our little studio comprises just two people, Dan Da Rocha and myself, Henry Hoffman. Dan does all the day-to-day business stuff, while I build the games! It’s a great relationship which means I get to focus on making great games, and don’t have to worry about all the stresses of running a business.

We both went to University together in Newport, Wales, where we studied video game design. We didn’t work together until the tail end of University, and were fortunate enough to achieve moderate success working separately. Dan developed the indie-hit Q.U.B.E. while I led a team which created Mush, winning a BAFTA and securing a publishing deal with Microsoft. Working on these big projects while still at University was great fun, but we were way out of our depth. It was necessary to call on the talents of other students and this is how Dan and I came to work together.

We are here to find out more about your game, Hue. What is it all about?

Hue is a vibrant, award-winning puzzle adventure, where you alter the world by changing its background colour. You explore a dangerous grey land, unearthing coloured fragments on a journey to find your missing mother. As obstacles match the background, they disappear, creating new and exciting puzzles - full of peril, mystery… and colours unseen.

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HUE IS A GAME ALL ABOUT SHIFTING THE PERSPECTIVE OF YOUR ENVIRONMENT WITH DIFFERENT COLOUR ABILITIES. AS IT'S DUE OUT ON THE VITA SOON WE THOUGHT WE WOULD SPEAK TO HENRY HOFFMAN FROM DEVELOPER FIDDLESTICKS TO FIND OUT MORE. The game uses some imaginative colourshifting mechanics to reveal new aspects in the world around Hue. How did that process come about?

So I’m a big Photoshop nerd. I have been since I was a child. Whilst most other kids were out playing football, I would lock myself away and edit photographs, adding aliens and spaceships to family photos.

One day I was messing around with the background of an image, and thought it was interesting how objects seemed to melt into the background when they matched the Hue. As I shifted the Hue slider, you could see objects slowly appear and disappear. It got me thinking. What if by making these objects visibly disappear, they also physically disappeared. Out of sight, out of mind.

That really laid the groundwork for the entire game, becoming a core mechanic, but also philosophically underpinning the narrative, and hugely informing the art style.

What games were you inspired by when developing Hue? Two games come to mind. Braid has been massively influential in how I try to approach design. That ‘aha’ moment when you’ve been struggling to solve a puzzle for a while and then it just clicks. That is what I really strive for. I don’t think I’m wired for designing those sorts of puzzles though, it involved a lot of mental stamina, but there’s definitely some which have squeezed their way out of my brain somehow.

much always ended up lost and frustrated. Guacamelee made that open style much more accessible for me, and really showed that you could create a large open 2D world, as kind of a framework for any 2D game really. It had lots of action and puzzle elements, and it also had these sort of coloured gated areas which you’ll see make a similar appearance in Hue. How much is there to see and do in the game?

So we have about five or six hours of core gameplay, and a bit longer if you want to find all the secrets we’ve hidden. The game spans a sprawling metroidvaniastyle branching cave system which burrows out of Hue’s backyard.

Throughout you’ll explore Hue’s quaint village, watery caves, fiery dungeons, mysterious temples, technological marvels, shadowy woodland, snowy mountains and ultimately a mysterious, hallowed institution.

You’ll meet various characters who you’ll help, and who’ll help you, each with their own stories, but many unable to comprehend the abilities you find yourself with.

Despite being a game about discovering the effect of colour, you also have a colour-blind mode in the game. How does it work? (*fun fact - I am colour blind) After showcasing the game around the world, we soon discovered that some players struggled more than most - and not because of their gaming abilities. Up to 10% of people suffer from colourAnother game is Guacamelee. I was never blindness, and for them, telling colours really a metroidvania genre fan, and pretty apart could prove very challenging. After thevitalounge.net

much research, testing, and seeking advice from colour-blind communities, we devised a simple symbol system which we hope will make the game accessible to all.

We really want as many people as possible to enjoy Hue.

around the same time that we teamed up with Curve Digital, who have a great Vita portfolio, and after speaking with them we felt really confident that we could bring Hue to Vita without any gameplay compromises.

Simply put, each colour in the colour wheel has a symbol attached. Each coloured object in the game world also has a corresponding symbol. What this allows is for the player to match symbols, rather than colours, as a sort of backup. We had previously also experimented with patterned overlays, but as our art style increased in fidelity, it became too confusing and ultimately made it even harder to distinguish colours! Allowing ourselves a good amount of time for experimentation, testing and seeking professional advice was really important.

I got the game running on Vita in a couple of days, but didn’t tell Dan, my business partner I was working on it. I surprised him a few days later on Skype with a video of the game running on the Vita. He was ecstatic. It was really a great moment for us, and we’re really pleased that we were able to bring it to the platform.

they’re more mature and the independent selection is really quite amazing. I’m really pleased that Curve Digital (our publisher) has supported the platform thus far, and hope they continue to help indies like myself release great games on the Vita in the future.

What’s next for Fiddlesticks?

That’s a good question, and one I haven’t given a great deal of thought to yet. I’ve put such a huge amount of myself into this game, physically and emotionally, I think we need to take a step back and see how release goes. It’s been difficult to extrapolate myself mentally from Hue for How did you find developing for the Vita? some time now, but after having recently Have any compromises been made to get visited Gamescom, I’m slowly starting to it onto the handheld? feel rejuvenated, and new game ideas are Developing on the Vita has been pretty starting to form. I’d love to do something great so far. It’s always tough bringing a in 3D next though, as more of a personal game to hardware that you perhaps didn’t challenge more than anything else!

What made you want to bring the game to plan for initially, but we’ve been able to keep compromise to a minimum. We have Finally, of the two released Vita systems the Vita? scaled back a few things, mainly non(the OLED and the Slim) which do you I always wanted to create a mobile essential physics and some subtle visual think is the best? version of Hue, so that I could show I currently have an OLED device, feel the friends on the go, and people could readily effects which aren’t really noticeable on screen is great and haven’t had any share it easier. The mechanic really has to the smaller screen. Overall we haven’t compromised on gameplay though, and problems with it. I do like the sound of the be experienced to be appreciated, and I I’m working really hard on getting the extra battery life on the slim, but for my think a big part of that is friends being able to easily get the game out and show framerate to be on a par with current gen commutes I haven’t had much need for it. consoles.

I can’t really say I have a preference, each it to whomever. has their pros, but I personally use the What are your thoughts on the Vita as a OLED. I originally built touch controls into the system? game, and the plan was to support mobile. As the game developed though, it I’m a big fan. I personally don’t mobile We would like to thank Henry game that much – free-to-play stuff, became more involved, and as the for his time with this interview casual games, none of that really interests difficulty increased it became better and also thank Cody from One suited to more hardcore gamers. As time me. The Vita is different though. The PR Studio for arranging it. Hue catalogue feels like it isn’t there to waste went on I was really pleased with the is arriving soon on the Vita, my time, or suck my money away, and the direction of the game, but disappointed will you be picking it up? that we weren’t going to target platforms hardware seems much better suited for actual gaming. The games also feel like suitable for gaming on the go. This was @PSVitaMag

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Level Up Labs

defendersquest.com @LevelUpLabsLLC

Lars Doucet

@larsiusprime

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into developing games?

That's pretty open ended, I guess the most direct way to answer is I got my start in educational games. I've always wanted to make games, but wound up going to school for VFX/computer graphics. It turned out I hated that, and tried to shoehorn my Master's Degree into video game research instead, which worked out pretty well. That led to me working on various grant projects for educational games, some of which turned out super great, but most of which were disasters due to the inherent structural problems in the world of academic game design (long story).

The two good ones were Super Energy Apocalypse (my master's thesis) and CellCraft (MacArthur foundation grant) with the former a free flash game about Sustainable Energy Use and Zombies, which I posted on Kongregate and it got the attention of one of their community managers, Anthony Pecorella and he then hired me to work on CellCraft with him, which was a RTS about cell biology.

DEFENDER'S QUEST IS AN UPCOMING TOWER DEFENCE GAME INSPIRED BY THE CREATOR'S DISLIKE OF FINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL DEFENDERS. FOLLOWING THE NEWS THAT A VITA VERSION WAS INCOMING, WE CAUGHT UP WITH DEVELOPER LARS DOUCET ON SKYPE FOR A CHAT. Story-wise it's about a young librarian who catches the plague, is thrown into a Medieval plague colony, recruits a rag-tag band of survivors, and then then do their best to escape.

What was the inspiration behind the game?

Basically how disappointed we were in Final Fantasy Crystal Defenders. It's a mobile game by Square Enix that billed itself as "Final Fantasy Tactics plus Tower Defence" which seemed totally awesome, but then didn't deliver on the premise. It was literally just by-the-numbers Tower Defence gameplay, with a light Final Fantasy Tactics thematic dressing, and no real story.

It also didn't have unique & persistent characters, you just had generic clones of various classes you'd summon and level up in battle temporarily -- they were all anonymous and didn't have unique names or skills or level up between fights. So we basically set out to make what Final Fantasy Crystal Defenders should have been.

How does that translate to gameplay in Defender's Quest? What will gamers do in the game?

In Defender's Quest, you have a similar overworld and metagame to Final Fantasy Tactics -- which is to say a simplified overworld, dots on a map, towns, etc. You go from mission to mission, and in each one there's a story sequence before and after. In the battles themselves, you start with your main character, Azra, in a fixed position, and monsters will appear in That's quite a journey, which aptly brings designated locations and move towards us to Defender's Quest. In a nutshell what her on predefined paths. Azra has HP and is the game about?

PSI (basically MP) and can summon It's an RPG mixed with Tower Defence defenders from your party and place them think RPG meta-game, story, and around the map, and they'll automatically character progression, with a Tower start attacking incoming enemies.

Defence battle system where your individual persistent party members are What we did to mix some things up is that the "towers" each character class has five active skills After getting burned on a subsequent educational game with a different team, and spending a year in the wastelands working on a Facebook game, I circled back to Anthony and we formed Level Up Labs, which led to Defender's Quest, and that brings us to where we are now. Our writer, James Cavin, actually helped me with Super Energy Apocalypse, so we brought him back in for Defender's Quest too.

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and several passive skills. The “active” skills get unlocked in battle by “boosting” a character after they’ve already been placed. So you’ll place characters around the map and they only have their base skills ready, to get their higher level skills you need to pump more energy into them.

The basic strategy is do you invest in a few for more strength, or summon a bunch for more coverage? Then you also have what we think is the most finegrained targeting control you’ll see in any Tower Defence game, but that’s only if you care for it - it’s only really necessary to win the hardest challenge battles.

After battles are over, you get money and experience points, like any RPG. Characters all level up individually, and each level gives them 1 skill point to allocate which you can use to unlock new active & passive skills, or upgrade old ones. You can buy equipment at shops, etc. and we also have a “stacked difficulty” system where you don’t commit to a difficulty up front.

Each battle map just has different challenges and you only need to beat the base one to proceed to the next, but when you’re stronger you can come back and try the harder challenges for more rewards, which are totally new enemy configurations rather than just global +50% enemy HP or whatever.

With that "stacked difficulty" would you say the game is best suited to Tower Defence veterans or will anyone be able to pick up and play the game?

Pretty much anybody can pick it up. We found it has about equal appeal to RPG fans and to Tower Defence fans.

You teased the game running on Vita recently on Twitter. How is development going for the Vita version?

Short version: pretty well. Long version might give a bit more context. Unlike most thevitalounge.net

devs, we’re not relying on Unity or something like that. Defender’s Quest was written in a programming language called Haxe, using a platform called OpenFL - which is open source multimedia framework. My company is currently working on a custom cross-console backend for XBox1, PS4, PSVita, and Wiiu, in collaboration with other developers.

us, but a lot of obstacles to porting to Vita come down to the developers choices themselves. Zeboyd seems to be doing fine, for instance. But yes, DQII is running on OpenFL.

The eventual plan being that anyone who makes OpenFL games can use our tech to get onto these consoles, while still relying on only one codebase. The main challenges for us right now on the Vita are adding gamepad support, dealing with a smaller resolution, and making sure performance is good enough. Gamepad support is pretty straightforward and we need to add it for all our consoles. It’s easy to test on PC, and the way we’ve set up our gamepad API makes it very easy to just slot a console implementation into the bottom of it and the high level logic doesn’t change.

What was it that made you want to bring Defender's Quest to the Vita?

Ideally I want to be on every platform I can. To build this console backend, we partnered with WayForward technologies.

So they already have a console stack that works on everything. We’re hooking that up to Haxe/OpenFL. And Vita was one of the supported targets, I also was lucky enough to get a kit for it pretty early. And honestly, it’s just a really nice device. I also really like that it has the option of touch controls.

The idea is that if we get the first game onto these consoles, then the second game gets to come along too.

It’s a good fit for our genre - Defender's Quest is something I can imagine playing The smaller resolution isn’t too bad either. in short bursts on a train or something.

And we’re localized into Japanese. RPG Our game uses a flexible UI system designed to scale. Of course, it’s minimum and strategy games are popular on this system I’ve heard, so although it’s a bit of resolution was 600, and the Vita has 544 a niche platform, it’s one that seems very vertical pixels. I have to go in and adjust enthusiastic. some logic on screens where things are cramped, and pump up font sizes.

Basically that’s a lot of busy work but it’s Are there any games that stand out to you on the system, and is there anything you not anything insurmountable. As for are genuinely looking forward to? performance, so far we’re getting mostly Well, I’m super hyped about Cosmic Star okay framerates, and I still have a lot of Heroine and I’m a big fan of indie games low hanging optimization fruit to pluck. like Necrodancer. Mostly Indie Games and RPGs are my wheelhouse.

That sounds very sensible. Our understanding is that Unity causes more Why do you think that the Vita has problems for the Vita than it solves. So struggled to gain traction in the OpenFL - does Dungeon Quest II run on marketplace? that?

Proprietary memory card format for one.

Well, there’s trade-offs no matter what Rest is probably just speculation on my you use. Vita is obviously important for @PSVitaMag

part, but like Sony’s bread is buttered by the PS4 whereas with Nintendo, their handhelds have kept them afloat when their home consoles didn’t do well. So Nintendo really puts a lot of ammunition behind their handheld, with lots of first-party support, I mean Pokémon is basically exclusively reserved for handheld. The handheld market is shrunk now with competition from mobile, so it’s not like it used to be where it was easier for two dedicated handhelds to carve up the market.

Do you have an ETA for the Vita version of Defender's Quest?

I’d like to say end of year, but we’ll see how it goes. Even when it gets to 100% finished it’s still got to go through certification. The game itself is done, the tech itself is pretty mature but I’ve just got a lot of UI clean-up chores, gamepad logic to add, and performance tweaks to work on. One thing I do is I have a progress tracker on my website that’s tied to my public GitHub issues tracker so every day it pulls from that and updates some progress bars, and links to what I’m actually working on. I haven’t added a bar for the Vita port yet, but I probably should, I could do that if your audience thought it would be useful.

Our final question! Which do you think is the better Vita model, the OLED or the Slim?

I’m honestly not sure which is the model that I have! I think I have the older model probably so that - it’s a really nice screen!

We would like to thank Lars for his time with this interview.

Hopefully Defender's Quest will see a release this side of 2017.

What do you make of the game?

Vitamag

15

Written by

Paul Murphy

PMurphy1978 PMurphy1978

3 15 22 PSTV 1.7 GB Publisher

bandainamcogames.com

@BandaiNamcoUS

Developer

bandainamcogames.com

@BandaiNamcoUS

Released

JP: March 3rd NA/EU: Not Released

16

Vitamag

I’ve long been fascinated with battling robots, most likely because of a childhood obsession with Hasbro’s Transformers. This affection has stayed with me over the years and prior to this review, the game which had best served my robotic destruction was probably Custom Robo Arena on the Gameboy Advance nearly ten years ago. When Play-Asia sent over the latest Gundam Breaker title for us to review I had to see what all the fuss was about.

The story behind Gundam Breaker 3 is very simple. You’ve recently moved to a new town and the local shopping precinct is in danger of being closed down. Being a highly proficient model Gunpla fighter, it falls to you to save the day as you find yourself battling alongside your new friends, and creating more excitement – leading to more people visiting to see your progress.

At its core, Gundam Breaker 3 is a third person shooter/brawler with gameplay heavily focused on combat. Playing very similarly to Koei Tecmo’s Warriors titles (any of them) you will find yourself mashing many of the face buttons repeatedly in order to defeat your enemies, most notably the square button. Normally this would be a huge turn off for me, not only for the sake of my precious Vita’s lifespan, but because these kind of games usually annoy me due to the highly repetitive nature. Somehow, Gundam Breaker 3 is different…

After setting up your Gunpla for the first time you will start your first mission, and very quickly you’ll be in the thick of the action. The objectives for all missions are essentially the same – defeat all of the enemies before moving on to the next area – but there are often different objectives such as defeating the enemies shield (or defending your own) among others, and each mission can vary in length from around ten to twenty minutes, which is perfect for pick up and play sessions. This set up is present for the course of five different chapters which get more intense as you progress.

Successfully destroying your robotic foes will leave many of their components scattered for you to salvage and cannibalise into new equipment for yourself and therein lies the biggest draw for the game and what sets it apart from a monotonous Warriors game: Customisation.

Every part you collect can be merged with others and can create many different pieces in the process, and the level of customisation here is pretty impressive.

The more you play, the more you’ll gather and the higher level your Gunpla will become – with the variety and sheer number of parts available allowing you to create your perfect machine.

From a presentation viewpoint, Gundam Breaker 3 is a mixed bag. Whilst you won’t necessarily notice the deficiencies of the visuals whilst playing – you’ll be too busy blowing up other robots for a start – the screens will show you some pretty bland textures. Whilst some of the environments you’ll encounter look nice enough, some thevitalounge.net

are very rough around the edges and with the sheer amount going on at times you’ll notice some frame drops and slowdown at times – although since the release a patch has improved this a little.

It does have to be said that in game, the character models are pretty well done and look good in action, perfectly capturing that plastic/custom toy feel.

The game’s audio is in Japanese, as you’d expect from an Asian import, but it does have a full English written translation, which greatly improves the game’s accessibility to English-speaking importers. The music suits the game well and the sound effects are pretty spoton, with the twang and smash of your encounters incredibly satisfying on the ears.

Alongside the game’s campaign mode, you have a choice of online and ad-hoc multiplayer as well as the Arena. I wasn’t able to test out the ad-hoc, and despite many attempts, I couldn’t find any multiplayer lobbies so I cannot describe anything about that. I can tell you about the arena mode, though, which sees you downloading other creations from players (or uploading your own) and facing off against them. As well as being a great source of inspiration for you to develop your own Gunpla, it’s also a great way to access more parts.

VERDICT If you are even remotely interested in smashing up other robots, even plastic toy sized versions then you seriously need to consider importing this. With tons of replay value and so much to do you will spend forever trying to come up with the perfect Gunpla.

@PSVitaMag

Bandai Namco’s Gundam Breaker series seldom sees a release outside of its native Japan and so far, Western plans for Gundam Breaker 3 seem to not be forthcoming. I’ve always been hesitant to import a Gundam Breaker title because I didn’t know if I’d enjoy it enough to justify the cost. Having played Gundam Breaker 3, I cannot recommend it enough for those that are in a similar position.

This review was sponsored by Play-Asia, who kindly provided the import copy for us to review.

If you like the look of Gundam Breaker 3 we suggest you give them a visit at www.play-asia. com – both because they’re a quality import dealer, as well as because they’ve been kind enough to help us out!

3.8 Vitamag

17

Written by Charlie Large @CharlieLarge Chaz3010

3 7 36 PSTV 3.3 GB Publisher

bandainamcogames.com

@BandaiNamcoUS

Developer shift.gr.jp

@Shift_Inc

Released

NA: August 30th EU: August 30th

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God Eater 2: Rage Burst released in Japan last year, itself an extended version of 2013’s PSP title God Eater 2.

Ever since its release Western fans of the series have been clamouring for the game to release over on these shores, and luckily Bandai Namco listened!

Set in a post-apocalyptic Japan, God Eater 2: Rage Burst sees you play as a member of the Blood faction of God Eaters, a group of people who take on missions to defeat gigantic creatures called Aragami – who have brought destruction and devastation to the country. The Blood faction are unique from other God Eaters in that they can channel an ability called Blood Arts, skills that can alter the course of battle in one moment.

Once you have created your character and viewed the opening cinematic, you arrive in one of the game’s hub areas as a fresh faced God Eater ready for battle. These hub areas have various levels where you can find characters, and all feature a terminal where you can manage your loadouts, abilities and items, and an Operator desk where you can accept missions and find out what you need to do next in order to advance the game’s story.

Once you’ve chosen a mission and selected up to three AI companions to join you (or human players using the game’s online features) you take to one of the various areas to do battle against the Aragami that threaten your people’s existence. These

missions generally contain a few small aragami and one gigantic one to do battle with. The game gives you a rather generous forty minutes to defeat these foes – I found myself beating most stages within ten minutes – and you have a wide array of skills at your disposal to defeat these beasts.

There are numerous melee weapons for you to choose from in the game, and you also have a gun for long range attacks. You will need to use both of these weapons during battle to defeat your foes, and switching between them is as simple as a quick press of the Right trigger. Your melee weapon can be used to perform either a light or heavy attack, and each attack builds an OP (Oracle Point) meter, giving you the ability to use your gun to fire whatever ammo you have equipped. When using your melee weapons you can lock-on to enemies using the Left trigger – this will prove useful as the camera can be erratic at times, although the lock-on does fail at times when things on the screen get a bit too hectic or if things move to quick. Finally, there is a ‘Devour’ ability. When you are in melee mode you can use your God Arc to ‘devour’ a nearby target. You can perform this move on either defeated enemies or during battle, and doing so will allow you to gather materials from your foes whilst also powering yourself up. The AI characters will make use of this often during battle, and it is an extremely useful move that you will want to get into the habit of using!

One thing that God Eater 2: Rage Burst doesn’t do well is explaining what everything in the game does. It took me a while to figure out how to switch the ammo thevitalounge.net

AI can make the game feel a little easy at times, but when you are in the thick of it in some of the later stages, you will be thankful of all the help you can get – and the characters all have a great sense of camaraderie that accentuates I found that this alienated me from the the friendship and sense of teamwork game at first. I was going into missions with next to no abilities or skills equipped, between the God Eaters. and as I progressed through the missions This extends to the cutscenes in between I found the game to be getting quite tough – even with the three AI characters missions, which break up the monstrous battles with light-hearted and humorous helping me out. After about eight or so encounters. The characters look great, and hours, once I figured out what was going on and started crafting new weapons and the English voice-overs are pretty good. equipping abilities, I found myself enjoying The only thing that I will say is that the the game a lot more. I was soon selecting game’s story feels a bit weak, at times I failed to understand what was going on the right weapons for each mission and dishing out a lot of damage. The database and it seems like it has just been written to act as a filler for the downtime between that is available in the terminals in the hub areas is especially invaluable – telling the battles that you will fight. Again you all about the Aragami and what their though, the longer I played, the more I got sucked into the game and I found that I weaknesses are, allowing you to prepare couldn’t put it down – always longing for for battle as best as you can. one more mission before I put my Vita down.

Luckily, your AI teammates are excellent in God Eater 2: Rage Burst. They are great If you are looking fighters, rarely dying in battle and they will also look out for you if ever you need to see everything that God Eater 2: healing or reviving. The strength of the I had equipped, and also how to use the various God Arcs that you unlock at the end of each mission that can be applied to your weapons to boost your skills.

VERDICT God Eater 2: Rage Burst is a monster of a game that any fan of the monster-hunting genre will enjoy. It can be a bit difficult to get into, but once you have figured out what is going on and start to master the various systems that are on offer you will be hooked - and have a hundred hours of Aragami-slaying ahead of you to enjoy!

@PSVitaMag

Rage Burst has to offer, putting your Vita down is something you will not be doing for a long time! The game is packed full of content and it will take you 100-plus hours to see everything the game has to offer. Aside from the main story missions there are hard missions that up the ante, special missions that appear from time to time, individual character missions that extend a character-specific story arc and the additional Rage Burst missions – so more than enough content for you to get through, not to mention the added bonus of the original game, God Eater: Resurrection, bundled in as part of this content heavy package. Put it this way, due to the sheer scale of this game there is still plenty for me to see and do long after this review has been written!

Overall, God Eater 2: Rage Burst runs really well and is great fun once you have got past the initial barrier of not really knowing what you are doing. There are some textures that will remind you that this originated as a PSP game (especially the arenas that you do battle in), and there isn’t much variety amongst the general, grunt-like Aragami. Other than that though, the game looks and sounds pretty damn great – and will feel instantly familiar for fans of either Toukiden or Freedom Wars. Bandai Namco may have taken their time getting this game to you but once you have your hands on it, it will be a long time before you can put this monster of a game down!

4.1 Vitamag

19

Written by

Kyle Wakeling

@teflontactics teflontactics

3 17 18 PSTV 1.3 GB Publisher pqube.co.uk

@PQubeGames

Developer

inticreates.com

@IntiCreatesEN

Released

NA: August 2nd EU: July 22nd

20

Vitamag

I can’t even begin to fathom how many quarters I put into games like House of the Dead, Jurassic Park, and the other on-rails shooters in my local arcade once upon a time – but it’s got to be a huge number. Those kind of games were my jam, and whenever I saw a gun accessory attached to an arcade cabinet I was there.

Fast forward a few years, and here I am reviewing an on-rails shooter once more… though this time it’s not just in my head, and without the obligatory “awesome” and “cool” overuse child me would’ve offered. That’s not to say that the game isn’t awesome and cool though, so let me tell you about my first foray into an ecchi on-rails shooter on a portable – and how it completely won me over. Before we get to the mechanics and opinions behind it all however, first we need to lay out the story.

It all begins on what seems to be a normal day; birds are singing, the sky is blue, and you (as protagonist Houdai) are on your way to school. It wouldn’t be any kind of fun if things just went along normally however, and that’s where things get a little weird.

While you’re walking to school, another scene is playing out in parallel. An angel named Ekoro is in the middle of her cupid exam when she notices that a demon is also targeting the same human as she is; you! In an attempt to beat the demon to the punch, Ekoro accidentally lets loose a super-charged arrow – hitting you square with it. Now, with all the girls who see you falling madly in love with you, you’ll have to sort through the potentials and find your soul mate by the end of the day or you’ll forever be doomed to a life absent of love.

Holy high stakes, Batman!

As for the gameplay, it mainly consists of visual novel bits, on-rails shooter bits, and the doki-doki mode touch-based bits.

The visual novel bits play out like any interactive (read; not pure, branching) visual novel. You’ll have a general narrative that plays out, with branching paths based on choices that you make throughout the game. The only difference here is that in addition to choices driving the story, the scores you get in the non-visual novel bits also help determine the results.

As for the on-rails shooter bits, they play out pretty much as you’d expect – again with a few little tweaks. The on-rails bit means that you’re along for the ride and don’t move your character, though you are able to aim the pheromone gun he holds.

In Gal*Gun however, the only way to fight back (since it’s not nice to hit a lady) is to shoot your pursuers with pleasure-inducing pheromones, pushing their excitement into ecstasy and disabling them in a spent clump on the floor. Sounds pretty awesome, right?

Well it gets better, as there are additional “rules” to this shooter. Hidden items and things that will match up with the title’s request system (a sort of message board feature) can be found in every level, and using the right trigger you can “zoom” which will also let you see through doors and other in-the-way objects (including clothing). If you want a good score you’ll have to keep an eye out and shoot the hidden things too, not just the obvious ones. thevitalounge.net

Additionally, the demon your angel beat to the punch isn’t taking things lying down – and has “infected” some of the girls at your school with her demonic power.

These girls will have a nearly invisible demon attached to them (you have to be looking right at it to see it), which must be shot before you can take out the girl.

from the outside, it’s very accessible (if you can take the subject matter and genre), and it has such a wide birth that it gives you a lot of room to grow. Every time I picked up my Vita it felt like I was getting better at the game, and that’s a good way to keep people coming back.

You’ve really got to appreciate it.

Lastly, there’s doki-doki mode. I kind of get this mode, but either I’m missing something or I’m just horrible at it as I can only seem to get the regular ones to work right. The basic premise is that you need to use your cross-hairs to find spots that are “begging” to be touched, with those spots identifying themselves via little floating stars or heads that move in a pattern. Once you’ve found a clump, you shoot them until they’re gone, and them engage in a touch-based swipe game.

Doing this multiple times will render you successful, or at least it seems like that’s the case.

Another big part of why I enjoy Gal*Gun is the shooter controls, which actually work really well on the Vita. No physical gun accessory is a little jarring for someone that has played these kind of games almost exclusively that way, however a little time with the Vita’s analog stick and the sensitivity settings and I was good to go. It definitely helps that the controls are simple as well, with triangle activating doki-doki mode, square shooting pheromones, the left trigger slowing the cross-hairs, and the right trigger zooming in. Bar having some sort of “gun” in my hands, this is how I want to play on rails shooters; simple should be standard issue!

For the life of me however, I can’t seem to max out the final doki-doki and reach any of the proper endings. No matter how fast I move, how accurate I am, and what my scores are otherwise I simply can’t get it to work. I’m not sure where the problem lies, but I have a feeling it’s with me and not the game – unless it’s in the instructions.

I’m pretty sure I followed ’em to a “T” as I even took screens and went through them on my PC while I played, but still no luck!

Speaking of standard issue, Double Peace gives you plenty of ways to enhance your gameplay through the Academy Store and the angel feather currency. By completing levels, raising your ranks, and completing requests on the message board you can earn angel feathers, which can then be used to buy items that can help you.

There are items to up the power of your shots, up your HP, up your stats, protect Moving on from my failure in that one you from the girls, and even help you aspect however, the game is one that do pervy things (like scan for the girls’ doesn’t baby you or punish you (too much) measurements) – so you’ll have to get and I think that’s a big part of why I like as many angel feathers as you can if you it so much. It’s exactly what it looks like want to access all the good stuff!

@PSVitaMag

Speaking of the good stuff, the game isn’t limited to the story mode – and there are other ways to enjoy your time with the girls of Double Peace. The most notable way is through score attack, which is basically a perma-death version of the on-rails bits of the game. You pick a scenario and play with one life, the game running until your life is depleted. No visual novel bits or mandatory doki-doki mode here!

The other ways to enjoy the game are actually not really playable per-se, but are options that will let you get more intimate with the girls (the Student Roster), learn more about your gameplay so far (My Data), get a better look at the pivotal images you’ve seen (Gallery), and even change up the girls’ clothes. You’ll find the first three of those in the Collection menu, while the last falls under the Dressing Room menu – both of these top end options available from the main menu of the game. It kind of sucks that you can’t change their clothes on the fly, but I digress.

Moving on to the way it runs, we have to touch on graphics – and graphically, Gal*Gun: Double Peace is serviceable. It’s obvious that they’ve sacrificed a little bit of fidelity in order to get the game running as smooth as it does, but you’d hardly know unless you weren’t paying attention to the task at hand. Things often move so quickly that there’s no time to stop and take in the sights, which is helpful in keeping you from looking at those jaggies, and hiding those frame drops.

Thirty frames per second and native resolution this is not, but putting those things aside the way the game runs and

Vitamag

21

looks does not at all detract from the gameplay. In fact, I often didn’t notice these issues unless I was overtly looking for them.

fine without them), however it’s a little troubling that they’re missing at all.

Another troubling bit that comes to mind is the loading, and I’m not just talking about between missions. Starting the game is As for the audio, the game offers a clean Japanese voice-over track, as well as some akin to ordering at a drive-thru window – neither quick, nor painless – and you’d be quality sound effects and background music. They don’t really stand out for any better off starting the game way before you intend to play. Jump-in friendly this reason (other than the moaning, haha), is not! In my opinion that’s a bit of a big but that simply means that they fit in a negative, as on-rails shooters have always way that’s unobtrusive. Also, while the been jump in games. It used to be that game doesn’t offer English audio, it does the quarters would barely hit the bottom offer subtitles – though their quality (or of the slot before I was expected to shoot, complete-ness) is something that’s a bit and now you want me to wait? You’re lucky of a hot point. there’s a good game and some fanservice The English subtitles for Gal*Gun: Double on the other side of that loading.

Peace are fair enough for what they provide, but that’s part of the problem; not Okay; so the subtitles are a bit absent here everything has subtitles. Certain sections and there, and loading is slow – but is this a good game? For the most part it most of the game (where your character isn’t certainly is. The visual novel aspect has using a visual novel style box to relay opened up multiple routes in a way that’s their words) don’t include a translation a little more obvious to the player, the of the spoken content at all, and as such there are bits where you’re left scratching subject matter has given the genre a nice your head. In the grand scheme of things twist of “new,” and the gameplay itself is pretty solid. For an on-rails shooter where the missing lines don’t seem to matter there’s no gun accessory for the player a whole lot to the story (I understood

VERDICT Gal*Gun: Double Peace is a unique take on the onrails shooter genre that feels right at home on the Vita. The simple controls, use of the touch screen, and subject matter fit our little niche perfectly - and despite its less than perfect presentation, it offers something that's truly fun. If I can't have a gun accessory, this is just how I want to play an on-rails shooter; good thing Inti Creates seems to think the same!

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Vitamag

to aim with, it’s surprisingly accurate and responsive if you tweak the settings a little.

In the end, the game itself is neither the ending, nor the sum of its issues; it’s the enjoyment you get – and in that aspect this is a definite recommend from me. Even when failing or doing poorly, I never once felt like putting the game down. It stuck with me even in the busy times, and I often lost myself to a bit of gameplay when I only meant to jump back into an in-progress game for a moment. I even found myself reloading saves to try the level over again and get a better score, or to have one more go at that final doki-doki with Shinobu (the best girl).

There’s nothing like being sucked in like that, and that’s why I can honestly recommend Gal*Gun: Double Peace; not because it has the elements you want, or because it’s perfectly crafted to the system – but because even though it’s not perfect, you can’t stop enjoying it.

Are you up for a nice helping of enjoyment?

Hands where we can see them, and grab yourself a copy.

3.8 thevitalounge.net

connected to the demon realm and turned the planet key to restart the planet’s rotation.

Written by Jenny Jones

@Kitty_has_Klaws Deathskitten

4 14 18 PSTV 1.4 GB Publisher ideafintl.com

@IdeaFactoryIntl

Developer

compileheart.com

Released

NA: September 13th EU: September 16th

@PSVitaMag

MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death is made by the same people who made Trillion: God of Destruction. Whilst Trillion was a unique RPG with an aim of defeating a boss with one trillion health points, MeiQ is a more traditional dungeon crawler. In the usual Compile Heart way there are of course some unique ideas thrown into the gameplay to make things more interesting!

MeiQ came somewhat out of the blue for me, I hadn’t really heard anything about it before starting to play it for this review. It’s actually quite nice to start playing something with no real preconceptions of what you’re about to get into. I do have a soft spot for dungeon crawlers, yes the genre has many flaws; they tend to have repetitive gameplay, the dungeons can be ugly to look at, and the storylines in a lot of them can be pretty weak. But even with that they still appeal to me, there’s definitely something about exploring a new dungeon that excites me.

First though, let’s begin by telling you a little bit about the game’s story and what your motivation is for exploring this world.

The planet’s rotation has stopped and an eternal night has fallen on the world, this isn’t the first time this has happened. In the past great and powerful Machina Mages have travelled to Southern Cross, battled through the four towers which are

You play through the game as Estra, a bright and bubbly young Machina Mage from a small village. She and four other other young Machina Mages have travelled to Southern Cross and all want to be the ones to turn the planet key. Early in the game there is quite a bit of rivalry between them as only one Machina Mage can turn the planet key. These interactions are cute and fun and will definitely have you warming to the characters but in a very stereotypical RPG way it doesn’t take long for all the ladies to become friends.

I was initially intrigued by the story but it didn’t take long before it just fades into the background. It never really goes anywhere and there aren’t any surprising twists and turns. You can find hidden books in some of the dungeons that fill in some of the world’s lore and there really is some interesting stuff in there, it’s just a shame that it was never really developed into anything further.

From reading the above you may have picked up that there are four towers to explore and therefore be wondering if there are just four dungeons to explore. That doesn’t sound like a lot but don’t worry you’ll actually be visiting more than four dungeons and they’re all quite large with many floors in them so you’ll be exploring for a while!

For those of you that do tend to find dungeon crawlers a bit too slow then you should be aware that there are some very Vitamag

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welcome additions in MeiQ. Most floors have warppoints meaning you can leave the dungeon and then quickly warp back to the floor you were last exploring.

You also have the ability to run in the dungeons and if you run into a wall then you can automatically turn. During battles you can also hold down X to speed up the action. You’ll also have access to some incredibly useful items, items that show where all the treasures on the floor are, see what monsters are around and also to show if there are any secret areas on your mini map.

appreciate it when a game gives you the option of both!

The game’s battle system and Guardians are its unique selling points. Battles are the standard turn-based affair but as your ladies are mages they are a little bit weak and squishy so in order to make them survive a little bit longer you can pair them up with a robotic Guardian. During each turn only one of each pair can act, typically you’ll be getting your Guardians to do most of the fighting but the Machina Mages do have access to healing and stat boosting spells which are pretty handy.

experimenting to see what Guardian equipment and setup worked best in each dungeon.

It’s a shame that battles are not particularly tricky. If you play on normal difficulty then you’ll probably find the majority of fights will be too easy and you’ll have little motivation to tweak your parties setup – as you can overpower most enemies easily. So I really do recommend that you switch to hard.

When you’re not battling through dungeons you can spend time in Southern Cross. Considering it’s supposed to be a These things are definitely needed as big city it’s actually feels pretty small as there is a fair bit of backtracking to do. As Fighting rewards you with experience there are only a few places to visit and you’re travelling through there are a lot of points which when levelling up grants people to talk to. It’s a shame that there your Machina Mages new abilities. things that will block your path and are weren’t more things to see and do. There’s Guardians also level up but getting new basically used as an excuse to send you an inn to rest and recover, a Machina attacks is a little bit different; you’ll need back to a previous dungeon to seek out some random item. Thankfully a lot of the to change the body parts of the Guardians Factory to create new parts for your Guardians and the Machina Guild to pick to get different attacks. Not all body areas within each dungeon have diverse up quests. parts will be suitable for every Guardian. looks and because of the ability to run and warp through areas it doesn’t feel like Each Guardian has a different affinity to Within dungeons you’ll find various books different elements so you need to pay too much of a drag but it does feel like it which have recipes for Guardian parts. attention to your Guardian’s strengths happens too often. I will also admit that Once you’ve found some recipes you’ll and weaknesses. Elements are also very I did hold down X in pretty much every important in battle as enemies also have want to head to the Machina Factory. As battle as at the normal game speed it affinity to certain elements. So it’s a good long as you have the right items, you can does feel too slow. create new and powerful body parts to idea to have a mixed party of Guardians make your Guardians even stronger and so that you’ll have a range of different MeiQ is definitely one of the prettier elemental attacks. Thankfully you’ll come have even better attacks. dungeon crawlers on the PS Vita. The characters are beautiful and the dungeons across a lot of different Guardians who, I think the Machina Guild was probably after defeating in battle, will swear their are full of diverse looking areas. While the biggest disappointment for me. You’re allegiance to you.

I wouldn’t go as far to say that MeiQ is given lots of different quests which are stunning, it’s definitely an improvement supposed to help forward the research of There really are tonnes of different parts over the usual standard. The music and the guild but the quests are pretty much for Guardians that you’ll either find in voice acting is also pretty good. You’ll all the same; you’ll need to get a rare drop dungeons, buy in town or create in the be able to switch between English and from a defeated monster. There are no towns factory. I really liked this system Japanese voice acting in the Settings storylines behind any of the quests and and did spend a fair amount of time menu whenever you like. I always

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Vitamag

thevitalounge.net

you never feel like you’re actually furthering the research of the guild. It’s just a bit of pointless filler. Sure, you get rewards for completing the quests but I would have rather had a bit more story and found out some more about the lore of the world. Sadly, I think it was a bit of a missed opportunity.

Is it silly? Yes. Amusing? A little. Is it going to morally corrupt Australia? I seriously doubt it. I pity the prudish nature of the Australian Ratings Board if this is what they find incredibly offensive…

Overall, I have mixed feelings about MeiQ. I did enjoy playing it and liked the characters but I do have to admit that I don’t feel that this would be a full review it has a weak storyline. Messing around if I didn’t mention one important thing and experimenting with the parts on my (or more accurately a pair of important Guardians was fun and something a little things). Boobs…that’s right, boobs. bit different to normal dungeon crawlers Australia’s rating board chose not to give but it’s a shame that the game feels a rating to MeiQ which effectively bans like it has a little bit too much pointless padding; backtracking through dungeons it from sale over there. After playing the repeatedly and pointless quests really do game all the way I have to admit that I let the game down. The PS Vita has a lot think that’s a little bit extreme. Sure the ladies are very skimpily dressed but their of dungeon crawlers and while MeiQ is fun behaviour isn’t overly sexual. There’s no it’s not the best one out there. falling over with their legs wide open (Danganronpa 2) and no spanking/tickling mini games (Criminal Girls). I think the part that the ratings board must have really took offense to is the character status menu. Depending on where you touch the screen the ladies will comment and say different things, things like “the hips make the girl!”, “marshmallow!” and “bouncy!”.

VERDICT MeiQ is a dungeon crawler with a fun battle system and tonnes of customising options for your party. The poor story, large amount of backtracking and lack of fulfilling side quests really let the game down though.

It's fun but there are better dungeon crawlers out there.

@PSVitaMag

3.3 Vitamag

25

Written by crispyn64

@crispyn64 crispyn64

5 15 10 PSTV 2.5 GB Publisher sega.com

@SEGA

Developer crypton.co.jp

@official_CFM_

Released

NA: August 30th EU: August 30th

26

Vitamag

Usually seen as just a series of pairing button pushes with visual cues, rhythm games are nothing if not simple.

Sure, the genre has stretched itself in many unique ways – incorporating things such as placement and physical dance into the mix – but when you get right down to it you’ll find that these kind of games all share one very important aspect at their core: Timing. Easy to comprehend, hard to master; it’s the winning combination of game design and it’s ever present in this genre (unless developers REALLY screw it up). Understanding rhythm games is as effortless as it gets. There’s a rhythm. Keep up with it. Hit the buttons when the screen tells you to and then practice until you’re actually halfway decent. It’s nice when games are straightforward, but that alone obviously isn’t enough to make it fun. No, the real enjoyment in rhythm games needs to come from all the bells and whistles that adorn it. Luckily, Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA X seems to have a lot of them.

Yes, a myriad of stages and idol modules yet to be unlocked and enjoyed are what await you when first jumping into this delightful rhythm title – as well as a mixed bag of Vocaloid songs, clothing accessories, and interior décor. While stages and tracks are earned quite methodically as you progress through the Cloud Prisms (I’ll explain those later), customization

items are obtained indiscriminately in the random drops during and after each performance. Idol modules, which are just different costumes/looks for your chosen performer, can be collected within the one “Chance Time” that every song contains.

Just fill up the meter by hitting notes during these moments and you’re sure to receive a sweet, transformative surprise. Unless of course you receive yet another module that you already have, because it’s randomized.

After the song is over you’ll have to check if you reached the required amount of “Voltage” (points) to successfully clear the stage. If you cleared the stage, you get to keep whatever idol module you might’ve earned during the song, as well as some random loot. First there’s gifts, which are random items that you can give to the idol of your choosing and in return they’ll either give you love and appreciation or a shrug and disappointment, depending on the type of gift you give them. They’re quite vain though, and it seems they’ll like anything with their own name on it. Miku dolls, Rin T-shirts, MEIKO banners, it’s all good for boosting your bond with these beloved idols and maxing out your friendship status.

Money might not be able to buy happiness, but Luka merchandise apparently can.

Aside from gifts, you can receive accessories after completing songs. Each individual accessory holds an attribute that corresponds with one of the game’s five Cloud Prisms. Cloud Prisms are the music categories and essential “worlds” of the main “campaign”. They represent different styles of performance: Quirky, Elegant, Cool, Cute, and Classic. Matching accessory styles to their respective Cloud Prisms will earn thevitalounge.net

All in all, Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA X is an overwhelmingly cheerful experience and an outstanding rhythm game with plenty of content to satisfy fans and newcomers alike (so long as you’re not too averse to Vocaloid music).

Whether you’re hunting for modules and accessories, trying to maximize your For a quick note on the difficulty, the friendships with the idols, or just aiming game accommodates a range of skill to surpass your last high score, there’s a levels. It features an Easy, Normal, plethora of reasons to keep playing and Hard, and Extreme mode – plus optional replaying. The wealth of customization modifiers to make things even more of a aids the repetition well, offering variety challenge. What’s really interesting is how in challenges and scenery when things the game ups the difficulty with each set are just about to feel stale. This game by not just settling for the simple solution packs quite a punch, and the fun should of increasing the speed and amount last quite a while considering its deluge of notes, but also adding in misleading of entertaining options, unlockables, and icon paths and tricky overlay notes to There are plenty of other modes and singing synthesizer goodness. features to try out, like Portrait Mode and throw players off. The flashy concert is sometimes already enough to distract, good old fashioned Free Play. While the first mode I mentioned is pretty gimmicky and so having the added layer of a track that’s trying to fool you feels frustrating…

(Augmented Reality photography with and yet amusing at the same time. Even the Vita’s poor excuse for a camera), at its most strenuous, the game does a Free Play is actually kind of neat as it great job of alleviating the stress with its allows you to play and customize your concerts. Choosing your idol, stage, song, encouraging song and dance routines. The shows are so bright and pleasant that it’s modifier, difficulty, backup vocals, and hard to stay down for too long. transformation are all on the table as some extra points, but from the beginning this will certainly be at the cost of looking your absolute best. You see, the game is filled with these random kooky props and occasional normal clothing accessories, and sometimes mixing and matching them will earn you an extra boost in Voltage percentage. The thing is, most of the time to get the maximum advantage you possibly can, you’ll have to settle for something like the only “Cool-type” accessory you have in a slot – which might be a hands-free harmonica or a gas mask.

Just be warned, as making your idols is not going to make sense for a while, and your performances are going to suffer unintended comical consequences.

you build a concert to play or watch.

This mode also tracks high scores.

Unfortunately, you can only play songs you’ve unlocked through the main game, and performing in Free Play doesn’t earn you any points or items that you would typically receive in Cloud Requests.

VERDICT Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA X has very simple and solid core gameplay paired with plenty of amusing bells and whistles to ensure the utmost enjoyment of its players.

@PSVitaMag

4.5 Vitamag

27

from the very beginning. For those who like to jump into games at completely random intervals (for some reason), Mutant Mudds is happy to oblige you. It ultimately doesn’t matter because you’ll need to “100 percent” every level if you hope to beat the game in any sense.

Written by crispyn64

@crispyn64 crispyn64

1 4 7 PSTV 45 MB Publisher

renegadekid.com

@RenegadeKidLLC

Developer

renegadekid.com

@RenegadeKidLLC

Released

NA: August 2nd EU: August 3rd

28

Vitamag

To review this game is to essentially review the original Mutant Mudds.

Fundamental gameplay is the same, assets are reused, and overall it feels like a meaty level pack rather than its own game. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that fans of the original should expect more of what they enjoyed. Newcomers to the series however, should probably begin with the original instead of jumping in with Super Challenge because as the name implies, it’s much more challenging.

Starting with what Mutant Mudds is at its core, let’s talk about gameplay.

Mechanically speaking, Mutant Mudds is top notch. Two buttons and a D-pad are all you’ll need to traverse this game’s finely tuned levels, and while the controls are easy to grasp, the increasingly difficult stage designs are what makes the game hard to master. Spikes, disappearing platforms, ice floors, and mutant mud monsters are plentiful and sure to stop you at least a few times (or seven hundred and ten).

As the name suggests, Super Challenge doesn’t ease you into things. From the get go, levels are hard and only get more arduous as you push forward. That is, if you decide to start from World 1 and move upward. Linear progression is lost in this game because every normal stage is open

There are only 9 levels you can’t enter from the start. Four of these are the new-to-theseries boss battles that only unlock after completing their respective worlds. That means you have to beat the four levels in each world, plus another four hidden levels, and collect the 100 golden octagons in all 8 of them. Then after you beat the boss, you unlock a level within the 5th world, which you need to again fully complete (including the hidden level). Do that with all four of the 5th world levels and you earn the right to face the final boss, who in hindsight wasn’t even the most difficult boss in the game. Still infuriating, but not as much the 1st world’s boss, which has far more things trying to kill you on screen at one time.

Once you finally beat the game, you’ll be rewarded with a measly silver trophy.

However, that silver trophy could be a shiny gold if you manage to finish in 100 deaths or less. Mutant Mudds Super Challenge offers up a handy death toll to view via the title and pause menu. After all, nothing keeps spirits high better than a constant reminder of how many times you’ve failed.

Now that I’ve covered the basics, it’s time to delve into what supposedly makes Mutant Mudds unique. Mutant Mudds is very literal when it comes to its layers of gameplay, offering a kind of depth not often seen in traditional 2D platforming. The thevitalounge.net

game allows you to jump between the background and foreground of each level.

While this might seem like a truly novel idea and something very intriguing in terms of visual aesthetics, the mechanic itself barely affects any actual gameplay except for some rare and underwhelming instances. You don’t get to switch layers at will when running through the game.

Instead there are specifically placed platforms and enemies that allow you to do so. Jumping between layers however merely moves you on to the next part of the stage and not much else. There is a boss battle that relies on this mechanic for dodging a few otherwise unavoidable projectiles, and that’s about as interesting as this gimmick ever gets.

The boss battles as a whole are underwhelming and not a welcome addition to the series, with each battle being pretty generic and reliant on simple patterns to overcome. They’re only made difficult by the sheer amount of crap they’ll throw your way.

Aside from the meaningless layer switching and humdrum boss battles,

Mutant Mudds is actually an incredibly competent game as far as pure platforming is concerned. It gives you a goal and the means to reach that goal (a handy jetpack and water gun), it also gives you three swappable upgrades to reach any hidden level. The game never feels outright unfair, instead the more you die the more you understand what it’ll take to succeed next time. The game expects you to be precise and punishes you even when you’re just a second off the mark with things like activating your jetpack.

Learning enemy patterns is key to beating this game so you need to be observant in your trials and inevitable errors, and you’ll be sure to prevail…eventually.

And that’s my biggest hang up with this game. Other than the joy of completion (and that I was reviewing it), I had no real interest in beating this game. It wasn’t particularly appealing visually, so why would I want to see more of it? The music was fine, but it wasn’t very catchy or outstanding in any sense. There was no story and no climax to build up to, no Yes, the gameplay is solid…but it’s also memorable characters or dialogue, and not incredibly remarkable. That would’ve been acceptable though if Mutant Mudds an overall lack of any sort of meaning or narrative theme. And to top all of had found a different area to shine that off, IT DOESN’T HAVE A PLATINUM through in. Unfortunately that doesn’t TROPHY! Sure, Mutant Mudds is a good seem to be the case. Artistically, there’s nothing about Mutant Mudds that retro-style 2D platformer. But there are already plenty of other good retro-style stands out from any other “retro-style” 2D platformers out there, and they have a platformer. The game’s animations are whole helluva lot more to offer aside from minimal, its sprites are dull and generic, and the soundtrack is plain unmemorable. just their core gameplay.

VERDICT Mutant Mudds Super Challenge is a very competent 2D platformer, but it fails to differentiate itself from the many other retro-style side-scrollers just like it. Unfortunately the game doesn't deliver anything fresh or original in any aspect, be it gameplay, art style, music, story, etc.

@PSVitaMag

The story, if you can even call it that, is that a meteor hits and the world is invaded by a variety of brown blobs with eyes (a.k.a. Mutant Mudds) and some random boy named Max sets out to defeat them. That’s it. Without a story, compelling visuals/music, or fresh and innovative gameplay, what’s supposed to be driving a player to finish the game?

3 Vitamag

29

Written by Reece Heyworth @rheyworth07 CHEAT07

9 6 0 PSTV 293 MB Publisher

hailstorm-games.com

@BileBomber

Developer

hailstorm-games.com

@BileBomber

Released

NA: August 30th EU: August 31th

30

Vitamag

Claire Extended Cut is a well-rounded attempt at horror on the Vita. There is a great air of mystery right from the get go in the game and thankfully the mystery carries on throughout, even if it does get a little muddled at times.

The premise is you play as Claire, you wake up in a hospital with your sick mum but as you walk around you realise there is something wrong and more mysteries crop up as you go on.

The actual gameplay is simple, you can walk around and interact with objects, with the key being to find the objects you need in order to progress to the next area.

You’re given a light source to help light up the dark corridors but other than that there isn’t much to it other than exploring the unsettling world. There’s no combat to fall back on so the game relies heavily on its story and exploration for the horror experience here. On top of the usual health meter you also have a panic level to keep an eye on, the more panicked Claire is the darker the screen gets and the music intensifies, eventually you’ll start taking damage so you need to keep calm as well as healthy.

With the gameplay simplified like this the game focuses on letting you explore its dark and unsettling world and for the most part this works well. The music sets the tone perfectly, always leaving me slightly unsettled and never comfortable in my surroundings. The surroundings are usually always devoid of life with only a couple of exceptions, it all drives home that this world isn’t safe. With so few people to talk to it also helps make the few interactions seem oddly more meaningful, even reading the scribbles of other increasingly desperate and hopeless students in a library was a touching moment.

The story is hit and miss unfortunately, it starts with a simple mystery, whilst visiting your sick mother creepy things start happening. Unfortunately as you progress random story threads are thrown in making following the core plot rather confusing.

One second you’ll be working your way back to your mum and the next you’re in an abandoned school looking for a way to evacuate. The game could have benefited from less distracting story beats but it thankfully doesn’t sour the experience too much.

The gameplay also isn’t without flaws though, navigating through the world can often be confusing with many rooms looking very similar. If you don’t want to go insane I suggest you get your head around the map provided in game which, in itself, can be difficult to get to grips with – a top down map for a 2D game isn’t exactly the most straightforward thing to get your head round.

thevitalounge.net

Throughout your exploring you’ll often find items stashed away in shelves or rubbish bags, they’re mostly your run of the mill healing items or batteries for a torch. I never felt like I was running low on supplies though which in turn meant I never felt the need to go scavenging for batteries or healing items. This probably beats the frustration of not feeling like you have enough to clear the obstacles in your way but it does take away the fear of not knowing if you’ll make it to your next objective in good health when you have half a dozen healing items at all times.

The enemies in the game however just aren’t all that interesting, their vague and bland designs aren’t really intimidating or scary and their part in the game is simply to chase you down a corridor. It’s easy to run straight past them and just heal up any damage you did take on the way through. They are more distracting annoyances than actual threats which is a shame as they could have taken the game up a few notches on the intensity meter if the enemies were better realised.

Thankfully the idea of managing your sanity levels helps the game maintain at least some challenge, running through enemies and then healing is possible but it puts a lot of stress on Claire to do so. Keep piling on that stress without a break and you’re in more trouble than simply being chased. It’s an interesting mechanic that definitely plays into the game on higher difficulties which I’d recommend for a more challenging experience.

On the whole Claire Extended Cut does a really good job of building up a deeply unsettling world but unfortunately just misses the mark on a few design decisions that stop it from elevating into to something truly great. There’s an interesting and mysterious story here that whilst not perfect is more than enjoyable and shows that horror can work even on the little screen of your Vita.

VERDICT Claire: Extended Cut is a good horror game that creates a deeply unsettling and atmospheric world for you to explore, a few missteps stop this from reaching great heights but still holds up as an experience well worth your time.

@PSVitaMag

3.4 Vitamag

31

your support characters being a literal cheerleader who waves her pom-poms to buff her allies, but there’s something mobile-esque about the choice of artstyle throughout the game that makes it less endearing.

Written by Kresnik

@ @Kresnik258

1 0 15 PSTV 1.2 GB Publisher

facebook.com/workyrie

@workyrie

Developer

facebook.com/workyrie

@workyrie

Released

NA: August 31st EU: August 31st

32

Vitamag

Sometimes it’s nice to go into a game without any pre-conceptions about what it is or what to expect. I didn’t have any prior knowledge of Wanderjahr and after spending some time with it, it’s rather un-like any experience I’ve had on Vita to date. It’s an interesting hybrid of StrategyRPG mixed with real-time elements which mesh together fairly well to begin with and provide bursts of fun, but sadly don’t deliver a lasting enjoyable experience.

Upon booting up, you’re immediately treated to a short cutscene explaining the world and laying the basis for the story.

Sadly during the course of a playthrough the game never goes any further than this – there’s a plot in there about universal source code and monsters invading, but it’s infrequently used beyond establishing the initial premise. It doesn’t help that these story sections are merely static images with bits of text attached, providing a rather hands-off experience.

In fact, presentation is a constant mixed bag for Wanderjahr. Little touches like the menu cursor being a Final Fantasyesque pointed finger complete with iconic clicking sound show a nice attention to detail, but constantly re-used environments and enemy models are less impressive.

Playable characters and foes are 2D and animate fairly well, such as one of

One thing I can commend the developers for is actually thinking about the Vita’s screen in the porting process. The UI appears to have been shifted so character portraits are now at the side, providing a better use of the available screen. You also have the choice of full-touch or button based controls and – for the first time I can remember in my Vita-gaming career – I actually elected for touch controls due to them feeling more fluid and natural for this particular title.

So on to the gameplay, which as previously mentioned is an interesting hybrid of strategy and real-time. At it’s core, Wanderjahr is essentially an RPG with a twist – rather than having a small group of characters each with a large number of different abilities; you have a large group of characters who each only have a couple of skills. You can take up to four party members in to battle but can switch between all characters at any point, meaning that you’ll constantly be changing between them to find the best setup for the enemies you’re fighting.

In practice this means micromanagement – the closest example I can give is something like Theme Hospital, except instead of managing doctor’s fatigue levels and skill sets you’re keeping an eye on health bars and enemy weaknesses. Allies attack, heal and buff automatically, so it never becomes thevitalounge.net

overwhelming, and the game does a good job of not playing on auto-pilot either – you’ll need to pay attention as enemies can debuff and hit as hard as you. The game encourages replaying levels to chase high scores through a star-rating system awarded at the end of each stage, as well as going back to farm experience and gems (the game’s currency, which need to be clicked to be collected).

Unfortunately, due to the nature of the game, combat becomes tedious after a while – although Wanderjahr provides a variety of enemies all requiring different strategies, inevitably you’ll get into a rut where you know exactly how to dispatch a group of foes so set up the perfect team then sit there waiting for them to win. Bosses inject a little variety into the proceedings and can even completely shake up your thought process about how to play, but these are few and far between found only at the end of each set of levels.

Other than battles, Wanderjahr offers the various RPG systems you’d expect.

You gain group experience from battles which can be allocated to whichever party members you wish, who in turn gain a few extra active and passive abilities as they level up. There’s a shop which you can use to buy various healing items as well as ‘artifacts’ – items you can take into battle with you that provide passive bonuses to the whole team. You can explore a world map, but sadly this is merely selecting levels from a menu and doesn’t give any sense of scale to the game.

You’re also given an encyclopedia which includes stats about in-game foes, recaps of tutorials and – surprisingly – large chunks of story and character backgrounds. Taking the time to actually read these really fleshes out the world and the characters (and many of them are quite quirky, amusing stories), but they’re hidden away in a sub-menu that’s quite easy to miss, which is a massive shame.

VERDICT Wanderjahr provides an interesting spin on the RPG genre and there's plenty of content to keep you occupied, but repetition sets in too quickly to produce an experience that will keep you coming back to see it through to the end.

@PSVitaMag

What I definitely can’t fault the game on is content – the base game alone has plenty to do on top of replaying levels for high scores, and there are even cool little secret areas that have to be unlocked by performing certain actions. If this particular brand of management-style combat clicks with you, you’re bound to have a great time progressing through all of the stages.

At the end of the day, though, you’ll spend the vast majority of your time fighting samey battles against foes and without a compelling story to keep you pressing forward, it’s likely that interest will wane.

I wouldn’t say for a second that I didn’t enjoy my time with Wanderjahr as there’s an incredibly competent game here, but not one I felt compelled to keep coming back to.

3 Vitamag

33

Written by Ethan Zeigler

@dandycrocodiles DandyCrocodile

2 10 38 PSTV 3.0 GB Publisher

xseedgames.com

@XSEEDGames

Developer falcom.com

@nihonfalcom

Released

NA: September 6th EU: September 6th

34

Vitamag

The Legend of Heroes franchise can best be compared to an epic fantasy series. A multitude of characters participate in an elaborate, political plot that features extensive character growth in a fleshedout world. If you take the time to really dig into the world you will find yourself greatly rewarded for it. Trails of Cold Steel II is no different.

First, it cannot be stated enough that you have to play the first Trails of Cold Steel before even thinking of picking up this sequel. Trails of Cold Steel and Trails of Cold Steel II aren’t exactly sequels, per sÊ, so much as two halves of the same game.

Skipping the first game would likely leave any new player confused, frustrated, and completely blindsided by the sheer volume of backstory needed to fully enjoy this game. It may seem like quite a feat to play through two 60+ hour RPGs, but it is well worth it. With all that said, this review will only contain very light spoilers for both games.

Trails of Cold Steel II begins one month after the tense ending of Trails of Cold Steel. The protagonist Rean Schwarzer finds himself separated from his friends and stranded in an unknown land. As Rean travels across the country he slowly reconnects with classmates and mentors

while discovering the motivations behind two warring factions. The game will have you going to new locations as well as towns and cities visited during the first game.

While I loved seeing how recent events had effected every city I returned to, there was also a bit of environment fatigue as the game recycles some fields while changing only the location of a few chests and the available enemies.

The story here is great, but the characters are where the game truly shines. More character development is in store for a majority of the characters. So much for some that characters with less of a role here or characters who grew the most in the first game might pale a bit in comparison. Among the changes to characters I greatly appreciated were the redesigned costumes for the main cast.

Because they were stuck in their school uniforms for a majority of the first game, having every character in unique and welldesigned outfits at all times in Cold Steel II absolutely thrilled me.

Even NPCs have mini story-arcs throughout, and rediscovering familiar faces to see how they are handling the events of the game is legitimately touching. The writing between these games is strong enough that every time I saw a minor student NPC reappear I was excited to know what they had been up to and what will be next for them.

Mechanically, the game is largely the same save for an additional set of new features in both the combat systems and field exploration. While a battle still sees the player making combat links and launching thevitalounge.net

crafts, artes, and normal attacks at enemies, the new Overdrive system adds another layer of power to your strategies.

Drawing from a gauge that builds up with battles, the overdrive gauge, once activated, allows a pair of characters to act for three turns uninterrupted, guarantees an unbalancing effect on foes, instantly casts artes, AND restores 30% of their HP and EP as well as 30 CP. In a game that could already be fairly easy, the multitude of accessible game systems in place allow you to form a monstrously powerful team fairly easily, making the four difficulty options almost insignificant.

There are pros and cons in the changes to traversing the world as well. Blue trial chests are located at certain points in the game. These new additions force two predetermined characters to take on a group of more-difficult-than-average monsters in order to unlock the ability for the pair to enter Overdrive when linked. I found these to be fun optional diversions that allowed me to really beef up any party combination I wanted. In a change for the worse, Trails of Cold Steel allowed you to attack monsters on the map to

For those of you who completed the first game and disliked the new variety of battling introduced near the end, know that the system has been improved here.

While I can’t go into too much detail for fear of spoiling Trails of Cold Steel, just know that they are still present in the game and the system is mostly the same, but the battles themselves are generally easier and more fleshed out than they were before.

Thankfully, some numbers for battle have been shifted around as well, as crafts are not nearly as powerful as they were in the first game, and artes have been given a pretty good buff. Having both of the main forms of damage being viable allows for much more diversity in strategy. One adjustment that I’m not too fond of is the lowering of accuracy stats across the board. While missed hits were occasional in the first game, here it feels like most characters have a default accuracy of about 75%, causing way more failed hits than I felt were fair and forcing me to mitigate the misses with valuable accessory and quartz slots.

The graphics of the game are largely the same as in Trails of Cold Steel. While text, the HUD, and most environments work nicely with the Vita’s resolution, character models still can seem occasionally blurry, especially when compared to what I know the Vita can pull off. Character cut-ins for special attacks and overdrives, however, are as crisp and attractive as ever. Some character models do have reworked, smoother animations, resulting in fewer awkwardly stiff cutscenes than were in the first game. The framerate is generally more solid here than it was in Trails of Cold Steel, but it still can chug a bit in larger cities and environments.

As with most Falcom games, the soundtrack for Trails of Cold Steel II is fantastic. Because it uses many tracks from the first game, the OST here is notably shorter. There are still plenty of new tracks to discover in the game, though, and not one of them is a dud.

Trails of Cold Steel II also offers a New Game + that will allow you to experience more of the story, with the option to make different choices, fast forward through sections you don’t care to see again, and play through a sidequest exclusive to NG+.

VERDICT The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II not only improves upon the formula introduced in Trails of Cold Steel, but also pairs with the first game and others in the Trails series to create an epic overarching story unlike anything seen before in video games. If you like your RPGs lengthy and impeccably detailed, Trails of Cold Steel II is right up your alley. @PSVitaMag

stun them and gain an advantage in combat but Cold Steel II made the same tactic exponentially more difficult to pull off. The stun inflicted on an enemy in the first game presented enough time to circle behind the enemy, attack, then enter combat with a bonus, but the stun time has been lowered here, making it more difficult than it’s worth to try and maneuver behind an enemy. I missed you, triple advantages!

4.3 Vitamag

35

Written by Jamie Saul

@TheJamieSaul

1 2 11 PSTV 245 MB Publisher idreams.pl

@idreamsgames

Developer idreams.pl

@idreamsgames

Released

NA: September 6th EU: September 6th

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Vitamag

In this era with games as a medium truly coming into their own and walking the line between entertainment and art-form in their own right I think it’s very easy to forget where things began, with simple, pure fun. And this is where both the Vita as a system – with its vast library of “pure fun” titles – and Sky Force Anniversary as a game come into their own: with incredibly addictive, fast paced, at times challenging gameplay, Sky Force doesn’t need to tell a heart-breaking story or try to change your life – it just needs to help you have fun, and, in that sense, the mission has very much been accomplished.

However, it isn’t all good. While the game is tremendous fun, it suffers numerous issues that can really impact the enjoyment and immersion. Several times over my play-through, the game began to lag considerably when an abundance of enemies filled the screen. Whether this be Vita specific or not, it’s an issue that can be, as I’m sure is imaginable, incredibly annoying – it doesn’t necessarily affect whether one “wins” or “loses” a level in the game, but definitely spoils the aforementioned immersion.

Elsewhere, things are looking much better – I think the amount of fun the game is cannot be understated. This comes from not only the wonderfully easy to understand and use controls, but is also thanks to the fact that they feel absolutely fantastic. The gameplay is truly an achievement: it feels fast, fluid, arcadey and really natural – three things that really contribute to wanting to come back, and ensured that in doing so I never felt underwhelmed.

While wanting to come back is largely due to the gameplay, the presented challenge is also a large factor. I found myself being genuinely tested by several of the levels, which isn’t necessarily a new feeling – if you’ve read anything of mine before then you’ll know I’m very open about not being brilliant at games – but it feels refreshing to meet a challenge that, while hard, feels like it can be overcome simply by continuing to play a level and upgrading my ship. And as with beating a boss in a game like Dark Souls, the euphoria after having completed a level is near-unparalleled.

The challenge can also be ramped up: with nine levels overall, and each one with three modes of difficulty – normal, hard and insane – that can be unlocked when the previous one is completed, no matter how hard you want your games to be you should be satiated. That said, I found each mode manageable when complete with suitable upgrades – so if, like me, you aren’t looking for something impossible, but want to experience the whole game, you should be absolutely fine.

thevitalounge.net

However, as often comes along with playing so much of a game, a number of other problems become apparent, namely the samey nature of much of what’s on offer, whether it be enemy or level design or the rewards for completing levels.

To be clear, there are a huge number of enemy designs within the game, but they aren’t used sparingly at all, with many revealed within the first few levels and thus leaving very few new ones after the fact. The seemingly very-repeated level design almost comes hand-in-hand with the enemies: due to the nature of the game, and it being a shoot-em-up, the levels themselves really come from the encounters with enemy ships or bases, rather than what’s going on in the background. While the background art is certainly very pretty, how the levels play out begin to feel rehashed after a few hours.

Each level comes with its own achievement system, each one rewarding for 70% and 100% (respectively) of enemies killed, finishing without being hit and collecting every single person that populates each stage (they can be saved by hovering over them for a few seconds and appear fairly frequently throughout your flying). To me, these rewards felt simply lazy, and not in line with the polish seen elsewhere: I don’t understand why more out-of-the-box achievements couldn’t have been come up with to ensure one feels as though they’re really spending their time trophy-hunting wisely (although, saying that, much of it is forced in order to unlock later stages in the overall game, so how you actually spend your time is dictated heavily by the game).

VERDICT Sky Force Anniversary isn't a game for everyone: if you want something that'll change your life, look elsewhere. If, however, you want something that delivers superb gameplay and addictive action, then this is certainly for you.

@PSVitaMag

Overall, I loved my time with Sky Force.

Sure, the text is way too small at every twist and turn, there are a huge amount of elements that feel like a rehash of something a few moments before, and some of the menus leave a lot to be desired – but, if you want pure fun in arcadey, hugely replayable levels that can offer a significant challenge when you want it, or a much more manageable one if you don’t, then this is very much a game for you. Sky Force Anniversary is blotched with less desirable features, but, as a whole, the blotches can be very easily ignored for what is, in essence, an incredibly fun and addictive game.

3.9 Vitamag

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DIRECTORY A RECAP OF THE BEST GAMES THIS YEAR

ZERO TIME DILEMMA

4.9

4 1216 987 MB

RISK OF RAIN

4.6

0 6 9 81 MB

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2 1326 142 MB

4.5

3 8 35 1.5 GB

CRYPT OF THE NECRODANCER

6 12 6 225 MB

DIGIMON STORY: CYBER SLEUTH

4.5

4.8

LEGO STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

SEVERED

4.5

STEAMWORLD HEIST

1 7 48 1.5 GB

4.5

7 5 16 1.0 GB

ODDWORLD: NEW 'N' TASTY

4.5

5 9 22 1.2 GB

AXIOM VERGE

4.8

8 0 21 372 MB

DOWNWELL

4.5

7 10 5 41.1 MB

VOLUME

4.5

8 6 10 904 MB

NEVERENDING NIGHTMARES

4.5

3 1 0 274 MB thevitalounge.net

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