Mario isn’t the only thing to die, as the PS3, Vita, and PSP stores are going away along with the idea of an in person E3 this year as it’s all going online. Usada Pekora has been thrown into VTuber Jail with a new outfit and she’ll probably be joined by Sonic the Hedgehog now that he’s started to carry a gun.  Disco Elysium: Final Cut also came out with a cool jacket that sold out almost as fast as the Sanrio Animal Crossing Amiibo Cards and the most important piece of news we could ever report on. That’s right Rose, Bloodborne Kart is real.

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The post VGCC Episode 352: It Was Sonic And Friends That Did It appeared first on Gamesline.

While the move seems to be specifically Japan-focused right now, it’s probably safe to assume that it won’t be long before the North American, European, and Australian storefront also closes. The move effectively ends the life-cycle of the PSP, and the PSP Go – which still enjoys substantial popularity in Japan. With the Vita having never reached the highs that it’s older brother did, it’s fair to wonder if this signals the beginning of the end for Sony in the mobile market.

The post Sony to Shutter PSP Storefront appeared first on Gamesline.

Lost Dimension is very clearly taking cues from Danganronpa. Anyone familiar with those games will recognize the parallels within minutes of booting up the game; but that’s not necessarily a bad thing – after all, Danganronpa is responsible for some of the craziest, most fun and downright mind-blowing writing in games – so much so that Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair won Chooch’s Game of the Year in 2014. Like in Danganronpa, you’re faced with a difficult dilemma; one of the characters in your group has turned on you, and in order to stay alive and advance any further, everyone must decide on who to punish. However, whereas in Danganronpa someone turned on the group by murdering a classmate, here the betrayal is more subtle.

The traitors in your group of elite military psychics have been placed amongst you by The End, a mysterious being hell-bent on destroying the world, and stopping the UN’s SEALED taskforce from carrying out their mission to stop him. It’s only by examining their words, noticing their inner voices betraying them, that the player, in the role of Sho – a character who ticks all the boxes of your typical anime protag – begins to put together the pieces as to who the traitor might be. There’s no set order though, and this is where Lost Dimension really shines. The traitors among your group of eleven are randomly determined at the beginning of each strata of The Pillar, where The End is holed up, meaning that it is very unlikely two players will ever have the same gameplay experience.

Never leave me, Nagi.

Not being able to simply look up spoilers to see who was going to turn on me only forced me to question myself more, and perform various mental gymnastics as I asked the question of what I’d do should certain characters turn on me. There was Nagi – the levelheaded, rational solider with the power of levitation – by far my strongest combatant, and also the character whom I enjoyed interacting with the most. What was I going to do if I suspected her of being the traitor? Sure, I could use my Vision Points – earned through the completion of story missions, and therefore finite – to determine well in advance whether she was the traitor on each stratum. These Vision Points are used to trigger dream-like sequences, as Sho peers directly into the suspect’s soul to uncover their true intentions. It’s neat stuff initially, but they’re all essentially the same, and a little more variety wouldn’t have hurt.

These sequences do throw up some interesting possibilities, of course. What if my suspect wasn’t really even in the mix, and I’d wasted one? What if Nagi was the traitor? Do I sacrifice a character I don’t like – Zenji- brash, loud, standoffish and possessing an initially useless synchronization ability, Marco – a young, cowardly boy with the gift of telekinesis, or Himeno, the tsundere pyromaniac – and deal with the consequences later? Do I bite the bullet and lose her? And if I decide to lose Nagi, how do I manage to turn everyone else against her? After all, everyone in my group trusts her with their lives – she’s the most effective fighter, has the best range and is nigh on impossible to hit – and as one of the top three, she gets two votes come judgement.

Keeping an eye on trust levels is vital to your success.

It was a situation that left me on edge throughout my playthrough, but, thankfully Nagi never turned on me. Two of my other go-to’s in battle, however, Mana – the cutness obsessed powerhouse with the affected English accent – and Agito – a deadly close-quarters fighter whose teleportation skills make him second only to Nagi in terms of versatility, did. Luckily, when a character (or two, if there’s a tie) is “Judged”, they drop an item – Fate Materia – which allows you to keep their abilities. Sure, you lose a member, and if that member happens to have base stats that you rely on – Nagi’s movement and agility, Mana’s power – you lose those.

That’s the thing about Lost Dimension – your group won’t come to consensus via debate – it’s an entirely democratic process within the game that hinges on trust. If two characters never team up together in combat, they develop an inherent distrust towards one another, and thus become more and more likely to vote for one another when the time comes to pass Judgement. On the second stratum, while I was still figuring out this mechanic, the relationship between Toya, the generic soldier, and Zenji the dick; two characters I had little time for, got to the point where, following each mission, they’d pull me aside and try to convince me the other was the traitor. It took significant work for me to get them to come around on my theory that Marco – probably the least likeable character in the game – was the traitor, and thankfully, I was right. It took forcing Toya and Zenji to work as a team on the battlefield multiple times to do it, but eventually they, like everyone else, came to distrust Marco.

You won’t miss some characters – others you won’t want to lose.

In battle, however, the game is much less interesting. All the internal strife and intrigue that’s built up through the visual novel style cutscenes has a tendency to disappear in missions, which tend to feel a little lifeless and bland, though they’re functionally competent. You take five of Sho’s squadmates with you on each mission, taking turns controlling them – in any order you choose – with those acting later able to “defer” their turns to those who’ve already acted. Characters who trust one another work much better together on the battlefield, following up with assist attacks, allowing you to quickly wipe out multiple enemies. By acting with your stronger characters first, you can potentially finish mission in just a couple of turns – I would generally act with Nagi, Sho and Agito or Mana (before they turned), and then have the other three defer their turns to allow my three frontline fighters to go again. This of course made it difficult to phase Mana, and later Agito out of my main squads in order to reduce their number of votes come Judgement, but again, it all plays into what makes Lost Dimension great – the drama within your squad, and your own internal struggle with having to lose characters you like.

Lost Dimension is ultimately an experience that’s hard to forget. If you can look past some fairly average combat and the very obvious parallels with Danganronpa, you’ll find an emotionally engaging experience that by the end separates itself from the pack. The game runs as smooth as butter on the Vita, too, with some of the fastest load times I’ve seen on the console (though, admittedly, that’s a pretty low bar to hurdle). The writing is solid, the characters are a mixture of likeable fighters who you pray don’t turn on you, mean-spirited assholes you actively root against (looking at you Zenji), and over the top anime loons like George, a self-proclaimed “defender of justice” and comic relief character, and the emotional stakes high enough to keep you gripped that it’s more than a solid recommendation. That each play-through is unique doesn’t hurt either, nor does the great localization job. Lost Dimension forced me to think deeply about the choices I made, the potential consequences thereof, and whether I could stand to lose characters I cared about in a way that games rarely have. For that alone, it’s worth the price of admission.

The post Lost Dimension Review (PS Vita) appeared first on Gamesline.

Skullgirls was the first serious fighting game I dove into. I originally got into it because an artist friend told me about Alex Ahad and his smooth, interesting art style. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I understood why people would hate Skullgirls’ art, but I had never seen a 2D game so fluid in my life, and after the first blush impression, I was further drawn into the game with a promise of ease. Skullgirls has the best tutorial in fighting games, bar none, and after playing through that, I was a contender, at least with my friends. Skullgirls became a bonding experience with them, some of whom enjoyed the art, others enjoyed the gameplay. Some of my friends even ended up cosplaying the characters! There was something for everyone in the game, and it closed the divide between my friend group by playing to our interests.

Learning to play Skullgirls was an immensely valuable experience. It taught me fighting games, something that used to be impenetrable but is now a large part of my gaming life. Since learning Skullgirls, I’ve gotten into Marvel vs Capcom 3, Street Fighter Alpha, Guilty Gear, and the list goes on. I wouldn’t say that I’m excellent at these games, but the fundamentals I gained from Skullgirls pushed me to be far better than I would be. My first main, Double, was especially useful, as she’s a mish-mash of every other character in the game. Choosing an actual pile of characters for my main was a bone-headed move for a beginner, but it turned out alright!

So what about Second Encore? Is Skullgirls still viable today? Yes and no. I feel as though the overall fighting game community will never accept Skullgirls. Too many shifts in the meta, the constant delays, and an odd dislike of the artist community growing around the game put the nail in Skullgirls’ Evo coffin. But for the beginner, the average person who wants to learn the art of fighting? Skullgirls is the perfect jumping on point. Learning one character in Skullgirls gives you the fundamentals for similar characters in other games, such as Parasoul’s trap-based attacks and Peacock’s annoying yet effective use of projectiles. Skullgirls apes off of other games in many ways, but control style and mechanics are the most useful things they’ve finally nailed. It’s inviting in so many ways, and it could kickstart a new love for a nearly impenetrable genre.

The post Round Trip: Skullgirls appeared first on Gamesline.

Demon Gaze is a first person dungeon crawler with some extremely basic RPG fare. Buy stuff from the weapons and items salesmen, accept some quests, hire new allies or equip your old ones, then go into the world to kill some monsters and complete said objectives. The main objectives in this game are defeating demons, which are in the most basic sense the bosses of each dungeon. Once you defeat a demon, things get a bit more interesting. You can equip a demon during battle as an extra party member, thanks to the titular Demon Gaze ability you possesses. The demons can heal you or damage foes, making combat move far more quickly. Without this system, fighting would be a chore. You can also hold down the triangle button to re-enter the same commands as the last turn, allowing you to breeze through grinding. The game is friendly to people who aren’t super into it, but it allows depth for those who want it.

Grinding is an immense part of Demon Gaze. You grind enemies for EXP and you grind demon rings — areas where you place summoning gems — for items. Demon rings also summon the dungeon’s boss. Each demon boss is immensely powerful, but the monsters you encounter are so easy you could roll your eyes and knock a couple into submission with the shockwave. The vast difference between the strength of the boss vs the minions makes sense in theory, but it makes leveling up a chore and the bosses can crush you even after five hours of grind.

Grinding also levels up your weaponry, but you can also craft same-type weapons into your current weapon (staff to staff, bow to bow, etc.) to boost its strength. This is a neat idea that allows you to get a good amount of use out of the items you get from defeating so many weaklings. Demon Gaze would probably be a six hour long game without the grind, but the boss fights are fun enough that I was able to slog through the grinding and get to the goods. It felt rewarding to beat a boss by the skin of my teeth, and using the demons to assist me made it even more fun. The slog is demanding, but overall satisfying.

Even though the gameplay is pretty good, the writing is not. Don’t worry, it’s not The Witch and the Hundred Knight levels of shameful, but it’s pretty shameless. There’s multiple scenes of “HAHA, DONGS!” and at one point the game forced me to grab a girl’s boobs even though I was picking dialogue options that would lead me not to. It was like the game thought I was trying not to look bad. I’m all for a few dick and butt jokes here and there, but this is the extent of Demon Gaze’s comedy. The characters are all pretty bland but there’s moments where they butt heads in semi-interesting ways. There’s also an eyepatch lady with a huge scar across her gazonga. It’s pretty male-gazey, but it’s nothing ultra offensive. Quests mostly involve doing small favors for these characters, such as defeating a specific enemy or finding an item. You must also pay rent to the innkeeper, Fran, which goes up every time you return from a mission.

A weird part of Demon Gaze is the character creation, or lack thereof. At the start of the game, you can choose from forty-odd character designs to stand for yourself in combat. They vary from human, elf, catgirl, and more. However, the game makes a point to state that it will only ever refer to you as a human male. This is one of the oddest ways I have ever seen a game flop in attempting diversity. Why even give me the option? You can choose from the same cast of characters to customize other party members, but they can be any race and gender you prefer. It’s such an absolutely baffling move, one I’ll never understand.

Overall Demon Gaze is a pretty forgettable yet pretty forgivable romp. I had an enjoyable time with it, but I don’t think I’d ever pick up a sequel without some vast adjustments. It’s cliche to say “fans of the genre will enjoy this”, but games like Demon Gaze are why that cliche exists in the first place. This will not turn you into a dungeon crawler fanatic, but if you’re on that path already, it’ll keep your feet straight on that trail.

The post Demon Gaze Review appeared first on Gamesline.