Kaitlyn Peterson
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Overall, none of this is inherently bad — per se — it’s just unremarkable. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the exploration. Cronos makes excellent use of the entirety of each level, making exploring worthwhile. Additionally, the Traveler can influence the environment in ways that allow you to repair structures and play with gravity. Despite being relatively simple mechanics to use, they were still a nice touch that gave an otherwise normal environment that sci-fi touch.
At any given time, it feels as though there are a million resources you’re falling short on, storage that’s quickly reaching capacity, and not enough hands to go around for all the work that needs to be done. Unfortunately, it was occasionally more overwhelming than it was enjoyable, even on an easier difficulty setting. Especially since half of your responsibilities are meeting the basic human needs of your team, which weirdly makes it feel like a sci-fi survival version of The Sims. Overall, the survival gameplay should be commended for feeling authentic and realistic, but I just wish it had offered a bit more breathing room.
Split Fiction follows the story of Zoe and Mio, two aspiring young writers who are being brought into Rader Publishing, along with other young hopefuls, for the chance at getting one of their stories published. However, things go south pretty quickly as the girls are told that they’ll be placed into simulations of their stories, something Mio is outwardly uncomfortable with. While trying to fight to avoid the simulation, Mio accidentally stumbles her way into Zoe’s instead, beginning their journey together to escape a combined simulation of both of their stories before Rader Publishing can hijack their creativity and steal their ideas.
This means that while players could access the same content, eventually, new players were forcibly unable to catch up with day-one players. Since there is no cross-platform play nor cross-save feature, and everyone will be required to start fresh, this won’t be as much of an issue for Switch or PC players if the trend continues, but it's still unclear how this would work alongside the mobile version of the game. Moreover, even if console players are behind mobile players, it will not impact the individual experience as the events themselves will still be simultaneous for players on all platforms and new to each player.
What Tales of Graces f Remastered lacks in story, it makes up for in fun gameplay and complex battle mechanics. With real-time combat that occurs during small-stage open-world encounters, players are tasked with learning the two primary types of attacks. In Tales of Graces f Remastered, these attacks are known as A-Arte or physical attacks and B-Arte or Magic Attacks, and per some of the quality of life changes, players can customize battles like never before. This includes custom button mapping as well as toggling party members into manual or auto modes, where you can also adjust their focus in battle, primary attack type, and more.
When it comes to combat, Metaphor: ReFantazio hasn’t completely abandoned Atlus’ knack for turn-based combat. However, there is a mix of real-time combat which helps to create a more streamlined combat system. Not only does it help break up some of the monotony that Persona games often fall subject to, but it also allows players to quickly gain experience while traversing areas heavy with enemies without expending too much of their own HP or MP. It’s quite comparable to the preemptive strike format throughout most of the Shin Megami Tensei lineup, but polished and improved in a way that will hopefully be carried into future releases from Atlus.
Those familiar with Nintendo Switch Online’s retro consoles may be aware of a feature that permits you to manually rewind the game at any point. While this is a wonderful feature when used at the player's discretion, the automatic version of it in this game leaves much to be desired. Typically, a rewind will initiate upon death or when the mark for the challenge has been missed, to allow a second chance at completing it. While good in theory, there is no control over the amount of time that is rewound. Furthermore, the game simply drops you when it’s done, often resulting in another immediate death, until you are stuck in an endlessly frustrating loop in which starting over is the only option.
Somehow, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD also simultaneously struggles with being too helpful at times. While there are plenty of times when Professor E. Gadd's call would be more than welcomed, there are just as many occurrences where being left alone would be better. Nearly every time a simple task is completed, Luigi is forced to answer a call from Professor E. Gadd on the Dual Screen. Though this is meant to be helpful, it completely breaks up the flow of the game and is often information that could have just been expressed by changing the objective. That’s not to say that these frequent calls ruin the game, only that they would do better to be a little more helpful and a little less interfering.
Outside the changes to the plot, multiple quality-of-life improvements have been made to make the overall experience more enjoyable, with the most prominent change being the save-anywhere ability. The new save feature completely changes the game, allowing players to save their progress from the menu at any point. For a long time, Atlus has forced players to utilize pre-established save points, meaning that perishing often resulted in having to replay entire sequences. For a game that can already begin to feel monotonous at times, this feature drastically improves the flow of the game and helps to alleviate some of that repetitiveness.
Another Crab’s Treasure will call Kril out, along with players, for witnessing the negative changes in the world around them and ignoring them, especially since players will find that Kril spends the majority of his time with one selfish goal in mind, to return to the tide pool with his shell. Kril acts so selfishly at times that players may be forced to wonder whether he’s even a likable protagonist. However, Kril eventually is forced to face his actions in a way that is sure to have players shaken and contemplating the fundamentals of life, long after the credits roll. We won't spoil it, but it's an interesting narrative device.