Admission’s Ammunition

I have repurchased Resonance of Fate with little trepidation after selling it years ago. I have not yet played it again and will have to start it over again (this time on PS3).

Shin Megami Tensei Liberation Dx2 Available Now

SEGA brought Shin Megami Tensei Liberation Dx2 to the West today after lighting up the App Store charts in its native land. The title is available on a variety of both Google Play and Apple App Store supported devices.

Players can download the complete app data immediately, gain a variety of bonuses from events and date-specific unlocks, and continue into the main story after a relatively short “labeled” tutorial.

Old favorites are present and players selecting male or female main-character avatars will start with recognizeable faces. Don’t let that fool you. There’s plenty to continue learning from how old mechanics reappear to how new characters play a part in the adventure.

Of particular note? Microtransactions are present, but without social links to rush through, Liberation Dx2 may be perfect for the drip feed SEGA probably has planned. Look for more on this blog soon.

Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?! Review

In any immediate sense, Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?! belongs on platforms it has already appeared on. You wouldn’t smithy your way to a pacifist market if weapons like axes, bows, and fire wands were your bread and butter. Android and other mobile devices, including the Nintendo Switch which now plays host to the title, make for much better grinding, sharpening, or forging. All of this isn’t to say that you don’t do anything or go anywhere while playing around with your weapon shop.

In fact, one of the first places you might find yourself other than a sales trip to Noob Village happens to be the fabulous yearly awards show. Grindy games like this have to tempt the player with something and the awards offer more than just a sneak peek at weapons you can make after research efforts. That there are other weapon shops necessitates the competitive spirit.

Not merely ensuring a few smiles in its writing, Holy Potatoes! also teased my economic sense one way while pushing the difficulty appropriately the other. With four potato-smiths including Laura Craft and Bulk Bogan, I thought tackling a special request a few times over would let me mash potato to the next expansion of my shop. You can invite special crafts-potatoes to work on projects and reap the stat boosts associated with each. Doing so brought me so close to fulfilling the request, that I figured I needed to try again. The dastardly Agent 46, the antagonist to your developing tuber, visited and demanded a minimal sum for allowing me to work, but the staff wages broke the bank.

Never fear, the guild will bail players out and development of smithy skills may actually demand planning around this seemingly near-fail state. Three bail-outs and you’ll be foreclosed upon. Changing jobs costs money, buyers can sometimes prove fickle, and workers will want to go on vacation. I don’t play these games all the time, but Holy Potatoes! matches the gold standard in my mind when stacked against Game Developer Story, a title I gnawed thoroughly on iOS. This genre doesn’t seem to have a long way to go with all the simulators considered.

You can jump to a middle ground of weapon shop development from the title screen if you wish, but I found myself wanting more than just the fast forward button or the dog to feed. It’d be cool if the developers included a fire to fan, an optional rhythm game for the pedal spinning a sharpening stone, or a series of button inputs for enhanced magical stats. These are small spuds compared to the solid gameplay on hand.

I reviewed the game on PS4 with a code provided by the publisher.

Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?! PS4 Review

Brave Frontier: The Last Summoner Videos Available On...

... the game’s Facebook page!

Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?! Available Now On PS4 And Switch

Persona Gets Puzzle & Dragons Spin Off

Persona Series x Puzzle & Dragons Collaboration Announced for the English Version, Begins on July 16, 2018. Persona & Puzzle & Dragons art.

@Persona_Central on Twitter

Unreal Developer Revenues Increase

Today Epic is increasing the Unreal Engine Marketplace seller revenue share from 70% to 88%, effective now and going forward, and retroactively! Get the details here:

okt.to/bC9jKY #UE4

@UnrealEngine on Twitter

LISTEN: Wye Oak

How Did I Even End With A Positive Ratio

PS-Cake

So I bought a PS4 off of eBay to continue putting my life back together, as shallow as that sounds, and there were problems, but more on that later because hell yes, I’ll sacrifice Netflix quality to keep game downloads rockin’ steady.

If I remember correctly, everything I did with my PS4 from launch would halt a download’s progress, but Arrested Development leading up to new episodes I haven’t seen didn’t last night.

It’ll Be Awhile Until November

I’m frustrated because rather than MAX several Confidants at once, I should have run through them as they came. “Finishing” the game with only two was a mistake. Nobody told me, if you couldn’t tell by my referencing a full year of gameplay yesterday.

Better than the game itself is my discovery of the Japanese VO pack on PSN. Thanks, Atlus!

I Maxed A Confidant

Playing a Persona game connected to a TV and an outlet is weird. It’s about as weird as subplots raised and dropped by Mishima Yuuki. This guy texted me one night and wound up my first MAX Confidant. Sakura-chan’s trouncing him with that natural 20 only moments prior felt satisfying.

I’ve got all the Confidants registered, but I’ll really need another half a game to level all of them up in my first play through. More irritating is how slowly stats are leveled, but I’ve lost sight of activities that raise them more than marginally. All in all, I don’t want Persona 5 to end!

The game is fantastic and a totally direct sequel to Persona 4 Golden, so I feel right at home.

Popcap and Criterion Executives Leave Their Studios

I like Electronic Arts and the software they put out, but they also seem to have the highest rate of turn over for executives. Over the new year, two stories broke about the restructuring within key studios at Electronic Arts. First, Criterion developers responsible for founding the studio left. Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry are working to form a new studio together. Next, Popcap CEO Dave Roberts and co-founder Jason Kapalka have left, though Kapalka will remain a creative consultant. What's going on over there? Hope this doesn't spell disaster for Criterion's new IP. I'm still really excited for Garden Warfare.

Biggest Surprise video game of 2013

Most Surprising Game of 2013 Award
I only played one of the games nominated for this award and that was Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. That downloadable spin-off didn't win the award, but I desperately need to play the game that did. Path of Exile really took off in the wake of a botched Diablo III. Click through for Game of the Year awards and video game news, reviews, previews, and more.

Biggest Disappointment in Video Games for 2013
This year's award for most disappointing video game is without a doubt SimCity, who got strung up by an always-online requirement that was completely unnecessary. What was your biggest disappointment in 2013? Click through for the nominees and more Game of the Year awards.