Dx2 Shin Megami Tensei Liberation First Impressions

I never thought in my life I'd be impressed to the point of gushing HARD on a mobile game but it's finally happened and OF COURSE it's a fucking Shin Megami Tensei game that has me frothing at the mouth with excitement.

I've talked about it before but just in case I'll cover once again what Shin Megami Tensei is before I continue in case a new reader has stumbled across this post.  Shin Megami Tensei is a long running series of RPGs that has been going since the old NES days.  It has its roots in tile based dungeon crawling but as the series has progressed that style has dropped in and out.  The big gimmick of the series is the whole "demon negotiation" thing where you can convince your enemies to join your ranks and use their skills in order to reach the end.  The series has seen some massive success recently with it's spinoff series Persona and at some point a Shin Megami Tensei 5 has been cited for release on the Switch.  In a VERY basic way just think of it as sort of Grimdark Pokemon.

So I woke up on Sunday with a big fat hangover and grabbed my phone only to find that Dx2 SMT Liberation was on the front page of the Japanese app store and despite my pounding headache I did a little squee and downloaded it.  As far as mobile games go it's not all that different from any other RPG where you collect monsters and battle them but if you're a fan of the series, especially the mainline series, the look and feel of the game will have you hooked pretty quickly.  EVERYTHING you expect from a tried and true SMT game is present in this title just sort of simplified a little bit because it's on a phone now but presented in a way that makes it perfect for short burst plays on a train, bus or while you take a shit.

 I'm not going to go into too much detail about how it all works because there's A LOT going on and I've not levelled up enough to see it all but curiously the game has only 2 out of 5 stars on  the app store.  Addressing some of these complaints I've seen in the review section will help you to understand something about how the game works though so here I go.

The first big complaint I've seen is that they say (in Japanese) that the demons and the artwork look like crap.  The game has opted for the older SMT look as opposed to the more modern art direction that they have used in games like Persona so this is more of a taste thing.  I started the series with Lucifer's Call on PS2 when it was still using that sort of older look so it doesn't bother me really, this is just a taste thing but be aware the art style looks a bit "dated" which will be nostalgic for some and hard on the eyes for others.

The one thing I can't forgive though is people complaining about the fucking "gatcha".  If you don't play mobile games then a gatcha is the way most games give you new items or characters.  You pay a number of whatever currency it may be and the game randomly gives you a character.  If you're lucky you'll get a rare thing and if you're not lucky you won't, it's the main way these free to play RPGs make cash by making people pull lots of gatcha for mad rare shit.  These are usually a big part of mobile RPGs but in Liberations case it's not such a big thing.  The complaints state that the gatcha is too expensive and the rate of rare shit coming out is too low, which is fine I guess but that's not really how your supposed to expand your roster of demons.

As you play levels, occasionally a demon will offer to talk with you and you enter a negotiation.  If you complete the negotiation successfully the demon will join you, this is how SMT has worked basically since the beginning.  From there, you have you fuse the demons together to make new ones in order to strengthen your ranks and this is the main way that the player in Liberation gets rarer things.  For example today I took a 1* demon and a 2* demon and fused them into a 3* demon with some sick fire skills.  The gatcha does give you rare shit but the game wants you to focus on negotiation and fusion, you know, the thing where you actually have to understand how the game works, rather than just dumb luck.  While paying your way into the rarest demons is an option and probably how Sega plan to make profit, doing it the old fashioned way is preferable and series fans will probably enjoy this more than just "push button, receive demon".

I've never been this hooked by a mobile game before so if you're a SMT fan then absolutely try it out and if you've never played one before then this free outing into the mainline may be a good place to find your feet. 

Super Mario Run Is Dumb

This game isn't even available to me just yet on the Japanese app store but it's already disappointing.  You could argue that I shouldn't be chatting shit about a game I've not even played yet but I'd argue that I played Temple Runner and Sonic Runners and every game in this genre is essentially the same goddamn thing.

Anyway, in case you're not familiar with these type of games, a "running" game is a genre that's pretty popular on mobile platforms.  The idea is that your character will just run forward through the stage without stopping and it's up to you to tap or swipe the screen in order to make them avoid obstacles and not die.  There are usually items for you to collect in order to boost your score and other items that you can buy or find in order to facilitate longer running times.  After that it's just a case of seeing how many points you can get.  Sonic Runners tried to incorporate a story where running a certain distance would progress a plot but at the end of the day it's all the same shit.

Now Super Mario Run looks, from the screen shots, exactly like that.  The game isn't going to be crap per se but it is going to be another forgettable running game.  The kind of game that you'll download, play for about a week and then delete in order to make space for a different stupid weekly top pic game off the store.

It's disappointing that Nintendo have resorted to this and not because it's suddenly Mario on an iPhone but because they just went for a dime a dozen running game.  Nintendo are famous for always trying something new, weather it's successfully with the Wii or the DS or unsuccessfully with the WiiU, the point is the are pretty much always trying new things.  So it's sad to see that the debut game on the iOS is just a running game.  Like I said, I can't get it right now so what's the fucking point?  It's not like I'm going to get excited for a game like this and if I REALLY wanted to play a game exactly like it I could just go and download one of the THOUSANDS of these games available on the store.

What's even more disappointing is that back when Iwata was alive he said that this would never happen, that Nintendo wouldn't just sell out their shit for fast profit.  He DID once talk about how Nintendo had plans to use smart phones as a platform to attract users to the main line Nintendo systems and the piece of software that came from THAT plan was Miitomo.  If Iwata saw THIS shit floating around the app store he would be rolling in his grave.

This is like watching a loved one get sick, deteriorate rapidly and start to die right in front of your eyes, it's just sad.

The iPhone fucking sucks

I have an iPhone 5s and if it wasn't for the fact I could play Mahjong online for free and a few other games I probably would have broken my contract and ditched it way sooner.  Luckily, I didn't pay for the fucking thing as my 5s was provided for free when we signed up with the phone company.

Except the iPhone is a huge fucking piece of shit and always has been.  They never start that way though, when you first unbox it everything seems pretty good.  It does the messaging and the calling that you want and the app store has a few decent apps on there to keep you entertained during boring train rides or whatever.  It's a convenient piece of kit to have in your pocket and because of its mass popularity there is a lot of stuff and support available for it. 

But mark my words you are going to NEED that support so fucking bad after a year or so of using the damn thing because it will start to break on you for absolutely no fucking reason.  Every single person I've ever known that has owned an iPhone of ANY model has had it fuck up on them big time after a year or so of use.  These problems range from battery issues to buttons that just stop functioning or the thing slowing down for no goddamn reason.

2 days ago I was playing some Summons Board on the train, a monster breeding RPG made by the same people who brought us Puzzle and Dragon except it plays like a simplified Strategy RPG rather than a shitty version of Bejewled.  Anyway, I'm having a grand old time waiting for my stop when suddenly the game locks up and the thing fucking blue screens!  I mean the screen literally turned blue and then the thing fucking reset itself and I lost my progress.  This isn't the first game that its happened to either with certain titles like Mushihime Sama just crashing ALL the fucking time which is depressing because I really like that game.  At least I can go play it in my local arcade for 100 yen a credit...

Games fucking up is the reason I made this post but I've had all sorts of other issues too.  While my battery isn't quite kicking the bucket just yet, there are some days where it will decide it just wants to drop 10% for no goddamn reason.  Not to mention that 5 has become the new 0 which is deceptive and annoying.  Also for some reason every time I try to read a link on twitter it fucking crashes the app so I have to rush to the "open in safari" button just to read anything anymore.  There have even been points where the internet connection will just fucking die and I have to turn the damn thing off and on again to bring it back.

Like I said, everyone I know has had issues like this or worse.  The worst I've ever seen is on my friends phone where the swipe just decided to take an afternoon off.  He could still touch things using that button free interface or whatever the fuck its called by he couldn't open his phone which was a real pain in the ass considering that he was trying to contact his girlfriend a whole goddamn prefecture over.

Bottom line, iPhone fucking sucks.  I'm not all that clued up on the world of phones so I don't know what is a better alternative but I'm sure you can google it, you're a smart reader.

Fuck the iPhone
Fuck Apple
and fuck all these "trendy" wankers that rush out to buy the latest model day one.  Enjoy your paper weight, asshole.

Mobile Gaming is Weird

A couple of posts ago I said that I got an iPhone 5s and wasn't really all that taken with it.  Well since I had to sign up for a Japanese App Store account, I decided to do some delving into what the Japanese mobile gaming market had to offer.  Thanks to a recommendation from my wife's sister, I ended up playing something called 育てて掃除機 (Or Raising Vacuum Cleaner) and now it's time to take a moment to talk about one of the strangest games I've ever played.

The premise is simple, you have a vacuum cleaner, and when it sucks up rubbish a small meter fills up.  When the meter gets to full the vacuum cleaner changes shape, starting out with a small cat resting on top and then over time taking on much more strange forms.

There is also a mini game that involves taking your cat machine for a walk.  This means you go down a motorway at high speed collecting coins and avoiding cars.  With those coins you can purchase balls of rubbish so that you can speed up the process of cat cleaner evolution.

Usually, when you think about mobile games you assume they are designed to be played at a bus stop or something.  Something you use to kill 10 minutes or so by playing a pointless shitty puzzle game or whatever.  This game however doesn't even qualify as that since all that you are required to do is open the app, touch the screen once, and then you are done for like 10 minutes while the rubbish respawns.

It's a truly strange game that's worth playing at least once if you can read Japanese.  If you can't read Japanese then it's just fucking weird and there wouldn't really be much point.  But I found myself strangely addicted to this fucking thing, opening the app whenever I could do clean my room and watch my cat cleaner evolve into something truly strange.

育てて掃除機, despite being one of the most basic things I've ever seen, is way more engrossing than half the shit on the app store in both regions, so give it a go if you can.

The iPhone 5S is a piece of shit but....

A couple of days ago I got an iPhone 5S.  Luckily I'm not paying to use it and I didn't pay to get it thanks to a family plan type thingy provided by the phone company, so at least that's something.

I fucking hate this thing, I hate it so damn much.  I thought the idea behind the iPhone was that it was easy and simple to use and that anyone could do anything on it.  The latter is true, you don't need any kind of technical knowledge to work the thing, but in no way is the iPhone easy and simple.

When I first got the damn thing the shit I had to go through to set it up took WAY longer than it ever should have done.  We now live in an age where it's not enough to set up mail and phone number and just go with it, I have to do all sorts of other stupid bullshit along with it.

One example of this was signing up for fucking Line.  Apparently, everyone on the planet uses Line and if I don't do it then I'm going to lose contact with the world despite having a fucking phone number AND mail address.  So I downloaded Line, which took way longer than it fucking should have done because I had to make an account with the Japanese app store which was a complete pain, but even after I had the app it wasn't just a case of adding friends and chatting...of course not. 

I had to go through this long, stupid process where it sent mails to my number that I had to verify and then it sent MORE mails to my email so that I could verify it again and even once that was done I found the process of adding someone to your line account an arduous and ambiguous process that took way longer than it ever should have done.

So I hate the fucking thing, not for just the above reasons but the list is pretty long so I'll leave it at my application fury for now, but as you can probably tell from the post title it's not all bad.

Mobile gaming for the most part is a complete piece of shit, but recently I've been introduced to a few applications that are actually good games.  Puzzle & Dragons is one example of a mobile game that actually had enough quality to it to get ported to proper systems like the 3DS.  Most mobile games are money grubbing, worthless snore fests but every now and then I come across something worth playing and doesn't require you to pay money to be good at it.

In short, fuck the iPhone but at least the app store has a few good titles to keep me entertained on the train platforms.

Castle Master

There is a lot of absolute shite on the Apple App Store.  It's very hard to find something that's actually worth playing so I tend to get very surprised when I do find something good.

The game that took me by surprise this time was Castle Master, a strategy game where you must re-take all your castles that have been overrun with monsters.  It's an incredibly simple game but if you're looking for something to kill for free then this is a good choice.

So, as far as I can figure out this game originally comes from Korea, since there is a Korean language mode in the options menu and there is some very strange translations going on.

I mean there is even a crossed out W on a typed story scroll.  I find it impossible to get annoyed at something THIS blitheringly stupid.

Anyway, the game itself is simple, you have a big map and you have to take all 45 castles.  Everything is in real time and you have a 3D fighting mode for when attacking or defending.  It controls pretty well too with skills being easy to pull off and targeting working rather well.

Once you take a castle you have to defend it, recruit troops and build it up so that you can earn money and take the next one.  When you're not on the map or in combat, you can go into this 3D town exploration thing where you can buy items, upgrade skills and take on quests.

The game play reminds me somewhat of a real time version of Heroes of Might and Magic with the interface and how troop recruitment and buildings work.

So what you're playing is essentially a dumbed down version of those games, but considering its an iPhone app and it's free, you could do a lot worse.  Combat all goes down in real time with up to 300 vs 300 battles and while it's happening you get to get stuck in and help out your army as well.

So if you needed something free to kill some time with while your on a train or waiting for something/someone, give this a spin.  Good free games in the app store are few and far between, so jump on this one.

The World Ends With You for iPhone and iPad

So if you are into anything like video games, movies, comic books and stuff like that, chances are you are a jaded, bitter, angry individual because all companies seem to want to do is take stuff that you love and take a massive steaming shit all over it.  This is what has happened with the new The World Ends With You announcement.

Now I tend not to pay too much attention to hype trains, I like to play a game with a clear head and form my own opinion on it, but about a week ago I was linked to this website

www.square-enix.co.jp/subaseka  

All this website was the time I first viewed it was a countdown timer and some remixed songs from the original World Ends With You soundtrack.  I got pretty excited for what was going to come at the end of this countdown, I was under the impression that if you hype something with a timer, then the thing at the end of the timer is going to be good, right?

FUCKING! WRONG!

All we got was this piece of shit, a fucking port for iPhone and iPad.  First of all, the iPhone is not a good system for gaming, it just isn't.  Sure, shit like Angry Birds works really well on this system, but big meaty RPGs like this aren't going to attract your average iPhone gamer.  Most importantly however, the thing that made TWEWY such a good, interesting game on the DS was it's amazing battle system that utilised both screens.  So way to go and fucking ruin that with your piece of shit one screen combat.  The idea of having combat on one screen just basically ruins some of the interesting and challenging battles as a few of the fights would revolve around the dual screen mechanics (E.g. Taboo Noise, for those that know what that is)

It also fucks the game right up from a story perspective too.  The reason the combat was on 2 screens story wise was that despite the 2 characters being linked, they had to fight the big nasties alone.  If they killed the enemy, it would die for their partner too, but if they took damage, the partner would suffer as well.  It was a cool concept that made the idea of combat slightly frightening from a story perspective, but now all that has been thrown out the window since they can just fight together now on one fucking screen.

There are lots of other things I could talk about that make the game seem shit, but I have to remember that despite all my ranting and raving, I haven't played it yet, so my opinion is generally not worth shit on this matter, but it just seems like a bit of a betrayal here.  It might be pretty good, but I won't know for a long time because if square thinks I'm dropping 20 bucks on a fucking shitty iPhone port of a 2008 DS game, they have another thing coming.

Here is the trailer, people panned this shit so hard they removed comments and ratings.