Recent reviews by AKinkyMidgit

Death End Re;Quest 2 was a game I had been hyped for since the announcement.

I am mixed on this though, a lot of the elements that I really enjoyed in the story from the first one have been removed and your entire party is unlocked within the first few missions, there's really no surprise members or anything. I was kinda hoping that the story would take place after the events of the first one and while this one does, it completely sidesteps any real commentary on the events that took place.

Overall the story is still pretty solid, I love the character designs and if you dont mind frequently saving due to game crashing bugs (especially when you get out of the merchant area) then it is something I would recommend checking out,

DER:Q2 does a fantastic job with the horror elements and even subverts expectations, the gameplay is similar to the first but with a lot more emphasis on your special moves/abilities as monsters are now nearly impossible to take out otherwise. The gameplay is challenging in parts without ever forcing the player to grind. The multiple endings are nice and the True Ending gives me hope that there will be a third one in the franchise.

But do be warned, there are A LOT of bugs. Pick it up on sale or wait for a patch!

Im not super far into it and over all I would recommend Death End Re;Quest over this but that being said Dragon Star Varnir is a solid game in terms of story, game play and graphics. Its a very well written game with a lot of different features that I do like, such as the interesting combat system that takes place on 3 different levels and the formations you can use to get different benefits. Each character has their strong suits but no one character seems to be too overpowered so you can take comfort in using the characters you feel most comfortable with.

The devour system is enjoyable as well, the ability to possibly unlock more skills on each character from pretty much the start of the game provides interesting dynamics that allow you to increase the powers of the characters you desire but if you dont get the chance to unlock too many powers, the game gives you a free orb for each boss which is good as well!

The only real downside of the game is that the English dub seems a bit less prevalent, several cutscenes even early on have no voice over and one of the cutscenes I experienced early in game went from full voice to nothing in two seconds and I was so confused for a few seconds but it doesnt bother me that much I guess?

Overall its a good game that I would recommend, probably a 7/10 experience, pick it up while its on sale, I highly recommend it!

This is a very entertaining and fun game, it is not without its issues but I would like to say that the Pros outweigh the cons. The game takes a while to build up but once it gets started it becomes a very enjoyable experience that I would recommend to fans of the series and possibly even newcomers with open minds!

The Good: The game has a beautiful artstyle with very detailed level design and transitioning from one area to another feels very smooth. I very much enjoyed all the time and effort that was put into the art! The soundtrack is exceptionally good and one of the best nep soundtracks I can think of. They took the time to add new villains and characters without ever referencing old ones. It plays pretty well and feels very well optimized for steam, which is a huge plus.

The Bad: The combat takes a lot of getting used to, with it being seemingly inspired by games like FFXII, it can feel very off putting and clunky at times. While I do feel like it gets better the more you get used to it, I definitely feel like the combat is weaker than previous games. My only other complaint is that towards the end of the story there are definitely things I wouldnt have minded had they cut out. Without getting into spoiler talk, the ending seems to drag a little.

All in all, I highly recommend giving the game a fair chance, it's fun, enjoyable and easily one of my favorite nep games so far!

When I originally wrote a review for this game, I had posted that the game was fine from a gameplay perspective but that it had technical errors that needed fixed, fortunately CH/IFI delivered on their promises to fix it.

This game was an emotional roller coaster for me, it constantly made me wonder what was going to happen next and after nearly 50 hours, I completed the game for the first time and felt like I could finally breathe! This game is absolutely phenomenal from both a game play and story telling perspective. There was a lot of effort put behind this one and theres a lot of emotion that comes with the game.

Originally I was expecting your average CH/IF game with a fair amount of fan service, jokes, gags and the like but what I was in for was a game that completely blew me away. The games dark tones, the ability to kill yourself with multiple choices throughout the game, the voice acting, the writing, it is all very very well done.

If you're a fan of the whole VN style cutscene with heavy emphasis on gameplay gamestyle that IF/CH makes, then I highly recommend this game.

If youve never played a CH/IF game before but like darker toned anime, I highly recommend this game.

Give it a chance, you'll probably like it!

Honestly this game deserves better than what it has, for a mmoish type of game it has a lot to offer with fully animated cut scenes, 4 weapons and a variety of skills to choose from, I can say that the game plays pretty well. While lag is experienced in the main lobby missions play flawlessly and are quite enjoyable to play with a friend.

That being said the game still has a long way to go but seeing as its been less than a month since release, I am willing to overlook that. The game is lacking in content and PVP is really not that enjoyable. I hope as the game continues, we see an increase in weapons that are available and costumes that are available for purchase for in game currency and not real life currency.

All in all if you're looking for a fun experience with a friend, give the game a chance, but keep in mind that it is early access!

Never have I felt so torn recommending a game before, this is a game that has so many great elements that I feel like with just a bit more polish it could be a very popular JRPG, but the elements that don't work in this game are so heavily tied in with the elements that do that there are large chunks of this that feel like a literal chore to attempt to get through.

tl;dr I would probably rate the game a 7/10 due to gameplay and story but issues with performance and some gameplay elements detract from the overall experience

The positives: I went into this game in the middle of a Compile Heart Binge and was actually a bit thrown off with how few of the typical compile heart elements were in this game, which is both a strong suit of the game and weak suit, the game plays very differently from anything they have previously released with a battle system that allows you to customize combos based off melee weapons and fire arms. Your combos can be adjusted using skills that are unlocked through investing in a skill tree system using points gained from leveling up, you can upgrade your weapons and change things around to find different effective combos and even different special skills (ya know the typical power moves that consume tp) which is really fun. The gameplay is satisfying and releasing an all out attack with your backrow characters always brought a grin to my face! There are a ton of special arts and each character has their own unique special art as well which allows for plenty of exciting cutscenes and fun.

The cast of characters is superb as each one of them feels unique and human, they feel very much like real people and as you talk more to them you get to learn more about them and a lot of the cutscenes with them are hilarious and are definitely one of the highlights of the game. The cast alone makes you want to keep coming back and wants to make you learn more about them, there really is no "worst girl" and even the two other male characters are both really fun characters who stand out from the crowd and each VN scene with the characters felt original and well done in my opinion.

And the story is really fleshed out, it was interesting and I never felt bored by the story itself, I wanted to find out more and unravel the mystery it laid out. I would gladly talk more about it as it was the strongest feature of the game but I would inevitably get into spoiler territory then.

That being said this game has a lot flaws, so

The Negative: This game is incredibly poorly optimized, as it stands right now my rig has a 1080ti and an i7-8700k processor, it should be more than capable of handling anything that is thrown it's way, but this game constantly dropped frames during certain dungeons and especially upon entering and leaving dungeons, I was almost anticipating the game to crash at any moment and while it never did (thankfully) I still shouldnt have had as much droppage as I did.

Outside of the dungeons you'll be traversing a large city that slowly unlocks more and more as you advance in the story and complete side missions. This in theory sounds like fun but the city is jampacked full of chimera that youll be fighting constantly and your character moves incredibly slow, meaning that traversing the city takes forever. You run into this same problem with dungeons but it isnt as bad. This game suffers a lot due to not having some sort of sprint button and having VERY large maps in a lot of places, you'll probably dedicate at least a few hours to traversing the map alone just trying to get where you need to go.

The side missions are the main reason you'll spend so much time trying to get from one half of the map to the other as the side missions all tend to be something along the lines of "Go here clear this area at both day and night" or "Go here to kill this one specific monster that only spawns at night" sometimes you'll have to collect items from certain points on the map and sometimes youll have to kill a large number of the same monster, most of them are very repetitive and very boring, but since theyre just side missions theyre optional, you'd think, but no.

The worst part of this game is the ridiculous requirements to get the True End. The true end is based off of the "affection system" which is a system that gauges how much your individual teammates like you, think kinda like a social link in a Persona game, the affection system can only be raised by one of two ways, and the first is: doing side missions for each character! So prepare yourself to do the same type of mission like 60 times because literally the only way to get the true end is to do almost all the side missions in game!!

The second way isnt much better as it's based off of choosing the right dialogue choice in the VN segments but unlike in Persona games where each choice will give you at least some progress towards the character youre speaking to, dialogue in DRV is All or Nothing, meaning if you screw up you get no progress, so you better pull out that online guide because the game purposely makes it difficult to decipher which choice is best.

The final requirement for the true end is the thing that really kills the vibe the most, the Interview System as this is the most frustrating and tedious thing they could have added. Throughout the game you'll be required to interview your teammates in almost a Danganronpa type of way, this interview process is a game of spot the liar, which is a lot more difficult than it sounds. At the start of this and through the entirety of the game youll be limited to asking a very small number of questions, starting with 6 and I only ended with 10 questions in total I was able to ask. There are 5 girls in the game that you'll be interviewing which means that you'll be stuck asking each girl but 1 just a single question and trying to play spot the liar based off that one answer. Save Scumming is pretty much the only way to get a passing interview and even that is made difficult by the fact that your interview has a chance of being a completely different question, there are 3 possible questions for each interview. This also means finding interviews online isnt always helpful either and your best bet is to continually reload until you find yourself with an interview that someone else has posted the answers to, but even that is made difficult by the fact that you dont get the option to reload saves until the cutscene after your interview is complete, making it almost faster to crash and relaunch the game.

While the interviews do affect the true ending they have no plot relevance whatsoever as your interview answers could all be 100% complete but certain events that take place toward the end are tied to affection and not the the interview itself, making the whole system very frustrating and pointless.

Most of the problems could literally be fixed with just a sprint button, some more work on optimizing the port and an official strategy guide but it feels like this game was completely abandoned after launch, which is why I am giving it a 7/10.

I do recommend it as it is fun but very very very frustrating at times!

I didn't think I would really enjoy this game when it was first recommended to me, but something about the music, the gameplay and the story kept me interested in finding out more and soon I found myself hooked on the addictive gameplay loop. I highly recommend giving this game a chance if you haven't already. Honestly for $10, you're getting a hell of a steal

I have yet to beat the game but I have enjoyed the story and the gameplay mechanics of the games. Its a simpler title but it creates a memorable and eerie atmosphere. Its a pretty good game and I would recommend it! Its a shame that some Chinese steam users have been review bombing this dev, because the game is a good experience and I hope that people can look past the massive recent influx of negative reviews!

Honestly I dont have as much time on this game as I do the original.

But I recommend it, the game has a few bugs and likes to stall up on my PC but I don't expect things to be perfect 100% of the time.

The game has imporved vastly over the original, with a variety of different features that make the game more entertaining than the original by far.

The game feels fresh and with the visual enhancements I really can't complain. It's an AO horror puzzle game that I ended up buying for under $14 and theres a lot to really enjoy about some of the features they added such as Demon Vag, Dead babies that you can kick or stab or break the necks of!

But in all seriousness the new gameplay modes being unlocked right off the start are a welcome change and make the game worth getting in my opinon!