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Alter Age is a competent RPG that does a few interesting things with a strange premise. Arga, our protagonist, has the ability to shift into a preteen version of himself at will. While this ability sounds useless when you’re staring down a colossal plant monster, it causes shifts in your other party as they age forward into grownups, gaining more combat capabilities. Swapping the ages of you and the other party results in a simple, but entertaining battle system, and it also creates some interesting moments outside of battle as well. None of what this ability offers makes the game terribly deep or gripping, but it does make for some light RPG fun.

Arga has been struggling to leave his home town, but without an awakened class ability, he’s out of luck. Naturally, his abilities finally reveal themselves shortly after starting the game, but their effects don’t seem immediately useful to him. Being able to make yourself into a preteen doesn’t have any apparent combat bonuses when you start, but simply having your Soul Alter ability gives you increased power in a fight. It’s enough to help Arga win a battle against a little girl so that he can finally leave the town and start on his quest to hunt down his father, a powerful man who abandoned him and his sick mother long ago. That said, when he gets tricked into pairing up with a pair of young girls in his party, Lillieka and Elsie, his power’s usefulness finally comes into play.

Alter Age gives preteens and grownups different roles to play in combat. In preteen form, you aren’t capable of doing as much damage (although MP costs are reduced by 40%, making them useful as cheap spellcasters or s of magic), but you accumulate Braver Hearts every turn. As a grownup, you do 20% more damage with skills, but you’ll do even greater damage as you expend Braver Hearts on your strikes. Only grownups can expend Braver Hearts to get that boost, so what you’ll be doing is swapping between forms to gain Braver Hearts until you have a bunch, then expending them as a grownup.

The kicker is that your party swaps ages in a very specific way. You have three characters, and every time Arga switches his age, both of the other characters will swap as well. This means that you’ll have either grownup Arga with preteen Lillieka and Elsie or a preteen Arga with two grownup women. This can make your overall damage output a bit lopsided depending on how many adults you have in the party at a given time and how many preteens you have charging up Braver Hearts. This isn’t a huge crisis during basic battles and many early boss fights, but the game’s late game fights, bonus dungeons, and higher difficulty levels can make you pay more attention to how this mechanic works.

Grinding for levels largely kept me safe (although there can be some surprising difficulty spikes if you start getting lazy about your combat actions) and Alter Age’s Bell items make that much easier to do. The game offers you some bells you can use that affect the frequency of combat as soon as you start the game. The Safe Bell lowers encounter rates significantly (and can drop them to 0 if you find a special place called a Mana Spot in the area). It’s not bad if you’re in a hurry, but the Encounter Bell was far more useful. With that equipped, you get in a fight every step you take, allowing you to rack up fights in a hurry. This allowed me to idly grind levels fairly quickly (and you gain levels pretty fast in the game), taking away some of the time sink needed if I wanted to get stronger or gain more money.

While I was seeing a lot of the combat system, I found it didn’t look too bad. The various pixel art creatures look decent and have some good designs. The characters also look pretty good in motion as well as they go through their various special attacks. They often leap into combat together as well when you enter a command for one of them, making things feel a bit more dynamic as everyone s in on the beatdowns. None of the designs of visual effects in combat left me truly floored, but it all looked solid when it came together. I had a good time beating on the monsters.

In towns and in dialogue, though, Alter Age is a bit flat and generic, which is a shame as I expected a lot more from the story given the ability to change the character’s ages. Much of the story feels filled with anime and fantasy tropes, making it all fairly dull to sift through. Changing the character ages does result in some slightly different dialogue options sometimes but a lot of the time it doesn’t do anything. The few times it does do something, it’s usually just a minor change in the dialogue or event. There are a few charming moments, but they're so far apart that it felt like a chore to look for them. I found myself begrudgingly trying the mechanic out in places only because I was playing the game for review; I would have stopped bothering with it had I been playing for my own benefit. It doesn’t have any bearing on the story so it’s really just a playful mechanic tossed into the game, but it feels like it was vastly underused.

The game tries to make up for its story being a bit uninteresting by giving you lots of reasons to tinker with its items and carry out actions in the game’s world. There are tons of items you can pick up that you can Synthesize with your equipment to make it stronger, as well as food items you can put together to make special meals to power up the party. You also get a suite of quests you can complete, most of which are basic in-game tasks, to get a constant stream of rewards as you play. You have a ton of these quests available without picking them up, so you just reap a bunch of rewards from playing the game and doing things. It creates a steady stream of benefits, and adds some extra appeal to fighting things, opening treasure chests, and talking with people.

Alter Age makes use of its age-swapping mechanic to add some spice to its combat, but unfortunately fails to use it to make its story any more interesting. It’s a decent RPG that has some good monsters to beat up using its systems, but its trope-filled storyline doesn’t grab the imagination or stir the heart. It’s a decent RPG that I wish had done just a little bit more with its premise, but as is, it still offers a bit of light entertainment.

Alter Age is available now on Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, and PC.

The post Alter Age Doesn’t Quite Get Full Use Out of its Age-Swapping Mechanic appeared first on Siliconera.

Dragon Takers is an RPG that is aggressively okay. The story is serviceable, but offers no surprises or interesting twists. The characters all feel like empty vessels that ramble on to one another as the story chugs along. The combat is acceptable and the ability-copying system, Skill Taker, doesn’t really add anything other than a magic spell system with a bit of legwork involved. The art is nice but doesn’t capture the imagination, and the music conveys the mood without impressing any hint of creativity upon the listener. If you need an RPG to play it will do the job, but that’s about it.

Helio is a young man who lives in village named Haven. He’s known for not having any Skills, and the entire town (save for a few people) treat him like garbage over it. He accepts this and doesn’t want anyone to make any trouble (although a pair of gorgeous women seem terribly upset about his plight even though no one else cares). His choice to be a doormat for these people is something I know is supposed to set him off on a journey of self-change as he gains confidence, but right out of the gate he seems dull and unlikeable. I know he’s had a hard life in this world, but he just didn’t seem like someone I wanted to spend hours and hours on an adventure with even if I suspected he’d change.

Naturally, things go south in Dragon Takers when the Dragon Army comes to town (a name that didn’t inspire me with any confidence in how creative the game’s story would be). Fighting breaks out as they have come for one of your lady friends, and the battles inspire the awakening of your ability to steal skills from monsters. Turns out you do have skills! You quickly use these to devastating effect on the enemies, and your other lady friend goes on and on about how amazing your new fire power is (and the whole copying skills thing). This all happens in a span of a few minutes, feeling like the whole story is rushing through Helio’s development and quickly setting him up to be great and strong.

RPGs, especially retro-looking ones, need strong characters and story to carry them through. Already, I’ve got a stereotypical self-loathing character who won’t stand up for themselves. Not interesting, but could lead to some compelling storylines. However, he gains superpowers within minutes, creating this sense that the game is railroading through their character arc (and they continue to do so). It all feels rushed, and while it’s written competently, nothing about this character’s story (or any of the other ones) feel like something new, interesting, or compelling. It’s not good, but it’s also not bad. It feels like it’s written to carry out an in-game purpose – to move you along a story track to the next gameplay beat - and that’s it. It washes over you. You know what’s happening, but none of it really connects with you.

The artwork for the characters probably should help this along, but it doesn’t. The game’s developers put in a lot of effort into some nice still pictures of the various characters, but there just aren’t many of these. You get the same handful of images of Helio, his pals, and his enemies making the same faces over and over and over again. Whether they’re chatting with buddies or screaming about loved ones in danger, it’s the same image used repeatedly. If Dragon Takers put a little emotion into these images then maybe I’d feel something, but as it stands I just felt no connection to the story or the characters at all.

This isn’t a game where the combat is going to make you forget the dull story, either. It’s a turn-based RPG where you select a variety of attacks from a menu to smack still images of various (and depressingly predictable) monsters. Outside of some visual flare with the swipes and plumes of fire or crackling electric attacks, there isn’t much for visuals in combat. While older RPGs have gotten away with this, they usually work in some sort of visual effect to imply damage. Even the original Dragon Quest gave a little satisfying screen shake when you got clocked to imply the weight of the hit. This game gives you nothing besides the visual of the strike effect to show you hit something.

You don’t even get an effect when the monster dies in Dragon Takers. They just disappear and aren’t there any more. I makes combat feel like I’m just selecting the correct button enough times until I am no longer in a combat situation. There’s no sense of power or effort in the combat to make it feel satisfying. It’s just something you do until you no longer have to do it.

You might think that the Skill Taker ability would add something fresh or exciting to the fights, but being able to steal enemy powers isn’t that exciting. To steal a power, all you have to do is hit an enemy with an ability a certain number of times and you get it. While there are a hundred of these, since combat doesn’t feel that interesting visually, all you get is a hundred different effects to juggle (and you have to equip them before combat – it’s not like you get a huge pool of useful abilities you can use all the time). And since you gain them by hitting creatures normally, it doesn’t feel like you gain the powers in an interesting way, either. It’s just a feature to say that there is something about this game that stands out.

Equipping the powers is more of a pain than it’s worth in Dragon Takers, too. You can equip abilities in the Skill menu, but instead of choosing one of your slots and then picking a power, you find yourself flicking through the powers while locked to the first slot unless you hit a specific non-directional button (X on my controller) to swap slots. It feels totally backwards. Likewise, you’re expected to equip things from your full inventory to a character instead of going into that character’s personal equipment and equipping things there. You can only really remove things while in the character’s equipment. It’s totally backwards and made putting on gear, the simplest thing in most games that has been done right for decades, into an irritating event.

While Dragon Takers is fine to play, nothing about it grabs the imagination or inspires you to keep going. It is a game that is inoffensive enough that you can get through it without much issue or without feeling angry about some frustrating elements, but there just isn’t anything here to make you want to play it. If you are absolutely desperate for a turn-based RPG and will play just about anything tolerable, this game will work. That’s unfortunately the nicest thing I can say about it, though.

Dragon Takers is available on the Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, iOS and Android devices, and PC.

The post Review: Dragon Takers Is an Inoffensive Turn-Based RPG appeared first on Siliconera.

Between its nostalgic art style and uniquely "free Japanese indie horror game" style of characterization, playing Matsuro Palette felt like taking a time machine back to the mid-to-late-2000s. Though the gameplay loop is simple enough, it truly shines with its bittersweet story. Considering its price point and how quickly you can play through the game, this is definitely something I recommend if you want something quick and easy to get through on a weekend.

In Matsuro Palette, you play as a painter who must finish painting a cursed portrait of a girl. You're not the first painter who’s been tasked with this project though. Several others have attempted to finish her painting, but they all died due to the subject’s violent temper. Drew an apple for her but didn’t peel it first? Bye. Drew something she wanted where she wanted, but used the wrong color? See you later. In order to satisfy the painting, the painter must rely on hints from both previous victims and the girl herself.

The game's divided into two main parts: exploration and painting. When the day starts, you must explore the various rooms for items to sketch. The interesting thing about Matsuro Palette is that the majority of the sketches are always in the background already. You just might not notice their significance until later. For example, one of the sketches you’ll need is a mirror and you’ve probably already seen said mirror during your previous explorations. It just never becomes important until later, when the girl wants you to include that in a painting. After deciding what you want to draw, as well as the order you want to draw it in, you need to pick a color. The color wheel spins through the air, requiring you to click it at the right timing. Fortunately, this isn’t the difficult part.

As a whole, the game takes about two to three hours to complete. This depends on how much trouble you might have with the painting’s requests. Two of the levels gave me some difficulty, especially since I misunderstood what the girl wanted from me. If you game over though, the game doesn’t force you to start over from the very beginning. It simply places you back at the painting with all of the sketches already in your inventory. Since a huge part of Matsuro Palette is collecting all of the different deaths, it makes sense that the game would be really nice to you. I tried to avoid guide usage for my review, but since Matsuro Palette has been out for years at this point, it’s not hard to find walkthroughs on YouTube or Japanese sites if you’re not sure how to proceed.

Considering the sheer number of deaths in the game, you might need to pull out a guide to complete the death gallery. There are over forty different types of death in this game, with a unique one for each way you can potentially tick off the girl. For example, I mentioned earlier that the girl gets mad at you if you present her an apple but you don’t peel it first. Your punishment for that lapse in judgment is her skinning you alive. The deaths aren’t very gruesome, visually speaking. This is because the person who dies in these endings looks like a chalk outline at a crime scene. So it shouldn’t be too difficult to look at, even if you’re not the biggest fan of gore.

While the gameplay loop is easy, painting the girl actually isn't the point of the game. The story is. I personally really enjoyed it. While I shouldn’t be surprised considering this is a cursed painting we’re talking about here, I was still a little taken aback by how sad the story became after you start to learn more about the painting’s past. After I beat the game and it kicked me back to the main menu, I had to sit there for a few minutes just kind of taking it all in. It really reminds me of similar older-looking indie Japanese horror games (think Ib, The Witch’s House) in that the game isn’t so difficult that you spend entire days on it, but the story will stay with you for much longer than you expect.

Speaking of retro horror games, the art style is reminiscent of Touhou Project, and this impression is accelerated by the girl's design. There’s something very charming about how simple it is; it’s not bad, but it looking like amateur fanart really adds to how unpolished the game feels. That is a compliment, not a complaint or criticism. I also really enjoyed the music, as well as the fact that the entire game is pretty much in monochrome. For the longest time, the only colors that appear are whatever you choose to place in the canvas. So getting to see more color as the story progresses had a lot more impact.

There is one thing about Matsuro Palette that I didn’t particularly like and it’s that the game occasionally kicked me back to the main menu after certain chapters. This is an intentional choice rather than a bug. It didn’t happen after every day, thankfully, but it did happen enough that it started to become grating to press a few extra buttons to get back into the atelier. I was wondering if Matsuro Palette had an episodic release, like Resident Evil: Revelations 2 did. But from my research, I don’t believe SleepingMuseum did that.

With a charming aesthetic that hearkens back to the mid-2000s and a gripping story, Matsuro Palette really surprised me with how much I liked it. It’s short and sweet, just difficult enough to provide a challenge, but easy enough that you can beat it in one day if you wish. While I don’t think I’d like a sequel of it, it did leave me wanting to see more between the painter and the girl.

Matsuro Palette, aka Death Palette, is readily available on the PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows PC, and mobile devices.

The post Review: Matsuro Palette Presents a Surprisingly Beautiful Story appeared first on Siliconera.

Back in 2023, KEMCO handled console versions of Thousand Games’ RPG Metro Quester, and it was pretty great! It was an unorthodox, post-apocalyptic game that really felt unique due to its approach. Metro Quester: Osaka, its sequel, isn’t really all that different, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s more of a good thing! This time, I’d even say it feels more welcoming to those who might be unsure how to approach it.

The world ended. Some remain, fighting against the monster, charting what’s left of the world, and searching for resources. In Metro Quester: Osaka, players find themselves in a new region of the decimated Japan. After selecting an initial squad of teammates, your warrior set out to scavenge and survive, perhaps also learning more about the region and finding more survivors as they do.

Did you like Metro Quester? I hope you did, because Metro Quester: Osaka is basically that same experience and elements! It’s just taking place in a new region of Japan. There are bodies of water you need to cross! Instead of 24 characters, you have 32! There are more monsters! More dungeon! Also, something I honestly appreciated, which is more tutorial and text. 

The original Metro Quester, as great as it is, ended up being an RPG with little text and background to it. Much of it is about the experience. You explore the region, uncover secrets, find resources, fight monsters, and survive. Metro Quester: Osaka has a little more story to it. The introduction is a bit meatier and does a better job of explaining gameplay elements. Plenty is still left to your imagination. Just it feels like there’s a little extra to it, which is appreciated. 

But for the most part, the gameplay is untouched. Which is fantastic, since it is so unusual and entertaining. You wander through the world, digging through more prone pieces of ground and testing walls to see if they’re solid, to chart what the new world looks like. As you do, you may find reliable search spots to potentially find food or resources. Maybe you’ll even be lucky enough to find new equipment, an extra ally, or another campsite. While your overall goal is to explore it all, your weekly one is to find 100 food so you can actually keep playing and stay alive. (Though if you want to move campsites, you need an additional 30 food to cover that move.) Since the areas are corrupted and polluted, you can only perform so many actions per each excursion and day. This prevents you from clearing all of the region in a run. Well that, and the monsters and monster nests can also appear both on land and, when you head in a canoe, in the waters around you.

Said fights don’t proceed like a typical turn-based KEMCO RPG, though there are those sorts of elements in Metro Quester: Osaka. You set your party of five’s actions before starting the battle. You need to take into resources and the amount of actions each one can perform. Then, you opt to start a battle and it plays out automatically in front of you. Everything you dictated people do? They do it! Just monsters also act between them, there are no stop gaps, and you have to hope your selections are sound and resources don’t run out. I did notice that between the initial entry and this one, both some ordinary enemies and bosses in the last third of the game might feel a little unreasonable due to the scale of attacks they’ll use. The equipment options you can acquire feel pretty strong and starting with the default “balanced” party does put you in a pretty strong starting position, from what I found. 

While getting to go through a new area with new class updates and additions with more equipment and enemies are all great things, there is one element that got to me once I was more established in the adventure. Metro Quester: Osaka improves on the original KEMCO and Thousand Games RPG in many ways, but I felt like the setting maybe wasn’t one of them. It’s interesting to make watery sections such a priority and so prolific! However, I think perhaps it’s more interesting in concept than execution. When I was faced with so much water, I didn’t find it as thrilling as my adventures on land. It just doesn’t end up being as interesting mechanically or visually. 

Still, Metro Quester: Osaka is an absolutely great game and follow-up to the original KEMCO and Thousand Games RPG. It maintains the same feeling of desperation as you strive to find resources. There’s the same thrill as you uncover new paths or helpful items. The battle system still feels really different and efficient. I highly recommend it and, if someone hasn’t played the original, might even say to play this entry if you only can pick up one of them.

Metro Quester: Osaka is available on the Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC. 

The post Review: Metro Quester: Osaka Is More of a Good Thing appeared first on Siliconera.

The thing about some of the Kemco RPGs that started out as mobile titles is that standard and versions tend to exist. The difference? You can pay to get bonuses from a season , access to some “cheats,” or other extras that might streamline the experience. This is the case of Astrune Academy, which started out in that fashion, before heading to platforms like the Switch for a paid fee. The thing is, these extra optional effects helped me enjoy it more than I expected. 

The premise behind Astrune Academy is that a number of young heroines named Elnatt, Mimosa, and Spica, are attending the academy mentioned in the title to develop their abilities. Because of certain circumstances regarding Elnatt transforming into a demon when she uses magic and instances, ones from different classes are all working together under the supervision of a professor named Sirius. Additional happenstances lead to Snow, another young sorceress, also ing the party. It ends up being a pretty typical JRPG romp. If you enjoy past Kemco and EXE Create RPGs, you know what you’re getting.

What I appreciated was how while the elements you can tell were present in the original free version can be obvious, it is very easy to either take advantage of them or ignore them. I mean, yes, you’ll see the exclamation marks in the in-game menu screaming you have unclaimed rewards or daily roulette spins available, but you don’t have to go for any of them. 

Of course, I did. I’m old. I play multiple games at a time for work. I like an occasional Kemco because they amuse me. I’m not above accepting a bonus if it helps me skip a little level-grinding. I’d take part in the daily roulette, since the bonuses there would help with character growth or would give me Star Stones for the other “paid” or “cheat” elements. When I managed to get the Meteor Prize of 300 Star Stones the first time, I invested in the MP Full Recovery Secret Room item. The second time it came around, I’d gotten enough stones from taking part in battles and accomplishing Missions (things you would normally do in the game) to pay for the . That unlocked bonuses and another Ice Spirit to use as a summon. 

The thing about it is that it also paired well with other quality of life features. You can speed up battles and turn on auto-battle. You can turn up your walking speed. There’s fast travel via standard methods and a “local warping” that lets you set one spot as a designated area. Before you head out into the world map for the first time, you get one pendant that greatly increases the encounter rate and another that eliminates them completely. 

All of this means that Astrune Academy ends up being sort of my convenient Kemco JRPG for when I want something mostly lighthearted and not too complex. I have the option of making it easier on myself, thanks to the Switch paid version offering all these means of taking advantage of past additions. There’s little to no stress on my part, and it makes it easier to enjoy the adventures of magical girls attempting to learn and do their best to help themselves and other people.

Astrune Academy is available on the Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PC, and mobile devices.

The post I Enjoyed Astrune Academy More Because of the Pay-to-Play Remnants appeared first on Siliconera.

An occasional KEMCO RPG can be a guilty pleasure of mine from time to time, and I’m always pleased when I find one that sometimes stands out a bit. While Knights of Greyfang might most attract attention from one character’s appearance, I appreciate it for its commitment to making its vampires sort of actually act like vampires.

There’s a fight between humans and monsters in Knights of Greyfang, a common theme for KEMCO RPGs. Except this time around, it isn’t ordinary humans fighting back against the monsters. In an attempt to fight back, the king of the humans gained the ability from their god to turn humans into vampires. Those who have that additional strength can tap into blood from other ordinary people to access greater skills. Now, of course that measure means monsters are now resorting to their own new means of escalating things. Which means Princess Leticia sets out alongside her vampire knight Lise and vampire sorcerer Mylene to save the day. 

So here’s the part I found interesting about Knights of Greyfang. The reason all main characters like Lise, Leticia, and Mylene are able to basically do their vampire thing is because the combat system actually lets them be vampires. This is because the other major character Thoma is a type of character called a Blooder. This is represented by a Blood Gauge that shows how his allies can feast on him to use special attacks. There’s still MP and all for regular sorts of skills, but the fact that there is this extra mechanic really enhances the experience.

This is especially evident once you start playing more and really unlock additional bats to improve your vampire characters and their Bloodthirst abilities. So because characters are tapping into Thoma and accepting their vampiric nature, you’re getting this additional wealth of power for attacking enemies. 

Also, I’m genuinely a fan of the character designs. There are a few that fall short, like Thoma’s. But even though the design for Lise is clearly pulling inspiration from Alear from Fire Emblem Engage, I honestly don’t mind the execution. It probably helps that the other primary heroines Leticia and Mylene and antagonists like Pasion and Adelina look more original and have equally strong character designs.

Knights of Greyfang is a typical sort of KEMCO RPG. It isn’t astonishingly different or reinventing the genre. However, it is entertaining and I appreciated how it handled the concept of vampires. Exe Create could have just said, “Everyone is vampires, and that’s how they use spells.” However, made it a practical mechanic that forces you to think, and I appreciate that.

Knights of Greyfang is available for the Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PC, and mobile devices.

The post KEMCO’s Knights of Greyfang Offers an Interesting Take on Vampires appeared first on Siliconera.

KEMCO RPGs can get a bad rap sometimes, due to things like how often they come up, how some look like they’re made with RPG Maker software, and a few being titles that rely heavily on JRPG tropes. Metro Quester, a KEMCO title developed by Thousand Games, is something rather unique, and it’s one of the most special games from the company I’ve played.

Going into Metro Quester, it’s important to note that it isn’t a typical “save the world” JRPG. It isn’t bright and colorful, filled with NPCs and towns. It’s a far more streamlined and driven experience. The world basically ended, with people heading into the ruins of Tokyo to search for food and resources as long as the Purification Fuel will allow them to explore down in this new “dungeon” with the monsters. You’ll go in knowing you need to get 100 fuel each week to keep going, checking established food cites and moving to discovered campsites in places like Otemachi and Ginza, and surviving monster encounters until you’re forced to return to camp, regroup, and try again.

To help enforce the fact that circumstances are dire, the only color comes from the characters themselves. Each one is based on art from Bastard creator Kazushi Hagiwara. Their equipment and role determines their skills. The action points for each action determine which can be used in battle, since you can only set up to five points worth of actions and each ability can only be used once. You can only level up when at an established camp after having earned enough experience during a run and if you have enough resources.

The Action Points and battle system is fascinating. So say my Mobile Police Gotz could use the Stronghold ability for two points to raise everyone’s defense by one, his Kicking Mitt shield has a one point Iron Wall action to raise his defense by two, and I could have him use Vanguard for one AP to draw enemies’ Hate and be more likely targeted that round. That s for all his actions one turn. You set all actions before any turn begins, which means you could essentially set an auto-battle for an entire fight. Once everyone’s up-to-three actions are locked in, you start the round and watch as it all plays out without further input. Since some people, like the Professor with bombs that require energy loading, batteries, and explosives, and the Buddhist that needs medicines for the three-action-point healing prayer, require adjusted actions each turn, it does become about strategy and choosing when to act.

Every adventure starts in Tokyo, with the mandate that you need to get 100 food within seven days to keep going. You then explore a completely uncharted dungeon, with areas revealing themselves as you walk up to them. Some are dirt-covered patches, which you can dig through. You may find ruins with food or monster nests with food, items, or additional monsters. Keys can come up as you explore, allowing you to open doors to new parts of ruins. Happening upon campgrounds allows you to sacrifice some food to move your base camp hub, so you can start from that spot next time to reach new areas. Fighting monsters drops food, and getting to new locations may mean extra resources. 

It means that every time you head into Metro Quester, you’re making the sorts of decisions you might not normally encounter in KEMCO RPGs or JRPGs. Do you go to established spots where you found food before or chart new areas? That enemy icon is red, showing it’s a stronger and more dangerous one than a blue one. Do you approach it? Do you go to a different camp or stay where you are? If you happened to find new weapons, do you equip them or use them to modify some other piece of equipment you’re using because you appreciate its skills? I constantly asked myself exactly how comfortable I was pushing my limits each time.

Also, there’s a satisfying challenge in Metro Quester that isn’t present in some of the other KEMCO RPGs I’ve played. It gives me the same sense of satisfaction as Dungeon Encountersand Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection, two other “demanding” Switch games I love. Especially since the game auto-saves. You can’t undo your decisions. You have to live with your choices and hope you made the right ones that won’t result in you eventually failing because you weren’t properly managing your resources, equipment, and time. 

If someone does like other KEMCO RPGs and JRPGs that are more story-focused though, Metro Quester probably won’t be a good fit. You aren’t getting to really know your party of characters and dealing with established individuals as you go through a rich story. This is about survival. It’s about making your party and characters your own as you determine which equipment makes them most effective, who will be the most useful on your runs, and decide which people need to be with you or left behind. 

If someone were to ask me which KEMCO games to play, Metro Quester would not just be on that list. It would absolutely be somewhere near the top of it. While the nature of it means it isn’t going to be for everyone who typically goes for every KEMCO RPG, it’s a really special and challenging experience that makes you think about all your actions.

Metro Quester is available on the Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. Quester is available on the PC via Steam.  

The post Review: Metro Quester Is One of the Most Special KEMCO RPGs appeared first on Siliconera.

One of the hidden secrets in the tactical world is the Mercenaries Saga series. Rideon’s been quietly becoming adept at enjoyable strategy games that don’t always look all that different than something like a Final Fantasy Tactics, letting players have fun obsessing over character classes and building armies. Cross Tails, from Rideon and KEMCO, keeps that same kind of vibe while also attempting to inject a bit more story into things. While the characterizations and motivations aren’t enthralling, the gameplay can be.

What’s a nice bonus and different from many of Rideon’s Mercenaries strategy games is Cross Tails features two stories. You can either follow Shaimaa from the Republic of Hidiq cat-people faction or Felix from the Kingdom of Ranverfurt dog-people one. Both offer a different take on an ongoing war between the two sides. It’s pretty rudimentary and quickly sets up that something’s going on to try and encourage further conflict. Also, while the opportunity to choose a side is there, it didn’t feel too different.
[caption id="attachment_974063" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image via KEMCO and Rideon[/caption]
The story and characters are generally fine, if a bit bland, but it’s the battle and class system that makes Cross Tails special. To start, there’s a pretty interesting class system, which lets you unlock and upgrade skills from a tree. Doing so grants you access to new abilities and ives. Money is tied to this, so even if you haven’t been using someone, you can still invest in them to make them more valuable when they are deployed. This also makes it easier to rearrange and reclass folks, as it means all you need to do is go through some mainline or optional fights to better tailor your crew to your needs. Since there are 24 classes, including unique ones, and sub classes, as well as a “Faith” system that lets you choose which stat-influencing god they serve, there’s tons of customization.

Maps are generally pretty fun, and the balance is good. Fights are challenging, with opponents after the first few introductory chapters starting to pose an actual threat. Each location tends to have an array of heights, allowing ranged units like archers or mages to find higher ground or tank-ier heavy knight to guard chokeholds. This is combined with an aggression system. Using certain actions, which includes ive ones like healing an ally, will cause your enemies to “hate” and be more likely to target you. Which means you need to consider who you send out and make sure there are more well-built warriors who can take a hit and be more annoying to keep other units under the radar.
[caption id="attachment_974064" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image via KEMCO and Rideon[/caption]
There’s also an incentive to return and replay Cross Tails if you find yourself enjoying it. In chapter 16 you can make a choice, but the second option only comes up after beating it once. That offers an entirely new storyline, which also leads to new maps and challenges. Since the battles are the best part, it’s quite a bonus. I didn’t get a chance to finish my second run, as I only went back and into Felix’s story.

Cross Tails is a strategy game that’s all about making the battles and class system enjoyable. Some of the maps can offer some great points to take advantage of and places to defend. The classes are pretty fun to explore, and I loved going through additional optional battles to earn so I could get extra skills to better round characters out. It’s a case where if you enjoy Rideon’s work, this KEMCO strategy game is worth picking up.

Cross Tails is available on the PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC. While there’s no Switch demo, the PC version’s demo lets you play through Shaimaa’s storyline until chapter 6.

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While most people will hear KEMCO and think, “that’s the company focusing on RPGs,” it isn’t entirely accurate. It also publishes titles from different genres. The Smile Alchemist is more of a simulation akin to the Atelier series, albeit a bit more simplistic. You can see the mobile-like elements, from energy requirements to the Wish Stone currency you earn for unlockables. It also isn’t terribly meaty. However, the cheerful character designs and hits of instant gratification that come from getting items, turning them into different items via alchemy, then turning those in to fill quests for rewards or get money so you can repeat the loop can be satisfying.

The Smile Alchemist stars a young boy named Nayc. He’s terrible at alchemy, but determined to become an alchemist. So his teacher gives him a pair of glasses that vastly increase his odds of success. After finally completing his first synthesis, via a staged scenario with the town’s mayor to make creating some simple medicine become more harrowing, you’re essentially left to your own devices. You can pursue the main story’s brief episodes, go through short side stories, or simply stay in Nayc’s little hub, endlessly grinding to earn materials and areas, buy new books, sell more products, and continually unlock more in that aforementioned loop.

In case you probably didn’t guess, that’s what I did for a shockingly long time. While it is 100% advised to go through the story, I got caught up in the pattern of gathering, creating, selling or completing requests, so I could then get more recipes, gather at hopefully new areas, create maybe different things, and sell those items. It’s catchy! Not always entirely optimized, in some ways. I hated holding down the action button to synthesize every time, and gathering could be more efficient since it means alternating between occasionally cheering and… holding a button while moving the joystick. But still, I fell hard and general enjoyed myself.

The Smile Alchemist also offers quite a pleasant aesthetic. There are some awkward localizations and times when you’ll see things like an area can unlock after “chapter chapter 2,” but the general concept is charming. Some dialogue still comes through as rather charming. Especially when larger fonts are suddenly used in conversations to emphasize tone and importance. The character designs are great, and I’m a big fan of the sprite work used throughout. This isn’t like some of these smaller games where the people you see tend to look alike. Everyone is distinctive and has personality. So even if it does get a bit rough, the heart helps endear it to the person playing.

The thing about it is that The Smile Alchemist is an incredibly rudimentary affair. Everything about it feels enthusiastic, and sometimes even vibrant. But then once you complete the same tasks fifteen times in a row in an hour, it really loses its appear. It’s clearly intended to be played in sessions no longer than 15-30 minutes at a time, as exemplified by the length of story segments. They’re often more like interludes than proper Any longer — say for the purposes of a review such as this — and the veneer wears thin. It’s almost like the stamina system isn’t there as a mobile trapping, but rather to encourage you to only play briefly, then go off and do something else.

There’s something appealing about that. I really appreciated The Smile Alchemist being I could play for a few minutes to get that boost of positivity, then completely step away knowing it’s fine and I don’t need to get too invested. It can get repetitive and the localization is a little rough, but it has heart. It’s like what if we distilled what made an alchemist simulation down to its most base qualities, ensured it was completely colorful, and rolled with it? The result is this, and it’s a delightful diversion in small doses.

The Smile Alchemist is available on the Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC. It originally appeared on mobile devices in Japan.

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Fans of golf RPGs? We’ve had a tough time of it lately. Recent Mario Golf entries have failed to deliver the depth of the Game Boy gems. The sequel to indie hit Golf Story, Sports Story? It’s on the way, we hear, but not as quickly as fans would want. So if you like this particular combination, you may be seeking out a stopgap.

So is RPGolf Legends what you’re wanting?

The answer is somewhat complicated. For sure, it’s a golf RPG. It even starts you out in your house with two books explaining what golf and RPGs are. But the balance between the two? It’s different from what you’re used to playing. For one, it’s not always an RPG with golf mechanics. A lot of your play time is a more traditional action-RPG, fighting and dodging foes with attacks that just happen to be using golf clubs.

A lot of your enjoyment of RPGolf Legends is going to be dependent on your tolerance for low-budget development. Legends is actually the second game in the franchise, so there’s more polish here than you’d expect in this repeat attempt! But that first release was a mobile game, and Legends is the developer’s effort to expand it to a console-quality title.

That budget feel really starts to take hits on your fun when it comes to the mechanics of each mode. Golf games are heavily reliant on their controls, as well as the nuances of the courses themselves. RPGolf Legends uses a quick, two-part meter, and it’s really quite forgiving. Rather than any sort of traditional golf setup, it takes the Golf Story approach and just aims from the same top-down view as the rest of the game. And the holes? They’re flat and without the rolling hills and challenge of the best golf titles. It works okay, but it doesn’t really grab you.

Similarly, the action-RPG part? It’s quite generic. You just stick and move, with a charge attack that you can change as the game progresses. It wants to feel more like a Secret of Mana setup, with carefully timed strikes instead of just spamming the attack button. You can largely avoid enemies when you really want, but fetch quests and resource crafting have you seeking out fights against specific foes. Again, it works! And it’s one of those things. If one of the two were really engaging, the other being generic would be a lot more forgivable.

The writing in RPGolf Legends is incredibly on-the-nose. Your companion, a magical golf club, does a lot of the talking for you. And it talks about how it’s a game and you have meters and inventory. Immersion ain’t the goal here. To be fair, it works? In that you always know what you need to do. RPGs can get confusing with systems and quests and such, but the combination of a com pointing you to your next goal and the golf club just telling you stuff clears that right up. There isn’t a lot of challenge, as a result, but it is what it is.

Visually, developer ArticNet handled things well. Small-team RPGs can often feel cheap and disted visually, but the style here is cohesive. It’s reminiscent of Stardew Valley, bridging the gap between old-school pixel art and more modern approaches to text boxes and interfaces.

Ultimately, RPGolf Legends could be a suitable distraction for those who have been waiting too long for a game like Sports Story. It’s forgettably pleasant and largely inoffensive, a stopgap for those who need it. If ArticNet continues to work on the franchise, we’d really like to see a focus on mechanical depth in the next installment.

RPGolf Legends is developed by ArticNet and published by Kemco. It releases January 20, 2022 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and PC.

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Raging Loop is coming full circle, as the Android version is finally getting an English launch six years after its 2015 Japanese debut. Kemco announced people can now pre- for the visual novel on Google Play. Keep in mind that this won’t be a free-to-play game when it launches.

Raging Loop is, like Among Us, Gnosia, Mafia, and Werewolf, one of those games where enemies are hidden among innocent people. People follow Haruaki Fusaishi as he finds himself trapped in Yasumizu, a town plagued by a terrible tradition. The Feast of the Yomi-Purge makes certain villagers “wolves” who will kill the innocent. Haruaki gets stuck in a time loop after he dies, giving him a chance to learn more about the event by taking on different roles.

While Raging Loop is only just about to get its English Android release worldwide, it already appeared on multiple platforms here. It first showed up on the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in English in 2019. Then, later that same year, it wound up on PCs as well.

Raging Loop will come to Android devices outside Japan, and people can pre- to play it now. It is available on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC worldwide and on the Switch, PS4, Vita, PC, and mobile devices in Japan.

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Throughout my history with games if there is one type I will always cling to, it’s the life sim. Regardless of the plot or context, I’m a sucker for games that allow me to live a simple, if not monotonous, life. As a dungeon-crawler and adventure game, Rideon and Kemco's Blacksmith of the Sand Kingdom doesn’t directly fall into that category, but it still managed to scratch the simulation itch I’ve been feeling lately.

The story behind Blacksmith of the Sand Kingdom isn’t extremely deep, nor is it incredibly new or revolutionary. The protagonist, Volker, has dreams of becoming an adventurer, but also feels the obligation to honor his father by becoming a renowned blacksmith. The game simply says, “Why not both?” It’s the tried and true story of an ambitious youth with lofty goals, working hard to find success and making friends along the way. It isn’t particularly grabbing, but serves as a decent enough backdrop for the main gameplay elements.

Characters are given the same treatment as the plot of the game. While character art and designs are unique and frankly beautiful, I didn’t find myself forming any attachments towards them or their involvement in the story. Once again, it’s all a setpiece that simply allows for gameplay progression. Characters that are introduced serve a purpose; they feed you, heal you, assign guild quests and give small bits of lore from time to time. Despite each one having a backstory, complete with small world building moments and connections to the protagonist, there didn’t seem to be much depth to them.

The game loop is as simple as the narrative, but in that case it works. New mechanics are laid out rather plainly and, despite being introduced to nearly every aspect of the game at once, it was easy to pick up. The central town hub has all the essentials, like a tavern to fill up on food and gain quick levels and an infirmary to restore HP and MP. It has all the routine elements. Dungeons in Blacksmith of the Sand Kingdom are large areas broken into smaller areas that you just move through. They contain raw materials as well as mobs that drop items needed for crafting and guild requests. There isn’t much in this area and fights become rather repetitive without much payoff. Dungeons do become more interesting and strategic as new areas are unlocked, but that general feeling from the first dungeon never fades.

As for my time in the game, I really took advantage of the item management system. Despite the numerous requests available, I spent a majority of my first few hours in the game exploring the same dungeon to gather materials for my store. While the game never evolves from its original state, I found a lot of joy in the basic routine it sets up. The game didn’t punish me for this either. It took awhile for me to feel pressure to progress in the game but even then my motivation was still to open up new crafting options for the store.

It was surprising to realize just how sweet and heartwarming Blacksmith of the Sand Kingdom could be. Somehow ending each day by making gear and tools for the store and watching them all sell out was more immersive than the bits of character dialogue in the game. Whether a play session lasted an hour or five, I had a lot of fun in this game but that was only because I accepted the monotony of the gameplay loop and took my time enjoying the simplicity of it.

Blacksmith of the Sand Kingdom is available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and mobile devices.

The post Blacksmith of the Sand Kingdom is a Dungeon Crawler with Heart appeared first on Siliconera.

Kemco will always have a special place in my heart as developer of one of the strangest Batman games ever made, Batman: Dark Tomorrow. But recently, that little corner of my precious blood-pumper has been expanded. It’s like a full closet now! That’s because Kemco has been pumping out these fun, little JRPGs that are all over the place, but consistently fascinating. The latest of those is Miden Tower, a game that starts with a grim tone and quickly gets weird, to say the least. But while it’s gimmicky, quirky charm does a lot, what’s really neat about Miden Tower is its ives-driven combat system.

Kemco’s JRPG line is obviously low-budget, but what these games all lack in polish and pretense, they more than make up for in strangeness and systemic curiosity. Each game seems to take familiar concepts such as monster collecting or job systems, then ask questions about those frameworks. That’s exactly the case here with Exe-Create’s Miden Tower, a relatively straightforward JRPG experience. While you as a player don’t have a remarkable influence in moment-to-moment combat, you do get to build a library of ive skills that ricochet off each other in a way that’s weirdly satisfying.

Also yes, there’s a wall lady. We covered this when Miden Tower was announced, but the most surface level weirdness is its character who is literally a section of castle wall with stubby limbs and cute anime girl eyes. I ended up a bit disappointed there, because what could have been a really great bit ended up taking a backseat to almost everything else, and the wall lady immediately transformed into a more proper waifu-maiden type. There are a few good ongoing gags (she forgets to transform into waifu mode and falls over a lot), but the wall stuff really only comes into meaningful play in combat. And that’s part of what makes the ive systems work so well.

The ive skills you use in Miden Tower are almost SaGa-like in some ways, namely that a lot of them trigger seemingly at random (although most have specific unlock conditions), and after that they grow stronger with use. While many of them are just things like “more fire damage,” several of them end up being synergistic follow-up attacks that can start really chaining together once you get enough for them to ping-pong off each other. What’s especially helpful is Leila’s power set, which sees her summon little mini wall golems to help the party.

Since everyone in your group stands on a 3x3 grid, you can choose how to place everyone and make use of things like AoE buffs to turn your standard motley JRPG crew into a small army of anime weirdos and sentient brick people. Once all the ives start popping off, even simple attack commands can turn into big chain combos with all kinds of numbers and characters flying around the screen. You don’t have a ton of direct control over this stuff either, so you never quite have a full grasp of how much activity will follow each choice you make. It’s super novel!

Even when Kemco and its stable of renegade JRPG developers get weird, it doesn’t end up being that weird. Miden Tower is presented as a game with a literal wall for a ing heroine, but it’s taken more at face value than you might expect in the actual story. But while you can’t shake off the generic-feeling JRPG tone vibe, these games never fail to have some intriguing, novel mechanical quirks. Miden Tower is pretty straightforward, but it has a peculiar interest in synergy through ive skills that make each combat encounter feel exciting. While the menus and information tied to this stuff can be fumbly and awkward, seeing things bounce around and connect together after you make your standard turn-based tactical choices is a lot of fun. Miden Tower isn’t as visually impressive as the previous Kemco romp, but it still manages to make its mark among its many siblings.

Miden Tower is currently available on the Xbox One and the PC.

The post Miden Tower Is a Strange JRPG Driven by ive Skills appeared first on Siliconera.

The next Kemco RPG to head to the Xbox One and PC has been revealed, and it seems like it has some really strong structures in place. Miden Tower will head to both platforms, following its mobile debut, on April 30, 2020. Get ready to build up some bonds, literally, as its lead heroine is literally a wall.

In Miden Tower, one of the characters players will meet is Leila. She’s a Magika and dubbed a “Wall Maiden.” This means that part of the time, she’ll be an anthropomorphic wall with eyes, a mouth, arms, and legs. She exists because the lead character, Valen, summons her to save his life.

The official page for the latest Kemco RPG shows what life is like for Leila as a wall. In battles, she can protect players and summon little baby walls, called Brickettes, as allies. If you equip her with new bricks, she’ll gain new abilities and skills. There will also be times when she can merge with walls in other buildings to spy and advance the plot. A screenshot shows her blending in seamlessly, with only her eyes giving her location away.

Here’s, well, a screenshot showing how you actually manage to equip a character who is a wall in a game. The two bricks shown here give her the Impel and Twin Ray abilities, and you can see the range of these two spells when you equip them.

Here’s a trailer for this Kemco RPG. As you can see in multiple gameplay clips, Leila is really, 100%, totally a wall. (Oh, and there are other, normal characters too.)

Other recent Kemco RPGs include Monster Viator, which draws inspiration from Dragon Quest Monsters sorts of games, and Frane: Dragon’s Odyssey.

Miden Tower will come to the Xbox One and PC on April 30, 2020 for $14.99. It is immediately available on Android and Apple iOS devices for $7.99.

The post The New Kemco RPG’s Lead Heroine Is a Wall appeared first on Siliconera.

Kemco has announced that rom-com visual novel Death March Love Comedy will be coming to the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Windows PC in Japan on June 25, 2020 for ¥3,000 (roughly $28). However, only PlayStation 4 owners will have the option of getting a physical edition, which will cost ¥3,666 (roughly $34).

[embed]https://twitter.com/KEMCO_OFFICIAL/status/1235752882521030656[/embed]

Death March Love Comedy is a visual novel that is all about love. Really, it’s a visual novel about avoiding falling in love, all while trying to solve various mysteries in your school. You play as Kei Yagi, a transfer student who’s desperate to avoid love confessions. Why? Because if Kei is confessed to, he'll explode and die. However, he quickly falls into a love triangle with two girls, meaning that an explosion could happen at any moment.

Its new editions will be receiving all new graphics and quality of life upgrades. One major upgrade will help make decision making less punishing. Death March Love Comedy will utilize Raging Loop’s dynamic scenario chart, allowing players to easily explore the story’s dialogue decisions without having to save after every decision. 

Additionally, the physical edition of Death March Love Comedy will come with two bonus postcards. One will be a collaboration with Raging Loop and feature Haruaki Fusaishi. This is because it is actually a sister game to Raging Loop, which released outside of Japan in 2019.

Previously, Death March Love Comedy was a smartphone game for Android and Apple iOS device. It was eventually ported to the Wii U in Japan. 

Death Match Love Comedy will be about 30 hours long and will launch on June 25, 2020 in Japan for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Windows PC via Steam. Currently, there’s no word on if it could be localized.

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