City Building

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes – Spiritual Successor to Suikoden By Original Suikoden Developers Has Appeared On Kickstarter And Already Reached Its Funding Goal

Game News, News, Retro Game, RPG / By
http://kck.st/3f4nT43

And yes, it will be in English – among many other languages. The catch is you’ll have to wait 2 and a half years for it to be released.

With 31 days left of their kickstarter campaign, Eiyuden Chronicle Hundred Heroes has already achieved its funding goal. You can help fund the game and get a digital copy when it is released for just $38. For $90 you can get Beta Access to the PC version and a physical copy for your platform of choice.

I chose to back this project – for just the digital copy – I won’t be able to provide any insights as to the Beta – but I definitely had to back this one. Suikoden is one of my favorite game series. And this is basically Suikoden with a different name because probably I assume that Konami owns the Suikoden name. read more

Animal Crossing New Horizons Review

Animals, Casual Game, Dressup Games, Farming Simulation, Game Review, In Game Events, Kawaii Cute, Kawaii Review, Life Sim, Nintendo Switch, Review, Simulation, Videogame / By

I picked up Animal Crossing New Horizons on its launch day, and I’m still playing it today. I don’t care how you play or choose to enjoy Animal Crossing but this is my little Animal Crossing story… It’s a deeply personal story actually…

I have played every Animal Crossing game ever since the first one – at least those that were brought over for American Gamers stateside that is.

I like the relaxing gameplay, and I play many similar games such as Harvest Moon, Atelier, and Rune Factory, just to name a few. Other similar games include the Sims, “Tycoon” type games, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Sim City, Zoo Tycoon, and indie games like Terraria or Stardew Valley, or taking it back old school style with Azure Dreams. Or Zelda Breath of the Wild other open world PC games like Elder Scrolls or Fallout Or Red Dead Or … Basically any type of semi open world game that allows you to craft or farm or build a village or customize things in kinda a never ending kinda almost aimless type of gameplay… read more

Nelke Legendary Alchemists

Nelke & The Legendary Alchemists Ateliers Of The New World PC Game Review

Anime, Casual Game, City Building, Crossover, Fantasy, Farming Simulation, Game Review, Kawaii Cute, Kawaii Review, Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Switch, Otome Game, PC, PC Gaming, Playstation 4, Retro Game, Review, RPG, Shoujo, Shoujo, Simulation, Sony, Videogame / By

Nelke & The Legendary Alchemists Ateliers Of The New World
Nelke & The Legendary Alchemists Ateliers Of The New World

Nelke & The Legendary Alchemists Ateliers Of The New World is a brand new game by Koei Tecmo Games to celebrate 20 years of the series. Wow has it been that long already? I still remember the first 2 games way back when. And you know what else I remember, a little-known Nintnedo DS offshoot game in the Atelier Series called Atelier Annie: Alchemists of Sera Island which came out about 10 years ago.

So why Am I mentioning Atelier Annie? Because, if you’ve ever played it, then you know what to expect from Nelke & The Legendary Alchemists. Both games are unlike any of the rest of the Atelier Games, and instead put you in a role of managing a city and completing missions to advance.

Nelke has some really negative reviews – at least on Steam, but I purchased Nelke anyways, on a hunch it’d be like Atelier Annie, and you know what, I’m not disappointed. If you liked Annie, you’ll like Nelke. Conversely, if you hated Annie, you’ll hate Nelke, and if you’ve never played either game, well there’s only one way to find out then, and that’s by giving it a go for yourself.

The reviews on steam are complaining how different Nelke is — and to some — how boring it is… But honestly Atelier Annie was one of my favorites in the series. I loved the humorous story / humorous main character, and yes, I enjoyed the more “Sim Like” gameplay of building a city.

Nelke is not without flaws however; Unlike Annie, it lacks the humor and charm, and feels a bit dry and dull so far in the story. I’m 4 hours in at this point… which brings to another flaw, in that 4 hours in, I’m still in the tutorial… This game is very very very linear in the tutorial… Like almost everything will be on lockdown… for a long while… expect your first 8+ hours to be linear AF….

After that though there really is a TON of stuff to do in this game. It is NOT boring at all. You can craft items, gather materials, build new buildings, talk to your villagers, discover new recipes, sell items in your shops, and invest in new routes and tools to use in your adventures. There are simplistic turn based combats and different characters to recruit to your village.

You have to complete some required, and other optional tasks within a set number of days within the game. This can make it difficult and frustrating, so save often and in multiple save slots to try to minimize time lost if you miss a goal.

The game either runs slow on my laptop, or just is really slow by design, to the point where its a little frustrating. It may just be my laptop though and can probably be improved if I adjust some settings.

The main complaint a lot of people have is that while exploring you do nothing but watch your characters walk by on the screen. They will converse, gather items, and occasionally run into random enemy encounters. The battles are also slow and tedious. I do agree with these basic gameplay flaws. However, they don’t detract from my overall enjoyment of the other aspects of city building and mission completing and watching my city grow and evolve based on my decisions and choices made in where to invest and what to build next, etc.

The graphics are insanely adorable as always with the Atelier series.

Unlike a lot of the other games in the Atelier Universe, this one does not have English voice acting. I do like to have the original voice actors, but I also sometimes like to have an English cast too. I was disappointed they didn’t offer both.

I assume replay value is high because each city you build will be pretty unique and you will attract different stores, different npcs, and different quests based on how your city is developing.

All and all I’d rate the score card like this:

Title: Nelke & The Legendary Alchemists – Ateliers Of The New World –

Platform – (for this review The PC version was used.) It’s also available on PS4 and Nintendo Switch.

Where to Purchase: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FMZZYK1?tag=amz-mkt-chr-us-20&ascsubtag=1ba00-01000-org00-win10-other-nomod-us000-pcomp-feature-scomp-wm-5&ref=aa_scomp

Geeky: 3/5 – Points for bringing back some of the popular characters from this series over the past 20 years.

Sweetie: 5/5 – For the casual gameplay and kawaii art

Overall: 53/70 78% C+ “Good Game For Girls”

Gameplay: 7/10 – I do love the sim aspects, having been a huge fan of Atelier Annie (easily one of my top 3 games in the Atelier universe). But I do agree that the game is slow and the wait for the payoff/reward is pretty steep. The game also doesn’t run great, can’t tell if it’s just my PC though maybe.

Story: 3/10 – I’m not loving the story, or lack there of. I’m 4 hours in and there’s not much of any story to be found; it does keep hinting at solving a mystery about a fruit from a legendary tree. But compared to other Atelier games the story feels less engaging so far.

Characters: 10/10 – I love seeing popular characters from the Atelier games return all in a brand new game. I also love the new characters that were created just for this game.

Voice Acting: 7/10 – The original Japanese voice cast does a great job and sounds super cute, but where’s the dual English voice acting? A bit disappointing especially for a 20th anniversary edition, you’d think they would have put a little more time and effort into the localization on this one. It feels cheap and rushed to not have both to choose from.

Music: 10/10 – Always love the music in the Atelier games, and Nelke doesn’t disappoint here either.

Replay Value: 8/10 – I think replay value will be very high, but I’m not looking forward to dredging through 5+ hours of linear handheld tutorials each time.

Overall: 53/70 78% C+ “Good Game For Girls”

Overall I would recommend this game to anyone who does not mind slower paced casual simulation games, or to anyone who remembers playing Atelier Annie on the DS. I like Atelier Annie a lil bit more because of the humorous story; but Nelke’s story may pick up and become more interesting. I may come in eventually and update my review scores if I find the story to improve as I get further into the game. Gameplay wise though it is almost identical to Atelier Annie, so if that’s your thing, be sure to check Nelke out.

Gree Animal Days

Gree Animal Days Mobile Game Graveyard Review

Animals, Anime, anthromorphic, Casual Game, City Building, Collectibles, Dating Sim, Featured, Free Game, furries, Game Review, Kawaii Cute, Kawaii Review, Life Sim, Mobile Game, Online Gaming, Raising Sim, Retro Game, Review, Simulation, Slice of Life, Videogame / By

Gree Animal Days was my all time favorite mobile game.

Be warned, before reading this review; the game was shut down several years ago.

There are lots of articles available online pointing to why the game failed. But largely, from what I read, the developers over promised and under estimated how difficult it would be to maintain their production schedules for new content and features which ultimately led to them shutting down the game as they could no longer maintain it.

There were not many games like Gree Animal Days at the time available in the android or IOS app stores.

It was kinda like animal crossing, but it also had breeding, city building, dating sim, and other aspects that made it, in my opinion, more fun than even the newly released Animal Crossing Pocket Camp game (which I also reviewed here).

It also shared lots in common with Happy Street which for quite some time filled the “need” for an animal crossing like game available on mobile devices.

But the ability to breed and recruit new animals to your town really set Gree Animal Days apart from the rest. And still to this day, I’ve not found any other games quite as fun as this.

Check out the trailer below:

Here’s a look at some of the features of Gree Animal Days:

Information taken from Game Faqs

Animal Days is recommended for anyone who:- Likes animals- Wants to raise animals- Likes games where you make your own town or village- Wants to try a game where you help raise villagers- Likes simulation games- Wants to try a game with romantic side

Make the most fantastic city in the world in a hidden forest with your animal friends!

Start romances with the animals in your friends town!

Animals fall in love, get married, and have cute animal children!

Get as many animals as you can, and make a bustling animal town!

Make a town in the forest with cute animal friends! In this game you will work together with cute animals to make a fantastic town. Find all types of animals and collect buildings to make a unique town with your cute animal friends!

Romance

Your animals and your friends’ animals will have romances and make children. Start romances with different animals to get new animals that will live in your town.

Buildings

In the middle of the forest near your town lies the Mysterious Pond. You can get free, cute Decorations and Houses from the Mysterious Pond every day! Decorate your town with your favorite buildings and develop your town into the best that it can be!

Animals

Build Houses and start romances to increase the number of animals that live in your town! There are over 100 animals, all with unique personalities! Your favorite animal is waiting for you! You will find Dogs, Cats, Rabbits, Penguins, Mice, and more!

Dilemmas

The animals experience all sorts of Dilemmas. If you help solve their Dilemmas, they will give you items and special buildings, so solve as many as you can and expand your town!

Score Card:

Title: Gree Animal Days

Publisher: Gree

Where to Get: No Longer Available

Platform: Formerly available on Android and IOS

Price: Free

Genre: Casual, City Building, Life Simulation, Dating Sim

Overall: 38/50 76% C – Good Game for Girls

Breakdown:

Geeky: 3/5 – with over 100 animals, and over 300 buildings available at launch, Gree Animal Days was a hugely ambitious project that offered hours of gameplay and innovative fun mechanics in a well polished package. However poor management eventually led to the downfall of this great game. The devs were not prepared to handle the success of this game.

Sweetie: 5/5 – The cute characters and interesting marriage and breeding aspects really set this game apart as a great game for girls.

Gameplay: 10/10 This app offered so much to do! with hundreds of buildings and animals to collect, as well as the ability to date and breed with your friends’ animals too. These features are severely missed as no other cute animal city building game has yet to replicate this unique gaming experience.

Story: 3/10 – There was a loose story about rebuilding a run down village, but it was not terribly interesting. Then again neither are the stories in Animal Crossing games, so it’s about on par with that series there.

Characters:  10/10 – The characters are so cute. Each one had unique personalities and appearances. With over 100 characters at launch and more added in updates, there were a lot of cute characters to collect!

Graphics: 5/5 – This game looked great for the time it was released. It looks similar to even newer apps such as Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and Happy Street. Each character and building was unique, which is part of the game’s downfall as they had to create so many assets in such short time.

Music: 2/5 – Like most mobile games, it’s cute/catchy at first, but lacks variation and will tend to annoy after your first few playthroughs.

Overall: 38/50 76% C – Good Game for Girls

 

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp Nintendo Mobile Game Review for IOS and Android

1 Comment / Android Phone, Animals, Anime, anthromorphic, Casual Game, City Building, Featured, Free Game, furries, Game Review, Handheld or Portable Gaming, Ipad & Iphone, Kawaii Cute, Kawaii Review, Life Sim, Mobile Game, Nintendo, Online Gaming, Review, RPG, Simulation, Slice of Life, Virtual Pet / By

Title: Animal Crossing Pocket Camp

Developer: Nintendo

Genre: Simulation

Release Date:

Price: Free with optional in-game purchases

Where to Get:

IOS: https://itunes.apple.com/…

Android: https://play.google.com/…

Overall: 56/70 80% “B-” Very Good Game for Girls!

Geeky: 5/5 – Animal Crossing has a huge cult following because of its unique and strange gameplay and quirky cute characters. There is so much to do and see and it all takes place in an ever evolving changing persistent world that keeps you playing for hundreds or thousands of gaming hours.

Sweetie: 5/5 – Very few games come close to being as cute as animal crossing with its chibi anthropomorphic citizens and bright colors. This game is full of charm and wonder.

Gameplay: 8/10 – Animal Crossing is finally on mobile, which quite frankly is where this franchise has always belonged. It just makes sense as a mobile game given the style of gameplay which it innovated back in 2005. Now almost 12 years later, technology has evolved to where mobile makes the most sense for these types of games, having it with us in our pockets and purses, playing it on commutes, or while waiting in line at a busy store, or while at an appointment, or those few moments before sleeping or getting out of bed.

Animal Crossing is best enjoyed in these little breaks and little moments. It’s also best enjoyed when played often as things change and happen in a living breathing world inside of your game. There are holidays and special events and animals come and go in and out of your areas. Having it on your phone puts it always at your finger tips.

If you’ve never heard of Animal Crossing before (which is highly unlikely but just in case lol), Animal Crossing’s gameplay consists of quiet, calming activities, and cute, and quirky characters, who are, as you have probably guessed by now, animals.

These animals may ask you to complete quests for them and in exchange give you random furniture and clothing. You can also craft your own furniture and clothing as well. Certain games in the series even score you and award you more items and points for decorating your home such as Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer.

In fact, collecting these things and dressing up and designing has always been a big draw to the series. But it’s not the only thing that players love. Many players love to spend hours fishing, gardening, or catching bugs in the game. You can use them as items to trade with NPCs to complete quests or give them to other players or display them in your home or the museum, or sell them for bells (the game’s currency) to buy new items.

Buying new items is addictive too, every day you turn on your game, you will see new items to purchase. Only available for that one day, and completely unique to just you. Not that the same items won’t appear again for you, or for other players, but this particular “collection” of items is unique to you. You may have on one day, a boom box, kitchen sink, and pink sofa, while your friend may have a dining room table, expensive rug, and statue of Link from Zelda. – Of course some items are more rare than others, and since friends can visit your home, you can show off all your rare items and score bragging rights.

Nearly everything about these games are customizeable, from your character’s gender, name, appearance (initially determined by answers to questions presented when first starting the game), to your home, to your world around you. This also is another big draw to these types of games.

New animals will appear and disappear from time to time in your world. This also increases incentive to stay active and stay in touch with your favorite NPCs. After an NPC leaves (in the traditional versions of this game, not sure about mobile), they will send letters to you and sometimes give you gifts.

The games also feature night and day and weather cycles which add more variety to each play through. What you do on any given day is up to you! There is no objective, no goal, no ending, no progression it’s just a sandbox, a living breathing world for you to explore and interact with each day.

This sounds like a huge plus – and in many ways it is, but it can also be a drawback as there is very little urgency or pressure or nothing really compelling you to keep pushing forward. Many times my love for these games starts strong, but 3 or 4 months in and I find I’m barely logging in, but without fail always 6 months later I’m back to being addicted and wanting to play daily. My interest in these types of games goes through spurts like that. I think I burn out from the casual nature, but then find myself wanting to relax and enjoy a cute game and gravitating right back to it, for the same reason that I left it in the first place. It’s almost a double edged sword.

Anyways now that I’ve given you the basics of the franchise, let’s talk about what Animal Crossing Pocket Camp does differently than the other games in the series. For starters, as the name suggests, the entire game takes place in the great outdoors. You’re given a campsite you can decorate. And you have a camper trailer that you can decorate both inside and out. You travel and visit other animals (or visit your friends) and you can take quests, craft, shop, and do all the good basic animal crossing stuff.

Some areas will be blocked from exploring initially. You need to either pay leaf tickets (special in game currency obtainable with real money (but quite often also given for free as quest rewards), or get the help of friends to enter these new areas.

New areas open sometimes for special events like right now there’s a Christmas area where you can get more candy canes to help craft the time limited Christmas themed items which you need 5 friends to help you unlock.

You can link the account to your nintendo account or link your facebook and twitter to find more friends! 🙂 Playing animal crossing with your friends is now easier than ever.

So those are a few of the positive features.

On the downside, they’ve removed the actual houses, so that’s a bit disappointing for those of us who liked modeling our homes.

Also my biggest gripe is too much is just “handed” to us. In previous games, we each had a random fruit. In this game, when I get to the tutorial, I’m given tons of different fruits I can hoarde to plant back at my own campsite. Making the need to work with friends less important in this game.

I also don’t know / haven’t tested how inviting a friend over to your campsite works and how or if you can communicate with them and what activities you can do together. I feel like it may be more limited than in the other games, but maybe I’m wrong.

Other than that, the game offers a feeling of playing the console and handheld Animal Crossing games right on your mobile phone.

Story: 4/10 – Story has never ever been Animal Crossing’s strong suit, and I think for me personally, that’s why I get bored of the games so fast and have an on/off love/hate relationships with them. I play games primarily for story above anything else. So lack of really much to offer here makes it a bit dull to me.

Characters: 10/10 – The characters are charming and cute and have always been the best part of the animal crossing games.

Graphics: 10/10 These graphics look just as good as any Animal Crossing game I have ever played, and it’s a free mobile game, now that’s impressive!

Music: 5/10 Music is just sort of average. Nothing to write home about. Sometimes it can be cute and catchy, other times repetitive and annoying. Depends on my mood and the song in question.

Replay Value: 9/10 – The very nature of Animal Crossing as a franchise is a slow and steady journey meant to be enjoyed through several (often times daily) small playing sessions. Animal Crossing offers much to do, from fishing, bug catching, gardening, to crafting, to shopping, to collecting, to decorating your home and dressing up your avatar. However, it does get repetitive because of the slow and lackadaisical gameplay style. – Which don’t get me wrong, that gameplay style has also always been the game’s strong suit and its unique charm, and what makes it so much fun. There also are time limited goals, time limited items, and time limited quests to complete which will keep you logging back in. However, it’s also the type of game you can play for 10 hours a day for 6 months straight and then feel bored of. It’s much better to enjoy it about an hour a day, as if you immerse yourself too long, you will burn out quickly. But kept in small doses, you will be playing this, or any other animal crossing title for years to come. Now that animal crossing is on our mobile phones we are all doomed to be playing it religiously for the foreseeable future. And future updates will make this even more enticing.

Overall: 56/70 80% “B-” Very Good Game for Girls!

Other Games You May Like:

Castaway Paradise – pretty much an animal crossing clone. It was fun, but ain’t no animal crossing. Now that animal crossing is on mobile, I see no reason to play this.

Animal Days by Gree  Sadly this is no longer around, but probably one of my all time favorite mobile games, you should check it out since there’s still a wealth of images and info available online with a quick Google search; it’s interesting to read about just because of how unique and fun it was. It had the cute animals, moving in and out of your village, and most excitingly, you could BREED your animal villagers to create new villagers. There were time limited release villagers, and all kinds of really cute things to decorate your home, and a cute story too. I was sad when it closed. I heard they underestimated how popular it was going to become and couldn’t manage well with the production schedule for new releases and updates. I wish someone would buy the code from them and revive this project, but it’s been dead for 5 years now, so it’s not likely to happen. I would rather play Animal Days by Gree over even the best Animal Crossing game, because the breeding and randomized aspects make me so excited.

Happy Street – “sort of” a clone of animal crossing, but completely different gameplay, still, animals at random move into your village, and you fish and mine and craft and so on. but yeah, just it’s different, it’s more like mobile clicker type gameplay, but it has the same charm and theme as animal crossing and is a fun and different enough game that you should play both! 🙂 — There’s also a version of this put out by Line Play, and the name is escaping me right now. Same game / user interface, but different graphic assets and run by different companies. It still has cute animals moving in and out of your village and same gameplay mechanics. I think Happy Street was marketed more and took off more rapidly, and thus the Line Play “clone version” is a lot less widely known – might be worth checking out for you if you love Animal Crossing or Happy Street though!

Seabeard – This has a huge massive open sandbox world and captures some of the unique gameplay aspects of animal crossing.

Line Play – for the fishing and dressing up and decorating and kawaii style.

Casino Simulation Games

Casino Simulation Games Let You Build and Manage Your Own Casino

2 Comments / Casual Game, City Building, Downloadable Content for Games, Featured, MMORPG, Online Gaming, PC, RPG, Sims 3, Sims 4, Simulation, Strategy, Videogame / By

Do you enjoy city-building style games? These games focus on time and resource management to let you simulate the excitement of a real casino. Not only do these games allow you to design the floor plan and upgrade and install new poker tables, roulette wheels, or slot machines, they also may allow you to add a gift shop, restaurant, bar, or other establishment making the game much more in depth than just determining the payout rates for your casino games. Some games even allow you to hire and train your own casino staff such as blackjack dealers, entertainers, janitors, or bouncers. Many people enjoy playing at online casinos for real money, but when you can’t afford to pay to play, these casino management games let you get your gambling fix. These games can also be a great way to learn some new casino tips and strategies to help you win big the next time that real money is on the table.

Here is a quick list of some of the most popular Casino Simulation Games.

Casino Inc. – http://store.steampowered.com/app/361320/ Casino Inc allows you to relive the 1970s in a gangster/mafia ran casino. It blends both mafia style gameplay letting you attack or sabotage your rivals along with featuring casino management mechanics such as mentioned above by letting you design floor plans, place gaming tables and machines, and hire casino staff. Read More about Casino Inc.

Casino RPG – This game combines role-playing, tycoon, city-building and your favorite casino games in an open-world free-to-play MMORPG. You can play this one right in your browser without any downloads. Check it out here.

Casino Chaos – You can get a free demo of the game here or purchase the full version. Each level lets you manage a different casino. The gameplay is simple but addictive. You purchase various upgrades for your casinos and then guide people to help them find their favorite casino games.

Sim City – Many versions of Sim City allow you to build casinos to attract tourists to your town. These casinos feature different themes such as Sci-fi, Roman, or Elegant themes. Each theme will bring in different types of tourists. You can compliment your casinos by building them next to other tourist destinations such as theme parks. You need to be prepared for the incoming visitors by first building ample mass transit and airports as well as hiring some extra police to fight the increasing crime rates that will result by adding the Casino to your cities. Read more about building Casinos in Sim City.

Sims 4 – Many users have created custom content for the Sims 4 which includes special Casino themed items. Check out our list of Sims 4 Casino Themed items here.

Sims 3 – The Lucky Simolean is a special casino that can be purchased in the Sims store to be added to your Sims 3 game. This will allow your sims to play blackjack or slot machines. It is also included in the gold edition of Lucky Palms or can be purchased separately.

Sims 2 – The DS version of Sims 2 allows you to build “Snake-Eyes Casino” in one of the hotel rooms. Inside the casino, there is a Slot Machine which costs 1 simoleon per go, and reaps small rewards. On one side of the casino, there is a table with a dealer behind some Keelhaulin’ cards which can be played. If the player wins Keelhaulin’, there is a moderate to large cash reward. However, if you lose there is no penalty or loss so it’s worth having a go. There’s also another Minigame which will unlock if you play on December 14th of any year in game time. Read more about these games here.

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Sims 4 CC (Custom Content) to Create Your Own Casino

3 Comments / Casual Game, City Building, Downloadable Content for Games, Featured, PC, Simulation, Videogame / By

We recently did an article about Casino Management Simulation Games in which we mentioned that there’s a lot of custom content for Sims 4 that allows you to create a fun casino for your sims so when you can’t afford to gamble real money at a canadian online casino, but you still want to spin a slot machine or play roulette you can get your gambling fix by re enacting your casino dreams in Sims 4. This article will highlight and provide links to show you where you can get some fun casino themed custom content to add to your game.

One of the things I recommend to help you create a casino in the Sims 4, is the Sims 4 Get Together expansion game. It just happens to be on sale for 50% Off at time of this post as part of their winter sale too. You can grab it for $19.99 for a limited time at https://www.thesims.com/store/… The reason I so highly recommend this is because it adds new items and features such as arcade machines, night clubs, and as the name suggests, it allows for your sims to get together for a fun night “out on the town” which will add new interactions, skills, and discussion topics for your sims.

This lot (BrandonTR’s Casino Hollywood) Can be a nice base to get you started using black, red, and gold colors, and flahsy lighting – however, it’s missing any kind of casino items such as slot machines or card tables. https://www.thesimsresource.com/downloads/details/category/sims4-lots-community/title/casino-hollywood/id/1283565/

brittpinkiesim’s “Casino Stuff” can help solve the problem by providing “decorative” (which means that sadly your Sims still can’t interact with the items) but “decorative” slot machines, card tables, neon signs, dice tables, art, and more. http://brittpinkiesims.tumblr.com/post/136909347735/the-sims-4-casino-stuff-hey-guys-i-know-its

Norianddarksims Vegas Casino pack also adds some more decorative slot machines and game tables. http://mysims4blog.blogspot.com/2015/07/new-vegas-casino-set-by-noiranddarksims.html

There’s premium content you can purchase called “Vintage Glamor” which might also be useful in creating a casino in Sims 4. https://www.thesims.com/news/sims-4-vintage-glamour-release – As a side note, this pack also includes a buttler which your sims can hire so they can get more done each day, which makes it a very useful stuff pack to purchase, even if not using it to create a casino in the game. 🙂

Sadly, at time of this post, there are no mods or custom content that allow your sims to actually play the casino games. The best way for your sims to gamble is to go back and play Sims 3 and purchase the add-on module which includes the Lucky Simolean casino. 

https://simsvip.com/2012/06/09/sims-3-store-the-lucky-simoleon-set-info-screens/ read more

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Casino Inc – Casino Management Simulation Game – PC Game Review

5 Comments / Casual Game, City Building, Featured, Game Review, PC, Retro Game, Review, RPG, Simulation, Strategy, Videogame / By

Have you ever wanted to be a mob boss and run your own casino? Maybe you want to hire hitmen to chase after people who don’t pay their debts when they bet on sports such as tennis betting. Or maybe you want to be well known for having the absolutely best entertainment and nightlife attractions such as Elvis impersonators, dancers, magicians, or succulent food and drink. Or maybe you just want to drain wallets dry at your slot machines and blackjack tables. Casino Inc lets you be the mob boss and call the shots in your very own casino.

Casino Inc is 50% off right now on Steam, making it just $3.59. Please note that this game is extremely old, the source code has been lost, and the company claims they cannot fix known issues such as crashing in Windows 10. With that out of the way; however, Casino Inc remains one of the only “Casino Simulation” games on the market, and for that reason alone, it’s worth checking out, especially if you love “sim city style” game play.  I bet if you have ever played other “Tycoon” style games such as “Theme Hospital” or “Rollercoaster Tycoon” then you’ll also love Casino Inc. If you happen to fall under one of the people who can’t get this game to work for them, then I would recommend also checking out Casino RPG which requires no download or plugin and works right in your browser. If you are into games like Overwatch and have been watching the championship you can start overwatch betting.

Betting on online bingo games is only one of many activities that are available for your casino visitors to engage in. And you’ll need to do much more than simply lay out some game machines and wait for visitors to come by. You can hire all sorts of personnel to staff your casino such as security guards, hitmen, bartenders, hosts, and dealers. You can upgrade your facilities including adding rooms to your hotel to host more visitors, or upgrading the food and drinks by adding new bars, etc. Your hitmen can be sent to rival gangs and rival casinos to sabotage the competition. All in a day’s work for a casino mob boss. All of this will dramatically impact the profits and expenses of your casinos so you will need to adjust the bet and wager limits of each machine or gaming table or increase prices at your hotels or bars.

The game not only allows you to manage a casino, but to take control of an entire city, a city which thrives on tourism. There are many different types of visitors that your city will attracts from professional gamblers who are high rollers at your card tables, to young teens who like flashy arcade style games. You design the entire floor plan of your casinos, allocating space as you see fit, but you must try to balance the needs and wants of all the various different visitors by offering something for everyone who stops by. You also can help literally “drive” business to your casino by adding limos and shuttle services.

The user interface is very helpful in allowing you to see exactly which of your attractions are most popular and you can set minimum and maximum bet limits on your games and determine the jackpot and payout frequencies. High rollers will make larger bets, while vacationers and teens will prefer to bet smaller amounts on different types of games. Learning what each of your visitors prefers is the key to running a successful casino city.

The game also now includes the expansion pack, Casino Inc Management, which includes additional new casinos, cities, attractions, and employees to add to your city. With so many unique features and the ability to fine tune each of your attractions, the Casino Inc and Casino Inc Management games are still the best available casino simulation games on the market today.

Stormfall, Stormfall Age of War, Stormfall Strategy Game, Stormfall Age of War Browser Game, Stormfall IOS, Stormfall Android, Stormfall Game, Browser Game, Mobile Game, IOS, Android, Strategy Game, City Building, Free, Free Game, Plarium, Fantasy, Fantasy Games, Funny, Funny Game, Gaming, Apps, Online Game, Online, Multiplayer, Review, Game Review

Stormfall Age of War Strategy Game Review

1 Comment / City Building, Fantasy, Featured, Free Game, Funny, Game Review, Review, Strategy / By

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Title: Stormfall Age of War

Genre: Strategy Game

Developer: Plarium

Platform: You can play it directly in your computer browser. Or they also have a mobile app for both android and IOS when you are on the go.

Where to Get the Game: It’s free to play and you can find the apps or browser version at the official website. Link at top of this post.

Overall: 84/100 84% B “Very Good Game for Girls”

Geeky: 5/5 The ability to lead huge troops and the skill tree and city building aspects make this game high on the geek list.

Sweetie: 3/5 It’s a “pretty” game, but there’s not much “cute” – there’s also not much customization as far as appearances go. The story although funny, is mostly just there to move you through the quests and progress through the game, and not there to give you a sense of who’s who, why your kingdoms are at war, or about the lore or setting in the game world.

Concept: 9/10 Stormfall is a smart, sarcastic, witty, funny browser game which offers a large variety of quests, areas to explore, massive scale combat, ability to customize which research you take on, an awesome musical score and beautiful lush graphics with voice acting by a smart-alec narrator. While it does little to innovate the strategy genre, it is still a fun game for anyone who loves these city building types of games, and the high production values will keep you entertained, while daily quests and lots of things to see, do, build, and explore will have you replaying this game often.

Gameplay: 10/10 Like most strategy games, there is a city building aspect which the game introduces early on. You build farms to feed your troops, iron mines to get materials to arm your troops, and earn taxes to help fund your troops. You build libraries to research magic, and other structures to help build new types of weapons, armor, and unlock new units to add to your armies.

There’s also a skill tree element called the “Art of War” where you can customize which talents you learn, learning them in different order will branch off to letting you learn different skills, such as fortification, bows, thieves, trading, smuggling, etc. This is where a lot of the initial strategy comes into play.

The tutorial really helps new players jump right into the game and learn the mechanics. The narrator keeps the game entertaining and gives it a fresh perspective. From research, to city building, to intrigue, alliances, and battles, this game offers many options to let you take charge of your kingdoms.

The user interface is clean and intuitive, and combat feels dynamic but yet not overly complex or frustrating. The game has a good sense of balance between building and researching and battling to progress your kingdom.

Story: 7/10 – This game cracks me up – it is so funny LOL. You’ll see the humor right away within the first few seconds of the tutorial. The humor is accented by great voice acting! I’ve never seen a strategy game take such a sarcastic approach. It’s very refreshing! It makes it stand out in a sea of similar mobile games. It makes it unique and memorable and keeps me playing for longer. Beyond the humor though it seems like not much is revealed about the world, characters, lore, history, or setting of the game.

Characters: 3/10 The only character that’s given much personality is the narrator. I kinda feel this is a missed opportunity, as your advisers could have been given much more personality, and dialog even if it was only written and not voiced. I also think the game is missing a gameplay element by not letting you “recruit” advisers or having some bonuses/enhancements for different advisers, or aging/dying/marrying/mentoring etc of advisers, like many other games in this genre offer.

Graphics: 10/10 – The game is brought to live with beautiful detailed 3D environments and rich fantasy artwork and animation.

Music: 10/10 – For a little mobile/browser game, this game has some seriously wonderful music. It reminds me a lot of the music from Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit. Very pretty and the same “fantasy” vibe. It’s very dramatic music. There’s a good variety too, from very intense drum solos, to calming harp-like music.

Voice Acting: 7/10 – I’m surprised there’s voice acting throughout much of the game, and it’s actually pretty good. I like the tone, humor (at times), and deliverance throughout. However, very few of the key characters in the game are voiced and voice is given primarily through a narrator.

Community: 10/10 – Whether it’s chatting in game, forming alliances, recruiting your friends, joining a league, trading at the market, or using the official forums this game has a great sense of community that offers a break from the routine tasks of managing your kingdom.

Replay Value: 10/10 The daily quests, and sheer amount of things to build, do, and learn about this game make it worth logging in daily to work on your kingdom.

Overall: 84/100 84% B “Very Good Game for Girls”

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Dark Cloud 2 – Dark Chronicle – Retro JRPG Videogame Review for PS2

1 Comment / Action RPG, City Building, Costumes, Dressup Games, Game Review, Playstation, Playstation 2, Retro Game, Review, RPG, Videogame / By

geeky

A day later than promised, but here is my review for Dark Cloud 2. Dark Cloud 2 improves upon Dark Cloud 1 in almost every way.

(By the way, I reviewed Dark Cloud 1 yesterday, which you can read here.)

You may want to read the review for Dark Cloud 1 first to get the fullest understanding of the Gameplay mechanics, as a lot of those same mechanics are carried over to Dark Cloud 2.

Dark Cloud 2, like its predecessor is an Action-RPG with real-time combat and unique weapon leveling system, procedurally generated dungeons and world and city building gameplay elements.

Title: Dark Cloud 2 (also sometimes referred to by the Japanese title, Dark Chronicle).

Platform: PS2

Genre: Action-RPG

Publisher: Level 5

Where to Buy: Playstation Store has Dark Cloud 2 (digital version) for $14.99. Amazon has the physical disc with prices ranging from $32 to $92 at time of this review, depending on the game’s condition. http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Cloud-2… Amazon also has the digital version, the same as the Playstation Store, for $14.99 – accessible from the same amazon link above.

Geeky: 5/5 

Sweetie: 5/5 

Overall: 77/90 86% B “Very Good Game For Girls”

Concept: 10/10 The concept of Dark Cloud 2 is very similar to that in Dark Cloud 1. It’s a Dungeon Crawler with randomly generated dungeons and real-time combat. There’s also multiple quick time events. The city and world building elements return in Dark Cloud 2. The weapon system, and the non-leveling characters also return. The game is enhanced with new features such as fishing and character customization through a unique costume system. Combat is improved, and the game is given a much needed makeover with adorable anime style cel-shaded artwork that looks like it came out of a painting or storybook. The Soundtrack is almost double the size of the original, and has some truly amazing tracks. It also adds voice acting to the game which helps highlight key events and scenes. Yep, in every single way, this game is much better than the original – which was already pretty darn great!

Gameplay: 10/10 Dark Cloud 2 takes everything that made Dark Cloud 1 so great, and then adds in some new features as I mentioned above, an improved combat system, a new fishing “minigame”, ability to customize your characters with different costumes, etc. But at the core, it’s still the Dark Cloud that we all know and love from the first game. You crawl through multiple procedurally generated dungeons, in which you will find artifacts called Geostones which when taken back to town, allow you to place objects, people, houses, even landscaping elements into your city. As you add more to your city, you will begin to recruit new npcs which will open new shops, give you new quests, and make your city come to life. The weapon system also makes a return in Dark Cloud 2. In the Dark Cloud series your characters do not level up or have any stats or abilities. Instead, it is their equipment which levels up during combat and can be refined back in town to add attributes and abilities directly into the Equipment. Also as in Dark Cloud 1, If you over-use the equipment and forget to repair it though you will permanently lose the items, which sucks for rare or high powered gear. However, this element of “risk” definitely makes Gameplay more fun and challenging.

Story: 6/10 Dark Cloud 2’s story is a significant improvement over the bare bones story of Dark Cloud 1. But to me it’s still just not “great”. I still think story is a weak point for this series overall. Dark Cloud 2’s story focuses on Time Travel. A Princess from the future is sent 100 years back in time to try to save her kingdom. To do so, she joins forces with our hero, who is able to also Time Travel (to the future). Using their powers combined they can freely go to the past, present, or future. As you make changes in your town, things begin to change in the future also. It’s a unique and fun concept. As the story progresses you travel between the past, present, and future re-writing certain events to prevent a terrible war from taking place while seeking help from the moon people. I just felt overall, the story lacked a lot of heart or emotion which prevents me from being able to score it higher. I enjoy the time travel concept, but just never felt as immersed or connected to the story as I have in many other JRPG.

Characters: 5/10 Here we have fewer playable characters, down to 2 from 6 in the original game. Also both characters are human looking in appearance and no where near as creative looking as in Dark Cloud 1 (a cat girl, moon person, etc). I just felt the characters themselves also, just like in Dark Cloud 1 were rather flat and didn’t engage me right away. I think maybe it’s the way they interact with other characters and overall a lack of character development that really hurt both games in this series.

Graphics: 8/10 The graphics are a tremendous step up from those in the first game. Gone are the grainy textures and poor lighting. Also gone is the more realistic art style. Instead we have adorable anime inspired cel-shaded artwork. I did deduct 2 points because the characters facial expressions and animations felt stiff as is often a problem with 3d games especially from this time period. Overall I feel Dark Cloud 2 is adorable, and beautiful to look at. Dark Cloud 1 looked more like a PS1 game, while Dark Cloud 2, clearly took full advantage of the PS2 Hardware. It’s not as beautiful and fluid as say, Dawn of Mana, which is another PS2 game that utilizes similar cel-shaded art styles, but it’s very attractive in it’s own right, and the added touch of being able to customize the characters with various costumes really made the game’s art stand out even more.

Music: 10/10 The soundtrack to Dark Cloud 2 has nearly 80 unique tracks (up from the 40-ish tracks in the original game.). Some of these tracks are amazing. It is really a hidden gem among retro JRPG soundtracks. The game is relatively obscure, but I’d rank Dark Cloud 2’s music right up there with other great JRPG such as Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger.

Voice Acting: 10/10 No expense was spared in localizing this game. Although I’m not really a fan of dubbed voice overs, most of the ones in Dark Cloud 2 are fairly decent. And it’s nice to have Voice Acting added to help highlight key scenes in the story. The game featured almost every high profile voice actor of the 90s.

Replay Value: 8/10 Still a linear (and not great) story, but with a plethora of new gameplay additions, enhanced combat, and already addictive and unique world/city building elements, the randomness of the dungeons, and great music score – this is a game that you will definitely want to replay.

Overall: 77/90 86% B “Very Good Game For Girls”

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Dark Cloud PS2 Retro JRPG Game Review

1 Comment / Action RPG, Animals, Anime, anthromorphic, City Building, Featured, furries, Game Review, Playstation 2, Retro Game, Review, RPG, Simulation, Videogame / By

geeky

Reviewing one of my all time favorite games today, Dark Cloud. I will also be reviewing the very similar, but slightly better, Dark Cloud 2 later today as well.

This game is extremely similar to Legend of Zelda. Our main hero even has a green floppy hat just like Link lol. But it brings with it some unique new features such as rouge-like random proceduraly generated level design, multiple playable characters, and most notably, a world-creation and city building system.

Also, if you missed out on this awesome game back in 2001, you can play it again now if you have a PS4 via the playstation store.

You can grab Dark Cloud 1 for $14.99 at  https://store.playstation.com… and also pick up Dark Cloud 2 for $14.99 at https://store.playstation.com…

This was Level 5’s first game – and definitely a classic must-own for any JRPG collector. Interestingly enough, when the game came to North America, it was enhanced with new content and features that don’t exist in the Japanese version such as better AI control, an entire new dungeon, and dozens of new weapons.

Title: Dark Cloud

Platform: PS2

Release Date: 2001

Publisher: Level 5

Genre: Action RPG

Where to Buy: In addition to the digital versions on the Playstation Store, you can still find hard copies of the game on sites like Amazon. At time of this writing there’s about 10 copies on Amazon with prices ranging from $12 to $99 depending on the condition and quality of the disc, book, case, etc. Check out this page for more info: http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Cloud…

Geeky: 4/5

Sweetie: 4/5 

Overall: 59/80 74% C “Good Game for Girls”

Concept: 10/10 As mentioned, this action RPG feels very Zelda-ish in design but brings with it a few surprises, namely the city and world building aspects along with procedurely generated dungeons. The dungeon crawling and city building style of gameplay reminds me a lot of Azure Dream which I reviewed here.

Gameplay: 10/10 This game combines real time combat such as that found in Zelda or Secret of Mana with Occasional Quick Time Events and of course, lots of world building and city building gameplay. The dungeons are proceduraly generated and it also features multiple playable characters each with their own abilities and fighting style. However, Atla (the items needed for city building) can only be found when playing as the main character.

In city building mode, you place the Atla retrieved from the dungeons onto your town. The atla may be something like a shop, house, or even something as simple as a tree or pond, or even a new NPC. As you continue to add Atla, and continue to talk to the NPC’s you will learn more about what they want you to build in their cities. Once you reach a certain level within that city, you can move on to create additional cities as well.

The game is also unique in how characters level up. In fact, your characters never level up at all. Only their equipment levels up as you battle your way through the dungeons. However, the weapons also break if not repaired between uses. Once a weapon breaks it is lost forever. Weapons can also be upgraded by attaching different effects to the weapon which can give it bonuses such as agility, strength, or elemental properties. Although it can be aggravating at times (to lose a really powerful weapon), I really enjoyed this weapon system and felt that it really added something to the gameplay to differentiate it from all the other Action RPGs of the 90s/early 2k.

The dungeon crawling aspects can get dull at times – but I feel it’s spiced up enough with plenty of other gameplay elements to keep it from getting overly repetitive. There’s just so many other fun things to do in this game.

Story: 5/10 Unfortunately, story is what misses the mark for me in this game. I just felt it was a little too slowly paced and that both the story and the characters felt bland and not very engaging. The story tells of a time when 2 continents existed peacefully governed by two moons. One day a Dark Cloud appeared over one of the lands (hence the title of the game). Anything touched by this cloud was destroyed (Sounds very Never Ending Story-ish with the Nothing destroying entire cities, erasing people, creatures, forests, etc – Unfortunately, Never Ending Story was actually exciting and interesting, while the same can’t really be said of Dark Cloud). To protect the people and places of the land, a benevolent fairy king sealed each of them away in a magic orb known as Atla. The Main character appears when his village is destroyed by the Dark Cloud. He encounters the fairy king who tells him how he can rebuild the world but that he must first find the orbs which have been scattered throughout the continent. While the bare bones for an interesting story are in place, it just doesn’t really captivate or connect with the audience.

Characters: 7/10  The physical design and appearance of the characters is quite cute and unique (aside from the main character who looks way too much like Link lol). But their personalities and interactions often feel like an empty shell. The characters include a cat who is stuck inside one of the dungeons that the Main Character encounters. She is rescued by the main character and taken by to the city where she is transformed into a human-like girl with cat ears and tail. Another interesting character is a robotics engineer who wears almost like a hazmat suit that’s very form fitting. He’s unique because he has large rabbit like ears and appears to have a custom suit built to take into account his large pointy ears. – So the concepts and creativity for the character design definitely gets high marks, but the dialog and interaction between them, not so much.

Graphics: 6/10 I take issue with how grainy the textures are in this game. However, I like the overall character design and game world. Dark Cloud 2 features a much cleaner (and cuter) art style.

Music: 7/10 I feel that the music just isn’t anything special overall. It’s not very memorable. Dark Cloud 2 has great music, Dark Cloud 1, on the other hand, is average to good, but falls just short of greatness. It’s also only half the size of the soundtrack in terms of number of tracks as compared to Dark Cloud 2.

Replay Value: 6/10 Although it’s a linear story, the world and city building aspects make it interesting enough to come back to.

Overall: 59/80 74% C “Good Game for Girls”

Cooking, Restaurant Management, City Building, Dressup, Dressup Games, Anime, Anime Game, Anime Games, Cute, Kawaii, Fashion, Sim, Simulation, Casual, Casual Game, Mobile, Mobile Game, App, Play Store, Google Play, Apple, Apple App Store, App Store, Free, Free Game, Games for Girls, Online Game, Multiplayer

I Love Pasta | I Love Coffee | Review of 2 Similar Mobile Games by Pati Games | Restaurant Management Simulation | Anime Games | Casual Games

2 Comments / Casual Game, City Building, Dressup Games, Fashion, Featured, Free Game, Game Review, Handheld or Portable Gaming, Ipad & Iphone, Kawaii Cute, Kawaii Review, Life Sim, Mobile Game, Restaurant Simulation, Review, RPG, Simulation, Slice of Life, Videogame / By

Title 1: I Love Pasta

Get I Love Pasta on IOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/i-love-pasta/id926176278?mt=8

Get I Love Pasta on Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.patigames.ilovepasta4gsp&hl=en

Title 2: I Love Coffee

Get I Love Coffee on IOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/line-i-love-coffee/id605633081?mt=8

Get I Love Coffee on Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.naver.SJLGCOFFEE&hl=en

Geeky: 1/5 

Sweetie: 5/5 

Overall: 56/80 70% C- Good Game for Girls

Concept: 10/10 read more

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Steambot Chronicles | Retro Game Review | JRPG | RPG | PS2 | Playstation 2

1 Comment / Action RPG, Adventure Game, Anime, Branching Plot, City Building, Fashion, Featured, Game Review, Multiple Endings, Playstation 2, Review, RPG, Slice of Life, Videogame / By

I hope everyone had an excellent holiday. Today I’m reviewing Steambot Chronicles for PS2. This is one of my favorite games because of the amount of things to do and see as well as the unique steam punk setting within the game.

Title: Steambot Chronicles

Publisher: Atlus

Platform: PS2

Release Date: 2006

Where to Buy: Amazon seems to be the only way to go (aside from ebay of course). The game was a commercial failure in north america, so not many copies exist; and it was before Atlus “struck gold” (and attainted a cult following) with games like Persona 3 and 4. There are currently 2 copies available on Amazon at time of this review for $90 – $120. You can keep checking back. Here is the page for the game on Amazon right here. Edit: Actually there appears to be 2 pages on Amazon; and this one has 11 copies of the game available; some for only $45 – You can check this page also for where to buy Steambot Chronicles on PS2.

Geeky: 

Sweetie: 

Overall: 71/80 89% B+ “Very Good Game For Girls”

Concept: 10/10 Steambot Chronicles combines traditional JRPG elements with a rhythm game. Mechs also play a huge role in the game, as the player can buy or find new mechs, new parts, and customize their mechs to their play style with either fast moving, but weaker mechs, or more heavy duty but slower mechs. Similarly, you can customize your concert experience by purchasing new instruments. You can also find and purchase new outfits and accessories for your characters as well. At the beginning of the game you can customize your hero’s personality by taking a personality test (similar to Tactics Ogre – which I have reviewed here) which will change some of the dialog throughout the game in terms of how the other characters will interact with you. The game is mostly linear with the illusion of choice, with lots of options for you to choose but often resulting in similar outcomes; except for one important choice near the end of the game. In all, the game has a total of 3 different endings. There’s also cooking, dating, and minigames that add to the depth of the gameplay as well.

Gameplay: 10/10 Gameplay is really two fold – the main focus of the game is battling in mechs similar to games such as Xenogears or Robopit. Combat is in real time and you can run, jump, and try to out maneuver your opponent. You pilot your mecha with the two analog sticks and issue commands with the controller buttons. You work on upgrading your mech or can purchase or find new mechs and parts throughout the game. Mechs are used for everything, from travel, to battle, to even mini games. The other main focus is on music, you, and the other members of your party travel around the world putting on concerts. During these events, you, the player, interact with the game in a rythym game that’s similar to games such as Parrapa the Rapper and Umjammer Lammy. There are also other interesting “side” elements to the game such as a stock exchange, dating simulator, city building / interior decorating, cooking, arena battles, and dungeon crawling. There’s also day/night cycles and other elements which make the game feel more lively and immersive.

Story: 6/10 I’ve only played the “good” side. You can also be evil in this game, if you want to, which drastically changes the second half / end of the game. In both sides, the story focuses initially on helping a girl named Coriander whose mother is very sick. This prompts you to join a band with the young girl and several other quirky characters who become your comrades and orchestra members. Most of the conflict and drama in the game comes from rival gangs which are taking over the cities and causing corruption. In the evil side, you cut ties with the band in order to join one such gang in exchange for profits and power. Police will be chasing you and most of the missions will involve things like stealing or breaking and entering. In the good side, you stick by your band members, but like most bands, there are growing pains, and conflicts arise which cause the band members to eventually go their own way. The ending is left somewhat “open” and you can continue to play in sandbox mode after completing the main story. The story is at times heart warming, and even heart breaking, but it takes a back seat to the gameplay. This is not really a game that you play for “story”. The story is not bad of course, but in no way is it the main focus of the game.

Characters: 10/10 Each of the characters are truly unique and it shows through deep attention to detail in character development and the way in which they are all connected through a tragic backstory. It throws a few punches and has a few surprises in store for you when the story is played out and the cards are on the table. The band as mentioned above, has some “growing pains” and the cast who were once all childhood friends, face losing these friendships, or learning that perhaps certain people were harboring dark secrets all along. Actually you become very attached to the characters and when it throws its punches as it will, it will break your heart.

Music: 10/10 – Music plays such a huge role in this game. Similar to Atlus’ other quirky musical rpg (Rhapsody), the localization of this game, in terms of voice acting and singing, is actually very well done. I am usually anti-dub, but I guess when it comes to musical games like this, I enjoy a game where I can “sing along” (in my head lol). I really liked all the tracks in this game, and the way it engages the user with the rhythm game aspects which makes you really pay attention to the music and appreciate it that much more. Also the music itself ties into the storyline and helps you feel closer to the cast of characters.

Voice Acting: 8/10 – The voice acting is good, for a dub. I would have preferred the option left in for Japanese voice acting; but to be honest, not sure I would have played it in Japanese, because I prefer to play similar games such as Rhapsody in English (the later released portable edition of Rhapsody removed the English tracks; and kinda “ruined” the game for me). I think when it comes to a “musical” rpg it just “helps” to have it in your native language. I do listen to jpop and kpop music and enjoy it; but in this case, in Steambot chronicles, the music helps explain the story and helps tell key scenes or helps you to sympathize with the characters. So it’s one of those rare cases where I feel I’d probably enjoy the dub more than the sub. Rhapsody and the upcoming SMT X FE # are two other cases where I could see myself playing the dub more often. I think dubbing it was a smart move in the case of Steambot Chronicles. The dub is not “bad”. It had some big name Anime Voice Acting talent of the 90s.

Graphics: 7/10 – The game is cel shaded and done in a cute and colorful anime style. You can see your outfits which gives it a sorta dressupgame style. You can see the customization to your mech too. The world is lively with traffic in the cities and day and night cycles. The overworld is large with mountains and bumpy terrain (the original japanese title is Bumpy Trot). There’s lots to see and lots to do. But the graphics have some pretty poor textures and the special effects in combat leave a bit to be desired. Still, overall it’s cute with lots of customization, so it gets high marks on graphics from me. The cel shading is not of the quality of say, Catherine (which I’ve reviewed here); but it is also one generation older than that, and a PS2 Game. I think given it’s timeline, the graphics in Steambot Chronicles are quite adorable and vibrant.

Overall: 71/80 89% B+ “Very Good Game For Girls”

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