Recent reviews by Arcie

I hate this game because it's so fun. Let me explain. If this game had been a $60 or even $70 release with planned DLC for racer packs and stuff, I'd have given it a thumbs up. The racing is tight, the progression of the characters is interesting, the skills and unique abilities are legitimately enjoyable. However, if you couldn't tell by my thumbs down or by the fact that it's a "free" game (emphasis on the air quotes), it's not a $60 or $70 release with planned DLC. This is a gacha game pretending to be a great cart racer. Not only that, but it's a very predatory gacha game, complete with:
Loot Boxes
Confusing currencies
Inconvenient currency exchange (explained below)
Fear of missing out tactics with time based events limiting when you can get characters
Shard system to star up your characters in order to unlock more abilities
Online competitive scene favoring the whales who spend to max star their racers
Demo races with paid characters to show how good they are, which seem to be suspiciously easy...?


The loot boxes are 500 currency each. They give between 2-8 shards. A character requires 10 shards to own. So, one Loot Box can't even get you a character. 500 currency is equivalent to just under $5. Why under? Because, $5 gets you 530 currency. Now, does this make the currency exchange nicer giving more than 500 for $5? No, it leaves you with extra. This is a very common tactic to trick your brain into buying more currency. It's used in pretty much every game with microtransactions. Let's say you get 530, then you spend 500, now you have 30. Well, now the next pull is only 470 so you could spend $4 for two packs of 200, but then you're still short, so you might as well spend the $5 again. Now you'll end up with 60 left over. It continues on and on. Nothing in the cash shop will ever equal exactly some amount of currency you can get because they always want you to have leftover currency. It's scummy and should be illegal.

You only start with one and you unlock a handful of other racers for free through the single player mode. I have cleared the Mickey and Donald Cups and just begun the Goofy cup. All three of them are fun to play, but this game boasts a huge roster of racers. How do you get most of them? Money! I saw a bundle egregiously listed as 75% off (which makes no sense because you can't buy these characters individually) which gives 10 shards for six different characters, unlocking them at 1*, not even enough to use their unique skills. This bundle costs 6,990 currency. If this is 75% off, then these six characters should cost 27,960 currency. If we are to believe the percentage, that breaks down to 10 shards for a character costing 4,660 currency. If you buy that at the lowest package, that breaks down to $46.60 a character. This is another tactic to get people to buy more bundles. There is no actual cost per character so 75% off refers to nothing other than a number they can put up there to make it look like a great buy. I mean, who doesn't want $280 worth of stuff for $70?! Don't fall for it people...

I have seen a lot of scummy gacha games in the past and I don't hate them. I dislike them and warn people to avoid them, sure, but hate? No. This game, I hate. I hate it because it's Disney. I hate it because it's aimed towards children. I hate it because it's pretty. But mostly, I hate it because it's good. It's a game that could have been successful as a full release without a scummy cash shop and gacha mechanics. It's a game that would have had an audience with such a successful set movie properties fueling it. It could have gone the Fortnight route, been free with a cosmetic shop, but instead, they decided to make one of the worst cash shops I have seen to date, one of the best cart racers I have seen to date, and create something so evil, I cannot simply dislike it, I must hate it. Damn you Disney.

EDIT: I needed to crossout part of this review because it's no longer true. What part isn't true? Is it the scummy gacha mechanics? Is it the cost associated to be competitive? Is it a more fair experience for free to play players? Nah, they destroyed the single player mode! It used to be that you had a series of races with rewards between each race, unlocking shards for the big three (Mickey, Donald, Goofy) while slowly learning the mechanics. It was one of the few enjoyable systems in the game, aka, not money mechanics. That has been replaced, however, by a bunch of battle passes. Basically, previous battle passes are not gone but instead remain for unlocking. Unfortunately, this requires money to unlock the premium side. Each battle pass is about $8 and unlocks 2-3 characters. To participate in these battle passes, you have to use racers IN the world. For instance, to do the Little Mermaid cup, you need either Prince Eric, Triton, Ursala, or Ariel. If you don't have any of them, you can't do the races. How do you get those characters? CASH SHOP!

In other words, if I could give this game ANOTHER thumb down, I would.

This is a really crazy game with a simple premise. The soundtrack is great and the game progressively gets very difficult. For something as simple as "Does the Color and Word Match" with left click being yes and right click being no, you wouldn't expect the experience you get here, but it's worth it!

Wonderful aRPG up there with Diablo, Titan Quest (same devs), and Torchlight 2!

I love Cube World! I have played it since alpha in 2013. Most games where the dev disappeared after selling a bunch of copies would get torn apart for that, but not Cube World. We kept playing and hoping. Now it's finally here and alpha players are review bombing the game because it's not the alpha build! Let me explain.

The alpha build was all vertical progression. It was a game of fight monsters, get levels, get gear for your level, fight more monsters, rinse repeat. You started on a random world which was generally hostile. Creatures travel in packs and you had to pick your fights carefully or die to things like Squirrels. Seriously, the squirrels were the worst! With their beedy little eyes... *Ahem* sorry, I don't know what came over me. Anyways, you'd level aimlessly, explore, find dungeons, level, get gear, and die... A lot.

The released version I am reviewing is a very different beast. Yeah, you will still die a lot and don't even think of attacking those squirrels until you have spent some time crafting or finding better gear, but you no longer level in the traditional sense. The vertical leveling was swapped for a more Legend of Zelda horizontal progression system. You talk to NPCs, learn where things are, tackle the fights in the order you choose, and yes, find more loot. Gear is still vertical progression, but the overall region is horizontal.

The map structure was changed as well. Instead of random maps, there is only one game map. That mapnos infinitely big (functionally at least). Every player starts in a different region. These candy be hundreds of thousands of kilometers apart! On order to play with friends, they join your game and use an NPC to fly to you. Anytime you change a region, your gear goes into storage and you start over. This is the part most people have issues with.

In most RPGs, when you progress to a new area, your shiny new gear from the last dungeon, shopkeep, boss, etc starts to feel like your old gear. The monsters are increased in difficulty to force you to need new gear. The same thing happens here except nothing is made harder, you just have to start back over. Functionally it serves the same purpose. It also means no one can come into your region to join you and be fully equipped.

If you take the game like a rogue lite explorative open world RPG, it works great. You can find Plus gear which can be carried over as well as artifacts which function as traditional levels. The goal is to find these and carry those perks into the next region.

All in all it works. The game is legitimate fun, and you will get plenty of time in for the $20. It's best with friends as the game is tough. Really it breaks down to the stories you build along the way of running through a forest at night and accidently finding 4 ogres, dying in a panic while your friend is 30 feet away laughing about how you got agro and he's just fine... Right before they find him.

I enjoyed this game and will come back to it to finish. I have made it far enough into the game to feel I would comfortably recommend this game. It's a fairly inexpensive title which I wasn't sure about in the beginning. It feels like a Jack and Daxter as far as the silent protagonist, loud mouthed best friend, colorful levels, and quirky supporting characters. However, it's sort of a platformer with no controlled jump and Arkham Asylum style combat. This makes for more of a beat em up with a few flaws but overall a quirky story, solid combat, and a fun world.

Graphics: They set out to create a specific style and succeeded beautifully. For the overall aesthetic, they nailed it. Everything looks like it's painted and when the world starts going "bleak", the lack of colors is very apparent. As you take damage, you seem to be drained of color which is a nice effect. The speech bubbles are actually cut out signs on cardboard which are only written on the front of. I do have a problem with the speech bubbles, as fitting as they are. Sometimes, they don't appear until you are right next to a character. They are large enough that I find myself having to move the camera to read them. This could have been corrected by making them pop up a bit further out, but then it wouldn't feel like the characters were talking to you. Overall, it's my only gripe about the graphical presentation.

Music: This soundtrack is amazing. From the stealth areas where the music changes dynamically when guards are getting closer to you to the standard area themes being unique and fitting. The music you get on the farm feels very twangy and laid back while the combat music is more up beat and intense. Every area's music is not only appropriate, but also something I would go out of my way to find and listen to while relaxing at home. It's a stellar example of matching the visual aesthetic to the auditory aesthetic.

Gameplay: The game offers a variety of difficulties without forcing you to unlock them which seems less common these days and I am glad to see it. The difficulties range from Kid, where most attacks are one hit kills, to One Hit Death, where every hit you take kills you and HP means nothing. That being said, all the difficulties seem to be arbitrary increase in damage against you and damage enemies take. There are no AI modifications or spawn rate modifications which I noticed. The AI, in general, is very basic, but this is not a bad thing. Each monster acts it's own way and never react based on other monster's movement. It's a very NES/SNES style of programming AI. The smaller melee guys just rush you. The larger AI guys rush you. The ranged guys stay ranged and never move. The shield guys disappear and reappear waiting for you to stun them. No monster will surprise you by doing something you don't expect. But it works Trying to time your attacks so you hit the small guys, dodge the big guys, ranged attack the ranged guys, it all adds to that chaos that made those earlier games fun. The issue I have is the checkpoint system. It doesn't maintain a state that the game is in, merely a respawn point. What this means is, if you are in a particularly nasty fight, you can run in and kill as many guys as you can until you die, respawn near by, run back in and the only monsters there are the remaining monsters of that wave. Every fight can be done like this, including boss fights as far as I can tell. There are no numbered lives so there is no way to lose the game. As far as the platforming with no jump button, it works. There is a run button. If you are holding it and you reach a ledge with something you can jump to, it will jump. They work in a lot of timing systems into when to progress to the next platform and when to stay back. With ranged enemies covering these platforms, sometimes you find yourself bouncing from one platform to the next and back again while waiting for another platform to come up and trying to not get hit by the ranged guy. The challenge is there if there was an actual reason not to die.

Overall: I really do like this game and would recommend it, if only as an example of a game with a fully fleshed out concept. My issues are generally surface level. It could use a life system or a full respawn of enemies on death. As it stands, maybe playing it on One Hit Death can serve some challenge, but I see it ending up as more of a test in ones patience, really. Ultimately, a fun experience, albeit an easy one.

Ace of Spades, like the song, is pretty great when you first start out, but gets sort of blah by the 4th or 5th time you play it. In other words, I would go back to it, but it wore out it's welcome so quickly! It's the same game over and over again. I mean, it's not a bad game, but the building mechanism gets old since whatever you build is destroyed in a matter of seconds. I am going to say I don't recommend this game, but only because I think there are better shooters to play. The Minecraft influence doesn't add enough to make up for the lackluster game beneath the covers.

Chantelise is a very charming game about a goofy girl who exemplifies quite a few silly anime girl traits! Example: She names her item shop Racettear (pronounced: Racketeer, as in someone who engages in dishonest and fraudulent business dealings). She doesn't know any better! She is silly anime girl! YOU GO GIRL!

Anyways, I highly enjoyed this game. I love simulation games but usually run out of patience for the saminess of them. This one kept my attention by having a third of the game be an action RPG! In order to fill your shop with items, you can either buy them low and keep them to sell high later when they are suddenly in demand (in what is apparently the most trendy town EVER), or you can take an adventurer who you have become on good terms with into a dungeon so he/she can risk their lives to get you items! This makes it well worth your while to cut them deals on equipment they will use, even though they try to buy EVERYTHING exploiting your friendship like the little leeches they are! Oh, sorry about that. I love all my adventuring friends! Even the clueless one who doesn't know how she got to said random dungeon map in the first place!

I digress. This game is a LOT of fun if you enjoy simulator games and action RPGs. The Action RPG element is a bit repetitive because it's randomly generated maps with random spawns, but it does mix it up with map rules. When you enter a new map, it will add a rule, like Monsters 2x Damage or Player 2x Speed. Also, your in dungeon bag gets full quick if you go more than 4 levels, so there is some tedium in bag management. But overall, it is the same combat each delve, unless you switch up who your regular dungeon runners are. If you run with person A mainly, then you try to take person B, just remember, the levels are specific to that character.

The other thing to mention is, it's very much a time management game. Each day you have a number of slices of the time pie. If you dungeon delve, you may only get to open the store for one slice of pie (and Recette LOVES her pie). So if you do nothing but dungeon delve, by the time the deadline comes up to pay your father's absurd debt which he dumped on you because he wanted to go adventuring (a lot of jokes at the expense of standard RPGs).

Lastly, this game's final third is Japanese dating sim style, without the dating. You can go to different spots around town, taking up pie peices, to talk to characters, learn more about characters (like Tear, the other half of Recettear) and the adventures you use... I mean borrow? This leads to the recruitment of more than one adventurer if you are in the right place at the right time.

All in all, this game is worth it if you like anime games, simulation games, action RPGs, and quirky anime humor!