Onelargeprawn
Earlier this year, Level 5 released Yo-Kai Watch 2 for the Nintendo 3DS, and it came in two flavours: Bony Spirits and Fleshy Souls. Now there’s a third flavour that combines the best of both prior versions, and adds a bunch more stuff to the game to boot: Yo-Kai Watch 2: Psychic Spectres. But how does it compare? Is my 3DS possessed? Must be the work of a Yo-Kai…let’s investigate!
The newest game in the Legend of Zelda series, subtitled Tri-Force Heroes, is the eighteenth game in the series since its inception 29 years ago. Link has come a long way since that first adventure (well, they’re all different incarnations of Link, really), and now we have three Link characters all playing cooperatively together in the same adventure. Does it work well? I don my green Hylian garb, grab my bow, bombs, boomerangs, (Ed: And my axe!) and master sword, and head out into the Drablands to see what’s up.
Harvest Moon is a tricky story. The games were developed in Japan by Marvellous Entertainment, but while originally translated and localized by Natsume, is currently localized by XSEED Games (and by Rising Star Games in Europe). The problem, however, is that the name “Harvest Moon” is held by Natsume, not XSEED. So while XSEED continues to localize Marvellous’ Japanese games under the title “Story of Seasons”, Natsume and Rising Star continue to make games using the name Harvest Moon. So, to be clear, the newest game in the series, The Lost Valley, is not strictly part of Marvellous Entertainment’s main Harvest Moon series because Marvellous Entertainment had nothing to do with it, even though it shares many gameplay elements with the original Harvest Moon series. It makes sense, therefore, to analyze and review this game based not on the original Harvest Moon series, but as its own entity with the same name. Confused? Never mind. Let’s just farm through this review to see what kind of crops we reap.
The original Xenoblade Chronicles, released in 2011, was one of the last great games of the Nintendo Wii’s life, and because it came so late, it was played by far fewer people than would have been hoped. It was a huge achievement of an RPG, too, with a deep mythology, a widely-acclaimed battle system, huge sprawling maps, and vibrant characters. Developers Monolith Soft and Monster Games have ported the game as a New Nintendo 3DS exclusive, allowing more people to play this masterpiece. I take up my Vorpal Sword Monado Blade and head into the wild yonder to see how well this port stacks up against the original.