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Chained Echoes Review

Chained Echoes is a rare example of one of these retro-inspired pixel art JRPG’s being more than the sum of its parts. Many parts are traceable to classics of the past (some more recent than others) and I could easily list where so many elements come from (and will, later), but Chained Echoes builds on the past in ways that demonstrate the indie JRPG truly has legs built of stronger stuff than nostalgia. Chained Echoes is the story of several characters; Glenn, mercenary-turned-hesitant leader of a rebellion; Lenne, runaway princess of a tyrannical, militaristic nation; Victor, Shakespeare-esque bard of untold age with mysterious ties to both Glenn and Lenne; and Kylian, Glenn’s brother-at-arms who turns traitor on the party near the end of the first act and acts as a villain of various levels throughout the game. With this group and the variety of characters that surround them (there are 13 playable characters in the game), a political tragedy unfolds as Lenne’s brother declares...
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Suikoden V Review

       I’m about 35 hours into an adventure filled with political intrigue, assassinations, kidnappings, betrayal, and open warfare. I’ve just bested my enemy on the open water, then destroyed a dam/military base by releasing the force of an entire lake into a river and discovered ancient ruins at the bottom of said lake. Propelled by a sense of adventure, I enter these ruins, excited to see what they have in store for me…             Five minutes later, I started texting a friend. Ten minutes after that, I got up to check my student e-mail. I began to browse Reddit after another five minutes. Almost fifty minutes after entering the ruins, I turned my PlayStation 2 off and have not turned it back on again. I had been sitting on the same loading screen, the music cutting on and off, that entire time.             This was not the first bad loading time of S...
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Keylocker Review

             I won’t pretend to fully comprehend everything going on in Keylocker . At its core the game is a scathing, if heavy-handed, critique of capitalism and the systems we create in the name of perpetuating the status quo, which you play by defeating your incredibly difficult adversaries in a grid-based, turn-based system. Keylocker is an incredible game.             It’s also incredibly frustrating.             I have one complaint about this game and that is its teeth-grinding difficulty, mostly due to the inconsistency of the parry mechanic. When an enemy flashes white as they attack you, you’re meant to press the block button, negating all damage. Failure to do so can, in some instances, lead to you being one-hit-killed. However, sometimes, the flash is not indicative of the actual timing, which can lead to hair-pulling, want-to...
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Wandering Sword Review

Wandering Sword is a fantastic shell of a game. The world is absolutely beautiful, the premise of being a growing swordmaster with a friend to rescue is immediately gripping, and the gameplay, on the surface, seems deep and complex. Then you actually play the game. Wandering Sword is plagued by perhaps too many ideas. An RPG stat progression system is perfectly lovely, until you introduce stats with vague use. What exactly does my ever-growing Sword Mastery stat do for me? Raising it never seems to affect my ability (or inability, as I’ll touch on later) to mow down enemies. So why should I be concerned with it? The main progression system of striking chakras(?) (I forget what they’re called) seems simple enough, until you realize that you don’t know what exactly would be most beneficial for you. Stats like Strength and Constitution being raised in increments of two or more are fairly self-explanatory, but what does it mean to raise my Evasion by 0.3 or my Internal Power by 2? N...
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