A quaint town sits nestled among mountains and green hills. Colorful birds flit from tree to tree, and fish swim up rivers of sapphire blue water. The citizens of Mistria go about their days, wandering from shop to shop, each a colorful character in their own right. And while Fields of Mistria may look like your run-of-the-mill farming simulator, it seems to be much, much more than that.

The genre Fields of Mistria occupies is undoubtedly one of my favorite in games. I became enchanted with the Harvest Moon series through Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life as a child, and dabbled in the likes of Stardew Valley, Rune Factory, Palia, and more. When Fields of Mistria crossed my radar a few years ago, I was immediately intrigued, even if it was just a few bits of character artwork here and there. Because while these games are functionally the same in their mechanics, nothing quite looks like Fields of Mistria.

The sprite work for the characters is deliciously detailed and remind me of when I used to comb through Yuu Watase manga like Imadoki! or Alice 19th. It has that mid-90's to early 2000's appeal, and isn't afraid to wear these inspirations on its sleeve. Juniper, the resident bathhouse owner, who's laugh is a direct reference to a popular trope, that you'd see in a series like Sailor Moon or other popular shoujo manga and anime of that time. Fields of Mistria seems to embrace these aesthetics and weave them into the game, with characters fulfilling specific archetypes. And because it doesn't shy away from that, it makes Fields of Mistria all the stronger.

You more or less know what you're going to get with each character, as their personalities generally correspond with their looks. At least based on what I experienced. And there isn't anything wrong with that. These "anime" archetypes exist for a reason, and are popular. Olric is a part-time shop assistant, which is evident by his character portrait, whereas March the blacksmith immediately reads as standoffish with his tilted head and frown. There's something appealing to this, mostly because it feels familiar. It could turn off some that are looking for something that might subvert those expectations, but because these things are so immediately nostalgic for me, I can't help but be sucked in.

Even small social interactions with characters feel fresh and fun. This is because characters in Fields of Mistria interact with one another in casual conversations. When you approach NPCs standing around each other, there is a chance that they'll be chatting among themselves. On Friday, the local tavern has the residents of Mistria piling in to drink and play card games, and this makes the town feel alive. Everyone has their own habits, but relationships with each other that exist outside of you. However, I did wish the dialogue options you could pick for your responses wouldn't bounce between an extreme over-eagerness or "sassy" responses that come off as a little corny.

Because even if the first few hours of Fields of Mistria are somewhat slow, with you needing to progress through several days and a myriad of side quests to actually gain access to all of your tools, the game is oddly comfortable. The characters, predictable as they are, are fun to talk to, and the general game flow is slow but steady. It's clear the developers want you take your time, as interacting with the world and all of its systems, like farming and fishing and gathering materials, net you essence. Essence is used to unlock skills in a skill tree, which is an interesting implementation, but some of these passives are great for restoring stamina without forcing the player to cook dishes or call it a day early.

You can of course, do a plethora of things during the day and even the night. There are collectables you can turn into the museum to unlock additional cosmetics. You can fish and farm to your heart's content. You can rear animals and craft furniture and other things to help out on your farm. All of these things exist in other farming simulators, but Fields of Mistria does have some ease of access when it comes to checking what items you've donated to the museum or what each crop sells for. There is also a cave you can explore if you'd rather do away with farming for the day. But all of these things come together in a way that makes the time management of Fields of Mistria fun, and not too overwhelming. You don't need to min-max your day to have a good time, and requests from NPCs aren't timed. Which means you aren't frantically trying to collect whatever the local innkeeper or carpenter is yearning for on a random Tuesday.

There is enough iteration on the formula to make Fields of Mistria interesting and engaging. And while I am only in the first ten or so hours of the game, I've grown to really like it after getting over that initial hurdle. I can't wait to spend more hours just fiddling with these systems and unlocking more cooking recipes and fishing while curled up under my blankets with my Steam Deck in my hands. (Yes, Fields of Mistria works on Steam Deck, and has controller support.) And I especially can't wait to see what the developers have cooked up and will include in the game once it eventually releases in full.

Fields of Mistria will enter Early Access on August 5, 2024. It will release on PC through Steam.

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I always wanted to properly get into deck-building games. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories for the GameBoy Advance at the tender age of thirteen was my first exposure to this kind of game. I wouldn't run into anything even remotely like it until Slay the Spire burst onto the scene in 2017. However, nothing about Slay the Spire drew me into it. The visuals weren't enticing enough to hold my attention and, despite the deck building aspect being more than proficient (the game is a hit for a reason), I dropped it after clocking in a measly ten hours. When I was asked if I was interested in checking out Library of Runia, I gave the game a quick look and agreed, unaware that I would be spending weeks desperately trying to decipher the complexities of what has become one of the most challenging turn-based RPGs of my life. Honestly, I'm into it.

Library of Runia is a visual novel with deck-building components and all of the bells and whistles associated with turn-based RPGs attached to it. Players follow Roland, a Fixer from The City. He stumbles upon the titular Library and ends up meeting the Head Librarian, an enigmatic woman by the name of Angela. She ends up recruiting him as a member of staff. Through this, he becomes a Librarian, which you think wouldn't be all that exciting. However, in this world knowledge is power. Those that seek out the tomes within this illustrious building must fight the staff in order to obtain the books they desire. That is more or less the premise, which weaves itself into how the game itself is played.

Players can create a team of Librarians, each with a unique set of skills associated with whatever outfit they are wearing at the time. Each Librarian is given a default outfit, which contains a set of cards that will appear in their deck. Initiating combat requires players to offer a book, which then entices combatants to come out. This in turn allows you to take books off of their corpses to obtain more cards and their outfits. It is also how you progress through the story. You can grind stages for multiples of these books to burn, but the game does warn you that you should keep a copy of each, just to have the required offerings on hand to challenge a specific stage.

Now, I had no idea that this was a sequel to Project Moon's Limbus Company. Not having known that and immediately being thrust into the game, I actually advise those looking to play Library of Runia either experience Limbus Company themselves or watch a playthrough. The lore gets confusing and sometimes hard to follow, even if the premise is simple enough. I ended up setting time aside to watch a playthrough of Limbus Company just to get a better grasp of The City and the world in which these games take place while I grinded for more cards and experience, as I was often woefully underprepared for each fight.

As mentioned previously, Library of Runia is a turn-based game. However, there is an extra layer of complexity added onto this that requires some level of resource management. Every card (called "pages") costs a certain amount of Light points. So you don't want to blow all of your Light to take out one enemy if you have several stages ahead of you. Because while you need to factor in the cost of Light, you also have to take into consideration turn order which is determined by Speed Dice. I still don't have an idea of how Speed Dice work. I more or less pick a card and pray that I attack first, killing my enemies before they break my defense, stagger me, and force me to go back and grind.

Attacking isn't the only thing you can do in the game, as playing defensive cards are also an option. You see, each card has several status effects attached to it, some with more offensive capabilities and negative status effects, and others capable of guarding attacks.

This is where you need to be strategic in using your cards. Especially as the game progresses. At first you will fight one round of enemies at a time, picking off two or three combatants before you are given a break to burn books you've acquired from fallen foes to obtain their cards and outfits. But you are quickly thrown into tiered fights, sometimes facing upwards of three waves of enemies with no way to heal or recover what remains of your stamina. Rushing through stages no longer becomes an option. Instead you need to carefully consider what outfit you are equipping your Librarian with, and what cards will accompany that deck. Thankfully you can save builds and swap between them before entering stages very easily. Which is great. Because having to recreate your deck every time you switched out an outfit would be a chore.

It's these little bits of quality of life features that stop Library of Runia from being frustrating to the point of making the player never want to pick the game up ever again. However, I do wish the font was larger, as on the Nintendo Switch it's almost impossible to read any kind of text. This is especially true in handheld mode. I was squinting most of the time as I played the game during commute, and even docking it and projecting the game onto my PC monitor I was having issues reading the text just because of how cramped and small it was. This can be a make or break for some players, and for me it has actively factored into my score. As after a handful of hours with the game my eyes were tired, sore, and bloodshot.

That said, Library of Runia is a fantastic game. The voice acting is top notch, the story is intriguing enough to entice players who otherwise may not be interested in deck building games to give it a shot, and it forces the player to engage with its systems to meet each challenge. However, this means that it won't be for everyone. Those that have gotten tired of fiddling around with the same deck builders for hours on end may find Library of Runia enticing, especially with its heavy emphasis on story. Overall, I had a blast with the game, even if I'm still figuring out just how to optimize my deck some thirty hours in.

Library of Runia is available for PlayStation 4, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

The post Review: Library of Runia Is a Challenging Switch Experience appeared first on Siliconera.

Capcom announced the Akuma Arrives Fighting Pass will appear in Street Fighter 6 on May 22, 2024. The Fighting Pass will include a total of twenty rewards, with some limited to the paid Fighting Pass. Additionally, a new addition to the Battle Hub will appear alongside Akuma and the Akuma Arrives Fighting Pass called GIANT ATTACK.

You can watch the trailer, which includes a glimpse into the GIANT ATTACK mode, below.

As mentioned previously, a total of twenty rewards will be available for players to obtain. These include cosmetic items for your avatar, an emote, a photo frame, a wallpaper for your device, several titles, music tracks, stickers, and a piece of classic game artwork. We can see all of the rewards that will appear on the premium Street Fighter 6 Akuma Arrives Fighting Pass in the image below.

Capcom will continue to add characters into Street Fighter 6 through the Fighting Pass. While Akuma will be the first, he most certainly will not be the last. The next character that will arrive in Street Fighter 6 will be Rashid.

Street Fighter 6 is available for the PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Windows PC, and the Akuma DLC release date is May 22, 2024.

The post Street Fighter 6 Akuma Arrives Fighting Pass to Appear in Late May appeared first on Siliconera.

BlazBlue is an interesting franchise, and I say that with some level of generosity. I've been playing the games since Calamity Trigger released, but have always found the story hard to follow. So the idea of a 2D roguelike that could potentially catch me up on the events of the game was extremely enticing. I like BlazBlue and I like roguelikes, so I figured it could be a winning combination. While BlazBlue Entropy Effect attempts to bring the 2D-fighter into another genre and manages to do so with competence, it leaves something to be desired.

BlazBlue Entropy Effect has very little to do with BlazBlue. Players assume the role of a small robot that can more or less assume the shape of a BlazBlue character when entering a "digital" world that comprises a variety of different neon-colored stages. Outside of the inclusion of one specific character outside the roster of characters you can unlock, there isn't much connective tissue there. Instead, the narrative of the game is relatively sparse and concerns the work of the robots as they continue to reconstruct memories in the face of entropy. (Entropy was also once used as a game mechanic that would slowly degrade your HP, but it has since been removed from the game.) That is where any connection to BlazBlue basically begins and ends with. Yet, despite this, Blazblue Entropy Effect translates the skills of these individual characters to perfection.

A total of ten different characters can be unlocked, which includes more than a handful of notable figures from the series. These people are unlocked through the acquisition of Analyzers, which are obtained through obtaining AP or by completing missions. AP is collected by working your way through stages and are not lost upon death. Which means you can quickly farm AP to obtain Analyzers to unlock more characters once you grow bored of a particular playstyle. BlazBlue Entropy Effect doesn't deal in different weapons, but instead is focused on obtaining more moves and passives for the character you are choosing to potentially complete a run with.

The first character I obtained was Ragna the Blood Edge, recurring character and the protagonist of Calamity Trigger. His moveset was immediately familiar to me, as I have some experience Arc System Works 2D-Fighters. Ragna uses his signature kicks and punches, followed up with slow, heavy swings from his sword. But what made him so exhilarating to play was the need to balance your special attacks (which often consume your HP) and HP siphon from your skills. This gave me something else to factor in when fighting bosses, though the HP siphon and drain did help keep me alive through the most difficult situations depending on how skilled I was with the character. Basically, each character starts with a default move and skill, and as you progress through stages you can unlock more and eventually enhance these abilities, making them even more powerful and giving them more effects. This is what makes BlazBlue Entropy Effect stand-out compared to other games that occupy the roguelike genre.

Everything in the game is extremely dependent on the moveset, movement, and playstyle of each character. This is what you will need to take into consideration, as Noel, Jin, or Taokaka do not play like Ragna, either due the speed of their attacks or even the range. In some ways this could be frustrating if players don't gel with the playstyle of their favorite character, but it opens up room to experiment with different characters' feel and weight. Jin was my main in the fighting games, but I really didn't enjoy his playstyle and ended up playing as Ragna and Hakumen for most of my time with BlazBlue Entropy Effect, which gave me a new appreciation for those characters. Because the characters are what more or less define the game.

Outside of selecting and upgrading moves, players can pick from several different types of elemental enhancements on their weapons. These can include fire, poison, umbra (dark), light, and ice. Each of these enhancements can come in several different rarities, with the highest rarity providing the most beneficial effects. (That is usually just more damage.) Personally, I found that this is when BlazBlue Entropy Effect started getting a bit stale. It's a mechanic that is pretty stock and standard as far as enhancements go, and it doesn't have the same kind of depth as other 2D roguelike platformers like Dead Cells.

That staleness permeates the stages as well. While the game has gorgeous visuals, the levels tend to all look the same. Everything involves mostly unremarkable 2D neon washed landscapes. It's pseudo futuristic and grows old. Especially as stages themselves are relatively short and concerned with clearing waves of enemies that are on platforms above or below you. Sometimes traps are involved, but the addition of them feels negligible at best. I never found their addition to be particularly interesting, as they mostly appear as laser walls that you can dash through or jets of fire that spew flame intermittently. These traps can also appear while fighting bosses, which can make movement more difficult, but with the right builds you can wipe the floor with most of them.

There are also very few types of stages available, which are split into stages where you can get HP back, increase your max HP, purchase various upgrades, or obtain enhancements at random. This is basically the rotation of different rooms you get, but because there isn't any kind of significant story interaction there by comparison to a game like Hades, runs feel mindless and like you're more or less just grinding to see how to best optimize the moves and enhancements you've been given this time around.

But one of the best bits of BlazBlue Entropy Effect is the user interface and general visual design. The game looks great. As mentioned before, moves are fluid and well animated, and the user interface itself adheres to the overall theme of the game. It's slick, cybernetic, and minimalistic, but also vibrant and fresh. Everything about the way this game looks is fantastic, and it's definitely one of the best looking roguelikes I've played in awhile.

Overall, BlazBlue Entropy Effect is an enjoyable roguelike that players will no doubt be able to play for more than a handful of hours. It sets itself apart from other games within the same genre due to it's strong focus on characters and character builds, but the same-ness of stages leaves something to be desired. However, due to the limited stages and lack of engaging story it may not be too enticing for those looking for a roguelike with a little more substance.

BlazBlue Entropy Effect is available on PCs.

The post Review: BlazBlue Entropy Effect Is a Stylish Roguelike appeared first on Siliconera.