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When you purchase games on the Nintendo eShop, you earn store credit. I usually save up a lot of my credit and purchase a smaller title with it. One of these titles I purchased a few months ago is named Little Noah – Scion of Paradise. After playing it for a bit, I was surprised that it was the perfect game to play on my commute to and from work. I played it on a few train rides, and I think I’m ready to share my opinion on this game. This game is something unique and now that I have beaten it once, I really want to talk about it. Wait, beaten it once? What do I actually mean? Let’s talk about it in this article, while I invite you to leave a comment with your thoughts and/or opinions on this game and/or the content of this article in the comment section down below.

Zipping Kitty Attempts

In this game, we play as an alchemist called Little Noah. She is in a long journey to reunite with her father. While she is looking for her father, her airship gets caught in a storm, and she crashes near a mysterious ruin.

In that ruin, she meets an amnesiac cat named Zipper. Well, she names it Zipper. Together, they start to explore this ruin because they encountered a dark wizard named Greigh, who wants to enable a powerful machine which is dormant in the ruin.

Now, if you are looking for a deep story… I’m going to have to disappoint you. The story of this game isn’t the main focus of this game. The story in this game is fine for what it is and does its job, but there is nothing more to it. Personally, I don’t think it’s a negative for this game. Because the story takes a backseat, the gameplay loop is a lot more polished. Also, I don’t think it was the intention to have a very in depth story.

The voice actors in this game did an amazing job and brought the characters and the world of this game to live. The amount of personality they brought to their characters is really well done and really fits the atmosphere of this game like a glove. The amazing voice acting is one of the main reasons why I didn’t mind the “To be continued” at the end of the game at all. This small title really feels like the developers are testing the water if people who be interested in a larger game set in the world of Little Noah.

So, what do I mean by “small title”? Well, this game can be beaten in an afternoon. Now, the game has quite a lot of replay value in my opinion. The gameplay loop of this game is quite enjoyable. It has quite the potential to grow into something unique that I don’t often see in these rouge lite games. But, I’ll talk more about the gameplay later.

According to various sources online, this game has been worked on by a small team of 30 people. Even by some industry legends like Yukio Futatsugi, who had his hand on another title I played in the past called World’s End Club. The amount of love and care put into this title is quite impressive and gets a thumbs up from me. I know that this game is based upon an earlier mobile game from the same developers called Battle Champs. Yet, I think it’s great to see the developers repurpose the assets after the shutdown of that game and make something new about it.

If you have ever played a game like Rouge Legacy, you’ll feel right at home in this game. In this game, you have to explore a dungeon and fight bosses. During your exploration run, you gain various special items that give you all sorts of buffs.

In terms of difficulty, this game is very balanced. While you can get lucky and get amazing items and buffs to make it quite far in the game, with enough skill and understanding of the game… you can even outplay the game if you get bad items and not good buffs. Now, I’m reading mixed things about the hard difficulty online, but I have been playing through this game on normal difficulty and I found it pretty fair and balanced. So, let’s do one more dive to explain how this game works.

One More Dive

I want to talk about the unique mechanic in this game. The combat system in this game is something I wanted to play for a long while. In this game, you are accompanied by Lilliputs. These are special creatures who attack for you. You start each run with three basic Lilliputs. During your run, you can find other Lilliputs and make yourself stronger.

Each Lilliput is very different in terms of strength, element, attack, and unique attack. You can only have five Lilliputs for your main attacks, and you have two special attack slots where you can place one Lilliput in each. So, you really need to balance your Lilliputs well. The order is also quite important, you don’t want a whole row of slow attacking Lilliputs in an area with a lot of range attacking enemies. Also, you don’t want to use a weak element compared to the enemies you are facing. If you are focusing on wind, you will have trouble with fire enemies.

It’s extremely important to understand your Lilliputs. Since, once you started an attack, you are somewhat locked into that attack. You can’t start another attack while an attack is in progress, excluding the special attacks that is. So, if the enemy moves to the other side of your attack, though luck. This game is a whole balancing and time act, and it’s a lot of fun. The randomness in this whole game makes each run unique, and you can never predict how far you’ll be able to go.

Now, dying in this game isn’t the worst thing. All your items and Lilliputs get converted into mana, which you can use to repair your airship. The more you repair your airship, the more advantages and buffs you can unlock to make even better runs. You can also use special treasure chests you can pick up in your run to either increase the strength of your unlocked Lilliputs or give to Zipper for a special bonus for your next run.

So, how does a run go? Well, allow me to compare it to a crusade in Cult of the Lamb to a degree. In that game, you go into a dungeon, and you have to go from room to room, defeating every enemy in that room before you can progress to the next room. Unlike Cult of the Lamb, some rooms give you a special challenge. These challenges are reaching a certain amount of chained damage or hits, not being hit or defeating all the enemies in a limited amount of time. When you complete this challenge, you receive an additional bonus when you defeat the room.

There are also special rooms that can spawn. A shop where you can spend the gold you earn during a run, platform challenges with a strong treasure chest at the end, (combat) challenge rooms and rooms where you can get special buffs from a crystal and a room where you can get Lilliputs or a buff item. All of these special rooms have a special icon on the map. The map also shows little icons when there is still something you can pick up in the room.

Complete exploration of a dungeon is a very risk/reward thing. You do risk your health to go into an additional room to get additional buffs, or do you want to save your health for the next (mid)boss level? In order to beat this game, you have to beat three worlds. Each world works like this: level – level – midboss – level – boss. Be warned, you can only replenish your health potions at the start of a level. During (mid)boss fights, you can’t replenish your health potions, so keep that in mind when you are deciding if it’s worth the risk to go into that challenge platforming room.

Overall, the gameplay in the dungeon is quite addictive and the fast-paced decision-making you have to make is something that got me hooked. I don’t spend a lot of time on my airship, outside repairing it and setting up the right buffs for my next run. I always want to do one more dive and try and beat the game again. Now, the airship itself is build quite well. You can also re-read the tutorial boxes in case you want to refresh your memory on certain mechanics.

Repetition of Diving

Something that really impressed me is how smooth this game actually runs. The optimization of this game is incredible. I didn’t have any frame rate issues or slowdowns at all. Even when I’m preforming my ultimate attack, which causes a lot of visual flair and effects on the screen.

The controls are extremely responsive as well. Very rarely I felt like I wasn’t in control, and I think some of these moments might even have been a false positive where I was trying to blame my mistake on the game. In terms of the controls, there are only a few nitpicks I can give. The first is the decision to place “R” as the interaction button. This feels quite unnatural and took me some getting used to. Also, I think a left-handed mode would have been welcome since I think left-handed people who appreciate the “L” button then for interactions.

Why am I placing so much attention on this? Well, because you don’t pick up items or Lilliputs automatically. You have to stand next to them and interact with their medal or crystal. But items like health drops or burst gauges are picked up automatically.

The other nitpick I have is that when you start your dive, you get a fixed amount of mana from the first dungeon. Why can’t we skip this little cutscene that plays every time? It breaks the flow of the start of a run. Since you are stopped in your tracks every time.

Another nitpick I have with the controls is how the Lilliput attack order can be decided. The problem comes when I just want to swap two Lilliputs of their place. This is something you can’t do. Unless you swap them from your inventory to the main line OR from the main line to a special attack slot and vice versa. Swapping two Lilliputs in the main line is somewhat clunky to do and feels unpolished.

Visually, this game is extremely colorful and charming. While this is a side view game, like a 2D Mario game, the backgrounds are also incredible. The team that worked on the visual presentation of this game did an amazing job. I only have one nitpick about it and that’s somewhat shared with a nitpick I have with the audio design.

I feel like the frozen status isn’t communicated clearly enough to the player. Several times I was unable to move Noah and I couldn’t figure out why. It took me sometime to realize that she was frozen and that’s the reason why I couldn’t preform an action. Either a more exaggerated visual of a frozen Noah could solve this or more sound effects when you try to do something while frozen.

Apart from that, I don’t have any complaints about the visuals. The animation feels amazing, and you feel the impact of the attacks of your Lilliputs and it feels so rewarding, adding more immersion to the gameplay loop. This game is something where I felt: “One more dive” after each time I died and returned to the airship. Each time I wanted to go and explore the amazing caverns. While I was afraid that this game would suffer from long play sessions, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t the case for me. At the end of a long play session, I have to admit that the game felt a bit repetitive… But I don’t mind repetitive gameplay too much when the core gameplay loop and level design is fun.

The only negative I have about the level design is that you very quickly see all the possible room lay-outs there are in this game. While the dungeon is randomized each run, it doesn’t take long before you see similar rooms. A couple of times, I even had the same room back-to-back. This isn’t a huge problem perse, but I felt that the developers could mask this a bit better with different decorations or minor changes like one of the platforms having a possibility of crumbling or not.

The music and sound effects in this game are really catchy. I would love to add it to my playlist. Sadly, I can’t really find a way to listen to the soundtrack or even buy it. The tracks in this game are charming when they need to be but are also quite action-packed during fight scenes. The sound effects and visuals inform you quite well when an enemy is going to attack.

Now, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I think it’s high time for my conclusion of this game. Let’s dive into the summary and my final thoughts of this game.

Summary

The bad:

– Some minor nitpicks with the controls.
– Story is fine, but lacks some depth and is predictable.

The good:

+ Very addictive gameplay loop with high replay value.
+ Amazing voice acting.
+ Breath taking visuals.
+ Extremely optimized gameplay.
+ …

Final thoughts:

This game is a small indie title created from the remains of an old gotcha game. It’s only 15€ on the Nintendo eShop and it’s totally worth it’s price in gold. While the game lacks some depth and is quite short, the replay value this game has is something that’ll make you replay this game just one more time.

While playing this game, I felt that this game was an experiment. The developers were testing the waters if the gameplay would work or not. This game feels like a prequel to a much larger game and if I’m right, I can’t wait to see what the full game or the sequel is going to be like.

Even when this game is going to be a standalone game, I don’t really mind if that’s the case. This game is a game I can highly recommend if you enjoy games like Rouge Legacy or Cult of the Lamb. While it doesn’t have a lot of, if any, base building… It’s another amazing title in the genre.

While outside of the combat mechanics, it doesn’t do a lot of things you haven’t seen (a lot) before in other similar games. But, that isn’t a bad thing. Since, sometimes a game where all the good ideas from other games come together into one title can be a lot of fun as well.

I’d love to see another game in this universe where there are a bit more stakes in using your Lilliputs. What if certain Lilliputs get weaker when you pick up items of their opposite element? Or Lilliputs that can do a special attack with another Lilliput present…

There is so much more you can do with this combat system and I think that if the developers expanded on the core mechanics, this game sequel could reach quite far. Since, the game we already got placed an amazing foundation for an amazing series. I love this game to bits and I’m so glad I gave this game a chance, since it was an amazing pleasant surprise to playthrough. It comes highly recommend from me. After I finished the game once, I let me hunger for more. I wanted to play it even more. And the fact that I barely have any complaints about this game apart from a weak story and some nitpicks… This game just has a lot of care and lot put in by the developers and everything works and fits together so well.

With that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I want to thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 90/100

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Cygames has revealed more details about Beatrix, who will appear as a new DLC character in Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising in May 2024. Aya Hirano will reprise her voice role in the Japanese version, while Jennifer Losi will provide her English voiceovers.

The Beatrix DLC set will be available at $7.99. It will come with an avatar, badge, and studio figure of the same character. The set will also include a cutout of Beatrix's weapon, the Embrasque Sword. An SSR-grade character weapon drawing ticket for the original Granblue Fantasy mobile game will also be available to players who purchase the DLC on the PlayStation versions.

The new Beatrix trailer is available to watch via the game's official YouTube channel:

Beatrix will be the fourth DLC character to appear in the second Granblue Fantasy fighting game release. The first three characters were Lucilius, Vane, and NieR: Automata's 2B. According to a roadmap published in late December 2023, Cygames is also planning to add two more DLC characters in August 2024 and October 2024. All six characters released in 2024 are also available for purchase simultaneously via the first Character Pass.

Beatrix will appear as a DLC playable character for Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising on May 23, 2024. The fighting game has been available worldwide on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and PC via Steam.

The post Beatrix Will Appear in Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising Next Weekp appeared first on Siliconera.

After a protracted production, a developer swap and several delays, Granblue Fantasy: Relink has finally been released, some eight years after its initial announcement. This is a bold, colourful action RPG that combines compelling storytelling with a bombastic and exciting combat system. It's one of the more original RPG efforts I've seen in a while, but its protacted development raises questions about its visual quality and performance on PS4 and PS5 systems.

Right out of the gate, it's clear that Granblue Fantasy: Relink looks excellent, with beautiful and well-animated cutscenes that are interspersed generously throughout the title. Some of these scenes are more sedate, but many depict grand battles with plenty of pyrotechnics and carefully-animated swordfights. These are some of the best cinematics I've viewed in a while, and the game looks absolutely lavish here. Because Relink is a relatively modest adventure by RPG standards - clocking in at ~15 hours to complete the story and another ~20 to complete optional content - the game takes a liberal approach to cinematic density that few other RPG efforts in recent memory can match.

We also see a good workout for some of the game's key rendering tech here as well. Of particular note is the post-processing, namely the motion blur and depth of field. Relink has extremely high-quality motion blur that makes the game look very smooth in its default performance mode. Even when you examine the motion blur closely, it holds up remarkably well, without the kinds of sampling artifacts that often characterise motion blur techniques. The bokeh depth of field is also used frequently, with an attractive appearance and blurring patterns that suggest a circular aperture.

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After a protracted production, a developer swap and several delays, Granblue Fantasy: Relink has finally been released, some eight years after its initial announcement. This is a bold, colourful action RPG that combines compelling storytelling with a bombastic and exciting combat system. It's one of the more original RPG efforts I've seen in a while, but its protacted development raises questions about its visual quality and performance on PS4 and PS5 systems.

Right out of the gate, it's clear that Granblue Fantasy: Relink looks excellent, with beautiful and well-animated cutscenes that are interspersed generously throughout the title. Some of these scenes are more sedate, but many depict grand battles with plenty of pyrotechnics and carefully-animated swordfights. These are some of the best cinematics I've viewed in a while, and the game looks absolutely lavish here. Because Relink is a relatively modest adventure by RPG standards - clocking in at ~15 hours to complete the story and another ~20 to complete optional content - the game takes a liberal approach to cinematic density that few other RPG efforts in recent memory can match.

We also see a good workout for some of the game's key rendering tech here as well. Of particular note is the post-processing, namely the motion blur and depth of field. Relink has extremely high-quality motion blur that makes the game look very smooth in its default performance mode. Even when you examine the motion blur closely, it holds up remarkably well, without the kinds of sampling artifacts that often characterise motion blur techniques. The bokeh depth of field is also used frequently, with an attractive appearance and blurring patterns that suggest a circular aperture.

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A new patch added NieR: Automata DLC character 2B to the roster of Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising, and it appeared alongside a new video guide overviewing her moves. Additionally, Arc System Works and Cygames released details about what else update 1.21 brings to the game.

As the video, explains, 2B plays quite differently to the other fighters in Versus Rising, having several basic combo strings with options to mix-up the finisher. Players will also have a second resource gauge to manage, which is expended by the use of certain skills.

While the star of the update is 2B herself, the patch also features the addition of an Oceania server region, weekly challenges with Rupee rewards, and some new Weapon Cutouts to equip to your lobby avatars.

You can read the character guide for 2B in Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising below:

Cygames and Arc System Works recently released another trailer for 2B. That one showed off her special attacks and confirming a 2P-themed alternate color palette. Additionally, in 2023 it was confirmed that Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising would be featured at EVO Japan 2024, with a maximum of 2,048 players.

Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising is available now for PC, PS4, and PS5, with Nier: Automata's 2B available as paid DLC.

The post Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising 2B Character Guide, Patch Notes Released appeared first on Siliconera.

NieR: Automata's 2B will appear soon in Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, and Cygames has published a new trailer featuring her. Following on from the reveal trailer in late December 2023, this new video showcases more of the DLC character's regular and special attacks in the Arc System Works-developed 2D fighting game.

Near the end of the trailer, Cygames and Arc System Works newly confirmed that the 2P color scheme—which was originally designed for Bandai Namco's SoulCalibur VI—will also be included in the DLC character set.

The trailer also revealed a new version of NieR: Automata's theme song "Weight of the World" that will act as 2B's personal BGM in the fighting game. Tsutomu Narita arranged the song originally composed by Keiichi Okabe, with Emi Evans back on the vocals.

The new 2B trailer is available to watch via the Granblue Fantasy Versus series YouTube channel:

Cygames also published a webpage detailing the content in the 2B DLC set. Other than the character herself—who will also be posable in the Figure Studio, the set will include a premium avatar and badge based on the character, as well as a cutout of 2B's weapon, the Virtuous Contract.

Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising is readily available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and PC via Steam. 2B will be available as a DLC character for the fighting game on February 20, 2024.

The post Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising: 2B DLC Will Include 2P Color appeared first on Siliconera.

Granblue Fantasy: Relink is a JRPG that is ticking off many of the action RPG tropes. It would be in danger of becoming workmanlike, such are the number of things you can tick off on your fingers like a plumber ordering parts: boss fights against improbably huge glowing monsters, an evil god, catboys, numbers popping off enemies, women who appreciate the combat applications of a thigh-high split skirt, anachronistic sunglasses, horned giants carrying halberds of the same approximate size as a caravan.

In practice, though, you sort of can't be mad at Granblue Fantasy: Relink. It's built around a layered combat system that seems impenetrable if you don't take some time to understand it. But really, Granblue Fantasy: Relink is just a game so committed to the rule of cool that the entire setting is physically impossible, and every battle is a disorientating Panic! At The Firework Factory that flirts with being a photosensitivity nightmare. I'm not selling it as such, but it's actually charming.

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