Recent reviews by Rippy

Magic Arena is coming, Duels is no longer supported.

I would still recommed playing this anyway and its free too.

Slightly more details:
Its a trading card game, with heavy magic elements in it.

A really terrible port, you have to have a high end PC or something to run this well. If you have a potato, then don't get this game at all, unless you like playing under 20 FPS.

Beyond that, Atelier Firis is the 2nd installment to the Mysterious set, taking place after Ateleir Sophie.

Quite a lot has changed from Sophie, first and foremost the timelimit returns, it's not as bad as it sounds, the timelimit is very generous, you should be able to do the goal before you run out of time, unless you muck about wayyyyyy too much. The fields or maps are way bigger and more open, no longer do you stay in one place to do all your synthesizing needs, you set up camps and well, go on a journey and explore new areas.

Combat and the synthesis system once again changes, combat plays very similar to your standard turn based RPG games, you input action and the character acts immediately, its not like in Sophie where you input everyones actions and it plays out the entire turn in a sequence. So nothing unique about the combat to be honest.

Errrrr... the synthesis system I rather not go too much into this, since this is the heart and soul of Atelier games, but it's almost the same as Sophie's system, instead of filling each individual bars for effects, you only fill one line and the bars/effects correlate to it based on how many times you filled that single line up. I'm going to guess, that I going to confuse so many people at this, so for example in Sophie, there would be Bar 1 and Bar 2, to get the Max effects for both bars, you would have to use high quality materials for Bar 1 and Bar 2. In Firis, there would still be 2 Bars, but you only need to fill up this 'line' (called components for change) 5 times to max out both bars. Beyond that poor explaination, its still the jigsaw puzzle style for the synthesis system.

One of the main factors that I think many players will hate for the synthesis system is the proficeny system. Basically in order to add traits, rotate tiles or do any proper mid to end game synthesis, you have to make the same item multiple times in order to increase proficeny with it. This becomes super annoying when you start making end game bombs because you would have to make it 7-10 times before you can craft your perfect bomb and with no way to dupe and hard to find materials, well you can see where this is going.

True to what atelier is about, the game is really focussed on its crafting. Mixing different materials to make your desired targeted item with the correct effects and traits, however Firis seems to try to branch out of this and try to get you exploring and finding new areas, but still its a crafting game in the end.

I'm really not sure what to say about this game to be honest, its different from the previous Atelier games, the main part that makes it different is the exploration, as mention before, you no longer, go out of your home, gather materials and return back, instead its more like go out, gather materials, move forward, set up new camp, systhesize there.

I really can't say much else about this game, I'm too netural about this direction its gone, this is still your standard Ateleir game, with the story and all that, its just the field maps are way bigger, like wayyyyyyyy bigger.

Well overall I really don't know if you should get this game or not, unless you have a potato PC, do not get it, but its really up to you in the end.

Quick points:
-Heavy Crafting (If your looking for heavy action, wrong game).
-Heavy Exploring.
-Still slice of life like story (didn't mention in review or any story elements for that matter).
-LP stat, I totally forgot to mention this, but LP plays a huge part in Firis, basically this limits how long you may explore out before requiring to rest back in a camp. Unlike other Ateliers where LP is non-exisitant or barely a factor to worry about.
-Lower quality graphics and animation models, probably to compensate how open the field maps are.
-As far as combat goes, its your standard turn-based RPG, the only real highlights are the bombs you crafted are still as fun to use as ever and I guess the chain attacks, something unique to JRPGs, which allows your characters to do multiple attacks in one attack command, based on the speed stat.
-A lot of items and traits from Atelier Sophie got nerfed to the ground in Firis and some brand new traits that introduces risk vs reward, very similar to Power of Madness trait from Ateleir Sophie. I suppose this does give more items and traits to play with though or experiment with.
-Terrible proficeny system forcing you to make the same items multiple times over.

24/09/18 EDIT: Included proficeny system and some spelling errors.

The ultimate crafting game, throwing random things into a cauldron, to make something completely different from the materials used.

Being a fan of the Atelier series, I really enjoyed Atelier Sophie and it's slice of life story. Overall I liked it and is an okay port for the PC.

Well to go into more detail, Atelier series never been about it's story, just the slice of life or daily life of Sophie, the main Heroine. Sophie is a beginner Alchemist that finds a book in her home left over by her granmother, whom passed away and.... Well if i type anymore I'll basically spoil the story.

Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book, begins the new Atelier series with the theme Mystery. There are very few changes over the course of the Atelier series, its still a heavy focused crafting game with cute anime characters.

Some things to note, day and night cycle, performing actions now consumes in game time, well more like a clock, since there is no time limit. Massive changes to the battle system, such as 4 active party members, assist actions are now based on turn order, chain attack (attack command may now do more than 1 hit), all party members may equip alchemic items (though a bit limited) and Sophie may use skills in battle (Something Alchemist heroines couldn't do before).

Like every other Atelier since the Dusk series, the sythesizing or crafting system changes once again, but I rather not go into too much detail about this, since this is the heart and soul of Atelier games and wish not to spoil it.

Now to point out some bad parts, heavy focus on the crafting system, seriously this game is really about crafting from making new weapons, armour, bombs, heal items, enhancing gear and trait properties of materials gathered, everything is about crafting, not too much of a bad point for long time fans, but might be a bit overwhelming for newer PC players.

No new game +. Yea this kind of shocked me when I found out, which really lowers replay value.

To sum this up, I liked Atelier Sophie and the new changes, if you liked the previous Atelier titles, then I don't see why you won't like this one. For newer players:
Do you like anime?
Do you like crafting, combining, and finding items (I suppose experimenting, as well)?
Do you like simple and normal lifestyle stories?
If all yes, may be worth trying out Atelier Sophie. If you're looking for more intense save the world story or goal driven, action packed, fast pace type games, this is seriously not the game for you then.

I did it! I win!

I became Queen! yay!

It wasn't too bad, I only had to take an arrow to my gut, bleed out to death, get killed by some weird magical chain, drown in the sea, get my skull broken, get eaten by a Kraken, get blasted by magic powers, eat chocolates to only find out it is poison and losing fights to the death, nothing big.

Best fourth wall break ever!

Not a fan of visual novels, but picked this up on a sale to try this type of genre. Sadly this didn't deliver for me.

It's got voice overs which is great something most visual novels lack? But story-wise it did not hook me in and some other factors that made it not that great for me. Without spoilers, story is really slow paced, like really slow. Character developement and focus, well there is no focus. All the main characters get their own branching path, which ruins the experience for me. Some questions I had, only gets explained in other pathways than the one I was taking and to do another characters route, you basically have to start the story from strach. I like my stories going in a linear fasion, the choices in this game play a bigger part later on in this story.

Other factors, translation errors, no chapter select, this was a really big one for one, scenes I liked were hard to rewatch, because there was no chapter select, so I had to manually find them and apprantly you have to patch this game with a restoration patch to re-add sences and to get slighty better translations, the resotration patch was a pain for me to get working and annoying.

Overall, this is a particular novel, that probably will not appeal to all people.

The

A fantastic exploring game, going around and exploring different planets, gathering intel, scenery and doing geo surveys.

Game changing terrains from snow covered planets, hot molten volcano, sandstorm, rain, lush jungles, deserts, wasteland, grass plains, swamps, mountains, underwater and even urban areas too.

Clean, green and unseen would be the words to describe Helldivers.

Great game for explorers and adventurers type players.

My review of Dungeon Defenders 2

Its ok.

At the time of reviewing, the game still/was in early access. Anyway a fantistic breathtaking story driven game.

Killing Floor 2 adds much to the story of Killing Floor 1 and continues where Killing Floor left off from. Killing Floor is a game that will immerse you into the plot and character development of the game. Each and every character in Killing Floor will develop a deep and meaningful relationship with the player as the story progress with intresting plot twist and turns.

The new implementation of the puzzle solving system, armoured battle-suits, crafting, chapter select and new boss fights, all add to the enjoyment to the gameplay of Killing Floor. Regrading some of the new mechanics of this, chapter select serves the much needed replayability Killing Floor 1 lacked, it was really great to redo chapters without having to start a new game. Each and every boss fight felt different and unique and some you had to defeat though special means or sometimes you do not need to even fight them and also all the bosses have a huge backstory to add to their persona.

Killing Floor 2 has an intresting story, good replayability, great character development and new and intresting boss fights. If you're looking for a good story in a first person story driven game, then I would recommend this.