Recent reviews by Valkyrie

This game is an absolute treasure. Truly one of the classics. And it plays beautifully on the Steam Deck.

I played chrono trigger for the first time many years ago on the DS, but never beat it. Then watched Two Best Friends play through the whole original SNES game back in 2012. Since then I've always remembered the game fondly, and loved the music and listened to the soundtrack dozens of times. Not only is the art amazing, by Akira Toriyama, but the soundtrack by Yasunori Mitsuda, and the writing by Masato Kato (who would go on to make the Xenogears and Xenoblade sagas). And the unseen hand of Sakaguchi bringing it all together can't be understated either. So many huge names in japanese gaming culture coming together on one project.

And I'd say it still holds up! To anyone who hasn't played the game, but likes old-school RPGS this is a MUST PLAY. And even to those who aren't normally that into RPGs, I'd still highly recommend it. As far as I'm aware this is a port of the mobile version that released on iOS and Android years ago, which itself is a port of the DS version. You can tell because it contains additional areas and quests which weren't included in the original (and which are quite noticeably lacklustre, reuse assets, and are much more tedious to play through than the rest of the game). If you don't play that bonus content then I'd say the pacing is perfect. I got through the game in ~30 hours, but I was taking my time. Thankfully the horrible filter that ruined the original pixel art on the mobile version has been disabled by default. Additionally the Toei Animations cutscenes from the PS1 version have been preserved, but I'm not sure they ever entirely fit (and this is the only point where the steam deck had issues. Sometimes the cutscenes would play with no audio, or the audio would lag. and one time the deck crashed after the cutscene had finished)

My only real complaint about this version is that the Achievements leave something to be desired. It would have been nice if they included some achievements for passing chapter markers, and for doing all side quests. Instead the only achievements are for all the different endings you can get; which essentially require two or three extra NG+ playthroughs. So most people who have played and beaten this game will literally only have little achievement to show for it.

I would love to see a HD-2D remake of this game one day. But I doubt it will come soon. Square's HD-2D focus at the moment seems to be set on Dragon Quest.

RIP Toriyama

thanks to the updates, mods are broken (once again). Bethesda needs to learn to leave their own damn games alone after a few years (or else offer the option to have proper version control using Steam's built in system). This keeps happening. It happened with the Skyrim anniversary edition. It will likely happen with Starfield and TES6 and Fallout 5.

A cool little game with a great soundtrack. I watched Day[9] play it around the time in launched, years ago; but finally got around to beating it myself too.
It's a tricky, one-shot, boss-rush type game. Except it's also set in a mini open-world. Despite the name, think of it less like Dark Souls, and more like a top down pixel art version of Shadow of the Colossus.
The final boss killed me more times than all the other bosses in the game combined though, so be warned... this is still a pretty hard game. All in all, took me just over 4 hours to beat casually on Steam Deck. But there's also some challenge modes that i may come back to one day.
My only real complaint is the lack of accessibility options. A way to slow down the whole game, as seen in Celeste, would have been really appreciated on some of the bosses. And a way to enable a little aiming reticle so you can actually see where you're about to shoot. I think either or both of these additions would help a lot more people actually get past past the first few bosses. Because right now, that first gate is a massive player filter, which is a shame.

Extremely cool little documentary-style visual novel depicting the life cycle of a strange whale species on another planet. If you're interested in speculative biology, hard science fiction, or general world-building, this is a peak example of in-universe exposition. The thing is fully voiced too, with music, sound effects, and beautiful imagery. I'm looking forward to part 2!

Edit: reading some of the other comments, it turns out the voices are AI generated. Which kinda sucks. I really hope they hire real voice actors for part 2. But since this is a free game, and everything is fully credited (even every single sfx used), it's hard to complain too much. If anything, this is the sort of project that AI voices could be used for 'somewhat ethically'... but that's for courts and philosophers to decide.

it's fun!
but it suddenly started crashing on launch and i've tried everything to fix it. i guess i just gotta wait for a patch :/
edit: Patch came on 20/03/24 that fixed the crashing issue. game is good again!
edit 2: as of 04/05/24 the game now requires a PSN account to log in. ugh! aslo they keep nerfing weapons instead of buffing the enemies. It's a small thing, but i really would prefer them to make the game harder without breaking the feel of the cool weapons they've added. thus! the game is bad again, boo
edit 3: game is good again. they rolled back the decision to force psn linkage! Woo! remember kids, bullying giant corporations works! Now go join a labour union
edit 4: Nov 2024. game bad again. Sony is backtracking on their decision to not involve a separate login.

I did not expect to go into this game and not only max out every romance, but also nearnly 100% the game. Its suprisingly poignient, and hits home for me in a lot of ways. The gameplay (action roguelite elements) are also pretty decent. My main two complaints: there should be an option to disable "Mom" at any time, not just when you start the game. And in the ending, the villain should have gone to jail -- not just to therapy. He was, afterall a serial stalker/kidknapper who mutilated almost every member of the main cast in some way or another.

is pretty good

I'm not paying for a dysfunctional performance patch. And even if it were functional, this 'upgrade' should have been free for those of us who already owned all the DLC. smh

The game itself is ok so far. I'm playing it for the first time. I'm still getting through Emerald Vale. I may update this review to be positive if things with the spacer's choice edition have changed by the time i beat the game.

Why did I pay money to make the game worse? The CC content is just... so bad. And modding the base game is now harder, because the Anniversary updates break a lot of older SE mods. Now more time is wasted checking compatibility before building a mod list. Thanks Bethesda, you played us once again!

Very cute and simple game. I spent a while on level 12 and 17, but the rest were quite easy. It's free, so it's hard to complain. But I did mute the music after a while because it was too repetitive.