Recent reviews by SlashingHades

Totally worth the asking price for 3 great DS era Castlevania games. Personally my favorite titles in this collection are Portrait Of Ruin and Order Of Ecclesia.
PoR is an absolute blast to play with the dual protagonist take on the CV formula and I really like the glyph system in OoE where you gain more powers and such from absorbing enemy glyphs. It's a very similar system that was in Iga's spirtual successor Bloodstained Ritual Of The Night.
I've always thought Shanoa in OoE had a top tier character design. Jonathan and Charlotte's personalities bounce off of each other well and are entertaining to watch. As for Dawn Of Sorrow is good but I've never cared for Soma Cruz as a character.

A great start to what would later turn into the Disgaea franchise. I have the Steam version as well as a physical copy for the Switch, so most of my playtime comes from that version. To start, La Pucelle Ragnarok has one of the best plots that NIS has in their catalog next to Disgaea 1 and Phantom Brave. As well as probably my favorite main protagonist out of them. The game plays like a proto version of what Disgaea 1 plays like. You don't have nearly as many mechanics as Disgaea however in place you have the purification system. The purification system allows you to recruit enemies as allies, purify crests for bonuses or to stop enemy portals and allows you to get points that level up the stats of your characters equipment. One thing I like is seeing Prier before she become a recurring Overlord in the later Disgaea games. The port is a bit basic but from what I've played so far it runs pretty well and is a massive upgrade over Disgaea 1's PC port. Honestly if you're looking for a fun TRPG game La Pucelle Ragnarok is a recommendation. Far superior to the absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Disagea 6 was (It's also the first mainline game not to have Prier show up as a DLC character or an endgame boss that is later recruitable). Yeesh that game was awful.

Atelier Sophie is the first of the mysterious trilogy. Out of the 3, and soon 4, mysterious games Sophie is probably my 2nd favorite of the mysterious games behind Firis. Though out of the leads for the trilogy Sophie is by far my favorite protagonist.
DX adds all the previous DLC and a new story that deals with Sophie's late grandmother.
Replaying this because Sophie's second game comes out later this month.

My introduction to the Atelier series back when it released on the PS3.
Atelier Torori follows a young girl on her journey to find her missing mother. The gameplay is relatively simple turn based combat but with a rather complex alchemy (crafting) system. The game itself, like the series in general, are slice of life games that tell day to day stories of the girls journey's and lives. So it is a very lighthearted series.
DX adds new additions like dungeons, enemies, all of the previous DLC from the PS3 release, party members (like making Totori's sister a party member) and other additions.

I would recommend it to people who want to play the Arland games and the series pre Ryza.

Arise does a good job updating the series to a modern standard. The gameplay is among the best the series has and the characters are all fun to play as. Personally I stuck with Shionne and Rinwell as my mains since Shionne is really good at attacking and support and Rinwell is one of the most powerful spellcasters in the series, I love the addition of character specific abilities mid combat and having the ability to equip 12 arts at the same time. Arise is certainly in my top list of Tales games just for gameplay alone.

Fruit of Grisaia follows the most chad harem protagonist ever Yuuji "Juicy" Kazami, a young but experienced assassin, who wants to settle down and live a quiet life. Unfortunately for him he is sent to an abnormal school where they only other students are 5 girls each with their own routes and really dark and depressing back stories.
My top Grisaia girls are Michiru, Yumiko and Sachi.

E&L is my favorite out of the Atelier Dusk trilogy. The game has snappy combat, likable protagonists, music and an amazing opening.

A massive improvement over the original. Would I recommend playing the original before jumping into the sequel? I would say yes simply because of returning characters and it gives you more insight into the universe of Blue Reflection despite all of it's faults.

Second Light improves on everything the first did including a better port, Gust seem to be getting better at porting to PC while other KT properties are either hit or miss (Warriors Orochi 4 had a good port while Fatal Frame V and Ninja Gaiden collection had rather lazy ports).

As for the new additions there is a faster more in depth combat system similar to what Atelier Ryza has. There is more playable characters (BR1 was limited to 3). They also added the two leads from the anime as playable characters, which I haven't finished. The level design has been vastly improved while also giving you more ways to trek across each area. Seriously, the level design in the first wasn't great. There is also live banter while exploring dungeons which give the characters more personality and makes the game more lively. Ao has the ability to date other girls which the first game kinda let you do. Another improvement and one I'm glad about is the overhaul of the progression systems. In BR1, Hinako and the girls didn't level up in a traditional manner instead they gain skill points from interacting with other characters in the game meaning the only thing combat rewarded you with was items. In the second game they scrapped that and added in a traditional leveling system through combat but also retained some of the original elements. Instead of gaining a single stat point from interacting with characters you get TP points that also level up the relationship you have with each character. The points you get from here can go into one of four trees. These can give a character a slight stat increase or an ability.

Mel Kishida's art is as beautiful as it has ever been with high quality character portraits and designs, seriously his character design's in Blue Reflection and the Atelier Arland games are really good. The music still has that laid back feeling it had in the original. The story is also improved from the first because there is a mystery of the girls finding out about their pasts and about the world they currently inhabit.

All in all Blue Reflection Second Light improves upon what the original did and it's really like Mel and the guys at Gust really listened to the criticism's the first game got and decided to create an overall better package than their previous outing.


The game is peak "cute girls doing cute things". As for my favorite girls it looks like a tie between Ao, Kokoro and of course Hinako, the protagonist from the original who returns in this game.

A really fun video game adaptation to the anime/manga series. I actually think AOT 2 is one of the best games based off an anime where they insert a custom protagonist into the narrative. It's far better than how Bamco does it with the Dragon Ball games.

As for gameplay zooming around the map with your ODM gear is really fun as is getting the perfect altitude and speed to get a critical hit on a titan.

Also Historia is best girl.

Finally the definitive version of Corpse Party Blood Covered came to PC. I've been waiting for a port based off of the great PSP remake that was done years ago. A nice edition is that this version has all of the extra scenarios from other ports of Blood Covered including 2 new exclusive extra scenarios made for this version.

One of my favorite things about Corpse Party PSP and onward is the phenomenal audio quality and mixing that brings the horror aspect to life. Another is the large cast of likable characters that may or may not be dead.

All in all I would say that if you are a long time Corpse Party fan then I would recommend it. It's a vast improvement over the OG TeamGrisGris version and the original Corpse Party RPGMaker game from 1996.