Recent reviews by DarkChaplain

This game.... This game. For one, it is pretty damn bad and the continuity is utter garbage. This trilogy is so full of plotholes, the authors should be proud of their failure, because this is top-class nonsense.

But now that I'm trying to force myself through this pile of junk again, it just won't stop crashing. It crashes, freezes, crashes again, progress lost left and right, and there are no proper fixes available anywhere. Even the mighty PCGamingWiki is clueless on how to resolve these problems!

The worst part about this is that I don't remember having even just comparably bad performance and crash problems years ago when this thing launched on PC. I played multiple chapters without incident, and now it just won't work no matter what, crashing even just when loading a freaking costume preview in the main menu, or slowly walking around in the starting room while the framerate jumps from 60 to 18 to 43 to 28 to 59 to 30 fps and all the way back and forth.
What the hell happened, Square Enix, and why have you not lifted a finger to fix it?

Bottom line, a terrible game compounded by stability problems out the wazoo. Don't bloody bother.

I couldn't stomach it for more than a few stages. Rarely have I seen such badly designed levels that work so poorly with the traversal mechanics.

Well, at least I didn't get a physical Kickstarter edition, so there's no manual that won't fit into the box, I guess. Could always be worse with Inafune these days.

I have to say, I am deeply offended by this game. That's not something I'd expected to ever make a review about. Apologies in advance if I offend anybody else's sensibilities by speaking my mind.

When I saw the title pop up in the list of new releases, I was happy, expectant. A game titled "Dark Elf" surely had to be celebrating the glory of this dark-skinned, pointy-eared race of beautiful fantasy humanoids. It had to be elegant, maybe a bit haughty, but truly stunning to behold.

At that point, I did not even care an ounce about the gameplay. Who really needs super-extravagant gameplay when there are Dark Elves to be had?

Ever since Record of Lodoss War showcased the marvelous Pirotess, Dark Elves had a special spot in my heart. I even collected Warhammer Fantasy Battles' Dark Elves/Druchii, even though they were pale-skinned as their Ulthuanian High Elf cousins (which was not a surprise, considering how much of their land of exile is covered in snow). Chloe and Origa Discordia were heroes of their people before the Black Dog band came and ruined their lives. Sansei Muramasa from Full Metal Daemon even made it into Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel, which recently released on Steam. She showcases yet another example of Dark-Elvish grace. Yao Haa Dushi also showed the stoic might of her people in GATE: Jieitai Kanochi nite, Kaku Tatakaeri, and life was good at Alnus.

I hope you can understand my excitement to a degree. These dark coffee-toned beauties are a sight to behold, and one easily appreciated.

But then I saw this game, played it even, and my disappointment, nay, offense knew no bounds.

This is no Dark Elf. Fraylia, or Frelia, whichever spelling in the game is actually supposed to be true, is no Dark Elf. I find the game's premise utterly deceptive. At best, she is a Toast Elf, who had a light tan from going to the solarium for a few hours. Maybe she even just used some tan-lotion (which might explain the light-spots on her skin?).

Dark Elves Matter, dear developers.
They are an already marginalized people who always stand in the shadows of their High Elven cousins in popular media. They are rarely considered to be included. Every piece of multimedia involving them is a rare gem, especially in western regions. This..... blatant whitewashing, is inexcusable.
How could you do this? Why did you do this? I will never understand it.


I will not refund this game because I believe that the designers of this game were merely misguided, rather than held malicious intent. Rather than refunding, I would prefer my voice as a customer be heard for future reference. Please make Dark Elves great again?

I was looking forward to picking this one up ever since seeing Jesse Cox's Fan Friday on the game. Playing it myself, I got even more impressed by the game's mechanics and variety. There's a lot of interaction between the cards that makes it work on a vastly different level from other card games out there.

Even Gwent with its 2-3 rounds per match and different rows doesn't reach Age of Rivals' complexity. However, the game remains extremely simple and intuitive despite it all. Card texts are crystal clear and after the first two rounds you'll already have the hang of the basic rules and design intentions, if not the finer strategical details. Go big on cash generation, excessive culture output or just keep the opponent down with devastating attacker cards? There are many ways to win and enough flexibility to adapt on the fly, due to it being a deck builder game. Synergies have to be planned for in advance to succeed in the later rounds, which is oddly satisfying to pull off.

It feels inviting while offering a lot of strategic considerations that could make this game successful on a competitive level. For the time being though, I'm just happy being able to play it a couple of times a day for leisure. I'm looking forward to seeing what the future holds for Age of Rivals.

I completed this one at least 5 times, between PC and Tablet (where I bought it). Its just too satisfying to play while watching stuff or listening to audiobooks. With the Steam Workshop bug fixed, this'll keep me playing for ages to come...

Planet of the Eyes attempts to replicate Limbo's success, but lacks the kind of atmosphere and challenge that made Limbo good. It has the simplicity and core puzzles, but beyond that, it is a very bland title.

Playing it I never felt challenged by the platforming or puzzle design, only frustrated with its limitations. Towards the end, you'll encounter rotating arrangements of boxes to traverse. You have to carefully balance your little robot to not slide down on either side of a block, and figure out the right angle to jump off from. It is a matter of timing and precision, yet the controls feel noticeably unprecise in these sections.
This is mostly down to when your robot will find it in himself to latch onto a ledge. The angle of a box has to be just right for it to happen, and even when you feel you should have been able to grab onto it, the automatic system might think otherwise. In reverse, you might end up sticking to ledges when you didn't mean to, and die as a result as well.

That kind of design quirk makes me wonder why the devs couldn't have implemented, I don't know, a button press for hanging on to things? Its not like the game offers more than jump and interact buttons, plus a joke/achievement related dance button. Well, there is the pause menu too, but that, while it has a "Resume" button, doesn't actually pause the game. Oh joy.

A lot of the puzzle-platforming could have been improved simply by requiring my user input, which a ledge-grab action would have helped with. There are a lot of spots where you have to jump from ledge to ledge, and the button-press timing necessary for that would have made them a lot more engaging. The way the game plays now, however, just had me bored. Beyond the clean and quirky art style, and the occassional audio log detailing the plot passively, I didn't feel like this was something enjoyable to play. The minimalist sound design adds to that as well.

Compared to Limbo, which it is closest to, everything felt too basic, too simplistic and without real tension. There were a bunch of cool sections with alien wildlife making things difficult for you, but those mostly happened in the earlier parts of the game, and the closer you get to the end, the more it turns into pulling switches to avoid repetitive traps and waiting for platforms to move on their pre-described rotations or ferry you over lava lakes, while you're standing in place until reaching the jump-off point.

It is an utterly inoffensive game, but sadly, that also means it has nothing really going for it to keep me playing.

UPDATE September 2016:

The game's development is basically abandoned at this point. A recent Kickstarter update has the developer claim he "lost all his code on launch day" and then took a break to stop being depressed about it for months. Following on from that, he also takes a dump on people wanting refunds and calls people posting on the Steam forums "fake Gamers". The line "Have fun, vandalize the forums, I do not give a ♥♥♥♥" makes his attitude unmistakably clear.

I'd also like to point out that, while FleetCOMM is a commercial product being sold on Steam and Kickstarted, to the developer it is nothing more than a hobby ("FleetCOMM is where I have fun") and will only be worked on when he feels like it, if at all.

Avoid this clusterfrak.

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It is utter garbage made by a megalomaniacal asshat. Just stay away for sanity's sake. Heck, even the menu design is terrible.

The first chapter missions are not available to play yet, either. It literally is unfinished while the developer laughs about and bans people asking from the forum. The incomplete state would be one thing if it was sold as an Early Access title, but it isn't. It is a full release that has the bulk of its content arbitrarily gated depending on the whims of the developer.

Performance is all over the place, and the game speed seems to be tied to the framerate. One moment you might have 120fps, the next 75, or 60, or even down to 20, all while your GPU spins its fan louder and louder. The framerate also inexplicably drops when you open up the Esc menu. Cool to see 10fps on a static screen.

The developer is clearly taking the piss. Avoid.

Flame Over is a genuinely tough yet enjoyable twin stick shooter. Extinguishing fire has never been this engaging and fun.

An excellent remaster that fixes what many users complained about when the original launched: HD textures, a different lighting engine (which may be subject to preference, as it is more realistic than before and thus things aren't as glowy anymore), DLC integrated into the main game, and plenty of fixes as well as rebalancing of enemies and gear.
Honestly, this upgrade is worth it for the highly detailed textures and new environmental effects alone.

If you've never played Darksiders II, this version is excellent for you, too. It includes all DLC content previously available and runs smooth on modern systems - even on my old (and hopefully soon to be replaced) AMD5750 graphics card, it runs just about the same as the original did, at a drastic increase in visual fidelity.

Overall, I am very pleased. Finally the game looks like the artists intended it to originally, but weren't able to realize before. It is well worth picking up.

Some first impressions from my first hour of playtime regarding the port and comparability to Hyperdimension Neptunia:

First off, the game runs smooth even on my old toaster card. This is likely due to it being more CPU intensive to begin with, but even then I am seeing no hiccups with my i5-4460 and my HD5750, running Windows 10 Pro x64 - in other words, the game runs smoothly at 60fps (which is the default lock as per the .ini file, but may be unlockable).
There are no in-game graphics options to speak of besides resolution and a fullscreen/windowed/borderless toggle, but then you'll hardly need more, seeing the game's artstyle and heavy reliance on animated 2D backgrounds and sprites. Further graphics settings may be available in the .ini file again, and AA can be forced via your graphics vendor's control panel regardless.
Settings for controls, sound and so on are all there, including manual button remapping for your gamepad (which should help with getting non-standard Xinput pads to work), and Voice, Movie, Effects and BGM volumes have separate sliders, as they should have.

From a gameplay standpoint, the game is close to Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth, which it supposedly shares the engine with. If you've played Neptunia, you'll find it easy to get into the systems, though even after an hour of playtime, there are differences and additions in Fairy Fencer F.

Those differences include the Tension meter that raises/lowers your stats in combat and allows you to transform at a certain point (whereas Neptunia gave you more free reign with transformations), "boosting" weapon stats, learning new skills and what not through using them to earn and assign points, attaching Fairies to your characters for added perks, switching weapon styles to increase certain parameters like crit chance, speed and the likes, and Character Challenges which reward you with stat increases for various gameplay milestones.
These challenges also encourage cycling through your party members, as some of them demand a character to be the party leader or do things only the leader is able to. It is a nifty system I'm looking forward to explore more in-depth, as it should keep things fresh (if a little grindy in the higher ranks, I expect).
Overall, the gameplay system at least feels more complex in terms of customization and late-game options than Neptunia (though take my judgement with a grain of salt - I'm not that far in yet).

The story and characters up to now seem like a good combination. The character dynamic between the protagonist and his fairy partner are funny and lighthearted, which reminds of Neptunia, but appears far more grounded and less preposterous than Nep did. If Gamindustri felt too wacky and over the top to you, Fairy Fencer F might deliver a more enjoyable experience.
The basic plot is very simple in theory: Collect all the Fury weapons and revive the Goddess, explore dungeons, talk to people in towns (again, more grounded than in Neptunia, though very similar in execution), and fill your protagonist's stomach.

The art design and music are straight-up gorgeous, as would be expected from the team behind them (which includes Nobuo Uematsu as composer and Yoshitaka Amano on the art, two big creatives that made Final Fantasy so good in its glory days). Fairy Fencer F offers some top-notch, high quality art in the typical J-RPG/Anime style.

Overall, I am pleased with my purchase, and will continue playing it.