TastyRetroGaming

No More Heroes 3

This game is a culmination of 14 years since the original’s release on the Nintendo Wii up until now and everything that makes Suda 51 a genius. Suda 51 has a storied career up to date, from Killer 7, Shadows of the Damned, Lolipop Chainsaw and killer is Dead, Let it die to name a few. All of which are unmistakeably tied to his style of directing and gameplay. What always has amazed me at this super violent, and profanity laden adventure is for the most part it’s been a Nintendo exclusive which for a lot of the time in previous generations they’ve aimed to keep the systems fairly family friendly.

Some Combat on the first Boss of the game.

No More Heroes 3 is the third game in the mainline series and the fourth in total if you count Travis Strikes Again, and a random Japan release only game for mobile. This game is very much aimed at existing fans. You could pick it up and play it with no prior knowledge of the series but it would definitely require some google, as there is numerous reoccurring characters that pop up from brief encounters to boss fights, throughout the entire game. However here everything that made 1 and 2 good has been amped right up and finessed to an art for this game. The oddly specific humour dotted throughout, the super excessive blood that spurts out of your enemies with each strike and the constant profanity of mainly Travis. There is something to be said controlling a space mech, shooting a giant alien and being able to yell fuckhead at it. This truly is it’s own series and nothing else quite like it.

This installment contains Mech space fights, cause yeah’, it does.

Bringing back open world play from 1 rather then the solely mission focused 2, Santa destroy has been expanded a fair whack, even if for some reason there is a whole host of forbidden areas you can’t access, locking out half of the total map. Each area though is filled with fun little activities; from unclogging toilets so that you can save the game whilst taking a dump, collecting shirts from fashion aliens, mowing lawns, protecting the coast from giant Alligators, or even charging down speeding cars on your bike. This is just a few to name with other mini games to partake in. With the game primarily being a hack and slash, defence missions take up most of the side content, which requires you to fight mini-bosses or waves of enemies in differing environments.

Motion control prompt for a wrestling takedown.

Unlike in 1 and 2 there is only one beam katana in this game, the good old Blood Berry. As much as I would have liked collecting more or having direct component upgrades. This choice actually makes for a more fun and precise fighting experience having to learn the different enemies and pick which glove upgrades you want to create and install to up/lower certain attack percentages. As well as using the WESN currency to upgrade your stats directly, from; health, damage battery charge, new special moves and battle gloves recharge rates. This is one of the issues with the game, some things aren’t explained and unless you just wonder into the laboratory under your motel room, you won’t even know to do this. Same as the battle tension gauge, which I think affects the damage of your combos with the flashier looking ones dealing higher output. I’m still not too sure even with completing the game.

One of the side quests is to collect scorpions.

One thing this game series has always done astoundingly well are boss fights and this entry is no different. As always you are aiming to climb the ranks in the UAA rankings to become number 1. This time it’s against invading aliens lead by FU. Each alien has their own boss area, one or two die due to story related so you don’t get to fight them, but they have nice nods to other older games, like final fantasy, smash bros, streets of rage or old text scrolling games. With the final fight against Fu being a really cool two stage fight where you end up in his own weird neon mirror world. What adds to all this and the lead up to the fights is the dialogue which is in a league of its own and Travis Touchdowns voice actor Robin Atkin Downes always knocking it out of the park. Great timing on delivery, and the breaking of the fourth wall on the regular adds to great moments. How he is always going on about anime, his favourite Takashi Miike films and series, with his favourite being Gozu. Which I’d admit for a long time me and my friend thought that was some weird fever dream we experienced together but it is full film, which I can only press for you the readers to experience on your own. Or when he’s trying to console his apprentice Shinobu after having her arms ripped off about his favourite NJPW fights he saw. I just find Travis to be a great written character which would be hard to confuse with anyone else.

Nice homeage to games of days gone by, against the second to last boss Sonic Juice in a Final Fantasy inspired fight.

One annoying part of this game though is the graphically inconsistencies throughout. I’m not one to moan all that much about how good a game looks, don’t get me wrong I think games should look incredible but that isn’t necessarily the main selling point. Here character design and models tend to look great, but the open world is a bit all over the shop some textures look okay to good and others look straight up shite. Not to mention the lag on loading some of them especially in the cutscenes. As it happens often it’s very noticeable. I’m not sure why this is, I think it’d be a cop out to play the switches hardware considering how good some of the titles look on it, look towards the soon to be released Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Perhaps it’s just bad optimisation, I mean the RE engine for MH Rise looks fantastic and runs great. Or maybe it was just budget/time constraints. With the game being released on Xbox and PS towards the end of the year, we may be able to see an overhaul with these certain issues but only time will tell.

Continuing from previous games, this returns with motion controls. Usually the last move on an defeated enemy with an on screen prompt of which direction to execute. Or if you use one of the many wrestling take down moves. Maybe your katana is clashing and you have to get the best of an opponent for a free string hit in. And the mildly suggestive way of re-charging your beam Katana. (Yes it does looks like his whacking off). It’s nice to have motion controls, as I feel have said before along with the touchscreen features of the switch I tend to find a lot of games forget this is available to them.

The final kill of a stage sends you to this finishing screen, just to let you know that they are indeed dead, even though they’ve flopped on the floor in two pieces.

All in all for me regardless if this is the last adventure for Travis touchdown, as mentioned by Suda 51, but the ending would suggest otherwise it’s a great addition and probably my favourite so far in the series. It’s super fun to play, it’s not overly long about 12ish hours to complete the main story whilst doing a fair chunk of side activities as well. Which you can easily add about another 8 or so hours on to wrap everything up nicely, or if you so desire replay on new game plus which i’m yet to check out. I just feel having a bit more to it would’ve pushed that little bit more. Slightly better graphics and less lag. Potentially more weapons/upgrades wouldn’t have gone amiss, and creating a much bigger Santa Destroy that for the most part can’t be explored. Maybe more collectibles as well, not just the Gacha machines you have to unlock from a side mission. Not that it seems likely either but a lot of this could be addressed with DLC and this game is made for it, there is so much that could be done. I wouldn’t take all this to heart to much though as for the most part the game, is a very well written, if that’s your sort of humour anyways. Fun hack and slash adventure with great combat and fantastic boss fights.

Overall I’d give this a very high 8/10, Highly Tasty

Released, 27th August 2021, Nintendo Switch.

Destroy All Humans (2020)

Having been a long time fan of the original game and it’s better sequel, I took a while to get around to buying and playing the PS4 remake of this. I always enjoyed Cryptos’ dialogue and witty comebacks, and the glee of using the Anal Probe to shoot peoples brains out of their arses. As a youth what more could I want in a game.

An odd point for a 10 year old me was that I actually completed both games many times, as more often than not now I find replaying a lot of these games I straight up didn’t or it just turned out I was pure shit at them. So from the get go with this is, it’s been tarted up pretty good. Graphically overhauled in every way and it’s managed to keep the same style of the originals without comprising to much. Even if the characters look a cursed blend of the visitors in planet coaster and a rubber mask. The games plot is simple as anything, Crypto under the command of Pox is sent to infiltrate America all the way up-to the President to gain command of the planet in the name of the Furons, for human DNA. This however is hindered by a secret group called majestic.

As a result of being hunted and not always the hunter, this game relies heavily on a disguise feature called Holobob. You take disguise of whoever you holobob for a brief amount of time. This can be extended by reading the other NPCs thoughts. I’d highly recommend that as some of the quotes that these people come out with a great. As neat a feature as this it also is one of the most infuriating aspects. As if you need to do another action like pop someone’s head, telekinesis a cow, or too disguise of someone else, you are almost immediately spotted and that then sends the police, army and majestic after you. This can be a tad bit tedious on certain missions, and secondary objectives.

You have a small arsenal at your disposal, the Zap-O-Matic, Anal Probe, Disintegrator ray and the Ion detonator. Now I always remember in the original the Zap-O-Matic fully upgraded being the top gun. But here I’d argue the disintegrator ray is. I could be misremembering but to be honest the whole lot of weapons are kinda shit. Ammo isn’t great either you have to rely mid shoot out to transmog a bench, or wooden crate for a random chance of ammo. This doesn’t help as you don’t sponge damage all that easily even with fully upgraded shields.

Now the most fun part of the game, will forever be the saucer parts, flying round a lasering the ever loving shit out of buildings until they crumble. This obviously looks better than ever and honestly deserves to be a fully fleshed out game in it’s own right. I’d buy and play the shit out if it. The downside these bits seem few and far between. Meaning for the most part of the game, you don’t need to buy the saucer upgrades as they seem a waste of DNA points. Now if like me you did that, the end robo-prez boss is a right cunt as a result. Honestly the difficulty spike in the last two boss fights is absurd. Other than the dog turd mission where you have to defend a truck carrying a nuke, every other mission is more then easy enough. So what you then have to do is re-do the missions to get any secondary objectives for more DNA, find hidden probes which don’t really give a lot. Or you can do the challenges, with each area having 4 to choose from; Races, Armageddon, Rampage and abduction. All of which aren’t particularity difficult but again rely on you having the right upgrades so if you don’t have many. You are once again shit out of luck. Now you’ll want to do all of these things if you want to platinum the game any ways. If however you just want to enjoy the game this can be a bit of a tedious point to hit, all the unnecessary replaying everything.

The game itself is a super short affair only taking a couple hours to rinse through all 23 missions. This includes a mission not in the original game as it was cut from development. Each mission have secondary objectives that make for at least some replay value. Even with this most missions won’t take longer then 10 or 15 minutes to blast through.

A nice big pic for the full damage of the Ion Detenator.

One strange design choice they made in this remake, was keeping the original audio track. Now don’t get me wrong there is nothing inherently wrong with it. However you can tell it shows it’s age a bit in the not so crispness of it. I mean they did a bang up job of it first time round, but putting the effort in to make up-to date with the current hardware I can’t help but think it’d make sense to have re-recorded the voice acting.

Overall this is enjoyable as the original, even if it has lost something in the make over. What that is I’m not entirely sure, but when playing it there just seems to be a little something off. This doesn’t deviate from the fun though. It’s sprinkled with quality of life upgrades, like being able to skate briefly from dashing, the transmog from 2, upgraded shooting, and better flying physics. I am most definitely going to be buying Destroy All Humans 2 Reprobed when it’s out in a couple of months. As this reminded me of how much I enjoyed playing these titles as a wee me, and it’s well worth your time as a new player or a returning player to see how far games have come in the past 15 years.

Overall I’d certify this game a good, 8/10 highly tasty.

Released, July 28th 2020

Goldeneye Rogue Agent

Having looked at getting this game for a while I ended up procuring it for the Xbox for cheap, rather than the Gamecube which was my first choice. Having wanted to replay it for some time, having some enjoyable memories of it, and oddly enough one of the few remaining DS games I had was of this. I wanted to play the big boy console version for the review though.

Honestly there isn’t much to this game. I remember having some frantic gunfights and dying a lot from there being too many enemies at one time or because I was young and just shit at games. This is the most likely conclusion for that. The frantic gunfights though straight up don’t exist, and for a game that came out around the same time as Halo 2 it miserable falls short on the shooting. I mean the aiming is stiff as anything, and I’m convinced half the time I don’t actually hit the enemies that are coming for me but they still somehow succumb to my barrage of wayward rounds. The less said about drones and helicopters you have to shoot the better. To try and balance out the rigidity of the moving, you have to crank the sensitivity right up just so you can at least attempt to aim somewhat proficiently.

‘Big budget’ CGI bit leading to the casino mission.

The strongest aspect for this game does come from the dual wielding of weapons. As you go along shooting people, you can equip the dropped weapons, this ranges; from pistols, SMGs, shotguns, stun guns, and remote explosives. There are snipers, assault rifles and grenade launchers as well. Plus the best one, the rail gun. As the missions progress you gain abilities from your fake eye, all of which are kinda naff, and don’t really aid in the game. The most useful is the first one which allows you to see through objects to locate hidden enemies. Which when combined with the railgun as you can just shoot through the walls to clip them. The combat isn’t only limited to just guns, oh no you can pistol whip them and take them hostage as temporary protection until they are shot or you launch them into unsuspecting guards. As you move through the levels occasionally you can activate environment triggers, like dropping cargo carts.

The game doesn’t look particularly good either, it’s fairly dated. Even the cutscenes between missions isn’t that great to look at either. These are slightly bolstered by the magnificent voice of the late great Christopher Lee though. An odd choice here as well is that the entire plot to the game is told via those cutscenes. All the missions are just linear maps, that you walk to point A to B killing waves of enemies as you go between them. The only variation comes from the zipline mechanic which you can shoot from but I wouldn’t bother you’ll just be aiming at the sun or just taking in the sites of the sky. Two features that really rustles my jimmies in the wrong way is, you can’t fucking run, or jump. Absolutely mind boggling that these were just overlooked. An unstoppable ex MI5 agent who can’t run. How did he pass the fitness tests.

One thing the game does do well, is use film related locations so you get some sense that you are in the James Bond universe. As outside of this there is just a selection of past bond villains and side kicks that are dotted throughout the game. Get rid of that, it’d just come across as a piss weak generic shooter with 8 missions with no story link and a low sense of replayablity. The only reason you’d might want to replay the game is you get points for how you kill everyone and the more brutal the better. If you get a high enough score you unlock game art and stuff you can look at in the extra menu.

Honestly I’m truly disappointed with this game, I would’ve liked to talk a bit more about it and it’s good points though they are few and fair between. It’s all hampered with missing features with the developers clearly trying to recapture the magic of the OG that is Goldeneye on the N64. This could’ve been a promising new series back in the day, but it got to the starting line and sat down.

I certify this game a dismal 4/10 just beginning to get taste. This is for bad shooting, shoddy graphics and a boring linear game, with out basic features.

Released, Microsoft Xbox November 26th 2004.

Pokemon Yellow

The game that started my love for gaming, I think… I would have been around 4 years old when I first played Pokémon yellow on the GBC, and after recently dabbling into an emulated version recently I thought I’d do a little review on this.
Admittedly with trying to move house, I haven’t done too much of the game. I’m at the 4th gym in Celadon which I haven’t completed yet and have sadly had to pack everything except my PS5 away ready to move.

The main way this game differs from blue/red is the starter Pokémon and the ability to acquire all the original starters without that pesky trading with friends. For me this is the real selling point, to a kid who had no friends pretty much it meant I could get all my favourites without having to just go Charmander every time. Although I probably missed them all as a 4 year old and wouldn’t have appreciated it anyway.

The game actually holds up really well, mainly due to the fact it’s Pokémon and they all follow the same system, but also because it’s still fun. It’s not really glitchy at all unless you try and force it into one and the graphics are satisfying to look at because of the memories the game provides. Obviously they don’t hold a candle to the new generation being all pixely, but it is great to look at, with all its dull colours instead of black and white, it adds a small amount of depth to the Pokémon.

Like I said before it all follows the same system, so catch, train, battle and repeat. This game only changes from the original two games because of the Pokémon available and some small gym changes. There may also be some trainer differences on the roads but I didn’t notice any of them.

There’s not too much more I can really say about it, we all know Pokémon and this game is about as simple as they ever were. All the memories that come with it however, surpass every other Pokémon game for me. Maybe only platinum comes close as that’s the one I really played to death.

I’d give this game 25/10 for being Pokémon, and for being the first one I played. Realistically I’d say 10/10 for it’s time is fair.

It’s a great game and at the time it was one of the best games you could get, hence the massive success Nintendo has got out of this series, and the amount of lonely kids that actually got to collect all their starter Pokémon I think is by far the best part. I do wish they still made them like this, I’d pay double the price to easily collect starters as you progress through the game.

Review by MoonHead.

Nintendo Gameboy, June 16th 2000 – EU release date

WWE 2K22

This review couldn’t come at a better time considering all the behind the scenes shenanigans going on with NDA’s and investigations against the Chairman Vince McMahon himself. The talent walkouts, plus I imagine other problems that have yet to surface. This however won’t stop me in reviewing this game, being a big wrestling fan myself watching Raw, Smackdown and NXT weekly plus all the PPVs that happen. So with missing a year due to the train crash that was 2K20 they needed to come out swinging and with the competitor in the AEW game coming out in the near future they needed too.

All the different modes available to you.

No matter where you stand on the tv product itself, as I will admit more often than not a lot of it isn’t the best and has helped give rise to the better product in AEW, that however is for another time and discussion. The game manages to remember that it is a wrestling game, as the shows tend to forget it’s a wrestling show. The fighting having been overhauled especially with the new combo system, plus the chain breaker if you are defending is a very welcome choice. The biggest improvement though over the last few entries is reversals, they are actually doable. Everything in the fighting itself seems far more concise, that doesn’t mean it’s without it’s bugs though. And it can become a right clusterfuck in multi man matches. Sometimes trying to get the pin in a ladder match or 4 way tag match is utter fucking nightmare. Even if you are having a good time sometimes you just wanna win and move on. The ref counts can be a bit gammy and sometimes your character will merge with various surroundings or if you are lucky enough your opponent. The grappling is more flowing and easier to transition into a suplex or submission, and setting up of characters charged finisher once your metre has filled up is promoted at you so it’s hard to miss.

The game has many different modes, the main story comes from the rise of Rey Mysterio with you re-enacting objective based offence to re-enact the exact moves he used in those famous matches. Theres nothing wrong with this mode, and having the man himself narrate around and during the matches is cool. It’s just not overly long or hard, or that interesting for some of the match choices. You have a MyGM mode, where you become a GM for one of the three brands, I do like this mode it’s just lacking usable titles and match types to make it a more complete mode. It is fun though booking week to week programming with the stars you want, and setting up heel turns, and feuds etc. You have universe mode where you just pick one of the superstars of your choice and just go through weekly matches and PPV, pretty standard stuff. Then you have MyRise where you attempt to rise through the ranks to WWE champion, again pretty standard stuff. The last optional mode outside of creating your own in the sandbox arcade mode, so a cage match, TLC, Tornado tag just a few amongst the plethora of choices to you is MyFaction. Now I really like this mode, but I can also see why you wouldn’t. It works as a trading card game sort of, but the card you pick is the superstar you fight as in the matches. Having different tiers of each wrestler means the higher the class and ranking the better they are. Where it falls flat is though it comfortable fits in the pay to win situation, where the game wants you to buy in game currency to buy more packs and get more cards. Now I find if you play enough and the different options within MyFaction with the rewards the give you it isn’t the worst just slowly collecting enough credits to but a new pack of cards. I do like the gold tier of certain cards where if you do a certain amount of specific actions you can upgrade the cards to a better tier and power ranking.

Graphically it’s a nice looking game, not the best going anywhere but the character models are the best they’ve ever been, hyper realistic to the people involved, the hair graphics look a tad wank though. The ring itself and the crowd surrounding it, seem crisper. I imagine they aren’t as high end as the could’ve been though as they are probably a bit behind still somewhat with missing the yearly cycle, as this shows with the superstar roster available to you. The entrances look sharper as well, and there is a whole depth of talent to choose from in game. It’s just a real shame how many of them are no longer with the company and haven’t been for some time even before the game dropped. I also feel the commentary is sounding and comes off far improved.

Overall I really enjoy playing this game in any of the modes available to you. If the 160ish wrestlers in the base game isn’t enough for you then you can expand it with one of the four dlc drops. This all muddled with the high variety of different matches and modes available to you it makes for a great pick up and play a bit or for a long session and doesn’t ask too much of you in return.

One of my boy Seth cause why not, man’s been holding the guy’s division of Raw up on his back, it’s gotta be getting tiring.

I’d certify this game a highly tasty 8/10.

Sony PS5 Released 8th March 2022.

Need For Speed Underground. – Quick take Review

This’ll be another short review, due to me currently playing Ghost of Tsushima as the next big review, which is taking up most of my time. Also due to the fact we all know you’d prefer a bigger, better review on Underground 2 which will most definitely be happening. So this’ll just be a very brief and quick rundown of the overall game, just to tide you tasty peeps over. As having missed a review last week due tot he Queens Jubilee weekend and me eating my way through to an early grave.

Having not played either Undergrounds for at least 15 years if not slightly longer, outside of my fond memories of them I had for the most part forgotten what they were like. I remember all of the customisation but to what degree, ’twas an unknown.

This game has no free roam, which was a first in it’s sequel, but it did introduce the first proper sort of campaign. Not much to it really, your character just wants to be the best street racer with a big ‘ol reputation. You get your standard few choices of cars to begin with, I chose the Mazda MX-5 as it had slightly less speed then the Dodge but better handling. Ironically handling in this game is a beaten bag of dicks. It just isn’t good even with upgrades, you will still randomly lose control or just smash into a barrier for no real reason. Ruining the race for you as more often than not it’ll keep happening each race. This in it self is a shame as the rest of the racing for a game of it’s age still feels great. Even with the looming shadow of the dog shit handling, if you are racing nice and clean, one mistake will make your opponents super happy to capitalise on it. This gives a sense of real competition even if you are only ever against 3 other drivers.

One nice feature of this game comes with the high options of visual and more importantly performance upgrades. So the focus is more on the cars you can buy and use. Rather then starting with flash new super cars in the newer entries. The idea is firmly rooted in the Japanese performance car racing. So instead of tearing through the streets in a Porshe or Lambo you are still blasting round the streets in your shitty neon glowing, nitro powered starter car for ages. You can upgrade your; engine, tires, ECU, drivetrain, turbo, brakes, weight reduction and suspension. I’m sure I’m probably missing something there still but you get the point.

All the different modes are the standards for arcade style racers. You have lapped circuits, sprints, time trials, drifting and my favourite the drag racing. With every few races ending in a tournament, which is pointed and the highest points at the end win, simple enough right? This game is oldschool in the sense to move on, you have to come first. As some games would allow for second or even third place to move on. This game cares not for your struggles, first or go home. Before each event you can pick easy,medium or hard which increases the prize pool. Most areas or fairly linear, but with one or two little deviations which ultimately don’t seem to make any difference in timings. The same goes for the random choice of NPC car populated races, which are easy to avoid most the time, but if you do hit one, enjoy being stuck to it forever. Actions you perform during your race will accumulate style points, which go into it’s own special metre and once filled it unlocks new vinyls and visuals for your cars. That’s the general jist of the game, with the customisation being the highlight of the game.

Overall I was fairly impressed by this game still, the graphics aren’t the sharpest but do the job. The skyline and surroundings do vary in quality, especially the very static buildings in the distance. The driving is mostly fun but can be ruined by terrible handling at times.

I’d certify this game a sound, Tasty 6/10.

Microsoft Xbox 17th November 2003.

Upcoming Updates.

Just a quicky, just the way I like it. Low cost and low effort. Just to let any who follow be aware the website will be undergoing very mild changes over the next few days and as I imagine with my sublime computer expertise it’ll go swimmingly. Nothing too major, but this should be preceeding the soon to be hopefully full website overhaul in the very near future. This is to go along with the changing of how most of the reviews will be coming.

As I intend to start writing bigger, better reviews. The sort of review I had hoped to be writing from the get go. As with the ever shit storm of life constantly pelting me with chocolate rain. I will be wading through knee deep poop water to the beautful clean shoreline of the future and pressing on from the torrential shit shower. All for you my valued tasty followers. I am attuning my focus more on growing this site to be everything it deserves to be for me, and more importantly, for you. The tasty folk who read and like my posts I wish to whole heartedly thank you. Keep tuned for the riverting next chapter in the Tasty Gospel of TRGaming.

Horizon Forbidden West

It’s finally time to plunge back into the post apocalyptic, Dino robot filled world of horizon. This time into the forbidden west. I should start by clarifying that I am a major horizon and robodino fan and I will have to try my best to be less biased then I would normally be.

With that gubbins said and done, I’ll start by simply saying. Bang tidy.
As expected I loved this game and while keeping this review as spoiler free as my tiny mind can manage, I’ll tackle the number one aspect first. This game continues to explain how everyone on earth, pre Dinobot, tackled the end of everything and their inevitable demise. Then post robosaur, how Aloy tries to stop it all from happening again. I’m in two minds on this games story, on one hand I enjoyed that the trailer for the game is the first 4 hours of story and everything after seems fresh and unknown, while some areas of the story are predictable, something I didn’t feel in zero dawn. I’m not sure what happened to the red blight. I don’t know if I missed something mid or post game, but it didn’t seem to explain if you manage to stop the expanse of death plant. It certainly mentions mid game slowing it down along with the storms plaguing the land however once the third act starts, it’s full focus on the central threat of the game.

That aside the mechanics of the game are much improved, everything seems more fluid and combat is enhanced a great deal over its predecessor. The melee combat now involves combos as well as special moves you can team with the bow to deal considerable damage. In tandem with this the A.I has also improved, what was once a fairly easy ordeal clearing an eclipse base, is now much more difficult with the improved A.I’s way of rooting you out and alerting other forces to your presence, not to mention them riding and owning tamed Dino-death machines.

The graphics are much improved in this game. Aloy’s facial features look much more real than the previous game, the dimples and imperfections in the skin can been seen and the hair texture and movement is more realistic. The same applies for the scenery, all highly improved with top notch PS5 graphics.

There is now also many more dinosaurs. From the lowly otter like burrower all the way to the aptly named SlaughterSpine, a massive Spinosaurus that’s mush more threatening than the fleshy one in Jurassic park 3. They all feel familiar and yet new at the same time, with new and old attacks along with an improved A.I.

All in all I really enjoyed this game, however I did find the story lacking somewhat, which is a shame because it was absolutely banging in the first game. That being said everything else is fantastic, maybe a few more trophies for side quests as I platinumed this game after around 50 hours and had a fair few side quests left, but that’s being a bit picky.

I’d certify this game 8/10 A highly Tasty Game … Lower than I thought I would but I feel it’s fair with the few glitches I had and the slightly lacking story. Well worth buying though.

Review By MoonHead.

Sony PS5 18th Febraury 2022

Yu-Gi-Oh The Falsebound Kingdom

I bought this game with no prior knowledge of what it was really, plus it’s the only Yugioh game on my beloved Gamecube. With it being somewhat rare to buy, I went out of my way to purchase it. What a fucking disappointment it turned out to be. It’s truly shite, like I managed a couple hours with it and just don’t get what it’s supposed to be. So you’ll be pleased to know there won’t be much to this review, as there isn’t much to talk about.

This is the main menu and map of the realm of ‘Kingdom’.

I truly find that, it genuinely only has one saving grace and that is the monster graphics and attack animations are fairly nice for the age of the game. Seeing as this is based off a popular trading card game you’d expect the game to be card battles, no. It’s a turn based strategy game where you control three monsters in your team and take turns attacking the opposition, but fret not each encounter is turn limited so it can take several battles to defeat one opponent and honestly the game doesn’t really take off much from that starting point. It is almost as if the developer themselves saw the game as a sinking turd in their own toilet.

The game takes place in a fictional world within the already fictional world of Yugioh, and initially you choose to play as either Kaiba or Yugi which gives a slightly different story but the game plays out the same. You get transported to the virtual reality world of ‘Kingdom’, a hard thought out name I know. You are then tasked with joining, and controlling marshals in a warring realm, where you fight in next to non populated or animated worlds with some forts dotted about. The aim is to fight over and have to take control of it as your own. Don’t worry though, each lead monster you have will walk at the pace of a dying snail, it’s tedious just waiting for anything to happen. These forts once taken after a literal arduous confrontation offer rewards. Mainly shit rewards I might add. They then act as strongholds you can then move units to and from as well as buy some optional extras, like cannons to aid in damaging enemy units prior to the fight.

One of the graphically dead forts you use.

The premise of this game could be really good, even with the limited monsters you gain on your adventures and eventually I’m assuming the Egyptian God cards. Let’s be honest as youths were the cards we all wanted, the ones you would show off to your friends until they then got three shiny blue eyes white dragons but I never managed to put enough time into it to get that far. I just don’t see how or why you would want too. There is no real distinguish between anything, and the weird paper thin plot is the only thing that makes the game move. Each individual monster have levels and stats that increase with XP, and can take battle items with them which after a while unlock new moves, effecting the state of play. There really isn’t much more to it than that, anything and everything all seems lacking in content everywhere area like they thought of the starting point ideas, and then proceeded to just end as they began.

This is a strange game, that lacks content for a style of game that needs, hundreds of items, attacks and creatures to all effect the style of play to your selected team for attacking and defending. It’s all wrapped in a strange story with a half arsed attempt at a tactical turn based RPG. Limp dicking around in a dead looking world, which hit 0 – 50 straight away and then coasted off the path into a ravine as the car ran out of petrol and then the driver just sat in the dead car hoping for a kind stranger to pass by and help.

A complete battle scape that consists of pretty much nothing and everything the game has to offer in one go.

I can only certify this a 3/10 just about tasty, and that’s mainly due to it being a Yu-Gi-Oh game, which comes from the fact the TCG and original anime holds some very fond memories for me. In all serious buy it for your collection but otherwise ignore it’s existence.

Nintendo Gamecube 5th December 2002

Tales of Arise

Tales of Arise is the seventeenth game in the long standing and console generation spanning Tales of series. Not much I can say about my time with this game other than how utterly enjoyable it was to play and complete. Sinking in around 65 hours into this game to 100% and to platinum it didn’t even feel a chore or a drag at any point. This is largely due to it’s incredibly satisfying and engaging combat that only got better and better as the game went on.

The plot to the story is a bit too deep to go into here, but mainly consist of the group led by Alphen on his travels to regain his memory and save his planet Dahna from the tyrannical overlords from the twin planet Rena. Throughout this journey you pad your party out with Shionne, Rinwell, Law, Kisara and Dohalim, which can all be party leaders and thus playable to free roam the areas and control in combat.

One of the map areas for an idea of how each look.

The game runs similarly to how Dragon Age games work blended with Dragon Quest XI, with lots of fully explorable areas. Every area is region specific to another kingdom and all look beautifully different from one another allowing for a distinct individuality. The Fiery, drought ridden deserts of Calaglia, to the lush greens of Menancia. Or even the technologically advanced Lenegis. With each new area comes new enemies or variants of previously seen ones. As well as the Gigants variants which there are 20 to hunt down over the course of the game, which are bigger, stronger and have far more HP then regular enemies, with some even being harder than in game end bosses.

The Owl forest where all the hidden owls you find go.

As you plod around the world of Dahna, you have a few other activities to partake in, from your standard side quests, resting at your campfires which also act as fast travel points which allow you to cook food which grants temporary time allotted boons, from extra defence to attack up, or even higher chances of ore to be collected at mining points. Here you can also further your bonds with your party member through individual skits and at max friendship you gain an ultimate move to add to your repertoire. At each of these points is also a merchant, which acts as an on the go blacksmith,accessory forger and can access your ranch you unlock into the game to farm animals for their meat. You have training grounds which act as challenges for various rewards, from artifacts and special armour, but the most fun mini game is the fishing. Having to collect 44 different fish around the map, along with better rods and lures so you can catch those hidden boss fishes which are caught through button prompts and angling the line the right direction.

The character skill panels, where you unlock new cool shit.

The entire game is dialogue heavy especially towards the end of the game, where it really turns the exposition right up to 11. Luckily for me I enjoy a good story driven story laden with dialogue. The game also contains 320 mini skits which are activated by R1 prompts throughout the game and even I have to admit at times it did really get too much doing 2/3 hours of game where you barely do anything but talk. Thankfully this only happens the once though, and doesn’t detract from the rest of the game prior to it and afterwards. But fret not, there is a trophy to view 300 hundred of them and it is as grind as it sounds, you won’t get this until nearly 100% the game.

Fighting looks absolutely stunnong in this game.

For me the biggest draw and highlight of this game is most definitely the combat. It’s hella fun. Its super fluid and flows perfectly and as you buy the character specific skills and unlock new Artes, or forge new powerful weapons it only gets better. Fighting is super simple as well, attack with R1, dodge with R2, and use X,square and triangle to unleash your Artes, with the aid of artefacts you can add extra sets being triggered by L2. Over time the boost gauge fills allowing you to call in your pals with the corresponding D-pad button, to deal high damage via a very nicely animated attack sequence. In this party based RPG, where the main combat you only have 4 out of 6 members active at any time, I found for once no matter who you controlled directly or you had out with you, you were never at a disadvantage making each party member worthwhile as well as engaging. As more often then not you can easily have 1 or 2 characters you’d forget exist and leave all the shit equipment and items on them to not waste the effort on your main.

One of the many Boost attack animations.

The entire game from start to finish is highly enjoyable, and very well written, especially highlighted within all the distinct personalities of the main characters. I do feel enjoying anime would help in your overall enjoyment of this game though, as it does tend to dip it’s toe into character tropes and styling you would find in that medium. Even having a couple very high quality animated scenes which break up the game but don’t affect the pacing. Mind you if you choose to not watch the skits and that, you’d still be able to play the game understanding everything as they don’t add to the plot, just to thicken the world around it. So I would recommend watching them.

Overall this game gets a high 9/10, certified Pure Tasty Gaming.

I’d honestly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys an open world RPG, with the typical craft, find new weapons and armour. Fight bigger, harder enemies all the while unlocking new magic moves, like Dragon quest, Final Fantasy 7 Remake aside. Just because it doesn’t necessarily bring anything new to the table but it does everything incredibly well. With a phenomenal combat system wrapped around a tight knit layered story, with great characters all accentuate with great design, a fantastic soundtrack, making your battles feel bigger and your adventure larger.

Playstation 5 9th September 2021