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Tiny Epic Pirates is a 45 minute, 1-4 player game of high-seas adventure, utilizing a variable...
Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated Shining Resonance Refrain in Video Games
Aug 14, 2019
I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve never been a huge fan of JRPG’s, but I really don’t have any reasons why. Growing up I loved watching the Shogun Warrior feature length cartoons and I’m a huge fan of RPG’s in general, so you’d think they’d be right up my alley. I’ve tried and tried to figure out why I have such a hard time sinking into them, and while I have never completed a Final Fantasy game, I continue to buy them in the hopes that one of these days I’ll just get it. So, I’m probably not the first person that would come to mind to review a game like Shining Resonance Refrain, a game that was released exclusively in Japan on PS3 back in 2014. Yet here we are, 4 years later, with a version released for the PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch, with updated graphics and English voice acting.
Shining Resonance Refrain has you take on the role of a young man named Yuma who has been held captive and experimented on by the main antagonists of the game, the Lombardian Empire. Yuma possesses the soul of the Shining Dragon, the most powerful dragon in the land of Alfheim. The Lombardian Empire is attempting to gather all the souls of the long-forgotten dragons in an effort to break a stalemate between the waring countries of Astoria and the Lombardian Empire. The only thing standing in their way are Yuma, his dragon soul and a powerful set of weapons known as the Armonics.
Quests and exploration are key to moving the story along, with the main quests involving attempts to hinder the Lombardian Empire’s search for the remaining dragon souls. There are also side quests that help you earn money and experience for your characters. The quests are either your typical fetch type quests or the type where you go to this area, fight this major boss, and then return to the castle. The world is broken up into much smaller zones, representing numerous landmarks on the map. Traveling to a particular spot on the map means going from zone to zone until you reach your final destination. The zones are very small, so traveling between them isn’t a huge problem, but not being able to use fast-travel between the zones you have already explored means you will spend a lot of time going back and forth between your castle and your next quest. It isn’t a huge deal breaker in the game, but the areas aren’t always very interesting, and going back and forth amongst the same areas over and over can get old the further you get in the game.
Combat is a mixed bag as well. During your quests, you will encounter various creatures wandering the zones. The battles take place in real time and each character has a set of action points that are used for physical attacks and magic points used for your special abilities and “breaker” moves. As your character levels up, you gain access to different magical attacks, which you can swap out as you choose, but most of the time your battles are simply button mashing your way through them with little strategy involved. The battles are also extremely inconsistent, as battling the various creatures is almost too easy (even at standard difficulty) but battling the boss monsters is almost entirely too hard. There is a HUGE difficulty curve when fighting the boss monsters, to a point where I sometimes had to drop the difficulty to casual and still had to fight a boss 3-4 times to beat them. On standard difficulty, I’d typically give up after succumbing to the same boss repeatedly. Even in the later stages of the games the boss battles do not let up, but the normal battles are practically a cake walk.
In addition to your standard and magical attacks there is also a B.A.N.D special attack where you get additional powers depending on the character who initiates it. Some B.A.N.D attacks provide guaranteed hits, while others increase the damage of your magical attacks. On the left-hand side of the screen there is a bar with three levels that fills while you battle your way through the enemies. Each level increases the longevity that the B.A.N.D lasts, so it’s almost always preferable to save these special attacks for the boss battles. Yuma also has the ability to turn into the Shining Dragon who can release devastating attacks, however if your magic points drop too low the dragon goes into a berserker attack and will throw damage at friends and enemies alike. This is never good, so when playing as the Shining Dragon it’s key to turn back into Yuma before losing control.
Graphically the game is beautiful, and if anime or JRPG’s are your thing you will definitely appreciate the update to the original graphics. The graphics do stick closely to the standard JRPG tropes of ridiculously large weapons and warriors in short skirts, etc. so it looks like many of the other JRPGs on the market today. That’s not necessarily bad, it has just worn out its originality over the years. The sound can get extremely repetitive as well, especially in battle where your characters repeat the same catch phrases over and over again. Once again, that’s not to say that the sound is bad, but it gets old quickly. There are some other technical idiosyncrasies that were also particularly jarring. For example, if Yuma is killed in combat, you can run back to town with whichever character has taken over the “leader” role, but the minute you enter town, Yuma reappears as the controlling character. I get that he’s the main character and it doesn’t make much sense for the other characters to run around asking for quests, but his sudden reappearance even though you know he’s dead takes some getting used to.
So, is Shining Resonance Refrain a game that made me take another look at JRPGs? Well, yes and no if I’m being completely honest. It’s around 30+ hours for the main story and side quests and I’ll admit that the more time I spent with the game the more I enjoyed it. After about an hour of my mental block on JRPG games in general, I was able to get into the groove of things and power my way through it. That being said, I still felt the story was a little bit ridiculous and some of the characters really started to grate on my nerves. Even the main character Yuma tended to be a bit too wimpy for me. He can turn himself into the mightiest of dragons but doesn’t know if he can handle it, I often had the feeling that he should get over himself and embrace this incredible power. In the end, I really did enjoy it, once I overlooked a lot of it, and it actually did put me in the mood to go back and try one of the Final Fantasy games. I can’t say that Shining Resonance Refrain converted me to a diehard JRPG fan, but it certainly made me want to give them another try and that is a win in my book.
What I liked: Unique Characters, General feel of combat
What I liked less: Inconsistent difficulty, Repetitive phrases and sound effects
Shining Resonance Refrain has you take on the role of a young man named Yuma who has been held captive and experimented on by the main antagonists of the game, the Lombardian Empire. Yuma possesses the soul of the Shining Dragon, the most powerful dragon in the land of Alfheim. The Lombardian Empire is attempting to gather all the souls of the long-forgotten dragons in an effort to break a stalemate between the waring countries of Astoria and the Lombardian Empire. The only thing standing in their way are Yuma, his dragon soul and a powerful set of weapons known as the Armonics.
Quests and exploration are key to moving the story along, with the main quests involving attempts to hinder the Lombardian Empire’s search for the remaining dragon souls. There are also side quests that help you earn money and experience for your characters. The quests are either your typical fetch type quests or the type where you go to this area, fight this major boss, and then return to the castle. The world is broken up into much smaller zones, representing numerous landmarks on the map. Traveling to a particular spot on the map means going from zone to zone until you reach your final destination. The zones are very small, so traveling between them isn’t a huge problem, but not being able to use fast-travel between the zones you have already explored means you will spend a lot of time going back and forth between your castle and your next quest. It isn’t a huge deal breaker in the game, but the areas aren’t always very interesting, and going back and forth amongst the same areas over and over can get old the further you get in the game.
Combat is a mixed bag as well. During your quests, you will encounter various creatures wandering the zones. The battles take place in real time and each character has a set of action points that are used for physical attacks and magic points used for your special abilities and “breaker” moves. As your character levels up, you gain access to different magical attacks, which you can swap out as you choose, but most of the time your battles are simply button mashing your way through them with little strategy involved. The battles are also extremely inconsistent, as battling the various creatures is almost too easy (even at standard difficulty) but battling the boss monsters is almost entirely too hard. There is a HUGE difficulty curve when fighting the boss monsters, to a point where I sometimes had to drop the difficulty to casual and still had to fight a boss 3-4 times to beat them. On standard difficulty, I’d typically give up after succumbing to the same boss repeatedly. Even in the later stages of the games the boss battles do not let up, but the normal battles are practically a cake walk.
In addition to your standard and magical attacks there is also a B.A.N.D special attack where you get additional powers depending on the character who initiates it. Some B.A.N.D attacks provide guaranteed hits, while others increase the damage of your magical attacks. On the left-hand side of the screen there is a bar with three levels that fills while you battle your way through the enemies. Each level increases the longevity that the B.A.N.D lasts, so it’s almost always preferable to save these special attacks for the boss battles. Yuma also has the ability to turn into the Shining Dragon who can release devastating attacks, however if your magic points drop too low the dragon goes into a berserker attack and will throw damage at friends and enemies alike. This is never good, so when playing as the Shining Dragon it’s key to turn back into Yuma before losing control.
Graphically the game is beautiful, and if anime or JRPG’s are your thing you will definitely appreciate the update to the original graphics. The graphics do stick closely to the standard JRPG tropes of ridiculously large weapons and warriors in short skirts, etc. so it looks like many of the other JRPGs on the market today. That’s not necessarily bad, it has just worn out its originality over the years. The sound can get extremely repetitive as well, especially in battle where your characters repeat the same catch phrases over and over again. Once again, that’s not to say that the sound is bad, but it gets old quickly. There are some other technical idiosyncrasies that were also particularly jarring. For example, if Yuma is killed in combat, you can run back to town with whichever character has taken over the “leader” role, but the minute you enter town, Yuma reappears as the controlling character. I get that he’s the main character and it doesn’t make much sense for the other characters to run around asking for quests, but his sudden reappearance even though you know he’s dead takes some getting used to.
So, is Shining Resonance Refrain a game that made me take another look at JRPGs? Well, yes and no if I’m being completely honest. It’s around 30+ hours for the main story and side quests and I’ll admit that the more time I spent with the game the more I enjoyed it. After about an hour of my mental block on JRPG games in general, I was able to get into the groove of things and power my way through it. That being said, I still felt the story was a little bit ridiculous and some of the characters really started to grate on my nerves. Even the main character Yuma tended to be a bit too wimpy for me. He can turn himself into the mightiest of dragons but doesn’t know if he can handle it, I often had the feeling that he should get over himself and embrace this incredible power. In the end, I really did enjoy it, once I overlooked a lot of it, and it actually did put me in the mood to go back and try one of the Final Fantasy games. I can’t say that Shining Resonance Refrain converted me to a diehard JRPG fan, but it certainly made me want to give them another try and that is a win in my book.
What I liked: Unique Characters, General feel of combat
What I liked less: Inconsistent difficulty, Repetitive phrases and sound effects
Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated Warhammer: Chaosbane in Video Games
Jul 8, 2019
There have been a lot of Warhammer games released over the past year or so. Everything from managing spaceships, to Real-Time Strategy, to Tactical Combat based games have been represented between the Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe. EKO Software and Bigben decided to add the action-RPG to the mix with their fun to play Diablo clone Warhammer: Chaosbane.
Much like the games that it takes inspiration from, you have the opportunity to pick one of four characters to battle the Lords of Chaos and bring order to the land. Your standard archetype characters are all here in standard Warhammer Fantasy. The Dwarven “Slayer” class, for those who like a barbarian class to rage havoc upon his foes, The High-Elf Mage who utilizes his magic to bring down the forces of chaos, the ho-hum Imperial Soldier who can take and deal out a huge amount of damage, and the Wood Elf who uses her bow and dagger to deal damage at a frighteningly fast pace.
Each of the characters have their own unique secondary ability that allows them to gain a strategic advantage on their foes. The Slayer can vault himself into enemies (much like the Barbarian class in Diablo), The Mage can control magical projectiles towards his targets, the Imperial soldier can shield bash targets and the Wood Elf can tumble in and out of danger. I played through the vast majority of the game as the Wood Elf and learning to use her tumble ability and stay mobile is some of the best ways to beat the bosses that you will come across.
One area where Warhammer: Chaosbane improves on the standard Diablo formula is how it handles health and energy/mana. Various items you equip can provide health regeneration on their own or you also possess the ability to use a “health Potion” that refills slowly each time you use it. Thankfully this means you don’t have individual health potions cluttering up your inventory. Mana/Energy is used for special attacks and actions…each time you use a skill some of your Mana/Energy is used. There are a few ways you can recoup your energy. The first is to use your general attacks on creatures, as you successfully hit each one your energy fills a little until it tops the meter off. The other way is to reach out to your familiar who follows you around the screen. My familiar was a butterfly that I could run over to when I’d run low on energy and it would fill my meter about half way. When you utilize your familiar in this way they must also recharge, so use them wisely.
One of the more unique items that you acquire as you slice your way through the hordes of demons and undead are Blood Orbs. Blood Orbs appear on the battlefield seemingly at random (although the more enemies you cut down the more likely they are to appear). As you acquire these orbs it fills a Blood lust meter and when full imbues your character with incredible power and near invincibility until the meter runs out. The Orbs don’t stay on the battlefield forever however, and they slowly lose power the longer you wait to gather them, so it encourages you to step out of the battle (or in my case roll out of the battle) to gather them as quickly as you can. As you progress your character you’ll be given the chance to upgrade these as well which essentially allows you to fill multiple meters and grants you this special power for longer lengths of time.
Skills are broken down into various types which allow you to outfit your character to best suit your play style. There are literally dozens of both active and passive skills to choose from, and each of these skills can be upgraded as well for improved effects or damage. As the Wood Elf Elessa, I was able to summon dryads to my side to help me deal with the hordes of enemies. In edition there are also God Skills that you acquire as you level up and complete missions. These special skills unlock more powerful abilities but also unlock traits as you apply the points. Traits such as health regeneration or critical hit chances are only some of the ones that you can unlock along the God Skill tree that give you a sense that your character is becoming more unstoppable with every skill acquired.
Unfortunately, the inconsistent voice acting is what relegates Chaosbane to being good instead of great. I made the mistake of choosing the character with the worst voice acting in the bunch and if I had played through with another character I may not have noticed how truly terrible it was. Elessa delivers her lines in an almost wooden (pun intended) manner, almost as if reading directly from a script. This gets even more noticeable when on occasion her voice changes to that of a man. The developers and testers did a good job of catching most of them, but there were at least five or six dialog trees where Elessa’s voice changed completely. I have two theories on this, my first theory (although I hadn’t confirmed this) is that the character was originally meant to be portrayed as a man and was changed to add a bit more diversity to the line-up. Not that there is anything wrong with having the main characters all be male, but it certainly could have limited the appeal of the audience. My second theory is that some of the dialog was simply place holders while they were sourcing out the right voice actors and simply missed replacing the audio bytes.
Either way, Elessa isn’t the only place where the voice acting takes a turn for the worst, other characters suffer from this fate as well. While the Warhammer games have always used bravado to deliver their dialog, it is simply too over the top in most cases. The first boss I encountered sounded like Cobra Commander who had just walked off the set of the latest GI Joe Cartoon to lead the forces of Chaos…Yo Joe! The fact that the game is voice acted entirely is something that I do applaud the developers for insisting on, it’s just disappointing that you find yourself reading through the dialog as quickly as possible and skipping the voices whenever you can.
Even with its flaws Warhammer: Chaosbane is a fun Diablo clone and an absolute blast to play. The story is forgettable, the voices laughable, but the combat scratches the same itch that any other action roleplaying game provides. There’s plenty of loot to acquire, that ranges from common to rare, and your ability to “bless” items to make them more powerful is an added bonus. There are a whopping ten levels of difficulty, each level provides for a more difficult adventure with the promise of even better loot. With both couch co-op and online multiplayer, it even harkened me back to the days of playing the original Gauntlet in the arcades. If you like the Warhammer universe and are looking for a game you can pick up and play with relative ease, then Warhammer: Chaosbane is just the game you are looking for.
What I liked: Fun combat, Amazing selection of skills, Plays equally well with keyboard/mouse or controller
What I liked less: Terrible voice acting, Repetitive loot drops, Forgettable story
Much like the games that it takes inspiration from, you have the opportunity to pick one of four characters to battle the Lords of Chaos and bring order to the land. Your standard archetype characters are all here in standard Warhammer Fantasy. The Dwarven “Slayer” class, for those who like a barbarian class to rage havoc upon his foes, The High-Elf Mage who utilizes his magic to bring down the forces of chaos, the ho-hum Imperial Soldier who can take and deal out a huge amount of damage, and the Wood Elf who uses her bow and dagger to deal damage at a frighteningly fast pace.
Each of the characters have their own unique secondary ability that allows them to gain a strategic advantage on their foes. The Slayer can vault himself into enemies (much like the Barbarian class in Diablo), The Mage can control magical projectiles towards his targets, the Imperial soldier can shield bash targets and the Wood Elf can tumble in and out of danger. I played through the vast majority of the game as the Wood Elf and learning to use her tumble ability and stay mobile is some of the best ways to beat the bosses that you will come across.
One area where Warhammer: Chaosbane improves on the standard Diablo formula is how it handles health and energy/mana. Various items you equip can provide health regeneration on their own or you also possess the ability to use a “health Potion” that refills slowly each time you use it. Thankfully this means you don’t have individual health potions cluttering up your inventory. Mana/Energy is used for special attacks and actions…each time you use a skill some of your Mana/Energy is used. There are a few ways you can recoup your energy. The first is to use your general attacks on creatures, as you successfully hit each one your energy fills a little until it tops the meter off. The other way is to reach out to your familiar who follows you around the screen. My familiar was a butterfly that I could run over to when I’d run low on energy and it would fill my meter about half way. When you utilize your familiar in this way they must also recharge, so use them wisely.
One of the more unique items that you acquire as you slice your way through the hordes of demons and undead are Blood Orbs. Blood Orbs appear on the battlefield seemingly at random (although the more enemies you cut down the more likely they are to appear). As you acquire these orbs it fills a Blood lust meter and when full imbues your character with incredible power and near invincibility until the meter runs out. The Orbs don’t stay on the battlefield forever however, and they slowly lose power the longer you wait to gather them, so it encourages you to step out of the battle (or in my case roll out of the battle) to gather them as quickly as you can. As you progress your character you’ll be given the chance to upgrade these as well which essentially allows you to fill multiple meters and grants you this special power for longer lengths of time.
Skills are broken down into various types which allow you to outfit your character to best suit your play style. There are literally dozens of both active and passive skills to choose from, and each of these skills can be upgraded as well for improved effects or damage. As the Wood Elf Elessa, I was able to summon dryads to my side to help me deal with the hordes of enemies. In edition there are also God Skills that you acquire as you level up and complete missions. These special skills unlock more powerful abilities but also unlock traits as you apply the points. Traits such as health regeneration or critical hit chances are only some of the ones that you can unlock along the God Skill tree that give you a sense that your character is becoming more unstoppable with every skill acquired.
Unfortunately, the inconsistent voice acting is what relegates Chaosbane to being good instead of great. I made the mistake of choosing the character with the worst voice acting in the bunch and if I had played through with another character I may not have noticed how truly terrible it was. Elessa delivers her lines in an almost wooden (pun intended) manner, almost as if reading directly from a script. This gets even more noticeable when on occasion her voice changes to that of a man. The developers and testers did a good job of catching most of them, but there were at least five or six dialog trees where Elessa’s voice changed completely. I have two theories on this, my first theory (although I hadn’t confirmed this) is that the character was originally meant to be portrayed as a man and was changed to add a bit more diversity to the line-up. Not that there is anything wrong with having the main characters all be male, but it certainly could have limited the appeal of the audience. My second theory is that some of the dialog was simply place holders while they were sourcing out the right voice actors and simply missed replacing the audio bytes.
Either way, Elessa isn’t the only place where the voice acting takes a turn for the worst, other characters suffer from this fate as well. While the Warhammer games have always used bravado to deliver their dialog, it is simply too over the top in most cases. The first boss I encountered sounded like Cobra Commander who had just walked off the set of the latest GI Joe Cartoon to lead the forces of Chaos…Yo Joe! The fact that the game is voice acted entirely is something that I do applaud the developers for insisting on, it’s just disappointing that you find yourself reading through the dialog as quickly as possible and skipping the voices whenever you can.
Even with its flaws Warhammer: Chaosbane is a fun Diablo clone and an absolute blast to play. The story is forgettable, the voices laughable, but the combat scratches the same itch that any other action roleplaying game provides. There’s plenty of loot to acquire, that ranges from common to rare, and your ability to “bless” items to make them more powerful is an added bonus. There are a whopping ten levels of difficulty, each level provides for a more difficult adventure with the promise of even better loot. With both couch co-op and online multiplayer, it even harkened me back to the days of playing the original Gauntlet in the arcades. If you like the Warhammer universe and are looking for a game you can pick up and play with relative ease, then Warhammer: Chaosbane is just the game you are looking for.
What I liked: Fun combat, Amazing selection of skills, Plays equally well with keyboard/mouse or controller
What I liked less: Terrible voice acting, Repetitive loot drops, Forgettable story