2021 was complicated year in nearly everything, but turned out quite a great year for gaming. Here are the top/flops in reviews, before going to GOTY.
This how a series goes quickly downwards. Atelier Ryza 2 is a horribly boring installment with dull characters and even worse talk, impoverished gameplay and light content. KoeiTecmo is obviously trying to lure the casual crowd, so much that they seem to confuse, or worse, transform Atelier into some life simulation garbage for noobs like Story of Seasons. Fortunately, the U-turn taken with the announcement of Atelier Sophie 2 might save the series.
Neptunia Virtual Stars is what I would call “why not?” level of quality. The gameplay is obviously bad, combat being terrible especially during boss fights. Yet it’s fun. The game is pretty, all the parody jokes are well-thought, there are new cool characters, great voice acting, original features… It’s worth a shot for series fans, and restropectively a lot better that the Senran Kagura crossover.
Love Live! School Idol Festival (PS4)
A great game for orphans of the Project Diva series (as I am). Love Live! School Idol Festival has the challenge, the music, the cute graphics to satisfy rythm games fans. That said, it is expensive : nearly all the songs are sold in DLC packs, so the bill can be quite hefty at the end. The costume-making is also really annoying, but aimed at selling even more DLC.
I’ve never regretted a purchase more than this limited edition. True, Wings of Darkness as high production values for a indie game in graphics and animation : the aerial fights are dynamic and loud, and then pretty cool. But it’s a 6-hour long game of very easy fighting and frustratingly underdeveloped narrative.
We are back to the golden age with this one. Namco’s grandiose epic has an incredible wealth of cool characters, intense fighting, breathtaking landscapes, hilarious side content… Every quality of a great JRPG gathered in modern graphic standards. It couldn’t be more thrilling.
That was bad but in the end I wasn’t so surprised. The Caligula Effect 2 is ugly, clearly not the level of a end-of-generation PS4 game. Combat is awful, much too long and tiresome. But my biggest problem is the terrible writing which only equals to the miserable overall content. Both The Caligula Effect and The Caligula Effect Overdose brought enough innovation and story content to stand out on the JRPG scene, but The Caligula Effect 2 merely rehashes the formula with zero effort. It can’t be a coincidence that the game was initially revealed during a Nintendo Direct. They probably had their shipment guaranteed and had no intention to work on it at all.
While the bare-bones main menu was indeed shocking (content really dried up since BFV), what remained (just Conquest) was really greatly made in splendid maps, fine sniping, lots of vehicles, cool teamplay. A good FPS and I don’t understand all the racket against it.
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