While we here at Operation Rainfall love covering the latest in gaming news and sharing our reviews of titles new and classic, we also just enjoy playing games in our downtime. So with that, sit back, relax, and check out what the oprainfall gaming crew have been up to this week!
Recently, I’ve had the joy of starting Fantasian Neo Dimension. In our last Week in Gaming article, I talked about how I started replaying Atelier Dusk. I had just finished Ayesha at the time and was ready to move on to Escha and Logy. I did move on to Escha and Logy and made some good progress too. However, now that I’ve put over 40 hours into a recent Nintendo release I mentioned a while back I was going to review and will finally be writing up soon, I decided Fantasian would be the perfect game to play just for me, alongside Atelier. Fantasian started off as an Apple exclusive mobile game and I’ve heard it gets pretty challenging as well. I figured I could play it in pieces on the side when I need a break from Atelier.
Before I started playing Fantasian, I was starting to question whether or not it had been a good idea to spend all my Christmas Amazon cash buying it the second I could. Mostly this was because after already ordering it, I looked up how it ran it on Switch and read some complaints about the abundance of load screens and time it took to get into each battle. Fortunately, this turned out to be pretty overblown, at least in my opinion. The load screens in this game disappear pretty quickly, it’s much speedier than some more realistic games you’ll find on PlayStation which require a lot more system power. For instance, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth I was playing last year on my slim PS4 and its abundance of load screens took up significantly more time and were more of a nuisance to me than Fantasian‘s on Switch. Now, the game doesn’t run as perfectly smooth as some older Square published RPGs, such as Bravely Default II. There is occasionally a bit of choppiness, for example the text boxes when examining objects in a room, and now and then on the character models I’ll notice a limb moving a bit oddly choppy as well. Also, the game did freeze once and prevented my controller from doing anything. I had to pull my Switch out of the dock, put it to sleep and then wake it back up to get things to work again. But overall, the game has run great, much better than I expected after reading some overblown hysteria online. It seems people often make wild claims about every game on Switch running like garbage and while some very much do, a lot of them mostly run fine.
I’m having a ton of fun with Fantasian thus far. The music has been wonderful, the characters start to feel more charming as you get to know them better and it’s been really fun to play. These lower budget, more traditional RPG Square Enix published games never fail to pull me in. No, most of them aren’t actually developed by Square Enix, but Fantasian was made by the creator of Final Fantasy, Hironobu Sakaguchi. Also, something about the overall feel of the game has kind of reminded me of Bravely Default. The music is definitely more Final Fantasy-esque though, which isn’t a surprise since it was composed by Nobuo Uematsu. I absolutely loved Cheryl’s character design when I got her. I made her my running around display character. That’s another thing I love about Fantasian so far, the fact that your running around character will actually change based on who you put first in the party line-up. It’d be even better if you could pick anyone, regardless of whether or not they’re in the party. Still, changing the display character you run around as seems to be a rarity these days, so I appreciate the option regardless.
Currently, I’ve just finished up what was Part 1 of Fantasian when it was a mobile exclusive and I’m now getting started on Part 2 where you have more freedom to explore the world and have to get your party back together since everyone’s separated. I started off playing the game on Normal, then upped it to Hard, which I’ve heard was the original and only difficulty when it was an Apple exclusive. But about halfway through, bosses finally became a little too challenging and I lowered it back down to Normal. I’m now somewhat juggling the difficulty undecided. I may finally opt to simply lower it back down to Normal again and fully play on Hard in a future new game plus run instead. I’m not sure yet. Nonetheless, I’m having a blast playing Fantasian Neo Dimension. I think anyone who loves traditional turn-based RPGs, especially older, turn-based Final Fantasy games and/or the Bravely Default series, would enjoy this game as much as I have been. I’m truly happy they decided to port the game to consoles and I do not regret spending $50 on it whatsoever. – Jenae
I played Monster Hunter Wilds over the weekend and it’s been pretty fun so far. I’m still early in the game, but I’m enjoying traveling through the different environments and slaying monsters. I appreciate the implementation of the Seikret as your trusty steed, similar to the Palamutes from Monster Hunter Rise. It just makes exploring the vast maps so much easier. I’m trying out different weapons this time around, the Charge Blade and Long Sword. I’m enjoying both so far, though it’s gonna take some time before I’m decent with either weapon. I also like how you can take two different weapons with you on hunts now. You store them on your Seikret and you can easily switch between the two during battle, it’s pretty cool. Other than that, I caught some fish, always fun. – Patrick
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been playing Final Fantasy 7 Remake and I’ve found it to be enjoyable, but I see why people were turned off by it. I think most folks wanted a faithful remake and for the most part you got that outside of the end of it. I loved the combat, I did miss the good turn based slugfest of the OG game, but the combat is fast and fluid so it made it pretty fun at least. I think some of the bosses were a bit unreasonable, though I was able to get through the game without much trouble. I skipped a lot of the sidequests, doing Midgar in one game was just way too much padding. It took me about 25 hours to complete the main story and if I had done the sidequests I could’ve probably doubled that. Overall it’s a decent remake, and I’m glad I decided to play it. Now I will probably go back to Trails, or maybe play the Clannad VN I just got a shiny Switch copy of, that I might break in as well. – Steve
I had a pretty busy gaming week, all things considered. I finally beat Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I still need to go back and finish all the collectibles, but even so it took me about 37 hours to beat the main story and all major side quests. I loved the sharp dialogue and characters, and the brisk pacing made it feel fresh and fun every time I picked it up. Exploration was never boring, and the game’s locales were each distinct and a ton of fun to traverse. Despite the game wanting you to sneak around a lot, it definitely wasn’t built for it, so most of the time I just ended up smashing Nazis in the head or having punching fests against fascists, but the game never felt particularly unfair when it came to combat. I actually liked the satisfying thunk that came from slamming my fist into a bad guy’s face, and there were always copious weapons available. I also thankfully never encountered the same game-breaking bug my husband did, so it was smooth sailing to the end of the game for me. Overall very satisfying story and gameplay with a ton of visual bugs that made me chuckle more than scream, save the one time I thought I’d soft-locked because the prompt to attach my whip didn’t want to show up. If you’re a fan of Indiana Jones or just want an exciting romp around the world, you could do worse than to pick this one up. If you’ve got Xbox/Windows GamePass, it comes included.
I actually interrupted my Indiana Jones playthrough to dive deep into Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, the latest in the storied Yakuza franchise, and this time starring everyone’s favorite Mad Dog, Goro Majima. It’s just too bad Majima can’t remember a thing about his past or why he’s in Hawaii to begin with! As a side-story to Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (in the same vein as The Man Who Erased His Name was to Yakuza 7), Pirate Yakuza tangentially touches on the main plot and fall out from Yakuza 8 but mostly does its own thing, with a brand new cast of lovable characters to meet. I know child characters are hit and miss in games, but I can genuinely say that Noah Rich is the best addition to this franchise’s pantheon of characters since Ichiban himself. Noah is precocious and energetic and all-too willing to adopt the pirate lifestyle after living on the small, lonely island that shares his name. He’s a great foil for Majima, whom he finds washed up and amnesiatic on the beach. I adore this child to my very bones. The two set off on an epic adventure to help restore Majima’s memory while also taking on the nasty pirates of Madlantis as they all vie to find the fabled lost treasure of Esperanza hidden somewhere on the islands surrounding Hawaii. Throw some ex-yakuza and Palekana warriors from Nele island into the mix, and it’s an explosive situation, to say the least!
Similar to The Man Who Erased his Name, Pirate Yakuza returns to the brawler combat style of Kiryu’s games, eschewing the RPG mechanics of Like a Dragon 7 and 8. Majima can swap between two fighting styles: Mad Dog and Sea Dog, the former of which uses his signature knife and quick footwork from previous games, while the latter embraces the pirate aesthetic and goes all out with cutlasses and guns. The two styles feel very distinct, with Sea Dog being particularly good at crowd control and Mad Dog excelling at one-on-one fights. Both forms can utilize the Madness Gauge, which unlocks Majima’s ultimate skill: his doppelgangers in Mad Dog, and the newly-added Dark Gods in Sea Dog. The doppelgangers are exactly what you’d expect, with up to five clones helping wreck havoc on whatever poor sap is taking on Majima. I found this particularly effective against the game’s optional Bounty fights, which are one-off, higher-level thugs for Majima to beat down. The Dark Gods are unlocked through the game’s major substory, and are associated each with a different instrument: violin, ocarina, guitar and saxophone. The god summoned by each instrument can decimate large groups of enemies, and were ideal for the ship battles that are unique to this title.
Ship battles are broken into two phases: ship vs ship and then deck battles. In ship battles, you need to deck out the Goromaru with an assortment of canons to duke it out on the high seas with other pirate vessels. Doing enough damage to a ship’s stern means it takes extra damage from weapons, as well as ramming, so you can boost your ship into small fry and sink them immediately the higher level you raise the Goromaru. In deck battles, your crew board the enemy vessel and duke it out in a multi-person brawl to see who comes out on top. This is where the aforementioned Dark Gods reigned supreme. There are also huge Swashbuckler battles, where Majima and company take on 100 enemies in a sprawling battle. These were ridiculous amounts of fun.
It took me 52 hours to 100 percent Pirate Yakuza, so it’s not a long game, but it is a satisfying length for a side-story. The mystery is fun, the characters charming, and the story moves at a respectable clip if you don’t bother doing the 92973459256 distractions the game offers. You can recruit crew members for your ship, raise stray animals, cook your own meals, take on Bounties for some sweet, sweet cash, and even go on treasure hunts. You can also play dress up and customize Majima’s look to your heart’s desire. There’s a ton to do here and it’s all an absolute blast. Yakuza fans and newcomers alike should find something to love on this high seas adventure. – Leah
What games have you been playing this week? Let us know in the comments!
You can read previous Week in Gaming entries here!
