I really can't understand liking Ni no Kuni. It was easily the most disappointing piece of shit of whatever year it came out in, even with that year probably containing the release of Diablo 3 which I didn't even finish despite buying the collector's edition and it being >3.7 hours long. Not only is the idea of navigating menus in which the transition from one option to the other takes time during real time combat dumb in concept, it's also fucking retarded in practice. Maybe it could work if you spent the entire game with the same menu layout, but because half the game is based around switching to different creatures you catch, you're never quite sure when exactly you'll happen upon that fucking defend button. This could've been fixed with modifier keys to get to your different spells, but I guess they wanted it to look extra nostalgic because that's the only thing the game had going for it (premature conclusion, more on this next). However, even without the shitty menu-during-combat system, the combat would still have had shitty balancing even without it. Unless you're massively overlevelled, you don't have the mana to take down bosses even if you enter their fights with a tipped off pool. This means that, when you and your friends run out of mana (and oh, do they run out of mana quickly. They are either exceptionally useless, or waste all their mana in three fights), all you're left with is running around the arena (which hardly any bosses seem to actually punish in terms of moveset, surviving without attacking is a breeze) waiting for the mana droplets to appear. Melee creatures would be the counter, but as you can only use a creature for a certain time, you can't use them to do significant damage at all. When they're on cooldown, all you can do is either run around with Oliver, hoping mana will drop, or one of your mage familiars, hoping mana will drop before he runs out of time. One way to counter this is to go with an all melee team so you can switch from one creature to the next and constantly deal decent damage, for Oliver but for your party members as well (if they can't responsibly manage mana, after all, just make sure they have no use for it), but that just means that you can't take advantage of the various elemental weaknesses and interesting spells. The tutorial is about 10 hours long. It takes about 10 hours for the main feature of the game to get introduced. I can't even write a stupidly long paragraph about this, all I can do is state it and hope it gets the point across. Surprisingly, the world managed to disappoint me as well. I always imagined the "another" in "another world", the translation of the title of the game people seem to adhere to, was supposed to mean it's different from the normal one. Instead, it's the "just another" type of another. It's just another fantasy world with a meadow town, a desert town, a snow town, a darker town that's got pig themes going and is technologically more advanced than the rest of the world. Alright, Hamelin was pretty fucking cool, but it was the only location I've been to that was genuinely interesting looking. I was surprised to find myself unlocking the flying vehicle (a dragon as opposed to an airship of some kind, not bad) pretty early on. That is to say, it felt early on because of the abysmally slow pacing of the story, which was still presenting itself like a prologue or the second chapter out of seven of the middle of the story at most, while the actual game time was up in the 40 to 50 hours of hoping it'd get interesting at some point. The soundtrack, after the gameplay, was my biggest disappointment with the game. Perhaps I've been coloured by the utterly generic sounding piece of shit that plays after every fucking battle called a victory theme, which I honestly wouldn't believe Joe Hisaishi composed even if he himself descended down from grorious nippon, sucked my dick and promised to marry me if I'd just believe it's his, but to me the entire soundtrack (which I've only listened to while playing, I felt no need to look it up in my free time) seemed like some of Hisaishi's worst work. I honestly don't know what happened, as he clearly hasn't lost his touch considering Kaze Tachinu's soundtrack is absolutely amazing. Perhaps he tried too hard to make it video gamey instead of just good because it was his first time working on a game, but it just sounds incredibly mediocre to me. In conclusion, the only thing I really liked about this game were the graphics. It looks cute. The designs of most things that aren't Hamelin aren't very interesting at all, but at least Level-5 used colours really well to make the average screenshot very pretty indeed. I love Ghibli, JRPGs, and, being a manchild, childish shit, but Ni no Kuni disappointed me in every respect. The only reason I, personally, can find for liking it would be irrational nostalgia for Dragon Quest and children's picture books. I quite honestly literally don't understand what there is to like about this game, at all. I tried until after the snow village, but I just couldn't find anything above average in a mess that's mostly below. So yeah, I just wrote the world's most negative review of Ni no Kuni on new year's night. Feel free to give me the autist neckbeard award of the year next time you make one of these videos. Happy new year, everybody!
This is like a more in-depth and obviously less funny and slightly rip-offy and better version of MechaGameZilla's. It's weird hearing you say something without being satiric.
brutalcumpowder You should definitely do it again; your Rhythm Heaven review is one of my favorite videos of yours. Though there is something thinly veiling your criticisms through sarcasm does perfectly.
Flawless9183 He posted something the other day and over the past two years has been through this weird renaissance. From the viewer perspective he's toed closer and closer to the pretentious analyst video style, peaking with his "I read Schopenhauer for a class and like No Counter for Old Men so I guess I'll write a paper on it" video, approximately a year ago if I remember. As far as I can tell he's trying to find a style that opens him up to a wider audience and allows actual points to poke through clearly while keeping his edge (I should add that in my opinion he's starting to find it). He does a ton of podcasting (with SkippySigmatic) - it's called Push to Shout if you're intristid - and he streams plenty, too. There ya go.
Wait, $50? Fifty dollars for that piece of shite? Fifty good old, evergreen, oil and war-backed, sweet baby jesus of democracy and the burger American dollaridoos? For Bootleg Souls? And you >paid for it? Oh my sweet fucking lord.
2014 sucked in general for the world, Ebola, ISIS, Boko Haram, Armed conflicts in Russia, Israel, planes disappearing and being blown up, my dog dying, video games stagnating in mediocrity (except Nintendo), and horrible internet memes and hashtag trends. At least feminism made a joke of themselves and my litttle girl chinese cartoons were good. There was some good music this year, old and new.
Rather cattily little calling out of MrBTongue there m80. Didn't realised BorderTales was any good. Then again I don't want any of my money going near Burch or Pitchford, so fuck it. Good stuff.
Good video Bru, and good shit with the PTS podcast. I never thought a youtube shitposter would make for half of such an interesting show, really exceeded my expectations there.
2014 will be remembered in gaming industry/journalism/topics as the laziest,cheapest,non-interesting,blunt,unproductive year of post 2010's history. The best games of this year could have very well been released a decade ago (none of them is "next-gen" by its true meaning) and all this "next-gen fuss" hasn't showed anything innovative,smart,witty and well-designed since its conception. For example, I passed the whole year playing games released before 2010 and I only spent some time with Shadow of Mordor as a 2014 game. If gaming industry continues like this, by the end of this decade we will revert to 1st or 2nd gen consoles and games.
I pre ordered Lords of the Fallen, and the game was so poorly optimized that it couldn't run on my machine until a patch months after release. Never even got to play iHAPPY NEW YEAR
Disagree with some parts of your Smash 4 section, but otherwise very good video. The only real problem I have is that you seem to almost whisper into the mic with little emotion or change in intonation. Should have played Bayonetta 2 though.
Fantastic year in review. What you had experienced with lords of the fallen, I've had with sword of the stars 2 back when that came out... Such a shitty feeling to see it in your own library, reminding you of the horrible mispurchase. But you've probably become wiser from that experience. Looking forward to 2015 with Pillars of Eternity, Tides of Numenera and The Witcher 3. Maybe even GTA 5 on PC and Evolve...
I know this video is over a year and a half old, but if you still check these comments Bru, do you have a source for the song you used at 7:42 ? I know it's called "Puzzle (Instrumental)" by someone named FLAIR but that title is so vague I can't find it anywhere.
Ni no Kuni was released in America in 2013 you silly goose. If you addressed this somewhere understand that I am commenting without paying attention. Also nice music selection.
Really nice video! I feel bad about not knowing about Distance at all. I played their student project Nitronic Rush and loved the hell out of it but i didn't know that they had started on a new similar game. I won't touch it until it is out of Early Access though. A man gotta have his principles.
Cool, glad to see you make another mostly sincere video. The praise got a little flowery at times, but overall, this review was as good as Ocarina of Time.
I didn't really like Ni no Kuni either, the visuals and music were nice, the combat was kind of boring to me though and it was bogged down by monotonous sidequests that bored me to insanity and a horrid story. If there was less focus on story and the sidequests were more than just "go here and talk to this person in town" then i might have been able to enjoy it more but as it was by the time I finished it I gladly put it away and never took it out again
I think it was nice to have a year without a lot of good games because it gives you the chance to go back and play any praised games you may have missed.
#LordsoftheFallen 2015? "Actually it's about" was the worst forced meme of the near next to Copy That Distance looks like an improved Nitro Rush A present for rhythm heaven fans: eye.swfchan.com/flash.asp?id=109397&n=10r.swf
