The Endgame: Danganronpa 2 - Goodbye Despair

WARNING: This post contains spoilers that WILL reduce your enjoyment of the game should you choose to play it. As a courtesy to my tiny readerbase, the spoilers have been blanked out.

Though I'd usually have done a Level One post for this game a week or so ago, it's a Danganronpa game so naturally two hours spent writing a blog post would be much better spent playing through the game to reach the end as soon as possible, that's how highly I regard the storylines of the Danganronpa franchise.

Becuause of just how much I adored the first Danganronpa game I was honestly afraid to play this second one, i thought I wouldn't like that characters as much, and the fact it's set on a deserted island wasn't helping; but allow me to go ahead and say this now, I could not have been more wrong. It was as if I'd decided that 1 + 1 was over 9000.

So the Danganronpa franchise is a series of games (turned anime) which is not unlike a cross between the Hunger Games and CSI. 16 High School students with 'Ultimate' talents (as in, the best at what they do in the world ever) are taken to a deserted island and, thanks to the appearance of a monochrome devil bear thing (called Monokuma) are forced to murder each other for a chance to get off the island to freedom. It's not quite that simple though, of course. After a murder is committed a class trial is held in which all the living students debate on who among them is the killer before a vote occurs; if the students successfully guess who the 'blackened' (read: murdering douche) is, the the blackened will be executed in the most ironic way the game developers could come up with; however, if the students guess incorrectly, the blackened will go free, and everybody else will be executed! Yaaayyy executions!

If you were to play bingo with all 16 characters here, and crossed off every character who died, you would win in three ways

The game is split into a three part structure: Firstly is Daily life, a visual novel/mild dating sim where you simply go around spending time with the other students to learn their backstories and stuff; Next comes Deadly Life, one of your friends has died! Time for us untrained high-schoolers to investigate the crime! This portion is very standard of a point and click detective game, but it works well, and unlike the first game where for example the blackened in first case is more obvious than a bear trying to hide among a small pile of Hundreds and Thousands, all of the cases here will lead to more questions than they do answers as you investigate. Lastly is the Class Trial part, arguably the most fun, where lengthy discussion is had and through a number of minigames you use all the evidence at your disposal to pin down and expose the culprit.

Anyway, enough about the generics, let's be specific here; though I largely believe this sequel is better than Danganronpa 1, even I have my own issues with it, but let's look at the positives first...
Danganronpa is a franchise which uses its characters to make the story so much more potent, as with Danganronpa 1 each and every character is unique and everyone who plays the game will inevitably develop a list of five characters which they adore more than any others, and some they will loathe more than even others in real life; this is part of what makes Danganronpa so powerful, you know a murder will come, but who is going to be the victim, how would you feel if the character you've been getting to know in the Daily Life sections suddenly shows up dead on the floor of a beach house. Play the game and write down your favorite characters. Finish the game, count how many survived. You want my result? 1 out of 6, [even my most favorite character who I thought wouldn't die thanks to her resemblance to one of the first game's characters turns out to be the murderer towards the end of the game]. Danganronpa will rain havoc upon your feelings and your faith in people, enjoy the victory of that first case where two of the less amiable characters snuffed it all you want, it's only a matter of time until the next killing happens, and who knows who it'll be this time....

One noticeable factor about the sequel is how predictable it becomes if you've played the first game. [Case 3, usually very calm character flies off the chain with rage once they're accused of murder]

Which brings me onto the next thing the sequel does so much better than the original, the actual killings. Each and every murder that takes place is unique and convoluted and every case solved give a much greater feeling of satisfaction compared to the first game; take the second to last case for example where a murder takes place in a funhouse using all sorts of misunderstanding to its advantage; it's kinda confusing and really complex, yet everything makes perfect sense, and that is how solving a crime should feel. Don't even get me started on the last case which is [a suicide made to look like murder but is actually murder]. Yeah. Exactly. [The nut-job of a 'victim' basically tortures himself, dangles a spear above him over a bar near the ceiling (holding onto a rope at the end) then starts a fire, the remaining students find the fire and use so fire grenades from nearby (yeah I've never heard of those either) to put it out, buuuuttt one of the fire grenades had its contents replaced by a dense poison gas, which when thrown on the fire caused the guy to die instantly, releasing the spear to fall straight into his stomach, but more importantly, making a fellow student into a 'blackened', and with no way of telling who it is, a truly unsolvable crime], I could even go so far as to call it the most beautiful murder in the history of the detective genre.

Detract from that though, and we come to another key feature of Danganronpa which makes me adore it, and that's the Executions, in the first game they were great: brutal, ironic and in one or two cases genuinely frightening, in each and every one you watched it was almost as if you could feel the Blackened's pain as they endured it, in fact the very first execution even made me feel physically sick, it was that shocking. Danganronpa two however, falls flat initially on this front, with he first execution being too pants for me to even enjoy, the second being mediocre at best and the third was even more pants than the first and holds the place of least favorite execution of the franchise [Used a giant syringe to pump an arm shaped rocket enough to blast the girl into space forever more, I'd have preferred it a million times more if they'd stuck the syringe in her and pumped her full of that medicine stuff until she literally exploded]... What? The power of Danganronpa comes from feeling, and if you can't feel the pain of the person undertaking it, or even laugh at how stupid it is, then you might as well just be watching another cutscene, not a human being dying before your eyes in a truely brutal way.

In the trials you argue by shooting the words out of people's mouths with 'Truth Bullets', it's actually a very powerful way of shutting down someone's argument, you should try it sometime

The last trial though? It takes everything you thought you knew about the world of Danganronpa 2 and instead throws a complete mindrape right in your face, the screen starts becoming all flickery and glitchy and when it first happens you'd be forgiven for thinking your PSVita was having a serious malfunction. [The last trial basically involves a showdown with the mastermind behind it all, this time a virus taking the form of the 'Bigger Bad' from the first game: Ultimate Despair - Junko Enoshima, after an epic battle of wits, the classic 'hold X to charge your final attack' scenario] (and a part where I got stuck looping the same dialogue about ten times because it took me that long to realize I needed to use the statement recall function you only had to use about twice previously )[eventually the final boss went down, and I was left to wonder (after a bit more dialogue) what kind of future the five surviving characters would make for themselves, choosing to remain on the island after finding out about all the shit that's gone down in the outside world.] what does happen to them in the end? Well that's not a question Danganronpa ever likes to answer, Yet the ending is just as satisfying if not more so, and the game just leaves you to mourn the deaths of your favorite characters by showing pictures of them during the end credits.

TL;DR; A tragically beautiful storyline that will play havoc with suspense and emotion. a must have for fans of the hunger games, detective games or visual novels, even more so if you love all three.

Level One - Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars

Oh Japan, your ability to throw out rather strange games is unmatched by any other country. What have you bought us now? Conception II, and if the name isn't cringey enough, try playing the game. The game isn't bad, in fact I adore it, but not without a bit of... ehhhh.....

Conception II is the rather strange child of Atlus, the company loved for the Etrian Odyssey games and of course, the Persona franchise. And as with most Atlus games, it really shows that the game was made by one and the same.

Like the above, Conception II is a Dungeon Trawling JRPG, with a high-school Dating-Sim like section between your adventures. The dungeons look like they've been ripped right out of a persona game, same kind of style, same kind of mechanics, looks and controls, the works. The combat feels a little lacking compared to the persona games, possibly because it feels more complex in this and feels oddly random at times; I've gone from consistently one-shotting a particular type of enemy with a basic attack to only doing half the health of the exact same species of enemy in the next room over, which can throw a little bit of a spanner in the works. Unlike in the Persona games, enemy weaknesses are determined by directions you attack from rather than elemental properties which, although they exist in the game, seem to have much less significance than its other persona.

Remember when you had trouble figuring out an enemy's weakness in Persona? Well forget about it because this game tells you all the best places to attack right from the start!

I find it really difficult to compare the two games in terms of their dungeons and combat, they're similar yet so different at the same time, but I have to hand it to Atlus for one simple mechanic that makes life in Conception II a whole lot nicer. The God's Poke ability is a passive skill the protagonist has while walking the dungeon floor, and it automatically kills any enemies the game knows to be significantly weaker than you whilst still granting all the exp from the battle, a feature the game couldn't do without because of just how much grinding you need to do to keep your team fighting fit, but more on that a bit later.

You may still be wondering what I was on about when I mentioned the game being more cringe-inducing than the title; well, where Persona is an adventure that looks at the deeper meanings behind repressed emotions and friendship, Conception II is another generic story of saving the world with friends... that promotes teenage sex and polygamy. I mean, with a name like that how could you ever have thought otherwise. there's nothing inherently wrong with this but the whole concept just feels kind of weird, but why wouldn't it? Story-wise you play as God's Gift (read: yourself) in a world where monsters are threatening the world and 16-18 year old boys and girls blessed by the Star God work to combat them, however this is very difficult because nobody has enough Ether (basically the element of light that would beat dark, blah blah blah) to counteract the huge amount of dark energy inside the labyrinths; however, you as God's Gift, happen to have an insanely high amount of 'Ether' (not sperm) which will allow you to fight and hopefully seal of the dungeons. in order to help you on this quest you need teammates, and good ol' Ether helps here too, see you can gain allies to fight with by passing this Ether on to others, specifically, by making children. Yup, through a sacred ritual called, wait for it, 'Classmating' *cringe* you can make your own little star children to fight alongside you. Cute right? Sure, but the soundtrack to the ritual sections is... *cringe, cringe*

Classmating in a nutshell! Note that she doesn't actually mention what you need to think of, or what you need to touch...

Nothing quite like watching an implicit sex scene where everyone's been covered in bright pink florescent paint while listening to the questionable background music, which you get to hear more of as your relationship with the character deepens. As far as I've seen the song has progressed to:
"Oooohhhhhhh ~ Touch my heaaaarttt ~ Yeeeaaaahhhh ~ Just wanna make love to youuu...." Yep, after that last one the whole ordeal has started to feel a little less innocent than the game tries to make it out to be. But that's not even the last of it, after all that you get to choose your new child's class (Archer, Theif, etc, etc) to a sickeningly cheery chorus of "Congratulations - on your new arrival" *cringe, cringe, cringe*
I literally have no explanation as to what kind of feeling I have when hearing this, but it's weird and I can't say I like it, I sorta feel like the game is sarcastically calling me a huge dick for basically knocking up all the best girls in the school and even one of the teachers, but of course, what I do outside of the gaming world is not something I plan to talk about here.

Sex, drugs and overactive Ether aside though, there's something really special about the characters, all of which (except one, in my personal opinion) are really fun and lovable despite falling into about every award winning category for 'Overused Japanese Character Cliches', including fan favourites like 'Thinks she's completely plain but is actually something special', 'Really cute and ditzy younger girl', and who could forget the insanely popular 'Genius kid who became a teacher at 18'. You'd be forgiven for thinking these cliches would take away from the game though, honestly aside from that one character that falls a bit flat (ironically, the cast constantly draw attention to her having the biggest rack of the lot (thank you Japan...)) and is sickeningly shy even for me to handle, I truly do love the characters, their event scenes are amusing and gripping in various ways and these are honestly the reason I keep coming back to the play them game as much as possible: to see the next events until I can't see any more events! To advance the story so I can see more events! I'll be honest, I find the dungeon sections tedious in comparison

CAN YOU NOT!?

Conception II is a game which, despite all it's... unusual traits, there's a lot of charm sealed within this game. I understand this game really isn't for everyone, in fact I think this is even more niche than most other JRPGs out there so I wouldn't go so far as to recommend it despite my love for the game, so unless you've been really interested by what you've read here or you're a fan of the only JRPGs I could call weirder than this (the Ar Tonellico franchise), it's worth a try, but don't drop too much money on it unless you know you'll like it.

TL;DR: It's Persona with added sex metaphors, and I love it. Deal with it.

Level One: Lost Kingdoms

Format: Nintendo Gamecube
Year of Release: 2002
Hours played so far: 6
Cards Collected: ???

If you were to travel back in time and find me 12 years ago, you would still find me as video game and TCG enthusiast, so naturally when I flicked open a copy of Cube Solutions and saw a guide for Lost Kingdoms... I thought nothing of it, because I had absolutely no idea what the hell it was. Fast forward 5 years, and you'll catch me reading these same Cube solution magazines again. Why? because I think that video game strategy guides are the best kinds of reading material out there. I even bought the Sonic '06 (Piece of Shit Be Upon It) guide book because it was actually a guide and not the result of a teenage girl's strange OCxSonic fanfiction.

But to be fair all that detail is pretty negligible, what matters is that when I realized what the game was. I needed it. But I never ever saw it anywhere... until I was at a convention the other day. One copy, and the price - £12. Exactly the amount I had on me. I will never ever forget, that on that very day, I met my destiny.

Anyway enough of that, Lost Kingdoms is an Action RPG in which you play a young princess whose mission is to drive back a kind of black fog that is enveloping the world and summoning monsters that destroy everything and kill people, you know, typical black fog stuff. The monsters can only be defeated by someone with the power of the cards bestowed upon them by a Runestone (looks like all the kings have one #gatherthecolouredstonescliche) annndddd.... that's about as deep as the story goes to be honest, as far as I've seen at least.

This is the Capture Circle mechanic in action.... I still don't know how to use it

Gameplay-wise Lost Kingdoms is loosely similar to Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, you have a deck of cards (monsters) which you use for the mission; in battle you can summon these creatures with the A, B, X or Y button when the card is available, and you can cycle through cards if you don't want to use any of them by discarding to draw a new one. The cards come in different types, similar to KH, Weapon monsters allow you to attack quickly at melee range, Summon monsters are pretty self explanatory,and Magic Monsters summon for a period of temporary invulnerability while a powerful ability smites your enemies. There's also a pretty standard elemental affinity cycle, and its importance is actually bigger than I expected to the point where the game basically says "That's a card you'll never get back, idiot"

THE CARDS! THEY BURN!

Lost Kingdoms brings a feature the differentiates it dramatically from KH: CoM though and this mechanic is what makes the game so frustrating and difficult, yet so very fulfilling.When a card in your deck is used up, it doesn't come back. Seriously, the only time you'll see that card again is when it goes back into your deck after the mission. Used your big-ass 5* rarity monster on some shitty enemies at the start of the mission? Enjoy not having it for the boss fight. This may seem relatively fine at first but it adds a huge strategy element to the game, knowing the power of your cards relative to the enemy as well as which types you've got left, not to mention your health which will drain if you use a card that costs too many gems, the list goes on and on, perhaps we can assume the protagonist of the game is a princess and not a prince because of all the multitasking? Wasting cards becomes a huge price to pay in battle; especially given the huge length of some of the missions and that the random encounters that don't have a 'grace' period so if you're really unlucky you can be out and straight back in to an even worse fight! Oh and did I mention that running out of cards is game over? Technically it's not, but the princess doesn't have the ability to attack without the cards, it's like she's not a real princess at all. That big boss you've been struggling on? 1HP? But no cards left? Well you can't kill it because apparently your princess didn't learn how to bitch slap like all the true princesses out there.

I won't lie this is one of the hardest games I've played in a while, the first run of a mission is extremely difficult as you have to run around figuring out where to go so you use more cards up in random battles and it can be very easy to run out unless you're really lucky, this is balanced out by the fact that cards you find in chests can be temporarily added to your deck for the remainder of this mission, sure this balances it out a bit, but it still keeps the 2nd and onwards run of a mission just as hard, because sure you'll know where to go but the chests don't respawn so there'll be no cards for you to add back in, so you have to make those 30 cards you take with you count, and that can be difficult, especially with how easy it is to miss with your weapon monsters and how retarded AI is for the summoned ones.

The multiplier's actually pretty good as well, at least now you don't have to give the AI the satisfaction of causing that pissed look on your face

All in all though I do really enjoy this game so far, though whether you complete a mission does seem to be down as much to trial and error as it is actual skill Lost Kingdoms seems to be a unique and fun experience worth playing if you can get your hands on it, and providing you can deal with the frustration that comes from failing a mission over and over again, I promise you'll enjoy it. if you're a fan of Kingdom Hearts: CoM and are desperate for a more challenging experience even though it's not a KH game, I assure you you'll love this.

TL;DR: Super frustrating and super difficult, Lost Kingdoms is the abusive father of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Deal with it.

Level One: Super Smash Bros WiiU and 3DS

If you've never herd of Super Smash Brothers then you're not a fan of Nintendo, simple as. It's an exceptionally fun fighting game that was pretty much ripped off by a few other games (Namely, CN Punch Time Explosion and Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale, both of which are trash in comparison). The general idea is you pick a character from a 30-strong roster of Nintendo's most iconic characters (and a few other, stranger inclusions like Pac-Man) and pummel your enemies until you can whack them off the edge of the screen for a K.O. there are no health bars, just taking damage makes your character lighter and so easier to hit off the stage. Smash brothers has a huge fanbase as well as a brilliant competitive scene across both the Gamecube's 'Melee' game and the Wii's 'Brawl' so naturally when I saw the new installment available to play (and in a tournament, no less!) I had to give it a few (hundred) goes.

I feel like when Nintendo decided the Animal Crossing Villager should be in the game they were thinking 'Fuck it, if Phoenix Wright can be in a fighting game, why not?"

Though I heard the character rosters for both versions would be the same on release, the ones available on the day differed slightly for some reason; Toon Link on the 3DS and regular Link on the WiiU, Rosalina & Luma on the WiiU and Little Mac on the 3DS, but I won't go too much into that.
I'll be honest from what I've seen I do like the new characters, though the power of Little Mac I definitely question, same with Wii Fit Trainer though she is a fun addition, other characters have had changes that can be clearly be defined as buffs or nerfs or a change to their Final Smashes. I'm proud to say that what I have seen so far makes me very excited for its final release.

The decision to release the game on the 3DS is also an interesting one, I'll be honest, playing on that tiny screen makes it very difficult to see what's going on and winning a 3DS match could probably be put down more to luck or at least who has the best 20/20 vision, the question is, is that worth enduring for an earlier release date or the ability to play Smash Bros on the go? Totally! Especially if you're a proud 3DS XL owner and have that massive screen to play around on. On the other hand the WiiU version I can only define as pure beauty. It looks lovely, everything flows well and you can clearly see everything that's going on, not to mention just how mind-blowing the graphics and the slickness of the HUD look now. Sure, it plays just the same as every Smash Bros game, but where Brawl was a quality time sink in a fancy mansion when it came out, Smash Bros WiiU is a solid 24 carat golden time sink that shoots pure rainbows into your face when you peer inside it even for a little bit.

Yep... That's it. no, no, you need to get closer to be able to play the game properly! Just try not to fall into the hole where the screen should be, that's how the 3D works on this you know!

Anyway since my experience with the game was all in regards to very small bracketed tournaments I'll go ahead and talk about my run. The preliminary round was a simple 2 minute free-for-all with 4 players on the 3DS, which made it quite hard considering the stuff I've already mentioned, I'll be honest I wasn't really sure what was going on, all I knew is that the crowd watching let out a huge 'NO!' when Little Mac who seemed to clearly be leading was killed by Sheik, interestingly enough when the two minutes was up nobody had any idea who had won, and rightfully so, the match became a 4 man Sudden Death, which starts you at 300% damage and pretty much anything that isn't a bloody weak projectile will have you killed. regardless I'm still confused as to what happened, all I remember is grabbing Little Mac, punching him a few times and having no idea how to throw him away, some of the crowd were shouting "Toon Link throw him!" and I had no idea how, eventually he broke free cause I held him too long but that's when my spamming the A button stopped being grapple punches and became a killing blow. I have no idea what happened to the other two but I'm sure at least one was alive at the time...

8 people qualified for each tournament, split into two four player Semi-Finals which were 5 minute 4 stock (lives) free-for-alls. to get into the final, you needed to be first or second place. the fight was unremarkable to say the least, it concluded in a Sudden Death again between me (now playing older Link because it was the WiiU version for the Finals and Semis) and this guy playing Kirby. He won, but I was through anyway so i didn't care.

When the final came around though it was a real surprise, same rules as the Semi-Finals, and clearly everyone had chosen their favorite characters, so in the end there were two Kirbys and Two Links. The game began, and it was all relatively even. The Kirby player from the first Semi-Final did lose his last life around halfway through the game though, and by the time the 30 second mark rolled in, a Smash Ball had appeared and everyone had one life remaining. Needless to say it became a bit of a scramble for the Smash Ball as it would almost certainly eradicate someone from the game if they were hit. The remaining Kirby got the Smash Ball... and he hit me. ten seconds to go and I fly off to the left corner after a barrage of glowy-swordy swings from Kirby and sit there shaking my controller and pushing the analog stick to the right so hard I wanted to rip the controller in two from the pressure. To the shock of everyone in the general vicinity and certainly the commentator, I survived by the skin of my tunic, and with a carefully timed Up B to dodge a last attack from the clearly flustered Kirby player I lived to fight another day in yet another nerve-wracking Sudden Death.

Even to this very day I fail to understand how I survived this move. Thank you God.

Two Links and a Kirby spawn into the Battlefield. All three jump into the air, one stays where he is, one moves to the left, and one to the right. With a clever use of shield the Kirby lands a superb forward Smash Attack onto one of the Links, blasting him out of the game. 'Right, only one left then!' Did the Kirby player think this to himself? Probably not, as no sooner had the first Link been wiped out, the second Link, on the other side of the map, had pulled out a bomb with Down B, and tossed it in their direction, that Link was me, and Kirby was no more.

Considering I won a copy of the game on 3DS when it's released for this victory (which I won't deny probably happened because I channeled all my good luck for the month into that one half hour feeling I was about to collapse from breathing too hard), I will probably never forget this tournament and I just wish it was on video for me to watch over and over again for me to actually make sense of what happened. Regardless, it is probably the single most epic event in my gaming history.

And if you are reading this O' Valiant Kirby player... I am truly sorry for all the luck I had on that fateful day, and for leaving you probably feeling saltier than a bag of my Dad's fish & chips.

TL;DR: I am the luckiest bastard to have played this game yet. Deal with it.

The Endgame: Professor Layton Vs Phoenix Wright

Story Completion: 100% (duh)
Puzzle completion: 100%
Total Play Time: 24:38
Total Picarats: 4475
Hint Coins Remaining: 162

WARNING: This post contains spoilers that WILL reduce your enjoyment of the game should you choose to play it. As a courtesy to my tiny readerbase, the spoilers have been blanked out.

When I first heard this game announced a number of months ago I was naturally very skeptical; take one of my most loved franchises (Phoenix Wright) and combine it with another franchise which to be honest is probably a lot more popular in the public eye (and more well known!). Nevertheless the game pulled off its surprising choice of crossover very well to create a game I was pleasantly surprised to play and with a story that's just as enthralling as any Professor Layton game I've ever played if not even more so.

Dreams will come true for fans of both games, Phoenix and Maya posing after solving puzzles? YES. Layton and Luke shouting OBJECTION? YES. YES. YES

You'd probably ask me how on earth two such different characters (from opposite sides of the world, no less) could wind up in a crossover like this without at least one of them feeling out of place or the whole thing feeling too forced, but I have to give credit to the story-writers, they pulled it off and very well at that. Both sections feature introductions based somewhat separately from each other to help you get a grasp of controls, before Layton and Luke, and then Phoenix and Maya are sucked into what appears to be a magical book that tells the story of a town called Labarynthia, where magic and witches are real? It's a very Layton-esque story line so you'd be forgiven for thinking Wright seems a little in the wrong kind of game. Can you figure out how he fits in yet? No? I'm talking about witch trials, and they suit him so well.

Despite my enjoyment of the game I do have a number of qualms with it however. Firstly, the professor Layton sections; they're executed very similarly to the existing 3DS Laytons, which is fine, though the controls aren't ideal they are functional at least, and aside from the somewhat pointless inclusion of Layton's 'zoom in' mechanic which is used ONLY once in the tutorial and ONCE in one of the games closing chapters, it had the feel and the enjoyment of a real Professor Layton game.
The Phoenix Wright sections in my opinion were beautifully executed, the cases were just as convoluted as any classic Wright case should be and the new mechanics (such as questioning up to 10 witnesses at once and presenting some evidence in the form of entries from the grand Grimoire, a magic encyclopedia) work very well and show just how well Wright has been adapted for the story.

I know this game will spawn crossover fanfic that could be pretty much considered canon now, and I don't like it.

The interesting thing about this game though is that it doesn't really fulfill the depth of the standalone games, take for example the puzzles from Layton's parts, they just really aren't as hard as a true Layton fan would want, most of them are unfailable (i.e you can play and play them and a real mistake will put you back a step or to the start rather than costing precious picarats) and are just about moving something up, down, left and right until a condition is fulfilled. The Wright sections despite still being great are also a LOT easier than they should be, with the ability to use hint coins basically telling you exactly what you need to present and where, plus the amount of evidence in the Court Record never exceeds 10, whereas some cases in Wright's stand alone games could feature 25 in there at once! Yes, although the game's mechanics may seem half-arsed to some, the story more than makes up for it, and it is very, very dark.
I can't deny that I felt genuinely shocked at multiple points throughout the story, be it the guilt inducing animations that show the people you convict of being a witch being locked in some kind of iron maiden and cast into a pit of fire, and especially when [it happens to Maya], not to mention the shock you get when [Layton is turned into a golden statue... AND his right arm breaks off]. I mean, you know there's no way these things could actually have happened, but it's enough to catch you off guard [perhaps because you were expecting someone else to be the victim?] and is truly a sign of how well Capcom and Level 5 have crafted the story.

The endgame sections I have to talk about in a yin-yang style. The last trial was pretty difficult and full of (occasionally predictable) surprises, and int he end did a good job of explaining everything, even if some ideas are a little far-fetched. The final Layton section left a lot to be desired in my books though, the standard big tower at the end where all the answers are revealed contained only three puzzles, all of which we're sickeningly easy and pretty much the same, needless to say I was disappointed.

The are a few things the game seems to fail on explaining, for example I'm still not sure why Espella (that's this girl here, main heroine) becomes like a brainwashed zombie half the time whilst nobody seems to be possessing her, and how the hell did they get sucked into the book in the first place!

Regardless, I have very happy with the overall quality of the game compared to my initial thought that it would probably be a lot worse. Die had fans of either series may struggle to like the other half and be disappointed with the sections that they enjoy the most. If you're a fan of both like me, you'll probably get a lot of enjoyment out of it as the characters and overall styles of the Wright and Layton games have been molded together perfectly like the pages in a book and the 'feel' of the games combines like that perfect blend of coffee. In addition, players who have yet to experience either game should fine the combination makes for a spectacular entry-level experience and I would definitely recommend it if you've been looking to play either game to prepare you for the greater depth offered by the full standalone titles.

TL;DR: I got carried away writing. It's puzzlingly good, no objections here. Buy it if you've been looking to try either but haven't yet. Falls flat compared to the standalone titles in places, but excels in others. Recommend.

The Endgame: Borderlands 2

Despite it being released 2 years ago, I have just recently finished playing Borderlands 2 and it's still safe to say it's one of the most fun games you can pick up, at least until the Pre-Sequel comes out.

So if for some reason you have never heard of Borderlands. Firstly, how the fuck have you managed to do that, and secondly it's a FPSRPG (First Person Shooter Role Playing Game)... or something... where you kill stuff and LOOT EVERYTHING. Seriously, I find that most of the fun I've had from Borderlands 2 has been from searching (for) chests for the rarest loot and that little feeling you get when you kill a boss and you see the coloured beams from everything he dropped and just have that tiny hope that maybe, just maybe one of those items is a super mega ultra rare orange item! Unfortunately this is a feeling you can only really understand when you've actually played the game so go out and buy it! Sure I've been complained at because of this slow 'LOOT EVERYTHING' playstyle, and yes going out of my way to open a cardboard box which will probably just contain ammo I never use (Fuck shotguns) is OTT, but in Borderlands 2 it can generally be excused, it has something like 72 billion randomly generated guns and you never really know when you'll find one you like more than your current one. Nothing stopping you from just rushing through the game though, except maybe being alone or underleveled against rocket using enemies, even when your friend has been spamming shift keys and grinding bosses to get you the best items the sight of an RPG Loader is enough to make you run away. NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE.

This chest is apparently the Borderlands equivalent of Heaven

I've played all the Borderlands 2 classes now and I can firstly say that the least fun class is Gunzerker, his special ability lets you dual wield, sure you can dual wield whatever you want, but it's still shit.
if you don't have any friends, I wouldn't recommend the Siren or the Assassin, both of them because of just how hard most bosses will screw them over, most bosses are too big for the Siren to lock in a bubble, and if the Assassin wants to do damage he has to either stay back and snipe while nobody distracts the equivalent of an entire army from you, or you need to be right in front of the massive 'fuck off' boss spamming melee while the same thing is going on (i.e: die and use your invulnerability while bleeding out to hopefully get a kill and revive, rinse and repeat until you actually die or there are no enemies left)
Otherwise if you're looking to have the most fun I recommend you try the DLC characters, The mechromancer never gets old summoning a robot dealing potentially the highest damage in the game and having the ability to blast people into a burst of lightening! Epilepsy sufferers be warned, you will get such a high playing this class! Alternatively if you're like the friend I played through with and may as well be a psycho(pathic) killer then the Psycho class is for you! The point is literally to set yourself on fire and make ribbons out of your enemies for your next red and soggy themed birthday party. Honestly it's all preference, but for the love of God don't play Gunzerker.

Yes! Laugh! Laugh at my Godlike shittiness!

But the end game though? It's good, really. The final boss(es) felt somewhat easy thanks to my friend's overuse of shift keys and orange farming but it's still totally badass, and I've not even mentioned Terramorphous the Invincible. I've always know about Terra being the biggest raidboss of Borderlands 2 and I've always wanted to fight him, so when we finished are normal run through I decided "Hey let's go fight Terra!" Long story short a giant fucking tentacle monster erupted out the ground and proceeded to rape us in every way imaginable until we eventually emerged in some images on Pandorian Pornhub, but I was still smiling all the way through my punishment for being so innocent.

Would usually refrain from taking pictures like this off Google so people can't chase me for copyright, but this picture wins the award for defining the mighty Terra

TL;DR: LOOT. Fuck the Gunzerker.

Welcome To The Endgame!

Hello to all readers from the uncharted realm of the internet, my name is Peter, otherwise known as Negimalevolent, and you have just reached The Endgame!

Before I explain what this blog will be all about (for the record, it's about video games, if you're looking for something else... well it's definitely not here!), let me explain a little more about me. I have played games pretty much all my life, from the days of the Gameboy Advance through to now and I'm still going strong. With games being a huge part of my daily life, I'd probably say I have almost 1000 games if not more than that stored somewhere and the fact of the matter is that, like a lot of gamers according to a study, I have probably completed only 10% of the games I've played, which is why I've decided that from now on I will complete each and every game I begin, and here is where I will tell the tales of my adventures in the many worlds glorifying our consoles and handhelds.

I remember when water ripples were the best thing since sliced bread in video games

Of course, I've not set up this blog for me to keep some kind of diary of my gaming, no no. The main purpose of this blog is for me to express my thoughts and feelings of the games I play, from my first impressions through to my last, maybe telling the odd story in between. I intend to show the world every strength, weakness, endearing trait, and every flaw of every game I complete, and I hope my writing will encourage you, my (probably tiny) reader-base to try/revisit these games for yourself, and enjoy the thrilling worlds we can all become a part of and experience.

Nobody cares for ripples any more... How times have changed...

(As a side note, while I will try and keep the games I write about modern, I play so many different games and come into them at so many different times that older (even retro) games will slip into the mix, even if you've never heard of some of these games, take some time to look into them, you may just discover your next favorite game!)

Kyogre used Splash! ... Please? It'd be funny...!

Thanks for reading, and look forward to some coverage on a game from a few years back within the coming days!

~Peter~

TL;DR: It's an introduction to the blog. I am bad at writing introductions. Video games will be completed and talked about. Deal with it.