QCF: Broken Lines (Steam)

hen deciding to review Broken Lines I was unsure why I was so interested in playing it. I am not good at all at strategy games of any kind, and I have very little interest in war themed entertainment. Then I realized what it was that drew me to the Steam digital game released by Super! Publishing. I thought back to other games that tackled turned based strategy in an alternate timeline of war in the twentieth century, and I was eager to see how the developer PortaPlay would approach this hybrid of RPG and tactics. I was happy to find out that Broken Lines takes influence from strategy games from the current generation and the recent development of mental state mechanics of newer independent role-playing games to create a solid entry into the genre. A story that sometimes misfires and AI that can frustrate does not take too much away from a challenging and satisfying experience.

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QCF: Valkyeria Revolution

ven after nearly 10 years since its initial release on the PlayStation 3, the impact of SEGA’s Valkyeria Chronicles still resonates throughout the tactical RPG scene to this very day, continuing to be sold on Steam after the windows version hit the store recently.

Since then though, the property’s transition into a full-fledged series has only propelled it further into niche territory, with two direct sequels releasing exclusively to Sony’s struggling handheld at the time, the PSP, and the other not even making it out of Japan. Hell, there was even some bunk-ass mobile game that didn’t last for more than two years before it was kicked off the market, and servers shut down—Valkyeria’s true claim to fame still bellied onto the original in the states.

Shooting for the chance that lightning will strike twice, as SEGA brings on Media.Vision, the same developers responsible for the Wild Arms and Chaos Rings series to create Valkyeria Revolution; a spin-off sequel to the franchise that’s available on both console, and portable.

While the premise in this venture certainly is interesting, Valkyeria Revolution seems to have left behind most of the qualities that made the Valkyeria experience so charming and likable in the first place.

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QCF: Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart

t’s truly startling to me; another Neptunia game so soon? This is getting pretty ridiculous, especially since, in the last six months, three games of nearly the exact same flow and design have been released by NIS America. One, ok, I can see that, but three? That’s just too many.

Thankfully however, Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart looks to shake up the formula considerably as a pure Strategy RPG featuring the girls of the Neptunia universe.

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QCF: Project X Zone

he video Game Crossover is definitely nothing new. Much like many comic and cartoon series have in the past, quite a number crossovers have been mashed together over the last three decades or so in North America, including notable entries such as Battletoads & Double Dragon, Aliens Vs. Predator, Capcom Vs. SNK, and of course, Super Smash Bros. But in Japan, the sheer amount of crossovers is kind of mind-numbing. Perhaps the greatest crossover series ever is Bandai and Banpresto's Super Robot Wars (oddly titled in its original Japanese name for releases in North America, despite Japanese stickers on merchandise reading “SRW”). Super Robot Wars collects a simply ridiculous amount of giant robot anime series together and crossses them over in a hugely deep strategy RPG setting. So it's no surprise that Banpresto was the one to collect over 50 different characters together in Namco Bandai's Project X Zone (pronounced Cross Zone) on Nintendo's 3DS.

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