Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth: Fun Times And A Great Story

 I was so hyped when Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth was announced because I loved Like A Dragon and I adore Ichiban. Seeing that Ichiban and Kiryu would be together in the game had me really excited and I was excited to dive in right away. Infinite Wealth is set three years after the main plot of the first game with Ichiban working at Hello Work. The game gives us a great view of where Ichiban and his friends are at and how they're doing. It also gives a nice introduction into the improved battle system. It's still turn based, but now there are circles showing where your party members can move and they can move a lot more freely so you can plan your strategy during a battle accordingly. 

The gang is back together again! 

Without giving too much away, circumstances change things for Ichiban and his friends which leads to the main story of Ichiban going to Hawaii. It's exciting having an entirely new place to explore, but with the usual odd enemies that stem from Ichiban's imagination. Ichiban runs into Kiryu in Hawaii and the two of them teaming up is brilliant and it's the dream team I didn't know I needed. I love Ichiban and Kiryu together duking it out together against all these enemies. The over the top special attacks and tag team attacks are everything I love about the Like A Dragon games. They're fun, funny, and work really well with the story setting. 

Dream team Ichiban and Kiryu battle it out. 

There's the usual conversations between Ichiban and his friends, but now there's a fun twist called Friendship Bingo. Ichiban and Kiryu can chat with everyone and learn different things about them like favorite foods or hobbies. When they get a Bingo it increases the bonds which unlocks more battle abilities as well as supporting attacks known as chain reactions. It adds another fun layer to the battle system and with Kiryu you get to see the cool street fighting style he has since he can switch between stances and when his heat mode is full, he can go full brawl. The fights are fun which makes level grinding less of a chore. 

Friendship Bingo card. 

There's also of course tons of mini games in Infinite Wealth. There's the usual knowledge center mini game in the new Hawaiian setting and the can quest is still around in Japan. The Sujimon index is back too with even more Sujimon to discover and Sujimon battles which are an amusing parody of Pokemon battles. There's also a hilarious dating app minigame which leads to some pretty funny results for Ichiban. My personal favorite was Crazy Delivery and if you've ever played the game Crazy Taxi you will notice the references to it. It's such a good time and you can earn some pretty good rewards from it. 

It's time for crazy delivery! 

Then came my absolute favorite minigame, Dondoko Island. Think Stardew Valley meets Animal Crossing, but with a Yakuza setting and of course more Ichiban shenanigans. For me, it was a ton of fun tidying up the island and getting that resort to five stars. There's also a farm and you can have your Sujimon work there which levels them up and boosts their stats. One of the things I really enjoyed about Dondoko Island is you can leave and come back anytime throughout the story and you can invite people to the resort. After you finish the game, you can also go back and do any extra things you might have missed. 

Sujimon battle on Dondoko Island.

The story of Infinite Wealth is great. I was so invested in all of it because of how much it got me to care about not just Ichiban and Kiryu, but their friends too. I loved that we got to have so many moments with them throughout the story revealing intimate knowledge of things they struggled with, what made them happy, and how much they cared about Ichiban and Kiryu. I found this was strongest during the Drink Link substories which not only gives everyone in the party experience, but gives huge boosts to the friendship bonds. I of course also enjoyed all the karaoke which is always fun especially with Kiryu who is delightful. 

It was interesting switching back and forth between Hawaii and Japan with Ichiban being the Hawaii team and Kiryu being the Japan team. It is story locked, but it's smartly done and works surprisingly well with the flow of the events in the story. The story itself is great and had me in its grip for a good sixty plus hours of gameplay. There were a lot of beautifully emotional moments in the story that had me crying and some incredibly heartwarming moments that had me smiling.  The epic battles, the fantastic storytelling, the great side quests, and the great storytelling made Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth such a good time for me and I'm so glad I got to appreciate another adventure with Ichiban, Kiryu, and all their friends. 

*Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth is on these platforms: Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

*Join the Mothergamer community on Twitch as we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer

Mothergamer Plays Chicory: A Colorful Tale

 Chicory starts off with playing as a cute little dog named Pizza who is the janitor in a tower and a big fan of Chicory who is the wielder of a magic paint brush used to color in the world. It's quite clear how much Pizza loves Chicory and her art the way they talk about her and is a nice introduction into the world of Picnic Province and the story itself.

Gushing about Chicory.

However, Chicory has gone missing and the world's color is disappearing. Pizza happens to find Chicory's brush and decides they'll help by filling the world in with lots of colors. This is a nice lead into learning the mechanics for how the brush works and how to paint everything. There's lots of nice accessibility features in the user menu to adjust the brush's movement as well, tweaking the game controls, and being able to adjust the difficulty so you can enjoy the story or have a challenge. I also appreciated that there was a setting to give trigger warnings before certain story points in the game.

Pizza learns how to paint with the brush.

There's not really combat in the game as the world is basically a giant coloring book. Pizza starts learning more about Chicory and how her disappearance isn't just affecting the world, it's affecting people connected to her. As you go through the story, you learn more brush styles and you unlock more colors that you can use to paint everything. Sometimes you need the brush to solve a puzzle, coloring in certain areas to open a door or coloring a plant so it will grow and give you a bridge across a cliff. Sometimes different characters will ask you to paint or decorate things for them which is also fun. I really liked designing a new donut sign for the owner of a donut shop. I'm terrible at drawing and painting, but the game never made me feel bad about that. Each character always reacted with joy or admiration with whatever I made for them. That polka dot donut sign was awesome!

Pizza paints the world.

Chicory is eventually found and there is a very important conversation between her and Pizza about mental health. Chicory explaining how much pressure she felt to be perfect and to not disappoint anyone, to not show any weakness really resonated with me. It's beautifully done with a gentleness and mindfulness that shows we can talk about these issues with others and that we're not alone in these feelings and thoughts. Pizza telling Chicory they want to help her and they want to be there for her is such a lovely scene and had me very emotional. 

From there, Pizza and Chicory are working together through the story and I really enjoyed it. Sometimes the puzzles were a bit frustrating as I tried to figure it out because a couple felt like math puzzles. I have Dyscalculia so math is incredibly difficult for me, so for a few puzzles I did have to look up how to do them. Other than a few frustrating puzzles, the rest of the puzzles weren't so bad. I did have a giggle at the phone booths because I haven't seen a phone booth in years. The phone booths are a cool thing though, because Pizza can call home and ask for a hint if they get stuck on where to go next or what to do with a puzzle. There's also side quests and collectibles to find which add another charming layer to the game. 

Chicory asks Pizza for help.

Chicory isn't a long game. I feel it's just the right length depending on how much you explore and do extra things. I finished it in about twenty hours and for me that was perfect. Chicory isn't just about art, it's about so much more. There are many conversations with different characters that hit close to home whether it's talking about imposter syndrome or coming to the realization that while we stress about the pressure others put on us, there's nothing like the intense pressure we put on ourselves. Chicory is suited to all of it because of how much care was put into the story and the gameplay to reflect all of those soul searching moments with a kindness that allows us to soak it all in and process those thoughts and emotions.

The music in Chicory is beautiful too and each area and main story scene always seems to have the right tone and music evoking the right nuance of feeling for each one down to the tiniest detail. Throughout the story there are always gentle reminders that it's okay if we're struggling and that it's important to do our best to take care of ourselves, to be kinder to ourselves. I loved the story in Chicory, I loved all of it because it told such a meaningful story in a way that hit close to home and while it appears simple, it's actually rich in storytelling, art, and expression. I'm grateful that games like Chicory are made because we need more of that color in our world. 

Sometimes we just need a hug.

*Chicory is available to play on the following platforms: PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

*Come join our community on Twitch where we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer

My Time At Sandrock Review

 *Note: I was given a free copy of the game for my honest review. Thank you to Renaissance PR for the Nintendo Switch game code.

I played My Time At Portia and I loved it so I was excited when My Time At Sandrock was announced. Finally it was here and I could not wait to get started. This is a sequel to Portia and it is set in the same world with the builders helping to rebuild after an event that destroyed previous civilizations. You play as a builder who has just come to the town of Sandrock which is out in a vast desert. It's quite different from the lush fields and forests of Portia, but a new setting with a new builder was exciting. The character design is great with a lot of diversity for skin tones and hair styles. You can even change the color of the hair and there are long hair options. You can tweak how you want your builder to look with the editing tools in the character design menu. Once you name your character, you're ready to go and meet everyone in town to begin your journey.

Welcome to Sandrock! 

I learned right away how different Sandrock is in regards to gathering resources and building. There is of course a workshop, but in order to keep the machines running you have a water tank that needs water constantly, but you also have to conserve water because you're in a desert. There are a couple solutions to this with being able to buy a set amount of water from one of the villagers and building a contraption called a dew collector which would catch the morning dew. Once you had enough dew you could make a jar of water. You can't just cut down trees because again you have to conserve water and places that help the oasis in Sandrock. You can kick the trees, cut down dead trees, and sort through scrap piles spread throughout the area. It definitely makes you plan out each day with what you want to do and makes good use of the desert setting. There are mining areas too and you do need those for building and various requests from the villagers. I feel that the mining is slightly better here in Sandrock as it feels a bit more streamlined and they improved on some things from Portia. The farming aspect is a bit different too as you have to carefully plow your fields with a special tool that adds a border of straw so the seeds you plant don't get whisked away by the wind. You also have to be aware of how much water you're using and it kept me on my toes keeping track of each detail with farming and using my machines to build. 

Doing a bit of mining. 

Sandrock's story kept me going because it was interesting and added to that sense of adventure making it more than a farm sim. The whole town works together to reverse the town drying up because of a relic boom that had treasure hunters sucking up all the resources while trying to figure out the motives of Logan a bandit who was a member of the community who was kind, but suddenly went rogue and is causing a lot of problems for everyone. There is a bit of downtime between each story chapter, but when a new chapter started up I was invested. Unraveling the mystery of Logan by looking for clues, talking to people, and trying to piece the puzzle together was fun and intriguing. Some of these searches lead to old world dungeons and the combat is hack and slash mechanics like Portia. You can also use old world guns which work really well for distance attacks. The fights are straightforward and with the boss battles you have to figure out patterns and sometimes use your environment to win. These are great places to level up and you do get a lot of great rewards from them. 

Battling it out in a dungeon. 

There are of course plenty of side quests as the town's residents make requests. There's also the builder's guild board where you can take on jobs and improve your shop's reputation while earning money as you build. Each character is different and I loved seeing how their personalities shined through as I got to know them better. This can lead to romance with some of them. There are twenty one possible romance options in Sandrock and yes, you can romance them as a guy or girl builder so there is queer romance in the game. I had a hard time choosing because there were quite a few I liked and some of their quests and requests allow you to get to know them better. You can go on a date with them which is a terrific way to learn more about them and give gifts they like. Eventually, you can choose to get married in the game to the person you choose and it's really cute and sweet. Just make sure you have expanded your house and made room for them ahead of time. 

On a date with Owen.

I noticed that there were a lot of quality of life improvements in Sandrock compared to Portia. Some of the ones I appreciated most was a better menu system, having icons over desert creatures showing if they're hostile, and free sprinting with no stamina bar. It made for a much easier time running around getting things done. There are holidays and festivals in the game as well that I enjoyed like a Summer festival that had everyone making a wish and releasing lanterns into the night sky. It showed very well the community aspect of Sandrock and it added a nice touch to the game. 

Sandrock isn't perfect. On Switch there are definitely a few bugs and visual issues. Honestly some of them are quite hilarious like the character Matilda sometimes being stuck in a t-pose. The running joke is this is how she establishes dominance. Sometimes there would be an odd visual glitch with a tree or a rock which was also amusing. It's nothing game breaking, but it is noticeable. 

Overall, My Time At Sandrock is such a great time. I've loved every single minute of it because of how good the story is while making the building, exploration, and farming aspects of it a lot of fun. There's always something new to be discovered and the townspeople in the game add to that desert life charm. It's well thought out and every detail is wonderfully done making it so enjoyable to play.

*My Time At Sandrock is available to play on the following platforms: Nintendo Switch, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows 

*Join our community on Twitch as we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer

Fae Farm: Come For The Cozy Farming, Stay For The Cute Magical Adventure

 I was delighted that Fae Farm was on the Switch and picked it up as soon as I got the chance. I know the $60 price tag is daunting, but there is a good reason for that. The current and upcoming DLCs are included so you get those updates when they come. Now, diving into the game of course there is character creation and it's adorable. The designs with different skin tones and hair styles are fairly diverse and I was happy to see that pronouns were included for the design. I do wish there were more choices for pronouns, but I think it was a nice touch to see them be inclusive. The accessibility in Fae Farm is done well too with making the text font bigger, adjusting the audio, and visual cues in the game for things like fishing and bug catching. 

Creating my Fae Farm character. 

The story starts with your character being shipwrecked on the shores of Azoria. The mayor and villagers are quite friendly and welcoming, helping you out by providing you with an unused farm. You're gifted a set of starter tools and seeds which opens up the tutorial on how to set up your fields and work on your farm. The word Fae is in the title so naturally there is magic, fairy creatures, and Fae characters which include the Wisp Mother who gives you your wand and teaches you how magic works. I quite enjoyed this because I could use magic to water my crops all at once which is convenient and fun. You do have to watch your mana though because it does run out quickly. You can eat food or drink mana potions to recover it or it gradually recovers over time.

Ready for farming! 

It's a pretty big map in Fae Farm and if you're looking to talk to someone or figure out where you are, you can bring up the map to get your bearings and you can check the person you're looking for and it will show you where they are on the map. There is fast travel in the game, but you have to craft seals for the portals to those areas so you can get there easily. 

Checking the map. 

Farming isn't the only thing to do. You can forage for resources, raise animals on your farm, go fishing, catch bugs and various fairy creatures, do crafting like cooking and making furniture, and do fetch quests for the villagers. Crafting is a big deal in Fae Farm because cooked meals help with energy and mana while furniture pieces can increase your health, energy, and mana bars. There's also crafting for improving your tools, your farm, and making seals that you'll need throughout the game. 

Doing a bit of fishing. 

Another thing you can do which is part of the story is dungeon crawling. That's right, there are three dungeons in the game that you must complete in order to finish the story chapters they're in. You have to fight monsters known as jumbles, but the dungeons do make it worth your while. There are various mining and crafting resources that can be found and the Jumbles drop resources as well. It's a good idea to bring plenty of meals and potions to get you through. There are twenty five floors in each dungeon and you have to look for the switch to open the door to the next floor. This can get a little overwhelming so a solution that is a mechanic in the game is to craft the specific seal required to keep that door open permanently. It makes it easier to quickly travel between floors. My issue with this is that you have to make a seal for every single floor. This meant a lot of grinding to get the materials needed to craft these seals. It was very tedious and a little frustrating. I feel that crafting a seal for every five floors would have been more practical and less irritating. I did it though and was able to finish the dungeons. You can go back as often as you like to gather resources. 

Battling some Jumbles. 

Fae Farm makes it easy to keep track of things. You have a calendar that has the birthdays of all the villagers as well as special holidays. You can also keep track of your skills which you can check in your user menu. It shows what level each one is and how far you are from maxing it out. The game also does not punish you for staying up too late. It's a bit odd that when that curfew time hits no matter where you are, the game yanks you back home immediately, sums up your day, and then you're right back on your farm the next morning. Your farmer will be a little tired so it is a good idea to try to make it home on time so you're well rested, but it is nice the game doesn't steal all your things like it does in Stardew Valley. There's so much to do in Fae Farm it can feel like a lot to keep up with, but I found if I chose one or two things to do that day it wasn't so bad. It's okay to take your time and just play at your own pace. The game does give you the freedom to do that which makes for a nice cozy farming game. 

Tracking those skills. 

There is romance in the game. You have six different characters to choose from and yes whether you play as a femme or masculine character, you can romance them. Again it's nice to see that inclusivity so that we can have queer representation relationships in the game. You can talk to them every day and give them gifts. Each one has certain likes and dislikes. Sometimes, they'll ask you for a specific item and when you get it for them, this gives you high approval with the person. You can go on dates with them which are cute and sweet. One character said something so lovely to me that I was instantly smitten with them. There's no voice acting in Fae Farm which is fine, but sometimes the dialogue leaves a lot to be desired. Villagers and romance interests will say the same thing to you each time you see them which isn't a bad thing, but it would be nice to have a little variety as time progresses. Once you choose your love interest you can get married for 10,000 coins. I was daunted by that price, but I managed to sell lots of crops and foraged items so we could have the wedding. The ceremony is lovely and you get a nice outfit for it, but after that your partner is just hanging out on your farm. They talk to you and wander around, but they don't help with anything. It's a little strange and disappointing, but maybe they'll fix that in the next patch update. 

Out on a cute date. 

The main story for Fae Farm is interesting and I love the artwork for the game and the various story chapter scenes. It very much felt like a children's storybook which shows just how charming the artwork and the game itself is. I really enjoyed my time with the game. The Coasts of Croakia DLC is out now and this gives you some things to do after the story is finished. I admit to feeling a bit disappointed when I realized all it is in Croakia is just collecting creatures and adding them to a buddy binder. You do get a nifty Critter Conch which helps you learn the right song for each creature so you can get them to join you. My personal favorite is the frogs in the game and seeing a cute frog on a flying broomstick is adorable. You can craft trinkets for your little buddies which help boost some of your skills. Depending on what you want you can craft them. That's all there really is to do in this current DLC so I did a bit of it to check it out and decided I was done since I finished the main story and I'll wait for the next update in June. 

Fae Farm is a lot of fun to play. There are a couple of areas that are lacking, but it makes up for it completely with the cozy farming vibes, the cute magical adventure, and a ton of charm with the artwork and overall atmosphere. If cozy farm sims, with cute creatures and magic are your jam, it's definitely worth checking out and absolutely worth your time. 

Time to recruit cute critters!

*Fae Farm is available to play on the following platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC

*Join the Mothergamer community on Twitch where we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer

Mothergamer Plays Mail Time

 *Note: I received this game for free on Nintendo Switch for my honest review. Thank you to Stride PR for the game code.

Right from the start Mail Time shows itself to be a cute and cozy game especially with the character creator. You can adjust the skin tone, choose different hairstyles, a cute mushroom hat, change the color of your outfit, pick a backpack, and a style of glider for getting around the forest. All of it is adorable. 

Creating my cute Mail Scout. 

Once that's done the story begins with parking the cute mail truck in a spot in the forest. Your character is a Mail Scout in training and it's their first day on the job. Your supervisor Janet tells you that your first task is to deliver a letter to someone named Greg, but there's no address and no directions. Janet tells you it's up to you as the Mail Scout to figure this out using all your important scout abilities because you're not an official Scout yet. You have to prove yourself by delivering mail and earning Mail Scout patches. This seems like a strange way to handle job orientation, but your Scout is optimistic that they can do it so off you go into the forest to handle this task. 

Off to deliver some mail! 

With delivering the mail with only name, this means you have to talk to all the local residents and ask them if they know the person to get hints about who they are as well as clues to their location so you can find them and deliver their mail. They have their own problems too that only you a Mail Scout can solve. The majority of it is a mix of fetch quests and delivering letters and items for them. It's a smart way to get you to explore this big forest with your small Scout. 

Cedar needs our help delivering some mail. 

I love the artwork for Mail Time. It shows immediately how big the forest is and how tiny our Mail Scout is, but it's done in such a fantastic way with bright colors and whimsical art that remind me of a children's storybook. It's perfect for a game like Mail Time and I enjoyed exploring everywhere. The area itself is not very big, but it does encourage you to peek in every nook and corner because you never know what you will find. This is where your glider comes in because you can climb up very high among the trees and some of the hills to discover some things and villagers on your journey. In some of these spots you can use the glider to gently sail on the wind to get to a location. It's another detail that adds to the coziness and whimsy of the game. 

Exploring high up among the trees. 

There's all kinds of different tasks to do, not all of them are deliver mail oriented. Some ask you to do things such as find some gold coins for a kind of greedy cat or help a hamster have a perfect picnic. For each task completed you get a Mail Scout patch which you get to keep in a cute sticker book. Sometimes it wasn't obvious where to go and I would have to talk to the villagers to figure out the hints and clues. There's no map in Mail Time either which I feel is a bit odd, but because the area is small I was able to backtrack easily and get to where I needed to go. 

Mail Scout patches, gotta collect them all! 

The writing for Mail Time is well done. The banter is funny and the wordplay is smart. They can also be very sweet with some of the storytelling like my personal favorite, a mom loving her children's drawings they made for her and talking about how proud she is that they're so good at the things they love. Mail Time is not a very long game, I finished it in about two hours. When I got to the end it felt like saying goodbye to old friends and it was lovely and joyful just like the entire game itself. It's a wonderful relaxed experience that tells a nice story with memorable characters, cute art, and I enjoyed all of it.

Chatting with a cute capybara. 

*Mail Time is available on the following platforms: PC (Steam, Epic), Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, and Playstation 5

*Join our community on Twitch while we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer

Mothergamer Plays Assassin's Creed Mirage

 I was really curious about this installment of Assassin's Creed. If you played Valhalla you know who Basim is, but it's not the Basim we know in Valhalla. This is Basim when he was younger and before he met Eivor. We get to see how Basim came to be where he is. There was a lot of talk of bringing the series back to basics like the classic earlier games and having the game be shorter. This is true in both aspects because I finished the game in about twenty hours. When I think of classic, I instantly think of the Ezio trilogy which I still love and it's easy to see some of those nods to the earlier titles throughout the game. 

Right from the start of the story, it's interesting to see how different Basim is from his Valhalla future. He's a young street thief living with his friend Nehal in Anbar and circumstances happen that cause him to join the assassins and end up in Baghdad. Ninth century Baghdad is beautiful. I took my time just exploring the vast city and checking out the marked historical sites on the map and reading every historical codex I could find. This was wonderfully incorporated into the game because you could enjoy playing the game while stopping to learn about the Islamic Golden Age complete with notes, photos, and art all curated by various historians and museums. It was fascinating for me and I thought it was quite interesting learning about the culture and language during that time period. 

Ninth Century Baghdad is beautiful. 

Stealth is very much emphasized because you are an assassin after all. The game gives you plenty of places to hide including a throwback from the earlier days of blending in with a group of people or sitting on a bench and hiding in plain sight. There are also the hiding closets placed around areas which were amusing for me because you can pop out and surprise the unsuspecting guards. Running across rooftops and ziplines and dropping down on enemies and then hiding quickly is a lot of fun. The parkour is great, but it's not perfect and sometimes neither is the stealth. There were times Basim would do a little hiccup and then I'd either fall and injure myself or end up in an all out brawl with guards that were on high alert. That could get frustrating and sometimes I would just have to cut and run or I'd die and have to reload the last save. The battles themselves aren't bad as if you time it right Basim can parry an attack or use the arsenal of tools he has like smoke bombs to turn the tide of battle in his favor. 

Surprise! 

The story itself isn't bad. I actually liked Basim and found he was definitely not as harsh as his Valhalla version, but again he's younger here and it's part of the story how he comes to be that way. Besides the main story there are side missions that tie into the main story having Basim find clues about each Order member and trying to figure out what they're searching for. If you haven't played Valhalla some of this can be a little confusing, but if you have the puzzle pieces fit together and you can follow where it's all going. They did bring back two of my least favorite mechanics and that's the eavesdropping and following a target. Eavesdropping isn't so bad because if you can blend into a bench or some bushes and you're close enough you just wait and listen. Following a target however was always irritating because if you follow too close or they notice you in any manner, they run away and then you have to wait until the next day to try again. I was glad I could sit and forward time so I didn't have to wait too long for this. 

Doing a little eavesdropping. 

There were definitely a lot of things I loved in Mirage. One of the more adorable things was that you can pick up and cuddle all the cats throughout the city. I also found the tokens system to be interesting. Basically you have three different sets of tokens; merchant, power, and favor. These tokens can be used to bribe people like the merchants to help Basim blend in or cause distractions during missions. I also enjoyed photo mode in the game. Being able to stop and take photos of a leap of faith or a gorgeous vista out in the desert was very cool.  I really loved the character of Roshan and I adore Shoreh Aghdashloo who did an amazing job with the voice acting for her. The relationship between Roshan and Basim as teacher and student I found interesting because it showed the differences between them as well as showing just how young Basim is here. 

That being said, I did not like Nehal because she's rude, she's selfish, and constantly shows up at strange moments and is constantly berating Basim about what she wants instead of actually listening to what he wants and not respecting any of his wishes at all. I had my suspicions about her right from the early start of the story and frankly it was pretty obvious so I wasn't really surprised at the reveal, but felt vindicated that I was right. The ending for the story was a little disappointing and felt a bit empty. While I understand that the whole point is to show how Basim essentially embraced his Isu counterpart and became Loki it just felt flat and abrupt. It gave us some back story about Basim sure, but it really expected us to suspend disbelief and accept that he didn't ask more questions of Loki and just went with it becoming the villain that tries to kill Eivor in Valhalla. It was odd and didn't really mesh with the flow of the story we're being told. 

Other than that, I enjoyed Mirage and I did appreciate that after the main story is finished you can still explore the city and look for any collectibles you may have missed. It's a beautiful game with some memorable moments and I did have fun exploring Baghdad and learning about its history. It was not a bad adventure and I enjoyed the time I had with it. 

A leap of faith. 

*Assassin's Creed Mirage is available to play on the following platforms: Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

*Join our community on Twitch as we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer

Another Crusade A Cute Wooden Puppet Adventure

 *Note: I received the game for free on Nintendo Switch for my honest review of the game. Thank you to Limited Run Games for the game key! 

Another Crusade looks very cute right from the start. Described as a 3D wooden puppet action RPG, the game is very charming with the artwork. The knight is coming home from a finished adventure when a meteor shower happens and suddenly, he finds himself on another adventure to save everyone. 

The knight heading home before an adventure. 

The areas looking like a cute puppet stage are adorable. There is a tutorial with the battle mechanics as the game is turn based. You have to time the attacks just so and this is where I feel the game struggles a bit. There's not really an indicator marker of when you're supposed to hit an enemy so I kept missing a lot which means I would get hit a lot and more often than not get wiped out and I'd have to try again. It's not great when the difficulty spike in a game is right at the start and doesn't get better. The timing window is so precise that constantly missing was very much an issue for me. 

Battling an ogre. 

I did like the road tips when you were in an area map. It would tell you things like healing your HP and MP in a healing spring. The various enemies are interesting, but sometimes when I was trying to get my bearings on a map it would get frustrating trying to run away from them so I didn't end up in a fight. The knight eventually meets his other friends and the witty one liner jokes and puns are smartly done. I found myself laughing at some of the antics of the adventurers and some of the villains too. 

Learning adventurer tips. 

While Another Crusade is cute, the combat could be very frustrating. There's also the lack of a map navigation. I would get lost often which would end up with me getting stuck fighting enemies that were too high a level and not being able to run away so I'd end up dying. You start over at a checkpoint and sometimes that was not always ideal. There's no fast travel in the game either which frankly would have been helpful. 

I really wanted to love Another Crusade, but unfortunately there were a lot of issues with the gameplay mechanics and the imbalance with difficulty spikes made it rather frustrating. There are also crashing issues with the game in odd places. If those issues are addressed Another Crusade could be a good game because the potential is there. 

Wandering the world map. 

*Another Crusade is available on the following platforms: Steam, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 5, Xbox Series X/S 

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