Category: PS4

One thing that stands out about Nippon Ichi Software titles is they’re always more than meets the eye. Disgaea routinely took seemingly silly plots and made them, if nothing else, interesting. Similar things happen with The Witch and the Hundred Knight series. They start as fairly silly experiences that lead to a much deeper experience. Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk has all the makings of a great Nippon Ichi Software title. Cute art, quirky characters, familiar mechanics and so much more. However, will they continue to find success or do they need a new approach?

Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk tells a seemingly simple story. Refrains acting governor wants to explore the mysterious labyrinth and calls in the infamous witch Baba Yaga to do it. Armed with the Tactatus de Monstrum, a legendary book written by the only person to ever make it out of the labyrinth alive, and a variety of puppets, Baba Yaga hopes to uncover what secrets the labyrinth holds and come out ahead. Even if there isn’t much on the surface, it quickly becomes a more complicated adventure, complete with dark twists and unexpected turns.

Beyond the overarching story, character beats and relationships should be familiar to fans of Nippon Ichi Software’s other titles. Baba Yaga, otherwise known as Dronya, manages to be the ever lovable quirky main. She is full of herself, flirtatious, dislikes children, despite her foil and sidekick being a child, and at times, quite charming. Her assistant Luca is a young child filled with optimism, cute mannerism and ever so easy to tease. They make for a cute pair and help drive the story during the slow bits, as does exploration.

The labyrinth acts as a fairly familiar dungeon system. Players start by creating puppets to do their bidding. Knights are good at damage, Fortress units are tanks, Maze does magic and the other classes fulfill other specific roles. Players can then alter their gender, appearance (at least skin tone/color), affinity (how well they work with a given item), bonus skill (innate bonus ability) and more. It offers just enough to make it feel good, without it being too complicated for the casual observer. From there these characters are placed in a group, followed by formation and these will be your fighters.

Upon entering the labyrinth players will find it plays like your average dungeon crawler. Everything is in first person, maps need to be explored, some paths exist for shortcuts and plenty of treasure to find. What stands out in Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk is a hostile indicator. By playing it just right players can avoid battles, though it will hurt you in the long run, or ignore it and face as many foes as you happen to run across.

Battles are pretty straightforward. Whatever foe you’ve come across will appear on the screen and you need to overcome it. This can be done through magic, attacking in a specific order, figuring out its weakness and more. If you have enough power and/or items and don’t mind monitoring health, a lot of battles can be done on auto pilot. This will make it harder to capitalize on chain bonuses and other things, which give you additional power to overcome difficult challenges, though these are only so useful against sub-boss tier characters.

Defeating an enemy will give you experience and mana to further your team. These will increase stats, give new abilities and other things to aid your adventure. Mana can be used to pass petitions to alter the game, similar with the aforementioned Nippon Ichi Software titles. So if you want it easier, buy that and the game will be easier with progressing being harder. Likewise, you can increase the difficulty at the cost of things being easier to do. There are other things to pass, such as the ability to find more items, making it an important resource.

Said items can also be found, bought or obtained to boost a character’s stats. They’re important to monitor, as every little bit goes a long way. Especially since there are plenty of things players will be punished for doing.

Unlike most games, holding a certain amount of mana, losing and other things have stiff punishments. Not only do they make things harder, it adds a deeper level of tactical play. Now you have to do something or deal with the negative, with the most important thing being limbs. Puppets with a reduced number of limbs are less effective on the battlefield and will be a hindrance unless fixed or replaced. It makes for an interesting failure penalty, since it’s a more overt way to punish that taking cash or outright progress.

Verdict

Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk isn’t perfect but it manages to stand out in its own way. With Baba Yaga/Dronya and Luca being a charming couple, it helps the story from dragging, ultimately leading down an interesting path. While gameplay isn’t perfect and at times very paint by numbers, it’s fun enough for this not to be a problem. So, if you’re a big fan of Nippon Ichi Software or enjoy dungeon crawlers, give Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk a go.

[Editor’s Note: Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk was reviewed on PS4 platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]

Star Ocean started its journey on the Super Famicom over two decades ago. Since then the first game has found its way on the PSP in 2008 and now again on the PlayStation 4 and Switch. Given the limited nature, a number of players have yet to experience Star Ocean, so is Star Ocean: First Departure R worth (re)visiting or should it be forgotten in the past? Here’s our Star Ocean: First Departure R Review. Star Ocean: First Departure R follows the story of Roddick, Millie, and Dorne as they patrol the village as part of their day-to-day routine. On one fateful day, a mysterious plague sets in that suddenly turns people into stone. Hoping to find a cure at a nearby mountain by gathering what they call a medicinal herb, things have started to change when two people from a far more advanced civilization suddenly teleport in front of them.

Ronyx and Ilia, the other main protagonists of the game, are the humans from the Planet Earth that explain to Roddick and his friends that the plague that spread in their planet called Roak is a biological weapon that was developed by Lezonia in Planet Earth. Wishing that a far more advanced civilization like Earth will be able to cure the people of Planet Roak, they are mistaken. To cure the plague, they must get a sample of an archfiend that only existed 300 years ago. The only way they can achieve that is to go to the past, and that’s where Roddick and his friends will be joined by Ronyx and Illia in search of the cure. Since the game is more than two decades old, don’t expect the story to be as deep as other Star Ocean games or JRPG games. It’s fairly simple and easy to follow for those hoping it wouldn’t have a convoluted story like other games these days.

For those who have played previous Star Ocean games before, the battle system should be familiar at some point. Instead of its turn-based classic battle system that was introduced in older JRPG games, First Departure R is an action-oriented battle system. When you battle an enemy, you will be able to control one of the four characters in your party, while the other three are controlled by an AI. You smash the X button to attack an enemy using a regular attack and pressing the shoulder buttons, LI or R1 will allow your character to perform special attacks. The combat is fairly basic, yet fun at times and doesn’t require complicated button pressing to defeat an enemy- though there are times the difficulty spikes up in combat all of a sudden.

In addition to simply taking down enemies, the other things that you will be doing in the game are crafting or mastering skills that make your party stronger. Whenever a character gains a level, you will receive a Skill point that you can use onto your characters. These abilities can be used on and off the battle and will greatly improve your character’s performance in battle. As far as crafting goes, you can create items that you can use in both cooking or in battle. Don’t worry about its complexity as they are fairly easy to understand as they are basic at most.

Seeing how First Departure R is the game that started the Star Ocean series, there are things that in this game that evolved in succeeding games. One of the features that are common in Star Ocean games is the Private Actions that you can trigger with certain characters. In First Departure R, we can see how the Private Actions have started and how it evolved in other Star Ocean games. To gain more insight or learn more about the character, you trigger Private Actions when a prompt appears on the screen. This is purely optional but to fully enjoy what the game has to offer when it comes to story, it’s highly recommended that you take a look at it.

With the game being a port of the PSP version that was launched back in 2008, First Departure R doesn’t have any new content to offer. In fact, if you have played the PSP version before or even the Super Famicom ones, you will be playing the same exact version, except with minor changes. The minor changes that the team behind Star Ocean: The Last Hope did with First Departure R is improving the artwork. Right at the beginning of the game, players will be able to choose whether to use artwork from the original version or the new one specifically designed for this version.

In terms of visuals, the game remains true to the original, except the sprites look crisper and detailed. CG cutscenes are untouched, where you will notice that even the audio hasn’t been improved. However, the majority of the cutscenes still have voice-overs, which makes it better when it comes to going through those lengthy scenes in the game.

If you have played the PSP version in the past and were annoyed with things like backtracking or random encounters, they remain present in the PS4 version. Sadly, there are no modifiers present to turn them off, and this is something you will be dealing with. At this day and age, random encounters are frowned upon and may not appeal to the new generation of gamers. Also, if you are one of those that simply hate backtracking, prepare to do it on this game as there is plenty to look forward to.

Star Ocean: First Departure R Review – Verdict

Star Ocean: First Departure R is a classic game that reminds us of where the series started. While it is certainly fun and enjoyable, it retains a number of traits associated with the best JRPGs. These include a simple storyline, a fascinating combat system, and a relatively straightforward adventure. If you’re from a newer generation of JRPG fans, you might find the excessive random encounters, backtracking and minimal depth annoying and might want to stick to more modern releases. Still, veteran fans will likely remember why this series became so popular in the first place.