For those of you just joining us I have made it my objective to play every single PS-Plus Extra game for at least an hour and then report as to how well the game accomplishes getting you interested in the first place, teaching you how to play the game in a reasonably simple manner, and how well it makes you want to play it beyond the first hour. I am NOT attempting to evaluate any of these games as to their entirety is concerned.
I feel as though the first hour of any game, especially games that are relatively unknow, to absolutely nail the first hour of gameplay because for people like me and a lot of other gamers, we end up disliking a game that doesn't manage to captivate us during this time.
Most of the PS-Plus Extra games are there for a reason and I think that most of the time those reasons are not "because Sony feels like being nice to you." I feel they are there because the developers don't think they can sell any more of them at 50 or even 20 dollars, so they strike a deal with Sony to have them for "free" on PS-Plus Extra.
There are a lot of winners in there, but most of them are duds.
In the case of I am Satsuna I think they do a decent job of luring you in during the first hour and it is a pretty decent game. Unfortunately, it's about 25 years too late to the market and this type of gaming is a relic of the past.
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When you first start playing this game it is extremely reminiscent of Final Fantasy games back on the SNES and PS-1. Those games were absolutely excellent given the time period but I think that for most people this is now an outdated concept that is going to get seriously boring for most players pretty rapidly.
It is a turn-based RPG with some unique elements but overall it basically functions like every turn-based RPG from the old school days. I should have known it was going to feel pretty FF'ish because it is made by Square-Enix and it wouldn't surprise me if they actually re-used elements from past games in the creation of this one.
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At first you start out on your own but quickly build a party that has a maximum capacity of 3 at a time. By the time I was an hour in, the story had already moved on quite quickly thanks to your ability to fast-pace the dialogue of which I feel there is way too much of. I understand that this is a common feature in games that were designed for the Japanese audience and given the fact that this game was intended for those audiences I have to say that I am impressed with how well they translated or perhaps even changed the story for English-speaking players.
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Unfortunately, this game is basically a repackaged Final Fantasy in that there are constant status effects to be concerned with and most fights can (and will be) won simply by doing a standard attack over and over while watching to make sure the HP doesn't get too low on any of the characters.
You enter battles on a field of some sort and it is kind of disappointing to me that you can not reposition where your various characters are standing, but the enemies can. This is particularly annoying with characters that have a "self-destruct" feature that happens when they die. This will damage any of your characters that are standing near them and there is nothing you can do to avoid this other than just get lucky and hope that the enemy positioned themselves far away from you the exact moment that you off them.
Another minor gripe that I have about this game is that the HP pool of enemies, including bosses, is not displayed on screen at all so you have to simply guess how many times you need to hit them or just get lucky when a final blow is going to happen. In the 1.5 hours that I played I encountered 3 bosses and it would have been very useful for me to have some idea about how much more damage I needed to do in order to whittle them down.
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I was also not very pleased with how the outside world was handled because there are no encounters - which I suppose could be seen as a plus - and very little in the way of secret items to be found (I only found 1). What this means is that all of the travel outside between villages is essentially just a waste of time and this is compounded by how arduously slow your characters actually move on the outdoors map. As "old school" as it sounds, if there is almost nothing to be discovered out here and your objectives come at you in a linear fashion anyway, what is the point of even having this?
Weapon upgrades might get more exciting later but for the first 1.5 hours the ability to upgrade comes at pre-described places that just happen to coincide with enemies becoming more powerful. Therefore, you never really have an opportunity to experience how much better your new sword or dagger actually is unless you travel back to old areas to fight the weak enemies that you encountered at the start of the game.
Music-wise, the game is pretty solid and has a nice variation of original piano pieces that complement the dark nature of the game quite well.
Overall I think I would have really enjoyed this game 10 or 20 years ago and people who are feeling nostalgic might enjoy it or maybe even people who weren't alive when turn-based RPG's were all the rage. As far as how it stands up today though, I think most people are going to get bored long before I did.
Games I have already tried in my journey to play at least 1-hour of every PS-Plus Extra game
- Gravity Rush 2 (action adventure game with fast movement in every direction. It has RPG elements and a pretty decent story. Make it past the first hour and the game really opens up. Recommended)
- Oddworld: Soulstorm (2D+ platformer with great graphics, sound, and voice-acting. Unfortunately it is plagued with a lot of repetition. Recommended for a few hours)
- Bee Simulator (sort of like a flying FPS game but with no combat. It's graphically impressive and filled with tidbits of knowledge about bees... unfortunately it is repetitive as hell and gets boring fast. Not recommended)
- Prison Architect (a prison management simulator game similar to SimCity. It's a great game but just like most simulation games, it just isn't very playable using a controller. Not recommended on PS4)
- Hotline Miami 2 (a top-down shooter with gruesome violence and terrible AI. Would be great for speedrunners and hardcore gamers. Casuals like me are going to quickly tire with it)
- Battle Chasers: Nightwar (turn based RPG of medium-length that does a good job of teaching you how to play in the first hour. It's pretty old-school and I happen to like that... recommended)
- Chorus (3rd person open-world space fighting game. It's graphically impressive but combat is too repetitive to really hold your interest for the entire story. Still recommended though.)
- Portal Knights (a very well made survival action builder game similar to Minecraft. I really enjoyed this and look forward to playing it more. Recommended)
- Saints Row: The Third (clever and funny FPS game that intentionally puts you in impossible and absurd situations. It's innovative and humorous but ultimately quite dated and got repetitive and boring pretty quick. Not recommended)
- Balan Wonderworld (A rather beautiful 3D(ish) platformer that is extremely easy but still engaging enough to hold your attention for a few hours. Recommended for casual gamers)
- The Artful Escape (an adventure game of sorts with awesome visuals and music, but repetitive areas and controls combined with IMO far too much dialogue makes this game get boring, fast... Worth a look but not recommended to play)
- Until Dawn (interactive horror game that you don't really control a great deal of. It's reasonably entertaining, you can't lose, and the graphics and sound a pretty great. It's not really a game but I enjoyed it and played it to its finish. Recommended)
- 11-11: Memories Retold (a WW1 story that doesn't actually involve much input on the player's part. The game is very boring despite having a wonderful graphical style: Not recommended)
- Desperados 3 (a real time tactics / stealth game that I personally do not feel belongs on consoles at all. If you have never played these sorts of games on PC your opinion might be different. This one gets a "maybe.")
- Maneater (Action RPG where you play the role of a deadly shark. The idea is decent but ultimately the extremely repetitive gameplay makes this one easy to miss. Not recommended)
- TorqueL (physics puzzle platformer that is simplistic at first but quickly becomes maddeningly difficult. Gets boring pretty quickly on consoles and would be better suited as a time-waster on mobile devices. Not recommended on PS4)
- Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon: Turn-based cutesy RPG that is extremely story-driven just like anything Square is involved in. If you are huge fan of Final Fantasy you might like it, for me it was one hour then done forever.
- XCOM 2 : (Turn-based Sci-Fi game set in a dystopian future where you are part of the rebellion. Despite a very slow start IMO the game really gets involved later on... recommended)
- Darksiders Genesis (Top-down hack and slash that reminds me a lot of Diablo 3 but with a more restricted environment. It's very fast paced and as easy or difficult as you want it to be. It's a lot of fun and therefore comes highly recommended.)
- Guardians of the Galaxy (a copy/paste of so many other RPG's out there with too many cutscenes as is so typical of Square-Enix. Recommended for superfans of the movies, but not for really anyone else.)
- Injustice 2 (a DC comics oriented fighting game with tons of characters and IMO extremely complicated gameplay. It could be great for someone who is willing to devote enough time to memorizing all of this, but I am not that guy.)
- Life is Strange: Before the Storm episode 1 (A graphic adventure that isn't really a game so much as it is a movie that you have some control over. Recommended for people looking for something extremely casual but with a very well-written story)
- Evil Dead: The Game (a team based multiplayer game that has the humor and gore that you would expect from anything done by Evil Dead. Unfortunately, it doesn't really stand out from the pack well enough for me to give it high props. Recommended for a short while - see if you disagree with me)
- Immortals: Fenyx Rising (A Zelda-esque open-world game based on Greek mythology that is one of the best games I have played in a while. Highly recommended)
- Pixel Piracy (an 8-bit adventure game of sorts that puts you in the role of a pirate ship commander. I'd love to tell you what the objective in this game is, but I don't know what it is. I was extremely bored after the required 1-hour of play and immediately deleted the game from my hard drive. Not recommended)
- I am Satsuna (an old-school turn-based RPG developed by Squre Enix that functions exactly like Squaresoft games from the 90's. Recommended for people who really love that sort of game environment but not so much for anyone else)
All other games I have already reviewed (there are a lot of them)