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Going to be playing No More Heroes 3 Starting 5:30pm Pacific Time Tues / Thurs for the last weeks of March 2024. Come join the no hero zoning laws!

I'm just going to have to acknowledge that Art of Fighting is not a good series, and largely I think that has to do with how stagnant it's combat is. While the first two games have a lot working against them when it comes to liking the appeal of this game, Art of Fighting 3 really just comes down to the fact the fighting system just isn't a good one. When I mean Art of Fighting 3 comes down to it's combat, I really do mean that everything else in the game kinda works for it. The character design feels more alive, the stages look beautiful to look at while not being completely distracting, the soundtrack has some really good bangers, and just everything feels like it's moving. Well save for the combat. Like I never really faced a fighting game quite like this before. I honestly can't picture myself landing any combos or learning anything about a character because of how aggressive the AI can be even on a lower setting, but also due to the fact that it just feels stiff. I honestly feel like I'm always fighting against the controls whenever I do something, and if I were to able to land more than two hits, it largely came from spamming and not linking attacks together.Every button press just feels like a commitment, and while that was the standard for the time, newer games have spoiled me with an open marriage to press whatever buttons I like till I can move on to the next one. The game is at least charming at every other area though, and frankly I'm happy a lot of these characters live on through King of Fighters and Fatal Fury. It just saddens me that previous games were too hard and lackluster that they just didn't appeal to me, and while a game finally has, the bad taste in my mouth has only grown milder and my memory colder at the thought of playing another Art of Fighting game. Frankly I just don't see a reason to play any of these games.

Game 13: Cris Tales Cris Tales is an indie darling that seemed to pop up out of no where full of ambition and heart that it kinda just captures the minds of gamers that see it at a glance. Being an indie game however means that a lot of the ambitious stuff it can do, and the limitations of a budget tend to stop it from pulling off exactly what it wants to tell or do, but for what this game set out to do, Cris Tales at least gets it done. While I personally still don't understand why the game was named Cris Tales aside from two of the characters having Cris in the name, the whole plot follows a young time mage girl trying to stop world ending events to the best of her abilities. Through her mishaps and ventures with friends she learns to grow and mature into someone that is capable of defending the world she tries to protect. While we do make stops to lively places and cities, overall the world itself feels far more barren than it probably out to and the choices made along the way feel very limiting and feel at times meaningless. While the whole idea of a time mage being able to see the past/present/future is a neat idea; Cristales simple doesn't utilize it to the best of it's abilities. Thankfully the actual structure and heart of the story are fleshed out well enough that it does carry a lot of foibles of it's story telling with hints of charm rather than a mix of rushed story telling and running out of money. The characters in Cris Tales are all fairly fleshed out to the degree that you can feel the charm and history behind their companionship, and the voice acting is pretty stellar to boot. Sadly, I don't think the same can be said for a lot of the sound design and animations that are used throughout the battle system. While there is certainly hints of where to use certain action commands or press certain buttons, the actual process just doesn't feel as natural as the likes of Paper Mario's combat system, which is a shame because a lot of the combat really helps bring about more of the personality to these characters. And it's to this degree that we can kinda see hints of how the game wanted to play out, but some how they just couldn't work it out. As mentioned before Cris Tales has a combat system similar to Paper Mario, where you use interact through the combat phase to deal more damage or mitigated the amount you take. Again because of how awkward the sound and animations are, learning to master your commands takes a while to get used to, and with the way Cris Tales kinda sets itself up, leaves little room for error in the beginning of the game, but then drastically lowers itself the more options you get. It's an oddity for sure, and one that I don't think was suppose to be the initial difficulty curve for the game, but adding that on top of the way certain characters play can really leave players wanting for more in the beginning, and may be a turn off before you really start getting into the meat of the game. I probably sound really harsh when it comes to this game, but I assure you that any criticism I give is one filled with love. I see how the art style is, the way the backgrounds are given attention, and even the way they are able to show you times flow throughout the cities. Cris Tales is honestly such a fancy title to first look at that it really makes you hopeful for what's to come. My only suggest is to hold out an expectations in finding that game it first shows you. This is a solid first outing for the game's aspect, there is a lot of work that needs to be done with the combat system, time mechanics, and even the world building, but all of these issues feel to me more like time constraints, limits on budgets, and just figuring out how to flesh out the world itself. Cris Tales is an absolute gem of a game, and one that I think makes for a great foundation for a sequel and possible franchise.