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Fun, but forgettable.
Going into Ragnarok Odyssey ACE I was excited. To find out that the game was a spin-off of the one MMORPG that I actually was fully engrossed in for a period of time was a treat. Though this game and Ragnarok Online are indeed very different, the similarities and shared aspects were apparent from the get go. However, while I enjoyed those aspects, I may have been better off getting the Playstation Vita version.
“Amnesia? Again?!?”
There’s a special place in hell for JRPG fans. Their sin? Playing the same game with the same story over and over without complaining once. I suppose there are worse crimes than this, but there is a sort of masochistic glee in which JRPG fans partake in their vice. Perhaps we love grinding and crafting so much that we don’t really care about the story too much – despite our claims that we play these games for the tales they tell. Perhaps it’s the newness of the dungeons or the shiny equipment that makes the tedium of saving the world over and over remain novel. But, despite these tropes, this genre seems to continue on, and sometimes even with some of the most loathed archetypes and clichés, JRPGs can rise to heights other genres can’t.
A perfectly fan-serviceable, but mindless brawler.
Despite the variety of games classified as brawlers, they typically fall into one of two camps: Those that have deep, complex mechanics and require thoughtful, strategic combat decisions and memorization of enemy tactics, and those that are simple, fun, and generally don’t require a whole lot of thought. These are games like Streets of Rage, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or Musou games like Dynasty Warriors. Senran Kagura Burst falls squarely into this second camp, but that doesn't mean it’s not a unique experience. Senran Kagura Burst is probably the most Japanese game I've ever played, and that’s really saying quite a lot.
