Reviews by Paulo Júnior

This is an interesting game, it works well, but the attack distance is really short, some obstacles are badly telegraphed and get you by surprise (there is a lot of trial and error) music is repetitive, it's annoying that the character falls off from rising platforms when they reach the top and there's the VERY unnecessary addition of time limit, which is the single worst mistake this game has made. On the other hand, the art is neat, the slight difference between the two characters is interesting and the stage layouts are neat too.

I hate how everyone is extremely sentimental and how lucky the thieves are. But it's kinda good, I suppose.

After having finished this game, I feel satisfied abou most of what I've seen. It's a neat little game, with gorgeous art and very ambitious and ahead of its time mechanics-wise. It also feels unfinished, rushed and experimental in a way that shows it was trying to do more than what they could handle at that time. For example, despite the cartridge having the largest size a SNES cartridge ever had at its time, there is a lot of reuse and repetition, a lot of tiles and enemy sprites are palette swapped to death, and it gets a bit tiresome not seeing really new things. The game isn't even that big. Another instance of the producers being in over their heads is tht the story feels disjointed, some plot threads ended up in nothing, others came out of nothing. That is because of the nonlinear way in which the game presents itself, with many characters being able to join (or not) your party. It probably is true that I missed some story beats because some characters never joined. But even the characters that joined, had no closure, and I think it's a mistake that the stories of characters I have depend on characters I don't have. In my playthrough, the missing sister of Joshua never came to an end. And even in the main story, there are unexplained things. But still, the story is good, intriguing and the characters are engaging. Simple, but engaging. Yes, the story could've used more sci-fi, since the beginning is all about that, then it settles for all the basic fantasy clichés possible, whereas the sci-fi aspects, while derivative of Star Trek, where rather unique. The clash of new tech and medieval stuff simply didn't happen, because it is almost never mentioned during the game. They even find an excuse for the characters to not be able to use modern guns. This all makes most of the game have an element of wasted potential. To pull down things even further, the characters show up and become a part of the story, but they also feel disconnected to it. In the grand scheme of things, there is little in terms of personal stakes here. Only two in the cast really have that. The rest is together because of gameplay and feel forced into your party. Their stories don't help round out the story and, because of that, the game is you going from dungeon to dungeon-like places with little in-between, which makes it a dungeon crawler. There isn't story enough to pepper through the game and the main story is good as is, so character-driven side-plots could've helped the game feel fuller. It doesn't help that the citizens of the towns you visit have nothing interesting to say, also their dialogue doesn't change throughout the game. In one instance, for example, a spaceship falls near a little town, if you go there there are people around the ship wondering what is that thing (it's an underdeveloped planet)... but if you go into the town, the citizens are saying the same things they were saying when you first got there, at the beginning of the game. To go back to this town, you have to backtrack. In this particular case it's optional, but there is a lot of mandatory backtracking to be had here. Also, there is no overworld, which means it's all connected. There also isn't any means of transportation, so it's a bit tedious. There is a world map but it's tiny and doesn't help, and I got tired of being constantly lost in places I had already visited, because some areas that connect the towns are complex. Now that I remember, there is one method of transportation, which is ships. But they don't go to every town, and you still have to remember which towns tie to which others and in what continent they are. All of this without a map. No wonder I had to use walkthroughs sometimes. Another complex map is that of the dungeons. They are neat mazes, just the right amount of complex. For the most part. Some in the end go too far, because the enemies there get hard. But the game itself isn't too hard, it's just right IMO. The systems of the game also help there, because they feel good. There is the private action system, or PA, that is what allows you to change what characters will join or leave you and also define the ending you get. It's underused, though. There is the skill system, that really feels like you're making the characters your own, that you're making meaningful choices. In battle, all of your choices feel they matter, including battle formations and strategies, it's awesome! Although I like Final Fantasy XII's gambit system much more than the usual tactics system used here. As I said, this is experimental, thus unrefined. It might feel like a button masher most of the time, but sometimes the depth is really apparent. What isn't evident is item creation. It's not in the most intuitive place, and I only found it near the end of the game, which made it useless to me. This probably happened because the game is fantranslated, which means I never got to read the instructions manual, but still it looks like these aspects are hidden. Still, it's rather robust for its time, although I feel like the innate Talents of the characters make it more rigid and scripted than it would be ideal. Another thing that had no impact in my playthrough was elemental damage or healing. Yes, sometimes one of your attacks or spells against an enemy will heal him instead of damaging, but you'll rarely know why that is and you'll win without knowing. On to story again, you might feel disappointed when the story begins to shift to demon armies and such, but I was pleasantly suprised when it all began to connect, and it's these connections that made the story good, if a bit anticlimactic in the end. There are outdated sci-fi concepts, no doubt fruits of science itself back then, like people becoming invisible when they die because there is copper instead of iron in their blood. It's something that wouldn't fly nowadays. That said, I still think it is good enough for what it is, it's very charming and intriguing and it does deliver for the most part. I would recommed this game to people.

I don't know why so many straight sex scenes and no gay sex scenes at all when the two protagonists are the gay guys. Also, the story is boring, nothing happens and the thieves are all dumb. Angel especially annoys me with his unexplainable behavior. Though cinematography and interpretations are awesome.

This drama tells the story of Nao Kanzaki, a very naive girl that accidentaly gets involved in a thing called Liar Game. In this game, the contenders receive a huge amount of cash and have the objective of tricking the oppoent and get their money. The loser ends up with a debt of, at most, 100 million iens. Desperate, she insists until she enlists the help of a professional con man named Shin'ichi Akiyama.

The drama is very clever, with a lot of rational thought, sometimes I can even believe the writer of the original manga, Shinobu Kaitani, is a genius. Akiyama is very smart and constantly we, the viewers, don't know what's happening, but he does. Many of the games presentes in the show are original, and even then they're well done and interesting.

The drama's unpredictability is one if its greatest assets. Another one is the character of Akiyama. He glues us to it, hoping for one of his great moments. Nao is kinda weak in comparison, but she's also responsible for some twists that happen. The twists themselves are very impressive and some episode endings leave you craving hardly for the next.

Liar Game shows the worst side of humans. And despite being extremely focused on the games, there is still a little bit of background plot, involving the organisation that realizes the Liar Game, its objectives and the motives that lead certain characters into certain actions.

Speaking of characters, outside of the main ones, we have a lot of bizarre. Definitely it would work better with less weirdness and wacky secondary characters, but when you take away all of this tacky layer, what stays is pawns and characters with good objectives, therefore deep down they're good and deliver what they ought to.

Once upon a time I've read that Liar Game the drama has "neon in weird places". And after further verification, I can corroborate that. LG tries too hard to be edgy and cool. Indeed it does manage to accomplish that, but it sometimes goes too far. Especially in the editing.

But even with these howevers, I have to say Liar Game is awesome because, despite the weaknesses, the main part, the writing, is above above average. The acting is also good (even when the character itself is not). It's a drama to leave you tense. Recommended.

First things first, I absolutely loved the POV of Cassel, he's a great character. Specially since he's not your average teen boy, he's not the badass-wannabe that is becoming (or has became) a cliché in these days YAs. He's more soft, kinda sensible, yet not too soft. He's original and my second favourite POV in a book so far (the first is Sookie Stackhouse). Holly Black writes very well. In fact, for most of the book, her writting was my one and only reason to continue reading. Meaning, while the writing was epic, the story was a little on the too-slow side. The world I thought very interesting, except a little vague, you don't have that much of insight into the mafia of this world Holly Black created. The magic system, though, is well explained and interesting. But I missed info about this cons world. Also, I found that the solutions of the conflicts are too much on the easy side. Made me feel like the dangers aren't dangerous at all, the solutions are too convenient. The ending, though is pretty much bold, brave and I really enjoyed it. Now, I said the book is a little slow, but I still need to say that in the end some good, interesting things happen, and before them I was going to give only two stars to the book, because I thought nothing happened here. Of course, its the first book of a series, so I was expecting it to be slow and uneventful, since it's an introduction. But what happens in tha last pages is extremely wonderful. So, if you're looking for an original, almost-mature YA, this is it. Especially if you like (good) male POV. And although I'm not that much interested, I'am interested in the sequel, Red Glove. I liked the synopsis (much better that this first one in the series synopsis) and I hope that now that introductions are no more a need, Holly can write more stuff. So yes, I'll read the sequel eventually.

This was a very different read, I had never read a book like this before. Granted, I haven't read so many books yet. It reminded me of a comic book I read called Morning Glories (that in itself resembles the TV show Lost). Especially the storytelling. You have to gather information from the story, piece by piece, working out things by yourself and to me this was fun, though I think it isn't fun for most. The plot is interesting but not so interesting as the other elements (characterization, storytelling, writing). And since I mentioned other elements, it's incredible how, with such a complex way of writing, Steven Erikson still managed to build stellar characters that feel literally alive (albeit a little passive to the plot) and have so much personality, they certainly don't feel like just characters. And the writing is also excellent. I loved that it wasn't so overwhelmingly descriptive like the other epic book I've read, Game of Thrones. But the world of Malazan is also so much different, it is really much more fantastical and different from our own, the most different I've seen in fantasy with the possible exception of Lord of the Rings. So, since it's such a different world and the storytelling is so complex, sometimes the writing simply can't handle and it is impossible to know what the hell's happening. It doesn't help the fact there is a flaw that appears sometimes in the writing, consisting of vague descriptions of action scenes that fail to describe anything. In fact, the descriptions are lacking sometimes. There are many different races appearing on the pages, but I remember very few descriptions of how they look, and the places also sometimes feel nondescript, especially the magical dream landscapes. It's really weird, and I thought I'd never write this because I don't like too much description, but I wanted a little bit more of it here, because this book asked for it. Another thing that bothered me was that sometimes the characters would talk to themselves, and it was SO weird, because it could easily be put in a paragraph, or in italic, but the character actually spoke to themselves, and all the characters do it at some point. Very weird. Also, the book has an ending, but it is somewhat open. It didn't bother me much, but I wanted more explanation as to the reasoning behind the gods machinations and manipulations and chosen ones. I think it'll come in another book, but I still think it was a little too open for me in this regard. And on the topic of the ending, the climax has some form of what appears to be deus-ex machinas, or easy solutions, but I think it's just because Erikson thought his world so huge that there was no escaping plot points being introduced so late in the book. That said, my rating is so high because it's such an original book, with such an interesting storytelling and endearing characters.

I wasn't expecting much of this book. I guess the only thing I expected was a good anti-hero that was almost a villain. I got what I wanted. Except I wasn't as hooked in him as I thought I'd be. I mean, to Jorg violence is so common that it looses its impact. I mean there is the grotesque impact, but there's not the psychological aspect, there is not psychological violence. This is not a complaint. Jorg would be a villain if he behaved even if slightly badder. So I liked Jorg, I found the book very original and the writing is good. I thought this book needed concentration to be understood, because of the way Mark Lawrence's writing works. But this is minor. I found the idea of *spoiler* this world being our world in the future to be fantastic and very well implemented. Other idea I liked was of forces moving the world from the shadows. The world-bulding is superb. Jorg is also a splendid main character to read. I got to say, in addition, that the action scenes were a surprise. I usually don't comprehend what's happening, but they were perfect and perfectly understandable in this book. Another surprise was how high the fantasy was. I thought this was a low fantasy book, and it almost is, but it reminded me of Narnia. This is a compliment, there is some sort of charisma and "magic" behind the magical part of this book. I mean there's adventure and an adventurous tone in parts of it.
My problem with this book is that because of all the good reviews, I was expecting the book to be good and I don't think it was. Yes, it is a redeeming point the fact that it is original, but there's very little purpose to the things that happen. It is also very predictable. But my main complain is the fact that Jorg only wins by luck. There is always a Deus Ex Machina happening to save him, be it a person or a horse. And this is not an issue in itself, but it happens so often that it amounts to lazyness. Especially on what was supposed to be a climax *spoiler* when Jorg killed Corion. I guess Mark tried to break a cliche about the character having merit on his victories, but it was badly implemented and broke the moment. I also thought it to be pretty simple, even if the way it is written makes it appear it is not.

The book is as good as they say. But having seen the TV show prior to reading it, my suspicions were confirmed and the first book is just good enough, nothing spectacular. Same as with the first season of the TV show (that is very faithful to the book, you could even skip the book (at least this 1st one, I didn't read the others yet), see the 1st season and read the other books). That said, it is still very impressive what Goerge RR Martin has done. It's mostly not as epic as I expected, but is the first book, so it's an introduction and, in my experience, first books are always the worse in a series. But none (of the few) other fantasy books I read managed to accomplish what Martin did. So much happens in this book, so much more than practically any other book! And the writing is so full of details! You can see that Martin thought his world before writing (and during writing), and he has a way with words. Though I don't think I'm good at judging prose, but to me his descriptions were exaggerated in unnecessary parts and lacking when you talk about scenery and people (he prefers to describe foods and clothing and color-code characters (especially color-coded hairs)). I don't know if I would be able to visualize it all well, had I not before seen the HBO show. But it's not too detrimental. The pacing is surprisingly good, I could not believe that such a large book had the pace this had. It was a large manuscript, full of neverending verses, that read like a Dan Brown novel. The dialogue is awesome, the characters are multidimensional and very well-written. It's remarkable, really, that the characters in the book, even the most secondary, have the same depth as the ones on the TV show. Because on the TV show the producers don't have to deal with point of view and can show everything, but the book is tightly tied to points of view. So Martin showed he knew well what he wanted to accomplish and was relentless in achieving it. The best part, for me, was the court intrigue. He's too good at it! The political machinations are some of the best. He can't be too commended for the worldbuilding, because his world is too similar to our medieval society, but still different enough that he MUST be commended for it. So many details! Just a recommended reading all around.