About

Majinken is a gaming review site. The name comes from a common move in the Tales series. I just think it’s funny :|

Reviews on this site are personal overviews by the webmistress, Splash. Married, CF homeowner, working full-time.

I have a lot of personal biases like any other person of course, but I’ll try to point them out when I can. As a general note, my biases tend to favor the audio experience and personal entertainment. Since this is my own review site, I won’t be afraid to bash whatever I find displeasing and you can take it or leave it.

Also, I tend to leave a lot of “bookmark” posts where I’ll just put down a game I haven’t finished played yet and will fill it up later.

Feel free to reach out to me on Discord! SplashTOMATO#8637 (Ryuu-Rogue server: https://discord.gg/RBmjtju )
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SplashTOMATO

I mostly play RPGs, Otome, and BL games, in Japanese. Occasional other pieces like Gyakuten Saiban, rhythm, puzzle games. I have close to zero interest in reviewing fps, sports, racing, party, etc games. I’m an English native, but I’m fluent in Japanese and just prefer my games in Japanese. I do play some games in English, usually with my husband. Please don’t come whining to me about games I play that aren’t available in English, because you’re already failing the point of this site if you do.

Reviews will be on games from the following platforms:
-Nintendo DS (NDS)
-Nintendo 3DS (3DS)
-Nintendo Wii (Wii)
-Nintendo Wii U (WiiU)
-Nintendo Switch (Switch)
-Sony Playstation Portable (PSP)
-Sony Playstation Vita (Vita)
-Sony Playstation 2 (PS2)
-Sony Playstation 3 (PS3)
-Sony Playstation 4 (PS4)
-Sony Playstation 4 (PS5)
-Computer (PC)
-Android (Android)
Upcoming platforms?

Format:
Title:
Platform/Console:
Genre:
Language:
Company:
Summary:
Story:
Characters:
Graphics:
Sound:
Gameplay:
Replay Value:
Overall:

10-count rating system, with 10 being the highest. I generally don’t bother reviewing anything I’ll give less than a 5 anyway, but there could be a terrible exception later down the line, who knows. XD; Also, I rate with a mix of relation to the console’s capabilities as a whole and my personal experience with the game.
6/10 is my general score for games that aren’t exactly CANCER but ones that can be totally passed without regret. I wouldn’t recommend playing anything with that score or lower. Please, if you want my respect, then spend your time with the better scoring games unless you really spend as much time as I do playing games in general. XD; (I can average a good 4-5 hours a day and even more on weekends…)

Recommended Online Stores:

Play-Asia

Yes Asia USA

Console history:
-I grew up with my parents strictly forbidding me to own any game consoles/games. I’d only get to play games at other people’s places… and Best Buy. Asian parties were great when the other kids had games to watch/play. Trips to Best Buy were like heaven for me because I could then spend hours playing Yoshi’s Island on SNES or Mario Land/Kart on N64. Those were the days. I did get quite a luxury when it came to computers, however, so in high school I had my MMORPG era with Ragnarok Online. Soooo much wasted time.
-My dad randomly got me a Pikachu edition N64 and hand-me-down SNES around my senior year of high school, like 5 years after N64 was released. By then I was emulating both N64 and SNES on my computer anyway. I did get some fine moments playing the Hey You Pikachu game on the N64 at least.
-2005 – Nintendo DS – Bought my first game console ever in college with my parents not constantly checking me under their radar.
-2006 – DS Lite – followed the year or so after.
-2007 – PS3 – Technically, my dad bought this as the family bluray player. Fat PS3 with an upgraded 500gb HD. He had it hooked up to the giant projector in the basement theater, so I played my early PS3 titles on a MASSIVE screen pfft. He later let me take the PS3 when I moved out to the west coast in 2011.
-2008 – PSP-1000 – Got a hand-me-down PSP-1000 from relative, already with cfw. Accidentally brought it back with me from China, but he had another 1000 model anyway and pretty much never played @.@;
-2009 – Wii – Bought a used Wii, maybe from Amazon? For less than $100 shipped. Bought a good amount of accessories for it too. Happened to come with the firmware that made softmodding it easier. Pretty smooth after doing a whole bunch of complicated reading on how to get it softmodded.
-2009 – PS2 – Bought a used PS2 off my friend for $100 shipped. Had a friend hook me up with the softmod memory card. It’s kind of a quirky machine though and doesn’t work half the time. But eh, now I can emulate PS2 on PC anyway… @.@;
-2010 – PSP-2000 – Got a second hand-me-down PSP… a 2000 model already with cfw. Great timing since the 1000 model permadied not long after (I had already had its motherboard replaced once)
-2011 – 3DS – Got mine just before they announced the price-drop in July of that year…
-2012 – 3DS (Fire Emblem) – I paid too much for this w Its sole benefit is that I never bothered to upgrade the firmware, so it was just at the 4.5 ver I needed to run Gateway on it.
-2012 – Vita – I got the 3G bundle for less than $200 brand new. Compare that to the $700 I spent to get 2 Japanese 3DSes– my wallet probably wants to shoot me for that.
-2013 – Vita TV – Had my friend in Japan help get this for me when it was first released, although she wasn’t able to ship it to me until late January lol…
-2014 – Slim PS3 – The fat received the YLOD, so I got it repaired, fan modded but didn’t want to risk it dying again, so I got a “used” 250gb slim from Cowboom for $130 and transferred everything. Still haven’t decided what to do with the old 500GB fat, since it’s still usable… (for now fiance is using it since his also got YLOD)
-2014 – PS4 – This is my fiance’s (now husband), but it’s not like I’ll have any desire to play things on it for a long time… XD;;
-2014 – Wii U – Not long after Black Friday, a Wii U bundle with Nintendoland, Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, and Super Mario 3D World coincides with an old trade-in at Best Buy to land us a GREAT deal.
-2015 – 3DS XL – Won the Pokemon Center Eevee exclusive 3DS XL off an auction for $143 + 17.50 shipping. I played Pokemon on it sometimes, and I think that’s about it?? As most of my games were on the Fire Emblem 3DS.
-2016 – Android – Got Samsung Galaxy S7 on first release, came with the Gear VR. I had the Sky S2 and S4 before this, but this is where I’ll start mentioning it as a gaming device… for reasons.
-2016 – New 3DS – $125 after tax. I literally only got it cuz it sounded so cheap, cuz why else would I need a 4th 3DS??? Also, this is my only US edition of 3DS. Also, I can play the New 3DS exclusives… but I never did play any of them in the end, lol. It’s a shame I’ve barely touched this 3DS tbh. I sold this in 2021 for about $150 after eBay fees. *shrug* Guess I came out even since I had a screen protector on it as well, but at least I made someone REALLY happy about how pro my screen protector installation was
-2017 – Switch/PC – The year I get married is the year of the Switch! We now finally have our own place to call home too. Hubby got his about half a year ahead of mine. I also had to wait until August when I visited my parents back at home so that I didn’t have to pay an extra 30 bucks in sales tax. This way, on top of the many discounts I racked up through the purchase, my Switch cost me less than 200 bucks :V
Anyway, tacking PC onto this slot too as hubby has the PC specs and goods, I just leech off of it.
-2021 – PS5 – Hubby managed to get an order in at BB right before Christmas~ Normally we wait for sales, but… when will this ever go on sale.
-2022 – PC Upgrade – Hubby’s PC finally upgrades from the 1000 series and now decks a 3070 graphics card to play the more recent titles when needed.

Gallery images – Mostly just PSP screenshots for now

時々攻略使ってるんですけど、気にしない気にしない
Sites to remember:
news.dengeki.com
4gamer.net

For the measure, here are my current top Tales games based on OVERALL EXPERIENCE. I have different things to say about characters/battle system/story/graphics/whatnot:
1. Vesperia DE (TP system is antiquated, but this is definitely #1 in terms of characters/story and how it’s aged over the years)
2. Graces F (This USED to be #1 for a long time because the battle system is just fun casual consumption, and most everything else is simple and good enough, but the existence of DE edition has made Vespy earn the #1 spot now, easily)
3. Xillia/Xillia 2 (I MUST emphasize that I feel Xillia 2 has the most fun battle system for me, however PS3 limitations/lag kill it hard, sadly)
4. Rebirth
5. Destiny 2
6. Hearts (R)/Innocence (R)/Abyss/Zesty/Bers/Arise/whatever else.
The characters and story for Symphonia really never got my interest (and I wish they didn’t make so many OVAs for that title… the other titles deserve to be animated so much more. At least Abyss has a fairly nice TV series).

Need more time to play: ToD:DC, Eternia

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