Category Archives: Game Reviews

The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie’s Revenge Review

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The Nightmare Before Christmas is a fairly iconic film so I suppose it makes sense that it would get a game at some point. Games based on movies or around movies typically don’t have the greatest rep but a lot of times they can still be fun in a basic sense. You’ll have your classic platforming as you go from level to level and that’s enough. Unfortunately where this game falters a bit is perhaps in trying a bit too hard to be more than that. We’ve got power ups and different weapons as well as a bunch of puzzles but they aren’t all connected quite well enough. In the end this makes the game jus end up falling short.

The game starts off with Oogie Boogie making his big return. He wants revenge on Jack and so he has stolen the masters of every holiday. They are all gone now and this is really bad news for Halloween Town. Jack has to try and save them but is this actually a trap? Jack has a new whip that he can use to strike at his opponents and manipulate in all kinds of ways so he will have to hope that this is enough to get the big win in the end.

First off what I do like about the game is the combat system. Being able to swing the whip around is actually really fun and it’s a lot more action oriented than you would expect. There are many sections in the game where you just have to keep on swinging and take down enemies in droves until they all go down. It’s basically part beat em up and who doesn’t enjoy that? Additionally you have alternate forms in fire Jack and Christmas Jack which come with their own special abilities. The Christmas form doesn’t typically damage opponents as it’s more about throwing presents to stun opponents but the fire form actually does burn opponents to a crisp. So that one is handy but it runs out of ammo almost immediately.

When I’m bashing away at enemies then things are going well. Meanwhile the graphics are also pretty solid here. It certainly captures the classic feel of the movie with the very memorable designs. This is still Halloween Town of course so everything is appropriately decorated. The game knew what it was trying to do and did it well. It’s also surprisingly long and should take you nearly 20 hours to complete. I can tell you now that this is very rare for movie-tie ins. You do not typically expect to see one of these games take nearly so long.

Now for what didn’t work, the game’s soundtrack is incredibly limited. There are basically 2-3 songs that are constantly looped as you play through the game. They just keep playing that Halloween song and for the boss they have the song with the kids. You have to end up hearing this song over and over again. Hey the songs ae catchy but after a while the spamming is just a bit much. You want something more and this is a game that could have stood to have been a bit quieter. Maybe at least change it for an instrumental version for some points which would have broken things up.

Additionally back to the puzzles, a lot of times you have absolutely no clue where to go. There is a map but it is completely unlabeled so it’s really not all that helpful. You can be lost for ages until you memorize all of the locations. By the time I completed the game I had a rough idea of where everything was so I started to move a little faster but until then I was getting lost constantly. This is not a fun game to be lost in because if there is an enemy around then you won’t be able to use your whip to climb so you have to beat them again. You at least get some money from them in order to buy more upgrades but it will take a while because the upgrades are expensive. They only drop a handful of coins. The only effective way to buy all of the upgrades is to go to one of the towers where there is a big gold coin that will randomly give you up to 250 coins in one shot. Grab that and then you are absolutely set. The fastest method is to grab it, enter a house, leave and the coin will appear again. Keep doing this over and over until you have enough money to buy everything. I did this for around 2 hours and that was enough to let me beat the final parts of the game.

This is a game where you have to grind. Grinding is not bad, I tend to enjoy it but the problem is that this game was not really set up for it so as a result you have to do a whole lot of extra stuff. Meanwhile the boss battles can be a bit fishy as well and usually getting back there if you lose requires a lot of moving around. There is a “Continue?” option when you die but all it does is steal your coins and put you back to your last checkpoint. It’s almost always a better option to quit out completely and just reload your game instead.

This game probably needed a little more time in the lab to iron out some of the kinks. I think the beat em up approach was good in theory but the game probably went a little too hard in adding the grinding elements without building a true system around it. Even at max level I just barely beat one of the time trial challenges which almost felt like luck. I had to spam all of my best moves and even then I just barely made it. One thing that would have helped a whole lot would have been fast travel. Aside from the final boss area the only place to replenish your health and extra bottles is back at the main hubworld. These bottles are important because you can immediately replenish your health back to full with each one. These enemies take up a ton of health so you will want to have those bottles for sure. Without them you likely aren’t going to go far here.

That does mean that you will have to run all the way back to the hub world on multiple occasions and this is usually quite the journey. We’re talking several areas back which is sometimes over a whole chapter into the past. It’s not a journey that you really want to be making much but at the same time it’s not like you have much of a choice. So adding in a fast travel would have solved all of that immediately.

Overall, This game was probably just a bit too ambitious considering the budget. It can happen when you go too far in the wrong medium like the first Sword Art Online game that I played on mobile. There is a rhythm based aspect of the gameplay though which was neat since I’m seeing that everywhere all of a sudden. When you’ve dealt enough damage you get to activate your song abilities. It deals heavy damage to the boss but the timing is definitely tough so you will have to really get the hang of it. During the final boss I messed up quite a few times so the boss battle took forever. Make sure your reaction times are on point or you’re in trouble!

Overall 5/10

Mario Party Star Rush Review

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All right do you know what time it is?? It’s Mario Party time!! Yessss…well at least Mario Party used to be a super hype series like that. It really started to fall off slowly but surely as the games went on. Mario Party 4 is where the series peaked but I would say that Parties 5-7 were all still really great. It was in 8 where the cracks started to show and then beyond that into the Wii U era is when things really got fishy. I cut the portable games a little more slack in the sense that they usually don’t have any iffy gimmicks they’re just more limited by what the console can do. Star Rush not having any kind of a story mode is a little shameful though. Cmon you couldn’t give me anything? This one also introduces a gimmick that I’m not a big fan of. The game is saved by having a good amount of modes to play and ultimately it’s a good title.

So in the game the main party mode is something called Toad Scramble. Everyone plays as Toad and the idea here is to defeat 3 bosses in order to end the game. Each boss is holding onto the power star. Now here’s the kicker. No matter who bumps into the boss first, all 4 players are pulled in to enjoy the boss fight. The only disadvantage is that if you are rather far then it will take you a few seconds to join the fight as you see your character flying over. The character to do the most damage earns the star and getting the final hit gets you a lot of point. There are 3 different lengths to the mode so you can do 3 boss fights, 5, or one with an unknown number.

I’m not a big fan of the game trying to force all of this teamwork on you though. Can’t I just get the star myself? You also have to land on the exact space where the star is or you won’t get it. So unlike most of the games where you can keep on going, this means you will sometimes have to keep walking in a circle until you can grab the star. You are able to move backwards for once though which is interesting. You don’t have to just go forward like in the other Party titles. These two gimmicks just feel a little pointless though and don’t add to the experience.

There are no turns in this game so you also don’t get consistent minigames to play. Only happens when people bump into each other on the same square. There’s also a mechanic where you see Mario and friends scattered across the field and can recruit them. They all have different dice blocks and help you out during the fights. This one is an interesting idea at least although I don’t know if it was worth only having Toad as the playable character. Once you have the allies you can switch so they are the ones running on the field so I guess in a way it’s like an alternate way to play as someone else but that just seems a bit convoluted.

I wasn’t a big fan of that mode but there was another mode which was a lot of fun. This was the coin battles. Basically this is a one on one duel with another opponent and you are both put on a track and field course. A minigame will start and they all involve collecting a lot of coins. Each coin collected is one step closer to the goal and the first to 300 coins wins. As you get further into the mode the challenges get tougher and the amount of coins you need becomes larger but I really liked this mode. It was super fast paced and so something was always happening. It was a unique mode while also not feeling like it was just a gimmick that was thrown in at the last second. Oh yeah I definitely enjoyed that quite a lot.

There’s also a rhythm mode which I can’t say that I was expecting. You have to press the buttons in sync when the characters are playing classic Mario songs. It’s a fun test of your reaction times and is just a peaceful mode in general. It’s difficult to lose but it’s also really hard to ace them with an S rank because getting a single great instead of an excellent can be your downfall. Still, that was fun and so I give the game credit for having different modes like this. There is actually a reasonable amount of content for someone even without friends.

For example, there is a level up system here. You can exp for just about every mode like winning a Toad Scramble or a coin battle. Each level up tends to unlock either a new mode or a new character. I wasn’t at the highest level yet so I wouldn’t be surprised if there were even more modes that I hadn’t unlocked yet. It’s a nice feeling knowing that the adventure can still go on further. You can get this game for rather cheap now so it’s something you should really try to have on your radar. You definitely don’t want to miss out on it after all.

The graphics are really solid. It’s not surprising since this is Mario after all but it’s still worth noting. The 3DS does well with all of the characters looking crisp and of course the soundtrack is on point as well. This doesn’t feel low budget which is good. At the end of the day it’s hard to see people picking up this game instead of the home console ones but for the people who do play it, you want the game to be as good as possible.

Overall, Mario Party Star Rush is definitely different but it’s still a fun game. While the party mode may leave some things to be desired, the coin mode has you covered. It’s a lot of fun trying to grab a whole ton of coins and just getting through as quickly as possible. The minigames themselves are also really solid. I didn’t notice any that were really recycled and there were a lot of good ideas here. It does make me think about buying one of the ones that I’m missing one of these days. At this point there are a handful so I should probably start on that. Either way I would actually recommend buying this one. You’ll have a good time with it and won’t be disappointed.

Overall 7/10

Doug Flutie’s Maximum Football 2020 Review

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It’s been a while since I played one of the Madden rivals. This one I hadn’t even heard about before I bought it and well…it is definitely the low budget version to be sure but it’s always nice to have more Football options. If it could just clean up a lot of the bugs and glitches while giving us more options that could really do the trick. As it stands, it’s a pretty good game but there is virtually 0 reason to ever play it because Madden and NCAA just offer better products. You can buy a Madden game from 10 years ago for a dollar or two and it’s better than this one.

So the game has 8 teams that you can play as. I thought they were made up at first but it seems that these are college teams. The play now mode was disabled for some reason but you can jump right into a season to have fun there. The drawback is that unlike most season modes, you don’t actually get to play as a team and automatically go through the season. Instead you have to manually select the team and game each time, then simulate the rest. The annoying thing about this is that’s a lot of extra clicks each time and it turns what should have been a completely automatic process into something that’s super manual.

I would also note that the games are much longer than Madden but I’m sure you can alter the settings somewhere (Hopefully) so that’s not really a negative. But to put it one way, one game took me around 2 hours to complete while the average Madden game is closer to 30-40 minutes. It’s because there is no accelerated clock running or an easier way to run back and do your next play. You can speed it up with the hurry up offense but the game is just missing all of the bells and whistles that really allow you to move quickly. That is what the game is lacking here without a doubt.

I mentioned glitches earlier and those are very noticeable throughout the game. You’ll have characters teleporting as if they just fell through a portal and there is actual lag sometimes which is weird for an offline game. When you are controlling the defense it doesn’t feel like you have complete control with how the characters will move and miss obvious interceptions. It’s like you’re always a few steps too late no matter what you do. Now there is a slight positive here which is that you can actually throw deep balls here without worrying about being picked off all the time.

Now your receiver won’t always move to catch it so that’s a new worry but still it’s a part of the game that I have missed. One thing’s for sure though, running in this game is incredibly overpowered. Your players are always faster than the defense. It doesn’t matter if you use a WR, RB, or the QB, you will be able to run at will. Once I scored over 100 points in the game and it was still the 3rd quarter I decided to run out the time by running around the field. You’re so much faster that you can keep running the defense in a circle to just waste all of the time out. It is a lot of fun since I love to run but they should probably make the guy a bit slower.

Of course your QB is Doug Flutie himself so maybe the game just wanted to make sure that his stats were through the roof. They definitely succeeded if that was the aim and I got quite a few trophies while playing as him. There may not be a ton of replay value here due to the limited amount of modes but I could see this being fun if you have someone to play it with. Then the shaky mechanics and low budget nature of the game would become an endearing part of the experience instead of something that holds it back.

You can see the players stop moving in the distance once they are further than what the game processes and it looks funny at least. Everyone just gets frozen and it certainly makes it easy for you to really take your time and pick who you want to throw the ball too. If the game did really well maybe a sequel would get a higher budget. I do think it needs some kind of explosive factor to get this on the map. Until then people may not like Madden but it still offers the better Football product so people are going to gravitate to that. That’s just how this works, you want the game that better simulates the Football experience.

While the graphics may be very sub par, at least it does work in a retro sense. It looks like a PS2 era title and one thing those did have going for it were the really bright colors. There’s something nice about seeing the uniforms without a whole lot of detail, all of the colors really contrast. There isn’t much of a soundtrack but you don’t really want music while playing much anyway. For the menu I didn’t even notice it much but you should probably have something very energetic there to really keep people on their toes.

Overall, Considering that the game is only a few bucks to buy I had a good amount of fun with it. The fact that it goes for $5 is a warning bell in itself but if you’re looking for something a little different than Madden then this is the game to pick up. You can march up and down the field at will and just relax with how easy it all is. Then when you go back to Madden you’ll have more appreciation for how much work was put in there. It’s certainly true that they haven’t innovated in a very long time but even just having the amount of features and quality of life updates over the years still makes Madden a definitive product that I really don’t see being overtaken anytime soon.

Overall 7/10

My Little Pony: A Maretime Bay Adventure Review

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When I saw this as one of the games on sale at GameStop I knew I had to grab it! While I may not have kept up with the latest My Little Pony series….pretty much at all since the movie I still knew this would be a very wholesome adventure which is perfect for Christmas. It’s a very short game though and you can tell that there wasn’t a whole lot of content put into this one. It’s absolutely not worth paying full price for but when the going rate is around 15-20 you have to snag it.

The game involves a pony mysteriously defacing a lot of posters all around the festival. The Ponies are just trying to have a good time here with all kinds of events going on like fashion shows and aerial tricks but this is putting a damper on things. Sunny has to stop this pony but when the evidence begins to point to her friends she has to wonder if she really should solve this mystery. Her friends should have no cause to spoil such a grand day for her right? The time is ticking as the case gets more and more serious.

On a fundamental level the game is very sound. It doesn’t try to do a whole lot but what it does do is very smooth. I would say this game is aimed at a very young crowd, even more so than the Mario and Sonic games at least from a difficulty perspective. There is no way to lose or take damage in this game. There are a few events like herding animals and running but they are given to you with very generous timers to make sure you can clear them. Even obtaining the Platinum trophy is something that you can do very quickly. You should get it within 15 minutes of completing the game since you just have to complete one post story race.

It’s good for there to be some games for the kids. I think this one does the job well but the only sore spot is the length. Short games are nothing new of course but it just feels like they did the bare minimum for this one because they figured most people wouldn’t be playing it. You’ve got a really big hub world here but most of it is just empty. There isn’t really anything to do outside of the story. So as a result by the time you’ve completed the story there aren’t other side missions to finish.

The story itself is fun though with full voice acting and solid cinematics. The graphics here are absolutely top tier with the CG looking just like the real character models. They do have that CG gimmick where the eyes appear a bit distorted so the characters almost look scary at times but all in all I thought it was rather sharp. The graphics continue to look good during the game as well. I’d say some of this can also be attributed to the art direction which was really on point. The soundtrack is a lot more bland though to the point where large chunks of the game are completely quiet. It’s a little eery since you think of music when thinking about MLP ordinarily.

So the silence is almost deafening. We do get a song for the end credits though so that was neat but the game should have embraced this a bit more. I appreciated having a real villain here but I’d say for the sequel they can take it a little farther while still keeping the game as kid friendly. Friendship is Magic had a lot of big villains after all and you could also have the characters have some disagreements if you don’t want to go the full villain angle. This will help extend the game and if you can get the sequel to more like 6 hours then you’ll really have more bang for your buck.

There’s a case to be made that the longer the game went on, the more the cracks would show. That’s certainly possible so it is a risk but at the same time you have to throw the players a little bone. When they can complete the game in an instant like this it just overshadows all of the work that went into the animation and gameplay here. It doesn’t matter how smooth it all is if there’s just nothing to do after a while. Give us a bunch of extra minigames and story content and you’d have yourself a winner. As a result there’s not a ton to talk about here though.

Overall, My Little Pony is always a fun franchise and it’s nice that it got this game. It just would have been nice if the devs challenged themselves to add some more content here. If this was sort of a trial game to see how things would work then I’d say it succeeds. The gameplay is really on point and it succeeds in all technical aspects but I can’t imagine buying this one on day 1. I would say the company should still want to maximize sales and for this game to do well you really need to put a little more effort into it. If a sequel were to show this then I’d definitely be glad to pick it up. Until then I’d only recommend this game if you see it’s still on sale or the price has been permanently lowered. Then it’s a good amount of fun.

Overall 6/10

He-Man: Power of Grayskull Review

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It’s time for a classic He Man game! It’s been a long while since this one came out so you could say that it’s about time I got to play it. The franchise has so much potential for video games so it’s a shame that it doesn’t have more. This one’s fairly short and I wouldn’t say that it’s the highest budget GBA game out there but it still does the trick. I had a good time with it at least. You may finish it at turbo speeds but you’ll have a good time and there are no slow parts in the game.

The basic plot is that Skeletor is up to no good and He Man has to stop him. I mean that may be oversimplifying a bit but that’s what is boils down too. Different characters like Cringer and Teela get captured so you have to save them. Along the way you get to face off with all of the classic He Man villains as our hero takes them down one at a time. Nobody is ready to handle the Man of Might as He Man just keeps going to town on everyone. There is a reason why he is known as the strongest in the 9 realms after all. His power just never stopped rising and with the sword he is unbeatable.

It is nice that they got some voice acting here for the iconic “I have the power!!” moment. That was really cool and I’d like to see them keep that up. That is the only real voice acting here but it started the game on the right note. Now when it comes to sound effects the game is a bit lazy because there is only a single damage effect used for every minion and it’s not the most flattering one. It’s not a deep growl or anything but more of a whimper. Surely they could have switched that up a bit.

The graphics are pretty solid though. I thought they looked good for the GBA era. Each character is clearly defined and you won’t have any issues navigating through the levels. The soundtrack may not be very memorable but it’s not bad either. It’s just a little limited which is what holds it back here. I’d like to throw in some more songs, maybe even the opening to the TV show for the final level but I realize that is pretty much unheard of so it’s not something you’d expect.

The game has 13 levels and they are split between normal platforming levels and racing ones. Racing levels are extremely easy so you shouldn’t have any trouble there. Just keep on moving and you’ll make it to the end eventually. It’s an overhead racer so you’re just moving side to side and jumping. You don’t need to worry about going fast since you’re automatically moving as it is.

As for the platforming levels, usually you have to get somewhere which means beating up a bunch of villains. The villains are limited and don’t respawn so don’t worry about fighting them. Sometimes it’s nice to get them out of the way so you can concentrate but other times you can just keep it moving. Each level lets you know the full stats and what you may have missed there. There isn’t a lot to each level so you could 100% complete it if you want to. The game shouldn’t take you longer than 2 hours and you’ll probably beat it well before that.

The only really tricky boss would be the final one I’d say. Skeletor hits hard and he can also heal himself by using the green orbs in the room. Each orb restores your full health and does the same for Skeletor. So the trick here is to position yourself in front of the orb. When you are going low on health, just use it first so that he can’t. Then run to the other orb and repeat the process. You can win this with pure button mashing as a result and it only gets tricky if you let him get to the max health. That’s when it’s all a bit dicey. So long as you keep outsmarting Skeletor then you should be in good position.

Of course the length is the main drawback against the game so that’s the only thing to consider here. If the game is a lot of money then you may want to wait since 1-2 hours is all you’ll be playing this for. There aren’t any unlockable levels or post game to extend the timer for either so the main story is it. Once you’re done with that then you are done with the game. Also there are no save files so you actually do need to put in a password when you turn the system off. Fortunately someone wrote down the passwords for each level online so you can do that if you forgot to write it down. People are definitely dedicated with writing things down which is always appreciated. Trying to write it on your own would be possible of course but it’s nice to not have to worry about that.

Overall, He Man is a fun game. It may not last long but the fundamentals are there. With more of a budget I’d like some more attacking options and more sound effects but it does well enough. There are no parts that dragged on and of course I like the He Man franchise so that part was definitely a plus. If you’ve still got a GBA or a DS lying around then I’d recommend picking this one up. You can probably get it for a fairly decent price and it’s unlikely that we’re getting a big He Man game anytime soon so you have to enjoy it now while you can. It’s also got that retro GBA overhead fighting game feel that’s hard to replicate.

Overall 7/10

Madden 23 Review

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Madden is back!! Yesssss. Now I’m caught up and of course this has always been a thrilling series from cover to cover. In many ways it is completely unchanged from Madden 22 so you can really just jump right back into the mix without learning any new combos or things like that. As always to test the game out I played a full season. Only difference from usual is that I decided to play the season as a custom made QB in face of the franchise instead of doing a normal season. I have some issues with the mode but at the end of the day it is an elite game as you would expect.

First off the graphics are top tier as you’d expect. A whole lot of work goes into the visuals and it was certainly worth it. Everything just looks very modern and the presentation is really nice while playing. You get highlights, stats, and announcers talking the whole time. It feels like a very genuine Football product. Then the soundtrack may never be my favorite for the menus but the sound effects while in the game are on point. Those are the ones that you want to watch out for after all to make sure it feels real and it does.

There are a ton of modes to play here. If you have PS+ then you can jump online for some games which is absolutely what I would do if I had it but otherwise playing offline will still get you unlimited enjoyment. The fun never has to stop while you’re here and you can quote me on that. Switch things up by changing your position or playing a different mode. You can even mess with the camera angles now to change things up.

The gameplay is fantastic as always and the games go fast so lets talk about the small things that I didn’t like. One is what I’d consider to be a major oversight. In the face of the franchise mode there is no way to see the league standings. You can look at each individual schedule one by one and calculate this or pick apart the records but the fact that there is no league standings to view is really crazy. It’s the kind of oversight you just can’t believe you’re seeing because it feels so obvious. I cycled through the menus so many times before finally googling it and saw people came up with the same issue all over the place. That’s just crazy, I’m still pretty shocked about it.

Then the other one is that the camera tends to break down randomly during the franchise mode. I’ve noticed this usually happens on the first play of your possession if the glitch triggers. Basically the camera goes in front of you so you can see your backfield but nothing in front. This makes passing the ball impossible because you literally cannot see where you’re throwing. I would always audible to a run and calling a time-out works but it’s a very odd glitch. I didn’t really know what to make of it.

The Madden series definitely still has a bunch of kinks to fix. It seems like most glitches just stick around year to year because they don’t want to fix the source code. It’s something fans have complained about for a long time now and you absolutely get it. That said, fortunately these bugs are not ones that you are likely to run into on your daily adventures. While playing through the game I didn’t encounter anything crazy outside of the camera after all.

In terms of gameplay the only thing I would like to see if the receivers get more aggressive. It’s very impractical to throw any deep ball unless your receiver is massively wide open because otherwise the cornerback starts sprinting and just jumps for the ball while the receiver waits for it the whole time. It’s not a great look for the offense and it means you will usually be throwing small slants and screens. It works but it doesn’t feel like the most realistic way to play the game. You don’t want to be gunning it every down but it’s something that really separates the older Maddens from the newer ones. It’s why I loved Madden 2004 so much and still consider it to be the best.

As always scrambling is a blast though. I absolutely recommend playing a team with a fast QB because nothing beats just getting out there and running a lot. It’s why with my self made QB I prioritized speed over power and accuracy. I wanted to be able to get a 1st down with my legs when I had to. Unfortunately I didn’t make the playoffs as I finished my year 9-8 and lost out due to a tiebreaker but I got it close. There was just one losing streak early on that hurt me a lot as I was getting used to the 3D camera. Once I went back to the standard view then I started getting the good wins again. All Pro is a very fair difficulty to use where you have a challenge but it’s not too crazy.

Overall, There’s not a ton more to say beyond that as this is still the Madden that you know and love. It hasn’t changed much but that’s part of what keeps the appeal going for so long. I do hope they sit down one day and really try to optimize this as the best game it can be but in the meantime I’ll still be around and ready to buy the game whenever the new title comes out. There is no better game to simulate the Football experience after all. It may have some issues but it’s still supremely entertaining to watch and I do feel like there is a good budget here for the technical elements. I’d highly recommend checking it out.

Overall 9/10

Armed Emeth Review

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I wrapped up the next Kemco game just in time with the big Christmas batch coming up. This one has a lot of the fun parts of the Kemco formula but it also dropped some of the fun quality of life features that had always made these games stand apart. As a result I would not call this the strongest title in the lineup but you’ll still have a good time with this one. You’ll also feel the RPG horror of maxing all of your characters to level 99 but still being unable to defeat some of the bosses. Whenever that happens you know things are getting tricky.

You play as a guy who is a golem bounty hunter. Basically it’s like being a normal bounty hunter but he also goes after golems and will use them in order to fight. Think of them as old time mech suits that you can use to dish out a whole lot of damage. Well one day he comes across a Golem/Human hybrid who says that the hero’s mother has been kidnapped by an evil organization. The two weren’t particularly close but the hero still can’t let this stand. He will have to trust this golem for now and head out. Along the way he will meet a bunch of allies who are here to help him out for when the going gets tough.

The game does utilize the golems into the gameplay which I thought was a good idea. It helps make the story hit a bit more since you actually see what it’s like to be fighting in a mech. As you can probably guess the mechs help you deal a whole lot more damage than when you are out of it. One thing that I liked is when you r mech is destroyed you can keep fighting as a human rather than instantly dying as well. It is almost like having a second health bar. The golems also have their own equipment and everything so you want to train for them in addition to your actual character. They don’t have level ups though so you don’t need to worry about that.

As I mentioned, getting to Level 99 is not enough for you to win every fight. It helps a lot but the best equipment on the block is something that you will need in order to get further. Additionally it helps to buy items from the store that increase your stats. It takes a while to earn the shop currency though so make each purchase count. I recommend buying the double EXP items as soon as you can though, you can worry about the rest once you’re actually level 99 and not before. You have your basic attacks, supers, and combo moves here as well. It’s a classic turn based combat strategy and you should pick it up before long.

The game is reasonably long although there is a bit less replay value than usual. I ended up platinuming the game right after beating it which is certainly rare. There were still a few more guild missions to complete that weren’t needed for the platinum though so that’s always something that you could do for the championship. Just saying, it is definitely an effective way to go about it! Not like you need that though, the main game is still long enough where you’ll feel the value was worth the price.

One thing that’s missing here is unfortunately the characters don’t have illustrations for the cutscenes. Usually you see a character portrait which is nice because it stands out and you get to see how the characters are meant to look outside of the sprite. This one just goes back to normal text so there are no cinematic cutscenes like that. I feel like they’re a benefit so I would have liked to have kept that. In some ways this one just feels a bit older than some of the others. The map is unlabeled so sometimes it can be extremely difficult to know where you are going. I got lost on several occasions which was unfortunate.

A map is really important in any big adventure game like this so I was hoping it could have been better. Ah well, most of the other quality of life features were here like the auto battle and speeding up effects. So it’s not like it lost all the charm or anything like that, it could have gone a bit higher but I can’t really say much in the end. The gameplay itself is still a lot of fun after all.

The graphics are good even f they’re missing illustrations and of course the soundtrack is great as always. These Kemco games always have incredible soundtracks so I was not surprised that this one was also really good. There are a ton of great fast paced themes all throughout the game. So you’ll never find a slow moment here. The game’s story always feels like something is happening so you’ll be engaged all the way through.

Overall, I may have had some issues with the game like removing the illustrations and having a map with no locations marked on it but it still had all of the core fundamentals that I would expect from a Kemco game. I appreciated the smooth gameplay here and the series in general is always just very enjoyable to read. I’d recommend picking this one up if you’ve liked the other games by them. These are almost like light novels where the titles may be shorter than a normal RPG but they still pack a punch regardless.

Overall 7/10

Cuphead Review

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Cuphead is one of those games that made a lot of waves when it first came out. This was known as the ultimate platformer with a high level of difficulty. You don’t see too many crazy hard platformers like this nowadays and Cuphead lives up to the hype. It is very difficult and some of the bosses will take a whole lot of tries but the game is so well designed that it’s never frustrating. It’s always difficult in a fair way where you know that you can defeat the opponent eventually and the levels aren’t very long so you don’t mind retrying over and over again.

The game starts off with Mugman and Cuphead getting a little too overconfident and making a deal with the devil. If they win the game then they’ll get rich but if they lose then he will claim their souls. Naturally they lose so all hope is lost but the devil gives them a deal. If they steal the souls of a bunch of people who escaped then they can get theirs back but an elder warns the heroes not to be fooled a second time. So instead they will get the souls and then try to defeat the devil, but do they have the power to pull this off?

One thing that stands out about this game is that it’s basically a big boss rush. You constantly go up against all of these absolutely massive bosses and you have to defeat them before they defeat you. There are no health upgrades or levels to grind. You have to use pure talent to try and overcome the boss. The only thing you can switch up are your weapons and much like a Mega Man game you will find that some weapons are best for different circumstances. None will deal extra elemental damage but the way they work is different.

For example you have the homing gun which is really weak but will go after an opponent anywhere. So if you are confident in your dodging skills you should use this one. It will prolong every fight but you can focus completely on dodging while holding down the shoot button since it won’t matter what direction you’re facing. I used this one for a pair of bosses because it was handy. Then you have the shotgun spreader which does a ton of damage but it super short range. I liked using that one as my sub weapon near the end so when the boss would gloat or stop moving I would run in and start blasting.

I didn’t use the rest of the weapons though. For the vast majority of the game I stuck with the normal peashooter because it’s really a terrific balanced weapon. It’s like using a Mega Buster in Mega Man and gets the job done. Additionally I think it’s the best for practicing your fundamentals because you have to fight carefully in order to use it well. I would say to usually use the first round or two to just focus on learning the enemy attack patterns and then after that you can really go in and start playing aggressively. You just don’t want to do that at the start because you’ll be taking damage like crazy that way.

As I said the levels are short though and they’re a lot of fun. You really feel a sense of accomplishment when you go through the bosses and learn how to get around their attacks. There is also a parry system to block but I never got too good on that one so I really focused on dodging instead. For me at least that seemed to be a better approach. There are also a few normal platformer levels which are always fun to play through. They were never as difficult as the boss battles but they still had their own challenges to be sure. The enemies all keep on respawning there so you have to do your best to work around them.

The graphics here are really solid. The game is bright and colorful as it goes for that very retro appeal. The cutscenes are also drawn like a very old Disney cartoon. If this gets a sequel I’d like to see more fully animated cutscenes but the game really focused the attention on gameplay and that’s never a bad move. The soundtrack is also really fun. I like the little intro quotes from the narrator at the beginning of each boss battle and the characters have great intro animations as well. There are a lot of small touches like that which help to take the game to the next level.

The physical version of the game even brought the DLC along with it so that was cool. It’s pretty short but more content is always a good thing. I don’t think I’ll be getting the Platinum for this game though. You’d have to S rank every boss which sounds incredibly difficult. I didn’t get a single S rank after all so I was quite far from that. It does help the overall replay value of the game though. It’s not the longest title out there but the sheer difficulty should extend the playtime. I consider myself to be a master of bullet hell and platforming games and even I had to retry some bosses a significant amount of times. So don’t worry about trying to blast through the game and just enjoy each attempt. Failing and trying to improve are part of what makes the game so much fun after all.

Overall, Cuphead is a great game. I definitely had a lot of fun with it and I’d really be up for a sequel at some point. There’s a whole lot more that you can do with the Cuphead mythos after all and nobody else has really jumped on the idea of a platformer game that focuses on bosses so Cuphead can still grab that as its main gimmick. Who doesn’t like boss fights right? I’m sure it’s difficult to create so many unique ones like this one did but it worked perfectly. I definitely recommend playing through this one 100%. It doesn’t get much better than this!

Overall 8/10

Driver: San Francisco Review

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This game I’ve had in the closet for so many years. Earlier this year I finally bought the two previous installments so it was time at last to play this one. I greatly enjoyed the first game which is still one of the definitive driving games of all time but the last two were more standard. This one brings things back to a high point and is a great game. It certainly wins in plot but the original still has the best gameplay and at this point I think that will be tough to surpass.

The game starts with John Tanner putting a villain behind bars but unfortunately he breaks out almost immediately and gets revenge by putting John in a coma. Now here’s where things start to get tricky. So John wakes up back in the car but now he has super powers. He can possess anybody at will which is cool and then his real body becomes a quiet zombie on autopilot in the meantime. With these powers maybe he can stop the villain and save the city. There is a big bomb being created so there’s a race against time. But how come he keeps getting visions where he is still in the hospital and seeing weird signs? Well no time to worry about that now!

The Driver games are usually as realistic as they get so it’s a bit odd to see the game take more of a supernatural approach but it leads to one of the best driving game mechanics that I’ve seen in a while. The story is also fun with this. It plays out like a very interactive movie. In each level there is a lot of dialogue and of course there are a whole lot of cutscenes scattered throughout the game. That helps to make the whole thing feel really high budget. Another nice thing is they recorded a good amount of dialogue for each mission so when you die and try again, you’ll usually near some new lines as well. It’s a clever way to keep things from feeling too stale if you were to hear the same lines every time.

Now for the gameplay, mainly you’ve got the driving as normal. Unfortunately this part isn’t as polished as the average driving game. Turns are really difficult to make here as the cars have a very tough time turning while moving forward. You’re going to be bumping a whole lot and the car also tends to go unbalanced really quickly if you hit anything. Definitely something to keep in mind the whole time you are playing. You will really want to slow down for those turns, but fortunately there aren’t too many races. Mainly this just gets tricky when you are trying to evade the cops so instead of looking for the hidden paths, try driving into traffic and dodging the cars. That will help you lose them quick.

Now for the new mechanic. As a ghost you can fly out of your car and possess somebody. You can move around the field from a bird’s eye view and have 3 different zooms on this. It’s really fun to take over the cars and they come in real handy when attacking your enemies. You can take control of a car and just have him ram into the villain. You can do this at any point to any car so it makes it really hard for the opponent to even try to dodge. It also makes for some interesting boss fights later on in the game. You know a lot of times I’m not a big fan of new mechanics and gimmicks if they don’t work just right but this is one that actually was a success.

It enhances the game which is exactly what a gimmick should do and it was fun to use the whole time. I never got bored of it that’s for sure. There’s a trophy for doing that 1000 times and I made it through about 400 so I better get to work on grinding the rest out. The game’s length is fairly decent. I want to say the game is about 5-6 hours long. Maybe a little above that but roughly in that range. For most genres that probably sounds small but the previous 2 Driver games were about 90 minutes so this is still a big improvement. There is also replay value to get more trophies although unfortunately the servers are down so the Platinum is impossible to obtain now. It’s too bad that couldn’t have stayed up longer. Still there is some replay value here as a result.

The graphics are really solid here. This feels like more of a high end PS3 game in that area. The game loves showing off the big zoom ins as a result. While you’re in the gameplay everything is clear and you can always tell what is happening. The stages will sometimes have a fun visual effect like turning blue or yellow depending on what is going on with John’s psyche and that’s always a nice touch. The soundtrack has a ton of lyrical songs. For the most part they seemed pretty solid. I didn’t get any that were really obnoxious and it never takes over the sound of the dialogue coming through. Whoever did the sound mixing did a good job for this game that’s for sure.

Overall, Driver was a lot of fun to play through. If the driving was just a little smoother it would make the game even better. After all I love pushing through tight corners and really styling on the opponents but with the controls like this I couldn’t quite do that. Still the story is a lot of fun and I give the game tons of credit for having full voice acting for every single cutscene. Whether it was a story mission or one of the side ones, everything had the voices on point and I think that’s great. It’s not something that you see everywhere even if you would expect that to be the standard at this point. So the game has to get a lot of credit for that all around. If you haven’t gotten this game yet then you definitely should. The story alone is worth the purchase as this would make for a great movie. You can also get a good price for it nowadays.

Overall 8/10

The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night Review

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The Spyro trilogy continues with The Eternal Night. It’s been fun going through the Spyro journey and now I am one step closer to finishing up the whole series. This game gets surprisingly difficult to complete near the end as well. The bosses really pack a punch and most can take you out in a few blows. Fight with a lot of tactics and you’ll be okay though.

The game starts with Cynder being upset with herself for being the big villain in the first game so she runs off and then the kingdom is attacked by a bunch of apes. Even the dragon elders are no match for them so it’s time for Spyro to claim victory. He will need more power though and so that leads to him falling into the world of dreams to get all the elemental powers. Once he is at full strength then he will be able to save the world unless it is already too late. With some vague prophecies at work as well, Will Spyro be able to come out on top or is he in for a rough surprise?

In terms of gameplay this one is very similar to the last game. You still have your combo attacks and projectiles at the ready but this time the enemies won’t just watch as you get ready to fight. No these guys are going in hard now and I died many times during the game. They don’t have a lot of hit stun so when you attack you have to watch out for the immediate counter attack. If you play it wrong then you’re really going to be in a bad spot. What I would recommend is really putting your time slow to use. Yes, in this game you can manipulate time, causing it to slow down to a crawl. It’s really quite handy.

It’s not unlimited though and will take up your energy gauge really quick. Almost like a blink and you’ll miss it kind of speed. So you do have to keep that in mind but it’s still extremely handy. Try a lot of run and gun techniques. Slow down time so you land a combo and then just run out of there. Rinse and repeat until the enemy goes down. The game will walk you through all of the specific element attacks as well and you’ll get the hang of things the more you play the game. Just know that even once you are used to the gameplay style it will not be a walk in the park. This is the kind of game where you really need to work for your victories.

I’m not even sure I would have been able to beat the final boss if not for a glitch showing up at the perfect time to save me. The last boss was really fast and his attacks dished out a bunch of damage but then all of a sudden we were both trapped in a circle where I could hit him but he couldn’t hit me back. I was able to exploit this until he went down and let me tell you it was no easy feat! I had to press the attack button so many times that my thumb was exhausted but I can tell you that it was definitely worth it.

The game’s length is not too long but still ends up being decent. I want to say we had it beat in around 8 hours. That’s considering that I died a whole lot so if you end up being a whiz at this game then you could beat it sooner but I wouldn’t expect to get out of those levels without a scratch. There isn’t any replay value as beating the game takes you back to level 1 so this will all be about your story experience. Most of your deaths will be legit but there were a few times where I died due to some gameplay issues. There is like a 1 in 3 chance that your second jump won’t register in which case you will fall to your doom. It seemed to happen to me quite a bit. If you’re not perfect with the timing then you will sink like a rock so watch out for that.

In terms of the story I suppose this makes sense as the middle of the trilogy because not a lot happens compared to the first game. There are prophecies and a big cliffhanger to set up the third game but if the apes don’t come back then they were more like filler villains to buy time. It’s impressive how strong they were but I’d like the dragons to get some hype back. It seems like they lose to every invader and you’d expect these guys to be made of sterner stuff. Dragons are still supposed to be the strongest animal out there right?

We do get some more lore building on the purple dragons and Spyro himself gets a super form so that was pretty cool. I hope it ends up returning for the third game, that would be great since you don’t get to play as him a whole lot here. In theory he will really hit hard though and every platforming main character needs a super form at some point.

A nice quality of life feature here are the constant checkpoints. When you make a game that’s really hard then it is imperative that you have a lot of checkpoints so you are never thrown too far back into the past. It can be very tragic to have to play the same parts over and over again when these aren’t present. You can also skip cutscenes which is great. You do usually have to watch a few seconds so the skip can load but I’ll take it.

For the most part the soundtrack is more on the forgettable side but the end credits theme was great. It was super emotional and I can’t say that I was really expecting that. It’s a song that has aged really well and it’ll be tough for any Spyro track to top that one. Still if any could do it, it would be the third game as we get the big climax to the saga. Little did people realize that the Spyro series would basically end there.

Overall, Spyro: The Eternal Night is a very solid platformer. Perhaps the devs grew tired of everyone talking about Crash was so much harder so they decided that this time they would get the last laugh. Even if you don’t normally play Spyro, I’d recommend this game to anyone who wants to really test their platforming chops. It’s not easy to make a 3D platformer difficult, particularly one where you can slow down time. Your reaction times will be tested extensively and you feel a great sense of accomplishment when you beat this game. It’s all executed well so you won’t be frustrated even when you lose. No matter how many times it may take, you will be ready!

Overall 7/10