Category Archives: Game Reviews

Fall Guys Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s great to finally have Fall Guys as a free to play game. I remember that one got a ton of hype along with Among Us and really broke out into the mainstream. Well, I can say that Fall Guys lives up to the hype and is definitely a fun title. There is a lot of downtime both between and during matches so you’ll want to have something with you to read or play in those moments but the actual gameplay is a lot of fun.

The controls are extremely simple here. You can move, jump, dive jump, and grab things. That’s it, the idea is to survive until the end and have everyone else be eliminated. This is done over the course of a few different events that will test your platforming skills. At the end of the day the big thing here is definitely being able to react quickly and get to the end. The really fun part of course is that you’re up against a bunch of fellow players who are presumably good at platformers too. So it’s not like you’re styling on a bunch of A.I. or anything like that. You’re going up against potential world champs.

It’s also not easy to win because the levels themselves are also reasonably challenging. So between that and the other players then you’ve got quite a lot to balance out. I managed to get 1 win during my first day of playing but it still did take quite a few rounds before I got there. Don’t expect to get a win right away. No matter how good you are at platforming, it’s still going to take a little bit to get used to exactly how this works. Also, there are quite a few different levels and they randomly alternate so eventually you just want to be really good at all of them. Otherwise all it takes is one tough minigame to knock you out of the event.

Once you lose you can choose to stay and watch the others or leave. I personally recommend leaving so you can start the next event a little sooner. On the flip side if you win a level early then you have to keep on watching until the rest of the players make it. This is the downtime I was talking about before and so you’ll probably want to have a plan for that. Otherwise it probably can drag a little which could hurt the experience for you. It is necessary as I don’t see how the game can get around this though. So just stay ready and then you go up against all the rest in the next minigame as well. Rinse and repeat until you are the single champion

Naturally the game does have a level up system and lots of quests so you can work on those as you play the game normally. It’s always fun to have some kind of progression system and I dare say that any free to play game which is lacking in this will probably end up having a rough time. You need some kind of way to keep people coming back after all and this is a very tried and true way of doing it. The replay value never ends that way and the devs will just need to hit that sweet spot of getting new levels from time to time without removing all of the classics too quickly. I feel like they will be able to pull this off though.

It’s a rather simple formula that is hard to mess up. Who doesn’t like platforming anyway right? So long as the rest of the levels are fun like this one then I think you should be in a really good position going forward. The graphics are nice and while the little characters themselves may not be super stylish yet, you’ll unlock different wardrobe items to fully customize them. I expect within a year or so you’ll have countless items with which to make them hit the next level.

How long you stay with this game will probably depend on wat else you’re playing at the moment. After all, picture playing a Mario level for a while. It’s a lot of fun but how long will you keep playing until you decide to call it quits? A progression system in and of itself is probably not enough to keep you on the title forever. That said, one of its strengths is certainly how easy it is to pick up and play at any time. You don’t need to actually remember the game at all to quickly remember how to jump and move around. So as long as you have it downloaded you can easily feel like just playing it on a whim at some point.

Overall, I had a good time with Fall Guys. The developers were really smart in deciding to make a game like this. It’s one of those things that feels obvious afterwards since this is just a really great gimmick to go with. Who wouldn’t want to just be playing a lot of platforming levels and having a blast like this? It was satisfying to get the 1st place that one time after all and no matter what happens you always feel like you won or lost by your own efforts. At least right you never feel like the level RNG elements override your abilities. That’s probably the main thing the game needs to watch out for. Keep on experimenting and bringing in new things but be careful not to go too crazy. I’m confident this game can pull off the balance though.

Overall 7/10

Knockout City Review

Posted on by
Reply


Knockout City is one of those free to play games that looks like a lot of fun but I wouldn’t say that it was marketed too heavily. It was certainly possible to just end up missing out on it. Well, I got to play it and it’s quite a bit of fun. Its main weakness is that it does rely on a team format meaning you can only do as well as your teammates. That is sure to get a little dicey for a while unless you can find a squad to join up with but it’s a solid all around title.

The games really follow the ole Dodgeball rules. It’s not instant elimination when you’re hit though and instead you respawn somewhere on the map. A typical match is a 3 vs 3 battle and the first team to 10 points wins. Getting hit by a car or falling off of the map will award the other team a point as well so you really have to stay vigilant at all times. Otherwise you could wind up giving the other team some instant points.

The controls are fairly easy to get the hang of. You can shoot the ball, pass, jump, double jump, and glide. The most important mechanic of course is catching a ball when someone throws it at you. You don’t actually knock them out by doing that but you prevent them from taking any points and can then fire your ball back at them right away. A good defense is a good offense right? This is the best chance to put that into practice and really dish out the damage. It take a little practice but before long you should be able to pull this off without too many issues.

There are different balls which all have different abilities so you’ll want to keep an eye out for them. The level has a little info section about the ball so you always have a heads up though. There’s only one kind of gimmick ball per level so you won’t be seeing a ton of them just show up. That said, it’s hard to beat the classic ball since it just feels really good when you’re able to secure the win there.

There are other modes too like a super hero one where everyone has powers and a 2 v 2 v 2 mode. Unfortunately there is no free for all or survival kind of mode. It would be nice to have at least one mode where you were on your own and I think the game should look into getting that mode available right away. There’s a whole lot of potential there right out of the gate and not using it just feels like a pretty big mistake.

So the game is fun but here are my brief issues with it. I already went into the lack of a solo mode. The other one is that the wait between matches can feel a little long. The announcer is trying to be very engaging with how he yells between the rounds but it’s more on the grating side. I would say you don’t need an announcer here and the game could just use that time in silence or putting you in a practice field like what Fortnite does. It would make the matches a little more seamless.

I also think the game could show where the dodgeballs are a little better. Sometimes it feels like you’re running around for a while trying to find them and I suspect this was not intentional. It just doesn’t seem to me like the game would want to make it hard for you to find the Dodgeballs so I suspect this wasn’t intentional. Perhaps there is a way to locate them easier and the game’s tutorial just didn’t cover it. That’s certainly possible so I don’t want to rule it out.

The graphics are solid here. They may not be cutting edge or anything as this is still a free to play game but it does well enough for itself. You should have a good time here. Then there is the soundtrack which is more on the forgettable side. You’re here for the gameplay either way though and that’s where the title excels. It does well with the Dodgeball mechanics and now we really know that the sport is possible to make into a video game. I’m surprised more titles don’t adapt this sport. I feel like there is a lot of potential here.

There’s naturally a ton of replay value as this game should go on for many years. You’ll have different modes popping in and out, new items, outfits, etc. As you progress through the levels you’ll unlock more things as well and one of the main advantages of a game like this is that the content never has to end. So if you like Dodgeball then this is a solid one to check out.

Overall, Knockout City does well in what it’s trying to accomplish. I had fun playing some rounds here and there. Ultimately it’s not quite as good as the big free to play title on the market in Fortnite though so it will be hard for this one to break out. It may end up getting a strong core fanbase but ultimately you need a lot of people if you want to become the next big thing and I’m not convinced that this one will make it in the long run. Guess we’ll see how it plays out.

Overall 7/10

New Super Lucky’s Tale Review

Posted on by
Reply


This is a platformer that got a whole lot of hype back in the day. It looked very polished but also retro in a sense as it would be a simple platformer filled with a lot of fun and no real gimmicks. I’d say it delivers on that too, you’ve got a solid amount of level variety. Each level is rather short but they all feel different and are very fast paced. You shouldn’t have any problems playing through it and there is also a good amount of replay value.

Lucky has to try and get the chapters of the legendary book back before it’s too late. There’s a dark overlord scheming to use this for evil and the whole world is pretty much in jeopardy. This is perhaps an oversimplification of the plot to be fair but it’s a classic story that will get you right into the mix to try and save the world. Most of the other characters can’t talk in English voice acting at least so it’s going to be up to you to confront the villains and save the day.

Lucky’s a fun lead. There isn’t a whole lot to his personality as I couldn’t tell you much beyond him being a nice guy but he gets the job done. He has two jumps and can do a spin in the air. I always like when platformers let you spin in the air because it really helps you work on your timing as you try to dodge enemy attacks. Every game that has this feature has really benefited from it. There is also some combat in the game as you can attack with a tail swipe but aside from one boss fight you won’t really need to use this very much. It’s nice to have but never feels super necessary. A lot of enemies you can just stomp on anyway.

There are also puzzles here but this is one of the rare games that actually gets them right. The puzzles tend to be about pushing statues into the right spots. It takes a bit of work but you’ll find out the right answer if you keep at it. It reminds me of something out of Professor Layton and has that very calm appeal to it. You can reset the puzzle at any point to try it again from the beginning as well.

Most of the levels are traditional style but then you also have a few auto runner type levels where you just start running and have to try and be at the right place at the right time. These levels fit in well with the normal ones I’d say. I tend to enjoy that kind of gameplay as well. There’s a good amount of variety here and each of the styles control rather well which is important too. I would say the strongest part of the game is just how smooth it is. I doubt you’ll encounter any true glitches or issues that make you do a double take. It’s as smooth as butte and that’s what you like to see in a platformer like this. It’s critically important you could say.

Now if the game has any issue it’s that it can be a bit short. Yes, platformers are often short but this one feels even shorter than usual. I believe it’s because of how the worlds are set up. In a lot of platformers you have to complete every level to get to the end but in this one you don’t have to do that. In fact, a ton of the levels are optional. The reason for this is each world has a boss level at the end and you have to get a certain number of leaves in order to access it. Typically this number is 10 while each world has about 22. Each level has 3-4 leaves in it. So for example if you get all 4 leaves in the level then you only need to complete 3 levels instead of completing more like 7 or so.

It puts you in the driver seat of how quickly you want to complete each of the worlds. I quickly got the hang of how to obtain all 4 in a level and once I did that was it. I was getting 4 on each one so I was blasting through the worlds. Typically you get one leaf for beating the level, 1 for 300 coins, 1 secret page somewhere in the level, and one for getting all 5 letter of the word Lucky. Getting the coins and the letters are real easy once you start paying attention to them so at the very least you should get 3 each time but eve the secret one’s usually not super hidden or anything. That’s your chance to grab it as soon as possible.

Of course the good part about this is even if you complete the game quickly, you can always go back to try and get the leaves that you didn’t get. It’ll certainly take a while to nab them all and to get the Platinum trophy for this game so that would be worth a shot. It definitely looks very achievable after all so you’ll just have to hunker down and try to knock it out. Pull that off and you’ll have another nice achievement to your name.

The graphics are really solid here. It all feels like true HD and goes hand in hand with how good the levels look. As for the soundtrack, that is a bit more forgettable. I wouldn’t say that it particularly stood out to me. It’s absolutely not bad in any way but there wasn’t a single tune that I found to be really catchy. This is something that I think they could improve upon in the sequel. Get some really fast paced tuned and maybe even a rock theme or two. You really can’t go wrong there.

Overall, New Super Lucky’s Tale is certainly a fun game to check out. It’s got the right balance of action, adventure, and puzzles. I definitely didn’t think I’d be complementing puzzles anytime soon but this game just pulls it off. Honestly if all of the games would handle it like this then I dare say we would be in a really good spot but unfortunately I know that this is more of a one time deal. For every game that gets puzzles right, 9 more show up with really annoying gimmicks that don’t make any sense. You definitely need to play this game if you want to see a platformer that’s solid around the board.

Overall 7/10

Frogger: Helmet Chaos Review

Posted on by
2


It’s time for another Frogger adventure. You know that things are going to get intense when this guy’s around. It’s a fun enough game but does suffer from being a bit short and not having a level select. It’s one of those games where when you beat it, you’re taken back to the opening cutscene. So that removes pretty much all of the replay value that you could possibly have had for this one. It’s a shame because there was some possibilities here to at least see if you can collect all of the coins but that’s gone now. You can have a good time here but it won’t last.

So the story starts with Lumpy getting attacked as a brainwashing helmet is put on him. He didn’t realize this until it was too late and now Frogger has to go and save him. Can he possibly pull this off? Well, to be honest he pulls this off almost immediately but it leads him deeper into the fray as he must now stop this villain empire before they go too far. Only Frogger can possibly stop these guys and so he is on his own now. If he can’t win this…then nobody can!

The gameplay is your classic Frogger experience so I don’t have any real issues with that one. Hop around and get to the end while trying to avoid enemies. One thing I do like here is that you don’t immediately die when bumping into things. I may be misremembering but it felt like in a lot of others you would die right away while here you have 3 health points. Additionally, the levels are all just constructed really well so you’ll have a good time going through the motions.

One thing I don’t like is that your jump has lost a lot of its ability and use here though. For example, now when you jump you don’t go over an enemy so you bump into them instead. A big part of what made the jump good was how you could actually just go through enemies that way. Now you have to run around them. I suppose you can say that it adds strategy but to me jumping was a key part of the strategy. It’s just a different one but not necessarily a better version.

As for the boss fights, I did like the fact that the game had them in the first place. They were very different from the actual levels too. They could and should have been explained better like the fact that some bosses can’t be beat and you have to dodge, but they all had unique mechanics. I felt like the devs paid extra special care to this part of the game which was appreciated. If the overall title could just have been a little longer then I think all of the hard work would have paid off.

It’s just hard to glance over the fact that the game is only a couple of hours long with absolutely 0 replay value. I probably would have been lightly salted if I had bought this game day 1. It just wouldn’t have felt all that enjoyable to have been done with it so quickly. The story is decent enough but it’s not like it’s something that could carry the game either. The story would have to be truly spectacular to pull that off in such a short experience and clearly Frogger was not going to be able to do that. It’s too far out of his wheelhouse.

The Frogger franchise hasn’t always been known for its high quality games. The gameplay tends to be solid but then like with this game you tend to come across some issues. If a game is too short and there’s nothing to do then it’s going to be rare that you get a really good score. I would say that the game is good but not very good. It’s still lacking just enough oomph to get it to the next stage.

At least the graphics and soundtrack are okay. I wouldn’t say it’s super memorable or anything with the music but the game looks nice. There is also full voice acting here which is a big win for me. I still say that having voice acting automatically bumps you game up a tier because it just makes the whole story more immersive. Even a story that’s not too impressive like this one gets better when you’ve got full voice acting to back it up. It’s kind of odd that the text doesn’t auto scroll while they’re talking so you have to time it and click A as it’s moving forward but that’s a small thing I can overlook.

Overall, There isn’t a whole lot to discuss with Frogger since the game’s so short. I will say that if you like the Frogger gameplay then you should check it out. It’s a straight forward game that should give you a good amount of enjoyment for 2 hours but you really need to make sure that you get a good price for it. If it costs a lot then it’s not worth it. Full stop. The price is the big deciding factor here because it’s a good game but one that you feel should be free the whole time. I can’t even imagine paying full price for this one. Now that would be a complete travesty. Hopefully Frogger comes back with a big budget full experience at some point. With this gameplay it would have a lot of potential but I suspect that we might have to wait a while for that.

Overall 7/10

Rival Turf! Review

Posted on by
Reply


Rival Turf! is a fairly intense beat em up, but it’s the kind that forces you to start all the way from the beginning when you lose all of your lives. This is not completely unheard of within the genre but I have to say that I never liked this approach. To me, there should always be a way to continue until you get to the end of the game. There have to be checkpoints or some place to return to. Not including that feels like an unnecessary hurdle and it’ what keeps this game back.

It’s hard to say what the plot is here at all since there isn’t even an opening cutscene. You beat a lot of dudes up as you go through the game though so I’ll assume it’s your classic gangster story where a bunch of gangs have taken over the city and you have to stop them all. Either way the focus here is definitely just on beating everyone up and it’s fair to say that the villains made a huge mistake in going after the main character’s town. That’s going to come back to haunt them.

Each stage has you beat up a ton of enemies until you get to the end. At that point there is a boss that will show up to fight you in deadly combat. Don’t give the opponent an inch, just keep on going. Now this will be easier said than done though as each of the enemies do have some fairly good attacks to hit you with. One of the toughest kind of enemies to deal with is one that always approaches you with a big flying kick. The only way to effectively get around that is often to try and land the kick first or just stay out of the way.

Typically in games like this what I like to do is wait a little higher or lower than the opponent so when they walk over I get the first hit. In a one on one scenario this does tend to work but it’s hard to set up when there are a bunch of enemies rushing you at the same time. At that point you just have to fight hard and try hitting as many of them as possible. In a lot of ways it feels like a button masher so you just have to get in there and keep on landing blows as quickly as possible. If you get lucky or do really well then you may be able to beat the level without losing too many lives.

There are 6 levels here and I died in the 5th one. You get 6 lives and can continue 5 times so in a way you’ve got 30 lives. Typically I would lose 6 lives in each stage but that number kept increasing as I made it through the game. Ultimately that’s what got me here. The enemies were just too vicious and they really showed me what was going on. This is where I say there should be a way to continue the game from the 5th level. To me that makes sense so you could hat least see how it ends and go from there. This is the kind of game where even rewinding and restarting doesn’t help a lot because of how crazy strong the opponents are. Sure, with enough patience you could probably pull it off but it would take a long while which is probably not worth the hassle for this game. You would need something a lot more high end which should already have that feature anyway.

Aside from that one big feature not being here, the gameplay is solid. 2D beat em ups don’t tend to be my favorites until you reach the 90s and later on where they added a bunch of depth to it. Like I really enjoyed the X-Men GBA beat em up game because of how it incorporated all of the X-Men special techniques and powers into the combat. It wasn’t just any ole beat em up, it felt like a real X-Men game. For a game like this I know powers are off the table, but giving the characters more to do would really help it stand out. Of course this game is fairly old so that critique doesn’t apply as much but this game just doesn’t stand out.

I thought Double Dragon did a much better job of executing on this concept, not to mention it also had more of a plot. Considering that this game is for the SNES, I don’t think there is an excuse not to have some kind of story included in the game. At least if you ask me that seems like a reasonable request. Ah well, at least the graphics are solid, I do think the game still looks good all the way through. There are a good amount of level designs and they all look different so it’s not just reusing them.

Additionally, I would say that the soundtrack is solid as well. So the game does have some things going for it. There’s no real replay value but the game is difficult enough where that shouldn’t be a problem. Even though you theoretically can beat the game within an hour, the odds of you doing that are slim to none with how hard the game is. You really have to learn all of the villain patterns and movements to take them down efficiently. Additionally it’s hard to plan when so many of them are rushing you at once so good luck with that. A lot of it will come down to instinct.

Overall, Rival Turf is a game that has a good combat system but other areas of the game hurt it like the whole thing about not having a way to restart at a specific level. Going back to level 1 is something I never enjoy, it just feels way too harsh of a punishment if you ask me. You should be able to beat the game normally and if needed just have the extra continues destroy your score at the end or void it. Seeing the cutscene as the game ends is the important thing. Either way there are other titles you should check out within the genre for a better all around experience.

Overall 5/10

Mario Party: The Top 100 Review

Posted on by
Reply


Mario has returned! It’s been a while since I got a Mario game but in my defense, Nintendo doesn’t churn them out nearly as quick as they used to. Back in my day it felt like Mario games would come out every other week. Well, this one’s not known as one of the better Mario Party games and I can see why but I had a good time with it. You just wouldn’t want to have paid opening day prices for it because it is extremely short. You can complete the entire game in 2 hours which is really not very impressive.

There isn’t really a story in this one after all. Instead what happens is you go onto a map where you have to clear each minigame to go forward. There are 4 worlds and around 25 minigames per world. There are 300 stars to collect in total with each level having 3 stars to obtain for coming in first and 4 for boss battles. You can lose every non boss battle minigame and still get to the end of the game so there’s no pressure. That said, I expect you’ll still complete most of these with ease since the game’s not difficult like that. The only exceptions are the luck based games.

But of course now you can see why the game is so short. Most minigames can be completed in around a minute after all since they’re so short. Since you can skip the enemy turns that makes the minigames even shorter. You’ll be breezing past the game like it’s nobody’s business and then there isn’t a whole lot of other things to do. There is free play with the minigames of course and little tournaments you can do with the computers. It just boils down to the fact that you have to like going up against the computer or you will end up getting bored very quickly here. For the most part the Mario Party series are famous because you get to play with others.

That’s really the main draw of the series after all so if you don’t have that then you’re not going to be having fun for nearly as long. Sure enough, I would say that this is the kind of game where you complete it and then you’ll probably never turn it back on again. The games are fun and all so I do enjoy them but there just isn’t a whole lot of reason to play the game unless you just never got a chance to play all of the mainline games. It is cool seeing them grab so many iconic games to play through but there should have been more content here.

This is the game’s biggest weakness. It’s even shorter than Sonic Forces and you definitely don’t want to see that for a Mario title. What I would have done is add a challenge mode so at least for all of the minigames like Booksquirm where it’s about surviving, you could play it on your own and try to get some super high scores. I think that would be the best way to effectively add a lot of single player content to Mario Party real quickly. It may feel like it goes against the spirit of the Mario Party series but what else are you going to do to get around the whole multiplayer angle?

If you ask me, this is just what you gotta do. Still, the game deserves some props for the solid graphics. It looks like a really solid game and they didn’t cheap out on this one. Even if the developers probably knew that this one wasn’t going to be the next big thing, they still put in a lot of effort here. The game would fit in with any of Mario’s other 3DS adventures. Then you’ve got the soundtrack which is catchy enough. You should definitely recognize all of the minigame tunes right away.

It’s all very nostalgic just playing the games again. While they won’t beat the home console counterparts since squishing the minigames into a smaller screen is always tricky, they’re still a lot of fun. I even played a few extra minigames after I cleared all 100 to boost my score up a bit. After all, you can sort of say that collecting the 300 hearts is like completing the post game. I beat the normal campaign with over 250, but I didn’t actually 3 star all of the levels. A part of me was tempted to quickly go and do that just so I could say I’ve made it to the top.

What stopped me here is that some of the minigames are luck based which means it could be a little annoying to try and get the top spot. For the luck based ones I guess you just gotta keep on playing until you’re at the top but something about that didn’t sit right with me. Why include luck games at all here? The ones that are purely luck should not have made the top 100 at all. It feels like a cheap way to extend the play time a bit since you would have to just keep on playing these until you get the 3 stars. Realistically it won’t take too many tries I’m sure but more than I was planning to go through.

Overall, Mario Party will always be a blast and a half to play through. There’s just so much to go through in the series but you can’t really access that with a 3DS port. It’s a fun game but the experience is over way too quick which does end up shaving a star off. If you can get it for a good price then by all means you should check it out, but otherwise I’d say it’s time to give this one a skip. There are a lot of other Mario Party titles to check out which are all considerably better and feel like they give you the complete experience.

Overall 6/10

Blacksmith of the Sand Kingdom Review

Posted on by
2


Kemco has delivered quite a lot of amazing hits over the years and this one is no different. It’s definitely very different from their other titles in a few ways which I’ll get into, but it nails it. This is really trying to cross the classic RPG style with more of a gathering game you’d think of for mobile or online gaming. It works really well in doing so.

So the game follows a kid named Volker. His father died in an accident a while back and so he had to start running the blacksmithing operation on his own. At the same time he always wanted to be an adventurer though and is at a cross roads. Fortunately his best friend says she will man the shop while he is away and a fairy also shows up to help out. Now Volker can focus on being the best in both fields and along the way he may uncover some conspiracies. At the end of the day he wants to keep his kingdom safe, whether it is through creating equipment for them or by clearing quests. Will he be able to do this?

The game’s hub world has several areas including the shop, mission area, infirmary, food store, the arena, the dungeons, and the workplace. Each area has tasks that you can do once a day. For example you can enter a dungeon once a day and you can eat once a day. When you are ready to go to the next day you can head home and build a lot of equipment to sell which triggers the end of the day. The typical flowchart here is that you will complete a bunch of ordinary missions which involve building things for people until you get a story mission. The first story mission is always to investigate a dungeon which means getting to the final floor. The second story mission will be to fight a boss at the end of it.

The story missions are unlocked by completing a lot of normal missions. There are 296 missions in the game and you need to complete almost all of them in order to unlock the final story mission so prepare yourself. While combat is important, just as important is having a lot of materials at the ready so that you can build things as needed. Each time you complete a dungeon you unlock new materials. Also be sure to stop at every store each day in order to trigger cutscenes that move the story forward.

As you can probably guess, this means you will be moving around a lot. You will also have to spend a lot of time crafting weapons and shifting materials from one form to the next. There isn’t a lot of downtime here, you’re always just pressing on to the next thing. You gotta be ready for that without a doubt. It’s more fun than it sounds though so you’ll like it. At the very least I get a kick out of it. You usually have to do this kind of thing in mobile games and it can take hours sometimes as you have to allocate resources and then just wait it out. If you’re not used to that kind of thing then it may seem tedious. I would go as far as to say that this is the tipping point of the game. Whether you love it or not will depend on how much you enjoy crafting objects.

Trust me, you’ll be crafting a lot too. I nearly completed the 100% secret gallery (Made it to 97%) by the time I beat the game because I had to cook so much. Also, the game is difficult. I had all my guys maxed out at level 99 and I still barely beat the final boss. In a sense this is because I didn’t fully master the different concepts in the game. There are just so many from the prayers you use before battle to the orbs you equip to each piece of your equipment. Each character can choose 2 classes out of 12 in order to build a solid formation and each formation can be altered. There are also active and passive skills that you have to choose.

That sounded like a lot? Well it’s even more imposing while playing. So I did my best and crafted a team strategy that I thought sounded good but if there had been any more bosses then I may have had to rethink that a bit. They really were quite difficult and the final boss took over 30 minutes. It doesn’t help that a lot of the bosses like to heal themselves or summon an infinite amount of minions. You often have to decide whether to go for them or the minion first. Each strategy has its ups and downs in that respect.

Also, they love going for the paralyze option and if that happens then your character can’t attack for 3 turns. Definitely watch out for that since it gets really tricky. The challenge never feels unfair or broken though. You’re always left with the thought that you could have assembled your team better in order to win. So as you can tell I liked this game quite a lot. It’s just a very great all around experience and there’s so much to have fun with. I very nearly got all the trophies along the way.

Now if the game has a weakness it’s that there isn’t much of a story for about 90% of the game. There are hintings at one for a while of course but it never really happens until you’re at about the climax. Then we get a cosmic being and some nice action but it’s all at the very end. It’s clear that the story wasn’t really the focus here. The focus was definitely on the whole harvesting/gathering aspect of the game. It’s a fun aspect of course so I’m glad that they handled it well but a nice story would have been fun to have too. As it is the cast is incredibly small since the rest of your party is made up. Because of that there are just a few characters around the hub world and a villain or two.

Finally, the way the equipment works is a bit too time consuming if you ask me. So here’s how it goes, when you want to change equipment you go to the screen as normal except you can’t see your current weapon’s stats compared to the one you are equipping. As a result you have to switch screens a lot to make sure you’re getting the right one. Upgrading a weapon or transferring effects also takes you to a screen with tons of weapons so you have to make sure that you’re grabbing the right one. The equipment part could be a bit of a pain so in the end I just ended up going for the ones that had the highest stats and called it a day instead of always looking to optimize. It just was not very user friendly.

Naturally the graphics are solid here. I like the illustrations and the levels look good. I wouldn’t say it feels as dynamic or polished as the Asdivine Hero titles but it still looks good enough. Meanwhile the soundtrack is good. There are some solid tunes here although a lot of the battles are so fast that you won’t get to hear it much. I tend to have the team set to auto battle in most fights because manually battling takes forever in this game. If they can’t handle the battle then I take the wheel as needed. Another small thing I like about the game is that there are keyboard shortcuts for everything and you move faster than the villains. So if you don’t want to fight some minions then you don’t have to. It’s the quality of life features like this that always put Kemco at the top.

Overall, Blacksmith of the Sand Village is definitely a great game. The way the very game is developed does mean that it won’t be for everyone though. I just get the feeling that not everyone is going to want to be spending some hours crafting equipment over and over which is understandable. It’s just so smooth and enjoyable though that you don’t even notice. I ended up having a very good time with the game without a doubt and would love to see a sequel. Just give us more of a story next time.

Overall 8/10

Rayman 2: Revolution Review

Posted on by
3


It’s time for some Rayman hype! The series is always guaranteed to give you a fun platforming adventure but there has yet to be a definitive title in the series for me. I’ve played some good ones of course but none that made me think it had to be the king of the series. Well, this one changes that as I would say Revolution is the best yet. There are no mandatory collectibles or anything like that. No, this is all about just getting through the levels and having a good time. I can definitely respect that.

So the game starts off with the villains taking everyone out including Rayman but fortunately he is able to get out in one piece. He is depowered now and the pirates are taking more and more people as slaves. At one point in the game the ticker shows that they have over 30,000 people captured which is insane. Rayman will have to save them one by one and to do that he will need to get his powers back and also hit some of the installations so he can weaken their forces. He will have some friends to help him along the way but at the same time they can also be liabilities with how they can’t really fight all that well.

With the gameplay you’ve got your classic 3D platformer. You can run and jump to get to the end of a level. Rayman can also punch and his fist goes far which is really handy. He can even glide for a bit so there’s a whole lot that you can do in the levels. Rayman definitely has variety in his move set which is always important. It also means that the levels are able to do a whole lot because more movement options means there are more ways for developers to set up their obstacles.

It works well and the gameplay is always fun. There is a decent amount of difficulty thrown in but I wouldn’t say it’s comparable to Crash or anything like that. It’s more classic in that sense but you still shouldn’t underestimate it. Some segments took me many tries like some of the rocket runs. Those are levels where you have to ride a rocket and zoom around all over the place. That level is really set up so it can be as difficult as possible. Good luck getting the rocket to go where you want it to go! It just seems to have a mind of its own the whole time.

The game has a lot of constant check points though so that’s really appreciated. If you get a game over then you go a little further back but it’s never all that crazy. Odds are that you’ll never feel discouraged as a result and that’s why the game handled this in a very smart way. The only area where the gameplay wasn’t amazing was with the camera angles. Those could definitely be rather brutal but you’ll get the hang of it after a while. It can make some moments a little harder than it should be but ultimately you will be able to press on past that.

As for the graphics, I’d say it’s pretty solid. It’s got that very retro look which still has a good amount of detail and personality to it. You really can’t go wrong with Rayman on this. The soundtrack isn’t very memorable though so it looks like I’m in a bit of a streak on that lately. I need another all star soundtrack soon! After all great tunes are really what gets a game to the next level.

As for the story, well I’d say it’s fun enough. The game’s got a nice sense of humor and so while the game never feels very high stakes, you get to enjoy Rayman as a hero and root for him to save the day. The characters around him are solid and the villain certainly works hard. Technically with that many prisoners you could say the pirates did well. They were one Rayman away from total global conquest.

There is a bit of replay value here in terms of grabbing all collectibles but I’m not sure what you actually unlock with that. It better be something really good because there are a ton of collectibles to grab here. If they had been mandatory that definitely would have been really discouraging but I assume the developers knew that and that’s why they went all out since this would only be for the players serious about 100% completing the game.

Because of this the game can be a bit overwhelming at the start since you feel like maybe you should try grabbing these things. The hub world is also huge with many different areas to it so you can easily get lost or enter a level by mistake. Doing so triggers an unskippable animation and of course it just slows you down so try to learn the place little by little. Once you do then you’ll be all good. The game does have a good amount of quality of life features in it like being able to sense when an orb is nearby after beating the game. You just have to get there so this is very much a game where the more you play it, the easier it gets. It’s not as much of a plug and play title though so you have to be prepared for it.

Overall, Rayman 2: Revolution is a very fun game. It really knows how to get the best out of being a platformer and keeping you wanting more. The game’s fairly straight forward even if it can be a little overwhelming at first. Once you get the hang of it then you’ll be blasting all the way through the end. The dialogue can be fun and so you’ll remember Rayman quite well and even some of his friends. Their names escape me most of the time though so they’re not quite at that tier yet. Soon I’ll get another Rayman game so we can see how he’s doing in more of a modern era. In the meantime I would definitely recommend checking this one out.

Overall 7/10

Breath of Fire Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for an old school RPG. This one has definitely been around for a while but I just hadn’t had time to give it a shot before. Well, after playing it I can confirm that the game has aged well. The gameplay style is nice and retro with the story being rather solid. You don’t really see a lot of games like this one nowadays, at least not among the AAA companies.

The game starts with everyone in the village being murdered as per usual with just a few survivors making it out. Ryu’s sister decides she will go out to stop the Dark Dragon Clan in their wild quest to destroy the world. A long time passes and she does not return so Ryu is forced to take up the challenge next. He will need to team up with a lot of skilled fighters in order to make a difference but is he really just setting off on an impossible mission?

As you complete each area you get more and more allies to fight by your side until you’ve got a rather solid roster. It’s all done very methodically which works rather well. While the game may not be very original in some ways like the story and all, the fundamentals are just really strong which is what makes this game a lot of fun. For example the gameplay is just really smooth and in some ways it beats out some of the more modern versions. When you don’t want to fight enemies you can actually use up an item that prevents any random encounters for a little while. I thought that was a really handy item and there were no strings attached. Sure, you do have to spend money to get the item but it’s rather cheap and you’ll be swimming in money later on.

You get a map along the way and the ability to fly so going through the map isn’t super crazy. I will say that on occasion the game isn’t very clear on what you need to do next though. Because of how the game lets you mess around with the order of things a bit, sometimes you’ll miss out on an item or event that you need in order to go forward. When that happens it can be a bit annoying. It doesn’t happen often but in those moments it would be nice if there was a way to ship the item to a newer location so you didn’t have to run all the way back. Now that would have been ideal.

So it’s not like it’s all perfect here but at the end of the day it’s a very peaceful game. It’s one that you can just sit down and have a good time with at any point. IN general I feel that way about the retro RPG titles because I like the turn based system quite a bit. Beating up on enemies over and over again is a great way to build up your XP but it can also be very soothing at the same time.

For the graphics, I’d say they’ve aged well. The level designs are on point and I like how the characters look. The soundtrack is also decent although I wouldn’t say that any of the themes are very memorable. It could have used a little more energy to the tracks but either way it’s not something where I would give it a thumbs down for that. There isn’t much replay value after beating the game but the campaign’s fairly long so that won’t be much of an issue here.

As to the story, I thought it really took off once Goda and the group of villains showed up. It starts off a little slow as you beat up a bunch of forgettable villains for a while but then once the big villains show up, the game really raises its level. It also made you feel like the game had a good chunk of content left since for a little while there it felt like you were going to end it before a whole lot happened.

Your allies are a bit forgettable though. None of them really stood out for me. They weren’t bad but if you asked me to tell you their personalities I wouldn’t be able to say much more than the one sentence premise of their characters. It felt like they didn’t get to do a whole lot despite being around. The main character was the most interesting and even then he is fairly standard. The villains are definitely the more interesting characters here and the game has some twists and turns at the end of it.

As with just about any RPG you can expect that the final boss here is rather difficult. Make sure you’ve trained a lot and have the best attacks and equipment ready or you will be in for a rough time. If you lose you can always just go back to train of course but it’s always ideal to train first so you don’t have to backtrack for a long while. Particularly for the final boss where you would have to go trough the dungeon all over again.

Overall, I’m definitely ready to check out Breath of Fire 2. If you like a good RPG then you’ll definitely be a fan of this one. You’ve got all of the classic RPG elements here and they’re executed well. While some areas could have been better, I’d say it shines as a bright example of why the genre is so good. It would absolutely be worthy of being someone’s first RPG too as it would get them used to the mechanics. There really aren’t any downsides to this one so just go in and have fun.

Overall 7/10

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Review

Posted on by
2


Final Fantasy Tactics Advance has to be one of the oldest games that I’ve had on the back burner for many years. It’s been patiently waiting it’d turn and now it was time to see what this game was all about. It definitely goes all in on the tactical gameplay and there’s a lot of customization here but other parts of the game have not aged well which ends up holding the experience back.

The game starts with our hero Marche having a snowball fight with all of the other kids at the school. At first glance it seems to be going okay but everyone is actually dealing with something. The kids are actually targeting his friend Mewt a lot. Marche’s brother can’t walk so he isn’t able to have fun with the gang and the main heroine Riza is very self conscious about her hair being white so she dyes it every day. There’s quite a lot of unhappiness in the air and for Marche the main point is that he’s a pushover and doesn’t stick up for himself.

Well, one day Marche wakes up only to find himself in a fantastic kingdom ruled by Mewt. It’s effectively a palace like in Persona as it is created by his wishes. Marche figures it isn’t healthy to life in a made up reality like this and he decides he has to destroy the world. The other kids are not in agreement though and will do everything they can to stop him. Can Marche finally find his inner confidence and take the win here?

Interestingly Marche can almost feel like the main villain here in some respects. Think about it, to the creatures living in this world, the place is very real. All of a sudden you have this guy showing up to try and destroy the world because he says its fake. You’d assume this guy is insane and I can see why they were all fighting against him. You also have to ask yourself on whether these guys have become sentient and in a way is Marche actually destroying everyone? If all of the monsters will revert to townfolk similar to how everyone here is a distortion then that helps with making it okay in the end but it’s definitely an interesting concept.

Not really one that the game goes into all that much but it does make you double think what you are doing the whole time. The main focus on the story though is Marche trying to convince everyone that this world isn’t better. Sure they have super powers and live a life of wealth and prosperity here but Marche says that since they know it isn’t real, it’s like they’re running away from the real thing. I thought the game did a good job of not having all of the kids suddenly agree with him or anything like that. It was handled as more of a slow burn which was good so the kids had a chance to explain their side. All in all it may not have been constant end of the world stakes or anything like that but things do get cosmic in the end and the story was fun.

As for the gameplay, it’s your classic tactics style with a few changes here. So if you know tactics gameplay then you remember that it’s all about getting the right angles. You want to attack from the sides of behind an enemy for better damage as well as a better percentage chance of hitting the opponent. You can attack, guard, use a special move, or an item. You can control up to 6 fighters here and the enemy team will typically have around as many. It’s fun to think out your moves and try to get to the win as efficiently as possible. If this was played straight with no gimmicks then there would be no issue.

The gameplay can be a little slow with all of the animations and everything being unskippable but it would still work pretty well. The main issue comes with the law system that is unique to this game. Basically when you start a level there will be a random law that says you cannot do something during the battle. Sometimes it will be that you can’t attack, can’t heal, can’t use fire, etc. As the game goes on there will be 2 laws at once and then three. The big issue with adding RNG into the mix like this is that you can’t just make a plan and stick to it. You have to adjust your combat based on the law for the battle and there is no way to see it before starting the level. What that means is that if it’s a law you can’t hope to overcome then you have to reset the game.

After that you can walk around a bit (Since each step counts as a day and switches the law) and then head back. It’s quite a few extra steps that aren’t needed. Additionally there are random minions running around all the time and if you bump into one then you have to start another long fight. The level up system is also a bit different than the others as each action gets you some XP rather than a total at the end of a level. This is fairly unique for RPG titles but for tactical fighters I’ve seen this in the past so it makes sense. It’s not my favorite style but it is what it is.

There’s also perma death which is active on any desert level. If any of your members dies here and you don’t revive them before the match is up, the member is lost forever. There goes your equipment and level ups. I’m not a fan of perma death in any game. It’s way too harsh and just serves as a big punishment if you end up losing. There’s also a jail system here in case you break the laws in a level. Two strikes takes you to jail while one acts a a fine and your character suffers a penalty. To remove the card you have to play a few battles without the character but at the speed in which the battles are, that’s a fairly long commitment so it’s often better to just reset the game whenever you do that by mistake.

Then you’ve got some quality of life features that aren’t present. One of the big ones is that it’s very difficult to see which equipment is the best one to attach to your character. You can only see the stats for one piece at a time and can’t compare it so you have to remember the numbers as you check each piece one by one. That just seems like something which should have been easier. It’s also odd that you have to actually set the items to your character’s ability slots or you can’t use any at all. I think that’s a bit much and there’s no indication of when they have learned a new ability so you have to manually check everyone every time there’s a level up. Same with ability mastery to learn new classes.

So what I’m saying is the gameplay is held back by a whole ton of features ranging from just about every area you can think of. It’s definitely a problem. The graphics are good though. I thought the character designs were on point and the levels were good. Meanwhile the soundtrack was more on the unimpressive side as none of the tunes were all that good. It was going for a rather calm feel to it but give me rock or metal any day so I can really feel the tunes at all times.

As for the replay value here, there are a ton of missions to complete so that’ll help on that end. There are 300 missions in the game and you’ll probably end up beating around 100 before you finish the game. The missions have several categories including combat and dispatch. Dispatch missions are ones your allies will complete on their own and either take a few days or just some extra battles without you. So choose who you send out on a mission wisely since you never want to be without your best fighter for very long.

Overall, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance would be one of the weaker Final Fantasy games. It has some pretty good ideas and so the story ends up being the strong point here but the gameplay mechanics are what ended up bringing it down. If anything the game’s just trying to be too intricate and having way too many things going on at once. We’ll see if the sequel can dial things back a notch, removing laws entirely would definitely be a great start. If not, maybe there’s a way to just make them better. This is a really long game so make sure you really enjoy the tactics style before picking it up.

Overall 5/10