Category Archives: Game Reviews

Jak X: Combat Racing Review

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It’s been a long while since I played a Jak game so it was good to see the franchise once more. The racing game always looked like a lot of fun back in the PS2 era so it’s about time that I got to give it a spin. It’s a racing game that’s really worth a purchase because it has the best racing plot I’ve ever seen as well as the best soundtrack. It’s a blast and a half while also being a little longer than the average racing game. That’s a winning combination if I’ve ever seen one.

The game takes place after Jak II and the main characters are all invited to hear Krew’s final will and testament. Since the characters were all involved with his demise in one way or another they decide to attend. Everyone pours a drink and while Jak refuses at first, he decides to drink anyway when he sees that Krew’s daughter drank as well. Unfortunately his initial suspicions were correct as Krew explains in his recording that he has poisoned them all. The only way to get the antidote is to win the world grand prix on Krew’s team. The heroes don’t want to help this guy even if he is dread, but now their lives are riding on this outcome. The heroes swallow their pride and get ready to race.

There are quite a few subplots here in the meantime. On one hand you’ve got the TV announcer who is enjoying the races because he is earning a ton of money. They had all been fixed for many years so with the addition of Jak and friends it is adding some extra spice to the whole event. The gangsters are also watching the races closely since the winner of the tournament will have a very strong standing in the community. It should be noted that most of the people entering these races are gangsters and crime lords.

The actual gameplay is like a typical racing game but with an extra big emphasis on combat mechanics. You obtain many weapons as you go through the course which range from machine guns to rockets. You can also get defensive weapons like land mines and little turrets you can leave behind to blast away at enemies. Then there are boosters to power up your boost meter and little health packs. Usually you will have to choose what to go for as when you get to the item points in the race there will be an option to grab either a weapon or a booster for example. The items are pretty frequent so you can always just alternate or something like that. The best weapon in the game is the satelite as everyone in front of you instantly crashes. It’s an amazing item but one you won’t likely see very often.

My recommendation is if you’re in first place then always go for the defensive item or the booster. You can use any defensive item to block a rocket which is very handy and boosters help you stay in first. If you’re not in the lead then always go for the attack item since you want to be back up there as soon as possible. The races are about 4-5 minutes at times so you don’t want to lose since you’ll need to start it again. In each world you need to collect 50 points to play the Grand Prix. 1st place is worth 3 points, 2nd is 2, and 3rd is 1. SO if you get a lot of 1st places it’ll help you get through the game a little quicker. I never lost a Grand Prix so I don’t know if you’d have to replay the whole thing or not, but each Grand Prix is 3 races so that would be a lot to replay.

Not all stages are typical races though. You’ve got 4-5 other kinds of gameplay. You’ve got time trials where you run into clocks to keep your time up and you try to complete the stage as quickly as possible. Then you have Death Races where you have to blow up a number of cars before time runs out. There’s Traffic where cars will run at you and you have to run through them as you get to the end. Death Matches have you try to earn 10 points in eliminating other players. Then there’s Artifacts Race where you scramble to grab them before the other players and capture the flag where you try to get an orb into your base. There’s also booster mode where you’re at top speed and have to power up as many orbs as you can.

There’s a lot of variety here so the game has quite a lot to offer. It’s clear that this racing game had a lot of effort behind it. The graphics are top notch and I’m glad that they went to the trouble of adding so many cutscenes. It has more of them than the average platformer game which is pretty cool. Then you have the soundtrack which is great as there are a lot of rock themes. Every time you unlock a car you get a great tune and the stage themes are excellent as well. It really fits in with the game’s atmosphere.

The main story mode should take you around 7-8 hours I’d say. After that the main replay value will be trying to get all of the stars and maxing out each car. There’s not much reason to do the latter but I’m assuming you get something for doing all cars. Ironically powering up a car can backfire at times as it’ll go too fast and you’ll crash so my advice is to be careful with it. I did a lot of upgrades in the final world and it nearly cost me everything.

The writing here is top notch so all of the characters are entertaining. There are a lot of twists in the stories and a fun cast of characters. It’s nice to see all of Jak’s friends show up. Not all of them were the nicest to Daxter, but it’s hard to be when he’s always lying and you can’t tell if he’s on your side or not. The opening cutscene of the game is a good example of this as Daxter starts on one of his crazy adventures again. Jak’s appearance ends up hurting Daxter’s credibility, but it was already shot. You really have to experience the story to see why it’s so great. Jak’s the standout, but the reporter and Jak’s friends are also pretty entertaining. They all don’t tend to get along very well but in their defense, being poisoned does spoil the mood.

Overall, Jak X is a terrific game and it reminds me of why Jak is such a great character. He’s the best Naughty Dog lead for sure. Pretty much every line he gets in this game is terrific. He’s really not about to get intimidated the way a lot of others characters do when the villain shows up. Now that’s what I call talent. If you don’t have this game yet then you need to change that. It’s a lot of fun and really changes the way you think about racing games.

Overall 8/10

Yugioh GX Duel Academy Review

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It’s time to look at another game that uses the dreaded day system. I still cannot fathom why games would ever choose to use such a system. All it does is force you to miss out on huge amounts of the game so it’s like the developers are wasting their time adding a bunch of features that we’ll never get to use. The core Yugioh gameplay is still good which keeps this from being a negative game in the end, but it is heavily limited.

The story (albeit it there isn’t much of a story here) is about a new kid who has arrived at Duel Academy. He’s looking to perfect his craft and become one of the greatest duelists of all time. It’ll take a lot of semesters and training to do it, but practice makes perfect. That’s the extent of the game. Every few months you get to take an exam to try and rank up, but the questions are surprisingly tricky. I did well enough in the dueling part…I actually had a positive record. The problem is that if you don’t do very well in the written exam you go down in rank anyway. I thought this was a bit iffy, but I suppose it is what it is. After a bunch of duels and weeks went by I figured it was time for the review.

In terms of gameplay it’s the usual Yugioh rules that you should be familiar with. In every turn you get to summon a monster and play some spells or traps. The goal of the game is to get your opponent’s life points down from 8000 to 0. Once you do that you will have won the game and you get to duel the next person. Everyone’s always got a bunch of trap cards to play so you want to work around those. For example, always attack with the weakest monster first and if you have more than 1, put the others in defense mode. That way when Mirror Force is played you won’t lose all of your monsters. As you play more and more duels you’ll see why it’s very important to protect your backup monsters. Each day seems to have 3 segments so you can plan out quite a few duels per day. You then get to watch the week days go by with nothing happening except a chance to buy some cards at the shop. Then you go back to fighting off more duelists.

One thing that slows down the duels here though is the fact that the characters like to talk a lot. It’s an interesting idea but I think it should be done without interrupting the flow. I suppose voice acting would have been out of the question for a GBA game, but maybe have everyone talk as an intro instead of during the duel. I believe that would allow you to really get in on the dueling and not have to worry about the rest. I was pretty satisfied with my starter deck though. It had a lot of fun fire monsters that I always like to have along with some good traps and spells. I made a few modifications here and there, but mainly kept it in tact.

When it comes to the graphics I’d say that the game was pretty solid. you could always tell what was happening and the illustrations were nice. The dueling effects were good and we got a nice amount of backdrops. The soundtrack is also pretty good. It’s not quite ready to take on the GX anime ost or anything like that, but it has actual variety which is important since you’ll be dueling quite a lot.

This game’s got a long amount of time if you want to truly complete the game. It’s hard to say exactly what beating the game entails but I imagine you would need to conquer all of the exams and reach Blue Rank. Assuming you have a great deck and don’t mind restarting the game during exams a few times maybe you would clear this game in around 20 hours or so. Technically there is a ton of replay value to be had here as well. Obtaining all of the cards feels like it would probably take a life time to achieve. Furthermore you’ve got to abide by the day system so you can’t just go to the shop whenever you feel like it.

It really all comes back to that system. Not to be repetitive, but I don’t like having the game force me to only be able to do certain tasks at specific times. I like being able to choose what to do next. While games don’t have to be linear I also like to have a concrete goal so I know exactly what I am supposed to do and when I am supposed to do it. Things like that really go a long way in my eyes. I prefer the retro Yugioh style where it used to be that you would fight 5 duelists, beat all of them 5 times to unlock the next row and then rinse/repeat the system. At least that way you always knew you were making progress.

Overall, This is one of the weakest Yugioh games. It’s a shame because I love GX and really wanted it to have a solid game to fall back on. Unfortunately this is not the game to do that. Tag Force would end up being a better option to represent GX. This one feels more like a cash-in and there is little that it can offer in place of other titles. I would highly recommend getting one of the World Championship games instead like 2006 which is still my favorite one. Those have more direct goals and the gameplay is completely streamlined. That’s all I really need in my Yugioh games and then I’m a happy camper.

Overall 5/10

Dragon Ball Z Collectible Card Game Review

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It’s time to look at a DBZ game that I’ve had for a very long time. Part of why I kept it in the backlog is because the game just wasn’t very interesting. I would play it a bit from time to time but the controls were confusing and since there wasn’t even really a story I didn’t see the need to keep on playing. Well, I gave this one another whirl and the game is as confusing as ever. It’s hard to ever make any headway here.

The game is based on the actual card game. Unfortunately it is hard for that to translate well to video game format. Unlike Yugioh or Duel Masters this game feels very clunky with matches that go on forever. Literally almost all of my matched went to time, which is the full 7 turns that a duel can take. Matches should not be going to the equivalent of sudden death every round. That tells me that there is something at least a little weird with the game. Since I don’t get it then the A.I. should at least be able to beat me up pretty quick.

Here’s the gameplay in the simplest way I can describe it. When you start the game you draw 5 cards. If you go first then you get to play any non combat cards you have. After that you choose to attack or pass. If you pass then you discard all but one card and draw a fresh 5. Once the opponent has done so as well then they will attack and you will pick a card to defend with. You have to try and take down all of the Life cards that the opponent has and they will do the same to you. You can win in one of 3 different ways. You can take all of their life cards away which will be a complete victory. You can also win via technical win by exhausting the opponent of all cards or maybe you can even grab the Dragon Balls and win via super victory. A final way you can win is also by raising your power level and anger level to the max setting. If you do any of these things then you will have claimed victory.

The problem is that the opponent will never let you do this. They block all of your hits and always seem to have more cards than you do. They don’t run out despite playing so many and every time you raise your anger level they reset it back to 1 using a spell card. As a result you just can’t claim the advantage and the rounds take forever. I was somehow able to beat Krillin and the second guy, but Guldo is where I met my match. After dozens of fights I still couldn’t conquer him and that’s where my DBZ card adventures concluded. It was time to throw in the towel. After all the only way to improve your deck is to keep on re-fighting the first two opponents, but I was only able to beat them once after a ton of tries. Doing so again just to hopefully get a useful card to make a comeback feels like such a long shot that it is barely worth it.

Then you’ve also got the fact that the game has no real effort put into it. There is only one piece of music in the entire game which keeps on looping over and over for every action that you take. You can only hear the same song so many times before you just have to take a break for it. How is it possible that the game wasn’t able to get more than one tune? It’s just crazy to only have 1 in the entire soundtrack if you ask me. There’s not much to say about the graphics either since there barely are any. You’ve just got the one illustration for each character as the squares match up with each other over and over again. The cards don’t look all that flashy either.

This game feels like a total cash-in and that’s not too surprising considering how long the loading times are. Each match takes forever in part because you can’t go through the turns quickly enough. You can spam the A button to at least get rid of the drawing phase and it speeds up the attacks but it also skips card effects so then the catch is that you’ll lose further track of what’s going on. It’s a pretty unfortunate situation all around. The length of the game is quite long as a result although it feels artificial. In theory you can probably get a good 20 hours out of this one and maybe more depending on how often you lose. There won’t be any real replay value, but at this point you wouldn’t need any since the campaign is so long.

Overall, Dragon Ball Z Collectible Card Game is the weakest of the DBZ games. It’s hard to picture any game losing to this one although since the DS also had a title based on the Card Game it is possible. What the title really needs is a better explanation of the rules and to speed up the gameplay a bit. I know the computer was able to use his avatar card at some points when the tutorial never even referenced how to do so. I tried using mine a bunch but every time I tried the game said that it wasn’t the right situation to do so. That’s not entirely helpful to be honest but it may not have mattered much. My deck simply wasn’t strong enough to beat my opponent’s so no matter how many times I would draw some cards it just wasn’t going to make up the difference. The only way you should get this game is if you are a really big fan of the official card game.

Overall 3/10

Beyblade Evolution Review

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This may possibly be the weakest Beyblade title and the series hasn’t exactly been firing on all cylinders before. I thought that the series was on an upwards trend after playing the last game, but this one brings the series down once more. It takes away all of the strengths of Metal Masters and goes back into a control scheme that is even more obnoxious than blowing into the DS like the first title. Sorry guys but this is one game that you should stay far, far away from.

Beyblade Evolution doesn’t really have a story which doesn’t help matters. Effectively you are playing as a new kid who doesn’t know the first thing about the game, but wants to compete in the World Championship. He’s clearly not a main character who thinks things through all that well, but I suppose you have to admire his enthusiasm at the very least. You go around fighting people and playing minigames until the tournament starts. Win or lose you are sent back to level 1 to replay the entire game again…….

The game uses a day system which is one of my least favorite gameplay styles. Several games I’ve played have used this including Armored Core, Megaman Zero, Pikmin, and Yugioh GX Duel Academy. It’s never once worked out as a positive. I get that it is a bit more realistic this way, but it forces you to hurry through the game and you can’t enjoy it as much. While I’m not the biggest fan of Majora’s Mask, at least it doesn’t trap you in the days the way that the others do. Beyblade Evolution has 50 days. Each action you take aside from accessing the main menu counts as a day. You want to go to the shop to buy some parts? That’ll take up a whole day. Wanna play a minigame to earn money? Another day gone. There are only 50 days in the game so you’ll very quickly find yourself at the very end.

This title seems to be built on the assumption that you’ll want to play through the game multiple times because there isn’t enough time to do everything otherwise. There is little reward for beating opponents either since you don’t get any money or parts. It’ll help you unlock more people to fight, but why would you want to do that? The most efficient way to play through the game seems to be doing the minigames. Some of them are quite easy so you can S rank them on hard and get about 3800 points. With these points you can buy superior parts and build yourself a pretty great Beyblade. Keep on doing this until day 47. Use the next two days to clean out both shops. (Why are there 2 shops? To make sure you waste 2 days buying parts instead of one.) You’ll have to hope that RNG is on your side though as the shops cycle through inventory quite frequently so if you pick the wrong day to go in they will only have weak points and you’ll have to waste another day to go in and get what you want.

There isn’t an easy way to see what parts you do have though. Your best bet is to go into the sell window and look at your parts that way which is a lot of extra clicks. There isn’t even an inventory option to see how many total parts you have out of the full collection. There’s a lot of quality of life updates that just aren’t present in this game. When you think you have a good Beyblade, head to the tournament and hope that the force is on your side. Be careful…skill doesn’t play much of a role here.

I was surprised to see that you cannot move your Beyblade. Basically you launch the Beyblade by flipping your 3DS backwards (which is really bad for the screen so I’d recommend holding the screen in place but it will mess up your launch) and then you watch it fight the opponent. I couldn’t move it in the slightest with the stylus, D Pad, or by moving the 3DS. You just have to watch it roll around. The only support you can give it is by shooting energy into the Beyblade by aiming with the motion controls. After that you can watch grimly as the A.I. jumps off the track and you lose by default. In the big tournaments you need 4 points to win the match. Winning through survival is one point so you have to win 4 times while if the opponent knocks you out of the ring they get 3 points in an instant. It’s really not very balanced if you ask me.

There’s no fun to be had with the gameplay. I want to be able to move my Beyblade and feel like I’m actually doing something. Otherwise I may as well be watching two A.I.s going at it because that’s really what’s happening. Half the time sending energy to your Beyblade doesn’t even help much since they just spin out of control. I didn’t think the gameplay could get worse than the first DS one I played, but it definitely happened. I’ll even take the microphone gimmick over the motion controls. I already didn’t like motion controls in the Wii, I can guarantee you that they are even worse on the 3DS. The 3DS wasn’t made for motion, I don’t see why a game was developed with that as the intent.

Ah well, the graphics aren’t bad I suppose. The character designs are nice enough and we get some decent backdrops. There aren’t a lot of areas to see though as it’s the same locations over and over with the same re-used character models. All of the tournament cutscenes start out the same way. The amount of recycled footage is pretty staggering to say the least. As for the soundtrack, it’s fairly generic. There isn’t a lot of variety to be found here.

In terms of replay value the game is pretty light. You’ll be ready to leave as soon as the 1-2 hour playthrough to day 50 is over. After that you can keep on playing to either get a better ending or get all of the parts. Those are the only things left to do anyway and for the latter you’ll never know if you have anything because the game never gives you a place to check how many parts are in the game. With the shop constantly changing inventory it’s also hard to keep track of how many are left. It’s a bit of a tough predicament.

Overall, Beyblade Evolution is a game that I’d advise against purchasing. It’s just not very good. It’s barely even a game and more like you are just watching a demonstration among the computers who are fighting to see who is the best. That’s not very entertaining if you ask me. I now own all of the main Beyblade games from the modern era and I can see why they haven’t made any in a while. The series doesn’t seem to understand how to make the series fun which is surprising because it should be pretty clear. Look at the Gamecube Beyblade game as an example of how to do one of these titles. Now that was a masterpiece!

Overall 3/10

Beyblade: Metal Masters Review

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It’s time to take a look at a Beyblade game that I’ve owned for a very long time. I had been waiting until I had Metal Fusion and now that I beat that one it was time to look at the other big Metal game. This one is a huge improvement over the other title. For starters the controls have been fixed and there isn’t a pesky leveling up system this time around. It’s an arcade mode type game so it only takes around 20 minutes to beat a story but there are a lot of different characters to help with the replay value.

The basic plot is that the main character has been offered an invite to the latest big Beyblade tournament. He decides to enter of course, but it turns out that there may be more to this tournament than it would seem at first glance. Yes, this is the plot of every Beyblade game but in its defense it’s a plot that is always quite solid. Who wouldn’t want a tournament? The fun part about the concept is that it’s a good excuse to get all of the big characters in the series to meet up once again. There are around 5-7 rounds int he tournament and then you’ll have completed the Arcade route.

This game is fairly easy unlike the last one. The goal is to knock your opponent out of the ring or smash him to bits. Gone are the days of using the stylus and the game even gives you a pop up at the beginning letting you know that the stylus will not be used at all. It was probably the best message I’ve ever seen in a game like this. I was pretty stoked right off the bat. So you use the D pad to move your Beyblade. Press the A button twice to use your standard dash attack. B is to jump, Y to shield, and X to use your super attacks. I couldn’t find out how to use the final smash but you won’t need it. My advice is to spam the dash attack. It does a lot of damage and also has a chance to push the other Beyblade out of bounds which results in an auto win. You just can’t top that.

The game does force you to think about things a little more towards the end though. One enemy has a flame tornado and another has a suction ability so if you just run into them then you’ll be defeated. In these cases it’s best to take a punish approach. Wait for the opponent to use a move and then hit them. At that point retreat and then start over from scratch. Rinse and repeat your way to victory. I don’t imagine any match will take you more than 2-3 tries to clear it. It’s not a game that was made to be super difficult or anything.

So, the game is pretty short as I mentioned. An arcade mode is around 20 minutes. If this game was still at full price then I’d say that it wasn’t worth it. You can get the game for 5-10 bucks nowadays though. It’s also worth noting that there are around 30 fighters here so if you multiply that all you’ve got a game that’s around 10 hours. That’s pretty good right? There’s barely a story though so there’s not a lot of incentive to playing the game with everyone. Most games nowadays I don’t do all of the Arcade Modes but it really depends. If it’s something like Marvel vs Capcom or Dengeki Bunko then you can bet that I’ll at least play most of the stories for all the characters I like a lot. For a game like Beyblade where there are no opening and ending cutscenes and I don’t know the characters as well..it’s less of an incentive. I didn’t even beat more than one story in Sengoku Basara and that’s a series I’m fairly familiar with.

It’s always nice to have the option though and so I have to say that the game has a fair amount of replay value. The gameplay is also just pretty fun so it is definitely a game you can have a good time going back to. In terms of graphics the game is also pretty solid. We get some cutscenes for finishing moves and the standard ones pop out well enough as well. Don’t expect a ton of detail or anything like that, but there’s enough to keep you pretty well satisfied all the way through. The soundtrack is about as bland as you can get though. There aren’t exactly a lot of choices to pick from here so you’ll quickly find yourself tuning it out. I wish we had gotten a rock theme or something like that.

I should mention that in the Arcade mode it’s a best of 3 set. You get to pick two supporting characters to help you out as each character gets a round. The first character you pick is the one who will get the story though so choose with that fact in mind. Each character also has slightly different special moves and controls so you’ll want to keep that in mind. You can also check the garage to equip new parts that you unlock as you unlock 2 for each round that you complete. There seem to be 86 parts in the game so at that pace you’ll get them all very quickly. I wonder if they’ll slow down at the end because otherwise you’ll have all of the parts long before you beat the game with every character. Hopefully it doesn’t go the route of giving you duplicates later on. I always thought that strategy was a forced way of adding length to the completion time.

Overall, Beyblade Metal Masters is better than the last DS game, but it’s certainly nowhere near the level of any of the home console installments. I’m not sure why the games aren’t trying to be more ambitious on the portable. I do have a 3DS game I’ll be playing soon so we’ll see how that one fares. Regardless, this is the definition of a pick up and play title. Even if you put the game down for years it’ll always be right there for you to play through again. It’s pretty good and accomplishes in what it sets out to do. If you see the game for a few bucks I’d recommend playing it. Who knows, maybe the arcade mode will be so much fun that you’ll end up watching the show as well.

Overall 7/10

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot Review

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It’s time to look at the DBZ game that came out recently. It definitely looked like a real game of the year contender from the instant that we got the first teasers. Interestingly the game kept focusing on the first two arcs so for a while there I was wondering if Arc 3 would be included at all. Fortunately it is here so the game ends up feeling pretty complete. The story took me around 20 hours which is pretty good for an action title. It’s quite rare for any to rank all the way up there. It’s an excellent game and one I definitely recommend.

The story follows the events of the DBZ show/manga. If you don’t know what that is, here’s a quick recap. Goku is a hero who has saved the planet many times. He ended up marrying Chi Chi prior to the game’s start and they had a kid named Gohan. That’s when an alien named Raditz arrives and kidnaps Goku’s son. Goku has to then team up with Piccolo to stop him. Along the way more aliens show up such as Vegeta and Frieza as well as androids like Cell and even mythical beings like Majin Buu. Goku will have to keep on training in order to keep up with these guys, but he believes that he will be up to the task. Goku’s never turned down a challenge before and he doesn’t intend to start now.

The gameplay is similar to the Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi series although styles in more of a single player fashion. You’re using less advanced combos here and more flashy moves to take the opponent down. It’s fun using all of the signature attacks from the show and you can learn new moves/upgrade old ones as you go through the game. I didn’t touch the upgrading part until deep in arc 2, but it’s a handy feature. You won’t be able to upgrade all that much without going through some Roshi training though. Once you beat the game you can unlock all of the training lessons and then you can make your characters really strong. If you want to beat a powerful enemy without leveling up then just buy a lot of health items. Those come in handy although of course it will make getting S ranks a little more difficult. I got an S rank on almost every level but I don’t believe there is much of a reward for doing so here so it’s not a big deal.

In combat you’ll be fine if you just go with your instincts. Typically I like to just stick to physical attacks and don’t use the special moves much unless the opponent is shooting a laser and I don’t want to wait for it to end. Sniping the enemy with a laser of your own is a really good way to counter such a technique. If the opponent is blocking your hits a lot then I would recommend landing a few hits, teleporting, and then attacking more. The opponent is forced to either drop his guard and get hit or let his shield be broken. Either way works out quite nicely for you. There is a good amount of depth to the gameplay so you have the liberty of finding what method of fighting works best for you. The toughest fights for me were the ones where you have to fight multiple opponents. The Cell Jrs that launched at you were no joke.

Meanwhile the graphics here are definitely top tier. There are a lot of animated cutscenes to watch where the characters duke it out and even the normal cutscenes look really good. The engine works really well for a game like DBZ and it feels like you are back in the TV show. The most impressive cutscene was probably Vegito’s battle against Super Buu. The animators definitely had a lot of fun with that one. The scene of Vegeta and Kid Buu punching each other was also styled really well. It keeps up with FighterZ as the two best looking DBZ games. Then you’ve got the soundtrack which is really great. You’ll recognize a lot of the themes from the anime which is a nice touch. We also get an insert song at the very end of the game which was pretty neat. There was certainly no corners being cut in this title.

The sheer amount of content here is also impressive. As I mentioned I beat the game in around 20 hours. That’s considering that I didn’t stop to do any side quests or things like that. I just plunged right through the story. If you consider the side quests, extra boss, and leveling up then you’ll be here for quite a while. The Platinum trophy in this game actually sounds pretty achievable so if I start trophy hunting again then this would be one of the first games that I would focus on. I’d estimate that the game should take you around 40 hours to complete everything. That’s a lot of time and really helps to justify your purchase. Even just wandering around the hub world driving your car and fishing can be a lot of fun. The game did a good job of adding a lot of different gameplay options to have fun with. The game even let you play Baseball for a second which was nice.

Kakarot is a reasonably challenging game, but not one where you will ever be stuck for long. It all feels pretty fair and balanced in part because there are always workarounds. If a boss is too difficult for you right now then you can go and train somewhere, unlock new attacks, re-position your stat medals, cook some food, buy potions, etc. There is no way you will actually be stuck for very long but at the same time you may enjoy just retrying the battle a few times when the opponent is hard to beat like this as it really helps you learn the fighting style. Before long you’ll be racking up S rank after S rank.

Overall, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is a superb game. It’s easily one of the best DBZ games I’ve played. I’ve seen it compared to Attack of the Saiyans quite a lot. While that game is also very good, I would have to give this one the edge. I’d put it in third place right behind FighterZ and Budokai Tenkaichi 3. I hope we get a sequel to this game which adapts GT, the movies, and Super. I’m sure they could also do that through DLC as well, but a sequel would be ideal because then it could be a full 20+ hour experience with a lot of cutscenes. I feel like you are slightly more limited with what you can do when it’s DLC but that’s not necessarily true. If you haven’t gotten this game yet then I’d recommend changing that. It’s one of the most complete DBZ adaptions you’ll ever see. When you finish the story you’ll feel as though you just scratched the surface of what the title has in store for you.

Overall 9/10

Beyblade Metal Fusion Review

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It’s time to look at a recent Beyblade game I got. We own the final 2 games in the series after this so I had been wanting to get this installment so we could finish the series. Unfortunately it is definitely the weakest title I’ve played from the franchise. It takes all of the fun and creativity from the earlier titles and replaces them with pure RNG and microphone mechanics. I’m already not a huge fan of the stylus controls so throwing in the microphone is overkill. There are some decent ideas here and the graphics are solid, but the negatives kept this game from going into the green.

The basic plot is that the main character has entered a Beyblade tournament as usual. He is ready to win, but quickly discovers that something shady is going on. It turns out that a villain group has entered and they aim to destroy all of the beyblades they fight. The heroes don’t like this and aim to stop the villains, but is the villain group really doing this or are they all getting played by a new character? One thing’s for sure, the world of Beyblade won’t be safe until all of the villains are thrown out and justice prevails once and for all.

So the gameplay is the problem with the game and I will describe why that is here. Each match is a best of 7 set against the opponent (Why 7? This just drags out each fight) and the goal is to either break your opponent’s Beyblade, knock it out of bounds, or hit it enough times where it stops moving. Each method of victory is worth a different amount of win. 3, 2, and 1 respectively. Each stage is a small circle where your beyblades spin around and whack each other. You can’t move your Beyblade, but you can determine where it charges by swiping with the stylus. Additionally you can tap the stage to recover health, tap really quickly to jump, or tap on your Beyblade to activate your shield. Then you’ve also got the two special abilities at your disposal which you can equip prior to the battle.

Your Beyblade will start out at rank F and as you fight it will improve. Additionally whatever support equipment you have on will level up as you play more games. Eventually your stats should be high enough where winning will be easy. It’s a long process though and you lose all of your progress when you leave the game aside from your rank and possibly the equipment upgrades. The story mode is structured like an arcade title so you have to beat the 8-10 levels in one shot. You get infinite continues so eventually you should be able to power your way through, but you do have to make sure that you don’t leave. It should only take around an hour so if you’re having fun then you’ll be okay.

Part of the problem with the game is your Beyblade is completely outmatched from the start. Even if you get a perfect launch and all you will lose in a straight up fight. Towards the end of the game the only way to win is to knock the other Beyblade out of the ring. Winning straight up in any other way appears to be impossible. Then to give yourself a little extra health at the end you have to blow into the microphone which is pretty odd. I’ve rarely seen games force you to use the microphone like this and it definitely didn’t award Beyblade any extra points. I’d rather not have to use that thing unless 100% necessary. It just feels like a gimmick.

So for most of the levels you are really just focused on swiping every which way until your Beyblade knocks the opponents out of the ring. You have to do this twice in each match to get the necessary 4 points to move on. If you do decide to fight head on, I’d recommend the Power Slam move which does a good amount of damage and the healing ability. Those make for a good pair and do work pretty well until you get to the final 2-3 fighters. At that point things get pretty dicey so get ready to focus on knocking the Beyblade away. I went with a full attack set of equipment, but there are a lot of different options so you may want to experiment.

In terms of the graphics I thought the game did a pretty good job of looking sharp. The illustrations were definitely on point and made the game feel dynamic even if there wasn’t much of a story to look at. Having more cutscenes definitely would have been very helpful to the game if you ask me. It makes the whole thing just feel more engaging. The bits of story we did get were pretty fun too. The villain was solid and his final line of asking the main character to be friends was definitely wholesome. It reminds me why the franchise looks so cool.

There isn’t much of a soundtrack to speak of. Meanwhile I wouldn’t say that there is a lot of replay value to speak of. I suppose you could work on beating the story mode with all of the characters. There are around 30 or more to choose from so that should definitely take you quite a while. By the time you’ve done that I think you’ll be ready to part with the title. Each story is around an hour to 90 minutes so you’re looking at a 30+ hour game. Hopefully there would be enough of a story mode there to justify it for you though because that’s a lot of Beyblade matches for this kind of gameplay.

Overall, Beyblade Metal Fusion was one of the harder games I’ve played, but not in a good way. The levels weren’t well designed or anything like that. It’s just that the gameplay was hard to wrap my head around and the opponents always had superior specs which didn’t really allow for the matches to be fair and balanced. Ideally the Beyblades should be around equal so then you can win with your own skill. I do have high hopes that the next game should be better. The series still does have a solid track record aside from this game. Unless you are a huge Beyblade fan I’d recommend buying one of the older ones instead or just taking a pass on this one. It really doesn’t have much to offer you.

Overall 5/10

Yugioh Duelist of the Roses Review

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It’s time to look at what I’d say is easily the strangest Yugioh game. For starters the game has nothing to do with the actual characters from the series and the plot seems to be based on a war from a very long time ago. The story definitely isn’t very interesting and there isn’t much of one in the first place so the gameplay will have to hold the game up on its own. Will it be able to make this title a success?

When you start the game you are summoned as the legendary Rose duelist by the Red Rose army who are currently losing the battle against the White Rose. You are their last hope to try and turn the tide of the war. Seto, who is the leader of the White side shows up and asks you to join him instead to rule the world. This is where you make your choice of which faction to play as. The game is around 10-11 duels long and the path you take determines which array of fighters you will be contending with. The goal is to get all 8 of the cards by beating 8 guardians and there are some extra fighters along the way.

When you first start the game you get to choose your starter deck. All of them are pretty awful if you ask me and you can expect to lose quite a lot of duels at first. Your opponents have everything whole you’ve got basic cards that aren’t strong enough to win. What I was surprised about is that the computer already has significantly more powerful monsters at 2700 from the start while your guys are limited to 1500. Anyone who was able to beat these guys with a starter deck right off the bat has my respect on this one.

Another complication is that the game doesn’t even follow Yugioh rules. I was surprised about this because of you don’t have the rules or the characters then why is this a Yugioh game anyway? I should mention that the main connection in the story is that the characters happen to look like Yugioh characters…that’s it. It’s like when a show does a Christmas Carol and they are all not themselves for that one AU episode. This is the same concept and I guess you’ve got the monsters even if the gameplay is different.

The gameplays a bit complex, but here’s my best attempt at a solid write up. You start out with your captain or vanguard if you will. You can move him one space a time along a board that is fairly large. Around 10 by 6 or something like that. The goal is to destroy the opponent’s guardian. Both guardians always start with 4000 HP but that can go up or down based on spell and trap cards. If you attack the opponent directly then your attack power will determine how much health is lost. You can summon 1 monster per turn and that monster can move 1 space per turn unless it has a type advantage and then it can move two times. All of the opponents you fight will have the type advantage so expect them to always be moving two spaces at a time. A spell card to change the terrain comes in handy for this although they have a very limited range so they aren’t always too great. It’s still a good balancer in the right circumstance, but keep in mind that playing this spell will prevent you from summoning a monster that turn.

You gain 3 stars each turn and monsters require stars to summon. The strongest monsters need 8 stars so you can choose to either wait a few turns and summon them or keep on summoning weaker ones. Usually you want at least one card to defend yourself with and then you start saving up. Then you’ve got all of the spell and trap cards to deal with and you can fuse some into monsters to make them stronger. You can also fuse monsters from your hand but the game doesn’t let you know if they’re compatible so it’s a lot of trial and error here. If you make the wrong call then you’ll lose the first card in each fusion which can be a bit tiresome. This is the best way to clear your hand out to get more cards though. Just smash all of the cards together and next turn you’ll get 5 fresh ones. There’s a lot more to this gameplay, but it’s so complex that the only way to really get it is to play the game first hand. That’s when it’ll all really start to make sense.

As for the graphics, the game has some pretty good illustrations. For the most part there aren’t too many cutscenes but we get a few paintings at the end and one at the start. I prefer animated cutscenes but there was a good amount of effort put into these pieces of art. In game the stages and effects are decent but not all that fun to look at. All of the stages are pretty similar and the whole thing looks pretty dreamy all the time. Better level designs would have been ideal.

I already spoke to the game’s difficulty level and I can assure you that it’s one of the toughest games I’ve played. Beating the whole thing with a starter deck is impossible so the idea is you beat the first few guys, take their cards and keep on beating them til you get a lot of good ones. Then you move on. It requires a lot of wins as well as rng to get the right cards. Then in the duel you need a fair amount luck to draw the right card at the right time. Ultimately I had to just grab some cards through the password mode to get through these duels. I recommend doing this if you need to save some time because otherwise you will be here for a very long time. It does help with the replay value I suppose. The game should last you for quite a while and once you beat it you get to play all over again as the other team.

Overall, Yugioh Duelist of the Roses is an odd game with a confusing gameplay system. It takes quite a while to learn how to really play the game and even then it’s hard to get invested into it. The duels feel like they take quite a long time although that’s normal for a Yugioh game. Once you turn the animations off it speeds up quite a bit. If you like a good strategy type game then this is the one for you. There are a few similarities to Fire Emblem after all. Otherwise I would definitely recommend playing a different Yugioh game instead. My top recommendations would be World Championship or any of the PSP titles. Those actually follow the Yugioh rules and have a better plot. (Note that some of the World Championships don’t have a plot so carefully choose which one you want to play)

Overall 5/10

Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Saiyans Review

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It’s time to look at a DBZ game that has always been quite well known as an underratted classic. Just about every threat I go to about great DBZ games there is at least one person naming this game. People seem to love just how in depth it went as well as the solid gameplay. While I’m not ready to call it the best DBZ game I will say that it is great. Ir’s too bad that they couldn’t have covered more of the story than just the Saiyan Saga, but you’ll likely never see such a detailed lookthrough in any other game. It’s impressive how much is shown here and the gameplay is pretty tight.

The story actually starts with some adventures from Dragon Ball. The main part starts when Raditz shows up halfway through the way though and we learn that more Saiyans are on the way. Goku and friends will have to surpass their limits if they want to beat these guys, but the problem is that time is not on the hero’s side. They will only have an hour to get ready and that’s a really short time table. Still, the heroes have been through worse odds before and come out on top so they won’t let this get to them.

So the gameplay is similar to the turn based style of Pokemon, but more interactive. I’d say that the Mario & Luigi series is a good benchmark for this one. The reason for that is because you can click buttons at the right time to minimize damage which is always an interesting change. If you get really good at blocking then you’ll need to do less grinding than someone who isn’t able to react in time. It adds some strategy there. Then you’ve also got the line-up strategies. You can have 3 people in the front and up to 5 in the back although you’ll never get a full party of 8 in the game. You will probably figure that having 3 people in the front at all times is your best bet, but there is actually a good reason to only have 1 at times. The EXP you get in battle is evenly split up between the characters in your active party with the backups only getting 10% of it. So if you’ve only got 1 guy in the front then he will get massive amounts of EXP. It helps a lot with leveling.

Typically I kept my whole group of 3 in the front though. If the other members die in one hit for the boss fights then you’d be in trouble anyway so at least this way it kept the fighters close. At first in the game I would lose to the boss each time which would then require more grinding. The game can be difficult so expect to have to level up quite a lot. There are numerous strategies to try out though and a vast level up tree. What abilities you decide to improve and rank up will play a huge factor in how your character turns out. Personally I decided to just max out attack power for everyone and I always ignored the other stats. Good attack will go a long way right? That’s the way I figured it. Unfortunately when you beat the game you are taken to right before the final boss so you can only control Gohan, Krillin, and Goku. Everyone else that you trained up is lost forever unless there is some way to find them again. That part’s a little unfortunate.

Most of the game you will just need to figure out on your own as you play through. I personally say you should max out one special attack for each fighter first. Then work on unlocking ultimate attacks by powering up other techniques and you should be good to go. Definitely buy a good amount of potions for the end game because you’ll be going through 5-6 boss battles in a row. Losing in the middle of those would have definitely been rough if you ask me. I recommend being around level 50 to make the battle go smoothly and be careful with the Kaio-Ken. It’s the best move in the game but if you can’t finish the opponent off before it runs out you are most likely doomed to be defeated since you can’t move or block for a few turns.

There is a lot of content in this game and it took me around 20 hours to conquer the main story. Should you decide to do the bonus content like fighting Broly and maxing everyone out it’ll take even longer. This is not a short game so you’ll have a lot of replay value here. Even without playing any side quests you’ll be here for a while since I didn’t really do any of them myself. The game can be a bit pricey online but at least you know you’ll be getting a great game.

Meanwhile the game doesn’t cheap out on any other areas. The graphics here are quite good. One thing that might drag on for you are the explanation points and other symbols that show up after every line in the cutscenes. Hold down the R button to speed things along, but let go when clicking on the dialogue or otherwise you’ll skip some lines. Doing this helps to make the cutscenes go by pretty quick. All of the attacks are flashy and I like that you can see the improvement as you level them up. Then you’ve got the soundtrack which is pretty good. The boss battle against Vegeta was great and I also liked the general danger theme that plays constantly. The basic boss theme is also sound. It’s just a very well rounded array of tunes.

Overall, Attack of the Saiyans definitely lived up to the hype. It’s a classic DBZ RPG that can hold its own with the best of em. I managed to beat the game on Friday the same day that Kakarot arrived so it was good timing. Now I can effectively take a look at the PS4 version of the RPG. I already know it’s going to be a top notch game for sure. While I’m sure most of my readers will be picking this one up, I’d say you should also buy Attack of the Saiyans if you’re a big fan of the series or if you just like RPG titles. It’s a lot of fun with really sound gameplay mechanics.

Overall 8/10

Star Fox 2 Review

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It’s time to look at a pretty obscure Star Fox game. Not a lot of people got to play this game back in the day although that has changed to a degree since the game was included on the SNES classic and now it’s also available through the Switch Online. I can definitely see why Nintendo wanted to bury this game back in the day though. While I applaud Nintendo’s effort to make a new kind of Star Fox game, it really doesn’t hold up nearly as well as the original. The gameplay just isn’t that good and that’s always tough to get past for a video game.

The basic plot is that Andross wants to conquer the star systems once again. Fox and friends don’t want to let this happen, but at the same time it’s going to be really hard to put a stop to this. The team splits up and prepares to defeat the opposing planets while protecting their own. This takes you to the hub world which shows you where everything is at. It’s a bit overwhelming but you’ll get the gist of it after a few minutes. Corneria is your home base and if it gets destroyed then that is an instant game over. Your goal is to stop the missilles heading towards it and taking down all of the enemy bases. Personally I feel like the easiest thing to do is taking out all of the bases right away. The villains won’t have time to blow up Corneria if you do that. That’s what I did and the game is over within 40-50 minutes.

The actual gameplay is a 3D shooter. You fly through the air and try to blast the ships out of the sky. This is the worst part of the gameplay because it’s hard to see anything. Your sensor is oddly not in the middle of your screen so you have to find it and then shoot from there. It’s just not very fun and the gameplay feels like it was slapped together. It’s always hard to tell where you’re at or even just moving in general. Fortunately not all of the levels use this gameplay style but it would have to be one of the worst shooter gameplays I’ve tried.

The other style is your ground missions which ties into the final level. You get to run around as a walker and blast various objects. It actually feels pretty similar to Star Fox Assault which is good since that is still the best Star Fox title. You can also switch back to your Arwing if necessary but I don’t see why you would do that. The walker is way easier to move around in and the blasters take down all of the enemies very quickly. The final boss even goes down quickly like this and the gameplay is a lot more fun. This would be a whole different game if you could just play in the walker the whole time. It’s just really solid.

If I had to describe why the gameplay didn’t work, it’s just a little too unfocused. It can be hard to know what is happening right away and it’s just too hard to turn around. The boss against the long snake is a good example of that as he keeps flying around you and it’s so hard to keep up with him. He barely ever tries to attack you so the boss isn’t hard, just a little on the tedious side. I think the first person view is what tripped the game up, it should have been more of a third person camera view like the original Star Fox. That’s always a safer approach if you ask me.

Team Wolf shows up in this game, but they don’t really serve much purpose except to give you a quick dogfight. The level is okay but surprisingly Leon was way more difficult than Wolf. Wolf went down almost instantly while Leon actually beat me the first time. The difficulty level here isn’t as crazy as some SNES games, but it’s still tough enough where you can’t just breeze through the whole thing. You will have to think through your moves and be very careful about how you approach each level. One loss means game over, but the rewind feature on the SNES should help you avoid that.

Meanwhile the graphics are pretty good. In this area at least I’d say it keeps up pretty well with the original game and maybe even surpasses it. I was glad we got little text cutscenes even if the game didn’t have the most elaborate story in it. At least having a bit of a story is better than none right? The soundtrack is also decent I suppose. Not the most imaginative, but it’s got those classic Star Fox vibes that always work well. As for replay value, I wouldn’t really say there is much. You can try beating the game in a different way but there’s not a whole lot of reason to do so. I suppose if you just like the game enough then that’s not a bad idea. Since the game is free it’s not like you need the game to be quite as long though.

Overall, Star Fox 2 is a fairly weak Star Fox game. I have to say that the franchise has had a pretty tough time over the years. The original Star Fox game was decently good, but then we had this one which wasn’t very good. Star Fox Assault was amazing and Adventures was pretty good but then we had Command and Zero which really could not hold their own on that level. I hope the next Star Fox game we get is more like Assault and brings the series into the elite level. The concept is still so much fun and Fox is always a great character to have around. I don’t really recommend this game, but if you have the Switch Online then you may as well check it out. Otherwise I’d say you should just pick up Assault instead.

Overall 5/10