I’m still working on completing the PS4 Knack game, but in the meantime I decided to go ahead and try out the mobile version. This little app game allows you to gather pieces for the gadgets in the PS4 game so you can send them along and save yourself some time…in theory. This is helpful since the gem system in the PS4 game is rather tedious. You only get one part per treasure chest and you can only find them in story mode. Even Level Select doesn’t have them. It’s impossible to get all of the pieces in one playthrough and you could end up playing the game over several times without getting everything. That’s essentially why this game was made. If you play it long enough, you can eliminate around 80% of the grind. It’s a great concept and unlike other free to play games, there is no waiting period to tempt you into buying stuff. It actually plays out like a real game and has a ton of replay value. I could play it for hours easily since it’s like Pokemon Shuffle, but without the “Play 10 times and then wait an hour” rule. Unfortunately, no free game can be perfect at this rate as this one runs into some rather large issues.
Before I get into that, I’ll explain the gameplay. It’s your average mix and match title. You have to connect 3 or more gems of a certain color to get points. You rinse and repeat until you clear the level. You have to work fast or you’ll lose and you won’t keep any of the gems. Also, once you’ve charged enough energy to fill up 3 Sun Stones, you can use a super attack that destroys all of the gems of a certain color. (You choose the color) The game doesn’t tell you this so it’s a good heads up although you’d eventually find out about it while playing the game. The Stones charge very rapidly so you’ll be tempted to give them a whirl at some point. Each level has 3 phases and once you’ve beaten them all you move on to the next round. I believe that there are around 6 chapters so it is a fairly short game. I beat it in 2-3 hours I’d say.
After you beat the game, you unlock Unlimited Mode where you keep on earning points until you lose. It’s great for racking them up as I actually got over 999999 during one run, but I teamed up with my Mom to get that. It’d be incredibly hard to do that on your own. To earn a piece for the PS4 game, you only need 20000 at first, but eventually it’ll get to be 300000 or more. To get around that, you can delete the app and then reinstall it. You’ll keep your parts, but the requirement for a piece will go back down to the 20000. The only downside is that you’ll lose unlimited mode until you re unlock it, but I’d say that it’s definitely worth it. After all, Unlimited Mode’s one drawback is that it has a lot of load times every minute, which can get very annoying after a while.
This sounds like a positive review right? The gameplay is a blast and it’s why I look up to Free to Play games a little. The gameplay is always simple, but addictive. The problem is that this is all nullified by the game’s main problem, which literally breaks the game and destroys the score. It is simply a broken game. The app will constantly crash after almost every level and forget about looking at your pieces. Just clicking on any one of them will crash the game and a lot of times this means that the app won’t send them to the PS4 game…defeating the entire purpose. It will also crash during a game at times so you’ll lose whatever gems you may have just acquired. This would be fine if it was once in a while, but it’s constant. The game crashed on me dozens of times. I’m happy to say that I still got my time’s worth as I got around 2 dozen pieces, which has helped me quite a bit, but after a while it is simply not worth it. I don’t understand how this game can be so broken. Maybe it’s just a mobile problem. I read somewhere that IOS games that were ported to mobile are typically not very good. It explains why Madden Mobile had the same problem, albeit it was to a far lesser extent.
That’s really the only negative that I’ve got, but it’s a doozy. The most annoying part is naturally the fact that the crashing will prevent you from transporting your pieces half of the time. It’s also a waste of time to have to constantly open the app once again after it crashes. There is really no excuse for having such a broken product on the market and I’m certainly glad that it is free. It may look very useful on the outside, but it will ultimately start to get on your nerves by the end. At least the graphics are fairly good. The game is nice and bright. There is a lot of recycled footage of course, but it seems like some effort was put into this section. The soundtrack is basically nonexistent though.
Overall, I’d recommend taking a pass on this game. It’s simply not worth the time and patience that the game crashing will cost you. The gameplay is excellent and would have guaranteed the title a 7, but I can’t give it anything above a 5 since it is completely broken and glitched. I highly doubt that any patch will be coming to fix this issue so the game will likely stay in this state forever. If you want to play a free to play title, you’re better off with Pokemon Shuffle or Madden Mobile. Whatever you do, just don’t buy Knack’s Quest unless you really need the parts. If you are in that situation, then just play it for a little to get the quick parts and then get out of there!
Overall 4/10
All right, I’ve finally started the super popular One Punch Man series. It’s definitely a lot better than the other insta hits like Sword Art Online and Attack on Titan. This series shows a lot of promise and could go down as one of the better titles if it can keep up the momentum. I’ll have a review for the series when it finishes.
Overall 7/10
Remember the Bucket of Blood? Well this film’s very similar since it is made from the same guy with just about all of the same actors and a verrrrry similar plot. It is a little better since there is no animal violence but it’s still a pretty bad film. At least this way you can say that the film lived up to its name though right? There were definitely a lot of horrors to be found here to say the least. Who knows, maybe the remake is better…maybe. Well, let’s jump on in!
Seymour is a demented murderer who never really had the courage to do anything too drastic. That changes when he grows a man eating plant and ends up feeding it a body to cover up his murder. Seymour then starts going around murdering people until he finally decides to stop. It’s too late though since the plant has leveled up and now it knows how to mind control people. Seymour’s certainly in a sticky situation now, but at least he is getting rich!
There are two detectives looking into the murders, but it is tough going since the movie takes place in a rough neighborhood where people die just about every other second. Still, they’re doing their best. One guy even lost his son, but just reminded everyone that those are the brakes when you live in the area. Everyone solemnly agrees. The shop owner knows that Seymour is destroying people, but he doesn’t want to say anything because of all the money that he is earning. See the similarities between the two films yet?
What helps Seymour realize that destroying people is wrong is getting friend zoned by the main heroine yet again. Unfortunately it is just too late at that point and will power was never Seymour’s strong suit. Once the jig is up we get a very similar chase scene to the last film and Seymour decides to destroy himself, but this time he’ll also take the plant with him. Once again the ending tries to have some humor as Seymour gets one last line of vengeance. Yeah…it’s an interesting line at the very least.
One advantage that this film has over the Bucket of Blood is the fact that the plant makes for a decently cool antagonist here. I like the fact that he’s always yelling for more food. It makes him a bit more realistic and likable even if he is very unreasonable. Having basic telepathy was also very impressive. The heroes should have tried a little harder to stop him, but I suppose that they realized how outgunned they were. After all, the plant was able to take down a robber at one point without any real effort. The guy even had a gun, but I guess he didn’t suspect that the plant could be alive. Who would right?
The best character in the film is easily the guy who likes to eat flowers. He comes out of nowhere and is another really insane character to add to the rest of the cast. The film really wanted to make everyone as insane as possible, but this guy’s gimmick actually worked really well. Whenever he’d eat a flower you couldn’t help but grin at how crazy the whole thing was. I also liked the way that he confidently walked into the store and basically acted like he owned the place. He didn’t even buy the flowers he just went in and started eating them. Now that’s what I call an unexpected action!
Meanwhile, we also had a crazy dentist guy who is psychotic and likes to make people feel pain as he drills through their mouth. No worries, Seymour destroyed him, but then he meets a pain addict and decides to pretend that he is the dentist and messes with the guy for a while. It’s a very odd scene that comes out of nowhere and it reminds you that there are no sane people in this town. No wonder everyone ends up dying every day over in that place. It must be due to only having one flower shop in the whole town. Hoe can anyone enjoy the nice fragrances that way?
Parts of the film can sound humorous as a result of how crazy this whole situation is, but in the end it tends to be more wince worthy than anything else. The film’s fairly short, but at the same time it feels like you’ve already seen it all. All of the characters are really unlikable and annoying aside from the flower eater. I suppose that Seymour’s boss isn’t all that boss though. He’s the main comic relief of the film and does a pretty good job in the role. He may be corrupt, but he gets the most one liners in the film. He consistently makes sure to hint that Seymour may not be what he seems even if nobody ever picks up on his hints. At least halfheartedly trying to Seymour is better than nothing I suppose. Seymour’s definitely lucky that he ended up being in this town with the plant. With the death count being so high, it makes it a lot easier to raise the plant in secret.
I didn’t really talk about the negatives all that much since I basically covered them in the Bucket film, but this is a separate review so I should go into it at least a little. The main problem here is naturally Seymour. He’s a terrible main character and is someone that you cannot root for. The movie tries to present him as someone who is very reluctantly murdering everyone, but I can’t buy into that. He knows what he is doing the whole time and could choose not to do so. He’s simply trying to justify the whole thing to himself and isn’t doing a great job of it. It can be pretty sad to see everyone getting murdered by the plant as well with all of the sad slurping sounds. Even a poor drunk guy isn’t spared as he steps in front of train tracks and Seymour was in the area. The problem with this film is that it just isn’t all that fun half the time and the fact that none of the main characters are likable just ends up hurting it a lot. I do appreciate the friend zone card though.
Overall, The Little Shop of Horrors is certainly an improvement over the Bucket of Blood, but I wouldn’t say that it’s a huge one. It is still a bad film, but at least the humor was a little better in this film. It is interesting how all of the characters were so reused here though. This film almost feels like an AU or remake of Bucket of Blood, but just with a slightly different plot. Regardless at least we got a talking plant who happens to be evil. I’m sure that a lot of people weren’t expecting that plot to make it to the big screen. If that’s your cup of tea and you want a lot of insane characters then go for it. If you want a cooler film, then go watch Batman V Superman. Now that one brings the hype!
Overall 3/10
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