Unfortunately, there are no stats because the game doesn’t save any of your progress. That’s a little odd for a Pinball game isn’t it?
Pac-Man Pinball Advance Stats and Records
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Tag Archives: GBA
Reign of Fire Stats and Records
There is no save feature in this game so there aren’t any stats as a result. Gotta love the old password games eh?
Reign of Fire Review
It’s time to look at an old Game Boy Advance game that I’ve had for a very long time. I finally managed to complete it the other day as I just barreled through the game from start to finish in 2 batches. It’s a game that definitely feels like a cash in and even embraces this, but still has some potential. There are fun aspects to the gameplay, but the overall product definitely needed more polish. In the end, this didn’t end up being a surprise hit or anything like that, but if you’re looking for a fun way to spend 2-4 hours, this is your ticket!
The story of the game roughly follows the movie, but it only contains the bare minimum requirements of a plot. The game starts off with characters yelling about supplies and that dragons are dangerous. You spend a few missions growing crops, destroying Dragon Eggs and adding more people to your crew. Rinse and Repeat for 9 missions. I was fully expecting one of the groups to betray the heroes since I feel like that happened in the film, but instead they all jump into the alliance wholeheartedly and say the exact same things. “Why fight each other when we can fight dragons?” They all seem so sincere that you will naturally be very suspicious the entire time. I know that I was! Still, you probably aren’t playing this game for the plot.
Instead you are playing this for the gameplay. It uses an overhead style similar to Marvel’s Ultimate Alliance. You have an unlimited ammo of missilles that work just like bullets as you mow down the legions of dragons that chase you down. You don’t have to worry about the flying ones as they will rarely even fire a single shot, but the ones on the ground are the tricky ones. The Red Dinos can fire off multiple fire blasts and your allies will typically get hit every time, leaving you to fend off the armies on your own. You can find health supplies along the route so use them whenever necessary. Most of the missions will involve you searching for something so follow the compass and you’ll hopefully be fine.
The core mechanics of this game don’t seem all that bad. Walking and shooting can work well as a decent, linear experience. Think Super Mario or Pac Man, the games are simple, but effective. The problem is the technical limitations of the game. For starters, you can’t run. The characters move very slowly while the environments are incredibly large and sparse. This makes for a bad combination since you can be walking for several minutes in a row. There’s a reason why they give you a full 30 minutes to complete each level after all. Furthermore, the compass is rarely accurate. As I just said, the levels are huge and there are mountains blocking off several paths.
Let’s say the compass is pointing straight down. You’ll start heading that way only to be stopped by a long row of mountains as far as the eye can see. You must now guess whether the path to get lower is right or left. Choose incorrectly and you won’t make it back within 30 minutes. You can literally spend that entire time just walking around. This is partially due to the fact that all of the levels seem to share the same map and each level covers a different part of town. If you make a wrong turn in level 6, you may wander into the level 1 area and that journey takes a very long amount of time. Personally, I’d say that each level should have had its own stage. At the very least, you shouldn’t be able to walk between them by mistake, that doesn’t seem right.
That part was easily the most frustrating aspect. It’s not as bad as a bad puzzle or anything like that, but it really does slow your momentum down. The game isn’t very difficult once you understand what to do, but the game really does leave you to your own devices right from the start. For example, I died in level 1 many times because I didn’t know how to enter the Harvestor vehicle. Once I found that out, it was smooth sailing and the rest of the levels were pretty easy. There actually is a final boss so that’s neat. You have to fight against a giant dragon. The anticlimactic part is the fact that this dragon isn’t really any stronger than the minions. It has a lot more health, but it won’t even try attacking you since it just burns houses in the meantime.
After completing the human’s campaign, you unlock Dragon Mode. I wish this had been around from the start since it is certainly a lot more fun than the first mode. Granted, I probably would have started with the humans anyway. The gameplay is similar except you play as a dragon so you can fly and you also have super speed while walking. That really fixes one of the big negatives that I had with the gameplay. It is a little lazy that all of the dragons have the same emoticon/facial picture though. It’s interesting to see things from their point of view. I only completed two of their levels and probably won’t go and beat the others anytime soon. It would be fun, but I have other games to play and spent enough time on this one.
It does help the replay value though. Make sure that you jot down the password saves after each level because you likely won’t be able to find them online and then you’d have to start all the way from the beginning again. I do wish that the game had a save feature and I’m glad that it has become the standard for games nowadays. It really can make a world of difference. I would like to quickly point out that one of the pictures used for one of the characters instantly reminded me of a twitch emote. I dunno, the resemblence may not be all that striking from this angle, but go to Twitch chats for a while and it will all start to make sense.
The graphics aren’t bad, but they’re not great either. The title didn’t put a whole lot of effort into the character models. Everything is clear in the sense that you can distinguish between all of the objects, but they do tend to be a little blurry and unrefined. The soundtrack is fairly limited although I did play most of the game on mute. I made sure to listen to it a little afterwards though. It’s just not all that special or spectacular and you may want to keep it off as the constant sound effects from shooting and all of the explosions make it a very loud experience.
Overall, It feels good to be done with this game once and for all. The first level had be worried that the game would be quite terrible, but it picked up quite a bit from there. It’s still not a great game or even a very good one, but it can at least hold its own now. I think you’ll enjoy playing it and the game should be up for sale at less than 5 dollars online. For that price, it’s a bargain to snag. There are around 18 levels if you play both campaigns so that should buy you enough time to make the purchase worth it. With this game gone, I’ll have to see which game takes the top priority spot next time. It may be time for Yugioh to make a comeback.
Overall 6/10
The Invincible Iron Man Stats and Records
Stats time!
1/18 Artwork unlocked
Mario Pinball Land Review
I’ve played most of the Mario games at this point so it’s always neat to finally play one of the elusive ones. I love pinball and I’ve had fun playing many variations of the game. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a big fan of Pokemon pinball and the Metroid Pinball game that I bought never actually worked. It’s the risk of buying used games, but only 1 in every 100 doesn’t work so it’s been a fair trade off. I’m happy to say that Nintendo once again showed that the extra effort they put in can pay off big. Mario Pinball Land isn’t your average Pinball game and chooses to alter the core gameplay a bit to make this more of a complete game. It comes at the expense of the old style where you would try for high scores, but that’s fine since it ends up making Pinball Land feel like more of a full Mario game.
Peach is kidnapped by mean ole Bowser so Mario makes the hero call and turns himself into a pinball. He’s taking the fight to Bowser now, but since he’s a ball and his friends launched him to a circus instead of the castle, it’ll be a long journey. Mario must now gather the four star keys to open the doors to the areas where he can really deal some damage to big bad Bowser. Can he make it in time or is he toast?
The gameplay is essentially pinball. You have two flippers and you must try to bounce Mario around. Unlike an average game of Pinball, there are typically 2 or more exits in the levels, which you can use to get to other parts of the world. When you want to leave, you must go to one of the pipes in the level. That part can be a little annoying as you can’t just pause and escape to the next world. You must make it to the pipe or die trying. Meanwhile, the pipe only shows up once you beat the boss of that world, which can be tricky. Your only other recourse is to get a game over, which takes you to the first world, where you should have a pipe since you must have beaten the first boss…right?
There are around 35 stars to obtain in the worlds, but you only need 15 to go and fight the final boss so that’s pretty lenient. You should get that amount as you wander through the levels, but don’t underestimate the doors. You’ll find yourself getting rolled to the next room whether you want to go or not, which can definitely get sad at times. I was actually surprised at the merciless difficulty within this game. It may be a Mario game, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that it’s an easy ride. This will require patience as the final boss took me around an hour or so. At one point, it took me 2 hours to get 4 stars because of how many times I would shoot past the enemies and have to redo the battle.
Each star is won by achieving certain feats. Typically, this involves defeating each of the enemies in a room or something like that. You’ll know if a room has a star because a star will glimmer for a split second as you enter. The enemies aren’t tough and the risks of falling through the level and losing a life are slim so it’s really just a matter of time. Eventually you will be able to secure the win and the whole game is auto save ready so that’s a nice plus.
The graphics are surprisingly good and Nintendo did a good job of giving each character 3D models. It’s sort of like playing Mario 64 portable with a different control scheme. Everything seems to be based off of that game and why not right? Mario 64 is still the ultimate Mario experience. So, the graphics aren’t just good, but very good. Meanwhile, the soundtrack is decent, but certainly less remarkable. I probably couldn’t tell you any of the themes from the game because they definitely were not all that memorable. It’s Pinball so that’s to be expected and the constant sound effects would distract you from that anyway.
Since the game is so tough, the duration isn’t as short as you would expect. Getting the 15 stars will take you some time unless you’re some kind of Pinball whiz. It’s a complete game and there’s a good amount of replay value as you can go back and try to get the rest of the stars. One important aspect of the game that will help you during the tough fights are the power ups that Toad gives…for a price. You pay him in coins and he can give power ups like Mushrooms, Lightning, or 1 Ups. Lightning is the best power up in my opinion as it destroys all enemies on the field. A perfect way to instantly get a star. The Star power up is also good since it makes you invincible and sometimes you can injure bosses that way instead of going through the actual fight.
Speaking of which, I actually believe that Mario Pinball has the toughest Mario final boss from any Mario title. That fight was seriously hard and I could not beat it at will. It may take less grinding than the final boss of a game like Mario and Luigi or Paper Mario, but once you get the level ups, then you’re set. In this fight, even though I know what to do, it would still probably take me a few more shots if I tried to complete it once more. Luckily, the second phase of the boss is pretty easy, which helps to balance that insane first part.
Aside from the replay value, I also feel like mentioning that Mario Pinball Land has difficulty that is fair. Some games (Finding Nemo) are tough, but for all the wrong reasons. Poorly explained puzzles, bad graphics, etc. Mario Pinball Land is tough, but the mechanics are all solid. Your reaction times just have to be on point and eventually you will be able to hit the ball where you want it to go. It’s all about player skill and none of that luck or puzzle nonsense. This is a game that leaves you feeling satisfied.
Overall, Mario Pinball Land is a great pinball game and probably the best one that I’ve played. It easily beats the Pokemon version and the Metroid one has not worked yet so I can’t say for sure, but I’m pretty sure that it beats that one. I finally got it to work earlier today so I may play it a bit for a review later on. I definitely recommend Mario Pinball Land. It’ll give you a nice challenge and it’s still close enough to the real Pinball game so that Pinball fans can enjoy it. It’s a very unique Mario game and one where you can feel proud of yourself upon completing it.
Overall 7/10
Yoshi Topsy Turvy Review
Yoshi has always been a pretty solid supporting character for Mario. He’s a trusted ally who is always ready to help the plumber whenever the hero is in a tough spot. I am definitely glad to see that Yoshi has gotten several games. We had fun with his adventure with Mario on the GBA so a Yoshi solo game should be fun as well right? I’m happy to say that it was definitely a blast and it’s a very unique Mario game thanks to the tilting feature.
The game opens with Bowser going on the attack once again. Using his magical spells, Bowser makes pretty short work out of the opponents. They just don’t have what it takes to defeat these guys. Mario and friends are busy somewhere else to it’s up to Yoshi to save his island. Before he can accomplish such a feat, a new character with unlimited power throws the whole island inside of a book. Yoshi will have to quickly adapt and take out Bowser himself if he is ever to get this being to let him out. It’ll be Yoshi’s toughest adventure yet, but he’s definitely ready for it!
The gameplay is what you would expect from a Mario side scroller right? Well, I’m happy to say that this is not the whole story. I’d be just as happy as the next guy if this played out as the next Super Mario World or Advance, but it’s good for Yoshi to be able to distinguish itself from the famous plumber. There are the usual 2D side scroller elements to be sure, but with a few new twists. The first one is the fact that there is the new tilting feature. You can walk on walls as they become the ground when you tilt the Game Boy. You can use this feature to jump higher, move obstacles out of the way, and much more. Using the tilting feature is all about strategy and it also makes the usual actions like jumping and walking a little more strategic.
Yoshi’s famous boots are back as well and it’s fun to jump on the enemies. I forget if his boots will allow you to stop on spiky enemies or not, but it’s a nice addition. Of course, you can always choose to eat your opponents, which is Yoshi’s most iconic attack. As with most Mario games, there are 6 worlds. There aren’t any bonus levels that I’m aware of, but given that this is like the Mario games…I wouldn’t be surprised if there was one for getting all of the Gold Medals. The 6 worlds vary in length. The last world had as many as 12 levels in it while the first only had 3. It’s a nice balance though and the game will definitely last you for a decent amount of time on your initial playthrough. (That’s before we even begin to count the replay value factor! Not bad if I do say so myself!)
As you play through the game, you will notice that there aren’t many boss fights. There is actually only one boss fight in the entire game and you also get a level where you have to avoid Bowser’s flames. Pretty tricky stuff eh? I’ll admit that the game loses some minor points by tossing out the bosses, but not enough to make it drop in the overall rating. The actual levels are still very fun.
Each level has a goal. There are the levels where you have to run to the goal, levels where you collect eggs, defeat enemies, spare enemies, and so on. It makes the levels a little more challenging since you can’t just worry about getting to the end. Each level has 4 sections as well, which helps to make them a little longer. Some levels even have two goals at once, which can really make you work for the win. Clearing the goals will give you a silver medal and you can earn a Gold if you really over performed on the requirements. Getting the golds can definitely be tough and you’ll really have to play the level a lot to get a feel for how you should go about completing it.
The graphics are pretty nice and I can definitely say that they are a cut above the King of Fighters game. They are still using sprites, but everything looks so neat and colorful. This is definitely what I want to see from a big Nintendo game. You can tell that they put the necessary effort into it. The drawings look pretty decent as well. The game may not be ready to challenge something like the New Super Mario Bros just yet, but we’re getting there.
The soundtrack is very good as well. This is to be expected for any game that is related to the Mario series. The stage themes are pretty soothing and they help to enhance the experience. Admittedly, they may not be that memorable, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that they are still some very good tunes. The sound effects are all iconic at this point and you’ll have fun zipping from one place to the next. This game definitely holds up pretty well in all aspects.
There are at least 5 different mini games to unlock in this title. There was one that was already unlocked when I got the game, but I don’t know how to unlock the others. Maybe I need to get all of the Gold Medals and all of the Eggs to get them. That definitely adds to the replay value and just trying to get all of the Gold Ranks will take some time. Moreover, the gameplay is a lot of fun so you may want to just have fun going through some of them without worrying about the goals.
Now, did the tilting actually improve the game? Well, it was an interesting effect and it did make the game more unique. It’s hard to say whether it actually helped or not though since I still would have had a lot of fun without it. The tilting was just there and it added another dimension to the gameplay. It definitely didn’t make it worse and I actually prefer it to the new concept of motion based gaming. It’s too bad that the whole tilting thing basically died out. I guess it’s because you can tilt while using motion controls anyway.
Overall, Yoshi Topsy Turvy is definitely another great sidescroller from Nintendo. I still find the regular Mario games to be more fun, but it’s a very tried and true formula. It’s good to see Nintendo taking some risks with the tilting effects and Yoshi deserved to have another title for himself. It’s not every day that we see the happy dinosaur take on Bowser! Trust me, Yoshi is not to be trifled with. “Yoshi was not amused” is one of the final lines in the game and Yoshi’s expression is pretty fierce in that instant. This dinosaur definitely has the bite to back up his bark. I definitely recommend this to any gamer and especially to Nintendo fans. Don’t let the tilting effect scare you away since it’s done pretty well. This game has enough content to keep you busy for quite a while and the most important part is that it’s just fun to play. It’s easy to just pick it up and try out a few levels at any time. This is why the Mario games have gotten so popular over the years. This definitely makes me a little more excited to get Yoshi’s new 3DS game!
Overall 7/10
King of Fighters Ex: Neo Blood Stats and Records
My Stats!
Arcade Mode Single Record 94923
King of Fighters Ex: Neo Blood Review
The King of Fighters series has never been quite as popular as Street Fighter. It got pushed over to the obscure arcade brawling side along with Virtua Fighter. There are definitely many fans of this series, but it just doesn’t get a lot of publicity anymore. At least the PS3 game is typically in stores. (And I will get to that era someday) I’ve owned the sequel to this game for a long time to I always knew that I’d buy the sequel someday. What I couldn’t have expected…was that I’d be playing over 400 rounds in this game!
Yes, I played over 400 rounds in this title. Shocking isn’t it? Well, there are over 20 characters and you have the typical Arcade Mode for each of them. The matches consist of a best of 5 rounds set so you’re guaranteed to be playing at least 3 rounds for every match. There are 8 battles per character so then you just do the math. 8*3*22= Over 400 Matches. The only problem with the Arcade Mode is the fact that it’s not very well done. There usually isn’t a whole lot of effort plugged into it, but you still expect some kind of opening and ending. There are no openings, but each character does get an ending. The problem is that most of the cutscenes are identical for each character. The dialogue is slightly reworded and it doesn’t even make sense half of the time. The writing can be so bad that it’s funny.
Of course, you begin to tire of the gameplay after the first 200 matches or so. I would actually say that it’s a decently good feat that I was able to complete the 400 rounds without feeling too exhausted. So, I have to give the game some props for that. Unfortunately, Arcade Mode is really the only thing to do in the game. This was in the era before Wi-Fi so I can’t say that I expected a real multiplayer option. Connecting two Game Boys together as a last resort was fun back in the day, but I need Wi-Fi!
The actual gameplay barely needs to be explained, but I’ll quickly reference it anyway. You essentially press your buttons as fast as you can to try and attack the opponent. There are likely combos and other tricks that you can try, but button mashing is enough to win. It’s like Street Fighter, but the gameplay isn’t quite as deep yet. This is a GBA game so it definitely had its limits at the time. The actual gameplay can still be fun for a while, but it’s not a real page turner like Smash Bros.
The soundtrack is pretty good for the game. The themes are pretty catchy although you may find yourself putting the game on silent to tune out the sound effects. The characters yell for every action and that can definitely get old pretty quickly. The graphics are decent. The game uses sprites and the actions flow together pretty smoothly. The sprites could definitely look a lot cleaner, but they do have to be compressed into a pretty small screen. The graphics definitely aren’t bad considering that this is a GBA game. The Battle Network titles definitely show this one up though.
I bought this game for a penny and then I gladly paid the 4 dollar shipping. For this price, it’d be a shame not to play one of the big fighting titles! This won’t make the series begin to compete with the others like Street Fighter and Tekken, but it’s a start. I remember Terry from the olden days of Capcom vs SNK. Terry is my official gamer name across all of my titles so it’s definitely good to see a fighter with the name. I can assure you that he is one of my go to fighters in the game. Assuming that I ever play it again of course.
The problem is that there is no replay value. Beating Arcade Mode 2-3 times will likely be enough for most people. After that, there is only so much that you can do with the game. The rest of the modes are more of the same. There is a team option, but it will just mean that each battle will be a whole lot longer. You can always increase the difficulty to test your limits and to see what the game has in store for you, but that will only buy you a little time at best.
Overall, This was a decent fighting game. It’s basically what I expected, although the score is slightly lower than I had envisioned. The one thing that didn’t come through for me was the Arcade Mode. I expected better endings to be honest and a more diverse experience. Having the same thing happen over and over again can get pretty tedious. The roster of characters is pretty large, which is always great and their attack methods are diverse. I recommend this game to the truly hardcore fighting fans who want to see how the mechanics will work on the Game Boy. The game is going for a pretty cheap price right now so it’s really a steal. I recommend going for it, but if you want more of a lasting experience..get Ultra Street Fighter IV!
Overall 6/10
Yugioh Ultimate Masters World Championship 2006
I sort of beat the game a while back, but I never got the final 3 unlockable duelists because it involved clearing challenges so I didn’t really feel like that was part of the main game. This all happened a long time ago though so there shall not be a review for it at this point in time. Still, I highly recommend this game and it is easily one of the best Yugioh titles!
Overall 8/10
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