Tag Archives: Nintendo

Donkey Kong Country Returns Review

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It’s time to finally go to one of Nintendo’s most classic franchises. DK even started before Mario which is pretty impressive. I got to play most of the old games so it’s cool to see the Country series return. I never really played the music games for the GC, but they are barely even referenced here so I’m confident that they won’t be missed. I ended up getting Tropical Freeze shortly after this one so it’ll be cool to see how it stacks up. I can safely say that Country Returns is a fun game and it’s easy to see that it’s another AAA title from Nintendo.

The plot is that a mysterious being made of wood has shown up to take over the world. It mind controls all of the nearby animals and forces them to start stealing all of the bananas in the area. That’s diabolical if you ask me! They try to control DK, but it apparently doesn’t work on him. This may be a subtle shot at DK’s intelligence since he really looks…not too smart the whole time. Ah well, whatever works right? DK must stop these guys since they are insulting the bananas with their cruel schemes!

There are 8 main worlds. There is also a 9th, but to get to that one you’ll need a lot of collectibles. That’s good for the replay value though. There are puzzle pieces and 4 Letters to grab in every level. Obtaining them all will require you to master all of the levels and show the world that you are a DK pro. Even without this, the main game should take you a reasonable amount of hours. If you beat every world in an hour, then that’s around 8 which is pretty good. Even if it’s a little less than that, it’s much better than Star Fox Zero’s <4 hour play time or Into The Nexus 3 hours.

The game is reasonably difficult as well. I don't think I would say that it is quite as tough as Super Mario World, but it's been ages since I played that game so it's possible that it would be a lot easier nowadays. The gameplay is divided into a few different segments. You have the traditional platforming levels where you jump and dodge obstacles to get to the end. Where DK differs from Mario and the others is that you can roll into opponents to deal damage and you can shatter objects by slapping the floor. You'll grab onto vines to swing around and there are just many more elements than a traditional Mario game. It's made to be more complex and you have to consider a lot of variables.

A great deal of the level is interactive as well with most bushes and other suspicious objects containing bananas and golden coins for you to grab. Some of them are just trolls, but you should check them all out. Gold coins in particular are very valuable in the game. Other parts of the level will see you head into a mining cart. One hit will destroy you so you have to jump with great precision. There's also a blue cart which only appears twice in the whole game. It's slightly different as when you jump, you actually leave the cart. Thus, you have to jump and keep moving to fall into the cart again since it will speed ahead of you afterwards. It's a little easier in co-op since you effectively have two chances to survive this way. There is even a whole boss battle modeled after this style. Surprisingly I don't think there were any under water levels. No worries, Tropical Freeze fixed that.

The soundtrack isn't very lively or memorable for the most part, but I really like the villain jingle. Whenever their theme plays, you know that things are about to get real. It's a little cheesy/corny, but it's catchy and that's what counts. It is even used as the final boss theme which is pretty surreal. I can certainly say that I wasn't really expecting it when it occurred. The graphics are pretty solid. They're not amazing, but the character designs look sharp. It's fun to see a modern DK and there is something novel about seeing any Nintendo character on the big screen. Mario, Link, Kirby, DK, the games never look outright spectacular in the cutscenes despite the gameplay being super crisp, but just seeing them is really cool. Maybe it's because their series don't tend to have a lot of cutscenes, but it is more satisfying than seeing another franchise appear fully animated.

When it comes to 2D side scrollers, Mario's still got the edge over everyone. He's just impossible to beat. I'd probably give Sonic 2nd place although I mainly like it for the boss battles. The actual platforming can be a little tricky at times. Kirby would probably be third because I love cheesing levels. If we just talk about pure gameplay, Kirby even beats Sonic. Then I'd put in DK. It feels like Mario, but the extra complexities do slow it down a bit. If you count one shot games that had side scrolling like Klonoa then the list can get quite long so lets stick to Nintendo for now. I'll merge Yoshi with Mario since they're so similar. DK may be the lowest on this chart, but that just goes to show how tough the competition is. Plus, Nintendo owns 90% of those series which is equally impressive.

Really one of the best things about the game is how much content it has and how fun the levels are. It's a very high quality title that you can play for hours without getting tired. The plot may not be amazing, but the gameplay is sharp and that's really what you're looking for in a title like this. I didn't get to play the Gold Pyramid world since you need to do a lot of bonus stuff for that, but perhaps someday. It's really good to have DK finally return to the home console and maybe we'll get a game for the Switch at some point.

I don't really have any negatives with the game either. The levels all have a check point or sometimes multiple ones. If you die, you can always respawn close by. You can buy extra lives with the medals that you collect and the medals keep replenishing so getting them isn't an issue. The levels are challenging, but not unfair the way that Mario and the Lost Levels was or Mighty No 9. The levels are made to be difficult, but balanced. You'll get the hang of them with practice since the levels themselves never actually change. It's just really good game design.

Overall, Donkey Kong Country Returns is definitely a fun game. I can see why DK fans were so thrilled when it finally came back. The title does a good job of bringing back all of the classic DK elements that fans were expecting. It may have had less barrel launching than I was expecting, but I don't mind since the actual platforming is really the fun part for the game. You can get the game for a pretty good price nowadays so I'd highly recommend it. There is a lot to do here after all and the level variety is excellent. You also won't be forgetting the main jingle of the game anytime soon either. It's simply too awesome and catchy. Now, it's time to check out Tropical Freeze! So far, I'd actually say that it's easier than Returns, but I've only conquered 2 worlds so far. There's still plenty of adventure left!

Overall 8/10

The Legend of Zelda Breath of The Wild Stats and Records

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Stats Time!

Play Time 26h 39m
12 Hearts
81 Rupees
All 4 Special Powers
Main Quests Cleared 11/15
Shine Quests Cleared 2/42
Side Quests Cleared 0/76
Memories Obtained 4/18
Shrines Completed 25

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild Review

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WiiU_TheLegendofZeldaBreathoftheWild_E32016_box_013
It’s time to take a look at the latest Legend of Zelda game. It’s a very iconic series but one that I have never found quite as critically acclaimed as most. Wind Waker was phenomenal and my personal favorite game in the series. It’s the only one to have lived up to the hype of being one of the best games of all time though. I didn’t care much for Majora’s Mask with the time gimmick and overdone puzzles. I only got to play the portable version of Ocarina of Time, but it was still pretty fun. I never played Twilight Princess since the game was too extreme and would probably give me nightmares. /s Skyward Sword was actually pretty great and I’d probably put that second to Wind Waker. See, the reason why Wind Waker and Skyward Sword were so good was due to the fact that they didn’t really have any gimmicks. It was just a standard Link adventure. You didn’t get lost or have to run around aimlessly for a while. They just got straight to the point.

Now we cut away to BoTW and it has many gimmicks. First of all, there isn’t much of a plot. Zelda is being held hostage in Hyrule Castle (We turning into the Mario series?) so Link must break in and stop her. That’s essentially the entire plot. One of the big selling points of this game was the freedom that was marketed. You could speed off and go save her immediately or gather up some allies and power ups to ensure victory. I naturally sped off to save Zelda immediately since that should be Link’s top priority instead of leading on a sea mermaid, but unfortunately I was unable to win. The speed ruins of people beating the game in under an hour are certainly impressive. It ended up taking me 26 hours.

There are 4 main dungeons to complete in this game and each one that you complete will give you an ally who will take care of one of Ganon’s forms. This makes the final boss infinitely easier and you’ll also get extra Heart containers as well. Aside from the big dungeons, there are also dozens of smaller ones. Every time you complete four of them, you can get a quarter of a heart or a big more stamina.

The gameplay is like your standard LoZ game for the most part. You slice and dice away at the villains. You can also find a horse if you’re lucky and use that to save on travel time. One new innovation for this game is the dreaded stamina meter. This means that you can’t run for more than a few seconds without slowing to a walk for a few seconds. It’s a rather tedious mechanic that only serves to drag the game out. You don’t see Nier Automata bothering with such a gimmick do you? I definitely would have liked for this to have been kept out since it makes climbing in particular a little tedious.

There’s a lot to cover here so lets get started. I usually go with positives than negatives or vice versa, but it’s hard to plan it all out ahead of time in this case so I’ll be going all over the place. First off, I have to say that the concept of a free plot is pretty intriguing. I like being able to go where I want whenever I want to go. The problem is that the game only half committed to this. Since you need certain equipment to go to some areas, the freedom isn’t as extensive as you’d think. I was able to cheese my way into the Goron stronghold by having a lot of fruit and eating it every other second to combat the damage, but I’m pretty sure this wasn’t how you were supposed to do it. I also forgot to talk to the old man at the beginning so I missed out on my early chance to get the snow armor. The concept was good, but the execution was bad.

Another part of this that didn’t pan out so well was how slow Link is. In real time, it can take around 20-40 minutes to get somewhere. This gets mitigated as the game goes on since you can activate dungeons that are used as teleport points, but the first trek is always tedious. You’re supposed to be impressed with the backdrops, but a lot of the time they’re pretty empty anyway. There’s nothing to look at so you just want to keep going. Giving Link a good run speed (coughlikeNierAutomatacough) would have definitely been a really good idea. He doesn’t even need to have full turbo speed where you’re rocketing through the world, but being able to permanently run would have been a very good idea.

Now, it’s time for the worst mechanic in this game…the broken weapons. I thought we were done with those after Dark Cloud, but I guess not. This mechanic is terrible because constantly trying to find new weapons is tough. Especially since your storage is so small and after 10 it won’t let you pick something up without discarding a current weapon. I had to fight Ganon with some terrible weapons which significantly prolonged the battle. Just give me the Master Sword and let me swing forever. How I see it, only extra weapons should break, but you should always have at least one sword that is completely permanent. I can’t express enough just how terrible this was. It’s never been a good mechanic nor will it ever be one.

Breath of the Wild’s graphics are pretty good though. They may not be as impressive as Wind Waker’s, but they look good considering that this is a sandbox game. I think the graphics were probably limited to keep the world so large so it’s not quite as detailed as you’d expect at times. Still, it’s AAA quality and I really like the blue lightning effects. I also got some nice Transformers flashbacks from being knocked off a mountain and bumping into everything possible during my long slide down. Sure, it was a little annoying having to go back up, but that was still fun to watch.

Those aspects of the game were handled well. I do like how realistic the gameplay engine was with respect to falling and bumping into things. You don’t just die instantly because you fell a long distance, that was never realistic. The glider was also extremely handy and pretty fun. The game also made the 4 super skills very useful. One of them allowed you to quickly fly for a second straight up which helped a lot with climbing. Another one gave you a full revive which easily makes it the best ability in the game. A third one made you invincible for 3 hits while also stunning all enemies, even the final boss. The final skill was a thunder bolt which I didn’t find to be very useful until Ganon, but that’s reason enough to get it.

They were all quality of life upgrades that didn’t outright break the game, but made it a lot more fun. The developers certainly got that aspect right and it felt like Shantae. The journey to beating the final boss was reasonably difficult, but once you got there, you could now go back to early areas and easily get the bonus collectibles. I feel like that is definitely how a game should play out. For Breath of the Wild, it’ll be a lot more convenient to trek around and find things now that the campaign is done.

There is no doubt that Breath of the Wild has a significant amount of replay value. I could probably platy this game up to 50-60 hours and still have more to do. There are probably around 100 dungeons left and hundreds of wood chimps to find. If I went after the 100% mark it would certainly keep on proving why the game was worth the money. At the same time, Nintendo stubbornly refuses to add a trophy achievement system so there isn’t much point to doing it imo. I’d probably settle for getting the Master Sword and finding the lost memories.

Speaking of the Master Sword, it’s a real shame that you can beat the game without it. I really wanted to see it in action, but I likely never will at this point. It should have been made mandatory if you ask me. Ganon shouldn’t be able to be defeated without it. The final boss was still pretty fun though. Particularly the final phase as I was fairly stressed out. I only had 1 heart left from the first phase so I was running around like crazy trying not to get hit. I do love when final bosses are dramatic even if I’m sure that I would have rage quit for a day if I’d lost. No way was I going to replay the first phase again!

I can’t say much for the soundtrack though. LoZ’s never really been my style when it comes to music which is odd since Metroid, Star Fox, F-Zero, and even Mario have had some really good tunes. The final boss theme isn’t bad even if it’s a little generic. Most of the time, you won’t even notice music playing (If any is actually playing) which is a little unfortunate, but you can’t win them all I suppose.

Another strike against the game is that a lot of the dungeons tend to be very similar. The game is very repetitive in that respect as the 4 major dungeons are almost identical. One of them in particular was very tedious and took me almost 3 hours. It was the low point of the game for sure. Luckily the other 3 weren’t as bad and it’s still a step up from Majora’s Mask. Still, this is the problem with having all weapons from the get go and getting to decide where you want to go. The developers have to make all of the dungeons beatable from the start so it’s hard to make any of them more or less difficult without getting cheesy.

I didn’t really care for the cooking mechanic either. I never really got it and only made random stuff during my playthrough. My cooking failed each time so I blame the game on that…totally. Either way it’s not as if you really need the food. I did like the survival aspect of the game though. As I spent most of the early part with almost no hearts, one hit could KO me from any enemy. Even by the end of the game, the minions were serious threats. It was cool to see them KO me in one hit as it would usually involve a pretty large fall for Link. It really made you fight strategically and that was cool. Again, it was nice to see the progression since once you were a lot stronger, you could theoretically mow them down. At least if you had the super abilities.

Overall, Breath of the Wild is a good game. What it does really well is offer you a ton of replay value and also give you a lot of quality of life upgrades as you play through the game. It rewards you for playing it more and more which is great. That being said, I certainly wouldn’t say that it is one of the best games ever made or even that it is a great game. It’s a good title that had significant problems but enough strengths to get it by as well. I’m still glad that I ended up pre-ordering it and experiencing the journey day 1. It wasn’t disappointing the way that Star Fox Zero was. Hey, I did play it for 26 hours right? It’s the kind of game that I think I may have given a much higher score back when I was a kid and a completionist for games that didn’t even have trophies. At this point though, the game has to have a phoenominal reward for me to do that since I have so many games on the backburner. I recommend checking this out if you like 3D games or are an LoZ fan. Of course if you’re the latter, then you probably already own the game. I’m hoping that the next one goes back to its roots though. All I’m asking for is a classic LoZ game with a good plot and not a whole lot of gimmicks.

Overall 7/10

Academy of Champions Review

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Academy of Champions is one of the more enjoyable Soccer games that I’ve played. For whatever reason, I was never too impressed with the FIFA titles so Mario Strikers and Pure Futbol have been my go to titles for the sport. Granted I haven’t actually played the FIFA games as much as I could have. I can acknowledge that those games have a lot more depth to them, but this title is easy to just plug and play. Adding in popular characters like Ezio and Rayman is just a nice bonus.

Lo and behold there is actually a story mode in this game. It starts off with our young hero receiving an invitation to the world’s most prestigious soccer academy. The person who invited the hero doesn’t remember doing so but decides to roll with it anyway. It turns out that this is all going according to a corrupt teacher’s master plan. The main character is going to need to stay sharp since no one can be trusted.

There may not be much to the plot but at least the game has a story. That’s more than you can say for a lot of its rivals. How the story works is that you go through his various school semesters. Each semester is 20 days with a critical event occurring every 5 days. You can’t afford to lose those days so they are mandatory but the other days are low stakes. Winning will get you more exp so that’s the main incentive for the average day. The other incentive is just your pride.

The activities in a day vary according to different categories. A match event is self explanatory as you’ll play a hand against an opponent for practice. The gossip task will have you chat with your friends about how tough the villains are. Training tasks will have you doing basic drills and then you also get tasks to head to the shop and to upgrade your characters. That was a bit of an annoying addition since it meant that you could not upgrade at will, you had to wait for that day to arrive.

The matches were pretty fun because the gameplay was actually very on point. It’s pretty simple to pick up and play but very challenging to score goals until you learn the tricks. Passing to your teammates is highly recommended along with running side to side as the goalie will take the bait. Each player has a super attack with you can buy to take your game to the next level. They actually didn’t help me much as the A.I. would just block it every time, but it will be good against human opponents. Just stay aggressive and knock the opponents down.

I have to give the game some credit for having full cutscenes. I wasn’t really expecting that. They may not have had any dialogue as that was all done via text box but it was still neat. The character models are a little off. Graphically, the game isn’t bad. The designer just went a little too wild with the character proportions which is what made everything a little dicey. The game was still very clear and you could always tell what was happening. It was good enough for me to enjoy the rest of the game. I’m afraid that the soundtrack was significantly less impressive. There weren’t any tunes that really stood out to me. It was all fairly generic and lifeless. I don’t think the developers put much time into this part of the game.

There really isn’t any replay value aside from multiplayer mode. This is the kind of game where you can’t go back and hire everyone to form the ultimate team. You can replay the last few days I believe so you can grind out some extra stats for your characters but there’s nothing you can do with them anyway. Since the gameplay is good the multiplayer can go a long way. I suppose it will just have to suffice in this case. If you have a friend over, this is as good a pick as any.

One quality of life issue that I had with the game was that you couldn’t see your individual stats for each player when switching up your lineup. You’d have to write them all down or memorize the stats if you wanted to make some changes. It just ended up being a longer process than I would have liked. Finally, the difficulty level of the game is pretty good. You can definitely expect to meet a real challenge towards the end of the game. The tournaments are maybe just a little too long, but at least the game always feels fair. Replaying the level never becomes a chore.

Overall, Academy of Champions was definitely worth the couple of dollars that I bought it for. This may not exactly be a triple A game, but they put some nice effort into it. Incorporating the guest characters into the story would have been awesome but I guess we can’t have it all. Some mechanics weren’t thought out well like not being able to upgrade at will, but the gameplay was on point. I usually don’t care for the “day” system where a day will pass each time you do something but the game pulled it off pretty well. I’d recommend getting this title. You’ll be surprised at just how good it is.

Overall 7/10

Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels Review

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The Star Wars marathon continues. I’m finally into the TV show continuity so that takes me one step closer to the original films. It’s been a fun marathon, but it is almost time to put it on hold since my Birthday is quickly approaching and that means that Legend of Zelda is on the horizon. Still, Star Wars will be back and this is a really solid game to have as the latest title. A Star Wars fighting game makes perfect sense and the series certainly took its time before coming to this conclusion.

The plot adapts classic fights from the movie and the show. Most of the levels are relatively stand alone in that sense as they skip you from fight to fight and it works as a nice abridged version. Honestly, the plot was pretty exciting as a result since the fights just kept on coming. It’s the kind of editing that would work well for many other titles as well. Imagine a DBZ adaption where it skipped all of the set up and just threw you into the fights? To an extent, Tenkaichi already did that, but it included a lot of minor fights while this one only kept the best.

One strike against the game is that it’s incredibly short. There are only 9 levels and each level will take you about as long as your average Street Fighter match. Maybe a little longer if your opponent starts to block a lot, but it’s still nice and quick. This game would probably not even last you two hours so it’d probably be sad to have gotten this game at full price. It’s not as if there is no replay value though. You can play challenge mode to unlock the final fighters. I tried one of the challenges which was to not use any force abilities, but it’s hard to not do this accidentally. I would have preferred that the game just disable those attacks so you can button mash at will. If you really want the characters then it’s worth trying out, but I can’t say that it nabbed my attention.

Multiplayer is where the real replay value is at. The gameplay is surprisingly fun considering that it’s heavily motion based. You wave your Wii remote around like a sword and try to take names. It may not be quite as epic as the Bleach game for Wii, but few are. You won’t hurt your wrist the same way that the Bleach game weakened it so that’s a nice trade off. The controls are easy to learn, but hard to master which is always a good balance. It’s the best way to develop a game because then casual gamers can get into the fun and people who take it seriously won’t have to hit a skill ceiling too quickly. I’d say that I’m still a casual in this game as I basically stuck to button mashing and trying to figure out what combos to use in the meantime. I learned a little about Force attacks and would randomly throw them out during the fight. It worked and I beat all of the foes so that’ll suffice. There are higher difficulties for you to play the levels in as well which should give you a real challenge based on the normal difficulty setting.

The graphics are pretty good. At times, I couldn’t tell which parts were from the game and which were the clips. It’s all pretty smooth and having cutscenes with action inside of them was a nice treat as well. I feel like this game actually got a pretty reasonable budget which is nice to see. Imagine how cool this game could be with Gamecube controller support. I dare say that it would have been one of the Wii’s top tier titles. The soundtrack is rather bland. We have a decent “previously” music theme that plays a few times, but the others aren’t very notable at all. You’ll likely forget them as soon as you finish playing.

The cast of characters are all pretty likable in this game. From Dooku to the Killer Droid, everyone brings something to the table. I especially love all of the overconfidence that emanates from everyone. The amount of trash talking in this game is impressive and the stream of comments just never stops. It’s safe to say that Anakin is my favorite character in this game as expected, but the Killer Droid probably had the best design. A robot wielding Lightsabers just makes sense. I really want to see more wielders in Episode VIII because these games keep reminding me how much I miss those battles. High octane Lightsaber battles is what Star Wars is all about.

Overall, Lightsaber duels is actually one of the better Star War titles although the bar is already quite high so that might be misleading. It’s certainly not as good as Episode III and Bounty Hunter, but I dare say that it’s better than all of the small console titles and maybe even the two Gamecube flying ones. It’s a tough call, but being a pure fighting game can do wonders for you. I do wish that the game had been longer and contained more characters though. That keeps it a little lower than I would have liked the game to be at. Next up is the DS Clone Wars game so it’ll be interesting to see how that one plays out. If it’s essentially a portable version of the same fighting style, then I think we’ve got a real winner here folks.

Overall 7/10

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones Review

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It’s time to take a look at the latest Star Wars game that I managed to beat. This game’s really short as it’s only about an hour long tops. That being said, the game’s poor level designs will ensure that the game could take you a little longer. Several levels took me more than one try, but there is one big trick that will save you a bunch of time once you learn it. Read on and I’ll explain it towards the middle of the review.

The game’s plot covers the second film. Good luck figuring out what’s happening from the cutscenes though. It’s not as if you’ll get confused or anything, but you’ll never get all that invested. You just see guys with swords fighting each other and that’s not a bad premise, but the story certainly isn’t trying very hard to be exciting. This is one of those games that you’re really supposed to be playing for the gameplay anyway. The title couldn’t even be bothered to give us any really cool screencaps in the mean time.

This game is a classic 2D beat em up. Think of the old X-Men games from back in the day and you’ll get the idea. Most levels consist of you beating up on robots and other enemies so you can move forward. Naturally, you’ll just get stopped by another group of enemies and you have to fight them as well. You need to really like the gameplay in order to be content. Honestly, I thought that the gameplay itself was pretty good. Blocking and reflecting energy blasts was a lot easier than I would have expected. The transition between attacking and reflecting is typically smooth and the only part that doesn’t work well is turning around. Do so at your own peril.

You can use a super jump when you have enough meter and you have to obtain energy orbs to use any other force abilities. You can learn the Force Push for example, but it takes a lot of energy. So, here’s the trick. Enemies will only give you force energy when you defeat them if you’re not maxed out yet. They’ll only give you health once you force is maxed out. The trick is to simply never use your Force abilities. Several levels require them and there will be moments where you need the super jump, but if you can resist the urge to use them otherwise, then you’re set. See, the tough levels were the ones where robots would constantly attack you and your health would be whittled down. It’s incredibly difficult to defeat them all without being hit after a while.

That’s where the health drops come in handy. If you haven’t been using your Force abilities, then the enemies will be dropping a lot of hearts for you to pick up. That results in an endless supply of health. If I had known about this from the start, I would have breezed through the game a lot faster. It won’t help much for some levels as the second to last one has a one hit KO attack for example. Still, it is of great value if you ask me. Don’t be intimidated by the final boss either, he looks like he’s tough stuff, but he’s actually not that bad. Hold the A button and keep alternating between low and middle strikes. Do it fast enough and he’ll be virtually helpless. This is also a good time to use your Force abilities if you haven’t done so already.

While most of the levels have the same format, there are 2-3 levels where the game turns into a 3D racer. It was a nice change of pace, but it was hard to keep up with what was going on. I just kept on turning and somehow made it to victory. On the last race I don’t even know how I won, but I guess my missile hit a weak spot or something since the win screen came up almost immediately. We take those. There are 11 levels total and each one is only a few minutes even if some feel much longer. There is absolutely no replay value since there isn’t anything to collect or achieve. The game uses a very old password based system so you don’t even get to keep a save file. This game gives you about an hour of entertainment so you really have to think about whether or not it’s worth the money.

One issue I have with the game is that there are no checkpoints. If you die, then you go all the way back to the beginning. That may not sound all that bad since the levels are short, but it’s very annoying. Keep in mind that some of the levels have you on a roller or in a set path where you have to wait for the enemies. You could end up waiting for a minute or two as you roll around in boredom. The levels like to start slow and ramp up later on which doesn’t work very well the second time around. Checkpoints would have made the game so much better and I dare say that it would have bumped the game up to a 7. It’s bold, but it definitely could have worked.

I do like beat em ups for the most part. Hyrule Warriors was amazing and I really enjoyed Devil Kings as well. I haven’t played as many 2D ones, but the X-Men game was entertaining. These titles also tend to be pretty difficult so I was ready for it. Without the health trick, I’m not sure if I could have beaten the level with the winged creatures. It was a really long one and I had to stop and grind out the health several times. I applaud anyone who can get through the level without it. The game really needed to lighten up on the repetition with these levels. If the gameplay had been worse, it could have severely hurt the game. As it stands, I enjoy taking down scores of enemies over and over again.

The graphics weren’t bad. The 3D levels tried to cram in too many things at once so the graphics did suffer quite a lot in this set up. The beat em up segments were a lot better though. While the Stormtroopers looked a lot chunkier than usual, there was a noticeable improvement here. Likewise, the soundtrack wasn’t half bad. The game over screen certainly had a pretty thematic feel to it and since we got very well acquainted during the course of the game, I was glad that it wasn’t a boring tune. I do think the developers put in some real effort to these areas of the game so I can appreciate that.

Overall, This is one of those games that you buy for a single playthrough and then it vanishes…never to be seen again. I can’t imagine buying this on launch day for 20-30 dollars, but for a few bucks? I’d say that it’s worth it. Some parts of the game are clearly low budget, but others age fairly well. The final boss was pretty neat even if it could have been annoying if I had lost more times since I’d have to replay the whole level. Luckily, button mashing never fails in this kind of game. I have a feeling that the next Star Wars game will be better or at the very least, longer. Still, this game was fun in the end and that’s what counts.

Overall 6/10

Yogi Bear Review

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I admit that I have never seen the Yogi Bear film. It’s one of the few influential bear films that I have yet to see, but I figured that getting the game was the next best bet. It’s a fun enough game and it was clear that the developers were trying to make this game like a Mario title. They gave it a real effort, but you can’t just make an AAA Mario game with a limited budget and artificial length. It’s fun for 2-3 hours, but then you’ll just go back to playing Mario.

The plot has Yogi show up at the Ranger’s house to steal his lunch. Yogi also scatters the ranger’s photos to the wind as well so now the national park is going to be shut down. Apparently there are no backups and there is no other way to get people to come to the park. Yogi agrees to go and find the animals so he can take new pictures of them and hopefully steal some food along the way. Go fast Yogi!

The gameplay is your standard 2D platformer. You jump through the levels and avoid enemies. You die in a single hit to anything so you have to tread carefully. Luckily, there are frequent checkpoints throughout the level so you’ll never beset back more than a minute. You can do body slams to stun the enemies and get past them safely. You can’t actually defeat any enemies so you need to move quickly so they don’t get back up and take you down for good. There are pies everywhere and grabbing 50 of them will give you an extra life. There are also 3 medals in every level and I’d recommend grabbing any that you see.

At first I was ignoring them completely, but that ended up catching up to me. There is a park ranger who shows up every once in a while and the only way to get past him is to bribe the guy with medals. Getting 2 out of every 3 is a good way to make sure that you can always bribe the guy. They’re not even that hard to get as there will be obvious caves everywhere and if you see an arrow pointing right…go left. That’s all you really need to know to grab those medals.

The game keeps track of your game overs so I recommend playing carefully. I was actually able to beat the game without ever losing all of my lives. I’m trying to act surprised, but maybe this is expected right? Heh heh. The graphics aren’t all that bad. You can see what is happening at all times. It may not be high end graphics, but they serve their purpose. I do have to give the gaame a lot of props for actually having full cutscenes with voice acting within. A lot of Wii games actually don’t have this so it’s definitely pretty impressive. The soundtrack is less impressive and you won’t remember any of the tunes by the end. You’ll definitely remember the sound effects though because Yogi Bear constantly mentions how he’s smarter than the average Bee, Human, etc. He talks a lot during the levels and even talks when you try the bodyslam. As a result, you can expect constant chatter throughout, which is not bad per say, but it can get repetitive.

My main negative with this game is the artificial length. The game coud easily be completed in a single sitting if not for the ranger constantly asking for medals. Once I knew that I needed medals I was able to get enough where I didn’t have to go back anymore, but it was still a little annoying. Lets face it, even if the levels aren’t that bad, it’s not as if I want to go back and play them again. That’s reserved for a big title like Sonic or Mario. It also just shows that the developers couldn’t think of a better way to make the game longer.

There is some obvious replay value…getting all of the medals and baskets. It’s not something that would entice me to play the game again though. As far as I’m concerned, this is one of those games that you play to completion once and then it goes into the drawyer…never to be seen again. It’s fun enough and the price is pretty low so you’re getting a good value.

Overall, It’s good to see that Yogi Bear has gotten his own video game. He’s certainly the kind of character that you can get behind. He’s so mean and over confident the whole time in an “oblivious” way that it works well. The gameplay is good enough to keep you playing and at the very least there is nothing that will hamper your progress aside from the ranger. The ranger definitely brings it down by a star. It’s a good game, but one that you won’t be playing after you’ve beaten it. I recommend giving it a shot if you want a fun little platformer, but the burning question will always be “Why not just buy a more established one?” Still, it is Yogi Bear so that gives it some novelty.

Overall 6/10

Dragon Ball Z: Buu’s Fury Review

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Stop the madness! Is this one of the rare DBZ games that I didn’t own before now? Yes, I finally took the plunge and got the game at long last. It’s a very solid sequel to the last one and the gameplay continues to be quite excellent. Leveling up never feels like a grind here and the game seamlessly throws some of the movies into the plot. It’s all handled very well and while the game is not particularly long, it makes for an enjoyable experience.

The game’s plot adapts the Buu arc from DBZ as you’ve probably guessed. If you’ve never watched DBZ before, it involves the world’s strongest heroes coming together to defeat an evil genie. They’ll need team work and a lot of heart in order to win this round. The text boxes do a good job of adapting the whole arc and keeping in enough details to ensure that you still know what is going on the whole time. It’s a good way of blasting through the arc while still knowing enough to bluff your way through a quiz.

The gameplay is the same as the two predecessors. It uses an overhead view as you can punch or shoot energy blasts. If you can block, then I’m not sure how as I never bothered. Punching is the way to go here and with each level up you can power up a stat. Go for Strength and ignore everything else. The rest are borderline useless by the end while strength will allow you to one shot all minions. This allows for easy level ups and then you can build up your defense. You can also turn Super Saiyan which gives you extra energy and increases your speed. I didn’t notice it actually amping up the strength of my attacks, but it must have had some kind of effect. The gameplay is easy to pick up and you’ll likely have it mastered in no time.

One thing that I’ve always really liked about this series is how easy it is to level up. You can gain 50 levels in a quick 30 minute run and even faster if you’re in the right place. At times, you’ll get a whole level up for each individual minion that you defeat. Considering that they go down like flies, this results in a huge rank up to your characters. It’s quite impressive to be honest and is the single best RPG at the leveling system. It puts titles like FF VII to shame where you’ll have to fight for a very long time to make any kind of head way. I’m still rather sore at that game for making the climax so much work. It’s not so much the difficulty but the fact that if you save in the wrong place…you’re doomed. It’s just going to be game over for you from then on. More on that in another review though.

The game holds up really well when it comes to the graphics and the soundtrack. The sprites are all pretty fun and the images that the game uses for the text are unintentionally funny as well. The characters are constantly yelling and panicking throughout which doesn’t always fit the lines, but that’s part of what makes it enjoyable. As for the soundtrack, there are a number of good themes here. One of them is a remix of a rock theme from the anime, but sadly it cut out all of the rock elements which was a little disappointing. DBZ 2 is still the best when it comes to the soundtrack because of the great Cell theme, but the music here will still get you into a nice groove.

There isn’t a whole lot for replay value after you beat the game. You can max everyone out and grab a bunch of items, but that won’t buy you all that much time. The fact that there is any post game content is still a plus though. The actual game’s story is roughly 6 hours so maybe you could take it to 10 or so by the time you’re done with everything. You’ll likely be buying this game for a very low price so the time is not bad. Especially when you consider how good the game is. Quality over quantity and all that right?

One thing I’d highly recommend is stocking up on food while you can. Save your money for most of the game and then just buy as many Onigiri’s as you can for the final part of the game. I’d also recommend leveling up Vegeta a little since you’ll need him at the end and otherwise it’ll be a little tough to beat Buu. Ideally you want to be at around level 130 or so because then you can finish him quickly. Never use any money to buy equipment since the enemies will all drop a lot of it towards the end of the game. Also, put on the heavy boots and gear to get level ups faster. It makes quite the difference and considering that the game was already easy to level up in…this almost feels criminal.

Overall, Dragon Ball Z: Buu’s Fury is a solid way to end the DBZ adaptions for the GBA. It was a really good trilogy and a very underrated one for DBZ. Granted, I’ll still take Budokai and Tenkaichi any day, but this was a great way to play on the portable. The series did everything that it could with the RPG format and I can’t imagine another title taking it out. Maybe if they ever made a big budget DBZ RPG with anime cutscenes and an awesome plot I suppose. For the GBA though, they maxed it out. I highly recommend checking this game out and seeing what you think of it. Now I just need to get the GT GBA game and I’ll have completed that saga of Dragon Ball adaptions. The gameplay shift is a little unfortunate, but I like beat em ups as well so it should be fun. Until then!

Overall 8/10

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box Review

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After finally finishing the last Professor Layton game, I quickly jumped onto this one. I was pretty close to wrapping up Little Big Planet, but Layton is one of those elite series that takes precedence over just about anything. It also helps that the game is fairly short so it’s not as if it’ll be holding onto that spot for a long time. This sequel is very good and while the first one is certainly the better game in my opinion, this one had the better plot.

Layton and Luke head onto a train, but their adventure is quickly derailed when they find out that someone was murdered over a mysterious box. The heroes dig up some dirt on it during the first town they stop in, but the real evidence starts to appear once they hitch a ride to a ghost town. They infiltrated the royal deluxe suite in order to get in and the only problem is that they might not be able to get out again. That’s fine, they’re prepared for the dangers that may arise, but will their intellectual skills be up to the task?

It’s certainly a solid follow-up to the last game and it acknowledges the first one by having their new partner Flora show up. We also get the big villain from the last game to appear again although the main villain here is a big improvement. There are a few new characters along with some old ones like the Inspector. One of the main reasons why I found the plot here to be better than the last game is that it gets to the meat of the story right away. The first game gave you a lot of time to get used to the characters and the plot didn’t start until you were well into the game. Since people are dying from the box, the stakes are higher than the first game from the get go. Things really heat up during the climax as well since we get a sword fight through one of the cutscenes and the heroes actually get kidnapped.

I have to say that the whole kidnapping plot was pretty odd. The heroes hallucinated about a large gang and then the butler acted as if everything was normal. I suppose that the hallucinogens got to the heroes, but it was still an odd scene. It was an epic one as well though so I’ll take it. The game was just very entertaining and exciting from start to finish and you won’t want to tear yourself away. As always, the game paces itself pretty well. It is noticeably shorter than the last one though as I beat this game in a little over 9 hours while the last one took me around 16. Granted, I got stuck on a puzzle for a while in the last game so it should have been a lot shorter.

I do think this game was easier than the last one though. Perhaps some of the test players said that the first one was too hard so they fixed it here. It’s still not extremely easy to the point where you will be bored, but now a lot of the puzzles have limited answers. This means that instead of figuring it out rationally, you can just guess all 5 or 6 of the possible choices until you get it right. The final puzzles are surprisingly easy as you will be able to solve quite a few of them at a glance. I’ve heard that the post game quests are quite challenging though so that will probably bump things up a notch. On the other hand, I do think this is possibly a smart move if the developers wanted to get more kids to play. I still don’t think a kid would be able to solve some of the puzzles from the first game.

On a technical level, this game is quite solid as expected. The graphics are very clear so everything stands out nicely. You can always see a puzzle with absolute clarity so you can focus on figuring it out as opposed to thinking about what it is supposed to be. The fully animated cutscenes look really good as well and I feel like there are more of them this time around than in the first game. Having a fight in one of the cutscenes was also a blast to see. The music is also pretty catchy. It’s fairly simple, but that’s what makes it effective for the puzzles. There also is a good danger theme which plays during some of the game’s more tense moments.

There is a lot of replay value here which should more than make up for the 9 hour story mode. I only beat around 90 of the missions which means there are still almost 50 left to go. That’s a lot of puzzles and naturally the ones that I left are the trickiest ones of all. I never had to stop at any point in the story mode to solve more puzzles to get to the next chapter because I had fun beating a lot of the quick n easy ones in the mean time. This does mean the toughest ones will take longer and unless you’ve got a lot of hint coins stashed away (Which is feasible since this game was really generous with them) you’ll find that this game could get to an RPG’s length very quickly. I don’t personally plan to go back and beat the rest of them soon, but maybe someday.

Another aspect that helps the series is the colorful cast of characters. The Inspector is a nice ally to have around. He may not correctly guess who the culprit is most of the time, but he does try his best and is a likable enough fellow. Luke is a good kid who continues to improve when it comes to riddles. Flora is a good heroine as well and while she’s not much of a detective yet, she does like finding new riddles. Layton steals the show whenever he appears and managed to basically be a perfect lead. The recurring villain is rather bland and won’t leave an impression on you, but they can’t all be winners. I did like the voice that the game gave him when he was coming out of a disguise. The new villain was great and Katia was good enough. Poorly written characters could have held the game back so I’m glad to see that this was not a factor here.

Overall, Professor Layton is a series that I’m glad to finally be apart of. I’m definitely going to get the third game as soon as possible and will probably order it once February hits. This series is just so much fun and in a way it’s good that I took so long to start it because it means that there are more games to catch up on. I believe there are 6 at the moment so I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. It makes me realize that if the Switch had gotten a Layton game for launch, that could have made things very interesting. Ah well, it’s never been a big console title anyway, but that would be fun to think about. If you played the first game then you already know what to expect. If you haven’t, you can still get into this game easy enough, but I’d recommend playing the first one first since this one builds off of that. Not to the extent where it is unplayable, but it’s nice to see the characters reference the past events. At this rate, I don’t see how a Layton game can get under an 8 so long as they don’t mess something up with the formula. It’s just a really fun and exciting game that you can play whenever you want. The controls are easy to pick up and you’ll be a whiz in no time.

Overall 8/10