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Uncharted Waters: New Horizons Review

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Okay this one is actually a bit more brutal than the Nobunaga’s Ambition title. For starters there is still combat but it’s even slower and the bartering is even more detailed. Well, I’m jumping into this a little out of order so let me slow down here. Lets just say this isn’t like the Uncharted games that you’re used to. No sir, this is a very different experience and unfortunately I can’t exactly say that in a good way. I suppose there is a whole lot of water though.

So the game starts off by letting you choose from a bunch of characters. It probably makes a difference on how the game starts off so I picked the guy who seemed the most well rounded. You start off by talking to a bunch of people to get your starting equipment. Some food, water, men, items, and of course a boat. Now what you gotta do is travel the world and buy/sell items of commerce in order to get things rolling.

This is of course where the game starts to really lose a whole lot of steam. It’s just not a fun kind of gameplay. For starters you have to monitor the going prices on each island. Say Island A sells corn for $5, but island B sells it for $3. You want to go to Island B and buy a lot of it, then go sell to Island A where they really need it. Multiply this by over 20 different items and of course factor in that you need to have enough money to invest in buying more food for your men as well as to buy more material to buy. Amp up the confusion even higher when you have to deal with pirates that are running around.

These fights are hard to win and take a lot of men. If too many die, then you’re going to have to find more at another island which will of course take even more fuel out of your tanks. That’s not good. Did I mention that you can also run into random storms that eat up materials? Bet you didn’t think of that one….and if you die at sea it’s a full game over. There is no save point to go back to. You have to start from scratch. In a way it’s sort of like Digimon World Next Order where the intro is the toughest part as you will lose a few generations on getting the basics going but by the mid game you are really well prepared for what’s next.

Difference is that I don’t have a really enjoyable story and fun graphics to incentivize me to do all of that. No, instead I’m supposed to just enjoy the process and that’s not good enough for me. There is a story here of course as you’re taking someone back to his kingdom, helping a stowaway, etc. There’s also a war going on but none of it is particularly captivating. It doesn’t move you the way that a more interesting story could have. I know there were some technical limitations back in the day but it didn’t stop a lot of other big SNES titles that I’ve played back in the day. No sir, those just kept on trucking through.

The most I can say for the game is that it looks pretty nice. It reminds me of the old Final Fantasy titles. It’s peaceful to be moving around without any wild encounters running around. It feels like a long time since I could just explore the hub world like that so it was really a good change of pace. It even made me think that the game could have been good if it was limited to just the island. Maybe you’re the mayor and you have to take care of folks with a lot of trading. I think that could have actually worked out well but this one was just too ambitious for what it was trying to do. It ultimately was doomed to not be able to succeed this time.

Now just to leave the series some hope, the other way it could work out is if they made this into a big MMORPG. Imagine this scale but all of the people running around are actually real people. It’s why that genre always had a lot of potential. I don’t see myself really getting involved in any of those because honestly that would be extremely time consuming but I do get the appeal. If you are ever going to make a trading game that is actually fun, I don’t see any other way around it. You need to add that social element to the game, it would make you heavily invested. Particularly if there are social guilds and everything since then you don’t want to let your party down.

Overall, Uncharted Waters is not a good video game, I would even go as far as to call it a pretty bad one. I actually think it could be a good educational tool for kids but in that case the gameplay is a bit too difficult. They would need to find some kind of a solid middle ground but ultimately this just isn’t it. This is not the game that will really change things for folks and that may be unfortunate but it’s just the way that it goes. I can see why this game never got all that huge. I like to say that I am a fan of strategy titles but perhaps I’ve been overrating myself in that department. These definitely show that I’m still out of my depths past a certain point. I need some kind of excitement to get me going. Unlike fighting games or platformers, the gameplay alone cannot carry the game.

Overall 2/10

Jumanji: The Video Game Review

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I’ve completed my first game from the Christmas batch! Jumanji was quite a bit different than I had imagined. There is no story mode to be found in this game and the offline content is minimal. Ultimately I can’t imagine buying this game at launch but at least I got it for cheap so it wasn’t a big loss here. You probably won’t be coming back to this one after you beat it though.

So the game has 4 levels which you can play online or offline. That’s the extent of the game which….is quite small. So offline you play with 3 A.I. controlled characters while online you play with 3 other people. Unless you really love the gameplay that means you’ll be feeling that repetition almost immediately. There is no challenge mode, minigames, or anything like that. It’s just 4 levels that you can play by yourself or with friends. I’ve seen mobile games with a whole lot more content than this one. Jumanji definitely ended up falling under expectations here.

Lets talk about the gameplay though. So this is really a third person shooter where you go around blasting away at the enemies who try to take you down. Each stage is divided into several areas. Each area has you either protect a totem pole from the enemies or gather 4 relics. For the relic levels, you just run around until you find them. The levels are just big enough where this can take a few minutes so try to really look around so you don’t miss any and have to run backwards. For the totem levels, you have to stand around the amulet to power it up and the idea is to stay near until the meter fills up. If the enemies chase you out of the area then no more energy will go through until you get back in there.

I don’t really have a problem with the gameplay itself. It’s actually rather fun and I’ve always liked third person shooters. The gameplay has no real glitches or bugs in it. You do have to reload a lot which can hurt your momentum but as long as you grab ammo a lot then it won’t be a problem. Aside from your blaster you also have grenades and your character’s signature attack. The attacks don’t seem all that balanced though. There are 4 characters here. One has a stomp which destroys all nearby enemies. It’s easily my favorite attack in the arsenal. Another character has a boombox which deals damage to all nearby enemies and lasts for a while. Now that’s another pretty good attack.

The third character has a little healing ray that builds up health…this is a pretty bad one. There are health packs everywhere so you’re either at full health or dead during a battle. There’s no real need for this ability at all. Then you have the 4th character who has a monkey of sorts and I’m not even sure what it does. It might help lead you through the map but it’s not like you would really get lost so I don’t think this is all that good either. Perhaps there is another skill that I was missing when playing as him but I was not impressed.

Likewise, the graphics are nothing to make you look at twice either. It looks like something from the PS2 era and even then it has much less personality than a lot of those games. The level designs are decent but nothing is all that detailed and it just looks as generic as possible. There doesn’t seem to be any real effort put into the graphics here. The soundtrack is also pretty much nonexistent. I mean it’s okay but it’s just not very good or anything like that so I would still not put this as a big thumbs up. It’s not a thumbs down but I doubt you will remember any of the tunes by the end.

The game does have some unlockables so I suppose I should say that there is some replay value here. If you play each character long enough you will unlock alternate outfits and weapons. Each character starts at level 1 and by completing levels and earning exp you will get them to higher levels and each unlockable is blocked by a level requirement. The 4 characters each have their own level requirements. It’ll take a while to get everyone maxed out so that offers you something to do…if you are playing this game that long.

I can’t stress enough how little the content is here. There’s just nothing to do before long and it’s pretty much unheard of that there are only 4 maps. I feel like they were planning DLC if the game did well to add more stages or something but otherwise you’re going to have played all the levels in a single day. There’s not enough progression rewards to keep you going here. So even though I enjoyed the gameplay, it loses a lot of points for just not putting anything in here. The levels are decently long at around 20 minutes but that still means you will have beaten all of the levels in under 2 hours. From there on you are just replaying the same levels over and over again which is no good. It’s too bad because there is really a lot you could do with this franchise otherwise.

Overall, Jumanji is really not a good game. In fact I would go as far as to say that it’s a bad game. This could work as a free to play mobile game or something but certainly not to purchase. There is no incentive to buy this game at all. Even if the gameplay was amazing, 4 levels is not enough to do anything. Certainly not without a fighting mode. See, the game would completely change if there was a vs mode both offline and online. If even either of those styles of play had a vs mode that would help a lot. That’s where you get a lot of replay value but bashing enemies over and over will get old extremely quick. I would say to skip out on this game for sure.

Overall 4/10

Dr Mario Review

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It’s time to look at the original Dr Mario game. This title was actually pretty iconic back in the day as we got many more Dr Mairo games afterwards. Just look at that mobile title we’re getting soon. Dr Mario is one of those games that is very accessible and just a lot of fun to play. Of course, this one is a lot more limited than the newer ones as there was only so much you could do back then but the concept was sound so I definitely recommend checking this game out.

There is only one mode here of course and that’s the normal destroy all viruses to win mode. There are 20 different levels which determines how fast the board moves and how many viruses are on the screen. I definitely recommend starting with level 1 while you get the hang of the game. I was able to make it to about level 8 and then at that point the viruses overwhelmed me. You can also skip to level 20 to quickly see what it’s like. You’ll certainly feel overwhelmed before long though. It’s just hard to make matches in time before the blocks hit the ceiling. The game is also smart as when you pause the game the screen vanishes so you can’t cheese it out by constantly pausing. It’s one of those things where it seems obvious, but it’s still important that the developers realized this in time.

In the settings you can switch up the speed which is pretty nice. Unlike the Yoshi game you can’t switch the soundtrack though so that part’s a little different. It’s a more complete game than Yoshi, at least as far as content is concerned. The graphics aren’t quite as impressive though. Still, there is less to look at just due to how Dr Mario is set up so in a way this definitely does make sense. It’s not as if it looks bad. The music isn’t quite as good as the Yoshi game either but it is nostalgic to hear the Dr Mario theme.

As for the gameplay, you may already know it, but I’ll mention how it works just in case. You have to clear the board of viruses. Each virus is a specific color like the blocks that are falling onto the screen. To remove a virus you have to match it with 3 other blocks of the same color. Likewise you will do that to get rid of the extra blocks as well. It’s a simple concept, but executing this will get tougher and tougher with each level. By the end of the levels you will need to be doing all of this on instinct without actually thinking about your moves much. If you stop to think about them then you will truly be doomed. You’ll definitely get better at the game the more you play it though. Who knows, play it long enough and these latter levels may even feel easy.

There’s a lot of replay value here. That’s because the levels are quick and fast paced. It’s easy to jump right in and pick up where you left off. The challenge always feels pretty fair without being too lenient. I’d like to see a modern take on this for consoles. I know we have the mobile game coming up, but it’d be fun to see what the game would look like with massive graphics and a cool new soundtrack or something. Maybe someday.

Overall, Dr Mario is a fun game. It’s really got everything you could want in a Connect 4 type game from back in the day. It also reminds you how influential Tetris was as everyone tried to copy it back in the day. Dr. Mario was one of the successful ones and manages to still differentiate itself. He even got himself a playable spot in Super Smash Bros Melee which is no small feat. If you have never tried this game before then you’re missing out and need to change that ASAP.

Overall 6/10