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Video Games => Video Game Chat => Topic started by: FlamingBlueMario on February 28, 2009, 05:16:11 PM

Title: Let's review...
Post by: FlamingBlueMario on February 28, 2009, 05:16:11 PM
This is my video game review of Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Nintendo Wii. My review for this game is bittersweet, so don't hate me for trashing it through most of the review. Also, this review contains ***SPOILARS***. You, my friend, have been warned. Let's start.

Starting fresh:

Ok, so when you start off on a new game, you're going to chat-it-up with Rover for about 15 minutes or so...woo. Depending on how you answer Rover will effect how you'll look for the rest of your digital life (I talked to him like trash and came out looking pretty good). Anyway, after you arrive in town, pick the house you want and talk to the so-called big cheese himself, Tom Nook. Oh yeah, and whether you like it or not, you're gonna work for him by planting flowers, trees, meeting the neighbors, the mayor, mailing letters (just one, relax), delivering stuff, posting an advertisement to the message board and then, guess what? You're done! ...Deja vu, I tell you. You do all of that hard work (which eats up about 45 minutes of your precious time) just to get a measly little bit of cash. So, now that you're free from Nook's clutches, now what? Well, you still have to pay off your house *coughFRUIT-TREEScough!* So you'll have to come up with the cash some other way. Good Luck.

DS suitcase:

The only difference between this and starting fresh is that you'll have your old AC:WW item catalog, character's face and name. That's all. The bells, your mansion and drawn patterns will NOT be transfered to AC:CF. Bummer.

The layout and graphics:

Of the entire game? ...Meh. Same old same old, really. If you skipped playing AC:WW then good for you, cause the Wii version LOOKS JUST LIKE IT! Just a bigger town/village and an added on little bubble called the "city".  Buuut, there are some new things to this game besides the "city" that you'll probably enjoy. The layout is simple. The entire town/village is no longer on one ground level like in AC:WW. One thing that bothered me about this game was the fact that when you run across the grass, it fades away leaving your town looking pretty ugly. But, there's a small remedy to this: plant lots of flowers. Also, a small invisible patch a grass grows back after 6am. A very ridiculous thing to add to a video game. But it did get a small graphical upgrade that makes it look and run smoother than AC:WW.

Upgrades:

Unfortunately, like the GCN version, you can only upgrade your house 4 times (first expansion, second expansion, adding second floor and adding a basement [and this time you can change the basement's carpet and wallpaper]) unlike the DS version were you can upgrade 6 times (First expansion, second expansion, adding the second floor, adding the north, west and eastern rooms) which a huge let-down and also means that you can only customize 3 rooms instead of 5. And now you can upgrade your town by donating money to the Town Hall.  With enough money donated, you can add a wishing well, a windmill, a light house and an additional bridge.This is pretty cool and gives your town more personality. Tom Nook's store has the same upgrade pattern like the GCN version (unlike the DS version where your friend has to buy an item in order for you to get Nookingtons).

In-game camera:

The camera sucks, as usual, but this time you can actually look up at the sky. Don't expect to see a SM64-like camera mode anytime soon because it will probably never happen.

Taking pictures:

Hmm, not bad. But not that good, either.  There's no zoom-in or zoom-out feature. I was hoping for a picture-taking camera like the one from LoZ:WW, but nooo.

The neighbors:

They're not as redundant as they were in previous installments, but they're still pretty annoying. Some will even try to con you out of half (or all) of your money if you're not careful. They do spout some words of wisdom every now and then, which is nice. If you're really nice to your animal-neighbors, one might even invite you to their house. And one might even ask if he or she can come over to your place (to evaluate your house and give it a 1 to 5 star rating). There are a lot of unexpected surprises in this game. One of my animal-neighbors asked me if I wanted to play hide and seek. I choose "yes" and found all three of my neighbors in less than 10 minutes. it was pretty fun. After the game ended they gave me a gift, a gyroid. I have to say, it was something I didn't expect in AC:CF at all.

About Kapp'n:

I always find it interesting to read what Kapp'n has to say as I venture to and from the city. They really gave him some amusing, real-life stuff to mutter about. So read it every now and then. It's pretty funny.

The so-called city:

Well, folks, this is our new city. Pretty neat, huh? Uhh -- no. Looks more like a lobby. As a matter of fact, it looks like it's cut off FROM the real city. This is NOT a city. A city has cars, restaurants, more buildings, an underground sewer (where you'll find Mr.Resetti), a bank, a police station, a mall, a city park and much, much more. Not a ghost town with some pathetically-useless shops and a haircut parlor that is also rendered useless after you find a decent haircut or hairstyle. Another problem is that only YOU can visit the "city". What's the point in adding a city if you can't go there with friends and family? Geez. Anyway, I consider this "city' a work in progress just like the AC series. 

New and returning cast:

I'm not going to go over the entire list of the new and old characters, but I will name only a few.  K.K. Slider is back and he has some new music, along with some old, familiar tunes like Go K.K. Rider and the Rockin' K.K. song. Brewster is back and now acts as a talking storage bin, keeping the gyroids you dig up just in case you don't have room for them at home. Pave is a newcomer to the AC series. He is a dancer who loves candy. He appears on Festivale, which is pretty much a "get-rich-FAST-day" for some players. Another newcomer is Harriet, a hair-stylist.  Jingle, the gullible reindeer is back and this time, the "naughty/nice" feature is gone. So go ahead, shake some trees, get stung by bees and rummage through your neighbors stuff. Gulliver is back. I spotted the UFO but failed to shoot it down. And Wisp will be making his ghostly return as well. It's a pretty big cast of new and old characters. So there's a lot of stuff to look forward to.

Replay value:

This game constantly has you coming back for more since every day holds something new, different and exciting. The game really shines if you have friends or family members to play with. If you're playing it alone...you may still enjoy it...maybe. There's a lot to keep you busy in this game like finding and selling foreign fruit, completing the museum, obtaining your favorite music from K.K. Slider, fishing, bug hunting, adding new stuff to your town, upgrading your house and visiting Tom Nook's shop.

Wii-Speak feature:

The Wii-Speak feature will also keep you playing because it kind of acts as a virtual telephone. If you don't like talking, you can turn this feature off and use the "cellphone style" (not an actual cellphone) and type in words by using the Wii Remote. There are also some pre-installed words to choose from. And if you don't like using the Wii Remote, you can install a wireless USB keyboard.

Final words:

The game has improved, believe it or not. Just not enough to shell out $50 (like I did) to buy it. It's also a real time-eater too, so make sure that you don't overdo it. They could have added A LOT more to this game, but I guess they were being careful and decided not to. Maybe they're holding back until the next installment? Who knows. I am not satisfied with this game and will be trading it in soon. *Sigh*, Nintendo, you could have done a much better job than this...

I give this game a 3 out of 10.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Sqrt2 on February 28, 2009, 05:41:36 PM
This is my video game review of Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Nintendo Wii. My review for this game is bittersweet, so don't hate me for trashing it through most of the review. Also, this review contains ***SPOILARS***. You, my friend, have been warned. Let's start.

How can there be spoilers in an Animal Crossing game? It has no story, so I find it hard to believe that you need to announce ***SPOILERS*** at the beginning of your review.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: FlamingBlueMario on February 28, 2009, 06:26:20 PM
Hmm. Yeah, I guess that was unnecessary to do. I know it's a little late to be writing a review about AC:CF, but I just wanted to blow off some steam about the game, that's all. Also, you can find Mario-themed items in the balloon presents. 
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Lizard Dude on June 30, 2009, 02:11:33 PM
This is my video game review of LocoRoco Cocoreccho! for the Sony PlayStation 3. My review for this game is bittersweet, so don't hate me for trashing it through most of the review. Also, this review contains ***SPOILARS***. You, my friend, have been warned. Let's start.

This is the best game about a farting butterfly I've ever played. However, the game costs roughly half what the PSP LocoRocos do and only provides about a tenth the entertainment.

I give this game a 3 out of 10.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: ShadowBrain on June 30, 2009, 07:52:22 PM
Best. Review. Ever.

(and accurate, too--I kind of regret buying that thing)
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Lizard Dude on May 08, 2010, 11:23:24 PM
This is my video game review of Darksiders for the Microsoft Xbox 360 or Sony PlayStation 3. My review for this game is bittersweet, so don't hate me for trashing it through most of the review. Also, this review contains ***SPOILARS***. You, my friend, have been warned. Let's start.

In this game you be a dude from Warcraft and play through a Zelda game with Mark Hamill as your Navi. You think I'm joking when I call it a Zelda game but after you get your boomerang, bow, hookshot, bottles, map, compass, heart pieces, instrument, lens of truth, Z-targeting, and horse with five recharging speed boosts you'll change your mind. Don't take this as a complaint though, because Darksiders stands toe-to-toe with Nintendo's work. The dungeons are massive and well-designed with some very nice puzzles. The combat is more complex than Zelda's, sort of a poor man's God of War. The music and story are blah, but the final ten seconds of the final cutscene was great. My biggest complaint about the game is that the QA testing was rough around the edges. I fell through a lot of floors/walls at various times, usually just taking the minor health loss and being reset on the ground but a couple times stuck falling through an infinite void and having to reload (not a huge deal because it's constantly auto-saving). There was one major incident where I was riding an elevator upwards and fell through while messing around with aerial attacks. The elevator never resets and there's no way to get it back down so I'm totally locked out of a full third of that dungeon. Luckily I had already cleared all the chests from it and never actually need to go back, but I searched and found people online who couldn't 100% the game due to the same problem. If it happened your first time I suppose it could prevent you from ever even beating the game. Another bug I saw was that the final cutscene's audio was slightly desynched, I think because of many achievements popping at once. I watched it again later and it worked fine when there were no achievements. Anyway, I wrote way too much about glitches; they're not a big problem (just don't jump around on elevators). This game totally came out of nowhere and is extremely good. It's actually Vigil Games's first title. I expect these guys have a bright future ahead.

I give this game a 3 out of 10.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Weegee on May 09, 2010, 12:17:05 AM
extremely good
3 out of 10.

Insightful review, Robert Christgau.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: ShadowBrain on June 29, 2010, 09:27:31 PM
So I started and beat Darksiders in a span of about three days. On one hand, it's overly gory, has a really questionable save system/lag between when you get things and when said accomplishment is acknowledged, the acting is kind of corny, and it's probably the most derivative game I've ever played. On the other hand, Mark Hamill is in it, you get to play as one of the Goddammn Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and Uriel gets the Official ShadowBrain Pants-Adjustment of Approval.

Yeah, I just wanted say that. So?

Oh, and as far as glitches go, I stuck in a wall once and that's about it.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Lizard Dude on October 17, 2010, 05:07:23 PM
This is my video game review of the Dragon Ball Raging Blast 2 demo for the Microsoft Xbox 360 or Sony PlayStation 3. My review for this game is bittersweet, so don't hate me for trashing it through most of the review. Also, this review contains ***SPOILARS***. You, my friend, have been warned. Let's start.

If your bowels weren't completely emptied by the last Raging Blast, the Dragon Balls are back again to stimulate your fighting spirit once more. Starting the demo, I received a choice between four characters. I picked Kid Buu and matched up to fight against Ultimate Gohan. The load screen appeared and showed a series of eight buttons. I pressed the first button and to my surprise it disappeared, signifying I was progressing through the sequence! Sadly, due to my delay at understanding the load screen mechanics, I was only able to input 6 out of 8 commands. What would have happened upon success!? The battle began and we traded blows as I figured out the controls. Once I learned how to charge my ki energy, I sat there screaming until my gauge filled to the max. The instant I maxed, I hit the RB icon to activate my raging blast. This gave me superspeed and superpower and most importantly: a Japanese dude starting singing this AWESOME SONG. Using the might of my raging blast, I punched Gohan seven million times with my stretching goo arms. Then my blast ran out and Gohan said, "I've come to kill you." Then he killed me.

I give this game a 3 out of 10.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: WarpRattler on November 22, 2010, 11:56:55 AM
This is my video game review of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep for the Sony PlayStation Portable. My review for this game is bittersweet, so don't hate me for trashing it through most of the review. Also, this review contains ***SPOILARS***. You, my friend, have been warned. Let's start.

Okay, so, this prequel is by far the best Kingdom Hearts game. When I say that, I don't just mean it's good in comparison to the other games in the series. I mean it's really, truly good, enough so that I wish it wasn't a Kingdom Hearts game so that people would play it.

You start off with a quick (skippable) tutorial explaining the various controls, including the new functions introduced in Birth by Sleep, the Command Deck (which replaces an MP system, and lets you cycle through a customizable set of spells and abilities with a simple cooldown system) and Shotlock (a lock-on attack that does decent damage and, more importantly, makes you invulnerable for its duration). After that, you pick one of three characters to play through the game with: Terra (the angsty hero who has trouble with the darkness inside him; analogue to Riku), Ventus (recycled Roxas in every way except personality, like, seriously, it's the exact same character design and voice actor; analogue to - wait for it - Sora), or Aqua (odd in that she's a Kingdom Hearts female with a visible chest; she's also pretty level-headed and cool, and the analogue to Kairi), then beat up some spheres and leave the opening area after a few cutscenes with Master Eraqus (Mark Hamill) and Master Xehanort (Leonard Nimoy) talking.

Next you go to one of three brand-new old-school-Disney-based worlds based on which character you chose (the other two worlds open up after you finish the first): Enchanted Dominion (Sleeping Beauty), Dwarf Woodlands (Snow White and the Seven Dwarves), or Castle of Dreams (Cinderella). In each of these worlds you'll encounter the game's new monsters: the Unversed, beings born from negativity. Unfortunately, this is one of the game's greatest failings: it's the exact same structure many of the prior games in the series used. You're still visiting worlds based on Disney movies, still helping the proper denizens of said worlds deal with the threat of outside monsters - as always, the only difference is the new worlds involved, though this time around there are less Final Fantasy characters involved. However, the three-character structure massively improves this sort of play experience, with each character visiting different parts of the various worlds and interacting with different characters at different points in the stories; for example, when Ven meets Cinderella, he helps make her dress, while Terra escorts her to the ball and Aqua helps with the fitting of the glass slipper.

If you didn't already infer it: you have to play through the game three times to see the proper ending. This unfortunately means you start back at level one whenever you go on to the next character. But each character's route is different enough, both in story and in play style, that it's not that big a deal. Each character has exclusive spells and abilities, and, for example, a Ven strategy that rapes bosses won't work for Terra.

The skill system is very nice; rather than your existing spells simply being upgraded to their -ra and -ga forms as you progress through the story, you have to build up your skills yourself. Each skill gains experience as you kill Unversed; you can fuse developed skills to create new, more powerful ones; fusion also allows you to attach an ability to a skill, and when that skill reaches max level, that ability is permanently unlocked - kind of like the AP system in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, except a lot more versatile. The mechanics of the skill system mean that if you want, you can have Curaga an hour after you get your first copy of Cure; the same applies to any other standard spell, and the ability to control your character's statistical development how you want rather than being at the mercy of the story allows for the player to have a lot more fun.

When I started the game, I chose to play on Critical Mode, the hardest difficulty available, because all the other games on Proud Mode are still too easy. Well...Birth by Sleep on Critical Mode makes me wish the other US releases had included Critical Mode, because it changes stuff from being too easy to being legitimately balls-hard. (The new DS game also features Critical Mode, thankfully.) Also, if you play on Critical Mode, you start with an optional ability that turns off experience gains, for those who don't think being killed in a couple of hits by regular enemies is hard enough.

Kingdom Hearts fans will be happy to know Birth by Sleep successfully ties up practically every loose end Nomura has left in the story throughout the series...or, they would be happy, except that Birth by Sleep is a PSP game, so none of them can play it. One can only wonder why Square Enix chose to develop the game for the PSP, and why they aren't just putting Birth by Sleep Final Mix on a console. I would think porting it to the PS3 would make the most sense, since the main Kingdom Hearts team is also the Final Fantasy Versus XIII team...but then, Square Enix hates making sense.

I give this game a 3 out of 10.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Mr. Wiggles on November 22, 2010, 12:53:21 PM
Warp, you made that game sound incredibly hardcore.

I'm actually tempted to play a Kingdom Hearts game now.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Turtlekid1 on November 22, 2010, 01:22:13 PM
So the seven points off is almost entirely due to its being a PSP exclusive?  Or... did I miss something?  Not that I disagree that that part of it sucks...
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Mr. Wiggles on November 22, 2010, 02:17:18 PM
Did you not notice every game in this thread has received a 3/10?

Now what fan favorite cult classic video game once received that score and made it the benchmark for all good games to be judged as?
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Turtlekid1 on November 22, 2010, 02:33:40 PM
I have no idea.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: WarpRattler on November 22, 2010, 02:38:54 PM
I'm pretty sure FBM's initial poor rating of Animal Crossing had nothing to do with God Hand.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Black Mage on November 22, 2010, 03:22:37 PM
And besides, strictly speaking about gameplay, Godhand was awful.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: ShadowBrain on November 22, 2010, 03:29:42 PM
I feel subconsciously pressured to buy that game.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Kimimaru on November 22, 2010, 04:49:50 PM
A 3 out of 10 for all those games is kinda harsh, unless they actually deserved it. Also, rating a demo isn't really fair since the rest of the game can prove to be good even though the portion they give you may not.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Chupperson Weird on November 22, 2010, 06:46:07 PM
content of this thread ->             ________________

heads of people in this thread -> ________________
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: WarpRattler on February 11, 2011, 08:55:59 PM
This is my video game review of Dong Dong Never Die for the Microsoft Windows. My review for this game is bittersweet, so don't hate me for trashing it through most of the review. Also, this review contains ***SPOILARS***. You, my friend, have been warned. Let's start.

Dong Dong Never Die is a Chinese freeware 2D fighting game.

In 2009 there was a big fighting tournament in China, but then a bunch of fighters disappeared before the finals. All clues pointed to a mysterious "Biochemistry Man." So policeman Dongdong went undercover as a fighter to try to unravel this mystery.

The game has twenty-four playable fighters; similar to the older Mortal Kombat games, most of them are digitized actors (two, a stick-figure training dummy and Mario, are ordinary CG). Their animations are for the most part incredibly fluid, and the game runs very smoothly.

Much of the game pays homage to, well, everything. One character's moveset is ripped straight from Guile (along with having a Chinese replica of Guile's stage, complete with music). Another is an Iori clone (just for Mr. Wiggles). A third is a direct copy of Ryu, complete with voiceclips. And Mario has Akuma's moveset. There's also an Asian Terminator and an Asian Michael Jackson. And the stage music is all over the place - there's music from works as different as Hokuto no Ken and Wii Sports in there.

The only problem is, well, the game's balance is terrible. Pretty much everyone has some sort of infinite combo, and your starting special gauge is based on which character you pick, so some characters are at a distinct advantage from the start. And, bafflingly, special gauges don't stop filling during supers (though combo damage degrades properly, at least).

But you won't care because it's hilarious and loads of fun. And it has netplay. And did I mention it's free?

I give this game a 3 out of 10.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Lizard Dude on January 03, 2012, 09:35:08 PM
This is my video game review of Mighty Switch Force! for the Nintendo 3DS. My review for this game is bittersweet, so don't hate me for trashing it through most of the review. Also, this review contains ***SPOILARS***. You, my friend, have been warned. Let's start.

This is the first WayForward game on 3DS and worth a look if the system's currently meager library is leaving you hungry. It's an action-puzzler where you jump and shoot through a series of small levels, collecting five criminals and then getting to your robot suit to end the level. You can also challenge yourself with the extremely demanding par times for each stage, which require a near-perfect run. The game's main gimmick is the titular switching where you press a button to protrude or recess platforms into and out of the gameplay layer to jump on and stuff. Normal blocks smash you or enemies if they pop out into you while a different type of block shoots you like a DK barrel cannon. There are also colored blocks that don't switch with the rest as long as you're touching a block of that color.

The graphics are great-looking crisp pixel art with smooth animation and WayForward's trademark E-rated-but-sexy art style. The music is PIMP SUPREME and probably the best thing about the game. It sounds like Sonic the Hedgehog dubstep.

So try this if you're bored of your 3DS games. It screams its name on the title screen and is probably the best eShop game out there besides the VVVVVV port but that's cheating.

I give this game a 3 out of 10.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCkoI4PGZNk
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Luigison on January 04, 2012, 02:54:22 PM
The best game gets a 3/10.  That's sad.  Have you played Pushmo?
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: BP on January 04, 2012, 03:48:43 PM
I'm seeing a pattern here

You're supposed to
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Luigison on January 04, 2012, 04:24:07 PM
I'm seeing a pattern here

You're supposed to
D'oh!
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Toad on January 04, 2012, 08:23:45 PM
That's the joke, methinks
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: CrossEyed7 on January 04, 2012, 08:31:22 PM
content of this thread ->             ________________

heads of people in this thread -> ________________
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Weegee on January 04, 2012, 11:02:28 PM
Is LD trying to make a point about bothering to read the entire review instead of just the game's score? I really can't tell at this point.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Luigison on January 05, 2012, 03:49:03 PM
Is LD trying to make a point about bothering to read the entire review instead of just the game's score? I really can't tell at this point.
I can.  Now.  When reading it the first time I was wondering why he said he'd trash the game, but the review seemed almost glowing to me.  Now that I see the joke of this thread I realize he purposely did it that way.  Sorry to ruin the joke guys.  In my defense I was catching up from the holidays and reading a dozen or so new posts without paying attention to the threads. 
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: WarpRattler on February 09, 2012, 07:30:46 PM
Hey LD, since you liked the soundtrack for Mighty Switch Force, why not throw ten bucks at the second Indie Game Music Bundle (http://www.gamemusicbundle.com/) to get that soundtrack and several other albums?
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Lizard Dude on August 04, 2012, 12:15:35 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKZCbESgJf8.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Ultima Shadow on August 04, 2012, 05:23:44 PM
I give this thread a 3 out of 10.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: WarpRattler on November 16, 2012, 02:33:31 AM
This is my video game review of Treasures of Montezuma Blitz for the Sony PlayStation Vita. My review for this game is bittersweet, so don't hate me for trashing it through most of the review. Also, this review contains ***SPOILARS***. You, my friend, have been warned. Let's start.

The only good things I have to say about Treasures of Montezuma Blitz amount to "it's free" and "it has PSN trophies." And I can't even say much that's good there.

Treasures of Montezuma Blitz is a shameless Bejeweled Blitz clone, but worse in so many ways. Where Bejeweled Blitz is playable without spending money, Montezuma makes you spend in-game currency (which can, of course, be purchased with Real Money if you run out) just to be able to use powerups that have been standard in other match-3 games for years; worse, to be able to use powerups in the first place, you have to grind endlessly to unlock them, then level them up to a point where they're useful. Other problems include rear-touch gimmicks that add no real fun to the game, an energy system (as seen in many Facebook games, but not in Bejeweled Blitz) preventing you from playing a lot of games in a row, and locks that prevent you from swapping gems and that require two matches to be cleared fully.

(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwarp.falsificare.com%2Fscreencaps%2Ftombhighscore.jpg&hash=e1c1cd01a7198e22034178023fe0a252)

Perhaps the worst feature in Montezuma that isn't present in Bejeweled Blitz is the time gem, a special gem that appears whether or not you spend in-game currency. Time gems add extra time to the clock, which can lead to games going much longer than the one minute you'd normally play for, as seen in the picture above. Why is this a bad thing? Well, this is what happens when you aren't lucky:

(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwarp.falsificare.com%2Fscreencaps%2Ftomblowscore.jpg&hash=37b8904582b95ed39b26eb7c921c917e)

And this is what can happen if you're very lucky (and willing to keep playing a single round of a match-3 game for a long time):

(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwarp.falsificare.com%2Fscreencaps%2Ftombleader.jpg&hash=17b264e4c9beb6e51d1e2553924fad09)

But hey, at least the game's free, right? And it has trophies, which everyone loves!

Except, whoops, the trophies are pretty dumb, too. Things like "play for 100 hours" (I have seven hours and twenty-two minutes logged since I first played the game back at the beginning of October), "win 250,000 crystals in the daily minigame" (currently have 44,900, though I haven't bothered to launch the game and play it most days), and "destroy all tokens on the gameboard at once" (which is incredibly luck-based).

At this point, the only reason I play this game is when I need to kill a couple of minutes and don't feel like playing any of the other half-dozen games currently installed on my Vita. I doubt I'll ever look at it again once PlayStation Plus for Vita hits next week and I start having more games on my Vita than I'll ever be able to play.

I give this game a 3 out of 10.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: BP on June 16, 2014, 11:13:37 PM
This is my video game review of Retro City Rampage for the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo 3DS, Microsoft Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, Sony Playstation 3, and Sony Playstation Vita. My review for this game is bittersweet, so don't hate me for trashing it through most of the review. Also, this review contains ***SPOILARS***. You, my friend, have been warned. Let's start.

I picked up this game on Steam because it was two dollars and had a passing interest in it. Punching people in an open-world city with no load times while sporting a pompadour as big of the rest of your head? Can anything like that really go wrong?

The answer is yes. I played it for only a little over an hour and already have a butt-ton of opinions on it. It is fitting I chose to start the game today, as I just finished Dark Souls II this morning. I don't really want to get into it because I could go on and on, but I feel Dark Souls is a good hard look at what video games today should be like, and what sets it apart from other modern games is that it has some focus. What's there is what needs to be there to serve that focus. It's intense and frustrating to be sure, but it's its own reward. It has a tutorial but holds your hand as much as a mysophobe even through that. It's like a retro game in a modern game's skin. And it's good.

Retro City Rampage is the complete antithesis. It's a modern game in a retro game's skin. Basically the worst of both worlds. The tutorial walked me through every button press of a bank heist, not excluding "move towards the vault door and press A to jump through it". It's got no focus. Shortly after I thought the tutorial was over, a new one began to throw a total gameplay shift at me. To stealth. Not long after the stealth segment that practically played itself, it opened up to the flaunted open-world gameplay with multiple side-missions I could undertake, which means I could wander around the city discovering things to do, right? No. Of course not, what am I, stupid? All three of them had icons with arrows on the HUD pointing in the direction I'd need to go, no matter where I was.

But what really grills me is that it stands on its own two feet about as much as an amputee piggyback riding someone on stilts. It is a ceaseless barrage of oh just so hilarious and epic you guys '80s references. I was born in 1992 so I was probably only catching about half of them, but it was a new one every few seconds even then. First we're scrolling up a building a la Mega Man 2's title screen. There's a cop on the rooftop, and a bird takes a [dukar] on his head, prompting a cameo by the Duck Hunt dog. The plot opened with me robbing a bank for Not The Joker, who asked me to use the speed shoes to cross the street like a hedgehog after I complained the traffic was moving so fast I'd end up like the squished frog in the gutter. Time travel happened and I ended up rooming it up with Not Doc Brown and learning stealth from Not Solid Snake to infiltrate Not Outer Heaven. The boss of which was Not Robocop with Not Rad Spencer's Bionic Arm. You can stomp enemies, and this is the only attack that makes numbers for points appear on-screen. There was a boxing ring/stolen bike vendor owned by Not Doc Louis from Punch-Out!! who sent me on what I can only assume was literally Paperboy in another gameplay shift. Then I had to go retrieve a vehicle that looked exactly like Donkey Kong from enemy hands. I can only assume that it threw barrels, but I was done.

I'm all for  homages and shout-outs but there is a point where you're making so many that it sends a message. A message that you don't really have any faith in what you've created on your own, that comes through to me as a recommendation to play other, better games while watching Back To The Future. Deleted, removed from backlog. I can do that, I'm the queen of Drangleic.

I give this game a 3 out of 10.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Turtlekid1 on July 12, 2014, 12:27:05 AM
This is my video game review of Shovel Knight for the Nintendo Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, and Microsoft Windows. My review for this game is bittersweet, so don't hate me for trashing it through most of the review. Also, this review contains ***SPOILARS***. You, my friend, have been warned. Let's start.

About time I jumped on the bandwagon for this one.  I know the market is saturated with 8-bit games trying to cash in on the nostalgia factor, but this one does it very well.

And by that, I mean it takes all the fun stuff from the likes of old Castlevania and Mega Man games, and leaves out many of the questionable design elements that lesser developers would just assume are part of the experience, or confuse with legitimate difficulty.  This is not to say its inspirations are necessarily bad games, but what this does with them is distill them to the point where, if classic 8-bit titles were urine and Yacht Club were a filtration system, you would never know you were pulling a Bear Grylls.  Never once did I feel like a death was not my fault or could've been prevented if the game had telegraphed properly (okay, maybe once or twice in Propeller Man's stage).  You're familiar with EgoRaptor's Sequelitis episode covering Mega Man X (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM)?  If not, go Google that real quick.  I'll wait.  ...  I'm operating under the assumption that you didn't actually Google it.  Suffice it to say that what EgoRaptor loves about Mega Man X is that it teaches you to play the game as it goes, but without ever pressuring you to learn something without the reasonable expectation that you could teach yourself from the context. 

Shovel Knight excels at this.  It paces itself so that you learn the game's mechanics in a controlled environment so that by the time you're expected to Shovel Pogo across a bottomless insta-kill pit, for instance, it's completely intuitive.  Is this hand-holding?  Well, I never felt like it.  Instead, I felt like I was figuring out every room as I went, because I grew to expect that that room would build on the ones before.  Even when I found myself dying more than once to an obstacle, frequent checkpoints made iteration time low enough that it never felt like a chore to continue.  More games should do this instead of tossing the player in a completely hostile trial-and-error environment simply because older games used that as a substitute for expending some effort to balance the curve.  Admittedly, some of this was a holdout from when you actually spent a quarter every time you wanted another Trial to correct the Error.  But I think it's high time developers learn the difference between the good difficulty, the bad difficulty, and the ugly tedium.  The latter two run rampant in games, especially ones made to evoke the NES era.

But the game's good balance isn't its only recommending feature.  Character sprites are full of personality.  The levels are varied and have gimmicks, but ones that integrate well with existing controls rather than being jarring.  Secrets abound and are perhaps a little obvious, but in my book, that's better than making them so obscure that no player without a guide or an itchy trigger finger could find them - instead, you discover them just by keeping your eyes open.  Optional and bonus content fills out the overworld map beyond the eight Robot Master Order of No Quarter stages.  Boss fights all heighten the game's pulse like they should.  Castlevania-style sub-weapons give you a plethora of offensive and mobility options (and unlike the game that inspired their inclusion, most or all of them are actually somewhat useful), making speedrunning viable for the purposes of replay value (if that's your jam).

Speaking of jams, the music is just as expressive in its love letter to the best of 8-bit video games as any other element of Shovel Knight.  It can hold its own with the best of the "Wily Castle Stage 1-2"s and "The Moon"s.  Like, seriously.  It's on Bandcamp (http://virt.bandcamp.com/album/shovel-knight-original-soundtrack) on a name-your-price basis.  Give 'er a listen.  Memorable soundtracks are increasingly rare in modern games, don't ignore this one.  This also reminds me that there are in-game sheet music collectibles that unlock the option to play the tracks once you've found the music for them, and it's amazing how much fun it is to track down the sound test.

Even though the plot is as excuse-y as its counterparts in NES titles everywhere, the presentation is still fun.  It's shameless about the tropes it employs that remind the player of older games.  It feels like something you played as a kid (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6xP1KHeIM8).  Things like "Order of No Quarter."  It's shameless.  Nothing terribly groundbreaking (heh), sure (many nostalgia-based games get the tone of the classics right even if they fail at everything else), but I was entertained and occasionally caught just a little off-guard by some of the NPCs, in the best possible way.

But really, everything this game does seems to be done in the best possible way.  There's good reason for its long incubation period, and it was well worth it.  Other would-be retraux designers take note: bringing the fun of classic platformers does not necessitate resurrecting the evil undead fake difficulty and frustrating design choices that often accompanied them.  Leave the unfun elements buried, and dig up the things that players actually enjoy.

I give this game a 3 out of 10.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Lizard Dude on July 15, 2014, 08:43:58 PM
I disagree about the plot maturity. Several conversations gain new meaning on replay once you understand what's actually going on with the Shovel Knight, Shield Knight, and Black Knight situation. The dream sequences cannily set up a massive emotional moment that you wouldn't have thought much of at all without them. And the post-credits scene is one of the most touching moments in videogame history. I can't think of any NES games on this plot level.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Turtlekid1 on July 16, 2014, 06:09:52 AM
Fair point.  I'd agree with all of that, actually.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: BP on September 30, 2014, 06:43:17 PM
This is my video game review of Pikmin and Pikmin 2 for the Nintendo GameCube and Nintendo Wii. My review for these games is bittersweet, so don't hate me for trashing them through most of the review. Also, this review contains ***SPOILARS***. You, my friend, have been warned. Let's start.

I think it's interesting to look at Nintendo's history and imagine what they were thinking with each new step up in technology. In retrospect, it looks to me like Luigi's Mansion was a collection of toys with cloth physics and lighting effects the Nintendo 64 would have struggled to create. Another near-launch title for the GameCube, Pikmin, makes an entire game out of the processing power of the new console being able to handle over 100 characters on-screen at a time. But what makes something like that a game mechanic and not just a gimmick? The changes between Pikmin and Pikmin 2 really got me to think about and figure out the difference.

To sum up my feelings about Pikmin 1, I can't really fault any of its deliberate decisions. The deadline to find all your ship parts creates a need to micromanage pikmin so you can get as many tasks completed in a day as possible. The need to micromanage pikmin creates a need to watch their numbers and keep their population high. The need for that creates a need to think it through when micromanaging them, which teams to pay the most attention to, where to send which pikmin, how to divide the greater group. The need for that creates the need to think about which colors of pikmin you should be trying to make more of. It's an incredibly solid game and nothing in it feels like a waste or like it didn't need to be there, with the possible exception of everything relating to bomb rocks.

So what's different about Pikmin 2? For starters, the overarching time limit is gone and there are new areas in the world, referred to as caves, where the timer for the current day stops altogether. My first impressions from these changes were that they completely yanked the rug out from under the point of the game. With no worries about time running out, there's no need to multitask, and so no need to divide the group of Pikmin at all. Micromanaging is definitely possible, but ceases to be a game mechanic and becomes a gimmick. This is exactly what I was afraid of after finishing Pikmin 1--that the time limit would be received poorly for making the game a challenge at all, and would be removed, destroying the game's meaning.

But, it didn't. Not entirely. I thought it did at first, but still enjoyed Pikmin 2 enough to keep playing and find that the caves started getting much longer and more challenging, which opened up something new. Micromanaging may no longer be an important game mechanic, but in the caves, there is a great emphasis on endurance. You cannot bolster the pikmin's numbers inside the caves, or even get more pikmin into your team out of the reserves. You can start with 100, and if 56 of them die on the first floor of the cave because a beetle is farting poison everywhere, then you're counting on 44 pikmin for the rest of it. So pikmin management is still critical, and deliberating which ones to take into the cave with only a vague element-based warning as to what dangers lie inside.

All of that being said, I still don't think it's better. Most ideas in Pikmin 2 do go hand-in-hand very well, but not quite so perfectly as every idea in the first. But I do applaud Pikmin 2 for taking the basic engine from Pikmin 1 and repurposing it for different gameplay ideas instead of creating a sequel that is more of the same thing. It certainly is longer, as well. I could have played the first game over and over and over again in the time I spent playing the second game once. What I don't applaud is that two of Pikmin 2's non-cave maps are just the same ones from the first game with small changes. Moved water, different enemies, electric fences for the yellow pikmin's convenient new electric resistance to take care of, etc. I would have liked to see a greater number of new worlds that made even more of a big deal of endurance, like the caves do. Larger worlds to explore, trek across, struggle to survive in... but I digress. Great games for their own reasons. Wish I'd played them sooner and will definitely play Pikmin 3 as well.

I give these games a 3 out of 10.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Glowsquid on July 07, 2015, 04:40:09 PM
This is my video game review of Lethal Skies: Elite Pilot: Team SW (aka Sidewinder F). My review for this game is bittersweet, so don't hate me for trashing it through most of the review. Also, this review contains ***SPOILARS***. You, my friend, have been warned. Let's start. This

But first, a brief history lesson!

Lethal Skies is actually the fourth instalment in a series of low-budget Ace Combat alternatives developed by Bit Town and budgeted by film production outfit Asmik Ace Entertainement. The first game, Sidewinder (retitled Bogey Dead 6 in North America and Raging Skies in Europe) was released in 1996 for the Playstation. A straight clone of Namco's Air Combat, Sidewinder attempted to distinguish itself with superficial realistic stylings and support for the concurrently-released SCPH-1110 analog controller. It would be followed by Sidewinder 2: Let's Dance in the Sky, a fairly conservative sequel released in tandem with Namco's Ace Combat 2.

The series would skip the remainder of the fifth generation before returning in 2000 with a PS2 instalment titled Sidewinder MAX. MAX retained the real-word setting of the previous instalments, but shifted further toward realism, with the player now having to deal with limited weapon loadouts, blackouts and g-forces. It was followed one year later by Sidewinder F (renamed Lethal Skies Elite Pilot: Team SW in the west), which retained MAX's mechanics but shifted the setting to a futuristic post-global warming Earth. It was in turn followed by Sidewinder V (Lethal Skies 2 in the west) in 2003.

Bit Town would then produce another combat flight game for budget publisher D3 as part of its Simple 2000 series, named The Uchuu Daisensou (released in Europe as Space War Attack). Though done on the Lethal Skies engine, Space War Attack traded Lethal Skies mechanical adversaries for UFOs and giant bugs, similar to D3's own Earth Defense Force series.

After that, nothing. Bit Town quietly ceased all activities, presumably one of the many casualties of HD development.

Plot summary

Despite humanity's best efforts, the release of Siberia's methane reserves cause global warming to accelerate at an unimaginable rate, resulting in much of the world being flooded. Life on artificial "mega-floats" is now the norm, and the surviving nation have rallied the banner of the World Alliance and its military wing, the Frontier Nations.

Well, not all of them. The millitaristic Republic of Gurtestein, enraged by economic sanctions placed due to its arm-dealing ventures, has left the World Alliance and convinced various disfranchised states to band together as the World Order Reorganisation Front. As the leader of the Frontier Nations' newly-formed Team SW fighter team, only you stand in the way of the WORF and its mysterious "M-Plan".

Review

Lethal Skies may looks like one of many low-budget Ace Combat ripoff, but as with its predecessors, Lethal Skies pays surprising (for a console flight game) lip service to realism. The game's planes can carry up to 16 missiles – still considerably more than what the featured planes can carry in reality, but far less than the 50 missiles loaded on the starter planes in games such as Ace Combat. Fuel is similarly limited. G-forces have a tangible effect on the plane's maneuverability, and the game goes as far as restricting planes loadout selection by their country of origins (NATO planes can select the Sidewinder and Maverick as air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles respectively, while Russian ones use Archers and Keglers). The player can also enable blackouts and redouts in the game settings, although their effect is purely cosmetic.

Of course, there are concessions to the opposite end of the scale. Vulcan ammo is unlimited and a generous hitbox makes it reliable weapon even if your reserves aren't exhausted. Controls are kept reasonably simple (perhaps too simple in one respect – ejecting countermeasures is completely automated) and you don't have to worry about fiddling with instrumentation. Real missiles are mixed with fictional ordinances, the best one being air-to-air or air-to-ground missiles that split in smaller warheads when fired.

It would be very easy for this improbable mixture of simulation and arcade to go wrong, but it forms together in an interesting, and certainly unique, whole. While running out of ammunition is a very real danger, Lethal Skies's designers reasonably opted to make the missions short and clinical affairs, featuring one clear objective and little in the way of theatrics or scenarisation. Enemy encounters are similarly reserved, the mission favouring one-on-one dogfights against few but reasonably strong and intelligent enemies . Lethal Skies ends up being a consistently well-paced, white-knuckled affair apart from a few unfortunate boss encounters.

Furthermore, prior to starting a mission, you can fully customise not only your plane's loadout, but that of your entire squad, as well as their flight priorities. Though micro-managing your squadron is not mandatory to success, it is a boon when attempting to attain higher grades on missions (a process necessary to unlock a good chunk of the game's plane roster, featuring exotics like the SU-47). Beside the requisite campaign, Lethal Skies also feature a Free Flight mode and a customizable but somewhat limited dogfight simulator.

The campaign starts with the routine seek-and-destroy, escort missions and canyon runs (two of them, in fact) common to console flight games, but soon starts dipping into stranger – and more interesting- waters. The apocalypse obviously hasn't deterred the military industrial complex, as a quarter of the game's 20 missions will pit you against oversized mechanical monstrosities, such as a wheeled aircraft carrier, or an artillery-cannon equipped spider tank. This type of insanity would normally be the highlight of the game, but the game's realistic flight model doesn't always cooperate with these encounters. One mission requires you to destroy a giant VTOL craft, first by destroy gun batteries on its side and then its four rotors, a simple process made more tedious than challenging by the aircraft's awkwardly fast turning speed and the relative sluggishness of your jet. In another instance, you're required to dismantle the aforementioned spider tank weapon by weapon before striking its underside core, something that will likely require many momentum-killing passes if you only have your gun left.

Lethal Skies griping tale of military conflict between faceless alliances in a post global warming world likely won't inspire fanfiction writers, especially as the entire thing is delivered in laughably stilted prose (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfN1gGH-2HQ#t=2m40s) read by the announcer of the Saturday Night Live Japan. but the game does manage to make effective use of its post-apocalyptic setting; missions may have you downing MIGs over a flooded New York or, a desertificated Paris or the arctic reaches of Texas.

Warts and all though, I really did enjoy Lethal Skies. It may not look like much, but it's an interesting little diversion for the flight combat enthusiast looking for something different.


I give this game a 3 out of 10.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: TheMightyThor on July 07, 2015, 07:05:26 PM
This is my video game review of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Nintendo Wii. My review for this game is bittersweet, so don't hate me for trashing it through most of the review. Also, this review contains ***SPOILARS***. You, my friend, have been warned. Let's start.

My expectations were all confused with this game. On one hand, it's a Zelda game. Those are always great! I love Zelda! On the other hand, I wasn't enthused about the art style following its reveal, not much about it looked amazing to me or hyped me up, and it came after previous console Zelda game Twilight Princess, which is one of my favorite games ever. I figured this game probably couldn't top Twilight Princess, but it would at least be a pretty good Zelda game on its own, right?

It has its moments. The Ancient Cistern is one of the coolest Zelda dungeons, and Koloktos (also of the Ancient Cistern!) and Tentalus are two of the best Zelda bosses ever, in spite of Tentalus' cliche weakpoint and Monsters Inc-esque design. The storytelling continues the more cinematic direction Twilight Princess was headed in, for the better in my opinion. The soundtrack is finally orchestral, and there are some great songs. The new item upgrading stuff is pretty cool as well, even if grinding for materials can be a bit of a chore. The timestone mechanics in the Lanayru area are very, very cool.

Unfortunately, I have quite a few grievances. The 1:1 sword combat seems really cool, and at first, it is, but the enemy design of "slash this way and time it right" starts to get old. The motion control stuff in general wears out its welcome, and often feels downright gimmicky. Why on Earth do we need to move the Wii-mote around in all these weird directions just to open the door to the boss? As if the overuse of motion control elements wasn't enough, you constantly have to recalibrate the Wii Motion+, as it likes to mess up every few minutes or so.

I get that things are supposed to look like an Impressionist painting, but the blurry textures still put me off. Things get a little low-poly in some areas, too. It being on the Wii isn't much of an excuse, since Brawl and the Galaxy games look great.

Remember those parts in Twilight Princess where you were stuck as a wolf killing bugs to collect the Tears of Light? That stuff kinda brought the game down just a little, but at least you had a new set of moves to exploit in your new form, namely sensing, digging, and Midna-jumping. It's back in full force with the Silent Realm sections. Only this time you better move your ass, cause if you don't, the statues'll get you and you have to start over! Of course, you're also screwed if you walk into the wrong places even if you still have time to dick around. All that stuff was probably put in to make these segments more tense and fun, but since screwing up means you have to start over, it just makes them much worse than they were in Twilight Princess. And there's even more collecting crap! Like when the Faron Woods are flooded, and you have to collect all the music notes to learn the Song of the Hero. If those parts weren't very liked in Twilight Princess, why make them worse and have more of them in this game? Padding?

There are a bunch of other little problems I had with the game that bugged me. The hub/overworld that is the sky really sucked. Remember how Wind Waker's ocean had a tendency to seem empty and lacking in enemies? Hoo, boy... Anyways, the big three landmasses all being completely split apart was just weird and made the game seem even more linear than Twilight Princess in a way. I don't like the world of a Zelda game feeling that broken apart. Twilight Princess had named provinces, yet still managed to feel more unified than this game's world. This game's special instrument is the worst yet (I don't care too much for the wolf howls, but they were way better than the harp), it seems like there's a lot of recurring enemies and places and repetition (The four silent realms, fighting the Imprisoned three times, fighting Ghirahim three times, going to the same three landmasses again and again...), and the stuff that's supposed to be the exploration just...didn't feel like exploration. It felt more like solving a series of puzzles, only outside of dungeons, maybe interspersed with some pseudo-platforming sometimes. Twilight Princess had more of a sense of wonder in its world than this game's puzzlefests, which is kinda funny considering that game's "realistic" art style. Oh, and screw only being able to save at certain points. A Link Between Worlds is the only Zelda game that can get away with that in my eyes.

Although most of the game disappointed me, I will admit that the final couple hours were a great finale. The story stuff, the great last dungeon, the horde battle, the final bosses...it's like I was finally at the "Okay, now it's getting good!" part. Only it ended right as it was starting to pick up. Sorry, but a great last bit doesn't make the whole big experience a blast. I'd probably call this the worst "main-series" Zelda game I've ever played. Even with that in mind, though, I'd give it a 7/10, since outside of constant calibration issues it's not too broken, some of the puzzle solving was nice (even if puzzle solving did wrongfully take the place of standard exploration in my opinion), some of the motion control utilization was actually pretty neat (even though it is blatantly shoehorned in at times), and there are admittedly some pretty great moments, with a solid final couple hours. However, I've decided that...

I give this game a 3 out of 10.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: TheMightyThor on July 07, 2015, 07:06:32 PM
(By the way, I know that "review" isn't well written and reads more like a list of complaints, but playing the game, more and more complaints just piled up in my head, and I've been wanting to do a TMK-styled review for a while now. I'm gonna get some [dukar] for praising TP and calling SS the worst Zelda game I've played, aren't I?)
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Suffix on July 07, 2015, 07:55:06 PM
Hey, I liked and continue to like TP the most out of all the Zelda series. If I were to object to anything in your review, it would be this:

Quote
Twilight Princess had more of a sense of wonder in its world than this game's puzzlefests, which is kinda funny considering that game's "realistic" art style

Of course TP's going to have a greater sense of wonder in its world if it's designed to look more realistic than SS. There's something to be said for an uncluttered, vivid art style making understanding puzzles easier, but it becomes very clear that what you're doing is just that, a puzzle.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: ShadowBrain on July 07, 2015, 08:04:40 PM
Yeah, as regulars around here know, I'll go down swinging for TP as the best Zelda game -- and as for SS, like TheMightyThor said, the score, Timestone segments, and third act were all rock solid, just as the repetitive, cramped feel and variably good graphics were a downer. But while I definitely wish SS could've been better, I don't know if it's the worst main series Zelda when Adventure of Link is still around (I'm assuming that means the DS games don't count? Because then it's no contest).
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: BP on July 07, 2015, 08:22:58 PM
TP is really fantastic, if your name is Ocarina of Time and you enjoy giving oral pleasure

Or if your name is Fourteen-Year-Old Boys Who Disike Wind Waker For Its Visual Style Making You Insecure And Will Like Anything Devoid Of Heart As Long As It Is "Epic"

Okay, okay, it's not THAT bad, I'm really cruel and unfair to it. It just feels like Nintendo saying "Okay fine, here, have exactly what you think you want, instead of thinking or learning anything." Which wouldn't be as stupid if Wind Waker weren't about change and letting go of the past, and if it didn't DROWN Ocarina of Time. Majora's Mask and Wind Waker look at Ocarina of Time and think "where can we go from here?" Twilight Princess thinks "Okay, we do that, but overclock it, and filter every meaningful character interaction through this little shadow elf"

"Aaaand make the tutorial part of the game like three years long"
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Tavros on July 07, 2015, 11:02:33 PM
Really, to me, the art style of TP is the worst thing about it aside from Midna. It really had the possibility to have this really strange and interesting world, like pretty much every Zelda after LttP, but the art style removed all of the whimsy and replaced it with a failed attempt at realism.
And though I absolutely love Wind Waker (IMO only Minish Cap and AoL are better) Skyward Sword has my vote for best art style, due to finding how to make the best mix possible of WW's and TP's art styles.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Weegee on July 08, 2015, 12:08:07 AM
I-I prefer SS over TP by a considerable margin.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Suffix on July 08, 2015, 12:53:05 AM
TP is really fantastic, if your name is Ocarina of Time and you enjoy giving oral pleasure

I'm pretty sure you meant "receiving."

We're probably having this conversation for the fourth time by now... Wind Waker's my second favorite out of all of them, largely because the controls were really fun. What I didn't like about it wasn't the art style, but rather how the islands all felt cramped and the "real" Hyrule was an underwater wasteland. I couldn't give a hoot (get it? cause Kaepora Gaebora?) if TP's basically Ocarina of Time Deluxe, because I was never all that thrilled with OoT when I beat it on the GC OoT/MM bundle disc.

The tutorial for TP was indeed long, though.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: The Chef on July 08, 2015, 01:03:20 AM
Suffix just made me want a new game in the same style as Wind Waker but with an actual Hyrule to explore. ._.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Weegee on July 08, 2015, 01:06:06 AM
The path behind Hyrule Castle leading to Ganondorf's tower is one of my all-time favourite video-game locations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDKs1YN3iwM
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: ShadowBrain on July 08, 2015, 06:20:06 AM
Dang, I need to play WWHD already.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: TheMightyThor on July 08, 2015, 10:16:43 AM
Speaking of Zelda (or Zelda clones in this case), Lizard Dude reminds me that I should check out the original Darksiders out sometime. I have Darksiders 2 on Wii U, and I haven't beaten it because I don't know where to go, but I still like it a lot.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: ShadowBrain on July 08, 2015, 01:22:34 PM
Darksiders is better -- it's an egregious combination of Zelda and God of War, but I love it for that.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Turtlekid1 on July 10, 2015, 11:19:27 PM
This is my video game review of Batman: Arkham Knight for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. My review for this game is bittersweet, so don't hate me for trashing it through most of the review. Also, this review contains ***SPOILARS***. You, my friend, have been warned. Let's start.

I've been a huge fan of this series since its beginnings in Arkham Asylum.  At the time, Asylum was an ambitious project; licensed superhero games were, and still are, quite hit-or-miss.  Asylum disregarded the dubious history of its genre, though.  It synthesized the very best of the franchise with a cast of characters that included Batman and many of the favorites among his rogues gallery, cameos for even more of the non-major ones, nods to the comics all over the place, fan-preferred voice actors from previous adaptations (KEVIN CONROY), and plenty of action.  The game world was moody, the story was fascinating, and both the action and stealth gameplay proved equally up to the task of totally immersing the player in the role Batman.  Arkham City was a true sequel in that it built upon just about all of that.  The game world was five times bigger and fostered a sandbox feel, the mechanics were deepened with more gadgets and combat variety, and probably the biggest shortcoming of its predecessor, the boss fights, became unique and interesting.

Fast forward a few years (past Origins, a solid but nonessential prequel title).  Rocksteady announces Arkham Knight, boasting it to be the definitive Batman experience.  A similar expansion comparable to what City did with Asylum.  A new villain slated to be the ultimate nemesis.

And then it came out.

Following the fallout from the Arkham City incident, Gotham is at relative peace.  Scarecrow decides this can't last and, pooling together resources with other Bat-villains, hires a private army to hold the city hostage, prompting a mass evacuation, while he plots a large-scale release of his fear toxin.  Batman isn't having any of this, and heads off to confront him - soon butting heads with the guy in charge of said private army and other main antagonist, the eponymous Arkham Knight.  The Knight has a vendetta against Bats and his pursuit of it drives most of the story forward.  Without actually spoiling too much of the story, I will say that it follows series tradition in saturating itself with as much Bat continuity and as many memorable twists and confrontations as possible.  The delivery is wonderful as well: the issues lingering in Batman's psyche are dealt with masterfully and in a unique way that forgoes angst in favor of being legitimately interesting; the voice acting is still top notch; enemy chatter is actually amusing and provides a surprising amount of soul.  The identity of the Knight is a central plot point, and those who are fans of the comics mythology will know it early on in the game (even those who had never previously touched a Batman story of any kind will be able to pick up on it before it's "revealed") - but even though it's entirely predictable for the player, it becomes more about the impact on the characters involved.  And all while this main conflict unfolds, numerous other crooks and villains, returning and new, take advantage of the crisis, giving Bats even more to worry about.

Mechanically, I was not disappointed.  The degree of innovation on the previous title is perhaps not quite as meaningful as the previous jump from Asylum to City, but there are still plenty of new tricks to use.  I don't think it's ever been more fun to glide around the city, and the Fear Multi-Takedowns do wonders for the pacing of predator encounters, which also integrate gadgets better than ever and feature more intelligent and less frustratingly random enemies.  Freeflow is similarly polished (as I would hope after 2.5 previous outings) and more rewarding than ever when the ins and outs are paid proper attention.  Neither of these have been ruined from last time, so it's not a tough sell; it's all about the enemy configurations, which change up enough to make you pay attention to what you're doing.  And then... the new piece on the board, the Batmobile.  I have to say, I was expecting it to be implemented much less gracefully, but I almost never had an issue handling it (a rare exception for vehicle-based gameplay), and the tank combat was as painless as I could've wished for.  The boss fights are sadly much less of a presence, probably the one area in which it is a direct let-down from City.  Most "bosses" are just bigger tanks for the Batmobile to fight (however, the climactic confrontation with the Arkham Knight is, in spirit, very much like the much-beloved Mr. Freeze encounter of yore).  I'm reminded a bit of Uncharted 3's abandonment of bosses as a mechanic, but where that game thrived on a bit more realism, Arkham Knight is about Batman and could've done with less of it where bosses were concerned.

Otherwise, Arkham Knight does not set out to fix what isn't broken, but that doesn't mean any of it is badly done.  Once again, the Riddler presents a slew of puzzles - largely optional and internal to his own sidequest (concept art and character models provide a meager incentive for most of them), but many cleverly designed.  Once again, the bonus challenges are well-presented and mostly irrelevant, though they do provide upgrade points as incentive to not completely ignore them this time.  And once again, there's no small amount of content overall.

It's worth noting that I did have just a couple of gripes with this game: first off, the Batmobile is well-executed, but perhaps pushed a little bit too much.  The early game is almost choked by it.  I think this is also related to the lack of boss fights; at least a couple of the tank battles in the game could have been cut in favor of more interesting encounters and taken advantage of mechanics that benefit from an entire series' worth of polish.  Even Origins had more and better boss battles, and that's lamentable.  Another [minor] issue that reminded me of its existence a few too many times was that the auto-aim on gadgets and combat moves seems to have been downgraded this time without reason - just... occasionally I had trouble Batclawing a Riddler trophy, or died because Bats simply refused to do an aerial attack on a riot shield enemy when I did what should've been the right input.  And, a slightly bigger-in-nature gripe: I played the PC version.  I won't get too much into it as an actual problem here, because it's only relevant to one of the three platforms on which the game is available, and has already been noted and noted again everywhere else.  Even so, despite some frame and lag issues, the experience was not overly marred.

Arkham Knight is fantastic, at least as good as City.  All the right mythology nods are still there.  The writing has probably never been better, especially between Batman and             .  The sense of immersion has definitely never been better.  You might think the gameplay would be repetitive, but there's still life in dem bones, and the Batmobile was far better than I was concerned it would be.  If you want a good action/stealth/puzzle game (with none of the three ever feeling out of balance with each other) set in a sprawling urban environment with all the tools to conquer those elements and feel accomplished, you should probably check it out (obviously PC gamers will need to wait on that).  If you want that kind of game, and you're a Batman fan, you need to play it.

I give this game a 3 out of 10.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Lizard Dude on July 13, 2015, 08:52:56 PM
I admire and respect how from beginning to end, the Arkham series never abandoned its beloved core mechanic: tapping A to slowly remove grates.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: ShadowBrain on July 13, 2015, 09:22:33 PM
Truly, it is a convention for which we are all grateful.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: Turtlekid1 on July 17, 2015, 11:50:45 AM
It blew my mind when I learned later that you can do a running slide through them and bypass the snoozefest.
Title: Re: Let's review...
Post by: CrossEyed7 on July 30, 2015, 10:12:02 PM
TP just feels like Nintendo saying "Okay fine, here, have exactly what you think you want, instead of thinking or learning anything."
That's actually exactly what happened. (http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/feature/13087/eiji-aonumas-gdc-2007-presentation-the-fate-of-wind-waker-2)

Quote from: Eiji Aonuma
At one point, I had heard that even Wind Waker, which had reached the million mark in sales, had become sluggish in North America, where the market was much healthier than in Japan. I asked NOA why this was. What I was told was that the toon-shading technique was, in fact, giving the impression that this Zelda was for a younger audience and that, for this reason, it alienated the upper teen audience that had represented the typical Zelda player. Having heard that, I began to worry about whether Wind Waker 2, which used a similar presentation, was something that would actually sell. [...] That’s when I decided that if we didn’t have an effective and immediate solution, the only thing we could do was to give the healthy North American market the Zelda that they wanted. So, at the end of 2003, I went to Miyamoto and said, “I want to make a realistic Zelda."