Black_Rose

The Good:

• Outstanding visuals
• Superb gameplay
• Incredible soundtrack
• Great Value
• Great story
• Huge world to explore with tons of minigames and sidequest- Great dungeon design - Interesting (and lovable) characters.

The Bad:

• Sailing and the constant use of the Wind Waker is annoying
• One last tedious fetch quest

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Back in 1999 Nintendo released what would be one of the most innovative games ever created called The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, it gave a whole new feeling to the series and it was regarded as one of the best games ever created, and after a disappointing (by comparison) Majora's Mask everyone was expecting the next Zelda game to shine. And the hype went up after a Spaceworld demonstration of the game in 2000, that demo featured a fight between Link and Ganondorf and incredible realistic graphics for it's time; However the next year in SpaceWorld 2001 Nintendo shocked the world when they showed how the game would really look like: It would use cartoon-like graphics, this created a lot of skepticism because of it's kiddy look, and Nintendo proved everyone that you don't need super realistic graphics to make a great game.

The story begins with a little kid named Link (or whatever you want him to be called) who lives in Outset Island with his sister and his grandma, it's his birthday and now he's old enough to wear the hero's clothes (honoring Ocarina of Time's Link, now known as the hero of time), and just like that hell breaks loose. A giant bird throws a girl in the woods of the island and it's followed by a pirate ship, you rescue this girl who turns out to be the pirate leader, now the giant bird kidnaps your sister and you must team up with the pirates to rescue her; and in a classic Zelda way everything gets bigger and you'll have the faith of the world in your hands. The story feels classic and new at the same time and there are some great plot twist in it making it one of the best stories in a Zelda game.


The gameplay is essentially the same as Ocarina of Time, you move around with the analog stick of the Gamecube's controller, lock on to enemies with the L button and use the Y, X, and Z buttons to item placement, the sword attacks are done with the B button and you move the camera with the C stick, so it's pretty much the same as Ocarina. This time there's a new item which is the focus of the game, it's called The Wind Waker, and you have use it to control the wind's direction, it's cool at first but the fact that you have to use it so many times gets annoying after a while. Other parts of the gameplay involve sailing around this huge and vast world full of sea and island (you'll have to conduct the wind with the Wind Waker to move from place to place).

There are many towns and Islands in the game, with tons of sidequest and minigames and they're full of lovable cartoon characters. The dungeons in the game are fairly easy compared to other Zelda games, that doesn't mean you wont have a fun time going trough them and solving their puzzles, the boss fights are also easy but they're incredible, especially the last one. You can also connect your Gameboy Advance with the game with an item called Tingle Tunner, with that he will give you hints and some new abilities, but they come with a cost. The game can be finished in about 15 hours, but these could easilly become more than 20 because of this last item fetch quest which will have you collecting rupees, sailing, looking for maps and stuff like that, and this is incredibly tedious and may turn some people away from completing the game, Thankfully the last temple is good enough to make up for that.

The music is superb, the new tunes are combined with the old ones making an incredible soundtrack, maybe one of the best in videogame history. There is no voice acting at all, though you'll hear the character's noises when they "talk", it's classic of the series and the characters are not less interesting because of that.


The graphics are the best ever created for a videogame, plain and simple, they are a work of art. They are not realistic at all, the cartoon cel shaded graphics fit the game perfectly, the characters are extremely expressive and this is what makes them so lovable, maybe more than other Zelda games, and there are some great effects like when the wind blows in a direction, everything blows with it. This is along with Okami one of the best artistic jewels in a game.

Overall this is a game that can't be missed by any Gamecube or Wii owner, an incredible action adventure game unmatched in artistic quality. And now that the sequel Phantom Hourglass is out, why not picking up this game and beat it again, and if you haven't play it, please do yourself a favor and go get it

The Good:

• Fixed camera and framerate allows you to see the action better
• Superb (and responsive) controls
• A more cinematic story mode
• Plenty of characters to choose from
• Great artistic graphics and character models
• A lot of gameplay modes increases the replay value
• Fun multiplayer
• Tons of voice acting
• Colourful presentation

 

The Bad:

• Laggy online play
• It tells the same old DBZ story all over again

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Dragon Ball Z games have never been exceptional, just look at DBZ Sagas. But the series picked up after 2005's DBZ Budokai 3, delivering some really fast paced action with plenty of elements from the series. After that came the first game in the new series Budokai Tenkaichi which was good but not great. It wasn't until last year that Atari redeemed themselves with was by the time the best DBZ game, Budokai Tenkaichi 2 had everything you'll want from a DBZ game: A lot of characters, great graphics and fast paced game play with a long story mode that covered all the DBZ mythos. But now with this game the DBZ game franchise has reached a new high; and it's really surprising that it has so many new elements because anime fighters tend to be rehashes but this one is just too good and improves many things that were wrong with last year's game.

This game is not a classic fighter, the gameplay is seen in a behind the back perspective, the camera and framerate have been fixed for this one, so it wont be as annoying as it was last time. Movement is done with the analog stick in the nunchuck and the basic attacks are done with A and you throw Ki attacks with the B button. So far the same as last year, but the changes come when you start fighting, this time you'll cover by holding A+B which may be confusing at first, specially for series veterans but once you get the hang of it it's pretty easy, also the smash attacks are no longer done by holding the A button.

The game has two types of attacks: Normal ones are done by pressing B button and throwing Ki at your enemies. The signature attacks (Goku's Kamehameha or Vegeta's Galick Gun) are done by holding a button on the D pad and doing your character's movement, this time you actually have to do them instead of just moving the wii mote up or down. The new tweaks in the motion controls are great, because this time is much more responsive than last time and you'll actually have to pull off a Kamehameha. Though all these changes make the gameplay a little slower paced (just a little) and more confusing to newcomers and veterans alike, but they also make the game deeper and better plus they also got rid of that annoying pointer. And just in case you dont like the wii controls, you can play with the gamecube controller and classic controller.

Budokai Tenkaichi 3 has also tons and tons of characters taken directly from the series, 161 characters to be exact. Did you ever see that guy that appeared for two seconds and was killed right away? No? Well here's your chance to see him. Though not all the characters are different, some of them are various versions of the same character; for example: Goku has more than ten different versions of himself, there's Kid Goku, Teen Goku, Semi Adult Goku, Adult Goku, SS1 Goku, SS2 Goku, SS3 Goku, SS4 Goku, Great Ape Goku....Too many Gokus really. Thankfully each has his/her own set of combos and attacks. Though you'll some times ask yourself what the hell are Cui, Frieza Soldier, Nail, Vegeta's father and Babidi doing in the game.

Unsurprisingly the Dragon Story mode is back, this mode will take you from the beginning of Z to the end of GT and some of the movies. If you remember last time it was pretty long, with about 12 hours of gameplay and it made you relieve every single imaginable battle from the series, in fact way too many battles, in fact they were so many that it would make a sane person go insane in just a couple of minutes. This time the story is told through in-game cutscenes, there will only be two people on screen but you'll hear others talking while you're battling, there will also be some great button mashing sequences where you'll have to press the assigned button, like it happened in Resident Evil 4 or God of War. It's more cinematic though it's also shorter, which is more of a blessing than a curse because last time fight after fight after fight got incredibly tedious and boring.

Ultimate Battle mode is a tournament mode for one or various players, in it you will play in some of DBZ's most recognisable tournaments like The world tournament, the cell games and the Yamcha games. Dragon World Tour includes two sub modes, one is Sim Dragon where you'll have to simulate the life of a fighter before going to a tournament, it's not perfect but since it's not the main mode its forgivable; in mission mode you'll be assigned several missions based on the characters, for example one mission is named king of demons where you'll play against Picollo, Garlick Jr. And Dabura.

Other game modes include: Duel, split screen multiplayer battles for 1vs1 or team battles. Dragon net, which is online play with friends or random, sadly this mode is really laggy to the point where is basically unplayable. In evolution Z you'll assign Z items to the characters you want. In Training you'll....well train your characters, it's really recommendable to come here before trying anything else so you get used to the controls. In Data Center you can unlock characters and upgrade them. Finally there's the Character Reference book, where you can see everyone's story.

Graphically it looks great, the cell shaded graphics really fit the game, and it surprisingly looks better than last year, everything looks sharper and there are many new effects, more colourful and beautiful. The character animations are also better and they look just like their anime counterparts, the special attacks that make DBZ more famous look brighter and better than ever, and the aura surrounding the characters looks badass. The interface and menus also look more colourful than last time.

Sound is just as good, there's tons and tons of voice acting in the game, both english and Japanese, though is kinda disappointing that they didn't add the latin america voice acting for us. The original music is also good, but they don't really use many tunes of the DBZ soundtrack and that's a bummer.

Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 is deeper, more colourful and plays better than it's predecessors, sadly the online play is not as good as it should've been, but it still is wonderful and it's not only the best DBZ game so far but it's also the best wii fighter, behind Brawl of course.

The Good:

 

• Multiplayer gives it a little replay value

The Bad:

• Only 2 hours long
• Awful frame rate and camera
• Mindless button mashing combat
• Ugly graphics
• Only a few characters to choose from
• No Majin Buu saga

 

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When you have terrific fighting games making it one by one into the best sellers list, what do you do? you make an awful repetitve beat em' up using a great licence.

This game is meant to take you all the way back to the Saiyan saga (yet again) and recreate the Dragon Ball Z story with more action than previous fighting games. Sadly it doesn't do that. Instead it delivers a repetitive button mashing experience.

The gameplay is absolutely mindless, you only have to press two buttons: Y for kicks and A for punches and that's pretty much it it, you fight waves and waves of dumb enemies with two buttons, well you can unlock combos, but they don’t really add anything to the gameplay. You can also use the X button to throw ki power and if you hold it you can do a special attack like Goku's kamehameha or Vegeta's Galick gun, though it's disappointing because they only have one special attack.

The whole game can take only two hours to beat even in the hardest difficulty. The only real thing that takes time is defeating the bosses, and it's not because they're hard, it's because their life bar is really, really long.

There's very few replay value because you don't really want to do the same thing over and over. And the game only takes you from the Saiyan saga to the Cell Games, it's like they completely forgot about The Majin Buu saga or Dragon Ball GT. The only real replay value comes from the two player co-op, which is fun if you play it with the right person. But again, it’s very repetitive.

After beating the main story mode you'll unlock the Pendulum Room, which is basically the same as the story mode, except this time you are free to choose the character you want. But there aren't really many characters, lt says there are almost 20, but they're different versions of the same (Goku, SS Goku, Saiyan saga Goku, etc...).

 

If you’re new to the Dragon Ball Z series then you won’t have a clue on what’s going on here, sincer there isn’t any explanation of what’s happening except for two minite clips from the show that pop up every once in a while, it was clearly made for the fans.

The graphics are lame, the may look like the series at first but when you take a good look at them they're blocky and they make you feel like you're playing an N64 game. The music is good though, but just like everything else it’s repetitive. The voice acting on the other hand is horrible, the actors are uninspired and it just feels like they’re bored to death to do the same lines again.

The game doesn’t perform well at all. It's filled with bugs and graphical glitches, for example: you may get stuck between two enemies or walls and you can't really do anything but reset the game and sometimes your character just freezes while your partner is doing a special attack without any reason, the only way to unfreeze your character is by doing a special attack yourself.

All in all Sagas is a very disappointing game, it had a lot of potencial by bringing the DBZ franchise to a more action oriented gameplay than the fighting and RPG game we’re used to see year after year, but there isn’t any real value, that being said hardcore fans of the franchise will enjoy it since there’s nothing else like it out there except for the two GBA games. But for everyone else it’s not worth it. All in all this could be a good side mode for a fighting game, but as a game on it's own it just doesn’t deliver.

 

The Good:

• Perfect controls
• Beautiful artistic graphics and great soundtrack
• Great voice acting
• Superb boss battles

The Bad:

• Doors still take about 10 seconds to open
  

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After much, and i mean very much hype Metroid Prime 3: Corruption the latest game in the long running saga is here, courtesy of Retro Studios, the developers of the previous 2 games. Did it deliver? Yes. Was all the hype worthy? Yes. The last two games of the franchise are two of the best games ever, and Metroid Prime 3 is worthy of the legacy.

The story tells that Samus Aran, the beautiful space bounty hunter and some others friends are sent by the galactic federation to repair a computer infected with a virus, while doing so they get attacked by Samus' nemesis Dark Samus. During the attack she and the other hunters get corrupted with Phazon, providing them with new powers; these will be very useful during the adventure. With the risk of spoiling certain plot twist im going to stop there, all i can say is that her mission will take her to numerous places to destroy seeds and stop the corruption in the universe, and i have to give the story two thumbs up. The game is very story driven, it tells parts of the story by very impressive cutscenes, but you 'll also have to scan certain things on the planets to learn more.

The controls are perfect, the gameplay is easily one of the best for a FPS, in fact i dare to say that they're the very best console FPS controls. The normal controls are basically the same used by games like Red Steel, but even better. However the best control scheme is the advance control setting, thats the one i recommend for any hardcore Metroid players. You shoot with A and lock on enemies with the Z button but you can also freely move the targeting reticle during this. The different visors you get during the game are chosen by holding the "minus" button and chosing the one you want on the screen, it works great but you'll need some practice to do it. To enter hypermode (Samus' corrupted stage) you need to hold the "plus" button, but this last a certain period of time, so you can't use it for long. If you don't like it then you can change the buttons interface in the options menu. You’ll be glad to know that the motion controls work perfectly for every action. There are constant upgrades during the game, like the plasma beam and the grapple and it's great, you can progress without the fear of loosing them later.

There are all kinds of environmental puzzles classic of the series, but for this one, they're even better; you'll need to scan everything to find out what to do next. There's also tons and tons of enemies in Corruption, from the classic Space pirates, to new ones, and while they're not as hard as they look, it still is enjoyable to shoot them. The boss fights are some of the best in recent history, they're not hard, but they sure are enjoyable and they make you use your different abilities.

Graphically Corruption is amazing, it’s an upgrade from the previous game. Artistically it's one of the best looking games of all time; all the planets you visitt look wonderful and the lighting effects are superb, there are also other effects worth noticing like Samus' reflections in her visor, also other things like the lava and the water look superb and there are tons of little details that make this a beautiful game.

Technologically is a step over the last one, there are some clean looking textures and overall it looks great. The soundtrack is also superb and it helps to keep you in the atmosphere of the game. There's also voice acting, yes voice acting in a Nintendo game and it's great. The cast includes the likes of Chris Sabat (Vegeta in Dragon Ball Z) as the hunter Rundas. The game also includes an archivement system were you get tokens by scanning certain things like enemies or lore, you can buy extras with these tokens such as concept art, stickers for the ship and music from the soundtrack or you can trade them with a friend via the Wiiconnect 24 and it's good, makes you feel a sense of accomplishment during the game.

So far so good, the game has incredible graphics, music, voice acting, boss fighting and its incredibly deep in the atmosphere, though there’s a constantly annoying thing: The doors, they take too long to open and sometimes they'll leave you waiting for at least 15 seconds. Other than that the game is amazing.

 

The fact that it doesn’t have multiplayer doesn’t hurt this game, after all Metroid has never been about multiplayer experiences and this will last you a good 15-20 hours anyway. And you’ll comeback for more and more, it’s that good, it’s probably the best game in the series, a worthy get for all of those with a Wii and one of the best games of all time.