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Video_Game_King

So is my status going to update soon, or will it pretend that my Twitter account hasn't existed for about a month?

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This blog entry mostly concerns 19th century English literature.

By Video_Game_King 1 Comments

Fox's Peter Pan & The Pirates: The Revenge of Captain Hook

( Dear God, that is a long title.) In fact, the only game I can think of that has a longer title is that King Kong game, which is actually one word short of the record. For that reason, I shall only refer to it as Peter Pan & The Pirates, which is the title I found it under. You know, as part of that bet thing I mentioned the last time I reviewed an NES game? No? You don't remember that at all? And you're too lazy to sift through the first page of all my blogs? Leave. Now. *you leave* Now that he's gone, please enjoy this short review for a game you've never heard of.
 
Oddly enough, while that part is nothing new, what is new is that you guys have a good idea what the game's about, so I'm not going to say much on the story. It's Peter Pan, so your goal is to rid Neverland of all the pirates. Seems a bit smart for somebody stuck at an age when most of us still thought cartoons were real, but unfortunately, that's about as smart as he gets; about half the pirates in the game use guns, while Peter Pan uses a crappy little knife. That's the most accurate way I can describe it; "crappy" because one stab isn't enough to kill anything, "little" because you have to stand close enough for your enemies to pistol whip you, and "knife" because Pan's weapon is knife-y in nature.
 
 You've now seen half the game.
 You've now seen half the game.
"Well, then I'll just take care to avoid most of the enemies in the game", you say to me, thinking I've just ended my blog after two paragraphs. Here's the problem with that: the enemies are everywhere, and it is your duty to kill every last one. It took me a while to figure that out, everything before that consisting of me trying to figure out why I couldn't complete the first level. It turned out to be an overabundance of adults, so I went back and ironically killed every last one. This was when I found out that the combat sucks. Again, the crappy little knife is just Wendy's sewing needle, so Peter Pan has to stand very close to his enemies and mash the B button until they're dead. Keep in mind that you have to be so close that you'll lose health during the ordeal, throwing an entire question mark on the premise of the game.
 
So if the game isn't about killing the enemies, it should be about finding the enemies so you can kill them, right? Again, not really, since the levels are linear, the enemies walk back and forth in the open, and very rarely are you unable to reach their location. Granted, it's hard to reach said location, given the game's crap jumping mechanics, but actually finding them is not a challenge whatsoever. Hell, some of them even manage to kill themselves, eliminating any need to reach them! So what's the purpose of this game, why does it exist?......I have no idea. Based on my research, it was based on a crappy, short-lived cartoon from around the time, but that just begs the question "Why did the cartoon exist?" That's a question I can't answer, but I can answer the very easy question of whether or not this game is good. 
 
No, it's not. The game mechanics are clunky and there only nine levels of three varieties. Oh, and there are the unanswered questions it poses, like "Why does it exist" and "Why isn't Chris Hansen perpetually guarding the island?" On that note, I'll give this game the Lemonade and McDonald's Award for Excellence in Pedophilia. It would probably make sense to represent it with a picture of both, but instead, I've opted for this 100% real picture of Peter Pan Wikipedia uses for all Peter Pan related articles. Look at that. I'm surprised all the pedophiles of the world haven't died in plane crashes that results from flying straight on 'til morning.
 

Review Synopsis

  • A game based around killing enemies where killing the enemies isn't fun or good. Amazing.
  • Everything related to jumping is clunky and poorly put together.
  • Why does this game exist?
 
 
 
I hereby declare that instead of posting "LOL", you shall post this video:
 
 
 

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

( Wait, I think this exact same thing may have happened before.) Oh, you don't know what I'm talking about? Well, let me elaborate. Back when I was playing Phantasy Star Collection for my 800 beaten games thing, I eventually had to pass through Phantasy Star III. If you'll recall, I found it to be a rough, generic game that did the Phantasy Star series no justice. So it should come as no surprise that my expectations were probably lowered, meaning my score for Phantasy Star IV may have been inflated a bit. And now we see Phantasy Star III Syndrome repeat itself with the new Professor Layton game. After suffering through Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, a turd so rough and hard that it managed to get stuck in my previously raped rectum, I went straight for the Diabolical Box, which excelled in everything where Devil Survivor failed.
 Some of the puzzles, like this one, are quite clever.
 Some of the puzzles, like this one, are quite clever.

 
In fact, that was probably my first thought upon starting a new game; while the highest quality cinematics Atlus could create were simple anime cutouts slowly moving on a city background or whatever, Layton starts things off with something that looks and sounds (holy crap!) professional enough to be its own cartoon. Oh, and don't think the game is stingy with these cutscenes; you'll see them somewhat often, and on other occasions, voice work will accompany the regular text. However, most of the time, you're stuck with text scenes that could have been ripped from Fire Emblem, if Fire Emblem was a cartoony take on Sherlock Holmes. Again, it looks fantastic, and again, I feel I must say that the visuals in this game could comprise their own cartoon.
 
Hold on....something feels....off....Perhaps I should check my reviewing guide. *does so* Looks like I disobeyed the first rule: open with story, use such to transition into gameplay. OK, everyone, pretend that this is the opening paragraph. You take the role of an esteemed archaeological professor, travelling the world with a small child as he tries to solve the mystery of an enigmatic relic from long ago. Along the way, he'll have to put up with a slightly incompetent rival cop-guy, solve a few local mysteries, and ask people what they know of the Elysian Box. For some reason, though, every single one of those involves solving puzzles, often times ones that have no relevance to anything in the game. OK, so it manages to make a few of the puzzles fit into the storyline, especially near the end of the game, but I still found too many instances of characters "being reminded of puzzles" or "passing the time with a riddle" or other equally bullshit lines.
 
Wait, can somebody remind me why I'm insulting the puzzles? Because they didn't fit into the story? Really? You know, that seems very petty, especially since I spent a lot of my time actively searching for puzzles to complete. "Screw the story", I thought, "I haven't solved a puzzle in four entire minutes!" Then some random townie would throw a puzzle in my direction, and, depending on the puzzle, I'd either thank him for the slightly challenging brain teaser or jam a stylus into his eyes. The main paradox of this game is that while the puzzles are arguably the best/only part of this game, a lot of them push the limit on how much your brain can handle. Part of the problem tends to be ambiguous wording in some of the puzzles, yet the larger part of the problem is that these were puzzles probably designed to confuse Stephen Hawking.
 
The best example I could think of was a math puzzle involving three mayors. The premise is that there are three people running for mayor in a 40 person town, and you have to find out how many votes one needs to win with certainty. It sounded like a simple answer of 14, but Professor Layton lowered his hat in shame. Then I answered whatever's above a third of 37, only to get the same look. I kept checking my math and entering wrong answers until my score would stop lowering (oh, on that subject: why doesn't the score go down to zero? Can somebody tell me?), at which point I finally caved in and received a hint. It told me something I figured out 30 tries ago: discount the mayors from the voting. Not satisfied, I opened up another hint, which seemed to say the exact opposite of what Hint 1 was telling me. Frustrated beyond belief, I entered the random number of 20 and got the right answer, apparently. I was then presented with the logic behind such an answer, as if the game was telling me, "We know you looked it up on GameFAQs, so this is how you do it, dumbass."
 
That's another problem I have with the game: how damn condescending it can be. As I've already mentioned, failure warrants insulting poses from the two protagonists, but what I haven't mentioned is that you're given a small hint/message that always amounts to "Did you forget to turn your brain on?" Yet for all the bad things I have to say about the puzzles, I can't be too mad at them, for several reasons. First, (almost) all of them have perfectly legitimate answers, some of them with multiple ways to solve them. But whichever route you take to the right answer, they all end with the satisfying feeling that makes you think you're smart for knowing how to solve a Tower of Hanoi puzzle. And even if you don't solve it on your first go, the game gives you a very important tool to help you get there: the memo. Having trouble solving a particular puzzle? Of course you are, you're playing Professor Layton! Just fire up the memo fuction, and you're now able to scribble some notes on the screen! A good feature, granted, but it needs a bit of work. For example, if you want to erase your notes, you're gonna have to erase them all. There's no choice, no button to activate an eraser; you either have to press the clear button or purposefully fail the puzzle. You were gonna fail it anyway, but my point is that while your progress in the puzzle carries over from failure to failure, your notes don't. Thanks a lot, Layton; why not just give me a harder, completely different puzzle while you're at it?
 
 This is the crappy tea brewing mini-game I was talking about earlier.
 This is the crappy tea brewing mini-game I was talking about earlier.
Oh, wait game, you already do that, sort of, in the form of little trunk mini-games. But instead of being really hard, they're actually quite fun and rewarding, like the puzzles in the game. "But why should I play these over the ones the game forces me into", you ask me, as you are wont to do. Well, the rewarding part: there are actual rewards for beating these. Reassembling the camera opens up a new " spot the differences" mini-game, exercising that fat piece of crap called a hamster makes finding hint coins easier, and the tea brewing mini-game isn't that good. It's OK, but it relies on trial and error, since there are only twelve possible combinations that will work. Oh, and like my list of mini-games and probably this review, the end of the game is horribly disappointing. A bunch of plot holes open up in an otherwise tight storyline, and the game reaches new levels of condescension by not only making the final puzzles stupidly easy, but also by outright telling you the solutions. Still, there is one thing I liked about the end of the game, and that's when one of the characters tries to get it on with his own granddaughter. It's so creepy and weird for a Nintendo game, I have to give it the Ironic Award, as this isn't the first time incest has appeared in Nintendo games. Anyone play a Fire Emblem at all?
 

Review Synopsis

  • They've somehow found a way to make Sherlock Holmes more awesome.
  • The puzzles range from fun, slightly challenging, and rewarding...
  • ...to frustrating and illogical
1 Comments

Frustration, fables, and the return of fate's utter hatred for me

By Video_Game_King 37 Comments

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor

( My hatred for this game reaches parts of the cosmos not known to any mortal man.) My hatred for this game eclipses that of my love for the genre; I planned on beginning this portion of the blog by describing my secret love affair with the genre, but between this and Treasure Hunter G, my love for her has been waning a bit. Oh, yes, we've had some excellent memories together, like Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy Crap How Many Times Will He Mention That One Game, but in more recent installations, my love has fallen short. I shall give her two more chances.
 
Don't think I'm unaware of where I'm posting this; I know of the endurance run, and how popular it is (I think), but I have some valid reasons as to why this particular SMT game is horrible. First, the story. Like several Shin Megami Tenseis before it, you play as a collection of Tokyo teens in a quest involving demons and a corrupt government. However, unlike all the other Shin Megami Tenseis, the plot rips off TWEWY so much, that I'm sure it's the only reason why it got such high marks. More on the high marks later; right now, I must explain the story. Guess what game I'm describing: teen youths meet in Shibuya and find out that they're locked in the area. They soon receive missions from a trendy piece of tech and must embark on a journey to discover the nature of their own mysterious powers and their very deaths. Yea, not even I can tell what that's supposed to describe.
 Exclusive to the Japanese version: text that fits in the boxes.
 Exclusive to the Japanese version: text that fits in the boxes.
 
Fortunately, this game was made after TWEWY, so Atlus made some improvements and did a few things different. For example, while Shiki was an annoying teen girl with a chest so flat that her mangled corpse could be used as a coffee table, Devil Survivor's Shiki-fill-in looks like two beach balls stuffed into a tank top. Oh, and she's level-headed, but that pestering optimism had to go somewhere; specifically, another character. That reminds me: there are a lot more characters in Devil Survivor than there were in TWEWY. At times, it can be a bit confusing remember who does what or why they're of any use to the characters you control. Yet to contrast the bevy of NPCs, you only get to play as a handful of them at any given time; you only get three for the first half of the game, another character from that point on, and a few others when it's too late to matter. This may sound like a petty complaint, but the small number of playable characters severely limits the strategy.
 
Wait, I forgot to get back to the strategy RPG portion of the review. You know, the whole reason why I played this game. As I was saying, Devil Survivor is essentially any given Shin Megami Tensei game wrapped in a chocolatey SRPG shell. There's a turn order above the screen that you and the demons must both adhere to. You move a character, attack an enemy, heal, activate a special ability, pick your nose, write a blog, and, if you have to proper abilities, move back to where you started. It may sound cheap that you're able to use almost all of your abilities in the course of a single turn, and while it definitely is, the enemies also have this ability. However, they're usually in much greater numbers and have much better abilities, meaning they can walk up to you and get the crap kicked out of them, but just heal away the wounds and any sense of satisfaction.
 
This is major game breaker number one for me: the difficulty. For the first few in-game days, the difficulty stays at a manageable level of hard, but when you fight your first Demon King Guy, the difficulty rockets into the insane. No matter what you do, the game is always one step ahead, ready to force you into an unskippable game over screen. If you prioritize your abilities and skill cracks to the best of your abilities, enemies will start configuring themselves in the exact manner that destroys your carefully laid-out stratagem; if you decide to split up your forces to eliminate the demons more efficiently, they'll just gang up on your tiny little teams and absolutely massacre them; if the line between victory and defeat is the death of one enemy, the random number generator will randomly generate a game over screen; and i f you're somehow skilled enough to achieve your goals with little damage (or if you break down and buy a Game Shark), the game will suddenly lock up on you.
She knows that even level 2 enemies can kill you quickly.
She knows that even level 2 enemies can kill you quickly.
 
Yes, the game freezes. I did the research and found out that legitimate copies of the game have a tendency to freeze on you for absolutely no reason. There are just so many things about this game that are rough and unfinished that I don't know where to begin. How about the localization? Simply put, it's awful. I wouldn't tolerate this crap from somebody's first fan translation, let alone a professional retail product. Certain demon names overflow into other people's stat boxes, some of the names aren't translated properly, there are a few typos, and one line of dialogue is in 100% untranslated Japanese. No, that is not a joke, there is actually an entire line in Japanese. The game doesn't give any context, it doesn't try to explain/justify it at all; it just pops up at the end of a cutscene, demanding that you translate it on Google. You'd think that Atlus would have proofread the text in this game, given how much of it there is. I had enough time to proofread it, but that's probably because you can't skip any of it. Oh, there's an option called "Message Skip", but it just makes long-winded speeches go by really fast, the trade-off being that quick exchanges between characters move at exactly the same speed.
 
So you can't skip any of the dialogue, so what? At least you get to experience an epic adventure of grand scope. Wait, about that....none of that is true. Again, it's rough, messy and cluttered. There are three main ideas to take from it: the Internet and all its ilk can summon demons from the depths of hell, the government has installed chips in microwaves that make them all transform into Optimus Prime, and you're locked in this city because God's testing humanity since the Internet has nullified what He did to us after Babel. Wait, what's that last one? Something about Christianity? Then why are there about 90 other gods roaming the city? Come to think of it, why do characters have death clocks when they always reset the day they're supposed to die? Why do the same characters explain the same things time and time again? WHY CAN'T THE GAME EXPLAIN ITSELF!? It seems that's another recurring theme in the game: not being able to explain itself. It's always placing draconian limits on how to achieve a mission or how powerful the bosses are, yet it never seems content. For example, just after you finished beating the boss who can attack you from halfway across the map, you face the one who can attack you anywhere on the map.
 
There's only one instance I can think of that has frustrated me more than this game, and that would be Romancing SaGa 2. That said, I feel it fitting to describe my experience with this game in the exact same way as I did Romancing SaGa 2: rape analogies. Again, you are fighting a rapist. Not too difficult, right? Wait, I'm not done. This particular rapist has a gun and has shot out both your kneecaps, preventing you from escaping. You are now this sick man's plaything. "Somebody will come to my aid eventually", you think to yourself. What do you know, a few people do c....what's that? Is that....yes, 30 naked midgets have popped out of the bushes, ready to rape you and anyone who dares come to your aid. Hold on, I'm not done. Now imagine this scenario happening EVERY DAY AT WHATEVER JOB YOU HAVE. And if there's one thing the rapist loves more than your ass, it's working out, meaning he gets stronger with every rape session. That, dear readers, is Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, and it is also why I'm confused about the reviews for this game. Just about every review I've seen gives the game extremely high marks. Either the reviewers got a much more polished copy of the game than the consumers, or I'm severely underestimating the appeal of being forced to wear diapers the rest of your life.
 
The only other explanation is that the devil fusion thing, which is good, but not good enough to fix all those issues. At any time in the game, you can buy demons and use them to fuse for better demons. It's a cool system that encourages experimenting and variety, and it doesn't have any major flaws. OK, the money you earn in the game can only go towards more demons, and the game outright demands the best fusions from you at all times, but other than that, there aren't that many issues with the system. However, there are a lot with the game, especially if you judge by the past billion articles of text. However, to those of you tuning in just now, let me summarize the review in the following twelve words: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor is the worst strategy RPG I've played. In fact, that's the award I'll give it: The Worst Strategy RPG I've Played A-
 
 Malebolgia said:

I can sense the anger swelling within you. You wish revenge upon the critics who deceived you time and time again. Just speak my name, and my powers will be yours to command.

Am I hearing voices in my head? No, I won't speak your name. I don't need your powers, and I don't think many people are going to understand this reference.
 
 Malebolgia said:

Oh. It is not as if I need you. The vitriolic hatred of your review, when taken with the fact that it is on the Internet, will allow me to enter your human world of my own will! *evil laugh*

Fuck.
 

Review Synopsis

  • The story can be confusing and will rip off TWEWY at multiple points.
  • It seems that this is a strategy RPG that absolutely abhors strategy.
  • This game is rougher than PS1-era textures.
 
 
 
 
Hey, remember my Takeshi's Challenge blog? You know, where I went insane and my wife posted the first half of my blog/Ren & Stimpy episode? Well, here's the second half, which at this point in time, comes off as a much-needed catharsis.
 
 
 

Fable II

( Oh my, it seems that yet again, I have beaten an Xbox 360 WRPG starting with F alongside a DS JRPG!) How could I have known that such a thing would happen? *unconvincing wink* OK, I'm not totally clueless on the fact that this was planned. There were two reasons why I did this: because I sort of planned it as a sequel to my first ever Bushwald Sexyface blog, and it seemed that my beating this game was lining up with Devil Survivor. However, neither of those reasons ever held up in the end, but you already know that. At least you know that for the Devil Survivor part, given how delayed this blog is.
 
 Notice the complete and utter lack of Sexyface. An unforgivable crime.
 Notice the complete and utter lack of Sexyface. An unforgivable crime.
But what about the Sexyface part? I have yet to delve into it. I shall, but not now. First, I want to say that this game had the potential for one of the best intros ever. It begins with a bird fluttering through a medieval forest. It flies about the world like a more graceful Navi, showing us a vibrant, highly realistic CGI world with limitless opportunities. The bird arrives at your town, knowing that you are the hero of legend. Elated, the bird displays perhaps the most realistic depiction of bird shit in video game history. In a far simpler tone, the game begins with a bird shitting on the protagonist. Notice how I didn't say "your protagonist", as Fable II lacks character customization. What the hell, Molyneux? You don't give me character customization? OK, to be fair, you can buy certain clothes, hairdos, and tattoos, all completely legitimate forms of customization. However, they've all some stat which affects how people see you, which is only semi-legitimate. We don't enter Bullshit Backwoods until we find that the only way to change your look is to act/look a certain way throughout the game.
 
I played this game so that I could relive the life of Bushwald Sexyface for an end-of-the-year blog thing I'm planning; but when I discovered the utter lack of character customization, I gave this game the Sexyface Seal of Disapproval. Oh, and I decided that my new character would forever wear a dress and poofy wig to display his shame for all to see. However, this plan went downhill when I noticed all the men in town were trying to get inside my Little Sparrow. So I dressed him a bit differently and proposed to the nearest girl with an "I love you" fart that lasted nine hours. Why I married her is still a mystery; she serves absolutely no purpose in the actual game whatsoever. As in real life, her only purpose is to suck up your time and money until she hits you with a divorce. I couldn't find any purpose to this feature in the game.
 
However, it was quite easy for me to think of a very obvious way this could have affected the game somehow: a party system. Yea, both you and your wife could journey the land, fighting enemies in the name of justice. Hell, I can name a billion games that have already done something like this (Lufia II, Dragon Quest V, Fire Emblem 4, Lost Odyssey, Fire Emblem 7, etc.), but none of them seem to be WRPGs. Why is it that none of the WRPGs I've played feature a party system of any kind? It's not like the genre is incapable of this; I remember Ultima games having a party system, and I've always thought MMORPGs evolved from WRPGs, yet none of the WRPGs I've played have had any substantial party system. Yet unlike Fallout 3 and Shadowrun, Fable II teases you with very realistic possibilities of a party system. Wifey aside, there's a collection of recurring heroes who, time and time again, prove their worth in battle for one mission. There's little to no reason why they can't join you in battle, but it seems their only purpose is to relax at the base while you do all the world-saving.
 
The only help you get is a street mutt blessed with an extremely long life, but at the cost of any intelligence or ability to be trained. You see, rather than actually helping you during combat or doing anything else that could be interpreted at useful, he spends most of his time sniffing out treasure, something he loves to do. Oh, the game says he'll give up the hunt when there are enemies nearby, but I've never once seen the dog enter a fight, let alone sacrifice treasure for it. And it's not even good treasure he finds; usually, it's absolute crap like condoms or things I could have found myself without any help whatsoever. Still, he's the only reliable source of income I had throughout the game, as after a few in-day hours of work, I refused to take another job for the rest of my days. They're all underpaying variations of the exact same mini-game again and again. Just like real life!
 
Yet in a video game, I'd rather spend my time beating people up, especially if that particular game happens to be Fable II. After all, the story isn't particularly thrilling, the character interaction is a bit weird compared to other WRPGs, and the world feels too linear to explore. So combat. You get three areas where you can specialize: swordplay, ranged weapons and magic. It's a good system that seems to encourage playing the game according to your own style, gaining experience based on what you do and investing it in what you please. How you gain experience is weird and flow-breaking, but I'll explain it a bit more later. Anyway, each of the three combat styles are easy to use and kill enemies efficiently, save the piece of crap guns you'll fire throughout your journey. The only problem (and arguably the major one) is the fact that magic beats all other options. Early in the game, I decided I'd don a black cloak, shove all my points into lightning, and electrocute anything with legs while screaming "ULTIMATE POWER!!!!" The game didn't chastise me much for it, since I could die at any minute with death penalties so lenient, you'd think Fable II was set in New England. To be fair, though, I'm aware that my spell had special effects on it and that the other spells don't, but the lack of MP and brevity of charge time don't lend any faith to other opinions.
Could it be....a conspiracy!?
Could it be....a conspiracy!?
 
I guess that's pretty much Fable II in a nutsh-crap, questing! I forgot questing! Well, maybe there's a good reason: there's not much to say about it. The game's linear, we know that, but every now and then, it'll arbitrarily force you to do a few sidequests before you can proceed through the game. It has the good intentions of making the game less linear, something I'd welcome after Fallout 3's almost linear mission structure, but it feels like a rough way of implementing it. I could see it as a great mix of linear story focus and non-linear exploration in another game, but it still needs a bit more work before such a thing is possible. OK, so that's Fable II in a nutshell: still not what I've expected from the genre. Yet oddly enough, it's a game that every reviewer has loved enough to call GOTY, despite nobody I know having confessed to liking the game. Therefore, I give it the Halo 3 Award, and await every single one of you to flame me based on that one comment. It doesn't piss me off; hopefully, all that anger will be enough to summon enough demons to fill 9 football stadiums.
 

Review Synopsis

  • Several of the features, like the heroes/wifeys/dog, serve one purpose: tease you about the possibility of a party system.
  • The battle system is OK, if too easy.
  • This game has the best rendering of bird shit I've seen in any video game.
 

A Third Thing

(As long as we're on RPGs, I might as well mention something.) Before me sit three RPGs I could potentially play. Now the smart thing would be to do what I feel is best, but because I'm an Internet whore, I've decided that you shall vote for it! My Parliamenty Fresh, here are your choices:
 
Golden Sun, since it's a "unique" JRPG that I feel people will urge me to play for all time.
Mother 1+2, as I've found a way to play them both in English, and it'd be interesting to see my opinions on them now.
Mystic Ark. Weird, but you have to realize a full translation has come out, allowing me to replay the game as it should have been to begin with. Besides, nobody else has recommended any games I should replay. I'm entirely open to that, but nobody's coming in.
 
Now vote, my Parliamenty Fresh, for I am quite sure all the citizens will be too busy yelling at me for not liking these games.
37 Comments

I think I may have broken some sort of record with this blog.

By Video_Game_King 11 Comments

Karnov

( I believe a bit of backstory is necessary before I delve into what will no doubt be a short review.) A little while back, me and some user named Schmidt got into a debate about the overall quality of old school games. He said they sucked, I said they rocked. To prove my point, I picked 10 NES games at random so I could get a better view of the overall quality of the system. This is the first of that line of games.
 
There's another reason why I told you that little story about my motivation: because the game has no story itself. All I could gather is that you guide Karnov, the Russian fire-breather, on his adventures. You know he's Russian because his name is Karnov, and you know he's a fire-breather because you spend all of your time breathing fire upon your foes. In fact, that's pretty much all there is to the game: walking right, holding down the turbo B button, and then walking right again once everything on screen is dead. Seriously, that's all there is to the game! I'm surprised I managed to stretch this portion of the blog beyond two paragraphs!
 
But I persevered, and stretched this blog to appropriate length! How? By mentioning the power-ups. First, there's one that turns your one-ember breath into a three-pronged flame of fat. It's not much, given how I only found it in one portion of the game, but it does make an already easy game easier for easily figured out reasons. You can hit a larger portion of the screen, allowing you to kill almost anything that comes your way. Almost everything because oddly enough, it doesn't make the bosses any easier. I don't know, I guess there's a limit to how easy something can be, and the bosses are leaning against that limit. For many of the bosses, all you have to do is shoot at their face, which may require, and we're getting into some advance stuff here, jumping. Yes, I know, I'll let you grasp that concept for a second.
 
Oh, you've finally grasped that difficult theory? Good. Now we can move onto the really hard stuff: the power-ups. Throughout his journey, Karnov occasionally collects cool abilities, like boomerang breath, explosive turds, the ability to spawn ladders, paradox-inducing flight for one level, and several others. Aside from the ladder thing, it sounds pretty standard, right? It is, but somehow, Data East managed to fuck it up. How? Well, you have to select your power-ups before you can use them. The concept makes sense, but it's the execution that ruins it all; you select them in real-time, using the same controls as you do for moving. So choosing a given power-up consists of making Karnov walk back and forth in a futile attempt to burn off some fat, and there's a good chance this will all be ruined in the soon-to-come encounters. I'm aware that you can pause the game to alleviate this problem, but you'll just run into the same dilemma.
Another weird example: reaching those jump shoes requires jump shoes.
Another weird example: reaching those jump shoes requires jump shoes.
 
While I'm on the subject of power-ups and their weirdness, a lot of them are placed in incredibly weird places. Half of them are placed above Karnov's jumping range of 5 inches, forcing you to use the ladder to get them. Weird, yes, but it seems Data East thought it could get weirder, as one of the power-ups that required the use of a ladder...was a ladder. It seems to be nothing more than an exercise in futility, and we all know Karnov isn't up for an exercise, period. OK, I promise that's the last fat joke of the blog, mainly because it's gonna be shorter than the actual game. Don't worry, though, the ending will be better, for instead of a crap screen of text, I give you...damn it. Karnov the Karnie Award.
 

Review Synopsis

  • It's easy and short, like a midget whore.
  • There are a variety of power-ups, but trying to use them is far more frustrating than it should be.
  • Why is the Japanese ending much, much better?
 
 
 
 
This is what Bowser's minions do in their down-time:
 
 
 

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

( In the past, I've had a bad time with people recommending me games.) After all, the only reason I played Cyborg Justice, the worst game ever to be shat out the industry's ass, was because some sick fuck derived enjoyment from this waste of existence. So why did I play this game solely based on the recommendation of one user? Actually, I don't know; the person in question has had different tastes from mine in the past (like Ys, the game I can't pronounce), and both of us know this. The best reason I can furnish is that I'm challenging his tastes, given the aforementioned history. Well, his tastes won. Here's some damn victory music.
 
Displayed for your pleasure is just how awesome Vin Diesel's ass truly is.
Displayed for your pleasure is just how awesome Vin Diesel's ass truly is.
The game, of course, is The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, a remake of Butcher Bay. Seriously, how hard has an industry hit rock bottom when they've run out of ideas so badly that they feel the need to remake a game released in 2004? Remember the good old days, when every game was a unique stand-alone title, not a desparate remake of a relatively young game? Oh, wait, those days never really existed. So this concept isn't something unique to the industry, meaning Riddick has to do something else to be ironically unique. More on that later, though; right now, I wish to indulge in the story. It's the future, and Vin Diesel is being sent to jail. You're never told why he's being sent to jail; there's a tutorial/flashback that suggests he's being sent to jail because he escaped from it previously, but that's just delaying the issue. My theory is that they're arresting him for being badass under a joint ruling from the Sexyface v. Stillwater. You see, Mr. Diesel's rectum is so insidiously awesome, that upon looking at the Vin Diesel facts, his ass rejected them and forced the facts on some random wuss.
 
Meanwhile, Vin Diesel's stuck in a cold, oppressive jail, looking for a way out. That's one thing the game does well: the dark and oppressive feel. Butcher Bay emits a very depressing atmosphere, riddled with corruption and lacking in any form of humanity. The inmates spend their time either killing each other or helping Riddick, and the guards simply don't give a fuck about any of this. That explains why Riddick is able to escape with such ease. However, without spoiling anything, his journey to freedom takes him to a space barge for reasons inadequately explained. What's worse, it lacks the charm and feel that Butcher Bay had, like it's a generic sci-fi setting instead of the dark and oppressive prison we all loved back in 2004.
 
That's a theme that runs through the entirety of the game: the first half is the better portion of the game. For example, the fisticuffs: Dark Athena does them more frequently, but I found it lacking in strategy. Often times, I'd just walk to a drone and carve them up like I was hastily preparing for Thanksgiving. Compare this to Butcher Bay, where in the three fist fights in the entire game, you had to figure out a pattern of punching and dodging. You know, like in real fist fights, only with the option to pull out a screwdriver in the middle of it. It's incredibly satisfying and rewarding, which makes it that much sadder that you only get a few opportunities to punch people.
 
Of course, there's a good reason for that: Vin Diesel's ass prefers guns. Sounds weird, right? After all, how would it even hold a gun, let alone shoot it without the recoil planting it deep within Diesel's ass? I'm guessing the people at Vivendi foresaw these problems, which probably explains why the beginning of the game forbids guns, even if it doesn't help make that less shit (no pun intended). Seriously, for the first hour or so, every gun you touch will electrocute you! Why did they feel it necessary to punish the player for basic gamer instincts? For the small number of fistfights, or for the "I haven't even mentioned this yet" stealth aspect of the game? Whatever, at least you actually get to use guns at some point in the game. In fact, when you do get to use guns, it feels like the game is making up for all the not-gun parts before it.
 
How, you ask? Well, you get to hold all the guns you want. There's no limit to how much you can hold, and NEVER do you find yourself swapping one gun for another. Granted, this means it's lacking in some of the guns you'd expect in a first person shooter (my beloved sniper, for example), but I appreciate the gesture, nonetheless. Riddick is quite old school like that; he's not the type of pussy whose weak baby arms can only hold two or three guns at any given time; Diesel's ass does not need regenerative health; when the odds are stacked against him, Vin Diesel's butt doesn't hi.....OK, it does hide in the shadows, but unlike other first person shooters, Riddick actually commits to this idea. From time to time, Riddick will deliver a corny line about how the darkness is awesome, indicating that you should either agree with him or face the horrible wrath of his rectum.
Vin Diesel's ass, preparing for a kill.
Vin Diesel's ass, preparing for a kill.
 
Let me reiterate that such a system gives off a very primal feel that creates satisfaction when you snap a man's neck from behind, and tense fear when his friend is looking for you in the shadows. Not to worry, though, he won't find you, as he can't see in the dark. Fortunately, you can. After all, wouldn't it be stupid of the developers to make a large portion of the game incredibly hard to see? No, Vivendi thought this whole thing through, making sure that you can see in the dark at all times and that the lighting effects are fantastic enough to make the whole thing work. If I may go off on a tangent, let me say that the graphics in this game are fantastic, both on a technical level and artistic. I know it sounds weird to describe the game as looking good artistically, given that it's mostly shades of blue and brown, but I get the feeling that the people behind this game not only knew that, but went with it. For further information, please refer to paragraph three.
 
The only major fuck-up in it all is the flashlight. It has its uses early in the game, but even after it's become useless, you still have the damn thing. The only thing I can think of that's worse than a useless gameplay feature is a gameplay feature that prevents you from enjoying the game. In enter the spider turrets, mostly exclusive to Dark Athena. (A similar thing appears in one room in Butcher Bay.) I'm not going to go into detail about it, mainly because Yahtzee has already done that in his review and I feel like I'd just be mimicking his review verbatim. However, there is one thing we disagree on, and that's the overall quality of Dark Athena. Yea, it's shorter, but it's not as bad as he makes it out. Granted, it lacks the charm of Butcher Bay, and it tends to rip off BioShock a bit, but there are a few redeeming qualities to be found, like the part of the game where you control drones. You get infinite lives without any punishment, meaning you can just run into a room, shoot things until you die, and then repeat the process until Left 4 Dead looks tame by comparison. Sure, it goes against the mood the game was establishing the entire time, but I'm willing to overlook a flaw if it allows me to live out homicidal maniac fantasies.
 

Review Synopsis

  • An old school run & gun philosophy that suits the nefarious quality of Mr. Riddick's ass.
  • Combining stealth elements with a dark, dank dungeon was the best decision they made when making this game.
  • The stark contrast between Butcher Bay and Dark Athena is enough to win a Harvery Dent Award.
11 Comments

I can't remember why I played this game.

By Video_Game_King 3 Comments

Brave Fencer Musashi

( Can somebody tell me why I bothered playing this game?) Honestly, I can't remember. It's not like this sort of thing happens often; give me any game, and I can tell you why I wanted to play it. Riddick gets by on recommendation, Phantom Brave is a strategy RPG, and everybody has been humping my upcoming Golden Sun, especially AgentJ. Especially especially AgentJ. But when it comes to Brave Fencer Musashi, I struggle to recall any sort of motivation for playing this game.
 
It can't be the story, as I had no clue what the story was. I knew Square made the game, but that's hardly a reason to play this game, given how simple the story is. Let me set the scene: there's a small village that borders a castle, located in a kingdom where everything is named after food. This kingdom is in trouble, I think (the game manages to avoid this until the ending), so the princess of this kingdom summons a hero from another dimension. In enters Musashi, and out exits the princess. Within the first hour of gameplay, she somehow manages to get her ass captured. At least Zelda waited until you finished a few dungeons before even looking like she was being captured.
 
Yet I can't be too mad at the story, primarily because it has a sense of humor about it. Oh, wait, I can be too mad at it, because it's more humorless than many pictures you'll find on the Internet. BFM's idea of humor, from what I could glean, is giving characters weird accents/dialects. There'z a Russian emperor vith a German accent, a steward who speaks in extremely flawed Middle English (example: "Have you foundeth the princess?"), about three Valley Girls, and an Of Mice and Men couple where the George has a stupid f-f-f-f-fucking stutter for some reason. Also, keep in mind that all of these characters come with kinda mediocre voice acting, transforming annoying text into grating voice work.
 
You'll be calling him a little turd more than this old fart ever will.
You'll be calling him a little turd more than this old fart ever will.
So what about the gameplay? I certainly had to have beaten it for that, right? After all, people have likened it to Zelda, one of the best video game series out there! Well, I've already eliminated that reason, since both the combat and puzzle elements of the game are too basic to be any good. Musashi only has a few of his own abilities, and most of the puzzles they're used in are for a brief period of time after you've acquired them. Of course, Musashi isn't limited to these abilities; he can also absorb abilities from his enemies by throwing his sword at them like an idiot. It sounds like a good idea on paper, but like everything else, Square managed to fuck this up, too. You aren't able to store these abilities for later use, so not only must you go through the same mini-game with enemies again and again to get an ability, but many activate immediately upon grabbing them. The problem comes when you realize that some enemies give you harmful abilities, and the only way you can tell is AFTER YOU'VE ABSORBED IT. 
 
So story and Zelda elements are out, so what the hell is left? Oh, wait, Zelda had exploration elements, and Musashi is completely lacking in that, too, isn't it? Musashi's world is an incredibly small one with few dungeons or surrounding areas. Aside from actually continuing the game, the only reason to explore any of this world is to find Bincho fields. When you see one, you're supposed to whack it with your sword, and BP upgrades pour forth from it like a magical pinata. I thought this was a good feature that had proper motivation until I found out that they're easy to find and bosses give you better BP upgrades with better regularity. (If you'll allow me to go off on a tangent, the bosses suck; they're mostly variations on "hit this guy for a chance to hit this guy.") Why am I saying this, though? The game outright forces you to collect certain Bincho fields at certain times in the game, so I can't complain about their superfluity too much.
 
So we've eliminated all possible focuses this game could possibly have, so what does it focus on? Time! Seriously, that's the big feature of this game: a runnig clock. Shops are only open for so long, certain events only occur at certain times of the day (or week), and you have to sleep at an inn regularly to stay at peak performance. Wait, what was the last one? Sleeping? I actually have to sleep in this game? Well, apparently, I do, because otherwise, my 2 foot tall hero will slow down and eventually collapse mid-battle. Sure, you can manually sleep without an inn, but it wastes BP for some reason, meaning you'll still have to visit an inn. It all feels like a gimmicky way to artifically lengthen the game, but even in that regard, it still doesn't work due to the brevity of the game. There are only six chapters in the entire game, and they don't last too long; I'll admit that I rushed through it, but I don't find any difficulty in beating it in a week. 
 
Why does everything about this game disappoint? It was made by Square, so a lot of what it did should be fantastic! But instead, we have a mediocre plot with more holes than SpongeBob on a shooting range (he knows what he did), a leveling system with absolutely no connection to anything you do in the game, and a bunch of "main" gameplay features that nobody ever bothered to flesh out. Again, we come to the main question: why did I play this? I can't remember, so I'll give it the Misanthropy Award for Probably Trusting the Recommendations of Others. It's not the first time such a thing has happened.
 

Review Synopsis

  • Bad plot, bad dialogue, bad plot twists, moving on...
  • It's sort of like Zelda if you downgraded everything to an embarrassingly basic level.
  • Why did they make such a mediocre time aspect the main focus of the entire game?
 
 
 
 
Some of you may find this video a bit shocking, but honestly, what do you expect from those damn reddies?
 
 
 

Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3

( After the mediocrity that was Brave Fencer Musashi, I needed something that was good.) That was when Yoshi's Island came to mind. I remember calling it Manbearpig in an earlier review (because I was an idiot), but I also remember it calling fun and creative. So I played through it again, and found that it's still the awesome adventure it was a few years ago.
 
Part of that may be that it hasn't changed at all since the last time I played it. The stork still drops the Mario brothers from his precariously held pouch and straight into my explanation of the story. Luigi gets captured by Bowser's forces due to his utter lack of importance, while the more popular Mario lands in the relative safety of the Yoshi clan. They decide that it's best to take this thing to safety. How? Well, they're idiots, but their relay system would have been a good plan. I ended the sentence that way because the major part of their plan involves transporting the baby through incredibly dangerous caverns and forests, the coup de grace being the end location: BOWSER'S CASTLE. It's like trying storing your ice sculpture collection in your friend's sauna.
 
In fact, the running theme I've noticed in this game is just how stupid the Yoshis seem to be. For example, has anybody noticed how they're willing to throw their own eggs at anything they perceive as a threat to a wailing, shit-squirting annoyance of a game character? Of course, they're idiots, so unless you want them trying to juggle the eggs with their puny mutant hands, you're going to have to aim for them. Fortunately, this is very easy to do: just point at what you want dead, and fire away! Good thing it's easy to pull off, as this is the main feature of the game: eating enemies to fire at other enemies. However, unlike in the previous game, it isn't just used for killing things.
 
Another great aspect of this game is how creative it can be. No two levels play exactly alike, and each one has you doing anything ranging from getting Yoshi high out of his stupid mind to giving Yoshi the finger as Baby Mario downs an entire can of Red Bull and starts bouncing off the walls. However, while most creative games seem to die off at about the halfway mark, Yoshi's Island keeps the creativity going. The only flaw with this alone may be that it's too creative at time, giving us things that either feel gimmicky or illogical. Aside from the paradoxical Baby Mario invincibility, you also have a few gimmicky vehicle portions. I can see the purpose of the helicopter, but everything else feels like it was just crammed into the game for the sake of creativity. They don't feel natural, even when you discount the fact that Yoshi has suddenly become a reptilian Transformer, and they're certainly not fun. These vehicles feel more like a way from Point A to B than anything that comes naturally during the game.
Not all our wishes can come true...
Not all our wishes can come true...
 
Just like the creativity, gimmicky features are also a major portion of the game. For example, points have returned from the previous game, yet they have somehow become more useless. You earn these points by collecting flowers, starts, and red coins, but you don't know how many points you have until the end of the level. Not that it matters, though; the only motivation to get a high score is that 100%ing the game gets you a few new levels. It doesn't need them, though, as the game is long enough as it is. Sure, there are only six worlds and eight levels in each, but these levels are quite long, but oddly fast paced; I was breezing through levels while paradoxically wondering when they'd end.
 
Let's see, I've covered the story, Yoshi stupidity, the main gameplay features...what have I left out? Hmm....what else is-oh, right! The music. Here it is, enjoy. Wait, no, that's not what I wanted to say. I meant the graphics! How could I forget that? Seriously, how could I forget them, they're one of the most important aspects of the game! Early on, somebody decided that Yoshi's Island should feel like a storybook, and later, they turned out to be completely right. The colorful, crayon-drawn graphics lend a unique charm to the game that nothing at the time could replicate. Another part of that charm is all the Mode-7 effects it pulls off; it does everything from simple rotation to level distortion and 3D effects. Hell, it's even used for some of the stupidly easy boss battles, like Whack-a-Mole-esque Raven boss thing. Because I can't think of any way to follow that sentence, I'll give this game the Of Course He's Annoying Award, and announce the score of....of.... 9.0? Holy shit, this is the... wait, it's only the second game to get such a score? Oh well, fuck it :P.
 

Review Synopsis

  • Fine, Baby Mario's annoying, but perhaps he'd cry less if Yoshi wasn't stupid enough to drag him along everywhere.
  • Everything about this game is creative and well-executed. Everything.
  • It has lots of charm, but it doesn't rely on it to be a good game.
3 Comments

The most shocking plot twist in any video game.

By Video_Game_King 37 Comments

Star Fox 64

( That honor would have to go to this game for me, personally.) Part of the reason may be that this game holds a special place in my black, shriveled heart. As a kid, I loved playing this on my N64. Sure, I had to get my brother to help me with some of the harder levels, but I still enjoyed blasting Andross in his bearded monkey face. Many a moon later, no pun intended, I have come back to this classic as per the request of a Japanese demon, and I still love it.
 
Shortly after this, I made a joke about how Andross raped Fox.
Shortly after this, I made a joke about how Andross raped Fox.
Part of that may be the unique combination of elements that Star Fox 64 is. Imagine this game as a combination of furries, World War II, and Star Wars. A lot of Star Wars, in fact; I previously criticized Mega Man X for ripping off Star Wars, but dear god, they even managed to rip the ending straight from A New Hope! Conveniently, this brings me to the plot: long ago, there was this scientist guy named Andross. He did some things that the Lylat system did not like, so they banished him to an abandoned little hellhole called Venom. Of course, Andross is still a threat, so they send three space pilots to kill him. However, Andross is smart and an asshole, so he kills one of them, hires another as his personal lackey, and sends the last one home to tell everyone what just happened. He does, and because he was working for such smart people, he gets sent back.
 
You play as Fox McCloud, the son of the dead guy from before. You get help from the aforementioned unlucky bastard, the ever-so-badass Falco, and Slippy, who has always confused me indirectly. I've heard a lot of crap about his gender ambiguity, but even as a kid (a very stupid kid, mind you), I could tell Slippy was a boy. I didn't find him annoying, either. However, I'm not just denying it for the sake of doing so; I really believe those things, along with the fact that this game has a strong cast and funny, memorable quotes. I'm not sure they were meant to be funny, though, so I can't give the game credit for lines like "I'm the great Leon!" and "Andross won't have his way with me."
 
However, what I can give it credit for is voice acting. Not only because there's never really a text-only moment, but also due to the fact that it's kinda good. There aren't any embarrassing slip-ups in voice qu...fine, I'll get to the gameplay. It's a rail shooter, meaning it essentially plays like a 3D version of Gradius. Of course, this gives it a simple, pick up and play arcade feel. That's probably why everybody loved the game so damn much: even as a kid, I could immediately pick the game up and jump right into the fray. It's almost the perfect definition of "easy to pick up, hard to master."
 
Why the "hard to master" part? Well, the multiple paths. Scattered throughout the Lylat system are about 12-13 planets, but you don't play through every single one. Oh, no, you have to do something specific within certain levels, like flying under some arches or killing a certain amount of enemies. They're creative, take some effort to achieve, and are rarely that hard to figure out. The only thing I don't like about them is labeling them according to difficulty, because it's misleading. There are some "hard" levels which are stupidly easy, like the lone submarine planet, and "easy" levels that will beat your ass into the ground, like just about anything where you have to fight Star Wolf. They wouldn't be a problem if your teammates were of any help, but it seems they prefer "bitch for help" over "actually fight the enemies."
 
It's not just Slippy who sucks with an Arwing; it's all of them. There was one dogfight near the end of the game where I was missing Slippy, but I managed to beat all but one of the Star Wolf team. Unluckily, the only person left was Wolf. I spent half the fight saving these idiots from their pursuers, but when the time came for them to return the favor, they suddenly noticed the scenic view of Venom, ignoring my pleas for aid. Why do people hate Slippy so much when their reasons for hatred pretty much apply to all of your members? Hell, I actually found him to be the most useful of all the members, probably because he's the only way you can analyze boss health.
Oddly enough, this would make a great album cover.
Oddly enough, this would make a great album cover.
 
On that note, great boss battles. Memorable, challenging, epic, and many other kind words that are just popping into my head all describe the boss battles in this game. So, that's it. These are all the reasons I love Star Fox 64. Oh, forgot one: the one that deserves Most Shocking Plot Twist Award. Why? Well, let me set the scene. It was night, and my brother had just reached the Venom stage that none had seen before: that portion of the planet that belonged to Star Wolf. Amazingly, he managed to beat them, and he was soon navigating the labyrinth that led to Andross. It started exactly like the one we'd seen before, but WHAT THE FUCK, he transforms into a brain!? It was a long, hard fought fight, and at the end of it all, explosions. Many an explosion. All looks bleak and hopeless, and....what's this? Tom Clancy? What's he do....no, wait....IT'S FOX'S DAD!!! Everybody was shocked. It would have been perfect if the scent of poo had not filled the air. To this day, nobody knows who it was.
 

Review Synopsis

  • Great shooting and flying mechanics that could only be improved by a more useful cast.
  • Speaking of which, memorable cast and a lot of funny quotes.
  • Tom Clancy leading me out of the Death Star is still one of my most memorable plot twists.
 
 
 
 
I know I should have posted this weeks ago, when the new GI Joe movie was released, but...
 
 
 

Dynamite Headdy

( I'm aware that nobody suggested this game, but then again, there were barely any suggestions.) Besides, it fits the personal theme I have already established, albeit in a far more surreal, creepy manner. But again, more on that at the end. This introductory paragraph is where I profess my love for Treasure, the guys behind this. Almost every game they've made is unique, memorable, and very fun to play; the only reason I began with the word "almost" was because of their N64 ventures.
 
Dynamite Headdy, being released for the Genesis (as in "not the N64"), fits all three of the aforementioned criteria. The first thing I found unique was, what else, the story! You play as Headdy, the pimpest puppet in all of North Town. There's a demon-guy causing trouble in your domain, and it's up to you to stop him! Along the way, you'll meet several cool characters, like your female counterpart Heather and the " I associate breasts with pain" Trouble Bruin. Although both are certainly creative, that's not the creative part of the story. Wait, now that I think about it...there's nothing especially creative about the story at all! Sure, it's all told as a sort of play, but rarely is this relevant from a story perspective.
 
It's much more relevant from a graphical perspective; the levels all look like they're being performed in a cheap theater, lending a cute, mechanical charm to the affair. However, this is not the part that makes me love the game; no, what I love most is the music! OK, just kidding, but still, I find the music to be among the best the Genesis had to offer. It's like Treasure knew that the system sounded like robots humping electricity, so they just went with it. The result is distinctive, excellent music and...huh? Incredibly clear voice work? On a system infamous for "wise fwom your gwave" and other auditory faux pas? Holy crap, I think I love you, Treasure.
 
 Unfortunately, poor Pimp Headdy has never seen a girl in his pathetic life.
 Unfortunately, poor Pimp Headdy has never seen a girl in his pathetic life.
Wait, what was I talking about, I seem to have forgotten. Oh, right, the head snatchy gameplay. The main thing about Headdy is that he's a puppet consisting of detached body parts that grab onto stuff, exactly like Rayman. However, Headdy is much smarter than his plagiarizer, so instead of solving everything with his fists, he uses his head...almost in the same manner as Rayman uses his fists. He launches his head at things and grabs onto them in various ways. "Where's the creative aspect", you're asking me before the end of the review. Well, impatient one, the unique part is just how far it takes it. There are several power-ups to your own head, each with their own specific purposes, like shrinking or creating an explosive ring around your body. OK....some of them are a bit crap, but most of them are fairly decent.
 
And don't think it's one note, like Mischief Makers was with the grabbing things; here, you're grabbing things, shooting at things with your head, shooting at things with projectiles that shoot from your head, grappling onto things, shooting some hoops with your head, and about a billion other things. Of course, part of the reason why Headdy's able to do so much is because of the level design. Again, very creative and unique, especially in the dimension part. About half the levels in the game mix some sort of 3D element or cool gimmick into it. One minute, you're blasting a baby head into oblivion; the next, you're flipping levels upside down to drop balls onto a robot's head. There's never really a moment in the game where the creativity comes to a screeching halt.
 
However, there is a point where my tolerance for it comes to a screeching halt. Near the end of the game, the difficulty moves from reasonable to near impossible. I know this is an old school game, but even ridiculously hard games like Rayman and Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts had basic gameplay elements like CONTINUES. What makes it worse is that Treasure made the game harder on purpose; after a bit of research, I found that the Japanese version not only had continues, but was much easier compared to the American/Euro versions. Combined with DMC3 doing the exact same thing, I'm convinced this is part of Japan's revenge on America for what they did to them during WW2. 
 
Still, even with less content and harder levels, the American version is still a great game that not a lot of people know about. Hell, the only reason I even know about is because I knew somebody growing up who owned the game. This transitions nicely into my Creepy Award. Before I elaborate, let me set the scene. There we are. Now then, it was long ago, and my previously mentioned brother borrowed Dynamite Headdy from the previously mentioned friend. I still remember two things about it: the Baby Face boss fight, and this odd memory, only auto-scrolling. All you "royal" wannabees have probably pointed out that it looks a lot like a certain scene from Mischief Makers. Here's the weird part: I didn't play that game until 2008, long after the time of my memory. How did I get this memory? WHY WAS I GIVEN SUCH PREMONITIONS!? *rips clothes off, runs around, screaming in terror*
 

Review Synopsis

  • A unique head grabbing gameplay aspect put to the best of use.
  • Here's the music. You will soon know the reasons why I love it.
  • Holy hell, it gets really hard really quick.
37 Comments

How do you follow up a party like that?

By Video_Game_King 1 Comments

Mega Man X

( Put simply, you don't.) Instead, I'll be reviewing an old game that I hadn't scored before, but played before. I know this wasn't recommended in the original thread (and probably never will be in subsequent blogs (something I condone)), but I'd like to point out that I'm not reviewing the SNES original, but the crappy DOS port. The part of that sentence which confuses me is "crappy DOS port." Why? Well, it's a PC port of a 2 year old game. Everything about that should tell me that it should be much, much better than it originally was.
 
But in the real world, several fuck ups happen along the path to a better game, the first being in the music department. The SNES version had kickass rock guitar renditions of Boomer Kuwanger, Storm Eagle, and Spark Mandrill; the DOS version has those exact same songs, except they sound like somebody threw a Game Boy and Sega Genesis into a washing machine. Why does the music sound so horrible? Hasn't the major advantage of PC gaming always been that technological edge over consoles? That's what I've heard, and just about every PC game I've seen from every year supports this. So why does a 2 year old port of a game originally released when 3D became viable have worse graphics than the original? I know that's a lot to take in, but the gist of it was that the graphics here are somehow inferior. Not much, a few missing colors, but still enough to warrant complaints.
You will learn to hate those lasers.
You will learn to hate those lasers.
 
Wait, why am I complaining in the first place? For better or worse, this is the original Mega Man X, and technical issues aside, nothing has changed. You're still in the future, and Sigma is still head Maverick leader guy after having been the best Maverick Hunter. As other best Hunter X, you must now stop Sigma and his evil Maverick buddies from taking over the world. It's good enough, but the a recurring theme I picked up on was "let's rip off Star Wars as much as possible." No matter where you turn, Mega Man X is plagiarizing Star Wars. Look one way, you see Sigma in a cape, wielding a light saber. Turn the other way, you see Dr. Light Kenobi. You look up, and you find out that all the games after the first three pretty much suck. You turn around, and THERE'S VILE! At this point, I wouldn't have been surprised if upon entering Spark Mandrill's chamber, he only communicated in unintelligible, guttural pseudo-words.
 
Actually, I would have been surprised. One of the amazing things about Mega Man X is that aside from an introduction consisting of an entire book's worth of text, there's not a lot of text or story to this. When you get to a Maverick's room, you don't have to sit through their entire life story on why they have wind powers; they just drop down and start the ridiculously one sided fight. Now that I think about it, the one thing I love about this game is how it handles the Mavericks. For the first time since Mega Man 2, the weaknesses actually seem to make some sort of sense, sometimes, like wind beating fire beating ice beating electricity (hey, I said "sort of"). Also making a return is weapon uses outside battle. Instead of saving all your weapons for the stupidly-easy-because-of-your-weapons bosses, you now have some sort of motivation to use them in the levels, like retrieving an item or creating a platform to reach a hidden portion of the level.
 
Why the future games chose hidden power-ups over this, I don't know. Personally, I liked the blending of weapons and levels, yet found the Metroidvania-esque item philosophy a bit overboard. You have to collect the dash as an upgrade, and you start with a criminally low amount of health. Most of the bosses can kill you in a few hits at such an early stage, but oddly enough, I considered the overall difficulty to be OK. I've heard people refer to Mega Man X as harder than other Mega Man games, but I didn't find it to be that much harder. In fact, it's a lot closer to some of the original Mega Man games than the Xses to follow. I've already mentioned the weapon uses, but what I haven't mentioned is that instead of that stupid teleportation room in the bad guy's fort, you fight past Mavericks on your way to Sigma. It's original and makes you feel like you're actually fighting these guys again instead of just their twins with access to teleporters.
 
Again, I fail to see why this didn't carry over, and those f'ing teleportation rooms became incredibly popular. Hmm....I have noticed that the theme of this blog can be summarized in one word: why. Why is the PC port of this game inferior? Why did scattered items become more popular then level changes based on the order you played them in? Why do I have the level exit from the beginning of the game, but sliding is something that must be collected? And again, WHY IS THE PC PORT WORSE!? I give the DOS version of Mega Man X the finger. No award, just the finger.
 

Review Synopsis

  • The music sounds like an NES being jammed into a Commodore 64, screaming in agony so as to make it stop.
  • Don't worry, as the awesome gameplay is intact.
  • A lot of really good trends that never made it into the other games.
 
 
 
 
I know I'll sound like VH1 when I say this, but remember the 90s? You know, that time in history when video games were the same but somehow better, Simpsons/SNL nerds weren't complaining about how the latest episodes aren't as good as they were in the 90s, and cartoons were actually GOOD!? This video is a triple tribute to that last one, as long as you don't look at the last frame in widescreen.
 
 
 

Phalanx

( Believe me, this was not my first choice of game.) That honor goes to the PS1 version of Metal Slug. I made to the second level, at which point it was literally impossible for me to progress in any way whatsoever. I then tried the Castlevania in its NES Classic iteration, but it wouldn't even give me the title screen, the finicky bastard. Kid Icarus met the exact same fate, forcing me to dig through my list for an unrated game that had a port to another system. Phalanx met that criteria, even if I already had an opinion of it in mind.
 
Like the previously-reviewed Mega Man X, the version I played was a port of an SNES game featuring minute changes, the first being the addition of a story. I can't remember what the hell it was, so I'll just assume it was about a lone pilot shooting an entire army of aliens on his way to destroy an evil space empire. That can't be far from the truth, right? That's kind of the base story for every shmup out there, and the only difference I noticed was the occasional FMV. It's not much, given that it's only done a few times over the course of the game and only for a few seconds, but at least it looks good. It's the same kind of thing you saw in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, only less often and essentially the same thing.
 
But who cares, right? You don't play a shooter for the story; that'd be like watching Family Guy for the funny, self explanatory jokes. What we're really here for is the gameplay. It's standard shooter affair wherein you hold down a button and watch things die, collecting different weapons to vary the manner in which the enemies die. How can you improve upon that? Well, the people at...Kemco thought of several ways and included them all in the game. First, you have a health count, allowing you to endure multiple hits and collect health refills along the way. You can also collect and store up to four weapons you can switch between at any given time. Oh, you just died? Well, don't worry, because you don't lose all your weapons; just the one you were currently using.
This was the original box art. This was not something I Photoshopped.
This was the original box art. This was not something I Photoshopped.
 
All of this may sound really good, but these improvements paradoxically make the game worse in the most predictable way: the game's too damn easy. It's weird, but predictable. Whenever you get a health refill, you get all your bombs back, giving a brief window of opportunity to spam the screen with explosives. What's that? You're in a boss battle, so you can't spam the screen with your explosives? No worries; you can usually just sit in one corner of the screen, holding down the A button until it explodes. There was not one boss immune to this strategy, and even some levels fell victim to this. I'm aware that I often complain about a game being too hard, but when death actually helps you more than it hurts, something has gone horribly awry in your game. And by "your game", I mean Phalanx, the shooter that has given me much of what I wanted, but still managed to fuck things up. I give this game the High Standards Award for not meeting mine.
 

Review Synopsis

  • Standard shooter fare with several needed improvements.
  • Unfortunately, those improvments make the game piss-easy.
  • Speaking of piss, the original SNES box art features a guy who probably smells like it.
1 Comments

Guess who just beat his 800th game?

By Video_Game_King 32 Comments

Parappa the Rapper

( If you guessed Bushwald Sexyface....well, you'd be wrong.) His sexiness may be enough to destroy empires, but he's not that good at video games. The real answer is me. Yea, I know that the GB version is lower, but I put a disclaimer at the top, remember? Anyway, more on that later. Now is the time for Parappa, the tale of a dog trying to impress a girl. However, he encounters many obstacles along the way, like a chatty douchebag, a series of bathroom guardians, his own pathetic nature, and possession of about 9 pounds of blow. How oh how will our intrepid hero ever overcome these odds!? With the power of rap! Ya gotta believe!!!
 
At least that's what Parappa would have you believe. The reality is that you (the player) are gonna have to rap your way through all of these ridiculous scenarios. Don't misunderstand me when I call them "ridiculous"; in fact, consider it my compliment towards this game. As I stated before, Parappa features an array of quirky characters and scenarios that make the game. I'm sure you were expecting me to add the phrase "stand out" at the end of that, but no, I meant to end it without said phrase...that wasn't said. The point is that for a game like this, the shell around the gameplay (here, consisting of story and music) is actually far more important than the gameplay itself; without it, nobody would play this game. Don't believe me? Let's play a drinking game: every time you see Simon Says mentioned anywhere near Parappa the Rapper, take a shot of Cognac. Your liver will be wishing that rhythm games weren't so damn simple.
 
This was Parappa's way of telling me that I suck.
This was Parappa's way of telling me that I suck.
But you know what? Fuck your liver. What's that lazy bastard ever done for me, huh? GET OUT OF ME AND MAKE SOMETHING OF YOURSELF, LIVER!!! Wait, I forgot what I was talking about. Oh, right, the gameplay part of this game. As I hinted earlier, it plays like Simon Says; a character will rap something to you, and you have to rap it right back at them. However, unlike Simon Says, it's set to a beat, meaning no two parts will feel the same. At least that's the theory; I usually stumbled across the same beat several times in a song, but I don't fault the game for that. What I fault it for is the difficulty. Maybe it's just me, but about half the time, I had a chicken chef bitching at me because I screwed up her precious cake. This game can be fairly unforgiving at times, either throwing a wide array of button combos at you (usually leading to me mashing the wrong buttons at the wrong time) or just being a dick. There were times when I hit the button EXACTLY WHEN the game asked me to, but it lowered my score anyway, forcing Parappa to crap his pants.
 
The odd thing about it, though, is that Parappa is really, really short. Usually, hard games should last a long time, even after they've made out with my chainsaw, but Parappa was incredibly short. There are only six levels in the entire game, and even after you've done an excellent job on all levels, all you get is one more level. That's it. I didn't play it (because I'm lazier than that liver prick), but I don't feel like I missed out on much by not playing it. There aren't that many twists to the original Simon Says concept; in fact, there are only two. Near the end of the game, you no longer get a warm up from the support characters, you just go straight into the rap. It caught me by surprise at first, but at least I can see why they included it. It is supposed to feel like improvisation and make you think on your toes, something it does really well. However, the double bar feature doesn't get off this easily. Again, I can see why they included this in the game, but unfortunately, there's a delay between the bars which always seems to throw me off. In a game that's entirely dependent on rhythm and flow, a delay like that can (and usually is) the difference between Good and Awful.
 
If all of this has made you think that Parappa isn't a good game, don't get the wrong impression. It's a fun game with quirky scenarios and cool music, but it's just really short and without many variations on what it does. I'd recommend borrowing it from a friend, if you can........Well, thats the end of the blog. Oh, no, I forgot something. Hmmm....oh, right, the Christianity Award. Why? Ya gotta believe!!! (Eh, I like the joke.)
 

Review Synopsis

  • Poor little Parappa. He has to put up with a lot of crap just to get with the girl of his dreams.
  • While fairly hard for me, the rap is still unique 12 years after its release.
  • Shorter than Parappa.
 
 
 

Quick: what's the first thing you'd do if you could defy reality? If you said "screw with annoying sidekicks", congratulations! You win this video!
 
 
  

Phantasy Star Collection

( This is going to be fun, isn't it?) The fun lies in what the game actually is: a Japan only compilation of the big 4 Phantasy Star games, along with some extra artwork and similar things. I didn't bother looking at any of it, but that's not the point. The point is that I've played all 4 games, and I'm going to review every single one. Naturally, this will make for a long blog that some will look at briefly before responding to it with the four douchiest letters in the English language: "tl;dr." So just to make sure that doesn't happen, I'll cater to these people by fitting at least one low-brow sexual joke into each review. First up:
 

Phantasy Star

( Wait, there's something very weird about this introduction.) What was it?....OH, right! I was playing the Japanese version, and the music I have here is the non-Japanese version. Hold on, I'll fix that. * changes music* That's better. A lot better, in fact. The Japanese version of the Master System had a really high quality sound chip that wasn't in the other versions, for some reason, accounting for the difference in music. Of course, if you don't like this near-Genesis quality, you can switch it off in favor of the original music. That's just one of the reasons why this is a great compilation.
 
Anyway, the basic premise of Phantasy Star is this: it's the future, and some evil guy named Lassic killed your brother, Nero. You're never really told why they kill him, so I assumed it was because he burned half the planet. Before he dies, though, Nero tells his sister to go find Odin and to beat up Lassic. So she embarks on an epic quest, enlisting the help of the aforementioned jock, a talking cat ( sound familiar?), and a magical tranny. "This sounds like the weirdest porno ever", you're saying to yourself whilst typing your letters, but the reality is that for its time, the story was actually very decent. There seems to be structure to the story; the characters interact with each other (sometimes), they have their own pasts and personalities, and....OK, that's all I can think of, but trust me, the story is much better than most other games at the time. Plus in this version, you get to choose which type of Japanese you're reading, which is a benefit, I guess?
Goddamn it, lost again!
Goddamn it, lost again!
 
Again, I can't read Japanese, so let's move away from the story and onto something else: the graphics. Again, it kicks the crap out of everything else from the mid 80s. OK, it may not look like if you see pictures of the battles (and how similar they are to the original Dragon Quest), but there is one key difference: animation. Sure, there may be only one enemy on screen at a time, but at least that one enemy will move when he attacks you. Outside of battle, however, things get weird; everything has this weird, washed out look to it, and nobody in the game ever moves. Did they become frozen with fear when they saw the Storm Troopers kill Nero? Or did Sega forget to program animations outside battle? Either way, it's just creepy, especially when you see NPCs who should clearly be moving somewhere.
 
Oh, and the dungeons are presented in first person. Apparently, this was the one thing people remembered about the original Phantasy Star: the dungeons. It was a huge technological achievement back in 1988, but it hasn't really aged well. Sure, it may sound good, but a first person perspective is severely limiting and makes the dungeons hard to navigate without maps. I'm lucky that I have the Internet, but keep in mind that those who originally bought it didn't have such a luxury. Still, though, it's far too easy to get lost. Don't think the game doesn't know this, either; there are several parts of the game where it's very possible to make things impossible ( like near the end of the game), and about half the dungeons contain trap doors, sometimes placed directly in front of where you need to go. Unfortunately, while the first person perspective died off in later games, the dickish nature is a recurring theme for the series.

Another recurring theme in the series is a streamlined, incredibly quick battle system. OK, so it's traditional turn based without many frills, but it doesn't need any frills, it's fine on its own. A lot of the battles clock in at under half a minute (compared to the hour long battles of yore), which is very convenient when you consider how many battles you'll see by the end of the game. I can understand if you didn't comprehend what I was getting at in the previous sentence, so let me just say that there's a lot of grinding in this game. I wish I could say it was only in the beginning, or that it was just that one "Big Grind" (you know the one, where you're level 30, near the end of the game, and have to jump to 65 in 10 minutes), but the amount of grinding you have to do throughout the game is pretty consistent. It was during this heavy amount of grinding that I began noticing a few things, like the Talk command. It confirms what we've known since childhood: talking is for pussies, and real men solve problems with their fists (or guns, in this case). Also, I noticed that there's an HP counter in the corner, something that I wish caught on with every other RPG ever.
 
Not even the other games in the series have HP counters! What the hell, Sega? You got rid of the HP counter, but you kept the dungeons that can only be described as "labyrinths?" Did you take advice from your future selves, or have you always been this stupid!? *passes out from anger* Do I have to do this again? Queen here, let me finish up his review. He planned on giving it the Phantasy Star II Award for Frustrating Dungeons, just so he could use that as a transition into the next Phantasy Star.
 

Review Synopsis

  • For its time, the story is fantastic.
  • Remember how frustrating the dungeons were in the original Dragon Quest? Well, in Phantasy Star....no, wait, they're actually less frustrating. But...no, they're still much better than the Dragon Quest dungeons.
  • Animated enemies, quick battles, HP counts, and many other features that should have been in all RPGs after this.

Phantasy Star II

( As my wife said in the previous review, this game has some frustrating dungeons.) But I won't begin the review with that. Instead, like the previous review, I'll start with the music, as this was the first thing I noticed upon starting the game. I entered the "select game" screen, and was immediately greeted by somebody beating drums like a pinata that slept with their wife. It may have been just me, but the drums in this game seem louder than in any other version I've played. Just about every song I heard had overly loud drumming. DRUMS ARE A SUPPLEMENTAL INSTRUMENT!!!
 
Anyway, that's really the only flaw I found with the music. Like the graphics in Panzer Dragoon Saga, the music in Phantasy Star II is decent on its own, but fantastic when you account for the technical limitations. On a system that sounded like a robot having phone sex (as in having sex with a phone), the fact that the music is clear and discernible automatically makes it good. In fact, the only flaw I can think of with the music doesn't even have to do with the music, but rather, the sound effects. They sound muted, especially Nei's kitten sneeze attack. 

Shin Megami Tensei before it even existed.
Shin Megami Tensei before it even existed.
  I'm aware of the odd juxtaposition of Nei and kitten in the same sentence due to her pretty much being a cat woman. And if that isn't creepy enough, she's always wearing a one-piece bathing suit, for some reason. Don't worry, though, she dies about halfway through the game, spoiler alert. Oh, that reminds me: story. The game begins with a dream of Alis beating up Dark Force. You know, because nobody owned a Master System to play the original. However, in this dream, she's losing. Not that it means anything; Rolf is the one dreaming this, and he doesn't have any connection to the girl yet. He wakes up, goes to work, and beats up somebody for stealing his horse. Oh, no, wait, he goes on a quest that ends with him taking down Mother Brain. Again, it was all in Japanese, and while I am slowly learning a few of the characters, I still had barely a clue as to what everybody was talking about.
 
Yet again, the storytelling in this game was actually ahead of the curve by a few years. It contains dark moments like suicide and Nei's death, even if the latter isn't necessary. It also does a lot of things that other RPGs haven't bothered trying ever, like narrated cutscenes and pre-rendered pictures for cutscenes. Yea, I know the previous game did that, too, but Phantasy Star 2 does it more often. Not as often as Phantasy Star IV (more on that later), but still, it's fairly often. Or at least it felt that way; the game is so short, that maybe the events felt more clustered than in the first game.
 
However, I think this is for the same reason the original Phantasy Star was short: because I'm an awesome gamer. Oh, no, wait, I meant to say "quick battles." Returning from the original is battle brevity, improved for the new generation of consoles! There's now an easier-to-use graphical interface, equipment with battle-spells, and an automatically-automatic battle sys-* record scratch*. This is where things started to fall apart for me, a little. You enter battle, press a button, and that's it. There's little interactivity with any of the battles; I actually spent more time taking notes on the game than I did doing things in battle. It's like Final Fantasy XII, where the entire gimmick was that you didn't actually have to play the game at all. OK, it's not as bad as FF12, which locked gameplay in the car on a hot summer day; you can pause battles at any time to order your characters what to do. This is where the game shines, oddly enough, in two ways.
One of the few boss battles in Phantasy Star II.
One of the few boss battles in Phantasy Star II.
 
First, there's a lot of well-developed characters, each with their own purpose. There's a robot killer, an animal killer, a guy who ignores defense, a thief, and enough character to create your own distinct team, ready to tackle whatever challenges you may face. Second, the boss battles in this game demand that you actually have some sort of strategy. Unfortunately, there aren't enough boss battles in the game (only 4, and the last one is piss-easy). Most of the game is spent in regular battles, grinding your ass into a fine powder. It's not as bad as it was in the original; it's worse. Every weapon you find costs enough money to buy a used car, and the monsters only carry $20 on them at any given time. Do the math. Done? Then you found out that this leads to a paradox where you spend a lot of your play time not playing the game, right?
 
During this paradoxical period, I discovered some good things about the battle system, mostly graphically. For example, enemy animations (thankfully) remain, but now there are idle animations. Weird idle animations, like a zombie bunny packing its guts into itself, or a dragon's jaw bouncing up and down to an other-wordly rhythm. Your characters don't have any idle animations, for some reason, but the very fact that you see them in battle is a great addition to the series. While I'm on this subject, let me wrap things up by saying the graphics are good, at least from an artistic perspective. Sure, they may look simple from a technical perspective, but the charming feel and little touches (like how NPCs aren't glued into place, like the last game) have helped Phantasy Star II weather the passage of time. Something else that has helped the game is the dungeon layout. See, told you I'd get back to it.
 
In one of their brightest moments, Sega decided that nobody likes first person dungeons, and made sure those relics stayed as far away from PS2 as possible. We're back to top-down dungeons, which are easier to navigate, easier to remember, and best of all, no more booby-trapped chests, or indeed, any traps! Hooray! Now instead of worrying about treasure emitting mammary-death-rays, I now have to worry about getting lost. Yea, I know I said that the dungeons are easier to navigate, but there are still some that deserve the moniker "labyrinth", partly because most of the dungeons have this annoying foreground that blocks much of your view. Still, I'd rather have it for two reasons: they're enough to earn the Most Distinctive Phantasy Star Dungeons Award, and not having them is part of the reason the dungeons in Phantasy Star III were so mediocre. Oh, look at this...
 

Review Synopsis

  • Kind of the last moment in Phantasy Star history when the story was slightly ahead of its time.
  • The battle system is like FF12, but thankfully, less FF12-y.
  • Sega obviously spent a lot time refining the graphics and music in this entry.

Phantasy Star III

( *glares at Phantasy Star III*) There's a reason I didn't use Phantasy Star III music for this particular portion of the blog, and it isn't because the music is crap. OK, that factored into my decision as to why I went with Mother 3 music. The soundtrack to PS3 is the antithesis to PS2: while PS2 was clear and enjoyable to listen to, PS3 is a tinny, generic mess. You want proof? Listen to this. Sure, it's only seven seconds long, but it plays at the beginning of just about every battle, bosses included. It gets especially grating when you're doing things like writing notes on the game or issuing commands to your characters.
 
Quick, name the game!
Quick, name the game!
Speaking of characters in battle, the count has been bumped up to five members now, most likely because FF4 did it and Sega wanted to be popular. However, that's pretty much the only thing Phantasy Star III rips from Final Fantasy; just about everything else is ripped from conventional RPGs of the time. For example, the game begins with a rescue the princess plot. You start as Rhys, about to marry Maia, when a demon bursts onto the scene and steals your bride! Rhys spends some time being pissed, and his kingly father sends him to jail for reasons the plot never adequately addresses. Already, things start off as both weird and mundane, but in time, the game manages to work past the "rescue the princess plot." In fact, about a third of the way through the game, you rescue her and are given a choice: marry her, if you're feeling cliche, or marry a plain-looking girl you just met, if you're feeling like an asshole.
 
I felt like an asshole, so I married the average looking girl. That's the main feature of Phantasy Star III: at certain intervals, you're given a choice of who to marry. You choose your girl, the characters have sex, and spawn a child who manages to bring chaos and ruin upon the various worlds of the game. It's a good idea that adds needed variety and replay value to this game. It would make the game last a long time if it wasn't incredibly short as it is. I beat it in 2 days (without the glitch that skips an entire generation), and there are ultimately only 4 scenarios. That means you can experience everything this game has to offer in about a week.
 
And unfortunately, there isn't much that this game offers, especially when compared to other RPGs of the time. Battles are traditional turn based, essentially the same as it was in Phantasy Star II. However, several of the things that I loved about PS2, like seeing your characters in battle and enemy animations, have either been removed or severely dumbed down to a basic level. In fact, the only thing that remains is the quick battles, but given how embarrassingly short it is, I'd opt for slightly longer, more involved battles. At least then, I may not have noticed how weird this game can be at times. For example, instead of decent enemy animations, you have animated backgrounds. However, every single one is a parallax scrolling background, even when it makes no sense (caves, castles, deserts, etc.). Also, the enemies in this game are really weird; half of them are generic RPG fare/robots, but then there's another half populated entirely by Cho Aniki rejects. They're cut off from the waist down, but knowing what happens in those games, I'm guessing that was best for everyone.
This is the plastic-y look I was referring to.
This is the plastic-y look I was referring to.
 
Aside from the naked men with tuna can helmets, the only other thing that makes this game stand out from others is the spell system. Rather than learning an array of incantations, each character has one or two classes of spells they can access. You have access to every single one from the moment you get that character, but the only way to make them stronger is by visiting a tech shop and playing something akin to Columns 3: What the Hell Happened to Columns 2. You adjust how powerful a certain spell is, but in doing so, you weaken another spell on the other side of the spectrum. This sounds good in theory until you realize a few things, like how the Antidote spell is thrown into the mess. What happens is that now a spell that should always hit now misses for some reason. I didn't like it when the RNG screwed me out of a healing spell in Fire Emblem: Thracia 776, and here, it's even worse. How? Let's say you're in battle, and one of your characters gets poisoned. Fortunately, they know Anti, so they can cure themselves, right? Well, you go to your menu, find out that the number next to the spell isn't the MP cost (what?), and then watch as your Anti spell fails on you. You try it again and again, but you've run out of MP and are still poisoned. "I can just go to an inn," you think to yourself with your naive mind. So you go to the inn, sleep, and find out that you're still poisoned and still have no MP.  
 
That's the thing about Phantasy Star III: everything's either heavily unpolished or more generic than The 7th Saga. In fact, this is one thing the two games share: a banal, plastic-y look. You know the look, the one you saw in Light Crusader, Conker's Pocket Tales, and Mystic Ark. The only one of those to do it successfully was Mystic Ark, and that was because it was a slightly cartoony game where at any given time, you could be exploring a variety of areas, ranging from a land of feline pirates to Fairy Tale Central. In Phantasy Star III, the worlds range from "medieval desert world" to "medieval tundra world", the middle ground/majority being "medieval world without any major fringes." After the first two Phantasy Stars showed me how ahead of their time they were with their memorable storylines, interesting plot points, and heavy sci-fi elements, it's disappointing to see Phantasy Star III resign itself to being a drab, mundane JRPG completely lacking in any identity. Sure, it does some things differently from the competition, but seeing as how they're never really done right, they barely amount to enough to give this game any sort of individuality. I'm gonna have to give this game the 1950s Award for An Appalling Lack of Any Individuality Whatsoever.
 

Review Synopsis

  • Speaking from a purely technical standpoint, this game's a step backward for the series.
  • The marriage thing would have been cool if the game wasn't already 6 hours long.
  • The only noteworthy thing to say about the battles is the spell system, which needed a lot more work before it was released in its current state.

Phantasy Star IV

( And so we come to the riveting conclusion of this incredibly long compilation of reviews!) And what a place to end: Phantasy Star 4. If the recent Venture Bros season trailer is to be believed, then the number four is the most awesome thing in the history of ever, and this game is no different. Maybe my expectations were lower after experiencing Phantasy Star III, or maybe it's my long history of loving the number four, but I found PS4 to be the best in the series.
 
It all started with the music, as it always does. I believe my main complaints with the previous game were "tinny" and "nondescript." Phantasy Star IV fixes this, offering music that's actually clear, memorable, and sounds good. Just like Phantasy Star II. OK, not entirely like that; there are a few songs that edge on tinny, but for the most part, it's a good soundtrack. OK, we're done with that? Nice, let's move onto the story. It's the future, Motavia has gone back to being a desert hellhole, and there has been a (supposed) resurgence of monsters as of late . However, none of this concerns you at the beginning of the game. You, Chaz, an apprentice hunter under the ice-cold Alys, are only on a mission to clean up the basement in a local college.
 
Rykros: home planet of Rick Astley.
Rykros: home planet of Rick Astley.
Somehow, this turns into a quest to stop Zio, who is a deadly combination of cult leader and magician. Creepy. What's also creepy, probably to you, is that I actually understood the story. Well, this time I was smart enough to grab a script off GameFAQs, so now I know what I'm talking about when I say that the story is decent. There are plenty of twists and turns, like jumping between "destroy the villain" (the villain changing every few hours) and "let's fix the weather" (something it sticks with a bit more than PS2 did), and it does the series justice by wrapping up quite a few loose ends left in the previous few games. However, unlike the games before it, I wouldn't call it ahead of its time anymore. Sure, it has the most/best cutscene pictures of all four games, but the actual story quality isn't notably ahead of anything that was available at the time. OK, after a bit of research, I found out that it is a little bit ahead of its time, but not in the same way as before.
 
Rather than containing storytelling elements that would become commonplace years, it turns out Chrono Trigger just ripped off this game a year later. Don't believe me? Rune blasts open a hole to a cave, Zio sprays black goo on Alys. Also, the battle systems are similar in one regard: teamwork. One thing that sets these two games apart from most RPGs is that rather than feeling like four one-on-one fights with minimal support between characters, both of these games actually feel like characters cooperating in heated battle. Chrono Trigger did it with geometry and toads high on their own acid, while Phantasy Star IV does it with the Macro system. Remember the last two games, where you were given the option to turn on auto fight and deprive the system of any meaningful gameplay? Well, Macros are an evolved version of that.
 
The evolved part (other than it only being a one-turn affair now) is that you can customize what exactly your characters do when you issue a Macro. So where's the teamwork part I was just talking about? Well, enter a specific series of actions, and your characters will perform a mega attack on anything nearby. It's a cool system that encourages experimenting in battle and can suddenly turn a routine random encounter into something badass. By that, I mean it's possible to stumble across an Ultra Death-Destructo combo tech, almost making it something that doesn't hinge on using a guide. I said "almost" because there are certain combinations that require techniques being done in a precise order, something you can't always do. The order of attack is pretty much rigid for the entirety of the game, so if one of your combos requires that Rune goes first, you either have to plug PS4 into a Sonic & Knuckles cartridge or succumb to the charms of GameFAQs.
 
However, I'm willing to overlook a few of these flaws if only for some of the things it does right, like vehicle battles. After the disappointment of the previous two games, vehicles are back and better than ever! What's more, they now have their own special battle mode where you blast nearby insects off your windshield. I know that sounds disappointing the way I described it, but trust me, it's awesome. Also awesome: the return of animations. And I mean real animations, not the "paper figures taped to a popsicle stick" crap that I suffered through in the last game. They, along with many other things, make this the best looking game in the series. Gone are the The 7th Saga-esque graphics, and back is the anime look and spells that destroy half the planet. Of course, with these improved graphics come load t-* record scratch*.
 
Pictured here is the laziest box art of any video game.
Pictured here is the laziest box art of any video game.
Hold on, why are there load times? I understand that this is a CD based game and that one system emulating another can be hard, but none of the other games had load times. Why this one? Granted, it's only in and out of battles, but there are A LOT of battles in this game. Oddly enough, this means little to no grinding, so....good? OK, it's not all good, since it somewhat feels like artificial lengthening. Like every game I've listed here so far, Phantasy Star IV is short, but unlike the other games, it actually tries to fix this with side quests. At about any time in the story, you can head to a certain town on Motavia, sign up for a side quest, and waste time finding some dog or again, making Chrono Trigger seem unoriginal. I didn't accept most of them, but from what I've read (and the few I've played), they're actually quite interesting and have decent reward. Hell, maybe if I took the time to complete some of them, I could afford the fanciest weapons without having to make 9 species extinct first. But I was in a hurry, so I decided on the grind, even if the side quests would make the game better. Not that it needed to be any better; I've listed all the reasons why this is the best game of the original four, haven't I? Now all that's needed is a nice little award.....I've got it! Aeris Gainsborough Award for Freudian Female Deaths! Oh, and the entire Collection gets the Orange Box Award for Great Compilations.
 

Review Synopsis

  • The battle system is exactly what the previous games were building up to.
  • Phantasy Star IV's story, while no longer ahead of the curve, is still pretty good.
  • Somehow, it manages to reverse-rip-off Chrono Trigger. What the hell do I call that?
 

800 Game Celebration

( Finally, I have...wait...) Somebody mixed up the music again! I said Song 1, you idiots! * music changes* There, that's better. I have reached 800 beaten video games, another important milestone. I've seen this type of thing many times before, but this is the first one on Giant Bomb. Anyway, I feel that I should mark the occasion with something big and special. I think creating my own Parliament would qualify as such. Yes, it's....
 
 
What does this mean? Well, first, YOU are going to be members of my new Parliament! That's right, all of you will be made The Parliamenty Fresh! Now then, we again arrive at the question of what this means for you. Only one thing: you get to recommend games to me that I go back and replay. Already, I see some of you twirling your mustaches, donning your old timey top hats, and saying, "Nya-ha-ha! Now I can get him to repl-" I know what you're gonna say, so shut your stupid-spewing face hole. Also, you're dead. I gave that game a rating, and that's the only rule: you can't suggest something I've already rated.
 
Of course, it is entirely possible that you were going to mention something else. Hell, you may have been thinking of another game, like Earthbound. If that's the case, I hate to break it to you, StarFoxA, but I'd still reject that game. I reserve the right to reject games, but I'll usually be fair about it. Maybe I don't own the game anymore, maybe I never owned it, or maybe, in the case of Earthbound, I plan on playing it in another form at a later date. So, my Parliamenty Fresh, go forth and tell me what games interest you for this purpose! But please, no RPGs.
32 Comments

Things too utterly awesome to ever exist.

By Video_Game_King 19 Comments

Street Fighter Alpha

( How odd, the last Street Fighter game I played was Fighting Street!) AKA Street Fighter 1. What makes this odd? Well, story-wise, I think Street Fighter Alpha completely ignores the original Street Fighter, for some reason. The main thing about this game is that it's a prequel to Street Fighter II, because apparently even Capcom forgot about the original SF. So the whole thing is written from a Street Fighter II perspective, featuring characters and locales from that game. For example, bad guy M. Bison is back, and he's gathering forces for Shadaloo, which I was disappointed to find out was not the name of an awesome Australian rock band from 1984, but a Brazilian drug ring. The other characters can't have this, so they each fight M. Bison for their own contrived reasons.
 
Speaking of characters, the cast of characters can either make or break a fighting game; fortunately, Alpha has a good cast, but not without its flaws. A few of the characters have very specific purposes, like Rose being anti-projectile or Sodom/Birdie mainly being close range rush guys. When you combine characters who aren't meant for each other (and you will at some point), it makes for a kind of awkward showdown. However, these battles are still better than battles with Sagat and Adon, the two cheapest characters in the entire game. OK, Sagat's not bad, even if he is tougher than a shitty 90s comic should be; it's Adon who's the real cheap character. Remember in the original Street Fighter II, when you'd fight Vega, and he spent most of the fight jumping around, striking at you from nowhere? Adon fits this description perfectly...perhaps too perfectly...
 
 Shadaloo: the most aweseome band to never exist.
 Shadaloo: the most aweseome band to never exist.
Best not think of it. It's best not to think of such awful things. I should talk about something I like, such as the core fighting system. Like any good Street Fighter game, it's simple, easy to pick up, and somewhat basic when compared to other fighters (Killer "combo" Instinct, Guilty "metal and scary Japanese girls" Gear, Mortal "fatalities" Kombat). However, while the game is easy to pick up, it isn't as easy to pick up as I like. No, I'm not gonna complain about it using traditional fighting moves, because that would be incredibly stupid of me. What I will complain about are moves that require a full 360 (WHAT!?), or the Alpha Counters. That sounds like a cool way to turn the tide of a battle, right? Well, it is, but unfortunately, you have to be blocking while doing this. The part that screws this up is that all the Alpha Counters have the same input, and that input requires pushing the block button at some point and then releasing it. Keep in mind that you have to be holding block the entire time, or it won't work, so either set the game to Auto or learn how to screw with the game's controls. Those are your only two options.
 
Moving away from the Alpha Counters, we come to the other....OK, the major feature of Alpha: the super moves. Throughout battle, there's a meter at the bottom of the screen that fills up as you're damaged/perform special moves. It fills up to different levels, but I never found this to be a major part of the game, ever. Probably because it only happens for the enemies, it doesn't affect the lethality of the special moves, and only a few characters ever require it for about one or two of their special moves. But back to the special moves themselves, they're the best part about the game. Most of them are super badass feats of human strength that can turn the tide of battle in the blink of an eye. Also in the blink of an eye, I've seen computers block the moves before I even activated them, proving that the computer f'ing cheats. Back to the super moves, another thing I like about them is that they're unique for each and every character. Characters who were originally clones of other characters are now distinct characters themselves.
 
In fact, the only flaw I can find with the system is that the meter carries over from round to round. Trust me, it's really cheap when you can start a battle with a Shinkuu Hadouken or whatever. Yet for all the times I horribly abused this feature, I still don't consider this to be the biggest flaw with the game; that honor would go to the load times. They're somewhat short, but they are incredibly frequent. It loads the title screen, it loads the attract mode intro, it loads the fights, it loads the victory messages, it loads the ending, it loads the loading screen, you'll spend more time waiting for the game to load than you will playing it. Yea, it's a very early PS1 game, but still, you're going to see more load screens than a Resident Evil gamer completely lacking any sense of direction....yea, that joke sucks. I might as well continue the downward decline and end this with the Shadaloo Award for Excellence in Awesome Rock Aweseomeness.
 

Review Synopsis

  • Smooth, intuitive fighting system with decent additions.
  • Why did they get rid of E. Honda and replace him with a samurai named after Ancient Fuck Capital?
  • Hold on, my last bullet is still loading.
 
 
 
After some time on YouTube, I discovered something: the 21st century fucked up Ren and Stimpy in ways I dare not remember. I'd post an episode, but let me reiterate: THEY ARE SEVERELY FUCKED UP. In fact, this is the only thing I could find that isn't horrible, and it's just a poor attempt to usurp the Rick Roll throne with Ren Roll. (It probably goes without saying that the related videos may be NSFW.)
 
 
 

Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2

( Crap, this game is going to be hard to review.) After all, it's hard to remain objective and analytical when all of the video gaming community has decided that this game rocks and is perfect in every way. I also have a very personal history with this game, given that I grew up with it and have many a decent memory associated with the title.  Throw in the very likely probability of Don Mario assassinating me for not giving this game a 29/10, and you can see why this review may have me worried. However, as a critic, it is my DUTY to review games like this. I will press on!
 
Let's jump right into things: the Princess was found missing at the beginning of the game, and Mario, the presumptuous, fat bastard that he is, decides that it must have been Bowser! He doesn't have any evidence of this (or of her absence at all), but having been presented with a flimsy excuse to beat up Bowser and his children, Mario takes this opportunity with gusto. Luigi's there, too, and you can switch to him at any time you please, but who cares? He's Luigi! We stopped caring about him in the original Mario Bros. What we're really here for is Yoshi. This is the thing that sets Super Mario World apart from its predecessors: Yoshi, the....what the hell is Yoshi again? Is he a reptile, an amphibian, or some bastardization of them both?
 I wish Yoshi were this great.
 I wish Yoshi were this great.
 
That reminds me: I've always had a lot of questions about Yoshi. Where the hell does Yoshi buy his shoes? Why are all Yoshi born with saddles on their back? What's the plural of the word Yoshi? And most importantly: why the hell is it that when Yoshi eats power-ups, Mario receives the benefits? I've spent a lot of time thinking about these questions, and the only thing I could think of to answer one of them is that Mario and Yoshi share an other-worldly bond that no mortal can break. You know, like Yoshi is a dragoon or something. However, instead of leveling half a city with its laser breath, Yoshi eats and digests turtles raw. That's kind of what makes Yoshi fun: he can eat anything. It allows for a lot experimentation and cool uses for your Yoshi. Swallow a red Koopa and spit his fiery corpse at bubbled enemies! Vomit a Bob-omb into an enemy-filled clearing! Eat enough dangling fruits to make Yoshi crap a 1 up!
 
This is probably the reason people love Super Mario World so much: the variety. Everything about this game was creative for its time (not counting music and power-ups). There are over 100 levels, each with several ways to approach them. My favorite was "build up a running start, bob through the level on my superhero cape", but that was because I'm usually in a hurry to beat my games. If I didn't blast through the levels like my life depended on it, I'd probably have indulged in the other progression methods, like blasting everything with fireballs or using Yoshi like a free double jump. Hell, some of these are required to beat levels, like the Ghost Mansions. Speaking of which, the game can be a bit cryptic with progression at times. What does that have to do with the Ghost Mansions? Anybody who has played this game knows what I'm talking about. Remember those times when you couldn't figure out what to do in those maze-like houses, and you had to call your friend to show you how to get past them?
 
Oh, and this isn't limited to the Ghost Mansions; hell, the last 40% of the game seems to have been designed for the sole purpose of pissing off little kids everywhere. After exiting a cryptic forest with multiple exits and the only way to move forward being secret keyholes, you stumble across a mountain range filled with even more cryptic levels with even harder to find keyholes! If the game is sounding hard, prepare for a surprise: it isn't. I didn't have much trouble blasting through the levels, something I don't have a problem with because of my aforementioned gliding fetish. What I can't excuse are easy boss battles. What the hell's wrong with you, Nintendo? I could beat these Koopalings on my first try, and usually did! Several of them are just rehashes of previous bosses, too, and they're not any harder the second time. Granted, Bowser is hard, but he's supposed to be hard, he's the final boss. What's your excuse for the other bosses?
 
Wow, I suddenly got harsh on this game! Told you guys it would be hard to maintain my objectivity on such a notable game that everyone has played at some point. To be fair, i still like Super Mario World a lot. It's simple and fun, two things that work really well with the GBA. Oh, I forgot: there are some additions on the GBA. Just sharper graphics, a redone version of the original Mario Bros, and some voice work, that's all. Anyway, I'm going to end the review prematurely with my Tortured Childhood Award, mainly because I think I might be dead. *notices bullet wound in skull* Yea, I'm dead.
 

Review Synopsis

  • While there aren't as many power-ups as there were in Super Mario Bros 3, Yoshi more than makes up for that.
  • Hooray for multiple approaches to any given level!
  • A bit on the easy side until you try to beat Bowser.
19 Comments

Under da sea! Down here, it's wetter, under da sea!

By Video_Game_King 1 Comments

In the Hunt

( Otherwise known as "a game so obscure and nondescript, even I haven't heard of it.") Not even Giant Bomb's tag search engine can find it, which explains why I couldn't directly tag this blog to the game. In fact, I don't even remember much about the game, so don't have any high expectations for this half of the blog. Back to the matter at hand, In the Hunt is a side scrolling shmup where you take the role of a submarine. If you, like me, were thinking this would make for a subtle, Hunt For Red October-esque game, prepare for disappointment: it's just an ordinary shmup.
 
Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that part. Like any shmup, you move from left to right, collecting power-ups and blowing up that which has yet to be blown up. The bad part comes in when you realize how easy it is to do all this. The power-ups you collect are ridiculously powerful, and the screen doesn't automatically scroll. You control when the screen progresses, beat em up style, meaning you can shoot up nearby enemies at your own pace, move forward, and then repeat ad infinitum. "But wait," you're telling me, "there must be a time limit, right?" Yes, there is a time limit, but it's a limit in the same sense that Cartoon Network airs cartoons, by which I mean that it isn't much of a limit. It counts down at an incredibly slow pace, and like Final Fight 3, the only time when I was in danger of running out of time was at the end, where death resets the clock.
 
No, wait, wrong game.
No, wait, wrong game.
Oh, yea, that reminds me: when you die, you lose all the power-ups you collected along the way. Why does it seem like every mediocre shooter I play utilizes this annoying feature? Why is it that generic shmups seem to have cheap features and a generic look, both things In the Hunt has? I've been told that this game looks like Metal Slug, and I can see how people would reach that conclusion: after all, it looks a lot like a Neo Geo game you'd find in the arcades of yore. Whether or not that's a good thing changes from person to person, but my opinion is that it isn't since it was an early PS1 title released in the arcades in 1993. Also, since it's a submarine game, this means all the levels have to be water-themed, to some extent. Although unlike other games that have done similar things (*cough* Sunshine *gag*), this doesn't seem to limit the creativity of the levels. You'll explore a variety of areas, ranging from volcanic undersea areas to beat-up cities to Atlantis and a weapons facility.
 
However, I think I can see why Irem was able to be so creative: I just named almost all the levels in the game. Yes, there are only five levels to be found.....in the hunt. And once you've beaten those five levels, there's no reason to go back. No alternate submarines to play as, no branching paths, not even for the challenge! Just play it once, beat it, and move onto another game, like I did. However, I did not forget it long enough to forget the award. The award, you ask? The Guardian Legend Award for Especially Poor Irem Shooters.
 

Review Synopsis

  • Easier than writing an episode of Beavis and Butthead.
  • Shorter than the life of a television show everybody knows is good, but for some reason, gets canceled to make way for crap. You know what I'm talking about.
  • About as notable as....actually, I don't have much of an analogy for this one. It's not really notable.
 
 
 
 
Displayed for your attention is the result of douchebags owning an advertising agency:
 
 

Densetsu no Stafy

( When was the last I played a GBA game?) I believe it was Mother 3, a game which I recall not being very good. But that should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with my hatred of Earthbound; what should come as a little bit of a surprise is that I enjoyed this game, despite the latest game not getting a good score here. On the beginning of my quest to beat a crapload of GBA games, things are starting on a decent note.
 
However, that's not how the story of this game started. Here's how it works: there's this starfish named Stafy, and he's the prince of a sky kingdom, for some reason. One day, he's carrying things with his stubby little "hands", and the inevitable happens: he drops it all. Turns out one of those things was a jar holding a dark and evil villain who has now been released from his jarry tomb. Understandably, everybody realizes how much of a massive idiot Stafy is and kick him out. Now Stafy must return to his kingdom and destroy the evil he released, his only help being an old lobster man and an annoying clam. I feel like I'm repeating myself when I say I can't read Japanese, but I also feel somewhat weird in saying that I still found the bastard annoying. He only pops up to tell me what I've already figured out, or to block my passage for some arbitrary reason.
 
So I had to find an alternate path or find something that would somehow allow me to progress. In that respect, the levels are somewhat non-linear, but given their small size, it's fairly easy to navigate them. Kind of like Kirby. In fact, if I could sumarize Densetsu no Stafy in one phrase, that would be "the unrecognized bastard child of Kirby and Ariel." Both Kirby and Stafy are cutesy portable platformers based around simple concepts. The only major difference I found is that Stafy doesn't suck up enemies and cannibalize their powers; instead, he spins around like an idiot, somehow killing things with his stubby little hands. If you consider that surprising, then you'll crap your pants when you realize that the game pulls this spinning thing off surprisingly well. There are puzzles that involve use of the spinning feature, platforms that can only be reached by spin-jumping out of the water, and a few areas that kinda require you to spin as fast you can to the exit.
I'm not sure how anybody managed to get here. Is this even in the game?
I'm not sure how anybody managed to get here. Is this even in the game?
 
Wait, that last sentence reminded me of something: there are actually out of water portions to this game. Densetsu no Stafy is a water themed game (hence the title), but there are portions when Stafy must jump from the water onto land in order to progress. However, Super Mario Sunshine, these portions of the game don't make me want to watch the credits of the game so I know who to murder. In fact, these moments actually feel like natural moments of the game. You can attack enemies, run, jump, and do all the other things that are standard fare in platformers. So what makes these portions of the game so special? Well, maybe the fact that they exist. I've spent a lot of time complaining about how water themes in video games seem to limit them from a gameplay perspective, but this is definitely a game that proves water does not have to be limiting.
 
In fact, the problem may be that the game isn't limiting enough. I never really died, and even when I came close, there are enough health refills to heal 9 Stafys (Stafi? Stafis? Stafy? What's the plural, here?). The bosses, while creative, are also very easy; once you find out how to damage them, you've pretty much won. I'd also criticize it for being simple, but I actually found that to be a good thing for this game; with portable games, you don't want to spend half your time figuring out how to play the game, you just want to play the game under the table when nobody is paying attention. Stafy does this well, and because of that, is a great portable game. However, that greatness is compromised by a few dark levels. This may not sound like much until you remember the early GBAs. Remember? Remember how they had no backlight, and you had to use that GBA port light and complex geometric equations so you could actually see the screen and not your ugly reflection? Add in the fact that Nintendo made this game and the system it was on, and you can see why this game only got a 7.0 out of 10. And the Patrick Star Award for Simplistic Stupidity.
 

Review Synopsis

  • It meshes the water and non-water portions very nicely.
  • A bit on the easy side.
  • Fortunately, this game is of the simple "pick up and play" nature.
1 Comments