This is a game I've never beaten before, but it has a lot of nastolgia for me, so I will open this review with a bit of backstory on my history with this game.
Wayyyyyy back in 2008 (so I would've been 12), I had just discovered DeceasedCrab's Youtube channel, and these magical things called Let's Plays. His playthrough of the original La-Mulana absolutely wowed me back then, with how clever this new video format was, combined with just what a crazy game this was. Now, almost 10 years later, I have FINALLY beaten La-Mulana myself. I played through on hard-mode (activated it as soon as I could, and beat all bosses with it), and finished in a little under 14 hours in game time, but more like 25 or 30 hours according to Steam time. I also used a wireless 360 controller to play it with, which I highly recommend over using the keyboard for simply ergonomic reasons (plus this version was designed explicitly to be played with a controller (It even has rumble support!)). The original La-Mulana was made as a love letter to MSX-era action RPG's, especially Castlevania (where La-Mulana gets its whipping, sub weapons, and buying items) and Galius Maze (where it gets its idea for all of the puzzles, passive items, and sprawling overworld). There were also a TON of copyrighted references, as a big part of the collectibles in the game were collecting MSX cartriges, and one of the main character's main tools was his MSX which he used to interpret the runes in the ruins (as well as several other puzzle and secret-related things). As a result a LOT of the original game is making maps by hand, taking down notes on tons of NPC dialogue and tablets you find (physically, as at least a clue if not the outright answer to every puzzle is somewhere, just usually not close by), and solving mind-bending puzzles. It was a very old-school level of hard in the puzzle category, as well as having fairly difficult action segments. At its core, it accomplished exactly what it wanted to do, in my opinion. Some time later, Nigoro (the guys who made it, who'd only made flash games until then) got a green light to do a remake for Wii Ware, which sat in a very sad development limbo for AGES while they got the game super optimized for the Wii. Changing all of the graphics, the graphical style (as the original game was 8-bit, and this was not), change several puzzles to have them make sense/be possible without a keyboard (which the original game used extensively, like Galius Maze did), as well as removing all copyrighted material and references were an undertaking that took much longer than originally planned, but it eventually happened, and everyone rejoiced! You can't buy points for the Wii shop anymore, but that version, with some minor improvements based on player feedback, was ported to PC soon after the Wii release. NOW THAT THAT'S OUT OF THE WAY, to my experience with the game. It's a 2D platformer action adventure game. I hesitate to call it an Action RPG because there's no actual leveling up, but there's so much other shit that it's like the most RPG-ish action adventure game that isn't an RPG ever. It really lived up to its name in terms of the puzzle department. I got about halfway through the game before I just totally ran out of ideas on what to do or where to go. I wasn't taking notes at all, and if you're just trying to remember everything, you're gonna be SOL eventually. Especially the Gate of Illusion and everything connected to it, I wouldn't hold it against anyone for using a guide for the rest of the game once you hit that point (as I did). Though the game is huge, there's really not that much that's optional, as you'll have to do just about everything eventually whether its to progress the story or to get an item to make life easier (like the one that makes you immune to bats(!!!)). My favorite part of the game by far is the bosses though. They're all apparently designed to be beatable with JUST your normal weapons, but I wasn't nearly crazy enough to try to do that (especially on hard mode). The sub-weapons really make life a lot easier, especially the shurikens. You even have a kind of emergency item for super hard bosses in the form of the pistol, which is a very powerful instant-travel-time projectile weapon, however, ammo for it is VERY expensive (however farming money isn't that hard if you know what to do). The bosses are all fucking great, and are very reminiscent of old Castlevania (although more-so Galius Maze) bosses. They're a fantastic upgrade to the old version of La-Mulana's bosses to work in a 60 fps environment, and they look great. Speaking of looking great, this is a damn pretty game. The graphics are colorful and lush, and each environment really looks different. The OST is fanTASTIC as well, and a very large chunk of it now rests on my mp3 player as a testament to that. And in case the normal platforming isn't hard enough, there's always the Hell Temple as well if you just hate yourself that much. I miiight go through it, but I don't know. It's pretty freaking hard enough on normal mode XD Verdict: Recommended. I hesitate to highly recommend a game like this, just because I didn't go into it blind, and pretty much everyone here would be (and the other game I recommend like that seems to get negative attention whenever I mention it on here XD). If you like old school action adventure games, I'd say it's worth a try, especially if you have it from a Humble Bundle (which I think is where my Steam version is from) or can get it cheap on a Steam sale or something. It's pretty damn hard though, so it's not for the feint of heart, or those who are either unwilling to ever use a walkthrough or spend ages taking notes or testing how to solve puzzles. I love this game though, and now I've finally beaten it Note: If you want a game that is much more like a spiritual successor to Galius Maze without all of the fuck-crazy puzzles like La-Mulana, Hydra Castle Labyrinth is a fantastic freeware game you can get online. It didn't have an English translation when I played it years ago, but it's just an action adventure game, and the only text is just telling you what items do, so language skills are totally optional
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And so ends the last of the original Overlord games I had not yet beaten. This isn't developed by Triumph like the other console games, but by Climax, and it's actually a really damn good adaptation for not being made by the home studio.
The controls are excellent. Instead of locking onto targets with the shoulder buttons, or using the right stick to guide your sweeping minions, you just aim at the screen with the Wii Remote to target anything and everything, and it works really well! It makes me really want to try to play the New Play Control versions of Pikmin on the Wii to see if they control any similarly, because this game absolutely nails it (and also apparently isn't a copy cat, as this game came out only 4 months later). Additionally, the AI is fantastic! Usually you need to guide the minions around to absolutely anything you want them to do, whether it's pick up an equipment item, a lifeforce shard, a money pick-up, and it's usually such a pain. However, these Minions are super smart! Even reds, when sent at a target, will stay back and fire their ranged attacks as soon as they enter range, rather than sweep into melee range. I was continually surprised and happy with the executive decisions made on how smart your minions are. This game also has (almost) NO motion controls! No jumping, throwing, or sword fighting is controlled by motion controls, and it made the experience a much better one for me. The presentation is also fairly nice as well. The game doesn't go for the Alice: Madness Returns-like style that the main games have, but instead has a more story-book quality to it, with brighter colors, and less sharply contrasting lines. It is a Wii game, so the textures and models aren't as detailed, but they still manage to look nice, and is actually one of the nicest looking Wii games (in terms of anti-aliasing) that I've seen on the component-HD settings. It definitely has some of the most forgettable music of the series though, which is a shame, but ultimately not important for me. The game is definitely a more kid-friendly iteration of Overlord, fitting for the Wii-native experience they were going for. Never do enemies get horribly blown apart, there is no talk of people (or even things) gruesomely dying, boss monsters don't even usually die when you beat them, and if they do, it's usually in a Disney-esque fashion (getting buried in a rock-slide, or falling behind a wall, slowly dropping to the ground so their other character can mourn them, etc.). There are a cooouple somewhat questionable lines ("We'll feed those Dwarves their beards!" for one example), but I was continuously on the lookout for really dark humor like the DS game, but it just never showed up. The humor is much more Monty Python, in flavor, and is still very good Even the story, in the end, boils down to not enslaving the land, or killing people, you can't even hurt the villagers, let alone fight them (although you do fight bandits completely clothed in ninja-garb at one point, but we all know bandits aren't real people anyway ). You're just trying to bring peace to the realm so your father, the Duke, can have some peace and quiet (and so people will stop calling him such a terrible ruler) and make your awful older siblings stop fighting. The plot and setting definite have a 90's Disney-esque quality to them in several respects. The game's difficulty is also VERY easy compared to the other games, both in combat and in puzzles. Your minions are almost indestructable, even the squishier blue and green ones, and the AI is so good on the blues, they usually resurrect any stray green or brown that happens to die anyway. You also never control more than 20 minions at a time (more for mechanical limitations, I would guess, from how the game can chug in enemy-full earlier zones with a 20-minion troop), so there's not so much micro-managing on that front either. There is a "Throttle" mechanic where you grab a minion by the neck, shake him like a soda can, and then send him forward to explode though. That's also like the ONE command that's controlled with waggling (to shake them up) XD. I'm not sure that's the most kid friendly thing in the world Xp Verdict: Highly Recommended. The first game is still my favorite, but this holds a strong 2nd place. If you wanted to get a not so experienced gamer (or someone more feint of heart) into a Pikmin-style game, and Pikmin is too intimidating or scary for them, then Overlord Dark Legend is a fantastic choice. Aside from that, it's also just a blast to play! It's a little short at only 8 hours, but I thought it was the perfect size for what it was The sequel to the wonderfully evil Overlord, this game is largely more of the same, with some fun new stuff tacked on. I beat the original Overlord aaaages ago (albeit not the expansion), and had a blast with it, but the thing that got me into the series was watching an LP of 2. Thus, I waited and waited until I largely forgot the details of 2, and now I finally got to playing through it myself.
You are the Overlord! The old Overlord (the anti-hero of the first game) went missing some time ago, and the land has gained peace and prosperity under the rule of The Empire (who are basically just the Romans in all but name and ruler). It's up to the Overlord to restore the balance of chaos and order to the land, with the help of your trusty army of Minions! Gameplay-wise, it's very similar to the first game. It's basically evil-Pikmin, where you play as the Overlord, commanding your army of Minions to help you dominate the land. Just like in Pikmin, you have several types of minions who specialize in different types of jobs (and can resist different elements). However, unlike in Pikmin, there is a much larger emphasis on combat, micromanaging a smaller military force (15 to 50-ish), and how each different minion type contributes to combat. -First you have Browns, who are your tanky/basher minions. They're your front line troops. -Second you have Reds, who have a ranged fire attack. They're more like archers, and are best put near the back like archers. -Third are Greens, who are your rogues with a very powerful backstab ability. They can be very effective if used well, but it's often difficult to use them without getting them squashed. I mostly never used them, as the Overlord himself is such a competent unit, just wailing away with his melee is just as good (usually) a use of your time as micromanaging Greens behind enemy lines to get good backstabs. -Last you have Blues, who are your healers. They can bring dead minions back to life! They're best put between your Browns and Reds, or on top of the Reds. Approaching each encounter smartly and with the right unit composition can be the difference between victory, or getting your entire army wiped. Especially as your Minions are each individually special, and will acquire better equipment (which they pick up from killed enemies or smashed crates) and more levels the more they fight, so there's an incentive to keep them alive. However, you don't really HAVE to, it'll likely just give you an easier time. There aren't as many diverse or memorable bosses as the first game, but the overall combat and encounters are still quite tough. The organized battalions of Empire troops can be really tough to get through at times, especially once you start encountering the elite troops. The main addition to this game are the mounts you can get for your minions, as well as spells that your Overlord can cast (I don't recall the first game having those, or if it did, it didn't have these ones). The mounts vary up combat a little by making your minions get slightly tougher or a new ability, but they're so pick-and-choose when the game decides to give them to you that it doesn't change the game that drastically. The spells though, especially the Dark Presence Spell, which allows you to make civilians your loyal slaves OR you can use it to just inflict damage on enemies, really vary up combat, and the mana you have really gives you a new resource that can be the deciding factor in a lot of harder combat (especially the shockwave. Dat be so good). You find a bunch of gold and a couple other resources on your travels. These can be used to purchase upgrades to your minions' base stats, or can also be combined with Minions souls in your forge to make new weapons and armor for your Overlord. These are pretty cool (and those Minion buffs make a HUGE difference pretty damn quick in how long they stay alive and how much damage they do), but I just wish it gave you actual numerical stats on how good weapons and armor were. There are enough weapons that just give basically no description on how they're actually better, that you sorta just gotta assume that because you unlocked it later and/or it costs so much more of X-resources that it must be better somehow. The story is largely very silly, with your right-hand Minion Gnarl always keeping you informed of your objectives through his silly commentary magically transmitted to your helmet. You recapture the minion clans, take mistrisses, and conquer towns, all in the name of evil (and yourself, of course). A lot of dry, fairly dark humor. It's not for everyone, but there were a good handfull lines that really gave me a good belly-laugh. The game has fairly good music as well. I really like the final combat music, as well as the main intro. Very sweeping, and delightfully evil orchestra scores. The framerate leaves a LOT to be desired though (I have also tested it, and it runs just as bad on 360). If you're fighting a ton of enemies at once, or more likely if you're breaking a ton of stuff all at the same time, the framerate starts hopping all over the place. This is a very noticeable problem in cutscenes, as it seems not one in the whole game is free from it, making any lip-syncing of the voices that might be there virtually undetectable. However, I will say that the framerate virtually never impacted my ability to actually play the game. Verdict: Recommended. It's a fun, silly strategy action game. Not quite as good as the first in many respects, but not bad by any respect. If you want more controller-centric RTS action and you're all Pikmin'd out, then Overlord is a great thing to give you more minions to command and objectives to achieve! FOR THE OVERLORD! I needed another short-ish action game to play while I waited a million hours for my computer to reinstall Windows (and everything else), and then I remembered that I had Kirby Robobot to play! I had thoroughly enjoyed it when I tried an in-store demo, and the main game didn't disappoint!
Long story short, it's more Kirby, and it's still great. The gimmick of this title is the giant robot suit you get from time to time, and it's AWESOME. You spend about half the game in this thing, and it has its own unique powers totally different from Kirby. It's kind of a much better system of the UBER-SUPER-MEGA powerups from Return to Dreamland. This game reminded me of a far better version of Return to Dreamland, because it shares a very similar aesthetic, but the levels are far better designed. Despite the fact you have a lot of health, this game is fairly difficult as well, especially if you're gonna try and find all the things. I didn't quite find all the things, but I had a very fun time regardless. Verdict: Highly recommended This is about as close as you're going to get to a Pikmin game on DS. You use the stylus Phantom Hourglass-style to guide around one to four minions through maps to solve puzzles and fight enemies. It's not the prettiest game ever, and the music is really forgettable, but the puzzle design is actually really good, and some of the enemy encounters (especially later in the game) really require some forward planning before just rushing in. I'd say it's a very good kids strategy/puzzle game as to how forgiving the difficulty is if it weren't for the quite dark Overlord-brand humor.
Verdict: Recommended. If you're looking for a DS game that's a bit different and not too hard, but still with some extra side stuff to look for and some silly minion dialogue occasionally, this is a great fit. I know a good portion of y'all have kids or those who aren't so great at games, and I think someone with only a light knowledge of games could have a good time with this. I enjoyed my time with it, and it made me remember how much I like Overlord This game is more or less Thomas Was Alone's story (at least thematically) meets Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions' gameplay. Stage based, line-of-sight and gadget-based stealth gameplay. I really enjoyed Bithel's last game (TWA), so I picked this right up when I heard it was getting a Limited Run release. It's kinda what I expected Metal Gear Solid to be back when I only knew that it was some kind of serious plot-having stealth game.
The gameplay is really fun! It even has a level editor and an online mode where you can play others' levels, so if you want to you don't really have to stop after the first 100. One a side note, this is the only game I've ever gotten the platinum trophy for on PSN, and that's because this game probably has the most doable achievements out of any I've played, if that means anything to anyone (just thought I'd mention it). It's not a terribly long game at 4 to 5 hours, but the story is very charmingly presented, and I enjoyed my time with it. My biggest problem with it is that the Vita version runs like ass. The game crashed 4 or 5 times on me during the 5 to 6 hours I played it (did a liiittle bit more afterwards to mop up a couple of easy achievements). While this certainly isn't the first Vita game I've had crash on me (I think Uppers crashed once on me after a very long play session), it was just such a pain in the ass after a while. It wasn't so huge a problem though, just annoying. Like Uppers, it's very stage based, and these stages are a couple minutes long at max, so you're really only losing the time it takes to boot the Vita back up each time it crashes. Personally, I'd much rather have a game like this portable, so I just grinned and dealt with the crashes. It was a very small price to pay for such bit sized pieces of very well crafted stealth missions. Verdict: Good game, bad port. If you liked the idea of the stealth MGS 1 had (I can't speak for any other MGS game, as I've only played 1), then this game is perfect for you. It's a great isometric stealth game, and it's a fun diversion portably (even if it crashes sometimes). Finished this last night. I bought this on the premise that the focus of the game was very silly, but I ended up enjoying it far more than I ever thought I would. For reference, I beat every level on normal, and just about every level on hard (except the really mental final few), and clocked in a little under 23 hours.
The main premise of the game is big muscley guys beating up other big muscley guys to impress girls. The main character of the game, Ranma, wants to become the strongest guy on Last Resort Island so he can date the current head honcho's really hot daughter. There's also some other stuff about him finding out about his father whom he never really knew, but that's the slightly more serious element of the plot. This game is ecchi as fuck, and it totally revels in it. There are cutscenes with each "Queen" (the main girls whom you're trying to impress), that are solely about showing off their bodies in certain poses. If you do certain moves near packs of girls in stages, you'll initiate "panty slots" where their skirts fly up and you see if they're related in some theme of 3 to try and get bonuses to health, voltage, etc. Them, and most other girls whose requests you fulfill in levels get added to a database where you can poke at them (on the touch screen, literally) to make them blush and cover their crotches, you can shake the Vita to make their boobs jiggle, it's ridiculous. I really only spent a very little bit of time in that area, as I found it, got a good laugh, and then went on to the meat of the game: 3D Brawling. The main meat of the game is a really fun spectacle fighter of a 3D brawler. You have light attacks, strong attacks, grapples, as well as a focused auto dodge you can turn on to try and dish out counters to enemy punches, but that takes a while to get used to the timing to (which matters a LOT in boss battles). There's also "voltage" which builds up as you complete requests and win rounds of panty-slots which makes your attacks fling enemies further and deal more damage. You can also press down on the D-pad to "Rise-Up," and make your combos a lot harder to break, dish out attacks quicker, and also initiate quick-time events of button mashing to deal a bunch of extra damage. It's all a real spectacle to watch too, so the brawling was always super satisfying. There are 12 characters you'll unlock, all of whom have varied fighting styles that legitimately make them play differently, as well as different movement speeds, defensive and offensive powers, the works. My favorite was of course the luchador Max, both because he says a lot of silly English phrases in Japanese ("KISS MY BOOTS!, THIS IS PRO-WRESTLER!," etc.) and because he can tank and deal out hits like a boss (he's just a bit slow). The normal mode provided a good primer, and the hard modes really make the enemies start gunning for your jugulars, so they made it a right fun romp as well. Trying to get the highest scores in each stages were my favorite part though. As previously mentioned, there are packs of girls in each stage with requests to fulfill. These can range from knocking out however many enemies to dealing out so many "rush" finishes during a "rise up" period. You have to complete these events within the proximity of the packs of girls though, forcing you to fight in areas you otherwise might not, and to focus on objectives or fighting styles you might not otherwise consider. It really varied up the gameplay, and was definitely my favorite part of the game's formula. That, however, is my concern in recommending it for importing, as this game only came out in Japan. You're not missing anything significant not being able to read the story, but not being able to tell what the girls are telling you to do in their requests would really dampen the experience. Unless you're just good with the titties and spectacle brawling, the 50+ bucks you'll have to shell out for this might be a bit too steep for most English Vita/ecchi enthusiasts. Verdict: Recommended. It's a great 3D brawler, and definitely the most fun I've had in a spectacle fighter. I've played games like Metal Gear Revengence and God Hand before, and while I thought they were fun, I thought they were far too punishing to hold my attention for long (though I did beat God Hand). This is a game I enjoyed immensely, and other Vita and/or brawler fans would do well to look into it Another year, another Tales game just narrowly beaten past last year's end. Of course, this year was far closer than last years (I think I beat Vesperia on January 8th or something, but whatever). I wanted to beat this yesterday, but I guess I thought I was like 10 hours from the end, when I was actually 20, so I ended up beating it earlier tonight. Not my favorite Tales game, but a very good one none the less. For reference, I played through with the combat difficulty on the default setting, and I hunted around for goodies quite a lot (although completely without a guide), so my end clock was at right around 47 hours.
The combat is very Tales with the Linear Motion Battle System LMBS-ing it up like normal, with a few minor twists as the series is want to do. This is a post-Abyss Tales game, so not only are the battles in 3D environments (like Symphonia), but you can also free-run around in them (like in Abyss). One feature (which was added especially for the Vita remake) is the Chase Link system, which is basically the ability to kick off a super combo where the enemy will be unable to block for a few seconds once they've been sufficiently beat upon. Any member of your party can do it, and it makes combat flow much faster. The main limit on your Artes is the TC limit of each character, which is very similar to the CC gauge that would appear in Graces, where you can only do so many Artes (but not normal attacks, which are free, unlike Graces) before you need to not attack for a moment to let the gauge recharge. It adds another element to combat that keeps it from being crazy spammy like Vesperia or Abyss were, but TP also ends up not being so much of a problem for users of mainly physical Artes (like the main character can be (and as I played him)). Lastly, there are manually activatable overlimits with the easiest to execute Mystic Artes out of any Tales game I've played so far, which was greatly appreciated (they were so confusing to do in Vesperia and Graces that I basically never even tried to do them on my own). The tutorials on how to do every fighting mechanic are also very good, and are also the best out of any Tales game I've played so far, which was very nice. The leveling up system is also very unique from any other Tales game I've played. Instead of just getting basic level ups, you get a certain number of AP which you can allocate into any of 5 different sections of your character. Just putting points into a certain section will raise certain stats, but once you put in the required number to level up that section, you'll unlock a new Arte, skill, weapon, or stat boost for that character. It makes it so you can really make any character play how you want them to play, for the most part. Everyone does have their own unique artes, but everyone does have physical, hybrid, and spell Artes, so you can be a spell slinging main character if you want to. Though because everyone has their own spells, only certain characters can fill certain roles (ex: Only 3 out of 8 characters ever learn healing artes, so only they can be healers, and even then they learn different healing artes). Characters also have bonds between them which level up if they participate in enough battles with each other (and can also be boosted through viewing skits or story events), and once their bonds are high enough, then certain character-exclusive skills can be shared among those who have sufficient bond levels. It makes for very customizable characters, and I'd say that this is the most customizable Tales game I have so far played. The story, however, is where this game really kills it for me. Tales of Hearts R has a very divided opinion on its story, and for good reason: The game's English translation has a very distinct tonal dissonance with what the original Japanese version had. Couple this with the fact that the game has only Japanese voice overs and only English text, and someone with a knowledge of Japanese like myself got annoyed very quickly that the two were so very different. The Japanese puts across a much more serious, darker tone, while the English lines constantly try to be silly and add in tons of jokes in scenes where they feel really inappropriate (like, every other damn line). This bad translation is most sour for me, because of the really cool things the story tries to do. The story has the biggest effort out of any Tales game I've played on trying to give its (rather wide cast of) villains, if not realistic, motives that the player can empathize with. Incarose especially, has to be one of my new favorite villains from the series. Add this in with the fact that Hearts R is a remake of Hearts into which they inserted a brand new character to the main cast (Gall), who generally sticks out as feeling inadequately developed and focused upon compared to the other 7, and you have a story that really isn't up to par with what I'd come to expect from the series. Granted, the story is still quite good and interesting, but it isn't up there with games like Graces or Vesperia in terms of ones that are my all time favorites. This is just a more basic level JRPG story (although I will admit I did cry at once scene, though that is not my end-all judge of how good a story is in an RPG). Verdict: Recommended. It's a Tales game, so it's obviously gonna be good, but it's not the totally incredible level that I'd come to expect from the late 2000's games. Though, for English speakers, this is probably the best portable Tales experience you're going to get mechanically speaking, I'd probably stick with Abyss on 3DS if you want a more fulfilling story experience. |
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AuthorI'm an avid gamer who likes to detail their thoughts about what they play in the hopes it might aid someone else's search for a game to play. Archives
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