What a game! Considering I didn't even know it existed until a week or so ago, I'm so glad that I found it in that resale shop, even if it was for about retail price.
The flying sections are all great, needless to say. I was at two minds about the on-foot sections at first, but once I played a level or two and died a couple times, I was cruising through them. The only issue I have control-wise is the land-master, which handles kind of weird, at least in the control-scheme I picked. Maybe if you play with just the control stick and not the c-stick it drives more managably. The story was actually way more serious and dark than I was expecting, tbh. With all the campy voice acting to start, I really wasn't expecting things to get nearly as grim and bleak as they did. Verdict: If you liked Star Fox or Star Fox 64, this one is at least worth a try. The on-foot stages might totally turn you off, which I'd understand, but I didn't find it a total deal-breaker, and came to even like them a fair bit :3 Now that I'm done with that (somewhat of a) third-person shooter, I kinda wanna play Metal Arms: Glitch in the System (which I happen to have on GC). Not sure though. Probably going to try and finish Vanquish first.
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I went into this game having mostly only heard of it offhandedly via a joke from the Starship Amazing crew, so I thought I might get some giggles out of it and maybe play it for like an hour. Eight straight hours later I was watching the credits back, holding back crying at the happy ending (and I'm very much a sucker for a happy ending).
On the technical side, the game isn't anything totally groundbreakingly amazing: It's a 3rd person cover shooter. Though it mixes things up with upgradable guns, and passives you can buy to toggle in and out of your various squad members, those don't really add too much. There's a kind of squad maneuvering system where you actually talk into your microphone to issue commands to your squad to give them instructions beyond their AI, but I felt way too embarrassed to really give it any decent attempt, and there are hotkeys you can use by holding TAB anyway, so it's really just a novelty. I personally never used the squad system much, but maybe it's one of those things that's only necessary on harder difficulties. The one bit I did think was pretty cool was, because most all the enemies you fight are (at least vaguely) humanoid robots, you can shoot off their limbs, and their combat tactics will shift accordingly. Lose their gun holding arm? They'll pick it up in their other one and keep firing at you. Lose their legs? They'll crawl at you, "Aliens"-style, graspin' at ya, and you'll have to shoot them off your leg if they get'cha. And, if you shoot off their head without damaging them too much before hand, they'll start firing on their robo-comrades, giving you an incentive to be accurate. The game also has tons of really big and varied boss battles, most of which I can't imagine doing on a controller because your shots would need to be so precise, but damn, that final boss was a tough bastard. The combat was fun and fast-paced enough that it let me really enjoy the story. The story is almost a BattleStar Galactica-type deal, but before any of the actual show. It's 2080, and robots have become a big deal in replacing humans in the workforce after climate change-induced flooding kills 75% of the world's population. Although, recently robots completely indistinguishable from humans have shown up, so good they don't even know they're robots, and humans are understandably upset about this. Your mission is to break into a fascist-run isolationist Japan and find the robot-producing company owner you think is responsible. The main character doesn't seem like he has too much personality at first, especially with how you, the player, are kind of intended to provide his voice usually during the game-play's banter, but he starts talking a lot more after the first chapter. Your squad mates though, they're where all the great stuff is. I found just about everyone from pig-headed, one-liner quipping Big Bo, to the no nonsence Faye all very griping, and it really had me by the throat to see the conclusion. Conclusion: This is another little single-player (though it does have online) gem that really flew under the radar of most everyone last gen, it seems. It's nothing incredible in terms of innovative gameplay, but it tells a great and compelling story, and considering it's on PS3, 360, and PC and routinely goes for under a fiver for each, it's a great way to spend half of a day. Another very cheap last-gen game that's really great. The game mechanics are somewhere between Infamous' climbing and SplatterHouse's brawling, but it makes for a great combo. The story is also a very cool take on the post-apocalyptic genre, with the world being immensely colorful and full of plantlife, although not really human life. That said, though the separate characters in this game can be named on one hand, they really tell a cool and interesting story with just the couple of them.
A Japanese game I bought but never beat, and earlier today I saw why I never beat it before. This game just hatessss you, especially in the later half. A lot of quirks of average platformers on the SNES: Spikes immediately beneath you while you fall, wierd momentum mechanics that never really work, did I mention the spikes? THEY'RE EVERYWHERE. Tons of very mean and unfair spikes, and the fact that Marty is on a hoverboard and moves kiiinda like Sonic but more floaty make for a lot of unfair deaths. Level design is lacking and the controls blow, to put it short and less ranty.
On the positive, the music is great, and the graphics are very nice and stylized as well. Some people may not like the exaggerated super-deformed/chibi look they have going on, but I really liked it. The game also follows the movie fairly well, with plenty of tiny dialogue scenes between levels. Granted this is a movie I haven't seen and some of the dialogue is really poorly timed (I'd have trouble reading it in English it goes by so fast), from what I know of it, it follows it well. Ending is trash though. You get the book back from Biff and he runs into a truck and gets covered in trash, and then it's just credits. It feels like there might've been an extra ending cutscene that just got cut because they ran out of time. Verdict: Far from the worst licensed platformer on the SNES, it also certainly isn't the best. An interesting curiosity that's worth a peak if you're a big Back to the Future fan, although the fact that it's usually a pretty expensive import will probably turn off most people who aren't super into SNES collecting. The main reason I played through this game again, is to compare it to Yoshi's New Island while it was still fresh in my mind, and the main differences I came across are music, and level design.
The level design in the new one is okay, but it focuses a lot more on hiding the red coins and flowers than the older one. It focuses a lot on putting lots of hidden passages and floaty clouds to hide those collectables, while the main level itself feels actually quite small if you completely ignore the collectables. Compare that with the original, and the collectables really feel like an after-thought. The levels are focused on being sprawling and flowing very quickly and smoothly and the red coins are so scatter-shot that sometimes there's just groups of five of them at once, right near the end. In summary of that, the old game feels more like the collectables were put in well after the levels designed, where in the new one it almost feels like the levels were designed with hard-to-find collectables in mind. This is the biggest sin I can say that Yoshi's New Island commits. Aside from that, the composer in YNI really just can't compare to Koji Kondo, because DAMN his soundtracks are so good. YNI has much more relaxed and passive music, where the original's really feels exciting, and like you're on an adventure. Perhaps you could chalk this up to where the original was designed for console while the new one was designed for handhelds, although that could be easily tested with a replay of the DS game (which I'm not quite in the mood for right now, methinks). The conclusion is still the same: Yoshi's New Island isn't as good at the original. However, having a more concrete answer of why is definitely very satisfying. After Elkin beat this game a couple weeks ago with middling reviews, I did go into it this game with a little trepidation, but I ended up being very pleasantly surprised.
The first major thing to get used to, is that Yoshi doesn't move like he used to. Yoshi is a lot slower to build up momentum when he runs and to swallow to make eggs, and this takes a lot of getting used to for someone like me who grew up heavily on the original game. However, after the first world or so, it was totally fine. I compared it to how Mario moves a lot differently in Super Mario U compared to Super Mario World: Not worse, just inherently different. Speaking of the first world, I can sorta see why some people had problems with this game, because it's pretty slow. The first world was pretty underwhelming, and I really wasn't diggin' it, but I perservered. By about the middle of world 2, and certainly by world 3, I was really digging it as the game comes into its own element. I'm sorry I can't really describe that better, but it's just my experience with the game (perhaps this is why I'm not a professional reviewer ;p). In terms of difficulty, I would say this game lines up pretty well with the original. I didn't really see myself dying much until I was trying to get all of the collectibles on world 5 and especially world 6. I'm currently going through the original again to confirm those suspicions, but it lines up generally with what I remember in that the game is far from uncompletably difficult. Also, this game is welcomely more forgiving in terms of those collectibles. Where in the original games you had to get all of the stars, red coins, and flowers on one perfect run through, now you only need to get all of any of them, and it checks it off. For example, if on three separate runthroughs you get all the flowers, red coins, and stars respectively, you'd have a 100 on that level. I'm totally okay with this, especially giving that they made getting 30 stars harder in that whenever you die they reset to 10 no matter how much you had at the middle-ring, and they took out items so no more +20 stars at the end of levels to save your butt. I guess it's up to personal preference, but I don't mind that they made it easier. With things like that, it certainly made unlocking the extra stage in each world after getting perfect in everything easier, and DAMN, they're as hard as usual. I had to just give up beating the special stage in worlds 4-6. They were just too vindictively difficult for my blood Xp In summary, considering it's going up against one of the greatest games ever, Yoshi's Island, I never expected it to be better than that game. Although, I ended up having a lot of fun with a game that stands really well on it's own. I'm not usually one for scores, but I'd give this a 7.5 or an 8 if I had to. I literally had no idea what to expect going into this one, not even the genre, but damn if I wasn't happy with the final outcome.
The gameplay itself is a fairly standard Mystery Dungeon game, but with some neat twists. Instead of the main character having hunger, your partner Kuu has hunger, and you need to keep him fed if you want to keep progressing through a dungeon. Additionally, this hunger also serves as his health, so while he can be kinda strong and take some hits for you in a hallway, if you don't have food to give him afterward, it could be just as bad as dying. Eating is also how Kuu levels up, so shoveling any item you don't think you'll need into him immediately is encouraged. Leveling up not only increases his stats, but also gives him passives like elemental attacks, automatic item identification, and being a crafting station (discussed later). The game is also fairly forgiving when it comes to dying. You lose all held cash and items, but you keep your equipped items, and you can also use ID Scrolls to mark other items which will be kept as well when you die. The game really stops fooling around around chapter 4 though. At chapter 4, you start encountering lots of enemies who can attack twice, and enemies who can make you drop your equipped weapons, thus making you definitely lose them forever when you die. This last bit really blows if you do what the game enourages, and use mostly just one or two weapons the whole game because of the upgrading system the game uses. The upgrading system is nothing amazing, but it's a neat idea. Most every weapon in the game has some sort of passive. By using a weapon a lot, you can open up more passive slots on that weapon, and you can upgrade them using either the station at your home or Kuu if he has the passive (which are selected randomly upon gaining so many levels), by combining them with another weapon to absorb that weapon's passive. Most weapons upon picking up will be unidentified though, so only be equipping them can you see what they do. This is hazardous however, as some items are cursed as to not allow you to un-equip them once equipped, so if you're hunting for items and rapidly equipping them, you can get stuck with a lousy one if it's cursed. Another main aspect of dungeoning is curry. Using a rice, a spice, and an ingredient you find in the dungeon, you can make a curry which acts as a buff for a certain period of time. Additionally to the items, is that you don't have persistent levels. Pupuru (the main character) and Kuu's levels are wiped following every dungeon, so killing lots of enemies and collecting lots of new items is heavily encouraged in every dungeon excursion. Finally, one of my most loved parts, the story is very silly. Where it comes off as a bit strange at first, I quickly found myself growing to love the cast of silly characters, not to mention all of the GREAT music that accompanies them as their themes. The game doesn't take itself too seriously, and had me laughing quite a bit every time there was a dialogue scene (of which there are many). In terms of complaints, it's mostly minor things. It can be kind of annoying to equip items as you get them to identify them, but that's associated with the danger of them being cursed, and if you don't want to risk it you can just immediately feed them to Kuu (or drop them) instead of identifying them anyway. Also Kuu will be dumb and wander where you don't want him to sometimes (like right in front of you) but this can be both helpful and hinderful, and fits with his quirky, selfish character (in my opinion). Overall, a great mystery dungeon game and a great Vita exclusive that anyone who likes either anime or mystery dungeon games should certainly check out |
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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
April 2024
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