Review #148: Zenonia

 Eh... at least it's cheap.

 Zenonia started its life as a Mobile action RPG, but I never played that version, instead I played the DSi version. Not gonna lie, it's a very underwhelming port that does little to hide its mobile roots, and it's all the worse for that.

 You play as Regret, the adoptive son of an ex Knight named pardon. Yes, every major character is named after a word "Sun", "Charity", "Virulent", etc. Yes, it's pretty dumb and serves no purpose, except maybe one them. As expected of a mobile game, the story isn't a very strong point, but at least it gives you a goal to strive for, and there's two different "paths" you can take(The good ending and the bad ending) depending on which actions you take upon certain objects. Worth mentioning, the game is full of typos and grammatical mistakes, the whole "Red Sword" line is called "Red Swrod", seriously.

 At the start of the game you can pick between three classes, Paladin, Rogue or Warrior, and each one uses their own weapon, their own spells and their own passive skills tree. The game is fairly linear, you go to a town, find the major quest, and then fill your subquest tab with the sidequests from the townsfolk, then you set out to the dungeon, clear your sidequests, and go to the next town. Every time you level up, you earn 3 stat points to distribute among your stats, and a point to spend either on a new spell or a new passive skill. You also get a palette on the lower part of the screen to place four spells or four items, the item and spell palette are actually different and you switch them at the tap of a shoulder button. For some reason, sometimes when trying to use a potion, I'd use the skill associated to that shortcut, which was a bit annoying and weird.

 Still, that's the least of the control's problems. The game is a Mobile game and it shows, movement feels very weird, if you ever played a mobile game you know what I mean, and it takes a little time getting used to. Collision detection is also very off, sometimes missing attacks that should've hit, or getting hit from rather long distances. And don't even try to attack while close to a pushable block, as Regret will try to grab the block instead of swinging his sword, even if you aren't holding a direction. The game does start of pretty decent, you slay monsters, earn money, gather loot from fallen enemies or by equipment from shops, but by the end of the game, it becomes a grindfest. Enemies become too strong, and give off too little exp, you are gonna spend a lot of time grinding in order to be able to survive the latter dungeons, but the worst part is that by that point, every new equipment piece and every new stat point feels negligible. Oh, and by the end of the game you are gonna be finding tons of loot that you probably won't be able to equip, and there's no "personal stash", can't carry it? Gonna have to drop it.

 Another thing you are gonna have to endure is having most of your attacks missing. By the end of the game, I had as many "Accuracy up" items, and a maxed "Accuracy" passive skill, yet only seventy percent of my attacks didn't result in a "miss", just because the RNG hated me. As mentioned before, latter enemies get really strong, and you are gonna have to be on the move, repositioning yourself as you dodge moves in order to minimize the damage, and having a miss is fairly annoying. Particularly aggravated because even with a maxed "Evade" passive skill and tons of "Evade up" items, enemies only missed twenty percent of their attacks, it was pretty annoying. Oh, and if enemies gang up on you, might as well call it quits, as they can end you in a couple of seconds. Pretty vexing. Still, as I said before, this happens in the game's last stretch, early in the way, and a little past its midpoint, it's pretty manageable, fun even.

 Graphics are very colorful, and have a certain charm to them, but animation is pretty lame, moves consisting of as little as one frame. I know it's a mobile game, but they could've dolled it up a little. Music is just as bland, and the sound effects aren't very good, for some reason Critical Hits do not produce a sound.

 Zenonia might've been a good game on Mobile phones, but on the DS it's a very lackluster, underwhelming game. But for five bucks, it's alright.
 4.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Blazblue - Chronophantasma

 It continues.

 Yes, Devil Summoner 1 is finished, but I'll be writing about it after I return home. So, Blazblue Chronophantasma.... I loved Guilty Gear, it had fantastic designs, fantastic music and fast paced gameplay. Blazblue was always the little brother that tried so hard to be as good, but never got there. So, what can you expect? even more fanservice, with Bullet having one of the most awkward stances ever conceived just so that we can get a look at her breasts, a trap because we needed a Bridget, and two new guys that sport too many belts, just because. Now we have Hazama who wears two belts, Azrael who wears two belts, Kagura who wears THREE belts, and I'm like, yo, bring back Ishiwatari, he knew how to make belts look cool(I mean, just compare the way Sol Badguy wears his belts and straps against Kagura, one looks very stylish while the other one looks like he tries too hard.)

 Anyways, I've completed about 10 chapters of the Story Mode, it moves sooooo slowly, it's incredible. Why so much attention to detail? There's so many lines of useless dialogue, I appreciate the effort, I do, but when I play a game I want to PLAY or at least watch, not read hundreds upon hundreds of lines of text with little to no gameplay in-between. And it's not like the story is particularly good, as the character designs themselves, it's a potpourri of as many anime tropes they could get a hold of.

 Still, at the end of the day the gameplay is very solid, and they introduced a couple of new mechanics that seem fairly interesting at first glance(I don't know their name yet, you press all four buttons and you enter a special mode, Jin for example freezes everything he hits). Speaking of Jin, they have changed him oh so much. He lost a ton of moves(Like the Weak and Strong variation of the ice car, the Medium and Strong variations of the Ice Dagger, the Mash on Strong attack...), but he got a couple of new ones, like the air Iai-strike which is actually useful, still, he feels VEEEERY different, hopefully I can get used to him. Know who I didn't feel had changed as much? Rachel. I dread to play as Rachel, her style is not my style.

Now Playing: Spawn - Armageddon

 I used to think this game was hella good, turns out it's hella bad.

 No, I did not give up on Devil Summoner, in fact, I just cleared a chapter today and plan on clearing one chapter per day(Assuming I don't get homework or stuff like that). And Spawn Armageddon was taunting me, I had to open it.... only to realize that my memories were rose-tinted, and the game actually blows.

 Grab Devil May Cry 1, now imagine if Dante had the mobility of a slug, only had one melee combo and a launcher and the neat combo system was gone, that's Spawn Armageddon in a nutshell. They even copied the "Splash image before each mission" thingie were you can upgrade before setting out. It's Devil May Cry without what makes Devil May Cry fun.

Month Overview: August

Games finished in August:
 Darksiders 2                                                                        9.0
 Crash Bandicoot                                                                  6.0
 Mario Kart 7                                                                        8.0
 Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back                               9.0
 Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped                                                 9.0
 Crash Team Racing                                                              8.0
 Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex                                 8.0
 Crash Nitro Racing                                                               6.5
 Crash Twinsanity                                                                  6.5
 Crash Tag Team Racing                                                        6.0
 Crash of the Titans                                                                7.0

 I played through most of the Crash home-console games in one month. In one month! And classes started this month(Which is why I didn't have much to study or stuff). I DID IT. It was a great month, tons of great games and tons of good games, I don't really have anything to complain about.

 Game of August:

 A worthy sequel to one of my favorite games of the last generation, Darksiders 2 added a ton of new(and borrowed) features, and for the most part, they work really well and spice up the gameplay. I kinda like the older game's setting a little bit better, but that's just a matter of personal preference.

Runner-up:

 To think that Crash 2 used to be my least liked Crash game back in the day! To be fair, I never really gave it a chance. Crash 2's greatness took me by surprise, it's sooooo good, fixes everything Crash 1 did wrong and fleshes out the formula pretty neatly. It is another antropomorphic animal platform game, but it does its own thing, and does it so well. SO WELL.

Review #147: Crash of the Titans

 And thus ends the Crashtravaganza.

 After Traveller's Tales pseudo rebooted the franchise with Twinsanity, there was only one way left to go.... reboot it again. Seriously.

 It's hard to pinpoint when it takes place, if it even takes place in the previous timeline, but the basic outline is that Crash and the rest of the bandicoots are enjoying another day in their care-free life when Cortex and Nina arrive in a machine and steal Coco away. The story tries to be funny, but it never manages to be Twinsanity-funny, but it does have its moments. Another thing to keep in mind is that this is a hard reboot. Crash now has a life bar, Wumpa Fruit now simply restore Crash's health, crates as you know them are gone, gems and crystals are gone and every single character has change both physically and personality-wise, this is not the Crash you know and love in any shape, way or form.

 Oh boy, has gameplay changed. The game no longer features a HUB or anything like that, and instead became a linear, stage-based platformer. There are no real secrets hidden on alternate paths or anything like that, the bonus areas are laid out pretty much in the open, as are the collectible voo-doo dolls and the Mojo. Oh, yes, Mojo, instead of Wumpa fruit, you can now find Mojo stashed behind objects, laying in plain sight or dropped when enemies are defeated, and collecting a certain amount of Mojo will unlock new combos(Yes.) or abilities. Crash now runs on a life bar, so he can take much more hits than before, and just his luck as the game now has a lot of focus on combat. There's also a multiplayer mode that places the second player on the role of "Carbon Crash", a white Crash that can, basically, do everything Crash can do. Pretty cool.

 When it comes to fighting enemies, Crash can, initially, land a 3-hit punch combo, a Strong kick attack that breaks the enemy's guard, double jump, block and sidestep. This is most definitely not the Crash that you used to know. The combat is fairly functional, it lacks depth, but it's quite decent and Crash will earn new abilities throughout the game, like the classic Spin attack, that initially leaves him dizzy after a while. Regardless, some of the combat sections can feel a bit long in the tooth, even though the combat works well, it can grow old really fast when not spread out. As for the platfoming, it works really well, and while there aren't any challenging platforming sections, it works pretty well and the environments through which you jump around are fairly good-looking.

 Then we have the Titans, bigger enemies that Crash can ride. There's about 15 different Titans, with different skills, attacks and combos, which means there's definitely some that you will like more than others, but you'll never get to keep one for long. In order to ride a Titan, you must first hit them until you stun them(Gauged by  6 green stars that appear over them when you hit them), and once they are dazed you can press the circle button to ride them, or if you leave them dazed for too long, they'll die. There's a rather small issue with this, when you are left with Crash on-foot against more than one titan, it becomes frustratingly impossible to deal with them. Y'see, Titans will pursue you at the same time, and while you hit one of them, the other will hit you. Sure, you can block the attack, but while you are blocking, the Stun gauge on the other Titan will decrease, leaving you at an impasse that will most often than not end with your death. At least when you respawn, whatever you had killed remains dead and you can now try to get the attention of only one of the Titans and stun him.

 The game is downright gorgeous, environments are beautiful and characters look great. The camera is so pushed away that the only times you'll get a good look at Crash is during cut-scenes, but whether you like the redesign or not, the fact that the model looks great is undeniable. As for the stages, they are fairly creative, and going through them is fairly enjoyable, the stages set on the Giant Tree being a good example of how good stages in the game can look. Music... tries to imitate the style of the older Crash games, but it never manages to reach their level, personally, I think the Twinsanity-styled music would've suited better. Voice acting is another strong point, while a lot of the jokes fall flat on their face, the deliveries are strong.

 A lot of people probably wrote off the game as soon as they saw the redesigns, I know I did, and the few videos I had seen seemed lame, but after playing the game first-hand I can say that it's a very good game. You know it did something right when my biggest gripe with the game is that it doesn't feel like a Crash game.
 7.0 out of 10.

Now Playing: Crash of the Titans

 A new hop. Seriously.

 Since this is the last Crash game I own(Planning on getting mind over mutant later), this marks the end of my Crashventure. So, what can I say? The gameplay is decent, good even, but, BUT, it doesn't feel like a Crash game. Crates are basically gone, now you have a lifebar, the gameplay departs heavily from other games.... but it's not a bad game.

 So yeah, fun, but doesn't feel like a Crash game, which may or may not automatically make up your mind about it.

Review #146: Crash Tag Team Racing

 Fun, in all the ways that don't matter!

 Crash Team Racing was fun. Crash Nitro Racing was Ok, it tried to imitate CTR, but lost its spark. And now we have Crash Tag Team Racing which is nothing like the other two, a pretty risky move, but it's not all bad.

 The story this time is about a deed to a theme park. Seriously. For some reason, Crash and Cortex really want to earn that deed, so they will race across five "theme" lands around the park to earn Power Crystals and ultimately, earn the deed. Sadly, the roster has been reduced to 8 characters, with two new characters, and the other six(Crash, Coco, Crunch, Cortex, Nina and N. Gin) have been drastically changed, personality wise. N. Gin seems to have father issues, is now a sadomasochist and is a closet homosexual, Crunch became a Mr. T parody and Coco, the "smart" one is now dumber. Story shouldn't matter in a game like this, but it's rather jarring seeing these new portrayals, Twinsanity's Cortex worked because it was a more exaggerated version of Cortex, these are completely new characterizations.

 Everything you knew about Crash racers? Throw it out the window. Firstly, the hub worlds have been changed for on-foot segments. These are very simple(Crash only has the Jump, Spin and Slam) and easy, but movement feels very floaty, everything is veeeery floaty, initially it looks terrible, but eventually you get used to it and it becomes quite alright, if somewhat fun. As you go through the game, you'll have to do more and more platforming to get to the gates that unlock each race, but it's very easy, and conveniently, once you unlock a track, you can pick it from any gate. This overworld also has the rest of the racers standing around, and you can talk to them to trigger missions(They are simply "Get me X amount of coins, get me X amount of power crystals, find me X item in Y zone") and unlock Karts, stronger weapons and costumes. I actually prefer this unlocking method to the "play each track a ton of times" in previous Crash racers, but that's just me.

 As for the on-wheels gameplay, it's been extremely simplified, to the point that it no longer offers the depth previous games offered. Power Sliding is now done by tapping break before a curve, the longer you hold the break, the more "Boost gauge" you earn, fill the gauge and you get a free turbo. As for the racing itself, it lacks punch, it feels dull. The weapons you can pick during the race lack any kind of personality, you throw... exploding monkeys? Chickens? Half the time I didn't even know what the hell I was throwing. The tracks themselves are very generic, they lack soul, they lack personality, they could've been lifted from any other mascot racer, they don't even reference the Crash series in the slightest. Not cool.

 It's not all bad, the game introduces the new "Clashing" mechanic, by pressing triangle and approaching another racer, you can clash into them, if they don't reject the clash. Clashing makes one racer man a turret and the other man the car(You can swap seats) and each racer comes with their own gun(Though the gunner can switch between both his gun and his partner's). Whoever gets to man the turret gets the best deal, since gunning down racers feels very satisfying and it's all around fun. You can also gun down incoming projectiles, and when you pick up weapons they now turn into overpowered weapons of mass destruction that can destroy multiple karts in one shot, which encourages clashing between racers. Oh, and you can screw your partner, whoever unclashes first gets a boost of speed and leaves his partner behind, so you can steal the first place for yourself, and in one particular occasion, we got two second places and no first place. These mechanics make Battles very fun, and races between clashed karts are much more fun than simple races, if only because it makes the game actually fun, so you'd better think of this game as a combat racer, instead of a mascot racer.

 As for the types of races, besides battle, you get Fastest Lap, pretty self explanatory, Crashinator in which you must hit as many objects as you can before the time runs out, Rolling Thunder, a one-lap race in which you start clashed with unlimited ammo and must destroy as many karts as you can, and then there's Run and Gun, which is just like Crashinator except that now you are manning a turret. There's also a Stunt mode which has you using both analogs while on air to turn and roll to earn points, but it doesn't work very well.

 Graphics are alright, but the problem lies on how generic and soulless everything looks. It's not a bad looking game, just a very uninspired one. Music on the other hand is fantastic since it's in the same vein as Twinsanity's. Voice acting is also really good, but your mileage may vary depending on how much you like the new personalities characters have. Still, during races characters tend to run their mouths way to often which can become a bit annoying.

 The thing about Crash Tag Team Racing is that it lacks the depth previous games had. It lacks personality. And the racing itself is so-so. Clashing does somewhat manage to pull the game forward, but one decent mechanic can't make up for the racing itself, which should've been the focus of the game.
 6.0 out of 10.