Review #567: The Simpsons - Road Rage(Gameboy Advance)

 Let's get craaaaaaazy!.... I mean, angry.

 Opinions may vary on how good of a game Road Rage was on consoles, but Road Rage on the Gameboy Advance is an impressive piece of software that proves ambition can be found even in licensed games.

 This is a Crazy Taxi clone through and through, which means that your purpose is to pick up passengers and drive them to their destination while under a time limit, the better you do, the more points you score. For a handheld, the game offers a nice amount of modes: Road Rage, which i what I just described, Sunday Drive, which is the game without a time limit, Head to Head, which I couldn't try since it requires a second player and, finally, a missions mode, featuring about 10 different missions, each one with a unique stage and goal, like jumping on clouds for a certain amount of time , or driving through narrow cliffs. There are a few neat extras, like being able to change the colors of any playable car and character in the game. There's a lot of replayability here, featuring about 20 different characters and 6 different maps, which must be unlocked by amassing points... or by inputting the correct password. Sadly, the game runs on passwords and not on battery.

 The game is a fantastic little experiment, somehow they managed to cram large environments into the cart, and created a faux feeling of 3D by using some technological wizardy. It's a very strange effect, watching compressed terrain on the horizon, decompressing as you advance, but once you get used to it... it looks great, complete with jumps and what have you. The gameplay is fun and simple too, A accelerates, R and B are breaks and L can be used to eject a passenger. There's a very good sense of speed in the game, making for fun and fast entertainment on the go.

 In order to traverse the town you're given a minimap on the lower left part on the screen, and aided with an onscreen arrow on top of the screen getting to your objective isn't too hard. Sadly, the arrow on top of the screen is a bit faulty, and may disappear altogether if you get out of the optimal route, only returning as soon as you set wheel on the minimap's highlighted streets

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 I had a blast with Road Rage on the Gameboy Advance, its arcadey nature makes it a perfect game to take on the go. Sadly, the password system hampers it a bit, since it'd be preferable to have everything you unlock accessible as soon as you turn on the system.  Simpsons fans might not get the most out of the game, but this game could've been just as a good without the license, make of that what you will.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #566: Nicktoons Unite!(Gameboy Advance)

 Unity makes strength, unless you are this game...

 Nickelodeon used to be a fantastic place to watch cartoons, you had these rough new artstyles, like Doug and Rugrats, that looked like nothing else on TV, or shows that loved to push boundaries, like Ren & Stimpy and Rocko's Modern Life. But I fell out of love with cartoons a few seasons deep into Spongebob... which is probably not a good context to approach Nicktoons Unite! with, considering 'Nicktoons' here refers to Fairly Odd Parents, Danny Phantom, Jimmy Neutron and Spongebob.

 Long story short, the villains from these shows, whose names I have forgotten save for Plankton, unite in order to wreck havoc, thus Jimmy invents a mean to travel between worlds, and thus forms a partnership with Danny Phantom, the other Jimmy and Spongebob in order to stop them. The game consists of 8 boring stages and 4 boring bosses, 2 stages and a boss per series.

 Y'know how most Gameboy Advance games tend to look ugly on screenshots but good on its original hardware? It's the other way around with this game. This game looks as ugly as it plays. This is a 2-D sidescroller in which you must explore ugly stages, searching for four chips and 3 enemy portals, which you must destroy. Every character has a projectile attack as well as a double jump, Danny can phase through a few select walls, Spongebob can crawl, Jimmy can float with balloons and Jimmy Neutron can use a jetpack, which behaves like Jimmy's balloons but is harder to get fuel for. Before each stage you can select two characters, but in order to find everything you'll have to make use of everyone's skills, luckily, there're portals through which you can change your characters, but both characters need to make it to the portal.

 Level design is boring, and you'll soon grow bored of searching through stages. There are a few puzzles here and there, but they can barely be called puzzles since they are so mindnumbingly easy. This is not a good game, and everything, from look and feel, seem as if it came straight out of an amateur flash game. This is not a good game, and can hardly be recommended even to fans of whichever franchise.
 2.0 out of 10

Review #565: Avatar the Last Airbender - The Burning Earth(Gameboy Advance)

 The only thing that burns here is how much of a joke this game is.

 Avatar the Last Airbender on the Gameboy Advance was dope. Like really, really dope, so I was really looking forwards to this game, plus, playable Zuko. No, I haven't watched the series, but I know who Zuko is and Fire is always cool. I mean hot. But they botched it, like really, really badly.

 This time around the game takes place during the second season of the show, how faithful it is to the series I don't know, but I can tell you that storytelling in this game is bland. I had no idea what was going on most of the time, and the short text-descriptions before each level helped very little to add context to the stages. The game is also on the short side, there're 8 basic stages, and if you get an A rank on each you unlock 4 more plus 'Single Run', which is basically every stage back to back with no breaks. It's not as taxing as it sounds, the game probably lasts about 2 hours which is probably why they went with the obnoxious A rank requirement on the first 8 stages. Not that it matters, since the game has no battery so you must rely on passwords. Lame.

 Remember how you always played as a team in the previous game? Now teams have been reduced to two-man groups, although the playable cast has grown to include Zuko, Toph and Iroh, as well as two stages in which you play as Appa and dodge stuff. New characters should mean more fun and intricate puzzles, but it doesn't. Puzzles have been simplified to the point of silliness, instead opting to throw endless waves of enemies at the player... which is hilarious, since combat is even worse than it used to be!

 To start with, characters that aren't Zuko or Aang suck at fighting or are boring to use. Katara has a weak 4-hit spin attack that deals negligible damage and seems to do more harm to her than to your enemies. Iroh has a single ability, a flame breath attack that needs to recharge, making him lame to play as. Toph has a single ability, shooting quakes that increase in size the longer it travels. It can clear off enemies very easily, but it's boring and unexciting to use. Sokka dashes while flailing his club, but it has no comboability since it pushes enemies away and deals negligible damage. That leaves us with Aang and Zuko, Aang having a two-hit combo and Zuko a three-hit combo, this makes them the only characters fit for fighting, which helps since either character will always be on your team, so you'll spend your time mashing A with the occasional R-button press to use Toph or Iroh's support attack, Katara and Sokka's being nigh useless in combat. Oh, and you gain life points back every time you lose health, making a game over become something of a miracle.

 But, know what? The first game had crappy combat too, even if it wasn't as dumb, but it shined on its brainbusters, and seeing how some characters, like Katara and Sokka, seem built exclusively for puzzles, surely, this game also shines there. But it doesn't. The puzzles are very simple 'figure how to hit all the crystals' affairs. Some you must figure out how to hit under a time limit, some you must figure the right order in which to hit them and some you must figure out which ones to activate and which ones to deactivate. It's very lame.

 I had very high hopes for this one, but they blew it. I can see why they went for a more arcadey-actiony route, as its a better fit for the series, but characters simply aren't much fun to use in combat. And the puzzles, which made the first game so good, were too simple to be any fun, which feels like so much of a waste considering how the various powers and abilities of these characters could've been used. Then there are the smaller blemishes, like having to use passwords and doing such a poor job at telling a story.
 3.5 out of 10

Review #564: Avatar the Last Airbender(Gameboy Advance)

 Advanced bending.

 I can't speak much about how good an adaptation this game is, since I haven't watched the series, but I can assure you that this is a good one.

 Aang is the latest reincarnation of the Avatar, a being that can manipulate, or bend, the four different elements: Water, Earth, Wind and Fire. Not that it matters, since Aang is restricted to just air in the game. Spending his days in the Water Village, the Fire Nation attacks and takes away Katara, Aang's friend, and thus he sets out to rescue her. Throughout the game you'll play as a three-man team of Aang, Katara and Sokka, each with their own abilities. Something I want to praise the game for is how much it feels like an adventure, characters constantly going forwards, traversing new lands and facing new puzzles.

 While the franchise lends itself for a good beat'em up game, this is more of a puzzle game, action being an afterthought. The three characters have very different abilities: Aang has a three hit combo, can push wind through vents and shoot air waves. Katara has a simple water-whip attack, that isn't too useful in battle but can stun a few enemies, she can also build ice bridges on water. Lastly, Sokka has a boomerang that can hit crystals from afar, or dash ahead while swinging his club back and forth.

 Undeniably, the game puts puzzles first, and you'll notice it pretty early, as some sections are entirely devoid of enemies, instead being puzzle affairs. This is for the best, as combat is pretty half-baked, only Aang has decent offensive abilities, but Sokka and Katara each have attacks that stun some of the tougher enemies, so a good idea is to use Sokka or Katara  to stun them and then bash them with Aang's three hit combo. Switching characters is as easy as tapping(Or holding, can be changed at the options menu) the L or R button.

 Luckily, puzzles are very fun to solve, and some are quite tough. Not all puzzles are mandatory,  but it's better to explore before leaving an area in order to get permanently missable health upgrades. The game is at its best when you are toggling between characters in order to solve puzzles, some which even have the party separating and collaborating while traveling on different paths. It's a very fun game.

 Avatar the Last Airbender is a surprisingly fun licensed game. The combat could've used some polishing, but the puzzles are great, and having each character having different skills makes for some fun brainwork. It's a shame the game is a bit on the short-side, about 3:30 hours in all.
 7.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Grandia & Freedom Fighters

 Nonsensical names are always fun.

Minimalist. Forgettable.

 Grandia is a game that never appealed to me, even though I really liked Grandia II and Xtreme(I was young!). And after playing it for five hours, I'm still not quite fond of it. For starters, playing it on a PS2 seems to be a fool's errand, as it's prone to freezing. I'm suffering a few freezes right now which halted my progress on the game until I can assess if it's the disc or the medium.

 As for the game itself, I really can't get myself to like the main cast of characters, children heroes just don't do it for me anymore. Justin just isn't fun to follow along with, and Sue is just annoying. I happen to hate the 'kid genius' trope, so Feena being discovered as the world's greatest adventurer irks me to no end. I hate the main cast!

Not to be confused with the super-heroes game, Freedom Force.

 I used to LOVE this game when I was younger, and one of the tiny details that made me love it so was how the main character's attire would change as you went through the game. It made it seem like Chris was getting more and more involved with his role, as well as it being a clear sign of progression as he grew to look more and more like a guerilla.

 I just cleared the first mission/area, and the controls are certainly clunkier than I remembered them to be, but you can get used to them and the auto-aim is decent.

Archile's Grab-bag: Old and New

 007 NightFire: I used to play this game's multiplayer on PC when I was younger, and it was quite alright, and I got it on PS2 for free, so why not?

 Inuyasha - Feudal Combat: Recently, very recently, I started the Inuyasha manga and this game piqued my curiosity. It seems like a mediocre animu game, but I'm always open for mediocre animu fighting games.

 Shox: I learned about this game a little while ago and it seemed right up my alley, this kind of arcadey racers is exactly the kind of racing games I enjoy.

 Freedom Fighters: I LOVED this game when I was younger, I particularly loved how your character's attire would change between levels. I've been meaning to get reacquainted with it.

 007 Agent Under Fire: Another freebie, another Bond game.

 Red Dead Revolver: I've never cared too much for this game... until I heard that Capcom was involved, then everything changed. I played a little multiplayer right now to give it a try,a nd it seems like a fun shooter.

 Toy Story 2 - Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue: I remember renting this game once when I was younger, albeit on the N64, and I sorta liked it. Turns out quite a few people consider it a bit of a classic...

 Hercules: I LOVED this game, as a matter of fact, I remember playing this game, as well as Tekken 3, in a party before deciding that getting a PS2 over a Gamecube was the way to go, even though I had been a Nintendo kid all my life.

Review #563: The Legend of Spyro - The Eternal Night

 ...and the eternal slog that is this game.

This game is as flimsy as Spyro's neck.

 Just like Crash before it, Spyro couldn't avoid the very same pitfall upon which Crash's reboot fell: A promising first game, but a bad sequel. Welcome to The Eternal Night, a game that fails to capitalize on the first game's strengths and only exacerbates upon on its faults.

 Picking right after A New Beginning ended, Spyro has lost his powers but rescued Cynder... not that it matters, since Cynder decides to set on her own journey and the dragons' temple is attacked by the Ape army of Gaul. This is the last you'll see of the dragons from the first game, disappointingly. The first game brought a great new take on Spyro, and its world and characters were begging to be developed, but this game fails at that. I mean, the Dark Master from the first game finally gets a form and a background, but Spyro barely gets any development, and Cynder, arguably the ensemble darkhorse, gets very little as well, coupled with a sparse three appearances in the entire game. Sparx got recast, thank god, but the voice acting is a step down from the first game's, Elijah Wood seems to have been missing the context of a couple of lines, so his delivery left a bit to be desired this time around. All in all, the story is passable, but I expected so much more...

My thoughts exactly, Spyro, I don't know what went wrong here!

 Not much has changed in this game... sadly. Combat is pretty much exactly the same as before, with circle being your 4-hit combo, which can be extended into an air combo, R1 being your headbutt while Square and Triangle are your breath attacks. In this game you'll be getting the same 4 elemental breaths from the first game, which is disappointing, but they've been completely overhauled so that no two breaths are like. Earth produces a chained-ball of energy that you swing around or a ground-stomp as a secondary attack, Thunder shoots a energy ball on a straight line that you can explore at will or make Spyro spin in an electric Tornado, Ice is shot in an arc or you can use a spinning tail attack, while fire is more like a shot-gun or lets you use a fire-charge. It sounds great, but in practice it doesn't offer any new options for combat. It's not like you can create lengthy combos or switch between breaths mid-combo. So, yeah, thanks for the variety, but they offer very little with the game's engine as is.

 And there's a lot of repetitive, dull combat in this game, almost as much as there was on the first game. I was already tired from the first game's mundane, repetitive combat, so having to dive right back in onto the very same combat engine with barely anything new was quite tedious to say the least. Thankfully there're puzzles this time around, albeit very simple ones that can be solved pretty easily. They added 5 life extension items and 5 breath extension items, as well as about 20 feathers for you to find, which is rather welcome... but it's still a very linear game, and health and breath upgrades felt negligible, while feathers only unlocked art, so not much of a reward there.

Enjoy what little story you can get, it's the best thing about this game.

 There's a final new mechanic: Dragon Time. By pressing L1 you can slow down time for as long as your DT gauge lasts, and this gauge refills automatically when not in use. Dragon Time adds very little to combat, albeit you'll use it for some platforming more than anything else. And man, they ruined platforming, they messed up the second jump timing, so sometimes it won't even come out, leading to a lot of undeserved deaths. By the by, there're a ton of checkpoints placed exactly before a cutscene, so word to the wise: R1 and L1 are the buttons used to skip cutscenes, so don't despair, they can be skipped, even if they chose the most awkward buttons to do so.

 The game is five short-stages long, and the game will be over before you know it, thankfully. I just can't stress enough how boring the game can be. There are more enemy types than in A New Beginning, but combat is as repetitive as ever, having to fight durable enemies with limited attack options. There's a recurring boss, a bat, that must be fought once in every level, seriously, and it's the most annoying fight in the game since you have to charge your breath attack juuuuust the right amount in order for your attack to reach the cowering enemy. These battles are just dumb. And Stage 4 reuses, by re-skinning, the same boss fight FOUR times. And this boss is shockingly similar to A New Beginning's first boss.

I know, Spyro ol' chum, this game made me angry too!

 I was ready to like this game, I really was, but The Eternal Night failed to capitalize on A New Beginning's strengths. Instead of adding more melee attacks and ways to chain breath attacks into combos, they thought that simply making every breath different would suffice. It didn't. This, in turn, makes combat just as boring as it used to be, but even more so since I played it right after finishing the first game. The hidden upgrades should've been a great incentive to explore, but their upgrade is barely felt. More platforming and puzzles should've aided in alleviating the monotony of the combat, but they broke the double jumping, thus turning this respites into torture. And they replaced David Spade, thank god, but Elijah either didn't care or wasn't given proper context, so his performance suffered in return. And there's very little story development to boot, which sucks since I thought the story was the best thing about this new reboot.

 The Legend of Spyro - The Eternal Night is the worst Spyro game since Enter the Dragon Fly, except instead of being broken it's boring.... and a little broken. Hopefully they can finish the trilogy with a decent third part... but I'm not holding my breath.

 4.5 out of 10

Now Playing: The Legend of Spyro - The Eternal Night

 David Spade is gone, yo!

Spyro strikes a pose.

 Well, I started Eternal Night right after the previous one, and I'm slightly, slightlyyyyyyyyy terrified that it might be a step down from A New Beginning. Simply because the game feels like it's gonna be more of the same.

 A series' beginning is usually one of the most interesting parts of a story, which is a bit of a pitfall since the next chapters should eclipse the set-up, but I'm afraid it seems like Eternal Night fell into it.. I just started the game, Cynder is trying to escape, Spyro gets a weird mind-trip and the Temple gets attacked and... I just couldn't care less. Maybe the story gets better, I hope, but it's missing the... spark that the first game's story had. Maybe because the whole mystique and allure of the new is gone.

 The combat is the same, no new melee moves, and no new moves to purchase, which will potentially be a gamebreaker, since the fighting was already tedious before, now it might be overkill. That said, I appreciate that the changed alternate-breath attacks. Well, I'm assuming so since the Fire Breath's alternate attack has changed.

 On the plus side, the game is promising puzzles. During Spyro's mind trip I had to slow down time in order to do some platforming, and the tutorial had me putting on fires inside furnaces, so maybe, just maybe puzzles are back into the franchise. I hope so, since the combat alone can't carry the game, so might as well spice up things.

Review #562: The Legend of Spyro - A New Beginning

 Dragon may cry.

He's back... and he has changed.

  The Legend of Spyro is Spyro like you've never seen it before, gone are the whimsical worlds, endless collectibles and silly NPCs seeking your help, this is a new Spyro, in a new world and with fancy Kung-fu skills.

 This reboot changes almost everything, now Spyro is the last survivor from the final batch of Dragon Eggs, but in order to protect him from the Evil Master, Ignitus, a red dragon, hides Spyro's egg away, which is quickly found by a family of Dragonflies that raises him as their own. Very early in the game Spyro discovers that he's actually a dragon, and sets out with his adoptive brother, Sparx, on a quest to find out about his origin... and to restore the Dragons and face this looming evil. As you can probably tell, the story is no longer an excuse to set out after collectibles, instead being a proper narrative guiding your through the game. I found the story to be very interesting, and the characters endearing. Featuring an all-star cast of voice actors, most of them did a good job with Spyro... except David Spade, who completely ruined Sparx. The voice doesn't fit, the tone doesn't fit and David sounds quite uninterested in his role.

The Earth Breath's secondary attack is overkill. Be sure to level it up as soon as you get it.

 What might take Spyro fans by surprise is how much the game has changed, gone is the collectathon formula from before, this is a linear beat'em up through and through. Jumping, double jumping and gliding return, but they are means to an end since the focus is on beating up enemies. As for doing so, you've got your four-hit combo with Circle, R1 to charge-headbutt enemies and you can continue off your land combo on the air, since it ends on a launcher. Spyro can use four different breaths(Fire, lightning, Ice and Air) with the square button, each with a different property, and triangle for an alternate shot with each, all which share a Magic gauge, but it can be easily replenished since fallen enemies drop a lot of restorative crystals. Defeating enemies also rewards you with pink crystals that can be used to enhance your different breaths.

 Everything in the game is competent, but it stops at that. Your offensive tools are fairly limited, and the game throws obnoxious numbers of enemies at you, which kinda sucks since the game grows tiresome pretty quickly. Limiting upgrades to just your breath attacks also kinda sucks, since it's a bit of a missed opportunity, how great could've been being able to upgrade your life, breath capacity or even your melee combos? It also sucks how they did away with puzzles, since the last game finally got the breaths and their possibilities right. Plus, a few puzzles could've helped with the game's short length, there're about 5 levels in all, and only 5 bosses, one which is a repeat. Not to mention that most enemies you fight are reskins of the same 3 enemy types.

The art direction isn't as charming as A Hero's Tail, but it gets the job done.

 The gameplay shift I can live with. The new interpretations of Spyro and Sparx I actually enjoyed. But the gameplay itself just falls short. The focus is on fighting, but fighting is very repetitive and lackluster, Spyro's moveset is way too limited to allow creativity, something that could've soothed the relatively large enemy waves. Regardless, I'm positively hopeful for the next games in this new sub-series, since this was a good parting point.
 6.0 out of 10

Month Overview: April 2018

Tally:

Pirates - Legend of the Black Buccaneer 7.5

Tomb Raider II 7.0

Spyro the Dragon 9.0

Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam(Nintendo DS) 5.5

Spyro 2 - Ripto's Rage 9.0

Spyro - Year of the Dragon 8.0

Spyro - Enter the Dragonfly 4.0

Spyro - A Hero's Tail 8.0

 Finally, despite having had Sony console for quite a while, I gave Spyro a chance. And I regret not having done so earlier, as Spyro proved itself a fantastic franchise. I finally finished Tomb Raider II, felt like an eternity, and I'm not quite sure of when I'll be able to tackle III, since II was so taxing and III only gets harder.

Runner-up:

 Spyro 1 is SO good, it's kinda surprising how Insomniac managed to land such a great game on their first attempt. Something I appreciated about Spyro 1 over its many, many sequels is its simplicity, there are no mini-games, not silly npcs to interact with, just clear-cut goals and stuff to find.

Game of April:

 ....but as much as I appreciated Spyro 1's simplicity, I also appreciated how much Spyro 2 did to polish the formula. Everything was a 'small goal', and every collectible felt like an event. And despite diversifying on the gameplay, adding mini-games and the such, it doesn't feel as bloated as Spyro 3.