First Archimpressions: Tetris DS

 It´s gooood.

 I´m not a fan of Tetris or puzzle games for that matter, but this version is quite good. The Nintendo inspired look is a big plus, for me, and it has loads of modes which are Nintendo inspired. I just tried all modes and they range from fun to amusing. I was not planning on tackling this one so soon, but I kinda tried standard mode, and cleared it, so now I kinda have to commit to it. Curse my 1337 Tetris skills!

Archview #17: Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia

 Could´ve been much worse.

 Ar Tonelico is your typical Japanese overly complicated RPG, with an unnecessary amount of Moe. The story is set in a world populated Reyvateils, songstress that can craft magic out of songs, and humans. As expected of any JRPG, there are a bunch of corporations, the Tenba, the Teru, the Church and the Knights of Elemia. Of course, being a JRPG that has a unique type of creature or female(Or both), in this case Reyvateils, there are bad guys that seek to exploit the Reyvateils, surprising(I´m being sarcastic, by the by), regardless, the story centers on Lyner, one of the Knights of Elemia, who fell from Platina, a place a top a giant tower above the blast line, a zone no space ship can cross, who fell to a Virus invasion. Now Lyner has to return to Platina, and on the way, find a way to destroy the viruses and save the world.

 What makes Ar Tonelico different from other JRPGs is it´s combat system, now stay with me, ´cause this is extensive: When battling, your party consists of 3 warriors and 1 Reyvateil. Warriors take turns with the enemies according to their speed, the Reyvateil however, you can press Triangle at any time to issue her orders. Reyvateils can only attack using magic, which they must charge up. Warriors can´t deal as much damage as Reyvateils, but they can take much more damage than them. When enemies target Reyvateils, you can have your warriors protect them, and you usually must, since they will probably die.

 It doesn´t end there. Below the combatants, there are two gauges. The first gauge increases as you use spells. It can go up to 3 "stocks". How do you charge those stocks? That´s when the second gauge comes into to play. It has two bars, a blue one that goes from left to right and a purple one that goes from right to left. Every time they meet, the stock goes up by one. The blue bar increases as the warriors deal damage, and decreases when they take it. The purple one increases as the Reyvateil charges songs. Charging these stocks allow the Warriors to use HP-consuming techniques, which I found to be quite useless, and the higher the stocks, the better the enemy drops. While I enjoyed the combat system, later in the game, enemies get loads of HP, and you have to charge your spells longer, so Random encounters will become a drag.

 Ar Tonelico has two other distinguishing features: Grathmelding and Diving. Diving has you go into a Reyvateils subconscious and partake in a visual-novel like mini adventure, which is how you unlock costumes for the girls. Some of the levels in their subconscious can be kinda entertaining. Then there´s grathmelding, which is, basically, Crafting. Find the recipie, the ingredients and then craft your items or equipment. The process is quite streamlined, so it´s quite easy to do it.

 One of the better features of the game is it´s customization. By finding, or crafting, crystals, you can add extra effects to the Reyvateils spells and equipment. Perhaps add a chance to paralyze? 100% chance to crit with a spell? You can do it.

 Graphically, it´s quite ugly. The sprites are simple, and the animation feels stiff, and lacks some frames. The music is a bit too cheery for my tastes, but it has some really good pieces, specially the reyvateils songs. Voice acting is fantastic, shame the dialogue is not too interesting. It´s filled with double entendres, so your milleage may vary.

 While I did enjoy grathmelding, I was not too keen on the forced grathmelding. There are a couple of times where you are forced to grathmeld something in order to move on with the story, which means you have to find the ingredients, it´s no fun and it may force you to backtrack in search for the ingredients. By far the biggest blunder of the game are the loading times. The game will stutter a bit during combat, specially when too much stuff is going on, it makes the already slow combat even slower. The loading issues are verywhere though. Going to the menu to pick a spell? The game has to load a lot of information of each spell, that you don´t really need, when all you want to do is go down the list to use a friggin´healing spell

 All in all, it´s a better than average JRPG, but it´s nothing special. I will admit that I enjoyed it though.

6 out of 10.

Book Quickie: The Fifth Child

 What a letdown.

 This book, man, this book.... It starts off really good, it´s paced quite nicely, and for 3/4ths of the story it´s really good. This initial three fourths of the book are really creepy, telling you of Ben, the fifth child. Since his conception, he has been kicking in the uterus, with such force that he would break his mother´s ribs. He behaves creepily, and has been stablished to be unusually strong and unusually big. So, it´s a really good horror story.... untill the last fourth of the book begins, after what I consider it´s climax, and then.... the horror book turns into some kind of drama. I kid you not, it was most baffling, it has such an unsatisfying ending!
 Conclussion: It´s a great horror story, until the last part of the story, when it turns into such a huge letdown...
 5 out of 10.

Getting Reacquainted: Ar Tonelico

 Oh boy...

 I stopped playing this game a couple of years ago, and for a good reason. It wasn´t very fun. The game is, alright-ish, a tad too cheery for my tastes though. I was so bored last time that I decided I´d call it a day after  getting one of the bad endings... nope, not this time, I´m getting the best ending. Damn right.

 For what it´s worth, so far it´s not AS bad as I remembered it, but it´s not too entertaining. Could be worse!

Archview #16: T´ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger

 Your Kung Fu is no good here.

 Let´s keep it short and simple, T´ai Fu is really good. The story is not as interesting as it´s setting, keeping it short, you play as T´ai Fu, sole survivor of the Tiger clan, raised by Pandas(I´m not making this up), and must journey to learn of your past and avenge your clan, who fell to the Dragon clan. There are no humans in the game, just various animals, part of different clans, who each have their own martial arts. As you play through the game you´ll be taught from the Mantis, Leopard, Monkey and Crane masters.
 T´ai´s moveset is not incredibly large, but it gets the job done. As you play through the game, T´ai will earn new moves, imitating his masters, running like a Leopard, hovering like a Crane or rolling like a Monkey. All styles serve T´ai Fu to move around through the levels, as he will need to make use of their abilities, but each one also has combat purposes. Combat itself is pretty simple, and enemies are not too challenging, most of your deaths will come from the traps each level has. Lives are quite plentiful, sometimes it seems as if the game is looking for excuses to give you more one ups!

 The graphics are great, characters look really good, and there´s virtually no slowdown, great lightning effects too. Stages themselves are quite varied, from the jungles, to the snowy mountains, there is a lot of variety. The music is quite forgettable, but it´s appropiate for the martial arts setting. The voice acting is quite good, surprising for it´s time! All in all, the game sells it´s Kung-fu inspired setting really well.
 While the game´s lenght is appropiate for the type of game, ending before it gets repetitive, there´s no replay value at all. Stages, while not small, don´t house many secrets, and said secrets are mostly one ups, nothing worth returning for. After you beat the game, you only get the ability to Level Select, but there´s nothing new, no new moves to try, nothing!
 Despite it´s lack of replay value, I had fun with T´ai Fu. It´s fun, and the presentation is quite interesting and well done.
It´s an 8 out of 10.

Archview #15: Alundra 2

 I´m doing this without my notes, so I might forget some stuff....

 For starters, Alundra 2 has nothing to do with Alundra, any similarities are purely coincidental. This time around, you play as Flint, a young Pirate Hunter, who gets roped into helping princess Alexia to free the kingdom from Baron Diaz, who replaced the king with a Puppet. Yup, it also tries to be funny, but the game has a very... quirky sense of humor, more often than not, it falls flat on it´s face.

 Although Alundra 1 was very clearly inspired by The Legend of Zelda, Alundra 2 tries, and manages, to do it´s own thing. Puzzles no longer rely on various tools, but revolve either around 4 elemental rings or the enviroment itself. Puzzles get almost as hard as Alundra 1, however, they don´t ever get frustrating, since most rooms reset themselves if you screw up. And screw up you will, puzzles are very varied, from setting up chain reactions, to acting as a tile for a statue to go over, the puzzles are quite varied.

 Combat is a bit challenging, due to the clunky system, it´s not quite obvious when the invincibility period, after the enemy gets up, ends, so you might end up getting sucker punched while you hit an invulnerable enemy. Another issue, is that the fine folk at Activision decided to rename "Normal" and "Hard" into "Easy" and "Normal", so if you are like me and choose Normal... get ready to recieve tons of damage from the enemies. Bosses are not as hard, since you must learn their patterns and how-when to attack. Some bosses are quite original, there´s one boss where you need to grab the bombs the lesser enemies drop, walk under the boss´ fire attack, to light up the bomb, and time it, so that when you throw it towards the boss, it explodes in the air. Another one has you evading his attacks, until he winds up for a punch, where you must slide into his feet, to throw him off balance, and hit his head.
 The game looks... quite bad actually, graphics are simply and messy, there´s clipping everywhere, and slowdown is quite frequent when there are many things on screen. The music is quite generic and forgettable, voice acting however, is quite decent. Luckily, the ending is much more fulfilling than Alundra 1´s, however, there are loads of loose ends by the end of the game. How did Flint´s father survive? Will Flint ever find out that that guy is his father? And the king, did they ever find him?... there are many loose ends.

 There´s almost no replay value, but the game is as long as Alundra 1, and has as much hidden stuff to find. It also has loads of minigames, like Shooter, and many secret activities, like dog hearding. Sadly, most of the good rewards require you to play the games for a long, long time, even games like Shooter, which are fun, end up becoming quite boring. Also, getting the item for the best shield in the game, means that you will almost surely give up on the magic ring enhancements, since they use the same currency, and it´s hard to aquire with the dart games. And you also need to farm loads of darts from enemies... so yeah, they are nice distractions, but the game overstimated their appeal.
 All in all, Alundra 2 is a good game. I enjoyed it more than Alundra 1, however most of it´s charm is missing. Hardly a classic, but it´s quite fun.
7.5 out of 10.

First Archimpressions: T´ai Fu

 Coming from Alundra´s 2 less than spectacular graphics, this is... whoa.

 I´m on level 3, just cleared it actually, and so far so good. Game looks great, although the music is a bit on the boring side. Combat is fun, and levels are just long enough. It does seem like the game lacks replay value, since there are not many areas, and most of them just house extra lives. Still, first impression? The game is gonna be fun. On a sidenote, why does T´ai look different on the cover? Lampshading maybe?