Archile's Grab Bag: Mega Package

 YEEEEEEEEEES New first package of the year.

 Evolution Worlds: FINALLY. Back in the day, I used to buy whichever gaming mags I could get my hands on, and during the PS2 era, ads for Evolution 1 and 2 would often pop up in Xpert Gamer and EGM, and I was always intrigued. But then again, I didn't have a Dreamcast, and I still don't(Which I hate! The Dreamcast seems like a console made FOR me.). Regardless, thanks to the Gamecube remake, I can finally try them out!.... Kinda, it seems it's not a very good port, Evolution 1 has been condensed into a cut scenes, and levels, bosses and items were cut. Oh well, at least I can try it out!

  Megaman X8: Only played a bit of it on the PC, it seemed alright.

 Megaman X7: I remember liking this one a whole lot when it was released, but it received mostly negative reviews. True, younger me probably couldn't tell a bad game from a good one, but I could tell that Megaman X5 wasn't nearly as good as X4, so...

 Megaman Network Transmission: Megaman Battle Network/Rockman.Exe is a series I always wanted to get into. I played the first game on the GBA a whole lot, but never dabbled in the multiple sequels. If only Capcom would release some kind of Battle Network collection on the 3DS.... regardless, I've been curious about this one for a while, as it seems it mixes Classic Megaman with the Battle Network mythos.

 Megaman X Command Mission: The only Megaman X game that I never even touched, yet, I've been mighty curious about it! Megaman. in an RPG? Do. Want.

 Megaman is a franchise I'm deeply enamored with. The first game I played was Rockman 3 on the Nes...knock off we used to own. I remember being the only one in the house that could beat it, and that I did over and over again. I loved Rockman 3. I skipped the SNES/Genesis generation, which means that X1 to X3 were lost to me, but come the N64/PS1 era, I stumbled upon Megaman X4 on PC(I was a Nintendo kid!) and boy, was it incredible. I loved this new 'Zero' character and his sword, I would eventually beat Megaman X4 with all four characters(X, Nova X, Zero, Black Zero), it was quite probably one of my favorite games at the time. Graphics were amazing, music was hypnotic and the gameplay was top notch. It helps that I was too young to notice just how bad the Voice Acting was! With the advent of the PS2, I was finally able to play Megaman 8, X5 and X6. I think I hate X5, but I remember spending a lot of time with it, collecting every single armor piece, fun times! as for X6, I can't remember much. It was at this time, more or less, that I was also able to try the old Megaman games and catch up. Needless to say, I love Megaman, and I've been itching to play all of them in order...

 Now then, I'm not the best when it comes to foreshadowing, but come Tuesday or Wednesday, Megaman Anthology might arrive to my doorstep. And I might do something once it gets here...

 Sidescrolling Megaman marathon confirmed.

Review #197: Super Mario 3D Land

 EVERYONE GETS TANOOKI TAILS!

 Everybody loves Mario, but if you don't... what's wrong with you? Now then, Super Mario 3D Land is an interesting game as it mixes many elements from both 2D and 3D Mario games into a fairly entertaining game.

 You know the story. You do. Peach has been kidnapped, Mario to the rescue. There really isn't much more to it than that. As for this adventure, it is a 3D Mario game, much like Mario 64, but there is no overworld, just a normal stage-select map with no branches or hidden routes. The '3D' on the title isn't just for show, this is one of the very few 3DS games that make the most out of the 3D feature, it's not a must, but it certainly makes for a more impressive game, and there are a couple of hidden rooms that abuse the perspective so that the 3D mode will allow you to see it 'correctly'.

 3D Land is like a gigantic love letter to the Mario series as a whole. If you've been following the plumber's adventures throughout the years, you will recognize a ton of stuff. Besides the Tanooki/Raccoon tale power-up, with the return of some enemies that haven't been seen for years, like Super Mario Bros 3's sub boss, nods to older games, like the castles where you must hit a button to destroy the bridge Bowser's standing on or having to jump on a flag pole(This time on a 3D plane!!), or even Yoshi's Cookies making an appearance as platforms! Needless to say, you will recognize a lot of stuff, which is not to say that there isn't new stuff. There's new enemies, new bosses and a new power up, not to mention the entirety of each level being completely new.

 The game plays similarly to other 3D Mario games. This time around, Normal Mario has no melee attacks, so jumping and butt stomps are his only means of offense, but finding power ups, like the Tanooki Suit, Boomerang Flower or Fire Flower will grant Mario more offensive abilities, and in the case of the Tanooki Suit, hovering. The object of each level is to reach the Flagpole at the end, but each level also houses 3 hidden coins. 'Hidden' is a bit of an oversell, most of these are lying in plain sight, I managed to find every coin by myself. And that's just fine, as the game will, sometimes, force you to reach a Coin Quota in order to continue. I'm a bit of a completitionist, so coins were never an issue for me. Beating the game unlocks 8 'special' worlds... which are made up of 'remixed' stages from the 8 normal worlds. Honestly, they were different enough as not to get too repetitive, however...

 Collecting the three coins on each level or having 8 worlds made up of remixed stages could be seen as 'filler', but I felt it was alright. What's not alright is having to play the entire game again as Luigi in order to unlock the final level. Some levels appear up to three times thanks to the Special worlds, and then you have to play them, at least, 3 more times with Luigi? That's just padding. Which is rather disappointing considering that the bonus level is the most challenging level in the game, and one of the most fun. Challenging is a bit relative, I died very rarely in the game, not counting the last level, but it's not until you play with Luigi that you realize just how easy the game is. The Tanooki tail, the most common power up in the game, makes the game a breeze, allowing you to skip past some obstacles. Speaking of Power Ups, Nintendo should've implemented some kind of in-game store, as having to replay Stage 1 to get more Tanooki suits over and over and over and over again wasn't much fun. Being punished for being sloppy is fine, but there should've been an alternative way to get power ups, particularly when some of the coins require specific power ups, not always found on the stage in which the coin is hidden.

 The game lasts about 6 hours, if you collect every coin on the 8 initial worlds, doing the same for the other 8 bumped it up to 10, and then redoing the game as Luigi knocked it up to 12, and then I spent about another hour to beat the last level. Six hours was fine for a platformer game, and I really liked the 8 'special' worlds, even if they were just rehashed. The last level was a blast, and don't trust boards, spent over a hundred lives on this stage? Please, it's challenging, but it's no 'The Perfect Run'(That level was amazing!), I must've spent 15 lives at most.

 This is a Nintendo game, so it's no surprise that the presentation is nothing short of outstanding. Graphics are clear, colorful and extremely appealing. The lava looks particularly good, and being a Mario game, it'd better! The use of the 3D capabilities of the 3DS was worthy of praise, and while sometimes it does feel as if they throw too much stuff towards the screen, because 3D, it didn't get annoying. The musical is standard Nintendo fare, ton of classic tunes and a couple of new ones(Or maybe just songs that I hadn't heard before!), all in all, it's a great soundtrack.

 Super Mario 3D Land is a fantastic entry in the Mario franchise. It's fun to play, it's rather lengthy, with fun levels filled with both new and nostalgic elements that Mario fans will be delighted to find. I wouldn't call it a must-have, or a Mario essential, but it is a great game.
 8.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Luna Silver Star Harmony

 Not too shabby.

 I confess, I love the Lunar franchise. I also confess, I never finished Lunar Silver Star. Lunar 2 is one of my favorite PS1 RPGs, but for some reason Lunar 1 never had the same pull Lunar 2 had. I got as far as the people in Meribia getting turned to stone, which means I never got to see Alex become a Dragon Master.

 Anyways, so far I like it. I like the new voice acting, the sprites are amazing, the animation is gorgeous. That said, they lack the charm the PS1 sprites had, but no biggie. The combat received a noticeable overhaul, the arenas are smaller, and the 'multiple attacks' don't seem to work very well, which kinda sucks. A new addition are 'limit break'-like attacks, which I think could be a neat addition, I haven't really used them a whole lot, but I hope Alex gets a new one once he becomes a Dragon Master, as right now his Limit Break looks like Hiro's Sylvan Sword-thing! There's also a new prologue that adds nothing to the game, but spoils future plot twists, it wasn't needed, and the dialogue in these scenes was pretty cheesy, I might've cringed a bit.

 Regardless, it seems to be a pretty faithful port as far as the story and overall 'feel' of the game, the dialogue lacks some of Working Design's charm, but it seems to be in lieu of what they used to write. Speaking of charm, the opening song is sung by the same gal that did the PS1's song, but it has new lyrics! I... I prefer the old one, but it might be nostalgia speaking, as every word is pretty much engraved on my mind

Defeat: Patapon

 I tried.

 Patapon broke me. I tried, I swear to god I tried, but stage four kicked my butt, so I went back to grind... and my prey kept escaping because I kept dropping the beat. And even then, I was started to get annoyed at having to bob my head or sing along to keep the beat, looking at the edges of the screen somewhat helped, but I'd mess up the drum inputs or I'd just drop the beat. Because I suck and I've no rhythm.

 So... yeah, Patapon broke. No review, I only played about 20 minutes, so I shouldn't. Still, this game broke me, it broke everything about me. I don't think I'll ever want to play a rhythm game again. I'm just too bad.

 So... yeah, Patapon, congratulations, you broke me. You broke Me.... Well, guess I'm gonna go cry myself dry on the corner. Because I suck.

Now Playing: Patapon

 It's gonna break me, I can feel it.

 I can't keep a rhythm, I admit, I am no musically inclined in the least. And it shows. This game is gonna break me, eventually, I can feel it. I love the sounds, the Pons, the music... But the gameplay? I can't keep up with it.... unless I sing along and, in the process, make myself look like a dumbass. I'm gonna give it another chance... not like I have a choice, I will finish it, that much I can promise, eventually, even if I dislike it.

 Still, it's not a bad game, I think, just not one I can enjoy.

Review #196: LocoRoco

  ADORABLE.

 What is a LocoRoco? Even after playing the game, I still can't say. It's a blob-like, head-like being that likes to sing, and it comes in different colors. It also likes to eat bugs, burgers and some sort of fruit that makes it grow larger, allowing it to divide itself in smaller LocoRocos. That is a LocoRoco. I think.

 LocoRoco is a platformer, of sorts. You don't take control of LocoRoco itself, but rather, you tilt the screen left or right by using the shoulder buttons. Pressing both buttons at the same time will make LocoRoco jump, and by pressing Circle you can make it divide itself in many LocoRocos, assuming you have enough to spare. Y'see, throughout each level you'll find orange fruit, eating one of these will increase LocoRoco's size(1-20), which is also the amount of LocoRocos it can split itself into. The game is very similar to Kirby, in a sense, since finishing each level is incredibly easy, but to achieve 100% on any given stage is a whole 'nother story.

 Levels hold many secrets, from hidden routes, through certain walls that you can go through, hidden breakable walls, and three MuiMui on each stage that bestow you with more parts to build LocoRoco's house. The hidden routes are, usually, much harder than the normal routes, with tougher platforming sections, more obstacles or areas that you can't backtrack to, forcing you to restart the level if you want to attempt it again. There are also secrets behind sleeping sentient beings, that require a certain amount of LocoRoco's to wake up. There are very few enemies, but they take but one jump against them to defeat. Hitting pointy enemies will take a couple of LocoRoco's away from you, but if you manage to catch them soon, you can recover them. Taking a hit when you are only one LocoRoco in size will result in game over. Truthfully, I only saw the Game Over screen once on the latter levels, but I was being careless.

 The game lasts about 7 hours if you aren't aiming for 100%, which is more than enough for this kind of game. There's a bunch of extras, like other five different LocoRocos, while they play the same, they sing different songs and emit different sounds, which is kinda cute. Then there's the customizable LocoRoco house which has some extra collectible parts! And three minigames that are fairly lame, but it's not like you have to play them.

 LocoRoco is beautiful, very colorful and everything is so happy! Everything is made up of very simple shapes, but it's just so cute, even the enemies are adorable. The soundtrack is... adorable as well, it sounds like little chipmunk voices singing on the background, and each LocoRoco has its own song, and they are all so cute. IT'S AN ADORABLE GAME, that's the best way to describe it!

 I liked LocoRoco. It ain't my kind of game, but I appreciate Sony being willing to invest in weird games like these, Journey, Patapon and the such. And I believe it's an excellent IP for the PSP, if only they'd bring it back for the VITA...
 7.0 out of 10

Review #195: Naruto Shippuden - Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution

 Filler done right.

 Another year, another Naruto game... well, technically, this is the second Naruto game I'm tackling in 2015 and the third one I played in less than 364 days time. But I digress, this is, potentially, the last Naruto game on the PS3/X360 generation, and while it is a filler game, it ain't completely terrible.

 There's three main modes: Ninja World Tournament, Ninja Escapades and Free Battle, there's also on-line if you are into that, but I tend to cover mostly offline features, so yeah. Ninja Escapades is made up of three different stories: Akatsuki's Formation, Shisui/Itachi's past and Team Minato interacting with Kushina, all three of them are told via anime cutscenes, they aren't the best animated scenes you'll ever see, but it's original animation and they are more than passable. As for the stories themselves, they are fairly bland and unconvincing, however, I kinda liked the Team Minato/Kushina one, and it was the only one that didn't have a single battle peppered through its duration. Free Battle on the other hand houses: Vs, Survival, Tournament, League and Practice, pretty much the same mainstays from the other games in the series.

  Ninja World Tournament actually is two modes in one, the aforementioned World Tournament and a separate Storyline involving this new character, Mecha Naruto. It lasts about 2 hours, and it's terrible, I found myself laughing at some of the most dramatic scenes, since they were so poorly written. Ninja World Tournament takes place in 'Festival Island', and they made some tweaks to the overworld exploration. For instance, Festival Island is now made up of four big areas, and the character you choose now runs much faster than Naruto did in Ninja Storm 3. It makes finding Missions much, much easier, and exploring the Island is much more fun since it's faster and it has more variety in its geometry, plus, there's 'Mission Stores' in order to find even more side missions. Speaking of stores, sure was annoying when you had to buy stuff one by one... now you can buy it in bulks! And I haven't even mentioned the main event, the Ninja World Tournament. It's divided in 6 classes D, C, B, A, S and S+, naturally, you need to begin from Rank D and clear them from the bottom up.

 The fights in the World Tournament are unlike anything else you've seen in the Storm series, these are 4-man battles, in which dealing damage translates to making orbs fall from the enemy. At the start of each battle, each character has 1000 orbs, and if you drop to 0, you lose. These battles usually are fought in group, and after a battle is done, the next character in your team has to fight another three enemies, while the orbs you got in the last round carry over to this one. At the end, the fighter with the most orbs wins. As you go up in ranks you'll also have to deal with 'obstacles' in the form of NPCs and orbs that allow you to use Ultimate Jutsus or Awakenings. It's definitely different, and this mode has proven to be pretty hit or miss but I liked it... mostly. Y'see, you can't play this mode with other players, nor can it be found under 'Free Battle', plus, at latter levels, the CPUs just gang up on you, it can get quite annoying, which is why characters like Kimimaro, who cover wide areas with their attacks, become very strong. Another issue I had was with the targeting, you can lock on by pressing on the right analog stick, and then switch targets by moving the analog stick around, but switching targets was pretty sloppy, and kinda cumbersome in the heat of battle when you have three guys aiming at you, two of them being outside your vision area!

 There's been a lot of changes, so I'll start with the smaller ones first. Now you can customize your character, which sounds awesome, but it sucks. Customizing means equipping up to three items on your character, most items being Anbu masks. Ever wanted to have Naruto wearing a mask, with two other masks on his shoulders? Now you can. It's really lame. Most accessories aren't even cool. Know what would've helped? Allowing you to change the colors of the characters, say, giving the Raikage Gaara's colors, or maybe even a Black Bijuu Naruto, that would've been awesome and would've made up for the very limited amount of items. For some reason, costumes were removed from Ninja Storm 3, to be honest, most costumes sucked, Napoleon Sasuke? Cowboy Naruto? But why would you remove stuff? Probably so that they could justify selling the swimsuits again, yes, they sunk that low. Speaking of DLC, why would they charge for the Pre-reanimation/Reanimated costumes? The only characters that had any noticeable change, besides their eyes, where the Tsuchikage and the Raikage, these costumes should've been on the game from the get-go. At least the Jinchuriki robes are pretty cool, those are good DLC... except that you need to update the game to use them, so you better not uninstall the game unless you want to download the patches again in order to use the DLC that you bought! Awesome.

 As for positive changes, there's a new 'Counterattack' mechanic which is pretty neat, and if you manage to predict an attack and counter it, you will leave them open for attack... and they can't substitute out of it. Some special team combinations(Like Gaara/Tenmari/Kankuro or Hashirama/Madara) now produce some very epic team ultimate jutsus, even if it's just for eye candy, it's gorgeous eye candy. But the biggest change of them all.... They divided features. Ultimate Jutsu, Support Drive and Awakening, you can only pick ONE of them to take into battle. Each style has its own nuances, Ultimate Jutsu types can cancel out of their attacks to use a Jutsu, Awakening types can Instant Awakening(Now everyone has a generic Awakening, and some characters that used to have special Instant Awakenings(Nine Tails Chakra Mode) are now reduced to a generic IA) and the Support Types can change between offensive and defensive at will. I am most definitely not a fan of this change, I hate how some characters that had unique IAs before now have generic Awakening, and I dislike having to sacrifice a feature in order to use another. Oh, and the dumb ring-outs and anime stills when offing an enemy with an Ultimate Jutsu are back, sadly.

 I can't say that this is the best Ultimate Ninja Storm game, but it is the one with the most characters available to date, which is a huge selling factor to most fans. It's most probably the last Naruto game on last gen consoles, so if you like Naruto and aren't planning to upgrade any time soon, it might be worth it. While I don't like some of the new tweaks, most were pretty damn good, and while it is another filler game, it has much more content than Generations.
 7.0 out of 10