Now Playing: Digimon Battle Spirit

 More Digimon!

Poor Guilmon doesn't stand a chance against Mega-level Wargreymon.

 Yeah... there's more Digimon coming up on this blog! Battle Spirit is a game that I played quite a bit on emulators back when I was younger. I don't remember liking it too much, but it was certainly memorable.

 I've already cleared the game with two 'mons, and the game is... alrightish. The character roster is great, the graphics are beautiful and the core game is decent... it's only that whoever gets the Digivolution basically wins the game. It's not even funny. There's also a single single player mode which is just ridiculous.

 Basically, it's got charm, it's got style but it's got no substance.

Review #522: Prince of Persia - The Forgotten Sands(Nintendo DS)

 After these games, Ubisoft did seem to forget about the Prince...

The Prince won't even smile on the DS' cover, despite the kiddy art direction.

 Not content with trying to revive the Prince on home consoles at the time, Ubisoft gave it another go on the DS. For those not in the know, the Prince had had two appearances on the DS before, the misguided Battles of Prince of Persia and The Fallen King. The Forgotten Sands on the DS takes after the latter, a game that was welcomed with very low scores and much scorn, both due to its silly aesthetics and stylus-only controls.

 You play as our beloved Prince, having fallen victim to a cult's ceremony which robbed him of his memories. Luckily, he comes across his blade, which is possessed by a friendly djinn who'll aid the Prince throughout all 40-or so stages. The story is barely present, although it has a few nice pieces of artwork. Sadly, the game's graphics are very... childish, you play as a cute, tiny version of the Prince as he defeats other cutesy enemies while avoiding razor-sharp blades.

Even when swarmed.. the game is relatively easy.

 The game is played entirely with the Stylus, for good and bad. The game feels very automatic as a result, since you just tap and hold to the right or left of the Prince and he'll automatically run there, automatically jumping over any gap on his way, or run on walls when needed. You'll also need to roll, by double tapping on the screen, which barely works when needed, as well as jump from wall to wall, which sometimes the Prince has trouble realizing that you want him to jump from the wall he is clinging to. Controls work about 85% of the time, which frankly is something to be proud about. The developers deserve some praise for managing to cram so many of the Prince's actions onto the stylus, you'll be doing a lot of stylish platforming, like jumping from moving pole to moving pole and then land on a platform and then quickly wall jumping before the ground falls beneath your feet. A lot of the excitement from the console game's parkour segments has been replicated here, which is nothing short of fantastic.

 The game fares a bit worse on the combat department, the game will read your slashes as taps most of the time, which will make you vault over the enemy instead of slashing him. Not that it really matters since combat is so easy, like most of the game. You also get a few Time powers, like slowing down time or rewinding time, but the latter is a bit wonky, to say the least. The game's rewind length is hard to pinpoint, so sometimes it won't be able to go as far back as you need to save yourself. Another time, after rewinding time, it propelled me beyond the stage's bounds, which made me die upon falling back to the ground. It feels very janky, like it needed more polishing. There's also an ungodly amount of waiting, since the game will engage in short, but numerous and unskippable, cutscenes almost every single time that a door closes or you step on a switch, just to show you what has happened... even if the door that closed or opened is directly in front of you. It sounds like a small nit pick, but the frequency of these do add up, making you wait quite a bit of time on the whole.

Razia is like Navi, but not as annoying.

 The game is made up of forty or so levels... but they are very short. You can unlock a secret stage on every chapter, for a total of four bonus stages, by going into the Start menu and... moving the camera towards a.... light source...? You don't even get a sound acknowledging that a new stage has been unlocked, you simply pan the camera to the left, on the stage select, and see if a new red dot has appeared. There's no bonus reward for clearing this, but you can collect more money to spend on upgrades or costumes. Not that you really need it, since money is relatively plentiful.

 The Forgotten Sands on the DS... is not as bad as it could've been. A bit too simple and automatic for my tastes, and the unnecessary, but mandatory, stylus-only control scheme is too imprecise for my tastes, even if it's better than a lot of other games that tried the same gimmick. While the kiddy artstyle is not a good fit for the series... it's not too bad of a game, and there's some fun to be had with it.
 5.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Digimon Rumble Arena 2 & Prince of Persia - Forgotten Sands(DS)

 One prince, two games. Nothing to do with each other though.

Ain't no Digimon without Greymon and Garurumon.

 I know for a fact that I used to play this one when I was younger... yet I've no memory of ever unlocking anyone besides Neemon! Regardless, I've been playing it a bunch and it's decent enough.  It does fall into the same pitfall that many other Smash clones do of having weird physics, which means that moving around, landing hits and jumping feels... weightless. At leas the game is fun to play, even if the roster is a bit lackluster. You get the 8 classic mons, Veemon, Digimon Frontier's Agunimon, fan-favorite Guilmon, black versions of the usual suspects(Agumon, Gabumon and Guilmon) and two digivolutions for each! As well as a few other mons that don't digivolve, like Omnimon and Duskmon. It's a decent roster.

 All in all, it's more fun than it deserves to be.

All versions of Forgotten Sands have the same cover. Am I to devise a sentence for each?!

 If there's one thing I hate it's tacked on stylus or motion controls, so it'd be safe to say that I'd hate this kiddy version of the Prince and it's dumb controls. But I don't. I mean, they are imprecise, yes, and I'm having some trouble with the game registering my attacks or my wall jumps... but it's rather impressive how well they managed to cram the Prince's acrobatics into the game.

 It's surprisingly not bad, you may even call me... impressed.

Review #521: Marvel Nemesis - Rise of the Imperfects(DS)

 Ya don't get any more imperfect than this.

EA's original characters have no place in the cover.

 Garbage. This game is garbage. This is a 1 on 1 arena-based fighting game that manages to get everything wrong. There's not a single good thing to find in here.

 The story is about this one guy collecting super heroes to create evil clones and evil counterparts. There're three modes: VS Player(Please don't subject anyone to this trash), VS CPU and Arcade Mode. Arcade Mode has a few character cut-outs between fights that try to tell a story and fail miserably. VS CPU instead forces you to play against the ugliest green recolors of every character, which sucks since you can unlock alternate classic costumes for the heroes. The cast of characters is alright, you get a few Marvel classics and a few original characters that... are pretty darn ugly. And they get ugly green recolors too!

The green recolors are uglier than Pokemon's green shinies.

 The game fails on every single level, but let's start with the controls. Moving your character around is very unwieldy, which is why you can press L to toggle auto lock-on... which is not a solution at all since the tracking sucks and this won't guarantee you landing your attacks. Speaking of attacks, even the basic B button combo moves your character all over the place, so good luck landing hits, melee or projectile. And you've a measly four attacks: B, B+R, A and A+R. That's it. And landing attacks is nigh impossible, although it's very easy to stun-lock your opponent with simple B button combos. And if you want to fly around or crawl on walls... you have to use the touchscreen. What the hell? Regardless, poorly implemented controls and poor gameplay.

 But what's even better? Quality Control is nowhere to be found. Graphical glitches abound, collision detection is terrible, you will land, and receive, attacks that shouldn't have hit all the time. One time I went directly through the floor to a black abyss simple because I got hit. Nobody playtested this thing, and this shouldn't have come out in this state. Heck, even if it didn't have any glitches, it shouldn't had come out period, because it's got a terrible foundation.

Not even Wolvie can make this piece of trash entertaining.

 There's absolutely no fun to be had playing this game, it doesn't even fall under the so bad it's good label. Just avoid it.
 1.0 out of 10

Review #520: Prince of Persia - The Two Thrones

 Two Princes, one dagger.

 Just learn to smile already!

 Ubisoft are not the kind of company that would let their cashcows lie still, so a new Prince of Persia was developed, with the aim of mixing what made Sands of Time and Warrior Within so good. They succeeded, for the most part.

 So, the Prince managed to save Kaileena from her fate and prevent the sands of time for being created. Too bad the Vizier has invaded the Prince's town, and... as luck good have it, slays Kaileena early on in the game, thus unleashing the Sands of Time yet again. Even worse, sand demons pop up everywhere, threatening the Prince's subjects, and the Prince himself gets a chain grafted on his arm, which allows the Sands to corrupt him and give birth to the Dark Prince, a being made up of his darkest desires that tries to take control of the Prince's body. The story is alrightish, but nothing to write home about. It's a farcry from the Sands of Time, although at least it's not as juvenile as Warrior Within.

The dark prince is the game's biggest missed opportunity.

 The game plays pretty much exactly like Warrior Withing but slightly better. Combat is exactly the same but enemies aren't as repetitive as before, still, combat is easily the game's weakest element. Platforming has been expanded upon, now the prince can stab his blade on a few panels to hang on air, he can crawl upwards or downwards when between two very close walls and there're a few new trampoline panels that make no sense in a realistic setting but they are allowed because it's a videogame. All the new abilities don't add too much to the game, but parkour is as fun as it's always been, and having new obstacles is very welcome. There's also a new stealth mechanic that involves using QTEs to instantly kill an enemy. Bosses too require QTEs, but they are not as bad as they could've been. They tried to disguise them, since you only need to press Square when the Prince's blade flashes during the cinematic, but they ain't fooling anyone: Those are QTEs.

 The game's main gimmick is the new Dark Prince, and it could've been so much more. He can't grab a secondary weapon but he is stuck with his chain and can be used with either triangle or circle, for a total of three different attack buttons. Enemies can't even block his attacks! Platforming is quite different too, since you use the Dark Prince's chains to propel yourself on walls or use as a chain hook. How amazing could've it have been if you had to switch between both Princes to accomplish tasks? But nope, you only change between forms when the game demands it. It's quite a missed opportunity.

Stealth allows you to bypass many of the game's boring combat scenarios.

 The Two Thrones introduces Chariot races, there're two of them as well as a 'special' one in which you ride a golem. These are boring and add nothing to the game, but at least they are short enough. They really failed to understand that the game is at its best when you are jumping around, performing incredible acrobatics, rather than these sad attempts at action. Still, at least they are short enough, so you don't have to endure their clunky controls for too long.

 There's not much else to say about The Two Thrones, if you've played any of the other PoP games you'll be right at home, and if you hated them... this one won't change your mind. The little polishing it got does make it a better game than Warrior Withing, but sadly it's missing the spark that The Sands of Time had.
 8.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Marvel Nemesis - Rise of the Imperfects(DS)

 You can't get much more imperfect than this game, that's for sure.

The cover is an omen of what's hidden behind it. Do not play this game.

 This game is absolute garbage. I played it for a few minutes while on the toilet, and it was enough to figure out how horrible the game is. Limited controls, wonky movement, wonky physics(I went through the floor once!) and horrible mechanics make for garbage.

 I can't stress enough how bad this game is. How the hell was EA OK with putting their brand on it??

Archile's Grab-bag: First o'2018 Edition

 NEW YEAR MEANS NEW PACKAGES WHICH MEANS MO' GAMES.

  Well, I guess I should get my trusty package-opening-knife to get the job done...

 Digimon World 4: Originally I wasn't planning on playing this one since it looked terrible. But then I learned it had a two player mode. And then I learned that it has the X-antivirus versions of certain 'mons so... here I am. Gonna be playing it soon, before I finish Grandia Xtreme even!

 Prince of Persia - The Forgotten Sands(Wii): It's been a while since I played any Wii games, hopefully this one delivers... I'm somewhat looking forwards to playing it since I've heard some great things about it... but I also heard a few horrible ones. Seems a love it or hate it kinda thing.

 The King of Fighters 02/03: I've always been a fan of KoF, so I'm gonna try to play a few KoF games this year.

 Marvel Nemesis - Rise of the Imperfects: I've played it a bit, it's horrible.

 Prince of Persia - The Forgotten Sands(DS): This game is everything I hate about DS games: Stylus based and aimed at kids. I kinda want to play all PoP games this year, so I kinda had to get it. I will skip Prince of Persia Battles, however...

 Samurai Shodown - Warriors Rage: A game I've been most curious about, the character designs for this gave always caught my eye, so it's great to finally be able to play it.