The DLC Report - Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 - The Black Order DLC #2 Rise of the Phoenix

 Can DLC actually make a game worse?

 Man, I wish I hadn't purchased the season pass, because it has been utter garbage. I mean, the new characters are fine, I really liked Cable and Gambit, while Ice-man and Phoenix may not be my cups of tea, they are pretty decent... but you have to go through the boring Gauntlets to unlock them, again. Gauntlets are the same Rift-like challenges you have been playing already, on the same stages, battling the same bosses. The new gauntlets feature the new characters as bosses, but that's pretty much nothing. All the updates have been about replaying the same content you've already replayed countless times but under new conditions. LAME. There are new costumes for the previous four DLC characters too.

 And remember, the game already has long loading times as is, so going from arena to arena with no adventure and no story content is incredibly dull and boring, specially because you are treading ground you've already played countless times, between the different difficulty settings, Rifts and Gauntlets. I'm not gonna lie, I'm getting bored and tired of the game. The DLC is making me see this game as a chore. Pro-tip: Don't make me go through tons of loading screens and boring arenas in order to unlock the new characters, that's lame. Want to gate costumes behind slogfests? Fine. But not the characters I paid for.

 The new mode is called Danger Room and it's a 'competitive' take on Gauntlets. Except that you can't even interact with the other team, be it online players or the CPU. It's pretty dumb and the rewards suck.

 Marvel Ultimate 3 was a blast back when it released, and the new characters are pretty fun, but everything else about the new content is dreadful. And it sucks that I have to play through these boring challenges in order to unlock things I paid for. Honestly, I would've preferred a single, story-based expansion as opposed to all these garbage modes.
 2.5 out of 10

Review #730: Legend of Mana

 A Mana game unlike any other.

 Legend of Mana is probably one of the most divisive games in the series, and for good reason! While it's still an action-JRPG with a very tragic flair, as well as the elements we've come to expect(Weekdays based on the spirits, Rabbites, the Tree of Mana, etc) it's very different in how it plays.

 While most Mana games end with the Tree of Mana meeting its end, spoilers I guess?, this one actually begins with the Tree of Mana dying. Not to worry, because the task of rebuilding this world rests in your hands. While people in the game don't seem to notice that they were dead until you brought them back into the world, that's pretty much your whole objective: Complete Quests, gain artifacts and use said artifacts to rebuild towns and dungeons, opening up more quests in the process. The plot has a very laid back progression, and the entire game is based on different 'events' you can trigger. More often than not, you won't be able to see every single event in a single playthrough, since what events you gain access to depend on how you build the world and when you trigger each event. That said, it is possible to see every single event, but you'll need a guide at hand. There are 67 different events, and there are 3 story branches made up of about 7-8 events each that follow a different plot: Larc and his hunt for the Dragons, The Jumi(Jewel people) hunter and the one about the Demon Irwin trying to destroy the world. You need to finish at least one of these story branches in order to get the Sword of Mana artifact and open up the way to the final event. As a whole, the narrative feels very disjointed, and some parts of the dialogue can be hard to make heads or tails out of them, but a few events were fairly interesting, and there are always depressing, tragic themes permeating most events. A few events are pretty dumb though, and a few have some depressing elements hidden beneath its silly exterior.

 As per usual, combat takes place in real time, and you fight in a three-man party, consisting of you, the player, a pet or golem and a party member. A second player can join in. There are a ton of different weapons you can equip and use, each one having different properties and abilities. Landing attacks fills a gauge beneath your health bar that lets you use powerful super moves or spells. You can no longer use items in battle, which can make combat a bit tough until you get the hang of it, but if any character dies you can just wait until they revive. Or if you die, hope to god that your other party members manage to survive until enough time passes and you revive. What's a bit weird is how spoils work, after beating any enemy they may drop a useless healing item, useless because you get fully healed after each and every battle, money, an item or... experience points. That's right, enemies may not even drop experience points at all, and you have to grab these XP crystals before they disappear. Party members level up as you complete events, so you don't need to worry about them, but your golem/pet are too dumb to go after XP crystals, so you NEED to get yourself a Forbidden Ring in order to share the XP and level them up. It's pretty weird.

 The combat itself is a bit better, X are your basic, weak attacks while Square is a stronger and slower move. You can assign various different abilities to the X and Circle button, such as crouching(Healing), jumping, spinning(Knock enemies off balance), defend, etc, which is pretty neat. How party members work is also weird, 'cause, y'see, they leave your party every time you return to your home. You can re-recruit them if you remember where they are. Take Larc, he's always at the Underworld's entrance so you can recruit him pretty easily, but Sierra? You have to go through an entire dungeon in order to find her, and you can keep her up until you decide to go back into your house and save the game!

 The game has a ton of other mechanics that are poorly explained, if explained at all. How to upgrade your Golem after you build it, how to feed your pet, how to get the fruit you want from the tree, how to get the pet you really want, how to properly Temper your equipment in order to make it strong beyond belief, how magic works, how the world layout affects the world itself, etc. There are a lot of different things you could spend a lot of time learning how to do and then doing them. Heck, did you know that your stat growth upon leveling up depends exclusively on which weapon you were using when you levelled up? Honestly, so much is left unexplained, even considering that the game offers a few 'encyclopedias' you can read for more information.

 Unlike its SNES prequels, I don't think that Legend of Mana is a classic, but I still think it's a rather good game. It's a much 'lower scales' kind of affair, and the episodic nature will throw a lot of people off, but, despite that, Legend of Mana keeps true to the core elements of the series. It's a Mana game through and through, a weird one, but a Mana game nonetheless.
 7.0 out of 10

Review #729: The Ripping Friends

 Just waiting to rip you off.

 The Ripping Friends was a show created by the mind behind Ren and Stimpy, but we are adults, so we should be able to separate the art from the artist. Regardless, the game is still bland. I came in to the game hoping for a decent beat'em up, leaving my disgust for the guy aside, but the game disappoints in more ways than one.

 The game is six stages short, and each stage has its own 3-4 paragraph long introduction telling you why you find your character in such a place. Fanservice? Plot? Who needs those things! You can play as any of the four different heroes from the show, each one having slightly different abilities and stats, which means that you might want to try each one out until you figure out which one you like the most. For instance, I liked how the guy in red looked, but I found the guy with the cape much more fun to use. Can you tell that I never watched the show before? Regardless, none of the humor from the series is present here, unless you consider the bad guys' names humor. I didn't. Aside from the main campaign, there are also a few multiplayer modes.

 The Ripping Friends is an isometric beat'em up. Each character has access to a jump as well as a dodge by pressing R+A. B is your basic attack, R+B is an alternate attack, characters also have two different aerial attacks(B or R+B after jumping). By landing hits, or holding the B button for a while, you can charge an energy gauge, pressing A+B will activate RIPPING TIME, which consume said gauge and makes you faster and stronger, also grants you access to your R+L super move. At first, I thought that the only move worth doing was the jump kick, and relied on hit and run tactics, since enemies were granted a pretty generous invincibility period upon getting back up. But later I learned that there's actually a rather interesting combo system! Basically, if you use a different attack from the attack you just used JUST as it hits, it will chain together into a combo. Each character has very different attacks, and it was fun trying them out, for instance, you can jump attack into basic attack into alternate B and then jump and attack the enemy as it flies upwards! Or with the guy with the cape, his alternate attack is a grab that launches the enemy backwards, but if you are fast enough, you can jump and hit him before he falls! Landing combos can be a bit tough until you get the timing right, but I won't deny how fun it was.

 Sadly, level design is all over the place. Sometimes, things that appear to be objects, such as rocky spikes coming from the ground, are just part of the flat ground you are standing on. Which is usually for the better, because on the few levels that feature zones that have actual height, they can work a bit wonky. Like, you could've sworn you were standing on it, but you fell down anyways. The latter stages also feature a few life-draining abysses which were a pain to deal with due to the perspective and wonky 'gravity'. The space stage was horrible, often times you had to rely on moving rocks, but it's easy to miss them, as you look for where to go next, since part of their trajectory is beyond the scope of the game's screen. A few stages even had a few parts in which you had to make an almost blind jump, since the only way to progress was seeing a tiny part of something that looks like a platform beyond the void, and then being a daredevil and attempt the jump.

 The only thing that keeps The Ripping Friends from being a complete disaster is how fun combat can be. How fun trying out combos with all four characters is, and the fact that all four have different, even if limited, moves makes it all the more engaging. That aside, the game is short, puts the license to little use and everything else doesn't work very well.
 3.0 out of 10

The DLC Report: Power Rangers - Battle for the Grid Season 2 Dai Shi

 He'll always be Ryo to me.

 GekiRangers is my favorite Sentai series, so boy, oh boy, am I happy Ryo/Dai Shi made it in! Capping of the second season of DLC we get both Dai Shi and a White Ranger Skin for Tommy, and they are the perfect way to end the season.

 Dai Shi is a weird guy, because he's got all the makings of a slow but powerful guy, while having a ton of movement-related tools. He kinda feels like a Lion, slow startup, but quick and devastating savage-looking moves. He's also got Gouki's/Akuma's ax kick. As for his Special moves, neutral B initiates a dash that can be turned into three different moves: A running slash, an anti-air grab or a hovering energy sphere. His B+Back is a wall cling, that can be turned into different moves(Cross-over, dive-kick, slash) and his B+forward is a forward leap that, once again, can be turned into different moves. All these options makes him tricky to use, but also makes him tricky to fight. Overall, I quite liked him. He feels as powerful as he looks.

 The White Ranger is another skin for Green Ranger Tommy, but his attacks now have a golden-color to them as opposed to green, and his Super now calls forth the Tigerzord, although it works just as the Dragon Sword. He also gets new quotes. It's a nice skin, but the fanboy in me wishes he was a separate character.

 I was a bit disappointed with the first new character, but thankfully both Quantum Ranger and Dai Shi delivered fun new characters, and the White Ranger looks great thanks to the updated special effects. As a whole, I'd say this second season was very much worth it.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #728: Tak - The Great Juju Challenge(Gameboy Advance)

 Waybackward. Way, waaaaaay backward.

 Man, I can't tell you just how disappointed I am with Tak: The Great Juju Challenge. I've always considered Wayforward the Treasure of American developers, creating fantastic but short games, being able to come up with great gameplay even when working under licenses. But this game is so poorly designed it ain't even funny, to the point that I wonder if it was even tested.

 This is a 2-D platform game in which you play as the Tak and Lok duo, surprisingly, mostly as Lok since he has more tools. In the game, both characters team up to win some sort of contest between villages. It translates in to 5 worlds, five stages each, made up of 3 platform stages, 1 boss and 1... racing mini-game. There's also a whole slew of minigames you can unlock, such as surviving a certain amount of time. It's about 3 hours long, on par with what you'd expect from the system.

 While Tak has been the protagonist of these games, seems like the Fonzi trope is in full effect, because Lok is the guy you'll be playing as the most. When playing as Tak, he can shoot fireballs or, when separated from Lok, don a bird-suit that let's him fly. Meanwhile, when you play as Lok he can attack with his club, dash(By using Tak's magic to propel him forward), use Tak's magic to create a shield above them, ground pound and, when separated from Tak, don a crustacean outfit that lets him walk underwater. What, you expected swimming mechanics? Nothing so decent-budget here! If you touch water you die, but if you're wearing said outfit you can walk and jump while underwater. You can swap your characters by pressing the R button, but you have to be holding perfectly still or it won't work which is kinda annoying.

 The controls in this game are really something else. I was accidentally triggering Lok's dashes every now and then because the game would register double taps. And, a rare few times, when I had to use the aerial dash, it wouldn't trigger! Regardless, I had my fair share of ruined jumps due to this, well, that's the least of the platforming problems, 'cause y'see, WayForward made the rookiest of rookie mistakes with this game: The camera follows you. How's that an issue, you ask? Well, because you'll be losing track of the platforms you want to reach every time you jump. This single issue completely ruined the game and any kind of fun one could've had. Having to be careful with every single jump because of losing track of where I was trying to land got tiring pretty soon.

 The problems don't even end there, a TON of times I was at the mercy of leaps of faith. Sometimes you'll just reach the end of the platform, and even if you try looking down it won't go far enough to show you if there actually is something below you. There were a few standout levels that were even worse than the others, the one with the rising water level is probably the worst level in the game, because just like it's impossible to see if there's ground beneath you, sometimes there's no way to tell if the water has risen or not, so just drop down and hope for the best. You don't even get noise cues to aid you, there's nothing. It's absolutely idiotic. Later in the game comes a snow level that has a falling ceiling, but there's no way to tell where there's a falling ceiling and where there isn't. Or I thought so at first, until I noticed the ground was different. Not that it mattered, because then you'll get mixed cues, for instance, a blue ceiling that looks as if it was part of the scenery, but the ground below signalling a falling ceiling. So you wait, and nothing happens. And you wait. And nothing happens. So you push forward, and a grey falling ceiling falls OVER the blue ceiling that was part of the environment. What. The. Hell? It's not a hard game, it's a frustrating one, due to all these oversights and rookie mistakes. It's not fun to play.

 Then there are other tiny issues, like unskippable cutscenes, which are annoying because they are boring and you have to sit through them if you run out of lives. Later in the game you come across shielded enemies that have to be shot at with Tak in order to break their shields, and then hit with Lok in order to defeat them. Except that if you swap characters too fast their shields won't break. Thanks for nothing! Oh, and the racing stages? Horrible. Sometimes it feels like chance whether you win or lose, and, for whatever reason, whoever is in first place will get the Clock rather frequently, which freezes every other races. This means that whoever is in first place and gets a clock will most likely keep that first place until the end of the race, because the huge advantage the clock provides.

 Tak - The Great Juju Challenge is easily one of the worst, if not the worst, games I've played on the Gameboy Advance. The gameplay is disappointingly boring, but they coupled it with some baffling design choices, choices that get in the way of platforming, the game's focus! And it's even more disappointing when you remember that WayForward made this game. WayForward put their logo on this game. Why?
 1.0 out of 10

Review #727: Fantastic 4 - Flame On

 Fantastic one.

 With a title like Fantastic 4: Flame On you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was a dumpster fire. I thought so too, so I avoided this game... until I heard that it was pretty good for a licensed game a few weeks ago. And... it actually is pretty darn good, don't let the fact that it's a movie tie-in fool you, the developers put a lot of care into this little cart.

 While character designs and looks are clearly based on the horrible movie released in the early 00s, the game tells a completely different story. Right after Johnny and company get their cosmic powers, a date with a nurse goes awry and the Skrulls want to capture Johnny. And that's the gist of it, Skrulls want to capture Johnny and Johnny won't have any of it. He tries telling the other Fantastic Four but they don't believe him, so Johnny goes globe trotting around the world in order to stop them. The game lasts almost 2 hours, which is on the short side, but you can replay the game and continue to amass upgrade points if you want.

 Flame On is a beat'em up, through and through. You move from left to right defeating every enemy that stands in your way, with a few scenes freezing the scrolling until every enemy is gone. There are civilians to rescue, but while they do affect your score, it seemed to me like score and upgrades had nothing to do with each other. I might be wrong though. Every now and then you'll get to partake in a few crummy minigames, such as Snowboarding and Motocross, as well as sidescrolling shooting stages. While the minigames aren't too terrible, they can't hold a candle to the main gameplay.

 There's a bunch of different things the Human Torch can do in this game. B is your normal 4-hit combo, with invincibility frames on the combo finisher. A+B performs a tackle that has some invincibility frames, it can be aimed anywhere, but can only be used once until you land. Down + B shoots a fireball. Lastly, R and L perform two different super moves, which consume a gauge that fills as you deal damage. Combat feels fast and snappy, and the game can get quite challenging by the end! I actually had to think about what I was doing and how. Plus, every level has a single checkpoint, and healing nurses can be hard to come by! That said, movement can feel a bit floaty at times, but it doesn't get in your way too much.

 Every now and then the game will reward you with upgrade points, which you can then use on your HP, Punches, Fireballs or Tackles. As for me, I started alternating between Punch and Health, until the game toughened up and I started trading Punches for Fireballs, in order to play like a wuss. Hey, it got me to the end of the game!

 Fantastic 4 - Flame On is pretty good, specially for a Fantastic 4 game. It's a bit too short, but the gameplay is pretty dope. I'm not quite sure if the game lends itself to a handheld system, considering levels can be a bit long, but it's not a bad time waster.
 7.5 out of 10

Review #726: No Rules Get Phat

 It broke all the rules on how to make a decent game.

 No Rules - Get Phat is a very interesting platform game because you can tell, just by looking at the artbox or just by listening to its name, that it's gonna be a bad, bad game. But I decided to get this game because of nostalgia, back in the ROMs heyday, this was a game I downloaded a couple of times. It sucked, but I still wasted more time on this piece of garbage than it deserved.

 You played as One-eyed Jack, a generic wannabe gangster kid who discovers aliens are trying to  take over the world, so he sets out to destroy them. You know, it kinda feels like fellow bad game, Bart vs the Aliens. The game is 5 stages long, with a boss per level. It can be beaten in under an hour, praise the gods. They tried to be funny with the 'cutscenes', the art has speech bubbles with generic tryhard ghetto lingo, but with a 'formal' translation on the bottom for us normies. I think it ends up being borderline offensive, but it's mostly cringy. Oh, and the in-game sprites? Horrible. One-eyed Jack is one of the ugliest characters ever deviced.

 Being the tryhard tryhard One-eyed Jack is, this dude is on top of a board at all times, appropriately, his movement speed is as fast as you'd expect, which means that if you are not careful you'll be crashing into walls. And you don't want that, because colliding with any type of wall, including the invisible walls that prevent you from moving beyond the scope of the game, will hurt you. A game in which your only type of movement is skating, a game in which your default moving speed is a tad too fast... has collision damage with walls. There's also fall damage. A platform game with fall damage. And sometimes, the height can be fatal. I got a ton of undeserved death due to falling from a height too high. The game is dumb. The cherry on top is that everything feels janky as hell, this game is not fun to play at all. There are weird collision detection issues every now and then between your board and a few platforms, like getting somewhat stuck on edges. It's pretty bad.

 In order to defend himself, Jack can shoot with his slingshot. And that's that. There are also three types of power ups you can use, one is a shield and the other two... I've no idea. They seemed to do nothing. One overimposed a electrified skeleton over Jack, but it didn't seem to make me stronger or faster or anything. I dunno. You can also find one-ups, health pick ups and vinyls. Vinyls work as extra lives during boss battles, and finding every vinyl in a stage will grant you a new move, such a double jump, which is incredibly useful on the last level.

 Boss fights consist of very weird rythm mini games. I never managed to get the timing right. Do you have to press the button as soon as it enters the grey zone? When the grey zone turned red? I don't know, it didn't feel very consistent, so in the end I just mashed the button until it left the screen, and there was no penalty for it! Don't forget to press B after each string of buttons, otherwise you'll deal no damage. There's no prompt, no hint, no nothing about the B button, I was just getting frustrated since I wasn't dealing any damage and started trying things. It sucks, because there's very little feedback to tell you how this minigame works.

 No Rules - Get Phat is terrible, and has no charm, in fact, the game is actually quite repugnant. It plays worse than it looks, and it already looks like hot garbage! Its poor attempts at humor fall flat on their board, and it's got absolutely no redeeming qualities. It doesn't even have good ideas worth improving or polishing! At least, the game is a decent talking piece, 'You won't believe how bad this game is'!
 1.5 out of 10

Review #725: Eragon(Gameboy Advance)

 As bad as the movie. Potentially worse.

 To think that this piece of garbage scored average reviews on release! Eragon on the Gameboy Advance is a turn-based RPG that gets everything wrong and does little right. Hideous graphics, bland story and poor gameplay make for one unforgettable game. For all the wrong reasons.

 The game follows the plot from the movie which follows the plot from the Book, and as it's wont to do, a little bit is lost every time they adapt the adaptation. But, long story short, Eragon is the main character and is NOT a dragon, he comes across an egg which hatches into the Dragon Saphira, and they form a weird mental bond. But the bad guy of bad guys learns about the birth of a new Dragon Rider and sets Eragon's village ablaze, so now Eragon is on a journey to fulfill his destiny and save himself from the bad guy's forces. The story is told very haphazardly and the dialogue is pretty bad, I think I got the gist of the story, but I'm not sure. There's little to no character development aided by dialogue that is flat as a board, there's no flavor or personality for each character! Plus, it lasts a scant 10 hours, and that's counting at least 2-3 hours worth of grinding.

 Turning on the game reveals that it looks horrible. I mean, I do have a strong dislike for digitized sprites, but these characters look terrible. Their dialogue portaits are even worse. As per any other RPG, it follows the tried and true formula of getting into a town, learning of where to go next, get there, probably through a dungeon, rinse and repeat. What is fairly novel is how poor the directions you get are! "The city is to the south". So you explore the south and find nothing. And hopefully you remember, because most of the time you won't be told where to go twice! The game does a brilliant job at keeping you on-track, because if you dare turn your character in the wrong direction, you'll probably trigger a random encounter you're too weak to survive. Oh, yes, it's bad. Progressing through the story is a huge hassle because I found myself saving frequently and often, since I never knew if I might just step into the wrong section of the overworld and trigger a random encounter that would cream me in seconds flat. Heck, the very second town you visit has a few sidequests. One of these sidequests is way tougher than you can handle right then, but there's no suggestion or hint that you're way in over your head! The game IS a grindfest, through and through. I grinded a bit, and this one time I felt I must've had done something wrong since mages could two-shot me, so I consulted a FAQ. I was doing nothing wrong, but the FAQ suggested grinding to level 100 before progressing with the story. I was level 52. The maximum level seems to be about 400, by the by, but regardless, expect to grind if you want to progress through the game. I'd suggest avoiding the game entirely, but that's just me.

 The combat, at first, is really fun. Which are some of my favorite JRPGs of all time? Legaia and Xenogears. I love JRPGs that cram in a few fighting game mechanics. Well, Eragon has you combining the A and B buttons to perform your attacks, with particular combinations unleashing super moves. Sounds great, right? At first, it is. But by the end of the game you'll be so tired of fighting battles, battles that drag on for too long since you have to input about four or more button presses per party member. Which is sad, because special moves have different properties. There are about 15 different(Not kidding!) status effects you could inflict on the enemy, or a few attacks that hit the entire enemy team! Heck, during enemy turns, you can time the B button to block melee attacks, or the A button to dodge arrows or magic. It's interesting, I guess, but battles drag on for too long, and the 'special attacks' don't look too different from basic A and B attacks, which makes combat lack any kind of oomph that could keep it exciting.

 Magic is all kinds of dumb, for starters, spell cost you HP, since there's no mana. When using magic, you have to navigate clunky menus in order to find the spell you want, but there's no description of what they do. Heil is a healing spell, so what is "Life Force"? Is it another healing spell? I don't know, the game won't tell me. Besides, using a spell will trigger a weird timing minigame, a blue gauge will unstably increase and decrease, and depending on when and where you hit the A button, the damage you deal(and the HP that'll cost you) will increase. Using spells with characters not built for magic will downright murder them. It's a bad system and poorly balanced too. For instance, I was building Brom and Eragon as melee/tank hybrids, with Angela as a Herbalist/Magic user. Angela can't be taken outside of towns, so she was underleveled. Later in the game you enter a mansion and get assaulted by wizards and other baddies. The wizards would one-shot Angela, my mage, and could two-shot both Eragon and Brom. And these spells would hit the entire party. Needless to say, I spent that entire section of the game running away from battles. This was the time I consulted a FAQ. Eventually, Angela leaves the party and you have to go through a six-battle gauntlet, a few which had these mages. I nearly gave up on the game since there was no way to kill the mages fast enough, even if I equipped Eragon with a bow. I almost quitted the game. I remembered I had a SLAYER item that was instakill on basic enemies, used it on Brom and performed a party-hitting attack and somehow got through the gauntlet, 8 tries later. It seems the developers knew how bad it got, because right after that section you get to exploit a bug that'll give Murtaugh as many free levels as you want. And you should, because the game is poorly balanced and, if you value your time, this is the best use of your time spent with the game.

 Building characters is very weird. You have to set a 'Focus' before a character levels up, between "Hunting", "Magic", "Herbalist", "Weapon" and "Endurance", which change how your stats develop between levels.  Herbalist is pretty much mandatory on your after-thought character(I had Angela and Katrina as Herbalists) because it's the only way to make potions, the most reliable way of healing. Because, by the by, you can't buy potions anywhere in the game. And you need Herbalist levels to be able to pick up herbs, and the level requirement can vary between 8 or 70 just because. Hunting also felt useless, but it's the only way to access a few equipment pieces. Regardless, I avoided Hunting entirely. Endurance is pretty neat, because once you hit level 25 you get free healing between rounds. Weapon is pretty much a necessity since it's the only way to get new combos. Regardless, there's no correct way to build your characters because the difficulty is all over the place. Just do whatever you feel is better and hope for the best.

 In what I hope to god was an attempt at parodying RPGs, characters have like 10 different stats, and every single weapon and piece of equipment you find will arbitrarily increase and decrease your stats. You might find a sword that reduces you 'STR' rating, yet, for whatever reason, increase your overall damage output. You may find a new armor that decreases all your stats but 'TUF', which seems to be a different stat than 'DEF' or 'HP'. There's no rhyme or reason behind the stat changes each weapon or armor provides. In the end I just gave up and only changed my weapon if it increased the "DMG" output or my armor if it increased my 'DEF' stat. It's so dumb.

 Eragon is a masterclass in how NOT to make a turn-based RPG. Horrible turn-based battles that take forever to finish, a poorly told bland story, boring, interchangeable characters, a horrible need to grind for hours, a broken difficulty curve and a near unintelegible stat spread. Eragon is as bad as turn-based RPGs can get. If there's anything good I can say about the game is that at least it's not glitchy, and the only bug in the game works in the player's advantage.
 2.0 out of 10

Review #724: Rescue heroes - Billy Blazes

 What in the blazes is this?!

 Leave it to WayForward Games to make something decent out of what should've been a dialed-in low-budget, kiddy game. Based on the TV series spawned from a popular Fisher-Price toyline, Rescue Heroes: Billy Blazes is a kiddy game, but with WayForward's usual charm.

 You play as, you guessed it, Billy Blazes, a fireman that must venture forth into the forest, the mountains and the city in order to rescue people and pets from dangerous fires. There's no real combat perse, but as Billy you'll have to keep an eye out on your water reserves in order to put down flames. Some flames stay in place, some move side-to-side, and there are also a few fiery obstacles that you simply can't put out. The objective in each level is to find every single victim, and get into the exit platform. The game is incredibly short, you can probably finish it in under an hour if you know what you're doing.

 Besides his trusty fire hose, Billy will also gain access to other tools: An ax, to break down boxes, a hook to slide down cables, a grappling hook, pretty self explanatory, and a ladder, to climb onto previously unreachable heights. At the start of each level you've only got your hose, so as you explore and search for people needing rescue, you'll also be coming across your tools. No puzzle is too hard, and there's nothing tougher than "Oh! Look, the grappling hook is behind those crates. I'd better find the Ax and come back here to get the grappling hook!". It's a very easy game, but I think kids can have fun with it.

 Putting out fires requires a teeny tiny bit of finesse, since you just can't hold down the B button unless you want to waste a lot of water, instead, most of the time you're better off mashing the B button, so that the water's arc doesn't shoot too far off.  While you can run out of water, it never happened to me, since there were usually fire hydrants around right about the times I was about to need them as I explored the levels. But, if things don't go your way, there's no shame in running back to replenish your water container, there's no time limit, and flames don't come back. "Enemies", consisting of rolling barrels or wheels on fire, do respawn, but they are easy to avoid and the game is generous with health pick ups.

 For me, the worst part about the game is how slow Billy runs! I guess it was made that way so that children wouldn't bump into obstacles if they weren't careful, but as someone who is very impatient, it drove me a bit nuts! Every level ends with a silly auto-scrolling vehicle section. They add nothing to the game, but I guess they offer a short change of pace between levels.

 Y'know, despite it being a kid's game, I'm kinda glad I have this one in my collection. The premise is very original, I mean, we've had Firemen videogames before, but they are rare and far in-between, so something that doesn't involve killing everything in sight is a breath of fresh air.
 5.0 out of 10

Review #723: Pokemon Sword

 Gotta catch'em all. Some of them, anyways.

 Ever since Pokemon became a thing, people have wondered just how a proper home-console Pokemon would be(The Gamecube games didn't count, for whatever reason). The wait is over, Pokemon Sword and Shield are here. Turns out it'd be exactly what it has always been. Every single time I wrote about a new Pokemon game in this blog I've echoed a particular thought: No Pokemon game can be better than the previous one, because they always take away features but add new ones, their excuse being wanting to make each game feel different, which is hilarious considering Pokemon might be one of the franchises that refuses to change the most, yet instead of accumulating incremental additions, it feels like for every step forward a new entry takes, we lose something that was really good.

 If the game deserves praise for something, is that it seems like they learned from Sun and Moon. The plot in those games was incredibly overbearing, holding your hand every step of the way and trying to restrict you as much as it could so that you'd go wherever the game wanted you to go, exploration be damned. There's still a big focus on story with these new games, but it gives you more freedom, want to explore your surroundings before heading for the gym? Go for it! There are roadblocks preventing you from leaving town before beating the gym, but it doesn't feel like the game doesn't want to let go of your hand and force you to go wherever it wants to take you. These games' theme is sports, the Pokemon champion is a celebrity and Gyms are different leagues. Whenever you tackle a Gym you go into a soccer-like field, surrounded by a huge crowd, to battle and what not. Well, after solving a puzzle, since each Gym has a gimmick you must clear before being allowed to challenge the Gym leader.

 There's a surprising, and welcome, emphasis in character progression. Taking a page from X and Y, you get three different rivals that compete against you, and you watch them develop alongside your own little adventure. Hop is your best friend, and the champion's little brother, so he feels like he needs to prove that he can defeat his brother, or at least, not 'make him look bad'. Bede is the mandatory meanie of the game, constantly mocking and belittling the player, but he gets his own character arc. Then there's Marnie, a mysterious girl that seems to have ties to this game's required enemy team, Team Yell. Team Yell is, quite probably, the most useless and less interesting enemy Team in the franchise. After you finish the game, there's a short epilogue surrounding a couple of dumb clowns, so while the adversaries are lame, at least you get closure on Hop, Bede and Marnie's stories, as well as getting to team up with the Gym Leaders. And you get the game's legendary mascot to boot!

 That said, this game's post-game is rather lacking. For starters, I beat the game in about 23 hours, but I'm sure it can be done quicker if you spend less time on the Wild Area. The epilogue takes about 3 more hours to complete. Afterwards, you can take on the Championship("elite 4") again, but... it has changed. A lot. There's no Elite 4 this time, instead, you get to fight in a 3-round 'tournament' which features random opponents, from generic challengers, to your rivals to even Gym Leaders. You get completely healed after each match, which is only fair, but it lacks the gravitas that the Elite 4 had. At least the game acknowledges you as the champion, NPCs on the street will call you Champ, and when competing in tournaments you'll get your due respect. You also unlock the Challenge Tower, if you're into that. As an aside, I know I've been part of 'THERE ARE TOO MANY LEGENDARIES!", but this game has a pathetic 3 Legendary Pokemon for you to capture, one is caught during the story, the game's mascot is caught during the epilogue and, lastly, the third one, Type-Null from Sun/Moon, is given to you when you enter the battle tower. Other games in the series, like HeartGold/SoulSilver and OmegaRuby/AlphaSaphire would let you capture a whole slew of legendaries from previous games, which added more content to the games and felt rewarding. Not here it isn't. There aren't even roaming legendary Pokemon, which makes the Master Ball pretty much a glorified Pokeball skin. since there's nothing worthwhile to use it on.

 Much has been said about the game's graphics, but let's get down to brass tacks: On a technical level, the graphics are relatively poor, with muddy textures and the trademark lazy animations it's always been known for. But, but on an artistic level, it's quite pretty. Even the smallest towns in the game are pretty to behold, because they went for very interesting designs and a lot of color, the developers weren't shying away from using every single color known to man. The Pokemon themselves look quite vibrant, a stark contrast from how they looked in X and Y. The elephant in the room is that while there are almost 100 new creatures, you can only get up to a 400 different mons in the game. I understand the outcry, but I don't really care. Almost every new Pokemon design is pretty good, which is something I can't say for previous generations, it seemed like most Pokemon designs were getting blander and blander, but the new mons are pretty dope. The 400 monsters available are a decent bunch too, there's a nice mix of old and new. Look, I play Digimon and it seems like every game has a different roster, so I'm used to this. We've got almost 900 different monsters now, that would mean an obscene amount of time to work on the game. A few moves, like Hidden Power, got axed, but we have a few new moves in their stead. It'll be interesting to see if and how Unown returns since his main and only gimmick got the boot!

 That said, Gamefreak used 'making new animations and models' as their excuse for halving the monster roster. That's a flat-out lie. There are tons of reused animations in the game, even for trainers. Pokemon models haven been proven to be the exact same from previous games, heck, the Pokemon Company said that X and Y's models were made taking into account the possibility of taking them into the HD world. But the worst part about it is that some animations are as lazy as they've always been. A bite is just a 'mon lurching forward against the opponent while generic 2-D teeth sprites bite onto the enemy. Double kick is still just moving the character model up and down on the Y-axis. A lot of animations are either garbage or lazy, none of their excuses are valid. They should've just sticked to 'it would've been a lot of work importing every single monster, and trying to balance them between each other".

 As for the game itself... it's Pokemon, very little changes between game and game. Turn-based battles, elemental/type advantages and disadvantages, six-pokemon party, 4 moves per Pokemon, run on tall grass in order to find Pokemon to battle and capture and fight against other trainers and their own party of Pokemon. A few noteworthy things to mention is that Exp. Share is turned on by default and can't be turned off, which... I actually think is a good thing. People claim it makes the game too easy, and maybe it does, but having to grind with each Pokemon was boring, or the whole "Put a weak pokemon in battle and swap for another one to win the fight" was kinda lame, wasn't it? Maybe it should be a toggle so that puritans can waste their time if they want. That said, while I'll admit I was overlevelled for most of the game, probably because I spent so much time in the Wild Area, the game's Champion gave me a run for my money. He actually defeated me the first time around, and almost murdered me on my second attempt. It's been a while since I actually lost in a Pokemon game, but the champion is quite a challenge, with good type coverage and strong monsters.

 An interesting new change is that there are no random battle now! Pokemon still appear in tall grass, but now you can see them. And they will chase you. And it's scary. Honestly, you're a 10 year old kid running away from a buff Machoke who wants to eat your guts. It's awesome. There are a few 'surprise' monsters that only show up as ruffling grass, but you can avoid them if you want. There's a single problem with this new approach, and that's that the bike is too fast, so using the bike on tall grass will inevitably have you triggering fights you don't want to fight. A weird new change, is that every part of the game except the Wild Area has lost the day-night cycle until you beat the game. It's weird, because supposedly it's done for story purposes, but I don't remember a single instance in which it mattered for the plot whether it was day or night.

 Do you know what's the worst part about the new customization features? It's that I'm pretty sure X and Y did it best. It didn't feel like there were may clothing options in this game, and there are only four different clothing shops in the entire game. FOUR! As per usual, us 'boy' gender players get the short end of the stick, with less clothes and hairstyles. Pokejobs are a thing now, you can now, on any Pokemon Center, send your Pokemon away on 'jobs' to earn experience. Useful when you want to level up other mons as you do your own stuff with your favorite party. The move-relearner is now available on every single Pokemon Center, which is also pretty neat. You know what isn't neat? There's not touchscreen support at all. What a missed opportunity! Going through menus or battles with the touchscreen was a pretty neat alternative in the handheld games when I was feeling lazy, shame it didn't make it to this new game. The HUD will still tell you if your moves are effective or not against any Pokemon that you've already fought before, pretty nice to see that this feature didn't get removed, since there's no way I can keep track of every mon's typing past the first four generations of monsters!

 Pokemon-amie is gone, and I can't say it's a huge loss. In it's stead we've got camping, which you can do on pretty much any route. While camping you can play with your pokemon, you've got a couple of toys with you, or cook curry for you and your party, by partaking in a simple minigame and using some berries. There's a Currydex that you can fill out by trying different berry combinations if you so like it. Regardless, it's time to mention the game's dumbest design choice. Remember how everyone celebrated in unison when TMs became non-expendable? Remember? Well, for whatever reason Game Freak thought that a few TMs would now become TRs, which are one-time use only........... You can get them by fighting raids or spending an in-game currency called Watts. Doesn't make the change any less stupid. Why? I've come to understand the give-and-take Game Freak does with features and gimmicks, but to actually take a step-back from one of the most welcome changes in the franchise? What. Where. They. Thinking? An NPC even tries to make this change sound less dumb by saying how 'retro' it is. Screw you, GameFreak. This is dumb, if I want to play around with different monsters,  I shouldn't have to also keep in mind that I might run out of Ice Beams. Players should be given freedom to try out different movesets and builds, and not restrict them with this silliness.

 There's one new feature, or rather two, I haven't talked about yet: Dynamaxing and Gigantamaxing. This is something that can only be done in very specific zones, such as Pokemon Gyms/Stadiums and in Raid Battles inside the Wild Area. Basically, it's just like Mega Evolution, but it only lasts 3 turns, can only be done by a single member of your party, and instead of making your Pokemon cooler, it makes it larger. Like, giant kind of larger. It also changes their moveset into Dynamaxed attacks that change depending on the type. For instance, all fire attacks you have turn into the same Dynamax attack, although with different attack power. Of course, this means that Mega Evolutions and Z attacks are completely gone, which isn't surprising at all considering how much Game Freak loves to ax features. Gigantamaxing is a special form of Dynamaxing that changes how a Pokemon looks, think of a Dynamaxed Mega Evolution, and grants them access to exclusive G-Max attacks. Remember how Pokemon X and Y had nearly 800 monsters but only 25 Mega Evolutions? Now we have a total of 900 monsters, only 400 in the game, and yet, only 26 different Gigantamax forms. Where are all these new models, GameFreak? Where are the new animations, since Dynamaxed there are only 18 different Dynamax attack animations? Gigantamaxing is so dumb since there are such few monsters that get them. Regardless, I learned to like Dynamaxing, because having giant Pokemon looked so silly that I just couldn't help but enjoy the feature. I'd rather have Mega Evolutions, though.

 I've gone on and on about this 'Wild Area' thing, so what is it? Remember the Safari Zone? It's a teeny tiny bit like that. Basically, a large part of this new Galar Region is made out of a Wild Area, in which Pokemon, weak and strong, roam about freely. This is also where you can partake in Raid battles. By touching any beam of light you find in here you can fight against a Dynamaxed monster, and you do in a 4-man party. If you play online you can fight with friends, play offline and you'll fight with NPCs. Defeating a monster lets you capture it, and you may even find Gigantamax Pokemon like this. It seems like there's an actual catch rate on this battles, so you may actually fail, but I always captured everything I fought. It seems playing offline actually gives you higher odds at succeeding.

 The Wild Area is actually pretty neat, because you get granted access to this zone pretty early in the game, earlier than even your first badge actually, and there's a lot of variety of monsters you can capture. Which means that this early in the game you can start toying around with your future final party. I mean, this early in the game I found myself a Jangmo-o, a pseudo-legendary Dragon Pokemon, the kind of Pokemon you usually find very late in the game, while in a Raid. Later in the game I found out that it wasn't just 'any' Jangmo-o, it was one that could even Gigantamax! This Wild Area part of the game grants players a lot more options with Pokemon a lot earlier than any other game in the franchise, and that's fantastic.

 What's not so great is how capturing works now. You can only capture Pokemon up to a certain level. It doesn't matter if your Pokemon have a higher level than the one you're battling, if you don't have enough badges you just can't capture them. This is incredibly dumb. I understand not wanting players to cheese the game by lucking-out and capturing a level 60 Pokemon and then overpowering everything the game throws at them.... but Pokemon is an EASY game. There's no challenge, there's no reason to prevent the player from even capturing a Pokemon they just found. A better alternative would've been making captured, high-level Pokemon refusing to listen to the player during fights instead of flat-out preventing you from throwing a Pokeball in the first place! Modern Pokemon has never been about the challenge, this is but a mild annoyance. You'll come across a bunch of interesting Pokemon, which of course are weaker than your party because you've been doing such a diligent job in capturing every new thing you came across, and yet the game won't let you capture them anyways because, hey, you can only capture up to level 25 if you've got less than two badges. Lame.

 That said, on the whole, I liked the Wild Area. You can also come across 'mons like Steelix and Gengar, y'know, the ones with the silly 'need to be traded' requirements for evolving. But, hey, they are Steelix and Gengar, your party may be on their early 20s and they are probably on their 50s, so hope you are carrying a Pokemon Doll and can get away from them if they catch you!

 Look, Pokemon Sword and Shield are not as great as they could've been, but don't lose hope over reddit leaks. I found the leaks, I read them and I thought that the game was gonna be subpar. It isn't. As with any other Pokemon game, some changes are good, some are bad. I think this game had a few more misses than hits, when compared to other recent releases, but there are worse ways you can pass time than another good Pokemon game.
 7.5 out of 10

Review #722: Star Wars Jedi - Fallen Order

 The Force is strong in this one.

 A few years after running the Star Wars license through the mud and cancelling the promising Star Wars 1313, Disney and EA have teamed up to produce another Star Wars game. And, despite how bland the new Trilogy is(The third part can't save it now), Star Wars Jedi - Fallen Order is a fantastic game that is sure to please most people, whether you like Star Wars or not.

 The story follows Jedi Padawan Cal Kestis, a survivor of the Jedi massacre who's spent his time hiding in a space scrapyard working as a mechanic. After a freak accident forces Cal to use the Force in order to save his friend, now the entire Empire is looking for him. Thankfully, before he meets his maker, ex-Jedi Ceres and pilot Greeze rescue him, and with the promise of rebuilding the Jedi Order, Cal Kestis joins them on a quest to find a list of force-sensitive younglings, the future of the Jedi. Taking place before A New Hope we already know that Cal Kestis' quest is fruitless, but it doesn't really matter. The game is about a Padawan fixing his connection to the Force and coming to terms with what his destiny is and not hiding any more. The story is entertaining, while the game leans heavily into Metroidvania territory, and most of the game is exploring, there are cutscenes spread here and there that allows Cal, his enemies and his allies time to shine. By the end of the game it's impossible not to like Cal and his crew. That said, near the end of the game, another character joins the cast, and this character is fairly interesting, sadly, since it's the end of the game, you don't get to spend much time with them. Despite the exploratory focus of the gameplay, there are some very exciting set pieces every now and then, the game makes a fantastic first impression with the Empire chasing Cal through a train. It's awesome.

 Metroidvania meets Dark Souls is the best way to describe the game. Played in third person, as Cal you'll have to explore five main planets in order to find hints that'll lead him towards his objective, but worlds are rather large, with tons of secrets to find. Of course, being a Metroidvania means that a lot of stuff will be out of your reach when you first come across it. As you go through the game, Cal will slowly rebuild his connection to the Force, unlocking skills such as Stasis, Pull and Push, as well as more mundane abilities such as running on walls, that he can use to traverse the environment and reach new areas. You'll also find upgrades for your robotic partner, BD-1, that will also help Cal reach new areas, such as climbing on zip-lines, interact with switches or hack doors... heck, he gets a few combat upgrades that'll let BD-1 hack enemy droids in order to help him. Needless to say, exploring is a ton of fun, I frequently revisited planets, as soon as I got new upgrades, in order to collect whatever I missed.

 Most of the rewards you'll find are cosmetic, and that's perfectly fine. You'll find new Ponchos for Cal to wear, a few different outfit colors, new paintjobs for your ship, the Mantis as well as paint jobs for BD-1. There are also hidden XP bundles, HP and Force upgrades, more Stim Canisters(Healing!) and... Lightsaber pieces. This game went all out with something as trivial as customizing your saber. You can customize the hilt by mixing and matching the Emitter, Switch and Sleeve parts, as well as giving it various different metallic colors. Of course you can also change your saber's color, but you're stuck with Green and Blue for most of the game, it's not until you finally reach the fifth planet that you gain access to Purple, Yellow, Cyan, Magenta and Indigo, which is sorta lame. I WANTED MY YELLOW SABER, DAMMIT, and by now there's very little game left! There's no new game+ either, which is understandable, but this means that you barely get to enjoy a Saber colored the way you like.

 If the Metroidvania elements falter somewhere, it's with the map. It's in 3-D and you can rotate it freely, but it does a poor job at conveying a few connections between rooms. Also, while the Map will mark in Red obstacles you can't clear at the moment, and turn them green the moment you can, it won't keep track of chests you might've come across, and there's no way to leave marks on the map, which could've helped with that. That said, the map does tell you how many chests and secrets are left in every area of a planet. A way to fast travel, at least between savespots, could've been a good addition as well. Planets are rather large, and while you can open up shortcuts between areas, some roads are longer than others, and sometimes you might just want to skip all the obstacles you've cleared a hundred times before and just get back on the ship.

 When not exploring you'll be fighting, and here the game takes after the Souls series. I hate the Souls series. Thankfully, there are four different difficulty settings so that you can tailor the experience to your liking. Hate difficult games? Pick Story difficulty and play a power fantasy in which you curb-stomp every enemy in the game. You can change the difficulty at any moment in the game, provided you're not in a fight. The game has a very nasty beginner's trap at the start of the game, as earl as 10 minutes into the first world, after the prologue, if you are an avid spelunker, such as myself, you can come across a really tough optional boss. You have no health upgrades, so little room for mistakes, as well as no healing upgrades. You've nothing! And, if it kills you, it'll steal your XP points, like any Souls game. I tried about 10 times on the Jedi Master difficulty. Tried twice in Jedi Knight, and then went to story mode and completely wrecked him, because enemies in Story difficulty like spending their time getting hit. My point is... if you hate hard games, don't worry, you can play in Story difficulty and be just fine. As for me, after I recovered my XP, I went into Jedi Knight difficulty setting and had fun. It wasn't too hard nor too easy, it felt right. So, even if you hate hard games, even if you hate Souls games(Like me!), that should not deter you from trying out Fallen Order.

 As an aside, I like how the suggested Jedi Master difficulty setting, the second highest, actually ties with the game's plot. The game is supposed to be hard, Cal is supposed to struggle, because he is a Padawan that never completed his training. There are about two hopeless boss fights that you are supposed to lose. There are fights that end before you can defeat your enemy. And they make sense, Cal is a Padawan fighting Sith Masters. He is way out of his depth. That said, the loading times when respawning can be murderous, which really puts a damper on the whole "Rise again and try again", because eventually you'll just want to get on with the game.

 Regardless, combat is fairly simple. Square performs your basic attacks, while triangle is a stronger, force-consuming, downward slash. X jumps and Circle dodges, or rolls if you double tap. You can hold L1 to block, as much as your stamina allows, or tap L1 before getting hit in order to parry the enemy, some enemies require multiple parries in a row to stagger, parrying is also how you deflect laser shots right back at the attacker. You can press Up on the D-pad to use a Stim Pack, a healing item, which refill as soon as you rest at a savepoint. Resting also respawns every enemy, sans bosses and optional bosses, so keep that in mind! Early in the game if you visit Dathomir, or later if you decided the easy route, you can find a double-bladed upgrade which lets you fight with a double bladed lightsaber. It's weaker than a single blade, but great for crowd control. Lastly, you can use the Force in order to freeze, pull or push enemies around. Stamina refills with time, while Force refills by landing hits on the enemies. I think the combat is fine, it's slower-paced than what you'd expect out of a Jedi videogame, but it works well. Fighting feels pretty good.

 You can use your hard-earned XP points at any savepoint in order to unlock new skills. They can be passive upgrades, such as extra life or strengthen healing items, simple abilities such as a delayed strike or even force-consuming skills, like throwing your blade or any triangle-based strike. It's a nice system, but it's a bit restricted at the start, you only gain the ability to unlock new skills as Cal fixes his connection to the force, so, once again, if you explore a lot, like me, you'll be amassing tons of levels that you can't use until you progress with the story.

 I'd be remiss not to talk about the game's performance. There were a few reports of bugs and glitches, but the only issue I came about was a crash when I was rescuing BD-1. The framerate is a bit jumpy at times, on base PS4 at least, but it's not bad. I turned off Motion Blur and chromatic aberration just in case, though. There were a few weird performance issues to. For instance, exploring some planets is pretty much seamless, while others may freeze every now and then to give time to load whatever comes next. It's pretty weird. The biggest issue would be the long loading times when respawning after death, since the game is supposed to be hard, but if having to respawn is so tedious it goes from hard to annoying. There are a few other technical shortcomings such as textures taking a while to load, so you might find the environment around gaining more detail as you explore it! It's usually a specific texture every now and then, but it's impossible not to notice. Oh! And T-poses! Sometimes, usually if you are too quick after resting or respawning, the game won't have had time to load the enemies, so they'll fly at you in their most glorious T-Poses. Some might not even snap out of the T-pose until you hit them!

 I loved Star Wars Jedi - Fallen Order. I mean, I'm love Metroidvanias so I am biased, but this is a good one. Combat is satisfying, and there are so many tangible rewards laying around for the player to find. Sure, cosmetics are just alternate colors, but they are still fun to play around with! The game's performance is a bit jittery, but its technical issues don't get in its way, the game is fun regardless. Fallen Order is easily the best thing to have come out of Star Wars since Republic Commando.
 9.0 out of 10

Review #721: Breath of Fire III

 Don't that just beat all?

 Fun fact: This is the second time I'm writing this, because blogger.com sucks and a Ctrl+Z completely undid EVERYTHING. Regardless, here we are, again, with Breath of Fire III, Capcom's third foray into the Breath of Fire series, now mixing their beautiful 2-D sprites with spiffy new 3-D environments. For the longest time I avoided this game because it annoyed me how the official art didn't match the sprites, and boy, was I missing out.

 Once again, you play as Ryu, a dragon-human hybrid, who travels with a racially diverse cast of characters. The playable roster has shrunk to 6, and the party limit decreased to 3. Aiding Ryu is Nina, the winged Wyndian, Rei, the Worren(cat-person), Momo, the doglady, Garr the living Gargoyle and Peco, this game's grass-man. Taking what worked from 2, this game also sees fit to explore each character with a few scenarios dedicated to each character. Except Peco. He really gets shortchanged in the character development area. The story itself if pretty entertaining, but decidedly less perilous than previous games, this isn't about saving the world from impending doom, this is about Ryu discovering his heritage and Garr travelling to meet his god. Since child Ryu worked so well for BoF II, this game expands on that, by an entire 10-hour long childhood chapter, with Ryu and Nina being children! If you ask me, I felt the childhood chapter dragged a bit too long, but maybe I was chomping at the bit to get to the timeskip. While I feel like most characters were well developed, I think a certain villain near the end of the game could've used more build-up, but oh well! They'd learn from this when it came to Fou-Lu in the next game. Regardless, I feel the plot was entertaining, even if the stakes are lower than in any other BoF game. It's a more personal adventure.

 A few features have been axed, like the day/night cycle and hunting, which, while they didn't add much to the games, were about to become series' staples, but seems it wasn't meant to be. Field abilities return. Ryu can cut/steal from NPCs, Garr can push blocks, Momo can shoot her bazooka, Rei can open locked doors, Nina shoots magic and Peco can headbutt stuff, however, they are barely ever required to progress. Heck, I don't remember having to use Nina's magic after the timeskip! Not to say that the dungeons skimp on puzzles, because there are plenty of them, but they are more about pushing levers and the such instead of using characters' abilities. That said, some dungeons require a specific character, but not because of their abilities. You might reach a point in a dungeon where you get told that "This is too complex, maybe Momo can understand it", which will force you to get into the overworld and swap characters. Momo and Garr were, probably, the most required characters, which kinda sucked for me since I was running a team of Ryu, Rei and Nina most of the time.

 Combat hasn't changed much, I mean, it's your average turn-based RPG. You walk in the field, trigger a random encounter, and then fight enemies by attacking, using magic or using items, taking turns with the enemy. What has changed a lot is how you develop your characters. Hidden throughout the lands are Masters, and if you fulfill their request, you'll be able to put your characters to 'train' with them. 'Training' means that every time you level up while under said master, this master will affect your stat gains. Some might grant you a ton of Strength, but might cost you some Defense points. And, after earning a certain amount of levels under them, you can learn new abilities. Only one character can get the bonus abilities, but any number of characters can train under the same master. You can also use 'Skill Ink' to swap learned abilities between characters, heck, you can also learn abilities by 'Examining' enemies during battles. Some masters are undeniably better than others, but I don't think you can totally screw yourself. Just, y'know, don't put Nina under a master that will ruin her already low Def stat gains. That said, you can also create complete monsters if you play your card rights, for instance, I had Ryu train from level 15 till 30 under D'Lonzo, which granted him a TON of bonus agility and strength, so now he was scoring bonus turns in almost every fight, even during boss battles! For the rest of the game, I put him under series regular now demoted to Master, Deis, to increase his AP so that I could maintain Dragon forms for longer.

 Ah, yes, the game can be a bit tough. Experience points and money can be hard to comeby, don't be surprised if you can't outfit your 3-man party with every new piece of equipment when you first reach a new town. Some of the early parts during the childhood chapter can be quite brutal, and some of the bosses could potentially kill any characters with two hits, however, as I said before, if you plan your stats right, you can outcheese any enemy you meet. My Ryu was so fast and so strong that he could defeat a few bosses in two hits. I felt like I had turned into the Boss during boss fights! You can also plan some fun strategies with Ryu's Dragon forms. Also hidden throughout the game you can find 'Genes' which you can use to mix and match and create powerful(or not!) dragon forms for Ryu. For instance, the Fire gene will produce a weak Fire Dragon Whelp, but if you have AP to spare, why not mix Fire, Cold and Thunder for the Trygon, a Dragon with all elemental Claw attacks! I was quite fond of the Miracle gene, which turned Ryu into a high strength, high HP Behemoth, which also pulled party members away from harm's way! Then I got the cool Force gene that turned Ryu into a dragon-hybrid, like BoF IV, and also granted me access to Aura, a costly technique that dealt TONS of damage. There's a lot of fun to be had playing around with genes. You could use the True Kaiser form, Ryu's ultimate Super Saiyajin form, but costs a massive 53 AP to use, and then costs about 7 AP per turn to maintain, or, you could use the Behemoth or the Tiamat form, so that Ryu fight alone for a while, tanking and dealing damage, and after you're forced to revert, you can continue fighting with the rest of the characters, after taking a huge chunk out of the boss' health. Oh, and by the by, bonus turns granted by agility don't consume AP from Ryu, so, y'know, a speedy Ryu is the best Ryu.

 One last new addition to the series is Camping, which you can do at any time you are in the overworld. Camping lets you speak with your party members, so that they can share their feelings about what's going on with the plot(Except for Peco, who speaks like a Pokemon), save your game or Sleep in order to recover your health and AP. Why the need for Inns then? Because if a character dies in battle, they'll get a 10% max health reduction handicap, up to 50% if they keep dying, and the only way to remove this handicap is by sleeping at an inn!

 I really liked Breath of Fire III, although I think I preferred 2 a bit more. Regardless, there's a reason so many people have BoF III as their favorite, since it's easily one of the best in the franchise. An interesting story, likeable characters and a fun dragon-form system that opens the way for various different ways to play the game. You might want to do a bit of research on how each Master affects your stats before committing to any one Master, but having this much freedom on how a character develops feels great, particularly seeing the monsters they turn into... at least if it comes out right, like it did for me.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #720:Detention(Switch)

 Hold your breath, and don't look back.

 Yet another horror game I played out-of-season, Detention finally hit the switch, and there's a reason this game has such a good reputation: IT'S REALLY GOOD. It manages to be scary while being a very minimalist 2-D game, plus, it has a really good story!

 When you first start the game you play as Wei Chung Ting, a boy that slept through class and now wakes up to find himself alone in the classroom. He has to make haste back home, since a huge Tsunami is about to hit the city. Only that the river has turned red and the road back home is gone. Along the way he comes across a girl, Fang Ray Shin, who has no idea how she got there. It's not long before Fang takes over as the protagonist, and now she must brave a horrid world that turns bleaker as the game advances, while avoiding all sorts of demons out to get her. It's tough to get into the story and its meaning without delving into spoilers, but the narrative is very interesting, and discovering why Fang is where she is and how she got there feels very rewarding, and the mysteries unveil themselves at a satisfying pace.

 The game is a bit of a classic Adventure game, y'know, like Monkey Island and the such, but with a horror motif. As Wei and Fang you have to walk through abandoned buildings, collecting items so that you can use them on the right place. No puzzle is too hard, there's nothing you can't solve without the hints you can find or using a bit of common sense. Bah, getting the Good ending can be a bit tough, since you have to answer a certain being very specific answers, but, after finishing the game, you can replay any chapter, so you can very easily try again.

 Every now and then you'll come across demons and ghosts, called Lingerers, that are out for your blood. You can avoid them by holding your breath and walking by them, since they can't detect you unless you breathe. Fang can't hold her breath forever, so you have to pick the right time to hold your breath and walk by them. You can also drop an offering on the floor to distract them, but besides a specific moment that requires it, you can get through just fine by holding your breath.

 The game is about 3 hours long, maybe less, but it's pretty fun. It's quite clearly more focused on telling its story than in scaring you, so the horror elements take a backseat to the narrative, so the further you get through the game, the less monsters that'll get in your way. And that's fine. The game is fine.
 7.5 out of 10