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