Review #741: Power Rangers Samurai(Nintendo DS)

 Leave no lone ranger left behind.

 Let me tell you about my two favorite Sentai series, they are Gekiranger and Shinkenger. Lucky for me, it seems like the American version, Power Rangers Samurai, was popular enough to warrant a few games, this here being the DS version. It's pretty much what you'd expect from a Power Rangers game, no more, no less.

 The game covers, I think, the first season of the American adaptation of Shinkenger, basically, it goes over the Rangers recruiting the Gold Ranger and ends with the Red Ranger dueling the Demon Dekar. It's 10 missions short, the game lasts 2 hours and there's nothing to unlock, not by traditional means anyways. Every unlock is tied to a password and not to a collectible or feat, and among these extras are Mega versions of the rangers. They look different, but they play exactly the same, and it seems like they even have the same stats as their basic versions, but at least they look different. The five original rangers play exactly the same but with different stats, the only thing setting them apart is their Strong special move, once the Gold Ranger joins, on mission 7 or so, he plays exactly the same, but has different animations and special moves, making him extra special. By the by, the Gold Shinkenger is one of my favorite rangers of all time since he fights with his very unique Iaido-sheathing style, and his in-game animations accurately captured his fighting style, which is something I adored.

 Gameplay is very simple, you get a 3-hit weak attack combo, a strong attack that changes properties depending on when you use it during your weak attack string, a jump, a block and two special moves, done by pressing Block plus either strong or weak attack, that consume energy. The only difference between characters, besides their stats, is their Block+Strong special moves. Stages are your standard left to right 2-D beat'em up, although you can swap characters on designated spots. There are collectible discs waiting to be found, usually gated behind barriers only a specific Ranger can break, but they appear to add nothing but points to your total. There's a dumb touchscreen minigame before each mission, get it right and you get unlimited energy for a few seconds. There's also a disc on the bottom screen that you can spin around, keep it spinning and you'll be stronger and your attack string will extend to five. It's pretty dumb. Each stage ends with a boss battle, which then turns into a Megazord battle.

 There's something that most Ranger games get wrong every single time: Zord battles. Instead of making these battles an extension of the main game, they always try to turn it into a minigame of sorts, and they always fail spectacularly, being the worst part about most Ranger games. This game is no exception. Firstly, a dumb minigame before each battle, get it wrong and you lose half your health bar. Fun times. As for the battle itself, you have to use the touchscreen to slide across a disc in order to spin it a fill a gauge. Once full you have to touch the Attack button with proper timing in order to deal damage. When the enemy fills their gauge, you have to block, which is done by touching the BLOCK buttons on the touchscreen. These battles are lame, and are needlessly boring.

 Power Rangers Samurai is your average, run of the mill Power Rangers game that have been plaguing the handhelds since times immemorial. It's not bad. It's not good either. It's just a shelf filler. Fans of the franchise, like me, might get a few kicks out of it, everyone else shouldn't even bother.
 5.0 out of 10

Review #740: Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask

 The miracle maker

 Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask marks an important moment for the series, the moment it went 3-D. Graphics never mattered for games like the Layton series, but trust me, the new dimension breathes new life into its world, and it's gonna be hard to go back.

 The story picks up sometime after The Last Specter, with Layton travelling alongside Emmy and Luke. Their dynamic is as engaging as ever, although I felt like Luke and Emmy took a backseat to Layton and his antics. And there's a good reason for that, since this game delves even deeper into Layton's younger years, long before he met Claire. Half of the games chapters are spent with Layton joining up with people from his past as he tries to uncover the mystery behind the Masked gentlemen, while the other half of the chapters retell how Layton lost his best friend and drifted apart from his other friends. It's an interesting narrative, although I can't help but feel like I would've liked to see more of Emmy and Luke. This is the longest Layton game yet, although it only contains 150 puzzles. There are also 364 downloadable puzzles, but they are divided into 20 or so different types of puzzles.

 As mentioned before, the new graphics are gorgeous, featuring well-made, colorful character models against beautiful hand-drawn environments made up of multiple layers for an added feel of depth. The backgrounds and characters are very sharp, making it a pleasure to look at. The exploration interface has been tweaked for the better, now you enter and exit examination mode, while you travel between areas by tapping on the bottom screen. It's very simple and intuitive. Sadly, the Puzzle interface has been made a bit less helpful. Puzzles now default to the "submit" section on the bottom screen, while the upper screen holds an image that, most of the time, must be examined to solve the puzzle or riddle. So where's the actual text for the riddles? Well, you have to tap a button to display it or hide it. And it might be a while before you notice that you can place it on the upper or lower screen. Regardless, no place feels comfortable. Put it up, in order to take notes as you read and you'll miss out on the image. Put it on the bottom screen and you can't take notes. It really highlights the elegant simplicity of how the previous games managed to place everything you needed in a comfortable, accessible way. It's not something you can't get used to, but it's something that worked much better in previous games.

 The puzzles themselves felt a bit more forgettable than the ones from previous offerings. I can't exactly speak for everyone, but I felt like these puzzles weren't very memorable. Sometimes, after you successfully clear a puzzle, there won't be an explanation for the solution, which means that you could get the answer by accident and not get a proper explanation on how you were supposed to figure it out. It's rare, but it's something that put me off the few instances it happened. The final past-chapter is a mini dungeon-like minigame that has no place in Layton. You must dig for puzzles and coins, while dealing with simple boulder-pushing puzzles. What makes it unbearable is that pretty much every time you enter a new room, Young Layton and his pal Randall will take a few seconds to state the obvious. I just wanted this entire chapter to end.

 As for the minigames, we have a Robot-grid movement puzzle set that was alright, a Shop minigame in which you must arrange items following a set of rules in order to get a customer to buy everything, which was incredibly fun, and, lastly a Rabbit Theater minigame, that has a dumb rabbit-petting system in order to teach the rabbit tricks so that you can then pick for him to use in a play. It was pretty boring.

 Layton's jump into 3-D was a total success, the game is gorgeous, and despite it being a launch game in Japan, it still is one of the best looking games in the system, from both an artistic side and a technical side. That said, Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask feels like one of the weakest entries yet, with forgettable puzzles and a poor puzzle UI when compared to previous games. Come what may, I'm rooting for Azran Legacy to make the most from this new engine while tweaking what didn't work from this one. Reception for that game was mixed, but....
 6.5 out of 10

Review #739: Professor Layton and the Last Specter

 Ain't no stopping the Layton steam train!

 I thought that Unwound Future couldn't be topped. I also expected that a prequel series would fail to match the previous games. Turns out I was wrong, Professor Layton and the Last Specter is a fantastic follow up to Unwound Future, and may very well be a contender for best Layton game.

 Set years before the original series, The Last Specter deals with Layton and Luke's first meeting. A giant specter is wrecking havoc in Luke's hometown, and his father Clark, a good friend of the professor, asks Layton for help. In what's a completely different set up from previous games, Luke is a precocious child that spends most of his time shut inside his own room and Layton has to slowly earn his trust. It's actually quite endearing. I always liked Flora, but Level 5 didn't know what to do with her, so now we've got Emmy, the professor's current assistant, and she's great. She's not as bright as Layton, and probably not as bright as Luke would eventually become, but she's the muscle of the group. The three of them make for a fantastic group of characters, and throughout the course of the game I grew quite fond of their dynamic. They also added more flavor text to items you can examine on the environments, always leading to all three characters interacting with each other. Charming! Overall, I think the story is not as interesting or as good as the one in the previous game, but they made up for that by giving us a more interesting cast.

 The game features the most amount of puzzles in a Layton game yet, at 170, two more than Unwound Future. Ironically, the storyline felt shorter than previous games, the previous game was at least an hour longer. The minigames felt a bit uninspired this time around. The train mini-game is an alternate take on the toy car from Unwound Future, the Fish Tank is very similar to the Parrot minigame and the new Puppet Theater works exactly like the previous game's sticker book but with verbs instead of stickers. It doesn't work as well either, since many verbs could work well enough with the context you're provided, such as 'moved' or 'placed', 'covered' and 'wrapped', etc.

 There is, however, one extra that makes up for that. An extra that was cut from the European version(Bastards!). Said extra is.... London Life! It's a 2-D slice-of-life game, not unlike Animal Crossing, in which you create a simple 2-D avatar and take on simple requests from civilians. Civilians being characters from every previous game in the series! Your objective is to amass Wealth and Happiness, the former being your means to buy objects to decorate your room with as well as clothes or what have you, the latter being a health-gauge of sorts, since scary stuff like touching bats or picking up a bug instead of a flower saps your happiness.

 Every time you go to sleep in your bed you advance time, and every in-game day you get new quests from civilians to fulfill. They start repeating eventually, but they are simple so as not to become too tedious. You can also do all sorts of jobs and activities to get money, like Taxi Driving, Bus Driving, getting luggage to the correct rooms in a hotel, juggling and a few others. It's not a '100 hour rpg' as they call it, but it's a surprisingly fun time waster. And it really adds up to the game, you could easily lose a few hours in this little "extra".

 Professor Layton and the Last Specter is a fantastic entry into the series, one of the best actually. Being the beginning of a prequel trilogy means that you don't need to have played any previous game in the series to get the most out of the story, it has the largest amount of puzzles in the series and it also has an extra that could pretty much be its own game, and it has nothing to do with puzzles or riddles, so it's pretty much like having two great games in a single cart. Know what? I'm no longer doubtful, this IS the best Layton game yet.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #738: Konami Collector's Series - Arcade Advanced

 These games offer no-quarter!

 Not looking to be left out of the rerelease fever, Konami brought a few of their Arcade classics to the GBA with Konami Collector's Series - Arcade Advanced. It's a six-game compilation that features a couple of true classics as well as a few forgotten little games.

 The games are presented as is, with no way to tweak the difficulty, amount of lives or continues which... really sucks. Arcade games were designed with one thing in mind and one thing only: Take your quarters, and they really gave no-quarter when doing so, so that makes these games feel quite cheap and getting far on any game will require quite a bit trial-and-error alongside having to learn how they work in-and-out.

Yie Ar Kung-Fu

 Yier Ar Kung-Fu is a very simple, very cheap 1 on 1 fighting game in which you, as Oolong ,must fight various martial artists and their individual styles, some even use projectiles. There are plenty of moves you can use with A and B, while inputting different directions on the d-pad, but it's mostly a masher. Might be nostalgia, but I liked it a lot and had a lot of fun playing it.

 This game was the reason I bought this cart, and I don't regret it one bit.
7.0 out of 10

Rush'n Attack

 Rush'n Attack is a sidescrolling action game in which you must move from left to right while killing endless amounts of enemy waves with your knife. Defeating blue enemies will grant you weapons such as a bazooka or a flamethrower which can make easy work of enemies.

 Simple, to the point, surprisingly fun.
6.0 out of 10

Gyruss

 I was ready to hate this game, because I dislike shooters, but lo and behold, it wound it up being quite fun! Think Galaxian but on a cylinder.You can roll all over the screen while enemies take turns coming towards you with their attacks. It's quite a decent time waster.

 6.0 out of 10

Time Pilot

 Time Pilot plays a bit like Asteroids, with the whole 360 degree turn-movement, but you have to bring down enemy planes instead of rocks and rescue allies. It's hard to the point of cheapness, where it feels like enemy bombs track you, but the difficulty is also what makes it exciting.

5.0 out of 10

Scramble

 This was the game I liked the least on this collection, but it's still rather fun, for what it is, a sidescrolling shooter in which you play as an invader and must bring down ships and towers with bombs and lasers. As straightforward as it gets.
 5.0 out of 10

Frogger

 You can fight me on this, but Frogger is an all-time classic and it's fun to this day. You must help frogs cross streets and rivers to make it to the pond at the end of the screen. It's as simple as that, except that you must avoid traffic and cross the river by jumping over logs and turtles. The biggest issue is the purple frog bonus, since it's hard to see on the GBA's screen, making it for a handicap instead of a bonus!
 7.5 out of 10

 That's all fine and dandy, but what if I told you that the game houses a few bonuses and secrets? Using the Konami code on any game will produce different results. Rush'n Attack and Time Pilot get a few new levels, which is OK I guess, but Gyruss gets a bonus X level with slightly enhanced graphics. Pretty nifty, right? Yie Ar Kung-Fu gets bonus characters for the multiplayer mode, which is fine, but I can't play it by myself. But what about Scramble and Frogger? Well...

 Complete and total graphical overhauls. This is quite probably one of the best looking Frogger versions out there, and it's almost criminal that it's hidden behind a code so that a lot of people won't find out that their games contain this neat little extras. Having clearer graphics, different ships and an easier to read HUD makes Scramble a bit more fun, and the new graphics make Frogger seem like a new game. These extras should've been extra options on the menu!

 Konami Collector's Series - Arcade Advanced is a decent way to pass the time, and the Konami-Code extras are brilliant, but Arcade games shouldn't be rereleased without infinite continues. I wish the game would've had less shooters, and maybe put Castlevania Arcade instead of Time Patrol, but Frogger is worth the price of admission alone, and the other games are worth a look or two.
 7.0 out of 10

Review #737: Capcom Classics - Mini Mix

 I would never say no to Capcom classics.

 About a decade ago Capcom saw fit to release their two-volume Capcom Classics collections on the PS2, PSP and the like, but not being one to leave the GBA hanging(or to say no to easy money), Capcom also released Capcom Classics Mini Mix on the GBA, but instead of containing their cheap Arcade games, it instead contained a few of their cheap NES games! Yes, this games are tough because this was the norm at the time, and the games contained in this cart are straight-up ports, no bells and whistles, no savestates, no cheats, nothing to make the experience any more pleasant in our modern times. Included in this game we get: Mighty Final Fight, Strider and Bionic Commando, classics of the yesteryear in every sense of the word, but they certainly show their age.

Mighty Final Fight

 While I grew up with a NES of sorts, I never played this game, nor the other two for that matter, but I remember the day I discovered this game existed. It was one of my first goes at NES emulation, and I couldn't believe that Final Fight had a NES version I didn't know about!

 This is a 5-stage alternate take on Final Fight. Cody, Guy and Haggar team up to rescue Jessica, throughout 5 stages that may share a few similar backdrops to the Arcade game, but very different all in all. There's no multiplayer, not even on the NES original, but now we've got a few barebones RPG elements, namely, the fact that characters level up as you defeat enemies, enlarging their lifebar and getting new moves.

 Each character plays slightly different from one another, which is surprising, even more so the fact that by the end of the game these versions of the characters have more moves than their arcade counterparts! Sadly, there are no weapons to be found, well, except on a single stage, but it's not too bad.

 While games during this era were unfairly hard, Mighty Final Fight feels pretty fair. That said, it's a bit boring, since enemies take too long too kill. About 4-5 full combos each, at least when playing as Guy. Once I lost all my lives by level 5 I quickly swapped to Cody and it felt like he was a bit stronger, even if his left-right+A+A+A+A attack wasn't as useful as Guy's.
 7.0 out of 10


Strider(NES)

 I don't care what anybody says, this is a Metroidvania. Kinda. This game plays nothing like the Arcade original, which was pretty off putting at first, I mean, after 'finishing' the first level I was dumbfounded to figure out that I actually had to walk all the way back to the start of the level. And it turns out that you'll visit Stage 1 a few more times throughout your playthrough. And it sounds kinda annoying until you make peace with the fact that this is a Metroidvania.

 That's right, a big part of the game is exploring levels, as you unlock them, finding abilities or keys that will let you advance further on other stages. You might want a guide in tow to cut on your stage visits, but it's not necessary since you can figure out everything on your own. As for basic gameplay, A jumps and B attacks, simple, but you also have access to ninja spells to aid you in battle or heal you, which use energy from your energy points. After rescuing or finding certain NPCs you'll also get levelled up, increasing your HP and EP. Pretty nifty, and pretty interesting, since this makes sure that you'll always be as strong as you need to for the next part of the game.

 It's a bit on the short-side, but long enough that you'll want to take a break, luckily we get a password system. Savestates would've been neat, but what can you do? The only thing that keeps this game from greatness is how spotty the platforming is. Triangle-jumping is a pain in the butt, jumping out of platforms sometimes doesn't work very well, and sometimes touching a piece of a go-through platform will ruin your jump. In the end, jumping and THEN moving sideways seemed to work best.
 7.5 out of 10


Bionic Commando(NES)

 Call me a heretic if you want, I didn't like Bionic Commando. Mind you, not being able to jump and having to rely on the hook for any and every vertical movement you want to perform was actually really fun, but the game is a bit unnecessarily tough, and leveling up, which grants you bonus hit points, takes too long. Doesn't help the fact that it's about as long as Strider, but harder, and with not a single way to save the game, not even a password system.

 The game's charm comes in the way of how you tackle the levels, for you see, you get an overworld and you could visit any stage in any order that you want, but there's actually a proper order that'll guarantee you getting the items and weapons on your first, and hopefully only, visit. This entire system is pretty novel, so I'll give it props for that.

 All in all, I think it can be enjoyed by people that haven't outgrown their retro roots. As for me? I think the only way I'd enjoy this game would be with either savestates or at least unlimited lives or continues, as not to make the grinding process such a chore and, well, a grind. Regardless, I think the stage-layout is pretty original, and the hook is fun to use. That said, it's hard to have fun with it when enemies keep dropping down on top of your head as you try to make progress, making you take unfair damage.
 5.0 out of 10

 Capcom Classics - Mini Mix on the Gameboy Advance is a fun little collection of games. They are pretty old so your mileage may vary on how much you enjoy each game, but there's sure to be at least something here that you'll enjoy.
 7.5 out of 10

Review #736: Professor Layton and the Unwound Future

 Gentlemen don't make a scene, so I'm not the one that's crying, it's you!

 It's been quite a ride, but here we are, Professor Layton and the Unwound Future marks the conclusion of the first Layton trilogy, as being the final game, chronologically speaking, that features Layton as the main character. While you don't need to play the previous games in order to enjoy Unwound Future, the emotional payoff is much more touching if you did.

 A letter from Luke arrives, which sets out Layton and Luke on their newest adventure. Luke, you say? The letter comes from Luke alright, but from Luke 10 years into the future! After witnessing a time-travelling experiment go awry, eventually Luke and Layton find their way into the future, and they team up with future Luke in order to solve the mystery of future London. Ironically, for a game set in the future, this game also delves back into Layton's past and how this gentleman came to be. This game has got the best narrative in the series, at least in the first trilogy, and it's hard not to tear up during the epilogue. On another note, the game has about 168 puzzles, making it the meatiest Layton yet! It also feels like it had the highest budget as well, since it features many more animated cutscenes as well as voice acting than the previous games, both looking and sounding better than ever.

 Honestly, the game plays exactly the same as before. You explore different areas, interacting with NPCs in order to trigger new puzzles and riddles to solve. You can tap around the environments to search for hint coins or hidden puzzles. It's a decent assortment of the lot, can't say I preferred them or disliked them over the ones in previous games. As for this game's exclusive minigames there are three: Toy Car Driving, in which you must plan out a route for a car in order to collect everything on the road, Parrot Delivery Service, in which you must produce platforms for a parrot to bounce over in order to reach someone and, lastly, a Sticker Book, in which you tell a story by placing the appropriate stickers over it. These were probably the best minigames in the series yet, I found the sticker books particularly endearing. But then again, I suck at puzzle games and those were quite simple to figure out.

 I'm not the biggest puzzle fan, so I fear Professor Layton will never hit the right notes with me. That said, I adored this final game's story, I found it very interesting and I found myself more emotionally invested in Layton and Luke than with their previous ordeals. Layton definitely deserves all the praise it gets.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #735: Star Wars - The Force Unleashed II

 It's not about how long your Force is, but rather, how you use it.

 The Force unleashed was ambitious, I'll give it that. They aimed for an epic storyline that would unravel the origins of the Rebellion, as well give players access to the full power of the Force. I can't speak for the game then, but it hasn't aged very well, and the story was sort of a mess. Star Wars - The Force Unleashed II is a weird one, the ambition is barely there and it tried very little to stand out from the first game, and yet....

 The first game's story was very poorly told. Just the fact that Darth Vader would, apparently, go against orders to get himself an apprentice, only to use him to create an alliance to fish out the Empereror's enemies could've worked with a little more exposition, but the story moved very quickly and felt like it left a lot of stuff out. Well. the developers dropped all pretense of having an epic story, having you playing as Starkiller or a clone of him, the developers couldn't commit to either so they left it ambiguous, as he is trained by Vader, again, because reasons. But memories of his past lover haunt him, so he breaks free from Vader's leash and sets out to find Juno, meeting all sorts of characters from the previous game in the process. There's nothing tying this game to the original trilogy, so they weren't really aiming on expanding the Star Wars universe, as the plot is just an excuse to let you play as Starkiller again. Heck, the game is barely 4 hours long, and they tried to pad out the game with unlockable challenges.

 The story is as uninspired as it gets, but, thankfully, gameplay has been tweaked and polished, making for a much more fun game. The graphics are fantastic, making the first game look like a beta, the framerate is smoother and hitting stuff with your sabers, since Starkiller wields two of them now, feels much better. It's not just the audiovisual feedback that you get from landing hits, but you can actually dismember enemies now, which is amazing. QTEs return, and they are a bit more obnoxious than before since you have to pay attention to the borders of the screen instead of waiting for a prompt on the center of the screen. God of War did this too, but they'd add a black border alongside the button prompt so that there was no way you wouldn't see it.

 The game plays pretty much exactly the same, square are your attacks, triangle is force lightning, circle is force push, R2 to force grip stuff, yadda yadda, but the targetting system works much better in this game than in the previous one. Quite a few attack combos were added, relying on waiting a bit between square inputs, but, at least on the normal difficulty setting, it didn't feel like there were opportune moments to use them instead of the basic Square-triangle combos. Two new additions were made to Starkiller's arsenal: Jedi Mind Trick, which makes an enemy fight for you for a short while, and the mandatory super mode, Force Fury. I barely even used Force Fury, since it wasn't very useful during boss fights and I could manage just fine throughout most fights in the game.

 Just like in the previous game, there are quite a few outfits to unlock, although you don't get one per level you get a ton by finishing the game under different settings or completing challenges. There are a few more lightsaber colors, as well as shades of them, and you can have a different color con each blade, which is very, very cool.

 "The candle that burns twice as bright, burns twice as fast" they say, or something like that. Well, The Force Unleashed II is undeniably shorter, and way less ambitious than the first entry, yet, all the little tweaks to the engine makes for a game that is quite more fun to play.
 7.0 out of 10