Review #752: Castlevania - Circle of the Moon

 But what about the square of the moon? And the triangle of the moon?

 As someone that loved Symphony of the Night, I was hyped about Castlevania: Circle of the Moon before I even had a Gameboy Advance. I knew I as gonna get one, and as soon as the game was announce I kept tabs on it. As much as the early dial-up connections of the early 00's allowed anyways. But the economy took a dive, games became too much of an expensive luxury, and the fact that I never even saw the box in my country meant I never got to play the game. Eventually I would get to try it out via Emulation, but I never properly finished it, much less own it. I own it now, and finally I have beaten every Metroidvania Castlevania, and this collection is complete.

 You play as Nathan Graves, the inheritor of the famed Vampire Killer, although this game takes place in an alternate timeline, so no pesky Belmonts. Nathan, Hugh and their master, who is also Hugh's father, get trapped inside Drac's castle, their Master is MIA and Hugh is out to prove he ought to be the inheritor of the Whip, so Nathan is basically left to his own devices in order to rescue his master and defeat Dracula. Story has never been Castlevania's strongest suit, so it doesn't really matter what the excuse is, what matters is that this was the first Metroidvania style Castlevania on the Gameboy Advance, and it delivered just that. The Castle is pretty large, although the game could've used more Teleportation rooms, since you'll have to do a lot of backtracking on foot, but in a way, it's better that way, since this game is tough, and any extra level you can grind will help.

 At the start, Nate can only jump, slide, use a subweapon, attack with his whip or twirl it around for minimal damage(but works great as a defense against projectiles!), but as you go through the castle and defeat bosses you'll earn new abilities to let you go through obstacles, such as running, double jumping or pushing blocks. As far as equipment goes, Nathan only wields the Vampire Killer but you can equip an armor as well as two accessories, provided you get them from enemy drops. There isn't a shop in this game, so any healing item or equipment piece is entirely tied to how lucky you are. To compliment his basic moveset, you can also use any of the heart-consuming subweapons the series is know for, such as the dagger, the holy water, the cross, the stopwatch or the ax.

 There's one other tool in Nathan's repertoire, and that too is tied to luck, and these are Cards. A few enemies have a very small chance(It goes as high as about 1.4% chance! on a few monsters) of dropping a card. By themselves cards are useless, but if you combine cards you can get different effects. There are twenty cards, divided in two sets of 10, and you must combine two cards between sets. You can get all sorts of neat effects, such as turning your whip into an elemental whip, passive stat boots, access to Item Crash or even turn your whip into a flippin' sword. The card system, named DSS, is paramount to maximizing your survival in this game, which makes it almost criminal that every card is found by chance, and there's no way of telling if an enemy can drop a card or not besides aimless grinding. At least you'll get experience points, I guess.

 Blasphemous might've tried this whole "hard metroidvania" thing, but it ain't even half as hard as this game. I'd say Circle of the Moon sits neatly between Blasphemous and Castlevania - Order of Ecclesia. Enemies deal massive damage, bosses can tank a lot of damage, save spots are few, healing can be incredibly hard to come by and enemy drops, which make up your equipment and access to hard, can be very stingy. It doesn't feel too unfair, but some of the enemy placement can be very tricky, and some enemy patterns, like the darned Dark Armors, can be pretty tough to avoid even when you figure out the best strategy to take them out. I know the game received criticism for how dark it looked, but even with the GBA SP's backlit screen some enemy projectiles sort of blend into the background, Camilla's purple projectiles being a prime example of this.

 Overall, I think it's pretty fun. The DSS system is fun to tinker with and discover new abilities, the graphics are pretty good and the Castle feels well designed, even if it could've used more teleportation rooms. Nathan feels heavier than other protagonists in the series, he can't move as fast or even take a backstep, but exploring the castle is fun, and it's pretty large too. Konami would add a ton of features, enhancements and tweaks to the formula on subsequent games, but Circle of the Moon feels like a very solid first step.

 I think this might very well be the weakest Metroidvania on Nintendo's handheld systems, but even then it's a great game. It's definitely got a much more appealing style than Harmony of Dissonance, but that game played a bit better, even if it looked worse. It feels a bit stiff when compared with the other Castleroids, a bit slow and limited, but if you enjoy the genre there's no going wrong with this one, provided you are up to the challenge.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #751: Gunstar Super Heroes

 It ain't jump and shoot, it's SUPER jump and shoot..

 While Treasure seems to be resting on its laurels during the current generation of videogames, they sure were prolific on the Gameboy Advance. I've already covered a few of their games here, but one that avoided me for a while was Gunstar Super Heroes, a sequel to a beloved Sega Genesis classic.

 I'll be the first to admit that I never finished Gunstar Heroes, truth be told, I never found it much fun. Regardless, this game seems to be a sequel to said game, although you might be forgiven for thinking it's a reboot since it borrows so many ideas, stages and concepts from the original game. Characters were given personalities, and there's a plot about collecting 4 different gems, but they are just window dressing. In the game you can play as either Blue or Red, both are pretty much identical except for the fact that their slides look different and they each have a different weapon. Remember how the original had about 4 different types of guns? Well, Blue and Red share two of those weapons(The homing beam and the explosive rounds), but they each get a unique type: Red gets the machine gun while Blue gets the laser beam. That aside, there are 3 different difficulty settings per character, as well as 6 different missions shared between characters. The game is very short, but very tough, I only just managed to beat the game on Easy, finishing Normal would require a bit more time investment, learning patterns and what not, and I just didn't want to bother. I didn't really need to either, I got more than my fill of the game on Easy and I really enjoyed my time with it, but it's not a game I'd care getting good at.

 The game offers a ton of mobility and techniques to style on your enemies. A is your jump button, but couple it with Down on the D-Pad and you'll perform an offensive slide, tap A on the air to produce a flying kick, press Up on the D-Pad with A to perform a Shoryuken or tap down and A while on the air to stomp on the ground. You can even link a slide into a Shoryuken into a stomp, it's pretty smooth, simple and quite stylish, although being careless with these will only result in you getting hurt. L button toggles between your three guns, B lets you move and shoot while R will shoot while locking you in place, in case you need precision aiming. Each weapon also gets a gauge that fills as you kill enemies, once filled you can double tap R to use a super version of your shot. Lastly, tapping the B button instead of holding it down will let you use melee attacks. Training yourself to shoot with B or R depending on the situation takes a while, but there's no denying that your moveset is pretty neat, and it makes for a very stylish game.

 Level design is... well, your mileage may vary on these. Most stages have at least some sort of vehicle section, be it an overhead helicopter stage or a stage in which you roll a ship around the screen while evading missile and shooting down enemies. Can't say I enjoyed those, the game is definitely at its best when you are on the ground, running, jumping, styling and shooting. Stage 4 also has a bizarre board-minigame thing that feels more like a waste of time than a challenge. I really, really could've done without that section. While there are no traditional checkpoints, each stage has multiple sections, and if you die you can restart from another section, with the small caveat that you spawn with whatever health you had when you reached that checkpoint. If its too low, you can just replay the previous section, or sections, and try to arrive with more health. It's an interesting system to be sure.

 Gunstar Super Heroes is a bit of a mixed bag. The gameplay is brilliant, your moveset is fun... but I think they went a bit too hard on unnecessary vehicle sections that actually took a bit away from the game. And it's a bit of a shame, because if it had had more on-foot sections the game could've been a little gem. Regardless, it's a fun game, but not without a few dull moments.
 7.5 out of 10

Review #750: Final Fantasy VII & Final Fantasy VIII Remastered - Twin Pack

 The forever fantasy.

 Hi! My name is Ignacio and thanks to Final Fantasy VII & Final Fantasy VIII Remastered: Twin Pack I can play my favorite game of all time anywhere, anytime. I mean, geeze, one of my first blog posts was about how great Final Fantasy VII still was, and I stand by those words to this very day. To be honest, while I'm sure most people that were gaming in the late 90s probably built stronger bonds with Final Fantasy VII and VIII than IX, there's no good reason as to why FF IX isn't on this card. I'm not too bothered about it since IX was my least liked PS era Final Fantasy, probably because while I played VII and VIII on PC no such port existed for IX, and by the time I got a PS2 and finally got to play IX there were many other fantastic games demanding my attention so I never spent too much time with it.

 Final Fantasy VII

 Still a classic, still amazing. I swear, while it looks crude by today's standards, hidden beneath its looks lies the best JRPG of all time, with brilliantly simple mechanics as well as a fantastic plot that thrives despite its poor translation. On a more personal note, whenever I wasn't playing the game I was visualizing in my mind what came after whatever part in the game I was in, and, lo and behold, I knew the game by heart. It's music transported me to my childhood, and by the end I wished the game had more songs so that it would unearth even more feelings of nostalgia. It's amazing.

 The plot follows Cloud Strife, Ex-Soldier First Class, as he finds himself helping AVALANCHE, a terrorist group that is opposing Shinra and their life-draining Reactors that are on the brink of killing the planet. It's not too soon before Sephiroth, Ex-Soldier First Class, re-emerges from Cloud's past, him too seeking to destroy the world, and thus begins Cloud's quest to save the world... and recover his memory. Yeah, it's the brooding amnesiac hero trope, but this game did it first and, arguably, did it best. There's a lot more to the story than that, and this being my 600th playthrough, I started noticing a ton of little details that foreshadow the plot twists oh so exquisitely. Every character in the game gets their own chance to shine and their own development, even the two optional characters get their moments, albeit being optional as well, which helps make you fall in love with everyone. The game also has a ton of very progressive ideas that were pretty much ahead of their time, such as giving you control during cutscenes in which you can't do anything to stop what's happening, building an atmosphere of futility and powerlessness which is nothing short of impressive for a game of its era. For what it's worth, while the translation is still a bit iffy, they fixed a few of the more glaring typos and errors.

 Gameplay is pure turn-based battling bliss. The game uses Square's trademark ATB system, in which your turns come once your ATB bar fills, and then you can: Attack, Defend, use magic, use items or use special commands. Taking damage builds on your limit bar, once full your basic attack becomes a Limit Break, a powerful attack that deals massive damage or has some sort of beneficial effect on your team. Characters have at least 4 different limit breaks each.

 But where the game truly shines is with the Materia system. It's so simple, but so much fun. Basically, Materia comes in different forms: Spells, Commands, Summons, Passive abilities, and depending on what weapon and armor you have equipped is how many Materia slots you get, and some slots may even be linked allowing you to couple Materia together for added effects, for example, put FIRE and MAGIC COUNTER linked and you'll counter attacks with Fire, put Fire Materia linked with ALL and you'll get to attack every enemy with fire. You also have to keep in mind that most Materia will put a handicap on your health and strength, while raising your MP and magic power, so you shouldn't just put every single Materia you've got on a single character. It's fun and it's simple, allowing for different strategies built on very simple rules. I love it. It also helps you build your party however way you want. Want someone who is strictly devoted to healing? Just put Healing Materia on said character, or, if you like, give everyone a Cure Materia so that everyone can serve as a healer!

 Alright, so the game is brilliant, what about this port? Well, the pre-rendered backgrounds during the exploration parts of the game are quite blurry, disappointingly so. Some backgrounds look as if they were smeared with oil. Speaking of visuals, you can't stretch the screen, so you'll have to make do with a black frame around the screen. The game also introduces three cheats: L3 for 3X speed, R3 for instant healing/turn/MP restore/full limit break and L3+R3 for no encounters. They are really quite useful. A few optional bosses will murder you even if you use the R3 cheat, but you'll probably be able to cruise through the parts that matter without much hassle. L3 is brilliant to cover long distances, and you can toggle both cheats together which makes grinding quite fast, and thus, quite useful. I read a lot about crashes and them being linked to the cheats, but while I didn't use them too much, my game never crashed. At all.

 Final Fantasy VII on the Switch is a great port of a great game. I wish the backgrounds were sharper, but I'll grant it that the new cheats make it quite convenient for casual playthroughs. Plus, when all is said and done, I can play my favorite game of all time on the go, so I'm all over the moon for this tiny little cart.
 10 out of 10

 Final Fantasy VIII

 Final Fantasy VIII is... it's a game alright. While back in the day I loved this game, I loved it so much I had a hard time deciding whether I liked this game or VII the most. But, as luck would have it, I replayed it a few years ago and.... I kinda, sorta, maybe hated it. Everything I wrote on this blog back then remains true, I don't like this game and I think the made a ton of poor design choices, so there's that.

 I won't go over the game again, since it'd be me just copy/pasting what I wrote back in the day, suffice to say that the things that make this game so annoying to play are: The fact that you can't skip the lengthy tutorials and you can't even trigger the X3 speed cheat on them. The fact that leveling up is pretty much useless since enemies level up with you. But worst of all, the Junctioning system. You don't have magic in this game perse, instead, you have to 'draw' them from enemies in order to stock on magic, up to 100 different casts of magic per character. But the game has no equipment, instead, you have to junction magic to your stats, and how much of a boost you get is entirely dependent on the quantity of stocked junctioned magic you've got. So you are caught in a bind, since you won't want to use magic since you want to improve your stats. Plus, drawing magic takes forever, since at most you'll get 9 casts on a draw. At most. In other words, you'll spend countless turns and in turn waste time drawing magic with all three party members, and magic you won't be using since you'll be tying it to your stats. It's horrible! The encounter rate also seems higher than FF VII's.

 At least, X3 Speed and the R3 cheat make grinding for magic a bit more tolerable, but only a bit. The R3 cheat is more powerful than in FFVII, since your ATB bar is filled ALL the time, which means, basically, infinite turns. So, y'know, drawing magic takes less time than before. And, to be honest, it does help the game, because I do think that, despite how soap opera-ish some of the plot twists are, I think the story itself is quite entertaining, and Squall and Rinoa's love story is quite engaging, so when the annoying game mechanics are made less annoying you can spend more time enjoying what's really good about the game, namely, its story.

 Besides the cheats, Final Fantasy VIII also got another enhancement: New character models. Characters now look almost PS2-quality-like, almost, they are quite pretty and look much more faithful to the official art, even if a few idiots want to cry about Rinoa's cleavage. That said, it suffers from the same problem as FFVII's port: extremely blurry backgrounds.

 All in all, Final Fantasy VIII is one of the Final Fantasies that have aged the worst, but this port did a few things to make it more tolerable. Honestly, I'd even go as far as saying that this might be the best way to play the game.
 5.0 out of 10

 Overall? Twin Pack is a fantastic package made up of two classic games.... even if one has aged like milk. While I absolutely think this pack should've included IX, I'll also tell you that this cart is worth it for FF VII alone, so I don't cry myself to sleep over it. If anything this collection is quite convenient, you can take it on the go with you, and you also get some neat Speed enhancements and battle enhancements to make the games enjoyable on a more casual level, which works great for games like these where plot comes before the gameplay. Luckily, Final Fantasy VII also delivered on gameplay.
 10 out of 10

Review #749: Yoshi's New Island

 Can we get back to the old one?

 I am a HUGE Yoshi Island fan, after I got to play that game on the Gameboy Advance I absolutely fell in love with it. I've fond memories of waking up before highschool and always managing to play a few stages before having to leave. That said, every subsequent Yoshi game I've played afterwards never managed to capture that spark again. Sadly, Yoshi's New Island is no exception.

 The story is basically a good ending override for Yoshi's Island, turns out the Stork messed up and brought the babies to the wrong couple... and then it loses the babies again, so the Yoshi's set out to get the babies to Stork, while defeating baby Bowser, again. It's lazy, it's just your every day Nintendo plot shenanigans. The game is made up of 6 worlds, with 8 stages each as well as a hidden stage on each world. A ton of levels borrow ideas or concepts from the original game, which is both cute and somewhat lazy. On the other hand, while the game is a 2-D platforming game, it uses beautiful 3-D graphics that are textured to look as if they were painted by pencils, it's very pretty... except for the fact that the Yoshis have no legs. That's right, their shoes just float over their torsos, which looks very weird and wasn't a very good artistic choice. It worked on the SNES, but it doesn't work quite as well in 3-D.

 The Yoshis keep the same moves they've had since their initial outing: A jump that ends with a flutter for extra air, a butt-stomp, eating enemies to turn them into eggs(Or spit them back out) and shooting said eggs. It's a moveset that works and has worked for years and years. The game can be played with either the digital pad or the analog stick, but it's my recommendation to stick with the DPad, since using the analog stick made me perform a butt-stomp many times I didn't really want to, sometimes costing me a life. New to the game are Giant Shyguys that, when eaten, turn into Giant Eggs that demolish everything on their path, as well as Giant Metal Shyguys that turn into tougher, heavier Giant Metal Eggs that have the added benefit of sinking Yoshi below water, as long as you don't shoot them that is. It's tough to consider it a new game mechanic, since Giant Shyguys are pretty rare. They also added an unnecessarily large amount of vehicle sections, and these are pretty bland because they use gyroscopic controls exclusively.

 Game progression is pretty much exactly like the original Yoshi's Island, each level having 5 hidden Flowers, 20 hidden Red Coins and 30 mini stars to collect. Your objective on each level is to take Baby Mario from beginning to end, and getting hit makes Baby Mario float on a bubble, and you must touch the bubble before 10 seconds pass, else he gets taken away and you lose a life. Recovering Baby Mario is pretty easy most of the time, so your deaths will come from falling down bottomless pits. Stage design is decent most of the time, obstacles don't feel unfair and while it borrows a lot of ideas from the original game, it has a few original things of its own, like a giant Chomp-Chomp chasing you. That said, getting all Red Coins and Flowers does feel unfair sometimes, as either might be hidden behind tricks and puzzles that require previous knowledge of them being there, as a single 'error' progressing through the stage might lock them behind walls or the such, requiring a stage restart. Heck, some coins will only spawn if you land on a specific platform. It feels a bit unfair, y'know?

 Yoshi's New Island is an alright sequel to a timeless classic, it had a lot to live up to, and it failed to hit some marks. I think that trying to rely so much on nostalgia hit them in the back as it ends up feeling like a pale imitation of something that was great. The few new mechanics they added either went underused, like giant eggs, or were cumbersome and too prevalent, namely the gyroscopic sections. Regardless, the basic gameplay remains strong, and level design is pretty decent, so it's not a bad game by any means, it simply couldn't measure up to the original, while doing little to stand out from it. Thunder God Lakitu is pretty epic though.
 7.0 out of 10

Review #748: Blasphemous

 A sinful delight.

 I'll be the first to tell you that I absolutely hate the Souls series and how popular it got, but Blasphemous really is something else. Sparse savepoints that respawn every enemy and refill your limited health vials, an interconnected world, lore and story that can only be discovered by examining items, tough as nails.... it's all here, but in sacrilegious 2-D.

 You are the Penitent One, the last survivor of a coven that had taken a vow of silence, and he sets out to cleanse the curse of The Miracle that has befallen Cvstodia. This means taking a journey through a twisted take on religious concepts, taking down sinner and saint alike. It's pretty good. The graphics are grotesque and violent, making for a very grim environment, the art itself is very crude and rough, think later DOS games, which adds yet another layer of bleakness to the whole ordeal. The game is pretty much a Metroidvania, even more so than the Souls series themselves, since as you go through the game not only will you open up paths that connect different zones together, but you'll also earn Relics that allow you to cross obstacles that you couldn't before, such as making platforms made out of blood appear or making roots grow from designated places in order to reach higher ground. Beating the game unlocks alternate color palettes for our hero.

 The Penitent One can Slash, Jump, Dash/Dodge, Parry, cast Magic('Prayers') and cling onto wooden walls with his sword. As you play through the game you'll find dozens of items that'll boost your stats(Mostly different forms of defense), Prayers, empty vials, that can be made usable again on blood fountains, increasing the amount of health vials you can carry. There are also Health and Mana upgrades waiting to be found, not to mention the aforementioned Relics that will let you explore hidden areas and alternate routes. Defeating enemies grant you experience points that can be used to purchase new skills for your sword, the Mea Culpa.

 The game is tough, there's a fun mixture of tough enemies, tougher bosses and tight platforming challenges, mostly involving spikes that kill you on contact. At the beginning of the game you have a measly two health vials to rely upon, which can only be filled by finding a save point or an even rarer blood fountain. That said, dying in the game is a bit more motivating that in Souls game. Sure, you get a penalty on your maximum mana and you gain less experience points until you find the 'Guilt' you left on the place you died, but if you get back there and collect your guilt, you'll get a free health and mana restore, pushing you forward to deal with whatever challenge killed you last! This holds true for bosses, your Guilt acting as a free health restore, one that has no recovery frames unlike using a health vial. You could also pay with a few experience points at a Guilt Statue to have your guilt restored... but why would you, if getting the best ending involves destroying every Guilt Statue and using the Pure Bead to explore its remains?

 While it borrows a lot from the Souls games, I think this game is more akin to Castlevania, specifically Order of Ecclesia. It's tough but fair, but it still felt easier than Order of Ecclesia. Shanoa had a lot of Glyphs to play around with, but mastering the parry will get you everywhere in this game. There's a single difficulty spike midway through the game when you have to face a double boss, but the rest of the game is fairly consistent with the difficulty. Heck, I'd say that the double bosses were tougher than the final boss in the game! That said, the game is a blast, I loved exploring the desolate world of Cvstodia, and combat is fast and flashy making it fun to backtrack to previous areas in search of goodies I couldn't reach before.

 Despite how good the game is, it does have a few bugs and glitches here and there. Worst of all bein the dash cancel. It seems that getting hit during a specific frame of you dash will prevent you from dashing until you exit the screen. This was the worst glitch by far, and also the rare, I only found a single user complaining about it, and it only happened to me about 5-6 times.... during my attempts at the double bosses, seems those guys had a knack for hitting me at just the right frame, which is probably why I found that fight the hardest, since every single time I tried the fight I wound up not being able to dash. There's also a bug that makes part of the map reveal themselves, which is a bit annoying since an uncovered map helps you figure out which areas you couldn't reach before. A fun one, if you enter a menu while clinging to the edge of a platform, upon exiting the menus you'll be stuck on air. Just enter another menus and exit to fix it. Lastly, near the end of the game I came upon two seemingly endless loading screens that forced me to exit the game.

 As far as I'm concerned, Blasphemous hits all the right notes that makes for a great Metroidvania game. The game is large enough to keep you busy for about 10 hours without growing old, and slaying enemies feels snappy and satisfying so as not to get old. The gameplay itself is so much fun that dying doesn't become tedious either. All in all, it's a great game, and I can't wait for the free DLC. Konami might be done with the genre, but as long as games like Dead Cells and Blasphemous keep the torch alive there's nothing to worry about.
8.5 out of 10

Review #747: Dragon Ball Z - Kakarot

 Dragon Bug Z

 Dragon Ball Z is back, in form of an RPG! CyberConnect2, better known for their Naruto games as well as their epic Asura's Wrath aimed to bring their love for the ridiculous with Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, a complete retelling of the Z series. It hits most of the right notes, even if it falls short in more than a few ways.

 Believe it or not, Kakarot covers the entire Dragon Ball Z storyline, a bit of a rarity among Dragon Ball Z games, since first iterations tend to only cover up to Namek or Cell. A few things were cut, a ton of things were added, in the form of sidequests, and a few things were tweaked to flow a bit better for the game, for example, now all Z warriors face the Saibamen at once, instead of going one by one. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed, since I expected Naruto Ninja Storm levels of epic cutscenes, but it seems like most of the time they went for a more faithful approach. Mind you, when it's good, it's GOOD, Vegeto VS Buu is gorgeous, and Vegeta's last ditch effort against Cell is amazing, but most of the time they weren't flexing their creative muscle. A few other scenes went for a mixture of faithfulness and CC2's originality, such as Vegeta's last resort against Fat Buu, leaving in some key frames from the manga, but also using the power of the PS4 to add a lot of visual eyecandy for players to drool at. That said, a few other scenes left me a bit disappointed, Gohan is my favorite character in the series, and I was disappointed at how little flair they added to his face-off against Buu, leaving out the amazing pummeling Gohan laid on Buu. Most of the game follows a very simple structure, with marks guiding you from objective to objective, but you can take your time to get anywhere, either to take in some sidequests or just to explore for collectibles.

 While the game is named Kakarot, it seems CC2 didn't realize that Gohan is the actual protagonist of the Z series, so most of the time is spent playing as Gohan. Heck, intermissions between sagas are all about Gohan, as a result, Goku was way behind Vegeta and Gohan in levels. That said, you'll get to play as Goku, Gohan, Piccolo, Vegeta, Trunks, Vegeto and Gotenks. Disappointingly, Vegeto and Gotenks only get one fight each, which sucks since Vegeto is my other favorite character. Characters go through a ton of wardrobe changes throughout the game, and it kinda sucks that you can't change their clothes. After finishing the game you can unlock Trunks to use in the present, but you can't change any of the characters' clothes, so Vegeta is stuck with his Cell attire even though you just defeated Buu.

 Each character can be leveled up, and you can invest various kinds of currency and points to unlock new super moves or passive abilities. You can use a party of up to three different characters, and while only five characters can be played with, you can use the entire cast of Z warriors as party members, and they get their own skill trees, that said, most of the time it's better to just have your party made up of playable characters, since they earn more XP than benched characters, and those are the ones you can actually play with. Speaking of party members, your AI allies are completely braindead, but having party members is better than not, since they may occasionally help you get out of a tough spot, as well as letting you use a couple of their super moves at will, after they recharge anyways.

 The game is an RPG through-and-through, its world being divided into various different medium-sized zones, filled with references and landmarks from the world of Dragon Ball Z. You can freely fly around, searching for battle encounters, which you can touch in order to trigger a battle, burst through them, if your level is high enough, earning the experience points and skipping the battle or just avoid them, collect materials, food(Collecting fruit, hunting wildlife or fishing for fish) and Z Orbs... because this is an open-worldish modern game, so of course it's got to have mandatory item gathering. Food can be used to cook meals and earn small, permanent stat upgrades, material can be used to develop a training machine, build vehicles(Goku and Picollo learn drive after all!) as well as used to complete some quests. Z Orbs are used to upgrade your characters and learn new skills, collecting them might seem a necessity at first, but after a while battles become very generous with them, so as not have you wasting time flying around for them. As with most Dragon Ball games, collecting the Dragon Balls is a thing, and as per usual, it's very annoying. You have to go from area to area, going through lengthy loading times, get all seven, make a wish, and then wait 20 minutes for them to reappear. Thankfully, quests exclusive to the Dragon Balls are few.

 Fighting is fairly simple, as per usual with CC2's games. You have an attack button, a ki proyectile attack button, a dodge and a block. Holding L1 turns all four face buttons into your four equipped super moves, the directional pad turns them into your four equipped items, R1 turns them into your allies' super moves, while L1+R1 is turns them into your equipped transformations. Tapping L3 lets you burst towards your opponent, tapping block(L2) at the right time before getting hit lets you teleport behind your opponent. Controls are deceptively complex for such a simple game, and getting used to how everything works can get a while, but once your brain adapts you'll end up with a very smooth and fun combat system, even if it's not very in depth. There are no fancy juggles, no cancelling normal attacks into supers, just mashing and mashing... but it sure is pretty, and for this game, it works well.

 The combat itself is alright, but nothing worth writing home about. While it gets the job and, and it's quite flashy and colorful thanks to its gorgeous graphics and relatively smooth framerate, there are a few chinks here and there that can make it a bit dull at time. For instance, enemies love entering their red auras, which grants them super armor as they charge a homing attack. Eventually you'll learn how to avoid them, but they are still pretty annoying. A few bosses can be quite annoying since they love to spam their super armor modes, Nappa and Recoome are particularly bad with this, constantly entering their super armored mode, going through your attacks while pummeling you down for size. It doesn't feel fair or fun. Thankfully, other bosses don't spam their super armor so much.

 Throughout each Saga(Saiyans, Namek, Cell and Buu) as well as between them you can undertake sidequests from other NPCs, most of them being popular and forgotten characters from the world of Dragon Ball, and a few of these sidequests are meant to explain the whys and hows of other events, for example, you can revive the Ginyu Force and turn them into good guys... and they'll take Gohan under their wing, having him learn poses... which he'll later use as Saiyaman! There's a nice amount of sidequests to do, you can also build a couple of cars and race, and then there are Villainous Enemies and Super Villainous Enemies, special high-level encounters that will appear on certain zones. As a whole, it took me about 30 hours to finish the game, although I couldn't really complete it because....

 ....the game is riddled with bugs. There was a whole slew of sidequests I just wasn't able to finish because either the items I had to collect wouldn't spawn or I couldn't interact with the NPC. I couldn't finish Yamucha's quest as kid Gohan, I couldn't collect the bananas for Kaio-sama's monkey, the enemies I needed to defeat to collect parts for Dr. Briefs wouldn't spawn, the items Eighter asked me to collect just weren't there and... and I couldn't interact with Bulma during the epilogue, which means I couldn't unlock the Time Machine or Trunks. There's a fairly common bug that will make the Super Villainous Radditz/Nappa battle impossible to do, oh, and one of Gohan's Supers, Super Rapid Ki Attack Wave just wouldn't work until I got to the timeskip and he grew up. If you revive an enemy with the Dragon Balls but he's also a part of a Villanous Battle you haven't finished yet, well, you won't be able to interact with him until you beat the encounter, or run away from it. And, by the by, your joystick isn't broken, vibration can be turned on or off, but it won't work either way. I loved the game, but dammit, I wasn't able to finish a ton of sidequests even though I really wanted to. And Trunks is my third favorite character and I couldn't unlock him because of a bug. I couldn't even get the Time Machine in order to attempt to trigger broken sidequests again for a second try at them.

 The other big problem with the game are the loading times. They are frequent and they are lengthy. How frequent? Well, some parts of the story mode might have a loading screen for just two lines of dialogue since the scene took place in another area. That means: The initial loading screen when entering an area to talk with the NPC that moves the story along, another loading screen to load the next lines of dialogue(which took part in another zone) and then ANOTHER loading screen to return to where you were. And they are quite long!

 I'll admit that the game's problems are fairly glaring and it could've ruined this game.... but this is a Dragon Ball Z game that covers the entire storyline from the manga, is fun in its simplicity and kept a lot of attention to detail. And, truth be told, I can deal with the sidequests being impossible to complete since, at least, the main story works just fine, and that's the part of this game that matters the most. People not interested in the license might not want to deal with the hassle, but fans of the series such as myself should be able to put up with its shortcomings and experience a complete, playable Dragon Ball Z in beautiful 3-D.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #746: Avatar - The Last Airbender(Nintendo DS)

 Ain't no stopping this licensed-game bender any time soon!

 Avatar The Last Airbender released on multiple platforms, each major line(PS2/Xbox/Gamecube, PSP, DS, Advance) getting their own version. The Gameboy Advance entry was a delightful puzzle game, but the DS? Oh boy, the DS got an RPG! It's not as complex or as involved as your Final Fantasy, but we've got dungeons, herb mixing, real-time battles, experience points, the whole shebang!

 While I haven't seen the series(yet) I did the least amount of research required to figure out that this game follows its own original story set between Season 1 and 2, and it follows Aang, Katara, Sokka and.... and Haru, which I even I know isn't a series regular, as they seek to stop the rise of the machines that are laying waste around the world. The game takes about 12 hours to complete, and is divided into chapters, each chapter taking place in its own map. There are sidequests to be found if you search deep enough, which will reward you with bonus stats or even bonus special moves.

 The basic gameplay loop is very simple, at the start of most chapters you'll want to make your way into the chapter's town in order to speak with NPCs and figure out where you really wanna go, and then it's just getting from designated area to designated area. Along the way you may come across enemies, touch them and you'll initiate a battle which takes place in real time. Y is your basic attack, X uses chi-special moves(Chi refills over time, but depending on which special move you used last it may take longer), B blocks and Y is a bender-styled defensive move, such as Aang flying or Katara covering herself in ice. You can swap characters at any time, but the CPU will take over whichever three characters you aren't using.

 The AI is pretty dumb. Rogue Galaxy kinda dumb. They love getting themselves killed, and there's nothing you can do about it. Healing items are hard to come by, particularly at the beginning of the game, and there are no Inns or places in which you can fully recover, so you'll be relying on dying and continuing, since every character gets healed up to a third of their total maximum health. This worked quite well for me, since CPUs are only useful as meat shields, taking attention away from you, and they don't even use their special moves. I played most of the game as Aang, but I switched over to Haru every now and then, or Katara if only to revive fallen allies. You see, Aang has a three hit combo and Haru has a two hit combo, making them actually fun to use, while Sokka is stuck to single hits with his club and Katara attacks with a weak little projectile. In what's an ironic twist of fate, Katara is actually useful during some of the poorly designed boss fights in which attacking from afar is actually the best way to approach battles. Look, fighting normal enemies is alright, it's pretty fun actually, but some of the boss fights are very poorly designed, like the very first boss that can pretty much go through your attacks and has a very generous range on his attacks.

 Most times you finish an encounter, the enemy will drop a minuscule amount of money or, perhaps better, a healing item. But you have to be careful, as you have a very limited inventory capacity. Thankfully, you can rely on your infinite continues in order to save up on healing items. Learning Herb combinations is paramount to maximizing your inventory space. Lastly, the game features 2-D sprites running over 3-D background, which isn't too bad, but the camera can be a bit bad sometimes, particularly on the one mandatory stealth segment.

 As a whole, Avatar the Last Airbender is pretty fun. It has a few very annoying moments that stand out, mostly a few boss fights, but the rest of the game is pretty decent. I'm just surprised they managed to make such a decent RPG out of Avatar. Hopefully the sequel has better bosses and makes Sokka and Katara more fun to play as.
 7.0 out of 10