Review #760: Disney's Magical Quest 2 Starring Mickey & Minnie

 Time for another Mickey and Minnie dressup game.

 Last year I finally got around to beating Magical Quest 1, and next on the copping block we've got Disney's Magical Quest 2 Starring Mickey & Minnie. Sure, the title is a handful, but the game is a neat follow up to the previous game. It's not better, it's not worse, it's just another set of 6 levels alongside a new set of costumes, albeit with the same strong gameplay the previous game brought.

 The story this time is a bit less magical and a bit less surreal, Mickey and Minnie arrive to the circus, to meet up with their pals, but something or someone is wreckinghavoc, so Mickey and Minnie team up to stop whoever is doing it. It's a six stage short platformer that is as hard as it is easy. What I mean to say, is that the game can be a bit challenging, but the Save option is very generous, completely refilling your health upon loading. That said, a Reset feature would've been nice, since sometimes I was sure I could do better, and wanted to do better, but had to reset the whole system to reload my save. Just like the previous game, you start off with three hearts, but if you explore the different stages you can permanently increase your health bar. Lastly, you can pick between Mickey and Minnie before you start the game, but they are pretty much identical.

  Just like the previous game, we've got three costumes to play with, but they are new costumes. Mickey's normal attire let's him grab stunned enemies or certain blocks and shoot them forward. The first costume you get, the Sweeper costume, lets you suck in enemies or certain objects, and it can be useful to put off fires. The Safari costume is an alternate take on the previous game's Climber, armed with just a hook, Mickey and Minnie can climb on walls, swing on floating spheres or slide down vines with it, this is the most versatile costume and you'll get a lot of use out of it. Lastly, the bouncing cowboy lets you shoot corks with your gun, which is quite useful for bosses. I found myself swapping costumes quite frequently, unlike the first game, and I think they made a better use out of them. That said, the Sweeper Costume felt a bit of an afterthought, anything it can do, the Cowboy costume can do better, so unless the situation explicitly demands the Sweeper costume, you probably won't use it much. That said, sucking in enemies turns them into coins, so if you want to get the most out of the secret shops this costume might be your best bet. 

 I liked this game as much as the first one. The platforming sections are slightly challenging, but fair, the costume system is quite fun and the game looks great to boot. There were a pair of leaps of faith during the game, but I think it might be because the GBA's screen is smaller than a TV's resolution, so maybe it's the GBA's fault, maybe. Regardless, since I can only remember two of them, I'm pretty sure it's not too bad. All in all, it's another great Disney game by Capcom.

 8.0 out of 10

Review #759: Konami Krazy Racers

 No, this is not another Mortal Kombat Spinoff.

 Konami Krazy Racers is one of those GBA games I had always wanted to own. I remember during my early highschool years that one guy who was younger than me owned this game, and during recess he'd lent it to me, or I'd just watch him play it. While I recognized Goemon, I didn't recognize Ninja or Dracula, so I thought it was "just" a Racing game, failing to realize that it's actually a Konami all-stars mascot racer! As the years would come to pass, I'd never fail to get a ROM of this game every time I got back into GBA Emulation, I really liked this game. And what'd you know? It's held up remarkably well!

 The game is made up of 16 tracks and 8 Racers, as well as 4 unlockable, secret racers. As per usual, tracks are divided in groups of four under the main, Grand Prix mode, called, erm, Krazy GP in this game. Besides the main GP mode you get Time Attack, Free Run(VS Cpu), VS player and Mini Battle, which is made up of two modes: Chicken Race, in which you tap B to break right before the finish run and Bomb Chaser in which you pass a bomb around to explode the unlucky sap who gets it. There's a gimmick to this game, licenses, which limit which GPs you can play. At first you can only play a single GP, and after you beat it, you can take a B License test to unlock the next to GPs, beat said GPs and you unlock the A License test, which unlocks the final GP. There's a final S License test that I wasn't able to finish, but I'm pretty sure it's just there for bragging rights. One important thing to remember is to SAVE, the game won't autosave for you, so remember to always SAVE YOUR GAME. I forgot to save the final two secret characters and raged for a bit until I calmed down and went back to get them, thankfully I discovered that you didn't need to finish the GP they are hidden in, just collect the crystal.

 The game is exactly what you think it is: A Mario Kart clone, but it's one of the few good ones. You drive laps around a track, collecting item boxes(red and blue bells) in order to use power ups to get up to the first place. You've got missiles, homing missiles, a thunder that hits everyone, the whole 9 yards. Red bells always contain offensive items, while the blue bells contain Turbos, you can store up to three turbos, but red bells don't stack, that said, there's a Shop in the main menu in which you can spend coins collected through racing in order to equip more uses or specific weapons. Equipping this modifiers doesn't guarantee that you'll get the item, but if you do happen to get the item you'll get extra uses out of it.

 The game plays just fine, and it feels almost as tight as Mario Kart. One thing that really threw me off is that the R jump does not turn into a drift, there's no drifting in this game, so taking curves is all about breaking and letting go off the accelerator.

 If there's anything to complain about is that they should've added a bit more fanservice. Goemon and Ebisumaru make perfect sense, the Vic Viper and Moai head are brilliant additions, but why is Grey Fox here without the more recognizable Solid Snake? Why do we get a generic rendition of Dracula instead or alongside of a more recognizable Belmont? I mean, don't get me wrong, Dracula is the recurring enemy, but his design always changes and this version didn't remind me of any of his past incarnations. Tracks too felt a bit generic, the Goemon tracks had its music and the backdrops reminded me of Goemon, heck, on stage changes time of the day like Mystical Ninja 64... but what about the Castle tracks? They have Castlevania's music and sometimes a few bats appear, but where are the torches? Where are the Castlevania references? Same goes for Cyber Base 1 and 2, they get Metal Gear Solid's music and there are mines on the floor, but no cardboard crates? No cameras? Nothing to make me think of Metal Gear? The same goes for the Baseball stage, they should've made it less generic and more Powerful Pro Yakyu.

 Yeah, it's a good one. I've played a fair share of loosey, slippery mascot racers, but Konami Krazy Racers is one the few ones that really manage to play as well as Mario Kart. I think they could've leaned a bit more on the franchises they paid tribute to with this game, but at least the overall package is well made.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #758: Godzilla - Domination!

 They don't call him the King of All Monsters for nothin'

 Remember Destroy All Monsters Melee? Well, not content with crafting a then-well received Godzilla game, Atari tasked WayForward with creating a handheld version of that game, and thus Godzilla Domination! was born. With this game, WayForward opted to take inspiration from the King of the Monsters, no, not Godzilla, but rather the old Neo Geo classics, the first game in particular. So what we've got here is a 4-man arena fighting game featuring 6 characters from the world of Godzilla.

 I'm not gonna lie, the game feels more than a bit barebones. There's a very basic Story Mode that ends with you fighting a gigantic Mecha Gidorah, a VS Player Mode and a VS CPU mode. You can have up to four different monsters fight on the same battle, and can divide players and CPUs in teams if you so wish it. The six characters are fairly different from one another, even MechaGodzilla and Godzilla, but movesets are very basic: A and B are different attacks, L blocks and R jumps. You also have to aerial attacks, pressing either A or B on the air, as well as two different charge attacks, with either B or A, and no, you can't attack with the other button you're not charging an attack with, so if you begin a charge you are forcefully committed to it.

 You also get super moves. By landing charged attacks or destroying buildings around you, by stepping over them, you'll build your three-tiered Rage gauge. There are three levels of Rage moves, performed with either L+R, A+B or A+B on the air. First issue: Commands are not universal between characters, this means that while L+R may be Godzilla's level 1 Rage Attack, it's actually King Gidorah's level 2 Rage attack, which is kinda annoying when switching from character to character. The second big issue with Rage attacks is that in what's actually quite surprising from a WayForward game.... getting these attacks to come out can be a hassle, controls just don't feel responsive enough, I often times found myself mashing L+R together in frustration waiting for my attack to come out.

 Godzilla Damnation! is a decent time, but it's nothing special. With a paltry 6 characters and a very limited moveset for each character you'll be done with the game after a few hours. Fans of Godzilla might get a kick out of seeing their favorite characters in gorgeous 2-D, but even then these are far from WayForward's Rob Buchanan's best work.
 5.0 out of 10

Review #757: Power Rangers - Wild Force

 At last, a wild Power Rangers game appeared.

 So... Power Rangers Wild Force is one of the two Power Rangers games on the Gameboy Advance that actually inspired me playing every Power Rangers game on handhelds, and there's a good reason for that, I actually remembered playing through both games when I was younger and actually enjoying them quite a bit. As these games arrived, I gave them a quick try, and figured out that Wild Force would be the worst one of the bunch, so I left it for last... turns out it just might be the best Rangers game on the Gameboy Advance.

 This one is a bit different from the others, it is a beat'em up albeit on an isometric viewpoint and it uses ugly pseudo 3-D graphics, I mean, the running animation is... something. The game is made up of about 8 stages, but twice you are allowed to pick divergent paths, so there's actually a few more stages, it's just that you can't play every stage on one playthrough. The game is very basic, A jumps, which is useless in this game, B is your basic attack string, L summons a fellow Ranger for a double attack and R uses a weapon attack, a Ranger's final attack on his basic combo string actually, unless you're the Black Ranger, in which case he'll pick up an enemy and throw him. Why he gets to be unique is beyond me. Each stage is made up of various square areas, and after you defeat every enemy in an area you can move to an adjacent area, the objective being to get to the area square that houses the boss. It's usually very obvious just where the boss is, and there doesn't seem to be any reason to clear every area or to explore outside whatever route you figure is quicker. There are barely more than 2 basic enemy types in the entire game, so every single stage plays out the same, it's just that the backdrop on which you are standing changes. Lazy? Definitely. Repetitive? In concept, yes, but the game is short enough as not to wear out its welcome.

 All five Rangers play basically the same, but with different stats. Before you attempt each stage you can pick a team of four, which is hilarious because there are only five characters, regardless, the first Ranger you pick is the one you'll play as, and the other three are the Rangers you'll cycle from as you use your Summon attacks, each ranger having a different super. Midway through the game, the Silver Ranger joins your ranks, and he has the same summon assist as the Blue Ranger, but he has the best stats among all characters.

 You know the drill by now, every boss ends with a Zord battle, thankfully, these Zord battles are alright, which is the best case scenario when it comes to these games. A and R are different attacks, B blocks and after you fill your energy gauge, a A-button-pressing minigame ensues that deals plenty of damage if you don't miss any input. If the enemy fills their own gauge, you'll play the same minigame but in order to block incoming damage. In what was a strange twist, I actually started to long for the Zord battles, 'cause you see, there are 7 Zords in the game, and which Zords you can use depend on which orbs you get, orbs being awarded every time you beat a stage. Since the Zord battles are quite alright, and every stage has an Orb as a reward, I started to look forward to every new Zord I could use! That said, since you have two forks during the game, you won't be able to use every Zord on a single playthrough, and depending on which routes you pick, sometimes you won't even get a new Zord upon finishing a stage, but it doesn't matter, it was still fun to get new Zords and trying them out.

 Power Rangers - Wild Force is yet another lazy, sub-par beat'em up game on the system, but for my money, it's the best one. While I had some fun with it, it's not hard to realize just how repetitive the concept is, so your mileage may vary on it. Anyway, I'm glad I'm done with Power Rangers games on the Gameboy Advance!
 4.5 out of 10

Review #756: Power Rangers - Dino Thunder

 Feels like ancient software that should've gone the way of the Dinosaurs.

 I don't know how, but Power Rangers games on the Gameboy Advance keep finding ways of letting me down, just when I think I've seen every way these games can suck.... they find new ones. Case in point, Power Rangers Dino Thunder, yet another platforming beat'em up game.

 In this game you play as the Red, Yellow and Blue Rangers while taking orders from a non-playable Black Ranger as well as sporadic appearances of an unplayable White Ranger. Lame. All three characters are virtually identical, with only their weapon attack animations being different, but behaving pretty much the same way. Each stage has you playing as a different member of the trio, and there's about 5 stages per character, for a total of 15 or so stages, making it relatively lengthy for a Power Rangers game.

 The game looks like the successor to the Ninja Storm game, featuring similar large, ugly digitized sprites and stiff gameplay. B is your basic three hit combo, B+UP is a weapon attack and B+Down is another weapon attack. You can collect coins on every stage, and for every 10 coins you can use your Super Move with the R button. Combat feels clunkier than in Ninja Storm, at first I was having trouble getting the 3-hit combo to come out and couldn't figure out what was going on.... turns you have to mash the B button really fast for it to come out, regardless, your best attacks are the weapon attacks and flying kicks, since they deal more damage than the useless 3 hit combo.

 Remember all those crappy Spider-man games on the GBA and DS? Remember what made them so bad? Well, this game follows that formula to a tee, being a scavenger hunt on mazelike levels. On the plus side, while you don't have a radar, the game reuses the same 5 levels over and over again, so eventually you'll learn the layout by heart and thus won't get lost... much. On the other side, the game reuses the same levels, with the same layouts, although with the objects of your hunt hidden in different places, over and over again, making for a very boring and repetitive game, pretty much what we've learnt to expect from these licensed snorefests. The Factory level is particularly bland, because falling down into the many, many pits will loops you back to the beginning of the stage. LAME.

 Zord Battles, of course, are a thing. This time around you pick from six different arms, 1 on each side, I mean, d'oh, and then do battle against enemies by tapping A or B to use your different arms. You might double tap left to back dash or hold back to block every now and then, but they are simple and not too awful. There are also 4 'connect the maze' minigames that are incredibly annoying because your character icon moves VERY slowly and the maze swaps tiles around randomly, or randomly takes time away from the timer, or other types of different bullcrap that turn these puzzles into annoyances. Clearing these puzzles is the only way to unlock new arms for your Zord.

 Power Rangers - Dino Thunders is clunky, poorly designed and boring, so... moving over....
 3.0 out of 10

Review #755: Power Rangers - S.P.D.

 It took a while, but here we are, the Tolerable Rangers!

 I was losing hope for the handheld Power Ranger games, but lo and behold, PowerRangers S.P.D. is actually quite serviceable. Once again, this is a beat'em up/platformer hybrid in which you save the Earth as the Power Rangers.

 This game is actually rather long when compared to the previous two games I played, being made up of 8 stages with many sub-stages each. This actually became somewhat of a negative by the time I reached stage 7, since I just wanted the game to end because it became so repetitive. In what's a change from the formula, every sub-stage has a designated Ranger, so you can't swap between them. The Red Ranger can wall jump and his super move lets him go through walls and enemies, the Blue and Green Rangers can double jump, the Blue Ranger's super move is a crystal wall that blocks projectiles and damages enemies on contact while the Green Ranger's super move is a radar, a necessity since his stages are timed scavenger hunts, lastly, the Yellow and Pink Rangers can roll in order to avoid incoming damage, the Yellow Ranger's super creates shadow doubles of her, making her the best combat character and most fun character to use, while the Pink Ranger can perform a Super Punch, which deals a lot of damage but you'll mostly use it to break walls. Lastly, you get to play as the Shadow Ranger for the final two sub-stages, and he can double jump, wall jump and roll, as well as being stronger than the others. A few sub stages are simple vehicle sections which are unobtrusive at best.

 The game is pretty much what you'd expect: Move from left to right, unless you are the Green Ranger, mashing B to defeat enemies and pressing A every now and then to jump. R uses your Super Move, which is tied to a gauge that refills over time. It what can only be seen as a poor design choice, sometimes you'll find yourself waiting for the gauge to fill so that you can go over an obstacle that requires your super. The overall gameplay is serviceable, but by the end enemies felt a bit too tanky, and you attack combo was a bit too long and boring, so I was hoping for the game to end soon and just skipping as many enemies as I could.

 You don't get Zord battles until the fourth stage, and thankfully they are not too bad. B kicks, A punches and the collision detection is a bit suspect at times, but they are not too hard and they are not too time consuming. This game might have the best Zord battles yet, but it isn't saying much all things considered.

 It's tolerable, serviceable even, but it's still nothing more than a lackluster licensed game. At least there's some fun to be had here until the repetitiveness sets in.
 4.5 out of 10

Review #754: Power Rangers - Time Force/Power Rangers - Ninja Storm

 Twice the Rangers, twice the suck.

 Sometimes, just sometimes, I wonder why I subject myself to such terrible games. Well, this time it's because of nostalgia, as I used to play these games and actually enjoy them. In this case we've got a two-in-one deal, featuring Power Rangers Ninja Storm and Power Rangers Time Force, both bland beat'em ups in their own way.

 Power Rangers - Ninja Storm

 This is one ugly beat'em up, featuring large, ugly digitized sprites that move as stiffly as they look. You have three campaigns to choose from: The Red, Yellow and Blue ranger trio, the Magenta and Deep Blue ranger duo and the Green ranger lonesome, although each campaign is made up of the same 5 stages. Rangers are pretty much identical between each other, the Crimson/Deep Blue Rangers can charge their Super attacks and basic attacks, the main trio have alternate super moves(The Red Ranger has an aerial alternate super, the Yellow Ranger has a sliding super and I wasn't able to figure out how to pull the Blue Ranger's alternate) and the Green Ranger has.... nothing. In each campaign you can swap rangers with the select button, but all characters have the same animations, sprites and stats, only differing on their super moves. Oh, and the Crimson/Deep Blue duo having electricity on their basic attacks.

 B is your standard attack or projectile, but in order to swap weapons you have to find and collect the weapon power up, but why would you? As grabbing the same weapon icon(Sword or gun) will power it up, up to level three. I don't know how the projectile weapon evolves, since I didn't care about them, but the sword goes up to level 3, and each level unlocks a new attack, turning your basic slash into a three hit combo. You have alternate combos, such as B-B+Up which pops up your enemies and B-B-B+Side which throws them forward, but they are pretty useless. I guess B+Side ender is useful to knock down a wave of enemies if they are encroaching towards you. A special gauge fills over time, and once full you can press R for your super move. A jumps and L blocks.

 Combat is fairly dull and unsatisfying. Bosses have mercy invincibility, so the one enemy that would make sense to use your three hit combo is immune to it. That said, it's easy to get bosses into a attack-block pattern, and if they get out of it, getting them into it again is fairly simple. As per usual, we've got Zord battles after every boss, and, as per usual, they are the worst part about the game. They are slow, boring and very time consuming, because they are a tug-o-war. You have to be on the look out for button prompts(QTES!) and press either B or A, depending on which button appeared, and hold down a direction on the DPAD, depending on which side of the screen said prompt came from. It's dumb, it's boring, and it can take way too long since it's a tug o' war.

 As a whole it's one boring way to spend your time in. There are better games and even better licensed games on the console.

 3.5 out of 10

 Power Rangers -Time Force

 Let me start off by saying that I LOVED the way this game started in, the Red Ranger gets murdered and your navigator nonchalantly tells you not to worry since you can 'find a replacement for him on the next stage'. Once that hooplah is over, the game starts and it's just another boring beat'em up with ugly, lazy digitized sprites. The game is five stages long, but this time around you get all five rangers at once, can swap between them by pressing Select and each Ranger gets their own health and energy gauges, as well as their own stats, but everything else is identical between them.

 B is your basic attack and A jumps. If you find the Sword and Gun icon on every stage you'll be able to use said weapons, R for the Sword and L for the gun, but they spend energy from the energy gauge, energy better spent with you screen-clearing super attack by holding down the B button. If you find the Quantum Ranger icon you can play as him until he dies or you beat the stage's boss, but be careful, just pressing the select button will lock you out of the character until you find the Quantum icon again. I understand they didn't want you to swap characters as not to save him for bosses or tough areas, but just pressing select takes him away from you! I just wanted to check his stats!

 The game is very slippery, and combat feels unresponsive and wonky, it's not a fun game to play. Level feel carelessly slapped together, featuring those loveable leaps of faiths towards the unknown. By stage 3 I figured that defeating enemies was just a formality, and most of the time just avoiding them and running towards the end of the stage was more fun than mindlessly mashing B. As per usual, after each boss you have a Zord Battle, thankfully, this is the first Power Rangers game that kept the basic gameplay for those, and no crappy minigames. That said, it's just about mashing B to fill your energy gauge, once that's done you'll automatically defeat the boss.

 Time Force is even more boring than Ninja Storm, but also feels worse to play. At least it has the best Zord Battles in a Power Ranger game I've played yet.... which isn't saying much all things considered, and they are still pretty bad, just not as bad as the other Power Rangers games had them.

 3.0 out of 10

 They are a bland couple of games, they really are. There's absolutely no reason to care for these games unless you've some weird sort of emotional or nostalgic attachment to any of these games, like I do.

 3.5 out of 10

Review #753: The Scorpion King - Sword of Osiris

 And this is why WayForward are the kings of licensed games.

 Long, long ago, the Mummy movies, starring Brendan Fraser, were pretty famous and thus a spinoff, the Scorpion King was born. In case you couldn't tell what the Rock was cooking, because the movie was pretty mediocre, the movie received a couple of licensed games in order to cash in on the Rock's rising popularity, The Scorpion King - Sword of Osiris being the Gameboy's version, developed by mainstream videogame developer darling WayForward.

 I don't know if the game follows the plot from the movie, and I really don't care because it doesn't really matter. Mathayus' sweetheart, Cassandra, gets taken away by the baddies, so he is out to rescue her and save the world, and restoring a magical gauntlet and obtaining the mythical Sword of Osiris in the process. The game is made up of seven stages, and you can play as both Mathayus AND Cassandra, although the latter is only available on the game's intro and through cheats. The game runs on passwords, which kinda suck, but at least they are only four pictures long.

 The game is a fast-paced 2-D action/platformer game in which you'll jump and slash your way to the end. Mathayus has access to two weapons(technically three), a two-handed sword and two hook swords, a dagger and a kick in the case of Cassandra, and the difference between both is merely about range, speed and strength: The Sword/Dagger is much stronger, but has less reach and a bit slower, while the Hook Swords/Kick have more range, come out quicker and hit overhead. I was just fine with the broad sword for most of the game, but a few flying enemies were better dealt with using the hookswords, so swapping weapons has its sparse uses. Both weapons have charge attacks(Hold B and then push different directions) but those moves are incredibly situational, so I only used them because I wanted to try them out, not because they'd be the optimal response to an enemy.

 As you defeat bosses, one per stage, you'll unlock gem slots on your gauntlet. Gems can be obtained from fallen enemies and they boost your stats. The first gem you find powers up your weapons, engulfing them in fire, the second level adds a rotating, defensive flame around your characters, etc. There are four different levels for gem power, but gems can be hard to come by and getting hit means you lose one gem level, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I wasn't good enough to manage to keep a level 3 gem buff long enough to see how the fourth level worked.

 The Scorpion King on the Gameboy Advance is a fairly solid offering for people looking to get their action-platform fix. Gameplay is snappy and there's nothing particularly bad about it, maybe how forgettable it can be due to the unremarkable licensed its based on. Regardless, the game does have its staying power. I first tried it out during the Advance Emulation heyday, before I even know what WayfForward was, and I never forgot about this game because of how great a first impression made thanks to how fun it was to play.
 7.5 out of 10

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