Review #763: Life is Strange

 Not a 'Blue is the Warmest Color" spinoff.

 Back in the day, I used to love graphic adventure games such as Monkey Island, but nowadays the genre is mostly dead, living on through games like the Telltales series' or Life is Strange, with a bigger emphasis on dialogue and choices rather than on crafty or ridiculous puzzles. Life is Strange was kind of popular back when it first released, and while it hasn't held the popularity it once had, it's still fondly remembered.

 In the game you play as Max Caulfield, a mousy university student who one day discovers she has the power to rewind time when her estranged ex-best friend, Chloe Sullivan, gets shot by the resident psycho-jock Nathan. What follows is a quasi murder-mystery story in which Max and Chloe team up to discover what happened to  Rachel Amber, Chloe's friend after Max left town. I liked the story, I liked a lot of characters and hated others that we were supposed to hate. That said, I think that they wrote too many characters like dorks or geeks, like Chloe herself, who is supposed to be a rebel but calls Max "Super Max", which felt somewhat out of character from what I expected from her. All five chapters have multiple choices, some are big, some are small, regardless, you could always Rewind time and see which outcome you like the most, provided it won't pay off in latter chapters. I felt like the fifth chapter got a bit silly when it came to the chapter's villain, with his dialogue coming off borderline campy, but it totally made up for that with one trippy dream-sequence. Plus, despite my dislike for some of his dialogue, I thought the fifth chapter was really good.

 The game is very well voice acted, however, even though I'm a staunch defender of gameplay over graphics, this is a game in which the story IS the game, and it takes a while getting used to the lifeless PS2-looking character models aimlessly flapping their lips as well acted dialogue comes out. It can make a few emotional scenes turn out unintentionally funny. On the other hand, the soundtrack is glorious.

 Besides making decisions every now and then, the game has a few light puzzle elements. Things such as asking questions that anger characters, so that you can rewind back time and ask them about this new piece of information before they became uncooperative. Other times you might have to get into a certain spot and then rewind time, because Max stays still but the world around her goes back in time. Save for this one puzzle on the shack, they are pretty easy to figure out.

 Can't say I was a huge fan of the game, but I like Max and I liked her powers, I think the Rewind power is a neat twist on these games built around making decisions. Most characters were interesting, and making choices was actually rather fun, so kudos for making players get engrossed on their decisions and what they could affect in future chapters.
 7.5 out of 10

Review #762: Marvel's The Invincible Iron Man

 See? You can make a good Iron Man game.

 Iron Man has had it rough as far as the videogame world is concerned. While he has had some playable appearances on some truly great game, his self titled games have fared much worse, Iron Man 2 being one of the worst games I've ever played in my life, and I only played the demo. Thankfully, Marvel's The Invincible Iron Man for the Gameboy Advance proved that you could make a decent game out of the tin can hero.

 The game is made up of 8 stages, a few with minibosses, and 2 proper boss stages. It's not too short, but it's not lengthy either. The game has a few cutscenes and they use gorgeous 2-D art that must belong to a Comicbook, because it's just too good. As for the game itself, it's a 2-D sidescroller platform/shooter, like Contra or Metal Slug, but a bit easier provided you are careful.

 Iron Man can jump and double jump with the A button, tackle/dash with R button, although only once while on the air, shoot with the B button, and he can also charge his shots, and lastly, he can use the Uni-Beam or a area-clearing attack with the L button. These latter two super moves cost orbs, the uni-beam costs 1 orb and the AOE burst costs 2 orbs. I found that the screen-clearing move was much more useful and no situation really needed the uni-beam, save for the last boss, so I just hoarded orbs for when I needed the burst.

 The game has this weird limitation where your basic and charged shots consume energy from a gauge that refills over time at a very slow pace, although you'll find red orbs throughout the levels that will charge it a bit. This means that shooting willy nilly will come back to bite you in the back when you get swarmed by enemies and must rely on a slow stream of weak energy shots since you're out of energy. But in a way, this also teaches you to be careful. The game can be challenging if you're not careful and mindful of your energy gauge, which I know sounds like a hassle, but it's not too bad.

 If anything, this game proves that you can make a decent Iron Man game. It plays fine, it looks great and makes good use of the license.
 7.5 out of 10

Review #761: Daredevil

 It can't be worse than the move, now could it?

 Back in the day, every crappy movie deserved a crappy licensed game, and Daredevil ought not be the exception. Thankfully, it's actually a pretty decent beat'em up that reminded me a lot of old Genesis games, thanks to how it looks and plays.

 I'm not sure if the game is a retelling of the movie or a follow up or what have you, but it ends just like the movie. Sorta. The game both begins and ends with different showcases of movie stills that make no sense, at first I wasn't sure if the game was telling me that the movie took place before the game or whatever, and after I finished it and got the ending reel... I was just as confused. When it boils down to it, it's a 23 stage long beat'em up that'll have you facing bosses from the movie, such as Elektra and Bullseye, as well as other enemies exclusive to this game, like Echo and a green... troll-thing. There are a ton of extras to unlock, such as Daredevil's original yellow costume as well as Elektra, Bullseye and Kingpin's comic sprites instead of their movie-inspired ones, which is pretty neat. The entire game runs on passwords, so I just found the Master Password and played the entire game as Yellow Daredevil. Sue me.

 A jumps, B is your standard three-hit combo, R attacks with your billy club and pressing R after a two-hit B combo will end the string with a club attack, double tapping either side and pressing B performs a sliding kick. Daredevil also gets a double jump, and the L button allows you to tap into his senses to reveal hidden power ups, be it health restoring items, temporary double damage, temporary invincibility or temporarily turning your club into a projectile that stuns enemies. Different enemies are more vulnerable either to punches or club attacks, and sometimes, in order to better deal with waves of enemies, it's important to figure out how best to deal with the situation at hand.

 Most of the levels and challenges are your standard beat'em up/platformer hybrid fare, and stages aren't too bad, every now and then mixing up things with vertical movements in order to progress as opposed to a straight zip line from left to right, not that the game is lacking on those type of stages either. That said, bosses are very poorly designed, particularly Elektra, the first boss, since plenty of times there seems to be no way to defeat them but to take damage. Elektra took me out 3-4 times, so I gave up and looked up how to defeat her... and the game's only guide tells you that you need to get hit in order to beat her. Eventually I retried her fight again, since I wanted to see how her movie sprite looked, and I defeated her on my first try... even though I had to get hit in order to do it.

 Considering this is pretty much Daredevil's only videogame, I'd say he got off pretty leniently, since this is actually a pretty decent, albeit unremarkable beat'em up. Plenty of things could've been better, but they could've done so much worse, just look at the poor Power Rangers, so I'll gladly take what we got with this game.
 6.5 out of 10

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