Lv 4 ~ Mother 3

 I am the self-proclaimed largest fan of EarthBound (Mother 2 in Japan) in the entire universe, yet I have no idea why it took me so damn long to actually play through its long-anticipated sequel (triquel?), Mother 3. I freaked out when I heard that this game was going to be released for the 64DD, and nearly cried when I heard it was canceled. I freaked out again when I caught wind that it was being redeveloped for the GameCube, and nearly had a heart attack when that was canceled, too. Finally, though, the game was completed and released on the Game Boy Advance in Japan and, although it will probably never, ever see a US release (I'm assuming due to the major plot line surrounding around a race of transsexual beings known as the 'Magypsies'), thanks to Starmen.net, I was able to enjoy the translated ROM. Oh, happy day!

 Having played and beaten EarthBound so, so, SO many times since I was 10 years old or so, I had really high expectations for this game, which is basically a classic, turn-based RPG with a light-hearted, almost comedic approach. Unlike EarthBound, this RPG isn't necessarily set in an almost mockingly modern setting, possibly due to the fact that it takes place in the "Nowhere Islands". The setting is much less "United States city", like its predecessor, and, unfortunately, the world you get to explore isn't nearly as vast as it was in EarthBound. However, the visual style is exactly the same as it was in EarthBound, and there was a constant barrage of nostalgia that made me constantly giggle like a giddy schoolgirl. The names of the various psychic abilities, the sound effects, the music and even a lot of the same sprites for NPCs are featured in Mother 3, and although they aren't necessarily exactly the same, it's perfectly fitting for a follow-up title. Fantastic.

 The story is told quite cleverly, and follows a multitude of characters (namely Lucas, Kumatora, Dusty, and Boney)--two of which are gifted with psychic abilities--on their journey to rid their land of a tyrranical "king" by the name of Porky (also known as Pokey in the US translation of EarthBound). At various points in the game, characters join your party temporarily, and the game flashes back, forward, or to another party's perspective in present-time.While I do appreciate this take on storytelling, for me, it was often difficult to follow, and far too often was I asking myself who would eventually end up in my "final" party because characters come and go so often. Thankfully, the game doesn't require experience-grinding, so it ultimately wasn't too much of an issue.

 The gameplay in this title is pretty much what you'd expect from a traditional RPG. You explore various areas with your party (which constantly is shifting, as mentioned before), battle monsters and level up to learn new abilities. The battle system is simple and turn-based, and characters act based on their speed statistic. The new additions to the battle system were totally rad, though! One of the most notable aspects of EarthBound was the battle music--unlike in most RPGs, different music played when you were fighting with an enemy, and not just a difference in random-encounter monsters and boss battles. When facing the "New Age Retro Hippie", the music would shift to a rock 'n roll sound. When fighting robotic enemies, the music would become techno-tastic and mechanical. Mother 3 continued this awesome aspect and took it one step further and incorporated music into the battle system, itself.

 When fighting, you can actually combo your basic attacks by pressing the button to the enemy "heartbeat", which, essentially, is the beat of the background music, and you can chain up to fifteen hits together. At first, this seems like a really simple task, but later on in the game, the music becomes erratic and complex, so comboing against final bosses and enemies is quite an arduous task, indeed. Another neat aspect is that when a character or enemy attacks, a sound effect or musical instrument rings out, in various pitches and tones to correspond with the current music track playing. Some characters had trumpets, some had guitars. Boney the dog, one of your final party members (which made me really happy, since Ness's dog King left the party early on in EarthBound), makes a bark noise when he attacks, which I always adored hearing. I really thought this was a fun way to take advantage of the awesome soundtrack, as well as keep otherwise simplistic and monotonous battles somewhat engaging. This game's soundtrack is absolutely outstanding.

 Battle scene of what was going to be the GameCube version of Mother 3.

 Only two of your characters continue to learn abilities as they level up, Lucas and Kumatora. Duster and Boney don't have psychic abilities and don't even learn new abilities past what they begin with, so that's a little bleh, but whatever. Learning abilities isn't as simple as leveling up as it is in EarthBound, however. Once they have reached the level necessary to learn an ability, they experience a "fever" while their mind realizes a new ability, during which your party is unable to dash on the field map. It's an interesting concept, and I understand because it's psychic abilities and all, but it was a bit of a downer, for me.

 I am quite saddened as a fan of this series to admit that I was a bit disappointed. My expectations were so, so high because of how amazing EarthBound was, and although Mother 3 was incredibly charming and addictive, it lacked something that I just can't put my finger on: that spark that EarthBound had from beginning to finish. Having that said, it's not a bad game at all. I'd go so far to say that it's astounding. The humor is spot-on, and that is the primary appeal of the Mother series, anyway. I found myself constantly laughing out loud at silly lines spoken by random NPCs, as well as a lot of the monsters encountered (although they weren't nearly as memorable as the ones in EarthBound, like the Cranky Old Lady), but most amusing were, of course, the Magypsies, the race of tranny, bearded, immortal beings that the plot of the story eventually revolves around.

 What I thought was the most appealing about Mother 3 was, as I said before, the addition of a music-based combo system in the battle. I was also incredibly impressed by the storytelling devices used, although I didn't really care for the whole "chapter" method. There were lots of flashbacks, lots of shifts in perspective, and far too much party member shuffling. Having so many temporary party members was a bit frustrating -- it made me feel like I was wasting time leveling characters I knew I wasn't going to be taking to the end of the game, but in general, I was impressed by the way the story was told, and the plot was certainly much more in-depth and emotional than it had been in EarthBound.

 I really hated the fact that I had to wait so much time after leveling up Lucas and Kumatora for them to learn a new ability instead of just freakin' learning it. I had to walk around without being able to dash 'til they decided to realize whatever new power they learned from leveling up ten minutes prior. Bleh.

 Something else that was totally disappointing was the overall serious and dark tone. EarthBound was incredibly light-hearted and silly, all of the way until the final battle. In Mother 3, the game starts out... well, dark. Incredibly dark. So dark that I cried. Several times. This game is just plain sad. It lightens up a bit, here and there, but over all, the tone of this game is much, much more serious than its predecessors, and that killed it for me. The whole appeal of EarthBound, to me, was the light, goofy atmosphere of it all. Bummer.

 It took far, far too long for the central plot of the game to even be explained, and it certainly seemed rushed, particularly the ending. Oh geez, the ending. I have never been so disappointed when beating a game since... well, okay, never. It honestly pissed me off; it was a fun experience, but the ending made the entire journey feel like it was totally not worth it. There were so many loose ends that weren't tied off, and never will be. Sigh.

 The cons do not outweigh the pros, for me, with Mother 3, but once again, keep in mind that I'm comparing it to the masterpiece that is EarthBound. So I apologize to those of you who are huge Lucas fans, but please understand that Mother 3 simply doesn't live up to the amazingness that is Ness's game of origin. Overall, I did enjoy playing it, although I felt like I was having to force myself through it, as opposed to being helplessly addicted to it, and once again... the ending. Oh gawd, the ending. Just... there... wasn't even an ending! Just... ugh!!!

• Audio: 4.5
• Gameplay: 4
• Originality: 4 
• Story: 5
  
• Visuals: 3.5
• Overall: 4
• Difficulty: Very Easy
• Completion Time: ~25 Hours

+ Excellent retro-styled graphics and soundtrack

+ Nostalgic, yet engaging battle system

+ Quirky humor that fits perfectly in the Mother series

+ Incredibly emotional and surprisingly deep storyline

- Too many flashbacks and perspective-shifts

- Fairly short completion time with an unsatisfying ending

Lv 3 ~ Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords

 Yeah. I know. I've totally been neglecting this blog and my whole beating-a-game-a-week project for 2011, but I'm bound and determined to actually stick with it! I apologize for having not posted in so long, and for not actually playing games as regularly as I should have been. It's rather delayed, but here's my review for Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords.

 Yeah, when this game first came out several years ago, myself and many others were quite obviously intrigued. Piecing the words "puzzle" and "quest" together instantly makes one think "puzzle RPG", which, well, is exactly what this game is. The game involves your hero character (obviously) who ends up wrapped up in a war against the evil Lord Bane who is apparently in the process of assembling a dark army in an attempt to conquer the world (sound familiar?). While the plot is simple and nothing particularly unique, it's surprisingly in-depth, and the various party members and characters you meet have well-designed back stories and personalities.

 The game play itself involves a Bejeweled-esque system where you shift two adjacent gems in order to make matches of three or more. However, in this game, the gems you match add mana of that particular element to your mana pool (earth, wind, fire, or water), give you gold, experience, or inflict damage to your opponent. You then can use your stored mana to cast spells and abilities to hinder your opponent, inflict damage, heal yourself, cast buffs, or clear gems on the board. As you battle enemies and progress through the game, you gain experience and gold, increase your various stats, equip (and eventually craft) weapons and armor, even ride a mount, seize control of cities, and capture monsters to learn more spells from them, and beyond the primary plot, there are numerous side quests to keep you occupied and help you build up your character.

 This game has a surprising amount of depth, and the gameplay is ridiculously addicting, especially when it comes to finding ridiculous (and often unfair) combos of spells and equipment. Although the puzzle game itself is incredibly monotonous and the matches tend to take far too long (especially late game, when you and all enemies have tons of HP), I still managed to find myself playing this game whenever I needed to kill time but not devote all of my attention to a game. As a result, I ended up playing this game very, very slowly over several years. It often got too boring and tedious for me to just sit down and consistently play.

 This game is available on just about every platform in existence, and I played it on the DS, so I have no idea what the differences are between versions, but the graphics, animations and special effects were rather lackluster, although they certainly do get the point across. Fanciful graphics aren't necessary for this sort of a game, but they certainly make it more appealing. The music (all of maybe two or three different tracks) is also bland and repetitive, and so are the sound effects. I played the game with sound muted most of the time, because of how "bleh" it was.

 As with all games, there were a few disappointments. One in particular was the level cap. 50. I played as a druid (there are several classes to choose from), so I had a rough time leveling up at first, but I ended up hitting level 50 long before I encountered the final boss. A friend of mine played as a knight character (who gets a huge focus and bonus on experience gems), and complained that they were level 50 before they even reached the halfway point of the game.

 Another disappointment was the city seizure concept. I took control of every city and citadel I came across -- and I was disappointed that there was never any sort of rebellion or revolt. The game made it out like that would occur after so much in-game time passed, but this never, ever happened. I thought it would have been a really neat mechanic.

 Finally, the spells. Each character class has multiple spells that, when used in a particular order or pattern, guaranteed victory. Even on the hardest difficulty setting, I had no problems completely preventing my opponent from acting at all, getting endless turns and completely dominating. I'd simply start the match with all of the mana I need to cast "Entangle" thanks to the equipment I was wearing, spam "Gust of Wind" to transform all gems into air gems, and repeat until I had enough mana to cast "Death Gaze", which pwned my opponent's HP. While fun, it completely ruins the multiplayer function of this game.

 Puzzle Quest certainly isn't the best puzzle game in existence, but you have to give it huge credit for combining the puzzle and RPG genres for the first time.Surprisingly in-depth and certainly time-consuming, it's a great game to play casually if you have a ton of time to kill. Unfortunately, it seemed a little cheaply made and had far too many easily exploitable strategies to make it actually "challenging" like the title's name suggests.

• Audio: 1
• Gameplay: 4 
• Originality: 5
• Story: 3
  
• Visuals: 2
• Overall: 3
• Difficulty: Adjustable (I played on Hard, and it certainly was difficult)
• Completion Time: Variable, based on class and difficulty (Definitely took me +40 hours as a druid)

+ Very clever concept; the source of the puzzle-RPG hybrid genre boom

+ Surprisingly in-depth storyline with plenty of characters

+ Addictive gameplay

- Story is awfully cliche for a fantasy-themed game

- Terrible audio and lackluster graphics

- Cheap, exploitable strategies make multiplayer a joke

Lv 2 ~ Dance Central

Goodness, it's not even February and I'm already slacking off on my project. No more of that, I say! Anyhoo, as I mentioned in my last post, I've been working on Dance Central. Without further ado, here's my review!

 As its name implies, Dance Central is a music-rhythm game that focuses on dancing. Derp. Thanks to the Xbox 360's Kinect peripheral, Harmonix was able to take the concept of a dance game to much further heights than the popular Dance Dance Revolution, Pump It Up, and In The Groove series. The game requires no controller to play -- and it tracks your body movements with surprising accuracy. There's a little window that displays your silhouette, so you can use this as a makeshift mirror to ensure that you're moving your body properly and are completely visible by the Kinect.

 The game features a "Break It Down" mode, which teaches you the dance moves step-by-step, allowing even those with two left feet to have a good time with this game. The song features over 30 popular songs with a wide array of genres, both in music (rap, dance pop, house, etc.) and dance styles (vogue, jerkin', dancehall). Dance Central also features a cast of interesting (and sometimes annoying) characters, each with unlockable alternate costumes, and a crap-ton of achievements to help increase your Xbox 360 GamerScore.They're certainly not easy to come by, though, particularly because this game is physically demanding -- I've been working on this game for three weeks, now, and I'm only at 80% completion. (N.B. ~ I did manage to obtain all achievements after little more than 2 months.)

 As with most modern music-rhythm games, new songs and dances are made available thanks to DLC, and with how popular this game is, I'm sure there will be many more to come.

 Back when I first got my Kinect, I played Konami's DanceMasters, first, because I was ecstatic that it contained ParaPara dances. That game has nothing on Dance Central. Navigating the menus are so simplistic and natural, the graphics are vivid, the music is catchy, and the song selection, although I didn't like it at first (because I was unfamiliar with most of the songs), provides a huge variety in dance routines. Harmonix did an excellent job of cutting out the simplistic moves from otherwise complicated dances, allowing you to gradually familiarize yourself with moves as you progress from easy, to medium, and finally, to hard difficulty.

 Some moves in certain dances seem to be unusually picky about accuracy, and the timing is sometimes off with what the on-screen dancer is compared to what you should be doing. Thankfully, though, sections of the dancer's body will glow red if you're not hitting that body movement correctly... but it certainly doesn't really help you adjust your body to figure out how to fix it. Being able to do moves in slow-motion in "Break It Down" mode has made this game much more enjoyable for me, although it's still frustrating when I know I'm doing a move correctly but the Kinect disagrees.

 If you have a 360, and are willing to fork out the cash for a Kinect, you MUST get this game. Not only is it great for beginners and challenging for those who happen to be gifted at dancing, but it's also a blast to play with friends, and it's an incredibly fun way to get a work out. I'm sure that Harmonix could have done a bit more with the game (Dance Central 2, anyone?), but in my opinion, it's already at near-perfection. Get this game. Do it. Thank me later when you're having so much fun.

• Audio: 5
• Gameplay: 5
• Originality: 4 
• Story: 1
  
• Visuals: 4
• Overall: 4
• Difficulty: Adjustable (Very Hard if you're aiming for 100% completion)
• Completion Time: +40 Hours

+ Vibrant, club-themed graphics with well-designed 3D character models

+ Incredibly diverse songlist and dance routines

+ Amazing for playing at get-togethers and parties

- A "mission mode" would've been nice

- Co-op mode is non existent

As Ulala once notably said... "Staaaaaaaaaaay tuned!"