Each character will technically have their own set of moves to use in battle. However, parries, short-range attacks, and long-range missile attacks are all present across the roster. And it’s clear right from the off that different strategies are required to get the most out of each character. Shovel Knight himself, for example, favours attacking from above with his downward shovel move. King Knight, however, adopts his movement from Shovel Knight: King of Cards with much more fluid, horizontal Shoulder Bashes and graceful swirling bounces.

Victory depends on the game mode; sometimes you’ll be in a stock battle with a set amount of lives, in a true last Knight standing affair. Another mode in keeping with the Shovel Knight world sees you collecting red gems from around the arena. Killing opponents sees them drop a gem for another player to steal. The winner is the first one to accrue the allotted amount, adding a tactical element to simply knocking each other senseless.

Your game time will be split between your standard local multiplayer battle mode with the characters and arenas you have unlocked, and the single-player Story mode. The story mode again embraces a similar Classic Mode from the Smash Bros. series. Bouts are lined up for you to complete ahead of a final boss fight. These could be one-on-one fights or team battles, based on either stock or gem collecting criteria. Three different difficulty modes allow fighters to try out new characters and strategies with ease. However higher difficulties will still offer a significant challenge to those with hours of fighting under their belt.

Progression is, unsurprisingly, through repetition. But the traditional “feat” system of the series has been given an overhaul to better suit the Showdown gameplay. In other Shovel Knight games, Feats would be undertaken by those who have finished the main adventure and were up for additional challenges. Finishing the game without jumping or within a strict time limit was not uncommon. Achieving these few specific feats felt like significant accomplishments. Here the list of Feats has increased significantly and they are linked to the many unlockables in the game.

For example, you start with a paltry 8 characters to choose from, but there are plenty more to unlock, as well as new stages to battle on. Feats for finishing Story Mode with certain characters or completing character-specific mini-achievements will unlock various rewards. Chances are a successful Story Mode campaign will result in a couple of new unlocks for you to enjoy. This gives the single-player purpose, and the Feats can be tracked and checked at any point from the main menu. This means you can always see what you need to do for a new reward.

The biggest problem, though, is the characters and move-sets were designed for a platform fighting environment. Shovel Knight: Showdown is clearly meant to be an additional, fun mode with Shovel Knight characters. However, that means the fighting execution is somewhat compromised. The movements were designed for careful planning and platform traversal. Now those same inputs are being used to try and quickly outmaneuver erratic foes. As such your options feel limited and restrictive at times. And whilst I understand the comparisons to games like Smash Ultimate are unfair, I sorely missed the different options at my disposal to deal with different situations.

In addition, to be true to the series, there’s a knockback animation when any character is struck. You’re invincible during this, meaning you can’t be juggled and beaten to death, which is a positive. However, there’s nothing more frustrating than being hit, and then flying off a ledge into a pit or lava. You’ll end up losing a precious stock or gem you’ve collected. It feels cheap, and there’s nothing you can do to counter it. I felt out of control at these points which feels at odds with a game that should be flexible and responsive during the battle chaos.

True, there’s an argument to be had for “gitting gud” and learning the characters and how to deal with situations. But that dedication in a local multiplayer will see you become “that guy” that’s mastered everything. Nothing ruins a Friday night session on the sofa with some mates and a few beers quicker than someone like that. Shovel Knight: Showdown as a multiplayer game, then, that feels better utilised as an impromptu party game, but then it’s just a shame that there are so many feats to go through to unlock all the content.

This leaves Shovel Knight: Showdown in an awkward place. Despite being a multiplayer title, the most consistent fun is probably found in its single-player Story Mode. Completing numerous feats is rewarding, as is trying out new characters and stages. The battle action is decent, but with move-sets better suited to platforming, often characters feel clunky. You’ll be longing for more options in the heat of battle, and those cheap deaths from being flung into pits will always irritate. It’s not terrible by any means, and treated as a sweetener on top of the amazing content in the Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove collection is when it will be most appreciated. It’s just unlikely to be something many people return to again and again.

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The fluidity of the movement if anything feels better than the previous games. As King Knight, you’re in charge of his gorgeously slick moves. With his jumps, shoulder bashes, and spinning hops, you feel equal parts the gracious dancer and the ultimate layer of the smackdown. You always feel like you’re in control, with movement flowing as it should. The button inputs feeling responsive and always acknowledge the context-sensitive moments when you need them to.

It wouldn’t be a Shovel Knight title without its brand of dry humour, and King of Cards is no different. King Knight’s arrogance and delusions of grandeur provide plenty of derisive putdowns to all who stand in his way. Also, the various puns and wordplay had me rolling my eyes and bearing a wry smile in equal measure. The relationship between King Knight and his mother is a particular highlight, the doting parent schtick having been done many times before but it still seems to land the funny moments.

The main change this time around is the new card game, Joustus – not only an interesting game in its own right, but one that helps to form the entire narrative. King Knight’s aim throughout his adventure is to become the Joustus Champion. To do this he must overcome the three Champions of the House of Joustus. This card game serves as a break from the traditional platforming, shifting to mental challenges to overcome foes. Joustus reminded me of Tetra Master in Final Fantasy IX with its character cards and arrow combinations. It doesn’t play exactly the same, but requires a similar approach in terms of tactics and planning. It’s fun to play, and the fact you can see your opponent’s hand, as well as your own, adds an extra layer of tactical play as you run through scenarios in your head and counter possible strategies from your adversary.

There are entire stages devoted to Joustus that require you to beat three regular opponents before facing off against a tougher boss enemy in a battle of wits. The basics are explained well, but some of the details are strangely absent. Different card attacks and abilities, particularly in the cards you’ll discover later in the game are left unexplained. True, it follows the premise of showing but not telling from the main game. But whereas that platforming is intuitive, a brand new card game perhaps needed more of its intricacies showcasing. You could even drip-feed players throughout the game to avoid overloading people upfront.

But perhaps the biggest question mark is how under-used Joustus feels throughout. Most of the gameplay is traditional Shovel Knight platforming. It feels odd with a title like King of Cards that you barely spend any of your time playing cards. Instead, you spend your time platforming towards that elusive title without ever feeling like you really earned it. Now, don’t get me wrong, King of Card’s strength is in the platforming we know and love, but if that’s the case, maybe don’t build a narrative around a minigame that isn’t a core part of the gameplay.

The difficulty feels slightly ramped up compared to previous titles, too, but not so much that newcomers will be put off. King of Cards feels very accessible, with a learning curve that almost goes unnoticed. The constant stream of new ideas pushes you just that little bit harder each time. It’s only when you replay earlier levels, you realise how far you’ve come in a short space of time. Situations that caused frustration only half an hour earlier now feel much more manageable.

Due to the solid design of each screen,  there’s always a clear path forward. Sometimes multiple screens will link in clever ways broadening the possibilities. But you’ll often know what to do, the challenge is executing your ideas. It’s fitting that your impatience and cockiness will often be the cause of death here. It perfectly mirrors the King Knight character and his self-perceived excellence often being at odds with his reality. There are a couple of areas towards the end that cause cheaper deaths, but never to the point where frustration takes over and you don’t want to push on to overcome it.

And the end of King of Cards is in many ways is just the beginning. New Game+ mode and additional Feats provide challenges for those looking to become the true King Knight. Feats such as completing a level without jumping, or beating the game in just ninety minutes are there for fans of the series looking to take the challenge to the next level. In addition, the sheer number of collectibles, upgrades, and Joustus cards to collect mean there’s plenty here to keep you interested after the credits roll that first time.

Shovel Knight is back and in some ways it’s the best it’s ever been. King Knight’s move-set feels graceful and fluid allowing for level design and challenges on-screen which just feel so satisfying to beat. The controls are as tight as you would expect, and there’s plenty of humour, challenge, and content to keep you coming back for more. The only disappointment is Joustus, which felt underused and under-explained, which is a shame considering this is one of the game’s main differences when compared to the previous titles. But as an additional minigame, it is most welcome, as is more Shovel Knight for that matter. King of Cards is a worthy addition to the series that both fans and newcomers can enjoy. Shoulder barging skeletons into lava has never been more fun.

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The latest in what seems to be the Nintendo holding pattern of releasing deluxe versions of games on different systems, we have Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn. But unlike Mario Kart 8 Deluxe or New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, where titles that were made on the WiiU, and likely missed by many, were reintroduced to a larger audience on the Switch, this one is a remake for the 3DS based on the Wii game Kirby’s Epic Yarn. You’d be forgiven for thinking that remaking a Wii game from 2010 and releasing it on a handheld system nine years later despite said handheld having been around for eight of those years, sounds a little muddled. But it’s fitting, given that’s exactly how it feels to actually play.

The base experience of Kirby’s Epic Yarn is all present and correct, with everyone’s favourite pink protagonist having to join forces with Prince Fluff to save his native Patch Land from the evil of Yin-Yarn. Just like the original, Kirby’s signature ability to swallow enemies and take on their characteristics has been removed, and replaced with the ability to change into certain shapes at will to help traversal. This could be a car to zip faster across land, or a submarine to help with underwater movement. There are also special points in levels where Kirby can change into special objects unique to that level, which could be anything from a train to a UFO to overcome various challenges.

A lot of the charm of the original was in the art style, with the use of yarn and craft material to make up the landscape. The look and feel of the game carries well onto the 3DS, although there are a few areas where it feels noticeably rougher around the edges, but never really enough to detract from your enjoyment. By and large the cute aesthetic and great level design shines through with aplomb on the 3DS. This coupled with the gorgeous, lovable soundtrack of the original again succeeds in making you all warm inside and want to press on and see what lies ahead. The final world in particular giving a shot of nostalgia and familiarity to proceedings.

So far so good, but what makes this title “extra” compared to the Wii original? Well the first addition is an attempt to address the issue of difficulty that hangs over Kirby games like a bad smell. Yes Kirby games are easy, and Kirby’s Epic Yarn was no exception. To combat this, a new “Devilish” mode has been added to each level. Any level played in this mode is exactly the same as normal, except for one small difference, a small purple creature appears and follows you around the level trying to drop black spiked balls on top of you. It can be removed for a bit with a well-timed attack but will return after a short while to torment you until you reach the end of the level. The idea being that if you can survive the level without being hit (by any creature including this purple winged nemesis) you gain up to five life pieces for your collection. Each hit in a level reduces the number you take home by one, and with the 50 levels here, that makes a whopping 250 to collect if you can avoid being hit. Difficult? Certainly, but enjoyable and worth it? Probably not. For collecting certain amounts of life pieces across the levels you unlock gifts in the form of more collectable furniture for your house, which was arguably the least engaging part of the original. Yes, the nagging completionist inside of me is drawn to trying it, but after a while you realise Devilish mode is just pest mode in all but name as you swat away at this frustrating fly whilst trying to enjoy the main game. All in the name of “difficulty” and for arbitrary decorative rewards you’ll likely never use.

There’s also a couple of new minigames thrown into the mix for when you fancy a change of pace from the main story. And I use the term pace deliberately, because often the main story can feel a little slow, akin more to a steady treasure hunt than a challenging experience. In these minigames speed is definitely the name of the game. Depending on which one you choose, you either take the form of King Dedede or Meta Knight and have to race through levels at speed collecting items and/or killing enemies. The King Dedede version is a side-scrolling runner, where you have to collect beads and avoid obstacles with the latter reducing your bead amount whenever you touch them. Reaching the end of the level with a certain score affects your rank. The Meta Knight version is similar but is more of a slasher-race, where you can move more freely across the whole screen, and a timer is ever counting down to game over. To extend your time, you need to quickly dispatch of enemies. More time equals more opportunity to collect beads, and again you’re ranked when you’ve finished. Higher rankings earn (you’ve guessed it) more decorations, but the main reason for these minigames is more for a fast-paced buzz that the main story is often lacking, and they serve a decent job, There’s four levels in each which are unlocked through the main story progression, and can be played at any time once unlocked.

Perhaps the biggest shake-up to the 3DS remake though is the inclusion of Ravel Abilities. These come courtesy of hats that Kirby can acquire throughout the various levels and give him unique abilities. One allows him to brandish a sword and attack enemies, another to shoot pins at enemies from afar. By and large these serve as an additional way of killing enemies or destroying blocks in the level, and most are largely interchangeable, albeit with different nuances. All except the Nylon hat, which ultimately breaks the game. This hat not only gives Kirby the ability to attack enemies at close range, but it also acts as an extra jump giving him extra height, and to top it all off, when activated draws all gems nearby to flock to Kirby. Now, in a game that is about platforming, beating enemies and collecting gems, that’s a pretty big buff that makes all three much simpler. And when you add in the fact that these original levels were designed without these Ravel Abilities, you soon find yourself skipping parts of levels inadvertently because you now have extra height, or you won’t have to make that death-defying platforming leap to collect gems, because they now come to you. It makes an already simple game, trivial, and undermines some of the excellent level design on offer by providing you with an all-powerful trump card. Also, given that Ravel Abilities carry over to future levels with you, I’d find myself dodging the offerings of new power-ups just to keep my Nylon hat. And when you’re running away from power-ups, you know you’ve gone wrong somewhere.

So that leaves Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn in a bit of a weird position. There’s no denying that the original on the Wii was an excellent title, full of unique charm, solid if simple gameplay, a cute aesthetic and some top-notch level design packed with ideas. And by being that game and more, Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn should be just as good. Except it isn’t because the additions do very little to add to the experience to excite fans of the original or force those that passed up the Wii version nearly a decade ago to take the plunge. And some of the additions, most notably the Ravel Abilities actually undo some of the good work on the level design by over-simplifying the experience.

And then there’s the point of time. It’s been nine years since Kirby’s Epic Yarn, and by not moving forward much with its offering in that time, it looks out of touch. Since then, we’ve even had its spiritual successor in Yoshi’s Woolly World and have the sequel Yoshi’s Crafted World to look forward this very month. And the 3DS doesn’t even offer much as a platform of choice here, with no 3D image support. It does have Amiibo functionality for select Kirby franchise Amiibo should you want easier access to Ravel Abilities. But I can’t help but wonder if only Nintendo had a more powerful handheld console, that also had Amiibo support, could easily handle Wii-level graphics and more, and could have facilitated better additions like maybe some new levels, or a better designed hike in difficulty than an arbitrary nuisance flying around. Yes, this really should be on Switch, and the decision to publish it on the 3DS hampers it’s execution as well as denies it the scope to really build on the original.

If you who wished you had played the Wii original, but never got the chance, and have sold your Wii, but still have your 3DS knocking around, then maybe this version is for you. It is a solid platformer with some good ideas. But for everyone else it will feel like a strange release that for all it’s good intentions is probably best left alone. Better to cherish the original memories than potentially tarnish them with muddled extras on offer here.

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Etrian Odyssey is about exploring labyrinths and drawing your map on the bottom screen. Each entry introduces something new mechanically and has various quality of life improvements. The Untold games have a story mode as a big bonus to the classic mode that is basically a remaster of the DS game. Etrian Odyssey V saw Atlus look back at what made the originals great and it is a superb classic style Etrian Odyssey game with modern quality of life fixes and newer visuals. Etrian Odyssey Nexus is basically the swansong for the franchise on 3DS and a celebration of the series so far. This has resulted in experience that will be bittersweet for longtime fans, but also one that is going to hopefully bring more people into the franchise.

This isn’t an Untold game or a remake, so it follows the usual setup of you having to form your own party from a plethora of classes available. In fact it is pretty mind blowing just how much you have access to in terms of customisation here. You can select a portrait for each class and then tweak various colours on said portrait. Once you have your main party (and a few backup adventurers), you get into the main loop which is explore, map, slay monsters, return, sell items and drops, and finally upgrade and buy equipment to help you go forward. Don’t expect a deep narrative here because the exploration and labyrinths are the real meat and potatoes of Nexus.

While this does reuse a lot from previous games in conjunction with a lot of new things that are only in Nexus, there is an interesting twist on many older things. Labyrinths from earlier games will remind you of those games but not play out the same. FOEs, the super enemies that are visible on the maps and the ones you actively avoid initially, are still pretty scary even multiple games in for me. Studying their patterns is key to making progress. Outside the main “story” flow, there are loads of side missions you can take on from the Tavern which are worth your time for the item and money rewards. There isn’t much point hunting down a FOE if you don’t have money to buy the weapon available after defeating one is there?

While you don’t need to map out each labyrinth floor all the way, you do get rewarded for putting in the effort. Speaking of mapping, it is the best it has ever been with everything new from earlier games and some more enhancements that makes it feel a lot quicker in general. Having icons for points of interest like shortcuts or chests change when you’ve unlocked them will never get old and is probably one of the best addition the franchise has seen over the last few games. If you aren’t a fan of spending time drawing maps all the way, you can enable auto mapping that does a good job of mapping the stuff around you.

Unlike most newer 3DS games, Etrian Odyssey Nexus does support 3D. I know many people probably don’t care about this anymore but seeing the gorgeous labyrinths in 3D is always great. I usually keep the setting on for a whole floor before turning it off. The art direction is always strong and it looks super in 3D. The UI is as strong as it has ever been with a lovely combination of green and blue throughout.

Yuzo Koshiro’s soundtrack here uses a lot more distorted guitar than expected and it is awesome. One of the tunes would feel right at home on an 80s Iron Maiden album. The voice acting is one of the biggest flaws in Etrian Odyssey Nexus. This isn’t because of the lack of English voice acting but how Atlus has implemented voices here. There are many situations where dialogue spoken doesn’t have any subtitle. This is true for NPCs in the hub and also combat and exploration cues. For the unaware, when you walk on a spot that has something of interest, someone in the party usually mentions something. This is obviously not subtitled in English and is a problem if you turn off the voices in general if you aren’t a fan of a few of the voices here. There isn’t any granular control over voices so it is either all or nothing. I get that adding an English dub is probably not financially feasible for a niche franchise on a handheld in its twilight years like this, but I expect all spoken dialogue to be subtitled at least.

Etrian Odyssey Nexus does almost everything right. Fans who have played earlier games will love it for how it celebrates the franchise. Newcomers can treat this like a greatest hits album that usually sees people dig deeper into main albums if they like what they hear and end up getting earlier games. Some newcomers might be overwhelmed by the classes available and find it a bit difficult to form a party with good synergy though. The only caveat for playing this before the others is how going backwards will result in some great quality of life features not be there since each new entry added something worthwhile to the game be it through combat or mapmaking. It is sad that Atlus USA couldn’t end the franchise on 3DS with a full localisation that included English voice acting. That is the only real blemish on this gem of a release. Hopefully Persona Q2 sees a better implementation of Japanese only voice acting because not having some dialogue subtitled is annoying.

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Mario’s F.L.U.D.D. and Luigi’s Poltergust 3,000 were both the work of Professor E.Gadd, a character introduced to Nintendo’s burgeoning roster through their little purple gaming box and yet he’s never been requested as a Smash Bros. character. Anyway, Luigi’s Mansion was Gadd’s first appearance, and now his origin story is back for a new generation with a 3DS remake of Luigi’s first foray into house cleaning.

If you’ve not played the original or the 2013 3DS sequel, here’s the gist: Luigi has won a mysterious mansion in a contest he never entered, upon learning this Mario went to investigate and never returned. So now it’s the green pigmented plumber who now gingerly finds his way into a place that no-one who has ever seen a horror movie would dare enter. It’s in this place that Luigi meets the aforementioned Professor Gadd who drafts the hapless coward into doing his ghost busting duties for him, so now Luigi finds himself armed with a torch and the power of suction looking to eliminate the ghostly nuisance from his new digs and save his brother.

So, this game was originally released back in 2001, a full seventeen years ago and all things considered it looks great on 3DS despite the downgrade in graphical fidelity. There are concessions made to resolution, model complexity, aliasing and texture work, but the game is otherwise exactly the same from core gameplay to boss fights albeit with a new co-op mode for those with a busting buddy. The game is download play enabled, but you won’t be able to play the story mode together unless both players own the game. One thing that has unfortunately made the transition intact is the god awful camera, something that’s incredibly unwelcome.

Now, the camera angle actually worked in Luigi’s Mansion 2, the fact it was more zoomed out and there wasn’t as much need to line yourself up to fire projectiles at enemies meant that it wasn’t as much of a frustration, here though there are many occasions where you need to suck something up and then let go to fire it at some-one or some-thing and you’ll find that more often than not your shot will whiz right past your target. This also causes frustrations when you’re trying to dodge enemy attacks because the location on the 3D plain isn’t 100% reliable and as a result you’ll find yourself losing health to an attack you thought you weren’t even in the way of.

A lot of the time you’ll need to ensure you’re pointing at something correctly to do what you need to do. Ghost have to be stunned and you do this by charging up Luigi’s torch and then letting go to fire off a blinding light in the direction you’re facing, do it at a ghost and you’ll be able to follow this up with holding the R button to activate the Hoover. Do this and they’ll have a number appear over them, that number will start reducing, to speed it up you’ll need to pull away from the ghost as it tries to escape, bring the counter to zero and Luigi will claim his prize. Ghosts have differing health quantities for you to consider when trying to suck them up, with Boos especially varying from as low as 50 to as high as 300, but it’s the painting ghosts that require a bit of thought into their capture.

E. Gadd has a gallery you see and all the pictures were actually ghosts that have now escaped and also reside in the house, come across one of these and you’ll need to use the ‘Search’ function of Luigi’s new ‘Game Boy Horror’ to focus on their heart to find their weakness. A pair of twins for instance ask you to play Hide and Seek while a little girl worries about wetting the bed, once you’ve exploited their weakness you’ll attempt to suck them up just like all the others.

There’s an odd horror to the fate of these ghosts that you claim on behalf of E.Gadd, their struggles as you attempt to capture them are frenzied and desperate because they of course long to be free and aren’t really doing anything wrong. It gets even more horrific when returned Gadd’s lab where a machine presses the ghosts down and turns them into paintings, frozen in time for eternity on a wall in Gadd’s gallery. It’s not really a fate that’s fair to bestow upon people just minding their own business in a place that you realistically had no right to be in.

But put them away you must, for that is the ultimate goal of Luigi’s Mansion, and what a mansion it is, there’s an obscene amount of rooms in this place, you’ve got a clockwork room, several balconies, two gardens (one with a well), an antechamber, several bedrooms, a ballroom and more. As you venture around you’ll find that there are some questionable design decisions from a traversal point of view, there are hallways that are separate from other hallways and it makes no sense for there to be no doorway between them other than to make the player take the long way around to get there, it’s obviously a way to make the player re-enter old rooms regularly to capture Boos (certain quantities are required to pass particular doors) but unfortunately there’s only one method of fast travel, mirrors, and they only go in one direction, back to the main hall.

People who play Metroidvanias will be no stranger to the idea of trekking through areas they’ve been through before but normally there are new toys to play with, here, aside from the occasional use of fire, water and ice elements – after acquiring the required spirit and expelled with a press of the L button – there’s nothing really that livens up the retreading of old ground. If anything the element issue exacerbates the to-ing and fro-ing more because if you happen to go in somewhere without the element you need to succeed you’ll have to go back and get it before making the return trip again.

The lack of a second stick also hampers things slightly too because motion controls aren’t great with this kind of game. Luigi points forward and as you tilt the console backwards and forwards Luigi pivots his aim up and down, if for any reason you stop sucking while tilted Luigi will remain fixed in that position until you press B to reset him. The thing is, I often found Luigi’s aim would reset while I’m trying to aim upwards, an annoyance when trying to capture Boos who adjust the height they float at regularly. You can use the dpad to move your aim up and down but then you cannot move around, so the first solution is inelegant, the second is unusable.

I don’t want to be too down about this remake, at the end of the day the 3DS version of Luigi’s Mansion is incredibly faithful to the original which was a very charming game. Traveling around Luigi’s abode with his face stuck in that incredibly forced grimace is still fun and the frustrations while prevalent in single player can be mitigated by playing in local co-op. While fondly remembered Luigi’s Mansion was never one of the GameCube’s best received games, and it’s not going to be one of the 3DS’ either. The game clocks in at around six hours for the main campaign which kind of makes the full asking price a bit eye opening.

If you’ve not played a Luigi’s Mansion game before you’re better off going after the cheaper and superior sequel. If you’ve played that but not the original you’ll find more of what you know here, but don’t expect anything better than what you’ve played before. This truly is as close to original version as it could possibly be, gameplay foibles and all.

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Jibanyan and a plucky group of cowardly or downright lazy yo-kai are part of a group who are supposed to stand up to the dangerous spirits of the local area and keep the populace safe (kind of like a paranormal neighbourhood watch), the problem is, they’re really bad at it. Cue the appearance of series meathead Sgt. Burly to whip them into shape and turn them into a proper defence force. The game then follows the series’ usual episodic structure with missions being undertaken to complete a mini story which broadens over a complete arc.

During missions you’ll fight Yo-Kai who will either drop items or Oni orbs. These orbs are the main currency of the game and allow you to buy items, level up characters, enhance equipment, and a bunch of other stuff. They have so many uses that the game has to give you multiple ways to farm the damn things because without a plentiful supply of them you’re really going to struggle. Level requirements go up quickly and the amount of orbs required to level up jump drastically, not to mention to sheer amount of them you need to buy halfway decent items. You’ll need to grind. A lot. And that just isn’t fun.

To do so you can replay old missions, or you can go on patrols. In patrols you just wander around taking out Yo-Kai and indulging in a spot of short term problem solving should an incident occur. The gains from patrols are incredibly inconsistent and as such it’s not really an effective way to gain orbs. A better method is the boss fight option which is unlocked later. This allows you to re-do boss fights you’ve already done, and then you can take on harder variants of them. Through this mode you can make much more considerable gains in a short period of time, but the boss fights, like the main action, just aren’t fun.

It’s bad enough that the actual action element of the game is basically you running around and pressing A constantly interspersed with the occasional X and sometimes a Y. You might have to use B a bit early on, but it comes into more use later when bosses get really damn hard and wipe out your AI compatriots pretty sharpish. When they’re knocked out you have a window of opportunity to revive them by standing over their prone body and holding the B button to watch a blue meter slowly feel, the wait is as boringly agonising as I’ve made it sound. It gets even worse when you realise you need to mash B to revive yourself should you bite the big one.

And the AI will die a lot because it’s incredibly dumb. You’ll notice your partners will sometimes get out the way of AoE (Area of Effect) attacks, but will happily stand in great big damage dealing areas. There’s a later boss that regularly curses your team mates and it’s impossible to make them get out of the way, and shifting to remove a curse is a right royal pain. It’s obvious that the game is designed to be played in co-op with others, but the likelihood of only playing with other people is slim, so competent AI is necessary to play the game effectively.

There’s a whole raft of design frustrations here that it’s impossible to go through all of them but Yo-Kai Watch Blasters seems to exist to give Level-5 a reason to use the catalogue of environments and character models from the previous games again rather than create much in the way of anything new. You’ll fight Slimander, again, go back in time, again, go to the beach, again, it’s all so rote and by the numbers. Constant repetition works against the game due to the poor core gameplay loop, and most annoyingly the character soundbites which will have even the most hardened person gritting their teeth to the verge of shattering them.

With the next mainline Yo-Kai watch game coming to the Switch it’s unclear just if there’ll be another of this series coming to the 3DS, after Bony Spirits, Fleshy Souls, and Psychic Spectres, Blasters feels like a considerable misstep with a game style that just doesn’t feel like it lends itself favourably to the series. It just feels boring, repetitive and ultimately frustrating which is a shame if this is to be the series finale on 3DS.

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My son has ADHD and as a result finds it hard to concentrate on individual things for significant periods of time, which is why WarioWare seems to be a perfect fit for him. For those not in the know (where have you been?) the main aim of Wario Ware is to figure out what you have to do and execute it before the time runs out, and then do it again and again. Each action is referred to as a microgame and they last literally seconds, for some you’ll need to push a direction or the A button, others you’ll need to tilt your DS, or you might have to blow into the microphone or poke the screen with your stylus, most of the time you’ll be told what action you need to take, but others you’re left to figure it out yourself.

Things don’t just proceed leisurely either, it starts off at a relatively decent lick, as you work games out and believe you’ve started to get to grips with what’s going on the game gets faster and you’ll need your wits about you as the games change up. It’s even better when you’re doing a mashup of all the game styles as you’ll need to remember what inputs do what; it can really fry your brain when the music’s tempo increases and the bomb timer at the bottom starts shrinking quicker and quicker. Every now and then the action is punctuated by a ‘Boss Battle’ which if anything can come as a welcome respite from the chaos, because it all slows down, there’s no timer and all you have to do is successfully enter the required inputs.

The microgames are introduced via a series of colourful characters which range in terms of quality. They’ve all got distinct personalities, but the way they’ve been drawn in the game is a little odd, with some seemingly nice and sharp with others rendered fairly blocky, sometimes in the same scene, which is really odd. But it’s the microgames themselves which are the stars, picking noses, plucking hairs, lifting weights, rubbing out pictures and even shaving the earth. The games are as nonsensical as they come but the way they surprise you never fails to satisfy. While those with a lot of the games of yesteryear, the microgames on offer from 5 Volt, 9 Volt and 18 Volt offer a nice dose of nostalgia. You’ll find Starfox, The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario World, Balloon Flight, Metroid and more included within the quantity of zany tasks you’re asked to complete.

WarioWare Gold is packed with other stuff and unlockables too. The story mode itself can be completed in a couple of hours, but from there you have challenges such as a gauntlet to complete as many games as you can before you lose all your lives, or with only one life. There’ll be ones where Wario impedes you by reversing your controls, or my son’s personal favourite Sneaky Gamer. Sneaky Gamer comes from the Wii U’s Game and Wario where as 9 Volt you’ll need to try and play while his mum 5 Volt tries to catch him. When you hear 5 volt coming you’ll need to time a press or the L and R buttons to make 9 Volt pretend to be asleep, and when she leaves you release the buttons to continue playing, it’s tense, but a lot of fun. There are missions you can complete by replaying the modes and achieving set objectives which grant you coins, coins can then be used in a capsule machine which unlocks items within the game’s Toy Room.

Boiled down to its basic element and WarioWare Gold is a high score chase, you go again and again to complete as many microgames as is humanly possible, and the thing is despite being a single player game it’s brilliant in groups. Have a turn while everyone watches over your shoulder then pass it to the next person and see how far they get, the competitive element ensures the hilarity increases. Thing is, Nintendo understands that, hence why the story mode is based around a videogame tournament of Wario’s making, which just adds to the silliness because, let’s face it, everyone should know not to trust Wario by now.

WarioWare Gold is a great slice of Nintendo craziness, it’s a celebration of their unique gameplay, their retro history and tight design on minimal inputs. There’s the right mish-mash of microgames in here as well, with returning games mixing brilliantly with new ones and the best elements of past titles. My son is eight-years old, and to be honest if a game isn’t all that good then he’s not playing it, and he absolutely loves this. Granted it’s not like the gameplay has evolved over the last fifteen years, but if you’re in the market for a bit of madcap fun this WarioWare is indeed Gold.

The post WarioWare Gold review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

This is the magic of Nintendo’s design philosophy, everything within Captain Toad: TT feels wonderfully solid, like you could reach out and pick any element of it up, squish it, roll it around in your hand; like it’s tangible, real. This is a hallmark of pretty much all of Nintendo’s first party output, and can’t be said for offerings like those from SEGA (the Olympics), Bandai Namco (Sports Superstars) and Camelot. If anything, the only people outside of Nintendo that have managed to achieve anything like what Nintendo puts out is Ubisoft with Rabbids Kingdom Battle.

Anyway, back to Toad, you may remember this when it originally came out for Wii U and because of the console’s poor sales performance it didn’t do as well as it should have done as a result here we have the inevitable Switch port and perhaps more surprisingly a 3DS one as well. Functionally not much has changed, you’re still guiding Toad round isolated 3D enclosures, rotating the camera to find the path to get to the star, the kicker being that Toad cannot run, or jump. Because of the lack of omnidirectional movement you need to analyse the layout of the levels and work out how you can reach the goal safely while also achieving the other objectives laid out for you.

And what levels these are, they can range from small isolated blocks to sprawling running tracks and they’re so absolutely jam packed with detail and things to find that there’ll be several moments when you’ll finish a level, find out the bonus objective and wonder aloud to yourself, “where the hell have they hidden that?” The thing is, even when you think they’ve exhausted everything they can do with the available space some levels reappear later in the game, remixed with slightly different elements to challenge how well you are able to navigate them.

Considering just how much is packed into a level it’s a little disappointing that a lot of the time things are just hidden from you because of the camera, yes it can be positioned in almost any way you want, but normally something you’re looking for will be tucked in a nook halfway up a hallway you can only see down if you angle the camera just right. Then there are single pass levels where you have to do the whole thing in a single attempt, in these you cannot double back to re-attempt to grab something you missed meaning that to try and get it you have to do the whole level again. These aren’t deal breakers, but they’re really frustrating in a game that is otherwise so tightly designed.

Regardless of what machine you play this on you’ll get pretty much the same experience. Aside from a lack of visual fidelity the 3DS version looks incredibly close to its bigger brother, a considerable achievement on hardware that is significantly underpowered in comparison. What Captain Toad achieves here is so immense you’ll wonder just how some 3DS games can look so ugly, this is bright and colourful and has that same feeling of tangibility that the Switch and Wii U versions have.

If you play on the Switch in handheld mode, then control is obviously operated by the joycon controls with prods and taps on the unit’s touchscreen to move elements like sliding blocks or poke enemies to stun them. In TV mode however you have to put up with an unsightly pointer which is moved by tracking your controller and then you press the ZR trigger to initiate the tap, it’s not really intuitive. While Captain Toad isn’t exactly a taxing game, certain parts rely too heavily on these touch inputs and when the controller just doesn’t want to point where you want it to there can be a considerable amount of frustrated flailing. Even in handheld mode the system isn’t ideal because you need to remove one hand from the unit to instigate the touch, or rotation if you’re spinwheels and this really can break your momentum.

On the 3DS though the game itself takes place on the top screen, while a representation of it is also rendered on the bottom screen; you use the bottom screen to move the camera around and to use those all important touch inputs. The problem is that the touches can get in the way of the camera movements, so when you want to rotate the camera you can wind up tapping on an enemy instead and screwing up your timing, it’s not a terrible solution, but it is fiddly. Other than that the game has all the features from the other versions, so if you don’t have access to a Switch or a Wii U you won’t be missing out on anything by opting for Nintendo’s other handheld system.

It’s nice that Captain Toad has another lease of life on the Switch and 3DS, but I’d stop short of claiming that it’s a perfect fit for Nintendo’s new machine. The touch input solution isn’t ideal, and there’s not really much added from the Wii U version. There are three Mario Odyssey themed levels based on the Sand Kingdom, Cascade Kingdom and New Donk City, and these three levels are even more jam packed with little intricacies than any others before them, it’s just a shame that there’s only the three of them to play, a boss battle against the dragon in the Ruined Kingdom or a visit to Bowser’s Castle would have been very welcome additions here.

If you missed out on Captain Toad the first time round then this is a must buy regardless of format you pick it up on, if however you did play it on Wii U then that question is a little trickier, as there’s not a lot here that’s new and from a control standpoint it is slightly worse. It looks great no matter how you play it, 1080p in TV mode and 720p in handheld mode but a consistent 60fps, and it also looks brilliant on 3DS.

The best part is that this is a great game to play on the go, the levels are short enough to crack out a couple on a short commute or loads on a long one, and they’re packed with extra challenges that take little time to accomplish as well. Yes there are some problems with the transition from machine to machine(s), but this is still a very welcome return of this brand of puzzle-action. I really hope that people do support this re-release because it might give Nintendo that push to make a sequel and that would be very welcome indeed.

The post Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Detective Pikachu is the former partner of Harry Goodman, a detective at the Baker Detective agency. While investigating some bizarre Pokémon related incidents Harry has gone missing and now his son has ventured to Ryme city to find him, and as a result he bumps into the little jaundiced investigator. Tim will move from mystery to mystery looking for clues to his dad’s whereabouts and discover something incredibly sinister lurking in the underbelly of Ryme City.

The game sees you moving through a restrictive set of environments talking to people and Pokémon to obtain testimony and checking out clues to find the solution to a problem or uncover the perp. The general logic on display here is suitably childlike, and any semblance of difficulty is mitigated by Pikachu’s constant interjections to point you in the right direction. Essentially this is ‘Baby’s first Phoenix Wright’ but without the high drama of the courtroom or the soundtrack.

And I mean that literally. Detective Pikachu displays all of the negative traits of the Phoenix Wright game’s without offering any sort of solution to them. Gathering evidence and testimony is fine, and you’ll work out a solution well in advance of the culmination of a mystery, but you’ll be left floundering until you’ve talked to a particular person, or investigated a particular place before you can move onto the requisite finale for the mystery. Not only that, but when there are several items of evidence that would serve as a logical answer, the game refuses to budge until you give it the exact answer it wants.

The biggest problem with the investigative side of things is that everything is solved with circumstantial evidence. While in Phoenix Wright the spiky blue dude bluffs his way to a conclusion and eventually arrives at solid proof, but here Tim and Pikachu arrive at a conclusion that could be a possibility and instead of denying it, the guilty party just owns up. There’s never anything definitive about any of the outcomes and the perpetrators give up way too easily, it’s a childish ideal of how a mystery should end.

The game intersperses its investigative elements with moments of ‘action’ which take the form of either ‘pressing A til thing happens’ or ‘wait until appropriate time and then press A’, both of them are as riveting as they sound. You may also find yourself having to tackle some sort of logic based puzzle which may involve pressing things that correspond to colours or shapes, once again…riveting. It just seems designed to make the game as boring as possible.

A lot of hard work is required to strip all of the charm out of Pokémon, but Detective Pikachu does this with aplomb. Outside of the Pokémon themselves the human cast has very little going for it. While Tim Goodman is determined he’s still very much a wet blanket, and the cast around him aren’t much better, all of them fulfilling their roles with all the gravitas of a pantomime drag queen.

The game isn’t helped with its choice of villain, a secret kept right up until the game’s closing moments (telegraphed approximately thirty minutes prior), and when it happens it’s as much of a disappointment as finding you’ve accidentally picked up peanut M&Ms rather than milk chocolate ones. When you’re making a narrative driven game such as this your cast has to be solid, believable and charming, instead we’re treated to a group of unlikable marionettes that look like Kingdom Hearts design rejects.

Aside from all these negatives there are some decent moments here; some of Pikachu’s vignettes can be entertaining, especially to those who like the slapstick stylings of Gon. The thing is while this can be a nice introduction to the crime solving video game it’s just incredibly milquetoast when you put it next to the likes of Capcom’s Ace Attorney series. People will buy it for the Pokémon tie in, and they may excuse its faults for the same reason, but this is several hours with no payoff at the end, and no amount of Pokémon apologia will convince me otherwise.

The post Detective Pikachu Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Even with my few hours of play time, I knew this would be something special. It reminded me a bit of the golden era Square games and just the PS1 era in general. I had always planned on revisiting it but never ended up doing so. When Atlus announced the 3DS remake Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology, I was initially glad I waited. Strange Journey and Radiant Historia were the only non Etrian Atlus games left on the DS that hadn’t seen ports to 3DS and they actually ended up doing remakes of both. In fact I even imported the Japanese collector’s edition of both these games just because they put out such fantastic packages. After playing through a few hours of the 3DS remake in Japanese (and not understanding much story), I went back to the DS game and played a whole lot more. Now having played through the fully localized English version of Perfect Chronology, it has a lot working in its favour, but also a few questionable things. The biggest positive of this release is that it is releasing in Europe just a few days after North America. The DS original never saw a release outside North America in English.

If you’ve never heard of this game, a lot of people regard it as one of the last few well made classic style JRPGs the same way Bravely Default is spoken about. You play as Stocke who is an agent in a time of war. Vainqueur has a threat of sand plague and Alistel and Granorg are about to go all out to try and capture what’s left to survive. Stocke is tasked with a mission from his Chief Heiss that leads to him not just witnessing his newly found companions die in front of his own eyes but also him being taken to a land where time stands still and where decisions can be remade and alternate paths followed to change history. This land is reminiscent of an MC Esher painting and a book in the form of the White Chronicle given to Stocke by his chief as a lucky charm ends up being so much more. While this seems like a pedestrian time travel tale waiting to happen, it is a lot more. There are limits to the power of the White Chronicle whereby Stocke’s own health and well being cannot be changed by altering the course of history. While many of the RPGs that cross 50 hours end up having filler in some form, the core Radiant Historia experience is amazing and if you enjoy turn based games, this is definitely one of the best ones out there.

This remake has new content and improvements in three different areas. Visually there is a lot to like right from the get go. A-1 pictures has done a fantastic opening movie. Most of the gameplay on the 3DS is also on the top screen thankfully unlike the Nintendo DS version that had information on the top screen and the actual gameplay on the bottom screen. The user interface has been improved considerably although there are some menus that lost some of the charm from the original. This carries over to many of the new character portraits. While everything is higher resolution here, the original portraits are timeless (no pun intended) and some of the new ones don’t fit well with the forced anime look when the original went for something different. To actually use the original artwork for portraits, you need to buy a DLC pack which just rubs me the wrong way but I’ll get to the DLC in a bit.

Almost every Atlus port to a new system includes more difficulty options and more story content usually in the form of a new girl and her side of the story. This was the case in Persona 4 Golden, Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker, and is happening in Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology, Strange Journey Redux, and even Catherine: Full Body from what’s been shown so far. While I loved what happened in Record Breaker, Marie was the low point of Persona 4 Golden and the new content here comes from a third timeline to some extent. The Possible History timeline involves Nemesia and you can either tackle her story while playing the original or at the end. I like how they give you an option depending on whether you want to experience this as it was on the DS or in the new 3DS format. Perfect Mode is as the name suggests, how Atlus implemented this new content within the original story. Append Mode has the new content available after finishing the main story. Without spoiling anything, I was pretty disappointed with the new story content and I’m even happier that there’s a way to experience the original story with the enhanced visuals. There is a new Friendly difficulty option that is basically story mode and gives you a lot of advantages and a new Hard mode that will kick your ass. I can’t even imagine how the free DLC that adds a harder difficulty will be.

Combat is turn based but it takes place with enemies on a 3×3 grid. Depending on their positions, you can use skills to move them around the grid, chain combos, and get more damage and rewards out of the battle. A lot of times, exploration and combat here feels like what I’d want from a modern take on the 16-bit or PS1 era JRPG combat. It is a blast to play and I will never tire of listening to the battle theme. This remake also features a new kind of skill that is a passive support skill that is very handy in battles and a new combat arena like location that expands depending on progress in the main game. This has its own in game currency that has special items and equipment you can only earn here.

On the audio front besides some new music from Yoko Shimomura, there is near full voice acting for the main story for the main characters. The voice acting is brilliant and when in most cases the voices fit perfectly to what I had imagined while playing the DS game. This maybe one of Atlus USA’s best releases when it comes to voice acting. While many people consider the Kingdom Hearts franchise as Yoko Shimomura’s best work, I am yet to find a track from her catalogue that approaches the Radiant Historia soundtrack. It is magnificent and even if you decide to never play this game or hate JRPGs, you need to listen to the soundtrack.

The lack of 3D is a big downer for me. I love the art direction here and not being able to see the opening scene with the rain in the forest area is super disappointing. The art here would’ve really popped and environments would be amazing with 3D. While I appreciate the option to play Append Mode where you can experience the story how it was on the DS, locking the original portraits behind paid DLC is not cool. Cheat DLC for experience and money is expected but when you have a remake, people should have the option to play with the original art for free and it should be included from the get go. For fans who played and finished the original already, I don’t think the new story content is worth another purchase. The other improvements to gameplay and the new difficulty options on the other hand are worth it if you want to replay this. There’s no reason to buy the DS game when the 3DS release exists for sure.

Radiant Historia was one of the best RPGs on the DS and it has come to my favourite RPG platform natively. It has some quirks, but the core game is excellent and every fan of RPGs needs to pick this up on the 3DS. I’m glad more people get to experience it and that it is releasing worldwide as opposed to a single region. This game is special and will stay with you for a long time.

The post Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

So, The Top 100 is a Mario Party game made up of the best minigames from the series. Yes, you get to play redone versions of classics like the flag raising game, chopping wood, the crane game, dizzy walking and, to be honest it’s kind of hard to care, unless you’re an ardent Mario Party fan you’re hardly going to get excited about anything contained in this package or the method in which it’s presented.

When you’ve been spoilt by the portly plumber’s platforming return on Switch, a title that’s so brilliantly Nintendo and magnificently Mario it’s a bit hard to get excited about soulless menus, 90s style Mario art and a selection of games that are as unfair as they are short and generally dull. You can choose to play them in one of four ways, either as a selection of mini games (chosen from themes or from the consoles they appeared on), in a ‘first to’ style affair called a decathlon, Minigame Island where you move from node to node to progress or through a Star Rush style board called Minigame Match.

Match is an unwelcome return for a frankly unfair game style, where star balloons randomly place themselves throughout the board and you need to pick them up and exchange ten coins for each one, amusingly they always seem to end up opposite where you happen to be, and you’ll have very little chance to get there. In a departure from the format that Star Rush brought in you no longer get balloons for every ten coins you have at the end of the game, making the mode even more unfair than it previously was. Unlike the aforementioned game though there’s only one board to play on, and as a result you’re highly unlikely to return to it.

Minigame Island is a way of playing The Top 100 in single player, with you moving from point to point and taking part in a minigame to progress. Each segment is divided into multiple parts and you’ll find yourself moving back and forth through them before you get to the end. Regularly Mario’s antagonists Bowser and Donkey Kong will turn up to challenge you, just to shake things up a bit, but the mode is basically a long minigame trudge, and a lonely one at that with no one to interact with.

Playing with others is where party games are always at their best, but the platform of choice is an odd one. I’m aware that this isn’t the first Mario Party title on DS, but having the game on individual handheld consoles makes the experience a rather insular one, ever when playing with others, rather than being open like the main console brethren. Download play is at least supported, so up to four people can play a shaved down version of the game through one cartridge rather than everyone having to own it, which is good value for money.

A large selection of games, even the most popular ones remade from past titles cannot save Mario Party The Top 100 from mediocrity, a smattering of modes presenting the events in such a boring style makes playing the minigames such a chore, and there’s so little variation in the modes themselves that playing through them again and again is incredibly unlikely, unless you and your friends hate yourselves that much.

Mario Party die hards may get some enjoyment out of this package, but it’s more than likely that their rose tinted spectacles may slip and they’ll see the games of the past for the tepid events they always were. What The Top 100 really showcases is that the Mario Party series is in a need of a major shake up, it’s in need of a reinvention, not a wistful look at the past.

The post Mario Party: The Top 100 Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

When the series went a bit Metal Gear and dropped it’s main protagonist for Apollo Justice I still went with it, the new gimmick of looking for people’s ‘tells’ – a behavioural trait that gives away when they’re lying – fitted in well with the series usual shenanigans, but I never did warm to Apollo, or the way the writing team recharacterised Wright as some sort of stout law genius considering his way of bumbling through and stumbling onto answers. But, following on from the remaster of the original three Ace Attorney titles, Apollo’s game has been redrawn and re-released onto current systems. But what has changed?

Not a lot really, is the answer to that one. Unlike the previous trilogy re-release on 3DS the art has been recreated in considerably higher quality. Sprite work is well defined and yet still feels true to the original. Animation is now much clearer, which makes spotting those all important tells when court is in session much easier. Thing is, there’s something a little too clean about the art now. With Phoenix’s trilogy there was a degree of pixelation which gave the impression that the art was that of the original, here it’s solid shades and curved outlines. It’s nice, but it just lacks charm. The less said about our old friend the Judge’s up close and personal view the better.

And, that’s all that’s truly different. Apollo’s story was never one of the better Ace Attorney tales (if anything, making his story front and centre for Spirit of Justice let that game down considerably as well), and as a result this suffers from it’s own sins. The opening case is overlong with too many recesses, the tale of Eldoon’s wagon and Wocky the Yakuza kid is still tedious and the final case has so many ridiculous logic leaps that the end comes as a sweet release rather than feeling like an accomplishment. That said, this is a game that gave us the brilliant Trucy Wright with her magic panties and the indomitable Klavier Gavin who gives coffee drinking Godot a run for his money. But there’s no real standout character in any of the cases, and in a game like this, engaging characters are a must.

If you’ve never played an Ace Attorney game before you should know that the game follows a two-part process, investigation and court. Investigation has you collecting clues the police have somehow managed to miss so you can build a case to defend your client, while court has you putting the evidence to use, using it to point out inconsistencies between witness testimony and what the evidence list says. It’s here that veterans and newcomers tend to get frustrated as the game wants you to submit evidence in a particular way or fashion. There’ll be many a time where you’ll spot an infringement yet because it isn’t the right time to produce that part you’ll be penalised for it. There’s a certain degree of trial and error (sorry), but with a ‘five strikes and you’re out’ system you’ll not really have the luxury of playing about too much before you have to produce the goods.

Apollo Justice just reminds me of Metal Gear Solid 2, a great series, wrested away from a loved protagonist for an unlikable child. I don’t want to sound too down about the game because I love the series. Even this entry despite all its missteps has it’s place. The thing is, as I said earlier, it’s easily the weakest of the Ace Attorney titles and as a result it’s difficult to welcome this remaster when The Great Ace Attorney still hasn’t been localised for the West. Granted, brand new copies of Apollo Justice are hard to come by, so remaking it for current audiences, and to help people finish their collections makes some kind of sense, but even still this just feels pointless.

The post Apollo Justice Ace Attorney Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Some changes feel like they’re just to make it feel different. Normally, for example, Kahuna-hala will bump into you and that’s how you get your starter, but in Ultra, it’s a Yungoos that attacks you, and the three starter Pokemon come up to help you, scaring it off. And yes, #TeamPopplio for life, even though my son made me pick Rowlet, which is an Owl Pokemon, who doesn’t seem nearly as cool as a half-seal, half-dog, blue thing. And this is why I say Game Freak isn’t stupid, because much of this could remain the same, as the returning hardcore are in it for the post-game content, or the changes to the overall game systems, but these smaller differences combined with the new music and sharpened battle menus and UI make you feel instantly comfortable with what you’re playing.

But there’s a new story about Necrozma, and the journey throughout the adventure is now littered with The Ultra Recon Squad who’ll pop up from time to time, and in long-honoured tradition, annoy you by getting in the way. Largely, this is the same game you loved last year but fully fleshed out with more story; a deeper one, even. The Ultra Recon Squad are an odd bunch, with stilted movement and speech, and that’s because they’re from a different dimension within Ultra Space. They are here to attempt to capture Necrozma in order to make the world entirely dark, which creates their perfect reality. It’s a little odd, as you’re basically playing through the same locations from Sun and Moon, but with this new narrative running through it, almost like a director’s cut.

There’s a laundry list of new features, here. Firstly, Mantine Surfing is a mini-game that lets you do tricks and score points in return for Beach Points, which you can spend on items and moves for your Pokemon. It’s a grind of a mini-game, though, as it’s hugely stingy with the Beach Points. Then there’s the photo mode, which acts as partly as something you can share on social media, showing off you and your Pokemon, but mostly as a way to improve relationships with Rotom (your Pokedex that’s come to life thanks to it being inhabited by, well, Rotom) and also make your Pokemon happier, which in turn makes them stronger.

You can now capture Totem Pokemon if you find enough Totem Stickers, visit Pikachu Valley, and the trials have been tweaked to make for a slightly new experience, too. What else? Well, there are more Pokemon, of course, and there’s now the opportunity to use two Z-moves per battle if you can make Rotom like you enough. There are new Pokemon to catch, like for example, in Diglett’s tunnel you used to only be able to catch Zubat and Diglett, but now you can also catch Larvitar – a Pokemon who evolves into a Psuedo-Legendary in the form of Tyranitar (one of the strongest dark, rock-type Pokemon). On top of that, some Pokemon have new Z-moves, too, which will see you hunting high and low for their Z-crystals, and everything just feels augmented with these additions – this is a very full game.

But the most significant addition is that end-game. Whereas in the original versions of Sun and Moon it was a case of being done when you saw the credits, aside from filling the Pokedex and “catching them all”, now you can face Team Rainbow Rocket, hit up the Battle Agency, or hunt every Legendary Pokemon from the series (apart from Genesect and Arceus), and Ultra Beasts can be caught, which allows you to see their data and personal spaces. It’s a proper end-game that’ll prevent you from wanting to burn your save and start over again. Basically, the Aether Paradise gets taken over by Team Rainbow Rocket and you will have to battle through multiple bosses from other games in the series, such as Team Aqua’s Archie, Team Magma’s Maxie, and there are still surprises beyond that, including some Ultra Beasts being able to evolve.

In that respect, the name “Ultra” feels like a misnomer, as this is more the definitive version of Sun and Moon. An already lengthy game is now longer, with more to do on the way, and plenty to do afterwards. It’s on you to decide if you want to drop the cash on this new version based on what you now know, but for my money, any reason to be playing Pokemon again is a good reason.

The post Pokemon Ultra Sun and Moon Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

The little pink guy is twenty-five years old this year and in his time he’s become known for his spin off games as much as the mainline titles, possibly even more so than Nintendo’s own moustachioed plumber. From pinball, to golf, and even breakout, here he’s competing in battles to be top dog and win a giant cake. Food’s always been a huge motivator in Kirby’s actions, here it goes so far as to make him ignore violations of his basic rights.

Anyway, King Dedede has lured the pink vacuum in with a giant dessert and is trying to put Kirby in his place with his multicoloured Kirby clones. The aim is to fight through several different types of battles each with an arbitrary point allocation that fills up a bar and unlocks a qualifying battle, success in which unlocks access to the next battle tier and several new battle types. As far as a story mode goes, that’s it. There’s one vs four battles where you’ll go solo, or two vs two battles where you’ll pair up with Waddle Dee, but generally the rules remain the same.

Outside of the arena battle the remaining modes generally see you aiming to collect more items than your opponents, answer questions, or doling more damage out to a boss. Nothing in the story mode is much of a challenge, and it’ll be a breeze to pretty much anyone, if anything the only challenge is persevering right to the end of it. The differing game modes offer some variety, but not one of them is as good as the game’s default arena battle mode. As you move up through the ranks each tier’s progress bar requires more points to fill it, which is obvious, but the points dished out from the events don’t raise in kind, so you’ll repeat events regularly and that grows tiresome.

Progression through the story unlocks achievements which in turn grant coins which can be used to purchase items from the ‘Collection’ amounting to abilities, characters, battle events, music and more, these can be used either in the local battle mode or online. It’s against other humans where the game becomes so much better, but only locally. Playing against other humans online generally feels like playing harder AI due to the fact there’s no chat function, when you win it’s so much more satisfying to be in the same place as your opponent, it also didn’t help that the servers were dead and I only managed to get two games out of it.

Thankfully playing each other is made easy thanks to Download play, meaning that 3DS owning friends can join you in a burst of play even if they don’t own the game, you won’t get the full suite of modes but it’s still a very generous thing to have. Download play has always been a boon for 3DS local play and this is no different, the problem is getting several DSes all together in the same place.

The problem with Kirby Battle Royale is that what is here is kind of short lived, it’s not burgeoning with content and yet Nintendo are pricing it as a full fledged product rather than a small offshoot like Blowout Blast was. There’s fun to be had with the ‘Cake Royale’, but it’s all too repetitive and short lived.

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Now, try not to be shocked, but on 3DS the game doesn’t look quite as good as its Switch counterpart. Colours are bland, textures blurry, edges rough, even the 2D talking heads between missions don’t look quite as good as the ones we’ve seen in Intelligent Systems previous FE titles. Sound quality is good though, with pretty much all dialogue – between main characters and army grunts – recorded by voice actors. It’s just a shame that from UI to in game the it’s so uninspiring to look at.

Fire Emblem Warriors follows a storyline similar to that of Warriors All-Stars, with some cataclysmic even causing monsters to rain down from the sky and heroes from other worlds to appear in the kingdom of Aytolis. The heirs to Aytolis’ throne Roman and Lianna must seek out these heroes who (just because they’re heroes) carry within them something called a Gleamstone. That shield you’ve seen in the logo? Those round holes on it? The gleamstones go in there and that’s the aim of the story.

The gameplay follows the template laid out in the 3DS version of Hyrule Warriors, with a landscape filled with forts and outposts, you capture those points to ensure your troops control the map, while things constantly happen around you. You’ll need to stop messengers from getting to their destinations, put an end to the charge of reinforcements and kill gatekeepers to access previously inaccessible areas additionally some forts contain things called Dragon Veins which when activated can also open up areas you couldn’t go to before. During battle in some areas there are natural hazards such as lava, water or fog, activating these veins can also make these disappear, to me this seems more like an unnecessary complication to a game that can cause sensory overload.

Borrowing a nice element from the DS version of Hyrule Warriors, you can use the map screen to direct units to go to particular areas to take out named enemies, capture points or guard your forts, it’s incredibly handy and easily the best mechanic a musou game can ever have, why the big boy versions of this can’t ever implement it I don’t know. The map sizes are large and certain areas can be more easily reached by certain unit types, so moving them to handy locations to intercept certain enemies or capture a tactical point and to even switch to them later to handle it yourself makes a musou much better to play.

Where this falls down though is in the sheer quantity of things that are happening on the map at once. You have four main characters in your party that you can switch to whenever you want, and then several sub characters that you can order around. Missions, sub missions and action elements occur so frequently that you’ll be in and out of the pause map constantly to keep moving your units around, a much slower distribution of objectives or removing the need to use the pause screen
would have been much better for this.

As far as features go the game is identical to its bigger brother. An interesting element is the game’s History mode, which is similar to Hyrule Warriors’ Adventure mode. In this you’re dropped onto a Fire Emblem type battle grid and are asked to re-enact fight a Fire Emblem battle from one of the series’ previous titles. But, it isn’t really a typical Fire Emblem fight. Each enemy on the grid is a Warriors style battle with you controlling characters under certain conditions, win the battle and you can move on to the next part of the fight. It’s not really different enough to be considered a separate mode, but it’s at least a nice distraction from the main story, even if it’s not a distraction from the same nature of musou action.

It’s interesting how once again a Nintendo franchise has brought about the best of what this genre of game can be. It’s not Omega Force’s franchise so it almost feels they’ve been a bit more careful with it. The character interaction is well done, the mid-fight cut-scenes do a good job of getting you fired up and the strategic element adds a much needed layer to the usually rote proceedings of musou battles. If I were given a choice I’d pick Hyrule Warriors over this for making things a bit more streamlines, but for sheer customisation and depth Fire Emblem Warriors is an excellent slice of action for those not normally into this sort of game and for 3DS owners it’s close enough to the Switch version so that you won’t feel like you’re missing out.

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While there have been loads of collaborations in the past to take various franchises and do Warriors releases, the one that impressed me the most is Dragon Quest Heroes II. Now, though, I have a new favourite – albeit one that is flawed in certain areas. Fire Emblem Warriors is not just a great Warriors game. It is also one that is worthy of the Fire Emblem name. I say this because the nature of Warriors or Musou games where there are tons of enemies on a vast battlefield fits perfectly in the Fire Emblem lore. Historic battles take place on battlefields and other locations so the best way to play this game is to picture actual Fire Emblem games taking place here. In fact, that’s exactly what History Mode is.

Since this is a musou game and a crossover one at that, expect the story to be mostly fan-service told through an original tale. Also it is evident that this release has been made for fans who joined the series at Awakening which is a downer for old school fans. I say this because a majority of the playable characters are from Fire Emblem Awakening and both Fates games. The main story in Story Mode has you picking between Rowan or Lianna who are royal twins in the kingdom of Aytolis. Your story takes you into parallel dimensions meeting characters from other Fire Emblem games and a short series of battles follow leading them usually to join your army. As the mode progresses, you move from one game to another in terms of characters you meet. While the story mode is usually throwaway in these games, I quite like it here. The source material was mostly done justice. There are a few characters who feel like a shell of their former selves, though.

History Mode is you experiencing important battles across Fire Emblem but each move you make is actually a Warriors scenario with a set of conditions. Speaking of conditions, I like how there’s a plethora of these across the Story Mode and History Mode battles keeping you on your toes and not just mindlessly hacking and slashing at hordes of grunts. The History Mode also utilizes the classic Fire Emblem sprites on maps that look just like they did on the lower screen in the 3DS games. I’m very impressed with how much of the actual Fire Emblem mechanics have made their way here. The weapon triangle is present here, healing items, weapon upgrades, and levels will all remind you of the games in the series you’ve recently played.

When it comes to the cast and play styles, out of the 20+ characters who are playable, only around 15 have their own play styles. The others use clone movesets and just have aesthetic and special move differences. From the ones who are playable, my favourites are Camilla and Frederick. They feel so much more varied compared to the likes of Lucina and and Robin. Lyn also has a nice, unique feel. The best part is being able to switch characters on the fly with a single button press. This lets you make every battle feel more varied and get used to newer play styles. When you do this, I recommend issuing an order for the playable characters that get AI controlled. This adds a layer of strategy that is much appreciated in a Warriors game. The more I played, the more I enjoyed seeing some of my favourite Fire Emblem characters recreated brilliantly in HD here.

Speaking of the visuals, there are 3 visual modes spread across the 2 Switch play modes. When you’re docked, you have the option to go for Quality or Performance under Display settings. This is just like Action and Movie mode that Nioh had, a game which happens to be from Koei Tecmo as well. Quality mode aims for a 1080p resolution with a 30fps target. If you value image quality, go with this setting. If you prefer a fluid 60fps frame rate, that comes at the cost of image quality and drops the resolution down to 720p docked. I eventually stuck with Quality while playing docked. In handheld mode, these settings make no difference and it plays at a 720p 30fps target. This is definitely the best looking handheld Warriors game. There are some visual issues though. For one, textures could be better. In some cases they look really poor. There is also quite a bit of pop in with enemies. It isn’t as bad as Hyrule Warriors Legends on the 3DS but it is noticeable.

When I played Hyrule Warriors Legends, I had only finished one Zelda game. It introduced me to new characters. With Fire Emblem Warriors, I feel like given the nature of the crossovers, they should have included more from older games. This can of course be rectified post launch with DLC but you will get the most out of this if you love the recent games and a few more characters. English voice acting is a tad inconsistent with some characters not having the same voice actor they did in the original games. The characters that are here could have all been made unique through different play styles instead of having clone movesets.

At this point you’re probably wondering if it is worth buying this in one of the most crowded periods in recent times. If you’re a Fire Emblem fan, this is a no brainer. It obviously has some of the Warriors game quirks and if you aren’t into those, maybe avoid it – but it will be a treat for fans. If you just enjoy the Warriors games and haven’t played a Fire Emblem game and own a Switch, this is easily worth it, although I do recommend checking out the Fire Emblem series on 3DS. I’m looking forward to the DLC coming because it was amazing value with Hyrule Warriors. This isn’t a mainline Fire Emblem game but it most definitely will get you excited for the one that will eventually hit the Switch.

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While Etrian Odyssey IV and the Untold games on the 3DS have been big departures from the classic Etrian I and II gameplay, Beyond the Myth goes back to the beginning. This game has no story focus or airships or anything like that. In some ways it does feel like a step back but the improvements and new features to classes, customization in general, and skills make it feel more focussed and evolutionary. Creating your own party and traversing through a giant dungeon that is split up into stratums is what you will be doing here. Each character in your party can be customized to a frankly crazy degree and there are even multiple voice options. You have the ability to change colours of things like eyes, hair, and more. There’s the freedom to use whichever voice with whichever class and portrait here. You can even opt for no voice if you’re going completely old school. Speaking of going old school, I’m quite annoyed that the FM soundtrack DLC is releasing on October 31 and not at launch.

Instead of just having classes, there are now races and classes. Once you select a race, you get to pick a class to start off with, but can change classes early on in the game. I’d recommend sticking to the standard race and class combinations unless you’re a veteran Etrian player. Skills are also split up into class and race skills. This is an interesting twist on a tried and tested formula. The good thing about a robust customization and class system that now has a race system as well is the various combinations you can come up with to play. If you feel adventurous, a triple Necromancer party is always an option. In fact I’d recommend redoing the opening with a few party combinations to experiment and see what you fancy. When you level up and have a skill point, you can either use it in a race skill or in a class skill. While there are some NPCs that you interact with in the labyrinth, don’t expect a grand story. This experience is all about your own party and navigating the labyrinth until the end.

Instead of multiple dungeons or a separate story dungeon and the likes in the newer Etrian games, you just have one big dungeon here that is split up into stratums with a boss fight at the end of each stratum. There are 30 floors in total for this dungeon. This is another callback to classic Etrian Odyssey with one big labyrinth. Exploration and map drawing is still in first person with maps on the bottom screen. The best part about a new Etrian game is how all the quality of life improvements to map drawing from past games are all here. It makes it hard to go back to older games thanks to this. Combat is turn based again and the in game UI is really nice. It isn’t drastically different to Untold 2 but recedes into just icons until you highlight an option which is a nice touch. I’ve always been impressed by Atlus game UIs. Back to the combat, get ready to make full use of status ailments, binds, and more here. A Botanist with poison early on is a fantastic party member to have.

Aside from the great in game UI, I’ve always enjoyed the visual direction for the labyrinths in Etrian Odyssey games. V is no slouch here with lush and unique locations for each stratum. There’s even an outer space themed area here. Enemy design could be a bit better especially for bosses. I love the final boss design and encounter but some of the others including the first stratum’s boss design are weak. The score for this release has been done by Yuzo Koshiro and it baffles me how he manages doing a fantastic score for Etrian games every single time. I can’t think of another franchise with this level of quality across the board for soundtracks. Given that this is a throwback to classic Etrian Odyssey, I feel like the FM music should have been included from the get go and not be DLC. Voice acting is good, but having to hear the same line for a character when you unlock skills is annoying.

One area where Etrian Odyssey V is a step back outside of story obviously is in accessibility. Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold added a third difficulty called picnic. This made it much easier as the name suggests to get through the story and allowed a lot of people I know who avoid this franchise due to difficulty to get into it. Etrian Odyssey V is harder than both Untold games and IV by a fair amount. If you do want to have an easier experience, there are DLC quests you can buy to cheat in game. Not ideal and while quests like this were present in Untold 2, that still had an easy difficulty option for newcomers.

If you’re an Etrian Odyssey veteran who has been there from the start or just loves the DS games, this is made for you. Even if you did get into the franchise with IV or the Untold games, I’d recommend giving this a shot. It is classic Etrian Odyssey with a modern coat of paint and some of the best customization options ever. There’s so much you can experiment with and a ton of replay value with the various class and skill combinations that play with the race skills. Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth is a great game and a worthy release to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the franchise.

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In the wake of her father leaving Katrielle hasn’t followed her father’s path to professor, instead opting to become a detective. ‘Any mystery solved’ states the slogan of the Layton Detective Agency which has two employees the eponymous Katrielle Layton and her besotted assistant Ernest Greeves, both of whom find out they can talk to animals (well, one particular hound) when a dog with amnesia turns up and asks Katrielle to help him remember who he is. The dog’s dilemma is promptly shelved when one of the hands on Big Ben goes missing, and then it’s a puzzle filled adventure for the (now) trio.

While not being a professor like her father, Katrielle’s investigation style is identical to Hershel’s, you move from point to point on a map, checking each scene for items of interest, like hint coins, secret items, witnesses, and of course puzzles. Puzzles are the life blood of the world the Layton’s inhabit, and they crop up in the most bizarre places; on a plate, with a cat, in a barrel of fish, hell, most of the population will refuse to help you unless you can solve a conundrum that they happen to have on their person at the exact moment you talk to them.

The puzzles are an odd sort this time round, preferring obtuse riddles to legitimate puzzles. Much of the time you’ll find yourself stumped on a particular brain teaser, because of some rather unfriendly wording on the puzzle’s description (an early example being a clock that needs to hit midnight in as few touches as possible). I mean, a riddle is a riddle, and a well-constructed riddle can be a marvelous thing to solve (listen to me starting to talk like Layton himself), but so much of the time the instructions are open to many interpretations or are missing key points which leaves you floundering in guess work hemorrhaging hint coins as you desperately try to fill in the gaps in the wording. When you finally settle on the solution you’ll find yourself annoyed and exasperated rather than pleased.

It takes a while, but because of this when the game does use phrasing that doesn’t leave much open to interpretation you realise the game isn’t asking you to solve the puzzle in the way it seems to be asking you to, and you start to deliberately seek out a different way to figure it out, and even then it’s hard to feel pleased with yourself, instead that feeling gives way to annoyance because the game is constantly using a single trick to try and trip you up rather than clever puzzles. I guess that after nine games it’s only fair the developers are running out of ideas for these, but I’m sure that they could have done better than this.

Completing puzzles gives you the usual picarats as a reward (the higher picarat value the harder the puzzle, apparently), and completing five puzzles grants you tokens which you can use to furnish the office of the Layton Detective Agency, (which we’ll come back to in a minute). Other side elements allow you to change Katrielle’s outfit, most of which come with a hat (naturally) and there’s several minigames for you to partake in outside of the main story, all of which are puzzles and would probably have been more welcome as a series within the game’s usual puzzle distribution rather than accessed separately via the game’s suitcase.

Each of the individual mysteries are bound together by Katrielle’s investigation, as she moves around and questions people she uncovers clues, each one gifting a part of a six piece puzzle, once all the pieces are collected you’re ready to solve the mystery in a terribly whimsical and not dramatic kind of way. The actual payoff at the end of each case is kind of disappointing, and you’ll more than likely see the bizarre solution before it’s stated ‘The truth is often stranger than fiction’ Katrielle states in triumphant fashion as you stare dumbfounded at the absurdity of it all.

In a departure for the Layton games you’re able to take the cases in any order you wish (once you’ve got to a certain point). You do this via Katrielle’s office where you get to pick your cases from a selection on the pin board on the wall, from here you’re also able to revisit cases you’ve already solved, which drops you at the point just before you solved it. Doing this allows you to find puzzles, items or hint coins you’ve missed, but also delivers a smattering of new puzzles and stuff for you in places you’d already obtained them. This gives a nice sense of replay value to what you’ve already done before, but the question is whether you’ll really care about it enough to do so.

Layton’s Mystery Journey’s facsimile of London is odd, there’s a London Bridge and a Big Ben, but a lack of other well-known monuments like the Tower of London or the Bank of England. And this imposter syndrome has seemingly seeped into the make-up of the Layton name that is in the game’s title. While Katrielle herself is a nice charismatic character, the surrounding cast are terribly forgettable, with only the dog Sherl O.C. Kholmes (yes, it’s pronounced just as badly as it sounds) having a name that is even remotely memorable.

The quaint, innocent nature of the game stands in stark contrast to Hershel’s past adventures, with the game missing the overly-dramatic atmosphere that hovered around the Professor and his diminutive assistant Luke, and it’s a real shame. Factor in the rather obtuse nature of the puzzling and the uninspiring cast (although the character models are much nicer now) and you’ll find that there’s a lot to be disappointed with in this return for the famed puzzle series. It’s not a disaster by any means, I mean, it’s really nice. But it could have been so much more than just… nice.

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Jumping gets Mario and Luigi everywhere, across gaps, up cliffs, even into the Kingdom itself, because the border guards won’t let the brothers enter until they’ve proven just how good they are. The people they meet regard them with an air of familiarity until once again the leap up to jog the person’s memory ‘It’s them!’ it seems their reputation precedes them in this strange land.

Their presence with Beanbean is to track down the evil witch Cackletta, who has stolen the voice of Princess Peach. A voice belonging to someone of great beauty is required to awaken the fabled Beanstar, a mystical jewel with the power to grant the wishes of whoever wakes it from its slumber; so Peach’s voice certainly fits the bill. Unable to bring himself to kidnap Peach while she’s unable to communicate Bowser insists that he takes the Mario brothers to Beanbean to track down Cackletta and rescue Peach’s dulcet tones. A few boss fights later and Bowser has amnesia, and Mario and Luigi are venturing kingdom-wide tracking down macguffins that push the story along.

This isn’t new by any means, Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions is a remake of the old Game Boy Advance game Superstar Saga, and yes, I say remake because the entire game engine has been retooled for a new generation; the sprites have been redone and extra elements have been added, including amiibo functionality and the titular Bowser’s Minions sub-game. AlphaDream has done a fantastic job repurposing this game for 2017, the sprite work is exemplary with some beautifully smooth animation that just oozes personality. Whether it’s the way Mario and Luigi gesticulate wildly as they attempt to describe something to someone in mock Italian, when the bros figure out a new combination move in the middle of battle or when a boss explodes in a shower of light and sparks, there’s rarely a moment that isn’t geared to elicit a smile from the one who’s playing, it’s stunning work.

Battle is taken in a turn based fashion with certain elements of rhythm action to enhance or defend. During attacks you’ll need to press a button at the right time to make your attack hit a second time, or harder, and in defence you’ll be able to dodge or strike back. Using this it is possible to get through fights without taking any damage, but only if you’ve got the timing down pat. Timing presses also comes in for the games combination attacks (here named Bros. Attacks), which use Bros. points to execute. Here the brothers Mario will link up to deal massive damage, providing you get your button presses correct.

The layout of the world brings back memories of Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (AKA the best game ever made), there’s little wasted space, with each section of the map hiding something or other somewhere, whether it’s a block to hit, a subterranean bean to find or a cave to explore, there’s an element of Metroidvania here too, as you’ll only be able to access some areas after acquiring new abilities, thankfully there’s a lot of handy warp pipes to help you nip around the world when you gain a new power. How you use these powers though has been complicated slightly.

As you acquire these powers the bottom touch screen fills up with icons for each of them, and they can be flicked between by tapping the relevant icon on the touch screen, or you can scroll through them by pressing L or R, while it’s quicker and more time efficient to use the touch screen I kept using the shoulder buttons instead, forcing myself to listen to the brothers’ soundbites as they speak out each power as you go through them, driving myself slightly mad. The bottom screen also hosts the map, which has to be called up and then stays up until you dismiss it, making you have to scroll through the powers unless you turn the map off, but the map’s so handy and you’ll constantly have to keep flicking it on and off to make the most out of it.

The full map is actually accessed by pausing the game; here you’ll see the Beanbean Kingdom in all its glory along with a giant arrow pointing you to where you need to go, so there’s never a reason to be confused as to where you’re supposed to be going. Also here you can outfit your bros with new dungarees and badges which will give them stat buffs and general ability enhancements with which to ensure battles go in your favour. There’s another thing here that you really should pay attention to as well, it’s the button that transitions to the Bowser’s Minions sub game.

Pressing that button takes you to a new splash screen as Yoshis sit and watch the curtain raise on another story taking place in the Beanbean Kingdom. After Bowser’s airship is downed at the start of the game the Koopa King’s minions find themselves spread across the land. Lost and without a purpose without their king a lone goomba takes it upon himself to take charge and lead the rest of the minions to find their boss.

Bowser’s Minions is a completely different game style to Superstar Saga. This is more of an RTS-lite compared to SS’s JRPG leanings. You’re tasked with getting the gang back together, then putting your group of minions into a formation capable of winning the battles that lie ahead. Minion types are grouped into ground, flying and ranged attackers, Ground (red) are good against ranged (yellow), but weak to flying (blue), ranged are strong against flying and flying are weak to ranged, it’s a rock, paper, scissors scenario. You’ll get to see what you’re up against before each mission, and will need to pick your team’s units accordingly before watching them rush headlong (literally) into battle. Once battle is initiated it’s almost completely hands off, you get certain points to spend to give your troops a boost or shout down enemy special attacks, or you might need to tap to ensure a good contact for the attack of one of your units, but that’s pretty much it. It’s not really anything special in any sort of sense, but the excellent dry wit of the main game is at least present.

Superstar Saga was already a good game, and it’s great to see it given a fresh lease of life with a lick of paint and a secondary game to play. Bowser’s Minions is certainly a Marmite game, it won’t be for everyone but it’s a nice diversion from the main story. Although, considering how good the main story is, you might not want to be distracted from it. It’s good looking, humorous, and overall really good fun to play, there are mild annoyances with how the touchscreen is put to use, but they’re unlikely to spoil the joy the game will ultimately bestow upon you. It’s been fourteen years, but it’s time to get lost in the Beanbean Kingdom again.

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So, I reviewed the Bony Spirits version of Yo-Kai Watch 2 back in March, and judged it to be a decent, different sort of RPG that’s a bit grindy and chore-like, but still full of charm and likable characters. Psychic Spectres contains all the yo-kai from Bony Spirits and Fleshy Souls (that’s over 350) as well as a wealth of extra content in the way of quests (an extra twelve to work through), a new location in the form of the Geragera resort, and the ability to befriend Wicked Yo-kai, something that was impossible in the previous games, no matter how many of them you fought.

Everything else is present and correct (depending on your definition of the term ‘correct’). The game is still divided into short episodic chapters, where you’ll work to solve a problem by completing chores for the people around you, which invariably end up with you needing to sort some rogue yo-kai out. At times the story will stall and require you to complete three quests before things can move on, and these quests? Yup, more fetch quests. I mean, I’m no stranger to the usual ‘deliver package’ or ‘kill X amount of Y’ quests – I spent years playing World of Warcraft after all – but here, it’s all encompassing and the time investment required can be off-putting, especially when you need to hop towns, eras, or both simultaneously. The story itself is nice and twee, with each story being both standalone but also over-arcing across the entire game’s run time. It’s just a shame that it stops so frequently to have you perform these ‘key quests’, it’s a bit different from your usual grind which can be optional, this here is enforced to artificially inflate the game’s run time.

In a way I should be thankful for my lapse of judgement in deleting my original save, as it gave me the opportunity to see the differences in story between Nathan and Katie, and also for any differences in picking Soul over Spirit when buying doughnuts. While the latter didn’t seem to make any difference at all (despite the game’s insistence on the contrary) playing as Katie did mean a different place to call home, and a grandfather that looks like her, but oddly her grandmother has the same residence as Nathan’s, but I guess there are some limits to the lengths people will go when creating alternative storylines.

This is an enjoyable game with a good story, but it seems to delight in throwing up roadblocks to your progress. The key quests, the baffle boards, the gates of whimsy, the watch upgrades and most unforgivably, the segments where you have to have a particular yo-kai all serve to sully an otherwise saccharine experience. That last point is key as the thing with Yo-Kai is that they’re never guaranteed to become your friend, even if you give them food that they like. In Bony Spirits I spent over an hour trying to get one particular seaweed Yo-Kai and instead getting its slightly different coloured brethren. I eventually got there, but with very little of my patience left, in Psychic Spectres this happened much earlier, with me picking up Yo-Kai I already had as friends, despite not giving them food, while the one I wanted ignored me no matter how many times I provided it with what it wanted.

Level 5 knows there’s a big audience for their Yo-Kai watch games, so for them to release this is a no-brainer, it feels a little bit icky as it’s a full price re-release of games that aren’t even a year old, despite all the additional stuff they’ve brought in, if you haven’t got one of the originals then as a value proposition this is excellent, if you have however, then you’ll have a bit of soul-searching to do to decide if you want to transition over to this to either carry on your existing story play-through, or experience the extra content post-story. I guess you could easily sell your existing copy to recoup some of the cost if you do take that decision (digital consumers be damned). Regardless of all that, this is no worse than the original, but it is slightly improved as a result. The frustrations still exist, but this is the ultimate Yo-Kai Watch 2 package, and as a result the one you should get.

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Aside from virtual console releases of the old games we haven’t seen a 2D Metroid title for a while, but here we are with a halfway house, a 2D game, albeit a remake of the Gameboy’s Metroid 2, and the reason why the fan-made AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake) was issued with a cease and desist. So, what’s this official remake of Metroid 2 like then?

Let’s deal with the obvious thing first, it’s ugly, sorry to be blunt, but it is. The trailers have been carefully chosen snippets of Samus in badass poses and the game framing it’s (admittedly excellent) action in the best of lights. The thing is, for every one of these segments there’s a janky looking close up full of muddy textures, grim brown environments and transition segues where the frame rate drops to silly low levels despite not much really going on.

So much of the game is spent staring at varying shades of brown it’s easy to forget the moments where the game bursts with colour. Some locations have a lovely purple hue, give an excellent impression of verdant beauty and are host to sublime background details, but those moments are easy to miss as you’re often moving fast enough to not notice. It’s obvious really that the 3D models that are being used lack the charm of the sprite work of the SNES and GBA games, it’s obvious why they’ve gone with this aesthetic, but it just doesn’t look very nice.

Ok, with that out the way let’s do what we need to do and give the game the praise it deserves, it’s excellent. MercurySteam have done a sterling job of building a cohesive set of adjoining locations for you to move between; it’s all brilliantly judged with each point being obvious in telling you whether or not you can progress and as such funneling you elsewhere, keeping you moving and not leaving you stuck for somewhere to go.

In pure Metroidvania style it’s possible to overlook something or forget a point you were at previously, but the bottom screen is an ever present map and HUD display giving you the information you need at all times. The map can be enlarged by pausing the game, and while you move it about to see places you haven’t been to yet you can drop pins to mark places of interest that you think you’ll want to revisit later. A lot of places are optional, so you’ll probably want to drop them like they’re going out of fashion.

Power ups are distributed exactly when you need them, with each one giving you that ‘eureka!’ moment, prompting you to quickly pop back to the map to see where you’re new toy can possibly be put to use. You scan around plotting how you’ll nip to the nearest teleporter, go up the lift, travel up and across several rooms before going through a door that had been taunting you a couple of hours earlier, it’s great stuff.

You’ll feel more and more powerful with each new ability too, but the game never wants you to get carried away and changes up boss behaviour regularly to try and catch you on the hop. Your first encounter with new Metroid types will certainly be learning experiences as their attack patterns differ so much from the prior ones. Each can be easily beaten when you know how though, with losses more being down to lapses of judgement than an attack you just didn’t expect.

The way Samus moves has been judged perfectly as well. Platforms are placed just right so that they meet the apex of her jump, and it’s all designed to teach you how you should traverse the areas, to the point that there will be times when muscle memory kicks in and you’ll reel off a set of moves one after the other to get through a segment then wonder how exactly you managed to pull it off. MercurySteam have really done a great job in building a world for Samus to move through.

It really is good to be back in a 2D Metroid game, and while the aesthetic isn’t really attractive the core gameplay is as good as it has ever been. There will be many who aren’t happy about this, as this game’s existence brought about the end of AM2R, but MercurySteam’s effort deserves an audience built of Metroid fans and newcomers, after all, if you’re looking to get into a series then you can’t do much better than jumping in at the (near) beginning and this is an excellent way to spend your time while you wait for Metroid Prime 4.

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The core concept of Monster Hunter Stories is to find ‘Monsties’ and bond with them via the use of a Kinship Stone. The village you live in gets attacked by a big monster infected with the Black Blight – a dark and mysterious evil that is slowly taking over the land, and as a Rider, you must do everything you can to stop it. Besides a few darker moments, the story is lighthearted and funny at times, with a range of characters you’ll learn to love, such as the rhyming chief of Hakum Village, and even Navirou, your Felyne buddy. I’m not going to lie, the cat puns become a bit too much especially when they’re fitting the word paw into any possible nook, such as “pawful” and “expawsted”, but hey, it’s a family friendly adventure and it’s all for shits and giggles, right?

You’ll get to explore a great world in MHS, and it can take quite some time to get from A-to-B, but certain Monsties will let you ride on them, so journeys become faster – though it can be nice to walk and explore due to the cutesy and detailed design. Never fear, there is fast travel as well, so there are even more chances to cover great amounts of distance. The main fights take place in caves, but you can bump into a whole range of Monsties in the wild, and whilst they can be avoided easily, it’s worth taking part because they’ll help to level you up as well as your party.

The monster nests found in the caves are located deep within, and after reaching them, you’ll be able to rummage through the nests and find an egg. There’s a great risk and reward by trying to steal an egg, but sometimes an angry mum or dad will attack to protect their baby (rightly so!). These battles can provide quite a challenge, so this is when leveling up can give you the advantage. If you make it out of the cage alive (which you probably will as combat can be quite forgiving), you can take the egg back to the village and hatch it to provide one of the many monsters for you to take on the road with you.

Each monster has different stats, and by finding more you’ll mix and match your party to suit your type of style. It’s hard not to get attached to certain monsters, and there was one of my Monsties who I became rather attacked to. She was in almost every battle I ever had. Cersei the Arzuros is a multi-coloured bear capable of destroying other monsters with ease due to her power, and our joint ability was incredibly powerful, especially when it reached the third stage (sorry Jon and Rodney, but Cersei is my girl). It isn’t just your variety of monsters that can take down enemies as you’ll be able to upgrade your armour and weapons, as well as buying in new stuff from shops in the villages.

The meat of Monster Hunter Stories is the turn-based battles, and they’re rather detailed as well as being varied every time. They follow a rock-paper-scissors format where you both choose a style of attack: power, speed, and technical. One will trump the other, so learning your opponent’s quirks is important, and getting used to their attacks will be vital if you want to win. Bigger beasts tend to go for powerful attacks, so by using speed you’ll beat them every time. Likewise, power beats technical, and technical beats speed. The Kinship Stone mentioned earlier plays an important role in battles, as successful chains of attacks build the kinship between you and your Monstie, and over time your team will develop special abilities and brand-new skills. Your Kinship Stone’s power will build, and will get to three different levels, with three being the highest and most powerful. Once you reach one of these levels, hop on your beast and unleash hell.

Many battles can provide a challenge, and you may very well be overpowered and lose all your HP. You can use potions and herbs to fill your health gauge, but there’s a good chance your health will reach zero. Thankfully, you’re given three hearts, so losing life doesn’t automatically mean death. There’s a forgiving nature to MHS and it’s quite refreshing. It’s a game you’ll enjoy for its cuteness and its battle mechanics, being challenged yet never really reaching frustration, and it’s great to while away the hours enjoying the pretty world, meeting the quirky characters and fantastic beasts.

The post Monster Hunter Stories Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

RPGs tend to be stories told to you. Miitopia falls into that line as well; here the big bad is stealing the faces of the people and being in the wrong place at the wrong time, it falls to you to put faces back on people’s heads and put an end to The Dark Lord. What sets this aside from regular RPG-emo-teen-saves-the-world fodder is that the story will be exclusive to you. While the plot is set, you choose the characters and their personalities, from your friends, your 3DS Mii Maker, Tomodachi Life, or Nintendo’s own Mii Directory. I wound up with my wife filling the role of the Dark Lord, while my travelling companions were made up of my son, and two people from Twitter, a one JKL and also friend of the site @revatar.

As you pick your friends you assign to them jobs and personalities, jobs give them the abilities they carry into battle, like Warrior, Cleric, Thief, Cook, Pop Star and Mage while more get added later on. Personalities dictate certain traits that manifest in battle, like buffs to attack power, a member distracting an enemy by playing with them or even falling asleep during battle and healing up while out of action. These moments occur randomly, but frequently and are rarely never helpful, it really is a very Mii-like take on RPG systems.

The actual opening of the game hits you with event after event introducing gameplay elements bit by bit. After the whole job shebang you’re taught about HP sprinkles, which you can use to keep your HP topped up until you get a healer into your party, then there’s the MP sprinkles which, you might guess, top up your MP should you start to run a little low. Finally you get a single life sprinkle which grants you a revive should someone die before they finish the area they’re currently wandering through. As you progress through the game saving people’s faces, a counter ticks up, and every time you save another fifty people you’ll get an upgrade to one or several of your sprinkle totals.

Venturing throughout the world of Miitopia isn’t a free experience, you’re kept to rigid paths between points, each point denoting a path to venture on, a person or event to see or a town or location to visit. Quest paths see the heroes walk along a linear pathway broken up by the occasional fork which you then need to choose the direction, enemy encounters or chests are infrequent, but the rewards for either are decent enough to warrant multiple travels through to gain whatever spoils you can. At the end of each of these are conveniently placed inns, and yes, we’re talking very convenient. They crop up along paths, in caves, towers – they’re everywhere, like Starbucks. Here your party can buy gear, gamble, and most importantly make friends.

The twee existence of Miis and Nintendo’s insistence that they’re friends is an important part of the game, maintaining their relationships opens up new abilities for them to use in battle. Friends call out to each other to warn them to dodge attacks you see? And only if people are friends do they assist one another during an attack to deal extra damage. What you get here are essentially free turns and all for ensuring that your Miis become fast friends. It’s a good idea to chop and change them around a bit as well, making sure that everyone is friends with everyone means that these special events become more frequent, and also allow for multiple helpers. Three people assisting on one attack means more hits and thus more damage done, it even helps with healing and damage spells!

You’ll need to monitor those relationships as well. As with any lengthy road trip, tempers can become frayed and people can fall out. Me and Revatar are buddies, but we fell out during one particular journey, and conspired to get in each other’s way in battle; the only way to rectify this was to put us both in the same room until the animosity went away and we were friends again. You might not make the same decision, as while there are negative effects to fallouts, they can sometimes have positives.

Where things are wrested away from you somewhat is in the overall control of your party. In battle you can only decide on what the main Mii (most likely your own one) does. During exploration you watch as the party walks, only stirring to choose a direction or open a chest, and at the inn when it comes to buying items you give the Mii money and it’ll go off to buy whatever it is that they’re after. They might come back with a snack item instead at which point they’ll give the remainder of the money back to you, but you’re never really in direct control of any of them, making this kind of like a management sim rather than an RPG.

What’s good though is that a lot of work has obviously gone into the AI of the party, as they very rarely make the wrong decision. Heals are done in a timely manner, and healers only attack if party members are safe from death, you might find that some attacks used are a bit overkill, especially in regards to MP cost to effect, but rarely will you find yourself struggling to deal or mitigate damage.

It’s all held together by a UI that looks handmade. EXP and gold gained badges fold onto the screen like origami, while world landmarks pop up like elements from a pop up book. All the costumes as well have the air that they were made for people playing make-believe rather than for heroes embarking on a quest, sort of like you’re playing a storybook; and it’s this feeling that gives the game its appeal.

A full game of Miis had the potential to be just plain annoying, but I’m pleased to report that I have never been more wrong. The child-like nature of the humour to the way it’s all framed exudes a playful nature that’s missing from so many titles these days. There’s a deceptive amount of depth to the systems at play here that you may not really understand how until you’re into double digits of play time, and that’s a milestone that just breezes by, despite the sheer quantity of times the game asks you if you’d like to take a rest.

I don’t know, maybe I’m going soft; but I’ve gone through Hey! Pikmin and now Miitopia and they’ve just succeeded in giving me playtime that’s just been lovely. You may not be very hands on in the overall scheme of things, but Miitopia is not only an RPG for those that have never played one, but also one for those who could do with something a little more lighthearted.

The post Miitopia Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Starting this on a downer aren’t I? Well, anyway, Hey! Pikmin sees the intrepid Captain Olimar return and get stranded after his ship comes out of warp right in the middle of an asteroid field, he crash-lands on a facsimile of earth and now needs to acquire the rather arbitrary figure of 30,000 Spakrlium to be able to escape. It seems like a lot, but due to several different elements you’re never short of it and will definitely hit that figure before the end of the game’s story.

Anyway, your goal is to use the Pikmin you find in each level to reach the end. Olimar cannot jump or attack himself, so he needs to use the Pikmin to bring things to areas within his or his jetpack’s reach. The areas are littered with seeds of different colours and sizes, which provide you with your regular platform game collectables, the aforementioned Sparklium, but dotted through each level are trinkets/ baubles/trash, whatever you want to call them that quantify a bulk of this mystical substance that for some reason can power Olimar’s ship.

The less questions about the ‘whys’ the better as the way things are done and presented here is completely and utterly charming. There are little events dotted through each level showing the playfulness of the titular Pikmin which breaks things up nicely, and does a good job of communicating gameplay elements to you without the need to give you tutorials every five minutes. Everything is spaced just so as well, so you’ll always know what can be reached with a well-placed throw or a gap that can be crossed with one jetpack trip. You’ll always have whatever Pikmin you need on hand to accomplish your goals too, because their hiding places crop up regularly and will always contain Pikmin if the game believes you fall short of the quantity needed for anything.

All Pikmin obtained travel back to your quest hub the Pikmin Park after each expedition, and here they complete their descent into servitude with you putting them to work in one of five districts farming for more Sparklium and trinkets. It’s kind of sad as those little events I mentioned earlier show the Pikmin to be happy creatures whisked away from their homes and forced to work. They seem happy working for Olimar, but are they? Do they have a choice?

You never take Pikmin out of the park to go on expeditions, you always pick up new ones on every jaunt. As a result, enemies pose little threat as there’s always an avenue of attack and you’re safe in the knowledge that you’re never throwing away your greatest resource, your workers, and while the puzzles can take a little bit of finding they won’t give you too much cause for thought in their solution. The tightness of the level design and the detail in the environments can cause you to lose sight of areas to explore meaning you’ll miss out on trinkets on your first pass through of some areas; this won’t happen often though and just the occasional wander off the beaten path will often net you every collectable on offer.

Another problem is that the game is controlled solely via the circle pad and stylus; your jetpack, whistle and Pikmin selection are all done via buttons on the touch screen, and because of the small quantity of real estate they’ve been made kind of small, in the heat of the moment it’s entirely possible to miss these and end up throwing a Pikmin instead, which caused me to lose a few of my little buddies accidentally, their little faces as they died, *sniff* it still chokes me up now.

Anyway,those are trivial issues in a wonderfully charming game. Every new Pikmin, enemy or trinket found is added to the ship’s database along with a description annotated by Olimar himself, all of which are hilariously inaccurate but such good fun to read. He talks about his discoveries, his work and his family, it all comes across as really heartfelt and tugs at the heartstrings as you read the musings of a guy far away from his home; my personal favourite is to do with a Santa snowglobe, but I won’t go into spoiler territory here.

Hey! Pikmin is a slight divergence from the regular Pikmin mold, and despite the story of Captain Olimar destroying an eco-system and enslaving the planet’s population the game is a delight to play. A straight playthrough won’t take you much time at all, but filling out the database completely will give you a little bit more to do with your time should you so desire. This is yet another brilliant title to add to the 3DS’ library as the system nears the end of its life, it’s just absolutely delightful.

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Our stupidly named protagonist on this occasion is Gunvolt, and he runs, he jumps and he’s got a gun. There’s some sort of storyline involving our hero ending up in some bizarre alternate world he doesn’t recognise with some nonsensical reason that he has to fight to get out. It’s not like this matters a jot as the majority of games from yesteryear had completely hokey stories that you could safely ignore, and this is no exception.

Gunvolt itself is basically Megaman reborn, as if to hammer this home the game features Beck from Mighty Number 9 as a playable character as well as a boss approximately two thirds of the way through. Bosses are borrowed from Mighty Number 9 as well, with many of the ‘Mighty’ units featuring. Unlike Megaman though, while Gunvolt is tough there’s a reassuring ease to it thanks to generous checkpointing that doesn’t drop you too far from where you died and with full health and all the food items gathered up to that point; at the end of the day you may be slamming your head into a brick wall on some sections, but you’ll be secure in the knowledge that when you pass them that you’ll not have to go through them again.

There are many of those moments where you are on the verge of giving up, over and over again I said to myself ‘This is the last time I’m doing this,’ only to be encouraged by the fact that I managed to get a bit further and as a result have a few more goes to get through it. There’s always a way through the frustration, you’ll eventually get there, it’s just maintaining that positive mental attitude that’s hard. That’s not to say there aren’t some parts that are unfair, there’s a segment with invisible platforms which really tested my patience, and another with a shifting colour background which carries through to the boss fight that makes some attacks all but impossible to avoid.

What is different with Gunvolt is how you can change your weapons. Each level unlocks new elements for your weapon or the resources required, known as CP. Before each level you can customise your weapon in a multitude of ways, such as bullet size, time to dissipation, speed, trajectory and elemental effect. I ended up customising mine to fire three bullets at once in a spray allowing me to wipe enemies out if I was close enough to them. This then played into the game’s burst function which can be comboed to higher numbers allowing for bigger scores to be racked up. Some of the latter weapon unlocks deal more damage based on your burst combo, giving a nice risk/reward mechanic.

The retro art style is nice and the chiptune music is fantastic, one thing that I wish had been kept in the past though is the slowdown. This isn’t a visually stressful game, yet when you have three enemies on screen and Gunvolt’s shield up the whole thing grinds along to the point you worry your 3DS could be about to explode. I’m being serious, I’m using a *new* 3DS XL and the game slows down worse than Hyrule Warriors ever did. For a 2D title that requires quick reactions this really isn’t good enough. It doesn’t happen with great regularity, but it’s horrendous when it does.

Gunvolt’s not going to win any prizes for originality and it’s certainly not the most well optimised game to come out. It’s tough – teeth grindingly so at times – and it can be sadistic in its execution, but there’s never a point where you cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel and a whole range of other optimistic clichés. This sort of game isn’t for everyone, but those hankering for a bit of Megaman action who felt let down by Mighty Number 9 may find a hero to get behind here.

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Unlike regular Kirby games this is a score attack. Your objective is to get through the level, picking up all the coins, killing all the enemies and not taking any damage in the fastest time possible, doing so will net you a bronze, silver, gold or platinum award with a full gold run being a requirement to unlock special EX versions of the levels, which I will go into later.

The whole game is designed with the idea that you’ll play the levels again and again to get your score as high as you can, the levels are short and enemy packs are placed accordingly to maximise your ability to suck them up and launch them out, there’s a fine art to stuffing a whole pack of enemies in your cheeks then positioning yourself so that the resultant projectile regurgitation takes out as many enemies as possible. The more enemies sucked up, and then the more taken out increase your score bringing the higher award thresholds closer to achievement.

There are other ways of doing this too; not taking damage, collecting all the coins and doing it all as fast as you can all contribute to your points total, in fact the only way you’ll get a platinum is by achieving all four elements as well as ensuring that every single attack is geared to generate the highest quantity of hits as possible. That’s why the levels are as short as they are; you play, you do ok, you learn, you try again, a typical high score game basically.

Each world is structured into five levels with a boss at the end of the fifth and then King Dedede right at the last. Getting at least gold in each world’s levels grants access to EX versions of them, giving you a much stricter time limit, reduced health and remixed enemy packs just to make things a bit more interesting, the layouts are the same, but the tactics you’ll need to get through will need to be changed up.

Even with the EX levels and an extra bonus for complete golds this is still a really short game with a lot of replayability thanks to the structure. It won’t be long until you’ve seen everything the game has to offer, but it helps that this is a budget title. A modest £6.29 for a good few hours of entertainment is a low cost of admission and you can’t really ask for fairer than that. Kirby’s always leant himself well to spinoffs and this is no exception. It should tide you over until the next full-fledged game at least.

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No one ever said making games is easy; it’s a multi-faceted process that can take years to do. You’re talking art, sound, writing, AI routines and countless other elements all to put together one game. RPG Maker FES aims to help you by stripping out most of the complicated stuff and just asking you to build the worlds, put in the NPCs, and create the battles. Creating a world is as simple as specifying a size of map and then drawing onto it with map tiles to create lakes, bridges, towns and dungeons. You can link maps together to create other continents as well as the towns and multiple floor dungeons. This part is easy, making the locations compelling places to visit is more down to your ability as a designer rather than something the game can help you with.

Outside of creation you have the database area, which contains oodles of options with which to customise the smaller elements of your game. You can name characters, create weapons, assign damage properties and health values, you can also create character parties, monster groups and AI routines for them. There’s an exceptional wealth of assets here too, including character avatars, portraits, buildings, monsters, scenic elements, landscape tiles, all with enough variety to be able to create what you want to make (within the boundaries of the game’s own art style of course). There’s also a considerable amount of DLC content, some free, others available for a premium, so if you’ve spent enough money you’ll find plenty to crack on with here, but if it really gets its hooks in, you’re free to spend a bit more moolah to really go to town with your creations.

Where RPG Maker FES falls down is in the way it forgets to help users understand how to use it. It’s a gloriously comprehensive toolset but one that confuses and obfuscates with poorly worded tooltips and a terrible lack of explanations. I spent a long time trying to figure out how to create a fight event, only to then realise I had to exit out of the actual ‘creation’ part and go into the database area that I mentioned earlier instead. This is only explained briefly and in no real detail through the game’s electronic manual.

It wouldn’t be so bad if the manual was helpful, but all it does it gives you a point of reference of where to look in the first place – it doesn’t tell you how to use certain functions. There are no tutorials to teach you the basics, there are loads online, but that’s not helpful when you’re out and about, or abroad. The manual contains basic info on most of the elements, so it is some help, but you’ve got to go to the home screen, hit manual, find the section, read it, go back to the game, try and find what it said, then figure out you can’t then go to the manual and check again…a decent set of tutorials would have negated the need for a manual, and the faff associated with it.

You look at what is currently available through the (admittedly clunky) downloadables area and the quality of experience that can potentially exist is apparent, with the better examples still being works in progress and taking over 40 hours to create, I can’t help but feel that this would be improved immensely with Kadokawa just giving users a little helping hand. It’s commendable that this is RPG Maker’s one flaw, but it’s one of such magnitude that it can sully the whole creation experience.

And this is where I am; stuck between understanding how good this toolset is, but also knowing how unfriendly it is to those not familiar with its intricacies. Many people may pick this up wanting to jump right in to creating silly little things, only to find themselves frustrated after hours of work because the silly little monster fight they wanted to make still isn’t working properly and they just don’t know why.

The post RPG Maker FES Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

You know what this is. I know what this is. So I’m going to forgo too much fanfare and tell you what you need to know.

First of all, the New 2DS is light – very light. Despite sharing the same screen size as other XL models, the device feels somehow smaller, and is probably the most comfortable 3DS/2DS you can pop into your pocket, even including the very first original Aqua Blue models from launch. The top section of the New 2DS has a bezel of sorts surrounding it, which to some might end up making it look slightly cheap. I’m undecided, but that’s partially because I’m having to steal opportunities while my kids are at school to actually play the damn thing.

The screens both look sharp. I’d wager most existing 3DS play with the 3D functionality turned off, but it should go without saying this New 2DS has no 3D whatsoever – that’s kind of the point.

Studying the handheld up close, I get a distinctly “Game & Watch” feel from the orange and white model we’ve received – and that’s a great thing. On the top you’ve got all four triggers attached and easy to click in, along with the charging cable port (which is beside ZR, not central like on the New 3DS XL). On the bottom end there’s a power button, wifi and power LED indicators and a headphone port. The ZL and ZR “triggers” are an improvement on the New 3DS XL because they’re slightly smaller, but this is perhaps because the New 2DS XL is more curved and thus they are on a slight incline. The volume slider is smaller, more refined, and slightly fiddly to get to if you’ve got big hands.

Elsewhere, the front-facing camera is now on the swivel pillar instead of above the top screen, which it one reason the device itself is lighter overall. It may seem like I’m harping on about weight here, but given how many quality games ask you to hold the device in one hand and use a stylus in the other (on that note, the stylus is the tiny version and doesn’t extend), it’s great to reduce the weight.

Perhaps the most interesting change to the aesthetic is that where there is a 3DS cartridge slot on the New 3DS XL, now there’s a plastic compartment which houses both cart and microSD card. Having had to move all my data from the New 3DS XL microSD, this is a major positive. The 3D-brother of this system hides its storage beneath the casing, requiring a screwdriver (a tiny one at that) to remove it, whereas like a modern, sensibly designed electronical product, the New 2DS XL simply has a slot you push your microSD into. It’s a small improvement, but it’s one that’s welcome. The included card is 4GB, which is alright, but I’d prefer closer to 8GB given the extensive library and size of some games.

The question I have been asked recently is “which 3DS should I buy?” and I suppose to that end, while it may not be exciting, purely because we’re almost certainly approaching the tail end of the life cycle, the New Nintendo 2DS XL is the one I’d recommend. It’s light and looks great, includes Amiibo support, has quality if life improvements along with a full set of triggers and two sticks (though, yes, the right stick is still a bit fiddly and small), but it’s also cheap at around £130.

If you cannot be without 3D in your 3DS games, then obviously this isn’t he model for you, but with an enormous library of outrageously good games, the New Nintendo 2DS XL is the best one yet. It’s not quite worth an upgrade if you already own a New 3DS XL, but if you are on one of the original models (XL or otherwise) then you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the screen quality and general build of the device. The best gets better, then, and perhaps with games like Pikmin, Ever Oasis, Metroid: Samus Returns, and Miitopia coming, there’s life in the old dog yet.

The post New Nintendo 2DS XL Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

You’re one of these seedlings. Your brother’s just been killed, you’ve lost your home and you’ve been sent to an unknown place with only the clothes on your back to your name, but you don’t look back in anger, instead, aided by the water spirit Esna you start a new Oasis with the goal of providing a safe refuge from the Chaos enveloping the world. As a new chief you’ll need to micro-manage your oasis as a small economy, encouraging people to move in to your little area of paradise and to help it grow. You’ll have to gather materials, to ensure the shops are stocked, fulfil requests to make sure everyone’s happy.

You quickly get into a routine of going out and doing a quest or two, coming back to restock the shops and collect your share of their earnings, tending the garden and going to bed, and there’s a certain catharsis to it, because it’s all so lovely. Seeing the joyous faces of the shopkeeps when you stop by to replenish their stock and the fanfare whenever you get a new resident elicits considerable glee. When certain populace targets get hit you get to expand your oasis allowing more shops to be built, and eventually, more garden space and monuments to your achievements.

And then as things start to seem like they may get a bit too much for one person to take care of, you get staff to assist you; you’ll be able to assign people to tend the gardens for you, exploration groups to farm materials and someone to distribute said materials to the shops instead of you having to make the rounds. You’ll still need to wander round to take up loyalty quests and to pick up your money from the stores, sort of like a mob boss handling his own shakedowns, d’you know what I mean?

Combat is simplistic, with a two-button set up for quick and hard attacks and rudimentary combos. Enemies have easily readable ticks to signify when they’re going to attack and what attack they’re going to use; later enemies look the same but are larger and coloured differently meaning that difficulty is gauged by how much damage they dole out rather than a switch up in tactics. There’s a crafting mechanic too allowing you to craft new armour to mitigate damage and new weapons to speed up the death dealing process, and after a period where you’re the only one who engages in combat you’ll eventually get to take out a three-person party out on adventures.

Different party members have different abilities, some can mine, others can smash boulders, some can dig while few can cut down spider webs. While adventuring you can switch control between your compatriots, which you’ll need to do as they cannot use their skills of their own volition. This creates a puzzle-like element to the dungeon crawling you’re asked to partake in, as you cannot use these abilities yourself and you’ll often go out without the skills you need to get past certain obstacles, meaning you’ll be required to make journeys back to switch members. This faff is helped somewhat by a quick trip function called Aqua Gate, which allows you to go back to the Oasis, then back to where you last teleported from afterwards, which is good. The problem is that Ever Oasis changes things up so much as you get further, and you can find yourself having to switch members three or four times in a matter of minutes, enough to test even the most patient of seedlings.

There’s a separate issue with the assisting AI, however, the complex layouts of the locations and dungeons can result in their pathing abilities being restricted and them not following you as a result, at other times they can disappear completely and they only reappear when you switch party characters which left me fighting rather large enemies solo on several occasions, I guess you’ve just got to roll with it.

Ever Oasis is basically a Harvest Moon-esque game with semi-open world roaming and Zelda-like dungeons. It’s nice, aesthetically and thematically, with lovely solid chibi style characters and some wonderfully twee music that I just can’t stop humming. It falls down somewhat with the adventuring, what with the AI issues and slightly simplistic combat, but the town management side of things can really get its hooks into you. There’s a serious buzz to be had whenever your Oasis gets a big transformation. This is a game that wants to make you smile, and it will do just that; just don’t expect a champagne supernova.

The post Ever Oasis Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Cooking Mama Sweet Shop is the latest game in the franchise to hit the Nintendo 3DS, a whopping three years after it released in Japan. It involves you creating a whole plethora of desserts and then selling them to the public in your very own sweet shop – with the help of Mama, of course. You follow dessert recipes in the form of mini-games using the touch screen and it can be anything from melting butter in a pan to folding crêpes and coating apples in caramel without burning them. A lot of recipes allow you to decorate your finished product however you’d like, which feels quite rewarding and adds a tiny element of personalisation to a game that’s otherwise just following guides.

Each dessert has multiple stages of cooking and you are scored depending on how well you perform the techniques in each section. You receive either a bronze, silver or gold medal once you’ve finished, depending on how you fared and your creation can be put up on display in your shop; the more you display, the more your shop will expand in size and the more recipes will become available to create. Members of the public will visit your shop and buy your creations for in-game currency which can then be used to buy various decorative items such as wallpaper and shelves and also accessories for Mama.

The biggest flaw the game has is that none of the mini-games are particularly challenging, but when you think about the fact it’s probably made mainly for children, I do understand the difficulty choice a bit more. A way this could have been solved is to add a difficulty setting, therefore making it more enjoyable for players across all ages. I only failed when I either forgot to adjust a heat setting and something burned or I let the timer run out. I remember the previous Cooking Mama titles being more of a challenge, but maybe it’s because I was a child at the time – I simply don’t know. Regardless of how much you mess up a recipe, you’re still rewarded for it and you’re still able to put it on display for customers to purchase which feels a bit strange to me, unless for some reason customers prefer their fruit tartlets burnt.

This is essentially the game in its entirety. Although there are plenty of recipes to whip up, it still feels barren and becomes incredibly repetitive and boring after a couple of hours of playtime. There is a multiplayer mode, but it’s just more of the same slog with the only upside being that it utilizes the Download Play feature so you only need one copy of the game between friends. I think the game is definitely more suited to children (and young children at that), which disappoints me as someone who played the Cooking Mama games as a kid and wanted to relive the excellent experience I once had. If you’ve got a young child who would be interested in this then go for it, otherwise I’d recommend leaving Mama where she should have stayed – in the past.

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Shadows of Valentia is a retelling of the second Fire Emblem game (Fire Emblem Gaiden) and follows the plight of village boy Alm and his childhood sweetheart Celica, as destiny tears their lives apart and sets them on the road to saving their respective kingdoms. You’ll start as Alm, before the story moves to Celica, and once the two meet up it then splits into two with you then alternating between them as you progress. You’ll spend your time moving from battlefield to battlefield, striking down foes before going to a village to improve your gear, then moving to a dungeon and then mowing down more enemies.

It doesn’t sound like much, but there’s a real thrill to proceedings here: many fights will start with you checking around the map looking for areas of land to ensure the survival chances of your units and gain the upper hand as the enemy approaches. When two units come into contact the camera swoops down as a 3D arena comes into view, both units take to the field while a dramatic score swells up, blows are exchanged and the camera zooms back out. The whole process takes approximately fifteen seconds, yet despite the ugly character models it never stops being exciting.

The battles are incredibly rewarding too, and not from a compensation standpoint. Granted there’s the usual XP gains for each battle style action, but the sense of euphoria that comes from a well-executed battle plan paying off is second to none, and is a feeling I’ve only ever gotten from winning seemingly unwinnable games on Football Manager. Placing units to stand as a decoy while you take other units around to the side to flank your enemies, or maintaining a two-man blockade while you stop enemies marauding on one side before turning your attention to a slow push towards the enemy captain sounds like it would be dull, but it really isn’t; there can be some real heart in mouth moments when a particular unit attracts undue and painful attention from a foe only to then come out with a lucky critical strike and turn the tide of battle.

The cast is a colourful collection of vagabonds, waifs, strays, and nobles, not all of them are likable but you will find your favourites rather quickly; the block-headed Valbar and defiant Mathilda are the stand-outs of the large bunch. Maintaining the relationships between the characters is done by moving them next to each other when a ‘talk’ option is enabled – it is rather bizarre to think of two people just stopping what they’re doing in the middle of battle for a casual chat, but doing it enough means that units receive a heal buff at regular intervals during fights later on in the game, which you’ll find comes in very welcome. All the main character interactions are fully voiced as well, Intelligent Systems has really gone to town with this production.

If I were to be picky there’s the ugly character models in the battle sequences, but they can be turned off to speed up the entire process. Then there’s the rather dull red and brown colour scheme that enshrouds the entire game. The characters are all so wonderfully drawn and have a wide range of colour attributed to their designs, adding some of those greens and blues to the UI or some of the locations would not have gone amiss. Then there’s the dungeon roaming, as a whole it is kind of unnecessary. This could quite easily have been replaced with separate top down maps. Instead you get dour trudges through boring looking environments staring at a fugly avatar. I guess they do give you the occasional break from the big battles, but they’re just not really all that interesting.

I’m sure you’ll agree that these things are very minor. When the actual task of playing the game is as rewarding as this you’ll forgive it for such small misdemeanors. Considering this is a remake of the second entry in the series it’s a good starting point for people new to Fire Emblem to give it a go – I am proof of that. As a result it could prove to be a start to joining a franchise I never played before and might become a bit expensive as a result. This is also the last Fire Emblem entry to come to the 3DS series of systems, so it’s a hark back to the start, but also the end of an era, and to be fair, it’s a fitting swan-song for a beloved series on a great system.

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Yo-Kai are little demons living alongside us in a spiritual dimension, they possess us and make us do things, some good, some bad – they’re mischievous like that. Here in the series’ second game there are two factions of them: the Bony Spirits and the Fleshy Souls, and they’re fighting over something, but there’s actually a big bad guy pulling the strings, making everyone dance like puppets, Dun dun DUN dun DUUUUUUUUUNN. Not all the chapters deal with this over-arcing storyline so at other times you’ll find yourself dealing with strange goings on at the local school, helping your friend find his watch or going to visit your Grandma.

It’s become cliché to say that a game handles it’s plot in the manner of a ‘Saturday morning cartoon’, but that’s exactly what Yo-Kai watch is, so I’m going to use it again. Yo-Kai Watch 2 feeds it’s narrative to you in a series of chapters that wouldn’t look out of place in a Saturday morning cartoon series; a thing is mentioned you go somewhere, plot unfolds, fight happens and the day is saved. Sometimes these are stand-alone stories, and others carry on from where the last one left off; in bigger games this would be off putting, but the nature of the characters and how these are put together allows the game to carry over the charm from the animated series. Thing is, this impetus on story compels you to keep pushing forward when really you do need to be getting on with side-quests.

Due to there being no random battles in Yo-Kai watch you’ll find levelling your team using just the story quests can leave you floundering around the mid-game mark. The idea here is to ensure you seek out ‘Requests’ and ‘Favours’ from NPCs around the many towns you can visit, successfully doing what you’re told can net a big XP gain once you’ve handed it in. These little side quests generally turn you into a glorified errand boy running back and forth between regions (and later, eras) to get what the person wants. This is the dreaded grind that sets in on many an RPG, but here it’s present from the start.

It exacerbates itself as well, locking story content away until you complete what the game calls Key Quests; forcing you to take on the otherwise mundane tasks of certain people to further progress. Some of these are even further locked away behind a supposedly optional sidequest to upgrade your Watch from Rank E up to A. Doing so allows you to find and battle higher ranked Yo-Kai, but also allows access to areas locked behind lettered doors, some of which HAVE to be opened otherwise you can’t complete the key quests to move on. It should be noted that you should look to improve your Watch, especially if you want to ‘Catch ‘em all’, but locking content behind content and then locking that behind something else isn’t great design.

That said, the districts you are asked to make your way around are a joy to explore. There are a multitude of nooks and crannies for you to find your way to and plunder what lies within. All the locations feel like real places, with people milling around and going about their business, giving the locations a feeling of real, living, breathing towns. One places leads to another, which then leads to somewhere else; exploring has rarely felt as rewarding as finding somewhere you’ve not seen before only for it to look round and give you an alternate route to somewhere you’ve already been and they’re just full of boxes to open, Yo-Kai to find, items to pick up and adorable little secrets to discover.

The way you do battle is interesting at least, in a different way. There’s a kind of hands-off approach to battling insofar as the Yo-Kai themselves will make their own decisions as to what they actually do. Your role is limited to telling them who or what to target, giving them items to boost their energy, removing debuffs through Purification or telling them to use their Soultimate move – a move that requires you to perform a task on the touchscreen to charge up before they unleash a devastating attack or immense healing wave. This is hard to get used to at first, but you soon settle into the rhythm, until it starts to get infuriating.

With no direct control over the Yo-Kai you can grow frustrated watching your team perform what you would consider to be the wrong moves. Frequently you’ll be in a fight against a weaker Yo-Kai and instead of attacking, a team mate will cast a buff or Guard, prolonging a fight which should take seconds or you could find a Yo-Kai healing miniscule amounts of damage, but ignoring a character about to fall in favour of debuffing the enemy. It should be said that you can give your Yo-Kai books to change their attitudes in battle, but the weird choices the AI makes still remain.

Yo-Kai Watch 2 is great for kids, at least thematically, but the overly grindy nature and frustrating AI in battle has me questioning how likely a child is to persevere. It’s probably safe to say that if someone enjoyed the previous game then what they find here won’t really put them off. There’s certainly a lot of charm here, with well designed, colourful characters, a fantastic world to get lost in and a story structure lifted direct from TV; it’s nice, but the battle AI and gofer style grind just let it down.

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A coming together of developers sees the game resemble a mish mash of differing styles that never quite gel cohesively. There appears to be three different rendering techniques used over the five events and it’s squeezed into a drab 1990s EA Sports style UI that has all the likability of the current US government.

That UI has got a lot to answer for as well, it’s functional at best allowing for quick and easy setup of the events on offer and the sub modes contained under each; but in the Camelot developed modes, sinking a putt in golf or winning a set in tennis will see the signature celebrations obscured by a great black and grey rectangle displaying the score update, which anyone familiar to memes will tell you is the best part.

But what of the events themselves? The Camelot events are the standouts here, but they’re essentially pared down versions of their full-fledged cousins. Golf is Mario Golf and Tennis is Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash from the Wii U; the Bandai Namco events, however, have been built from the ground up. Football brings eleven v eleven to the 3DS for the first time, then there’s Baseball (rounders to us Brits) and finally Horse Racing. Each event has the standard single player and multiplayer options, along with separate tutorials and training events to help you learn the ropes and then master them.

All the sports kind of speak for themselves really as we know what they all entail, the only one that dares to be a bit different is Horse Racing. Now, this is a standard three lap race around a track, with tournaments being Mario kart style points leagues over three tracks. What makes it different though is that you have to take your horse’s stamina into account. You can ‘kick’ your horse to make it dash, but regular dashing will cause your horse’s stamina to deplete, and it fills back up slowly. There are stamina pick-ups dotted along the track, but they’re not really frequent. The best option here is what the game calls ‘herd mentality’; when you keep among the pack your horse’s stamina replenishes at a greatly increased rate, this means that you have to weigh up the right moments to dash ahead or to stay with the herd. If you try to stay in front, you’ll inevitably run out of stamina and be caught up by the chasers.

As well as this there’s a stable, where you can select a horse and look after it. Stroke it, clean it, feed it and take it for walks to help it bond with you and improve its stats; although, how much this affects its performance is unclear. As you take it out and about you’ll find dressing up items (amongst other things) with which to decorate your steed, in the long run it’s a bit pointless, but it’s a nice distraction.

There’s a lack of modes in each event, with single player being reduced to either an exhibition match or a three-stage tournament against the AI. Exhibitions allow you to select your preferred difficulty, while tournaments start off with an easy cup and then get progressively more difficult, but never to the point that they provide any substantial challenge. It’ll definitely be more taxing for kids, but if anything, it’s not really a decent way to polish your skills ready for human opponents via multiplayer as the challenge just isn’t quite enough.

Let me put it this way, on football on the easiest setting I managed to gain possession of the ball, then run up the pitch and score with only using my left hand, I didn’t even press the shoot button, on all difficulties I managed to rack up scores in double figures. In tennis I managed to win all the tournaments without conceding a single set. I had a bit more trouble with golf due to the nature of the elements and rolls of the green, and Baseball due to the unpredictable nature of the pitches, but at no point did I feel like I could fail.

Being a Mario title there’s a few hidden characters to unlock, and success in the events will see you amass coins with which to buy virtual cards, which don’t really do anything apart from sit in an album for you to look at. Physically you can collect a whole new set of amiibo cards for use in the game with the added bonus that these unlock an extra game mode to play. The annoying part of this is that game mode isn’t available without an amiibo card, regular amiibo won’t work. Keeping a whole game element away from you behind a real world physical purchase is quite an unforgivable decision really, and as such I wasn’t able to test this mode out.

The dearth of things to do is to obviously ensure that each sport is represented to some degree, but it’s difficult to feel anything other than if there were only three events and more modes for those events that the game would feel a much more rounded prospect. Multiplayer is ham-strung by other players being required to have the game even locally; there’s no support for download play here, meaning that sessions with friends could prove to be an expensive affair.

Mario Sports Superstars wants to be the Smash Bros. of sports titles, but it really ends up being a PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale instead. The lack of substance in all the modes makes the package a jack of all trades but a master of none and at the end of the day it’s a rather bitter experience, like licking a Switch cartridge.

The post Mario Sports Superstars Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Things start out slow with a few throwbacks to when you were much younger. You’ve always enjoyed trips to the countryside as a kid and your family keeps moving wherever required. Your father is quite stern for some reason and once you’re old enough, it is finally time to break from the shackles and finally take matters into your own hands. One thing leads to another and you find yourself on a very small plot of land proving your worth to Frank who has taken you on as a protégé. The opening is really slow and it takes about an hour before you get to actually start the basics of farming.

Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns is the second game with the Story of Seasons name but it is definitely a Harvest Moon experience for fans of the old Harvest Moon games. While the Harvest Moon games or even Story of Seasons usually has a farm outside a town, Trio of Towns expands that to three towns as the name suggests. This is a welcome change as it keeps things fresh. Your aim of course is to build up your own farm, make friends, maybe even marry eventually. Each town has its own set of quirks that extend to the folk living there. This reminds me of Fantasy Life in a lot of ways. I loved the non combat classes or lives in that game and having different towns here reminded me of my time there. I did spend too much time fishing in both games for sure.

There’s tons of stuff to do while you grow your farm and everything consumes stamina. Stamina is represented in the heart symbols on the top left where health would normally be. You can take a break by eating any edible item you collect or even a cooked meal if you have the option, but the aim is to relax and do as much as you can without pushing yourself. Talking to and interacting with the folk across the towns is fun with greetings. Part-time jobs are also available that don’t take much time, but pay near instantly. Eventually you have the option to do certain special tasks that will reward you in costumes. These costumes are based on Super Mario Bros characters and the costumes all have unique traits. The Luigi one lets you fish better while the Mario one lets you run faster. Frank has a few tasks for you to complete initially that serve as a tutorial of sorts before you have the true green light to becoming a farmer. The tasks given to you in challenge form will require some strategy for managing your own funds. I love a good fishing mini-game and had a blast fishing here. There’s also the Town Link Rating between your farm and one of the three towns. Raising this will unlock more in the respective towns.

I really like what Marvelous has done with the interface and visuals here. I played it on my New 3DS XL and had the 3D almost constantly on. It adds a subtle but nice effect with leaves floating around and menus in addition to character models. Portraits look really nice and I prefer them to the in-game models. I encountered no performance issues either in my time playing which is a nice change from some previous entries. The colourful world created here was fun to spend time with for sure.

My biggest complaint with Trio of Towns is the music. I guess the lovely music in Stardew Valley spoiled me because everything I heard here is forgettable. I also wish there was better use of the second screen. Even the map isn’t as detailed as it should be if it uses the complete second screen on the 3DS system.

If you’re aching for a break from the usual games or just want to kick back and relax on the farm, Trio of Towns is the perfect game for you. It is a great starting point for newcomers to the Harvest Moon or Story of Seasons games and one that will make it hard to go back to other farming simulation games.

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In this world, much like the title suggests, everything is made of wool: the Shy Guy enemies, the various platforms and scenic decorations right down to Yoshi himself. Evil Magikoopa Kamek has turned all of the Yoshi’s into yarn versions of themselves and stolen them away, leaving our protagonist Yoshi to traverse various worlds in order to restore his kidnapped pals. There is nothing exactly special about the plot of Woolly World—it uses the typical damsel in distress motivation that we are so used to seeing, only now the damsel has been replaced with some dinosaurs. It does feel threadbare in this regard, but not many people play Yoshi titles for the white-knuckle storytelling.

The way Yoshi is controlled will be familiar to anyone who has played a previous title. He is able to use his long tongue to devour enemies, turning them into balls of yarn instead of the usual eggs, as well as jump—frantically kicking his legs as he begins to descend in order to boost himself higher, all while letting out that signature squeal. The balls of yarn that Yoshi can collect allow him to interact more directly with the levels around him; you will see outlines for static or moving platforms that you’re able to throw yarn at, filling them in and making them useable. Traversing the various worlds, gameplay is pretty much what you’d expect: enemies are not particularly difficult, bosses even less so, but you’ll still have a certain degree of enjoyment as you delight in the design of the colourful worlds.

The golden thread which holds it all together (if you’ll pardon the pun), is the woolly art style that creates tangible and interactive levels for you to play with. Using Yoshi’s tongue, you’re able to tug at loose strands of yarn which then unravel to reveal secret areas or collectible items. In each level, there are five yarn balls to collect which, once collected, turn into a themed Yarn Yoshi for you to play as: a tropical level will garner you a Yoshi styled after a watermelon; a desert level will let you play as Skeleton Yoshi, and so on. These different variants provide no special powers or abilities, but do encourage you to hunt down these yarn balls (and make you kick yourself when you miss one).

You’re able to design your own Yoshi too, using either a simple toolset which block colours the different parts of the dinosaur, or a complex one, which allows for much more freehand freedom. I never really felt compelled to design many of my own Yoshis, not when there are so many wonderfully designed ones to pick from already. However, it is a feature which some will no doubt lap up intently since it wasn’t included in the original version of the game.

Graphically, Poochy and Yoshi’s Woolly World performs well on the 3DS, but I can’t help thinking about how much more glorious it looks on Wii U. There is a missing sort of sharpness in the textures, which means the impression of a woolly environment does not come across as strongly as in the previous version. Small details such as yarn clouds can go unnoticed on the scaled down screen, really requiring a 1080p display to be fully appreciated.

As for Yoshi’s pal Poochy, his inclusion feels more like an afterthought than a real attempt to add a new dimension to a year-and-a-half old game. Poochy mainly appears in an extra game mode called Poochy’s Dash, which sees the cute pupper zooming across the scenery collecting beads which can be used to buy power ups for Yoshi. He can be tagged into the main game by scanning a Poochy amiibo, which will allow Yoshi to ride him, but you’ll be at a loss if you don’t own an amiibo-compatible New 3DS or a NFC scanner for older models. Playing on an older 3DS and not having a Poochy amiibo to scan, I can’t exactly say how much his participation can benefit the player, but it is disappointing to know that those who lack the required hardware will not be able to use Poochy in-game. His children, called Poochy-Pups, can help players in the main game, but only if they are playing on Mellow Mode—the easiest difficulty and likely the one which most older players will be avoiding. However, Poochy does stand out in the game’s Yoshi Theatre which displays 30 stop-motion animations, all of which fantastically communicate the essence of this woolly world and the friendship between the two title characters.

As platformers go, Poochy and Yoshi’s Woolly World does attempt to bring the majestic yarny visuals of the Wii U title to the small screen, but is a middling effort to say the least. Fans of the genre should enjoy the quirky-ish gameplay provided by the interactive levels, but shouldn’t expect to face much of a challenge at all or see any real deviance from formula. The woolly creations and set pieces do make for a beautiful adventure, but they’re just not enough to see Yoshi knock it out of the park this time.

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Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King centres around a hero and his friends as they set upon a quest to rid the kingdom of an evil jester and his dark magic. Dhoulmagus has turned the king into a frog, his daughter into a horse, and has wrapped their castle in an abundance of vines; all in all, things aren’t looking too good in the land of Trodain. It’s a fun story – one that never gets lost in its own silliness and light-heartedness, even when it’s at its darkest, and there are plenty of cutscenes (including new ones added for the game’s re-release) that help provide context. For those of you who are new to this game, don’t be put off by its slow start. You forget how uninformed you are as it begins, and how your first mission is a bit of a slog; as soon as you get to the heart of the first dungeon and beat Geyzer, everything begins to pick up and you’ll be free to explore Trodain to your hearts content.

Your main goal is to recruit friends to join your party and help you to bring down a wide range of monsters. You’ll start off with the loveable buffoon Yangus (who looks weirdly like Chris Griffin from Family Guy) at your side, always there to call you ‘guv’ in his Cockney accent and provide strong attacks using heavy weaponry like axes and clubs. As you move forward, you’ll meet Jessica and Angelo, a big breasted sorceress and a womanizing knight, who join your party to help battle Dhoulmagus. All characters can be levelled up, and new skills can be learned after allocating skill points gained in battle. You can also play as two new characters, Red and Morrie (former NPCs in the PS2 version), bringing up the tally of characters in a party to six. However, you can still only use up to four in battle.

Battles happen very similarly to other JRPGs; every encounter is turn-based, and you have plenty of options just how you fight. You can fight by attacking with force or using magic, heal you or your party, intimidate your enemies so they’ll run away or simply flee yourself. Each fight has variables, and each one of the vast amount of enemies have specific attributes that’ll make you adapt, with every move dependant on their abilities. There are floating fireballs, boots with blue brains, frog/fish hybrids with large lips, slime balls, satyrs, moles, red and green conjoined peppers and a load more, including powerful monsters who act as bosses throughout. You can even form a team of monsters to face off against others in the Monster arena–just make sure you talk to Morrie.

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King on 3DS has some other new features and changes I haven’t touched upon yet, such as the quick save; don’t make the same mistake as I did by assuming it did it automatically (three bloody hours I lost to my own stupidity)! You can still visit a nearby town and save your progress in a church, but this quick save feature helps you when your knee deep in exploration. Whenever you’re wandering about the world of Trodain, every enemy can be seen in all their weird glory, so no random battles will start. Although it’s a small change, it really helps when you’re trying to avoid a fight because your health is low, and you have no herbs or MP to heal yourself. When you’re trying to build your characters by grinding, the new speed up feature works wonders. It allows battles to unfold Benny Hill style, and makes the whole process of grinding much easier, and feel like less of a chore.

The same gorgeous 3D art style returns, and the genius of Akira Toriyama (Chrono Trigger and Dragon Ball) shines on the small screen. Visuals are sharper, and the fact you can see all of his unique character creations everywhere on your travels is great. Although the original game came out almost ten years ago, the upgraded visuals bring it up to par with other modern day 3DS titles. To acknowledge this, there’s a swanky new photo mode where you can take photos of your adventure and then share them via StreetPass. The music, albeit repetitive at times, makes your journey feel as grand as it should, with a rousing score by series stalwart Koichi Sugiyama.

I loved coming back to DQVIII; it’s aware of how silly it can be, but it has a wonderful charm to it, and the effort in making each character come to life thanks to the wonderful voice acting is noticeable from the start. It can be punishing at times, and not always clear when it comes to your next objective, but overall you’ll be able to sink plenty of hours into a story filled with magic, wonder and excitement.

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Unlike Picross, Picross 3D (by way of its name) has you breaking apart large masses and colouring portions to form a sculpture of sorts. Anyone familiar with regular Picross will be at home here as the numbered line system translates well into three dimensions, and as a result many of the same tactics for working out which cubes need to be broken and which to be coloured work just as well here.

While Picross veterans will find this easy to jump straight in to, newcomers aren’t left to flounder: HAL has included an extensive set of tutorial levels to help ease you into the basics of blocking, plus they’ve interspersed the levels with a set of challenges designed to assist with learning the advanced tactics, and before long any player will be adept at flagging, slicing and colouring.

To ensure the puzzle results don’t look like they’re made of pixels the cube colourations are divided into two styles – blue and yellow. Blue cubes will retain their shape, while yellow cubes change shape to suit the solution once their row or column is solved. As you spend your time colouring in and destroying blocks no longer needed it becomes really gratifying to see it all take shape (kind of like building a LEGO model) and while you’re trying to work out what goes where you’ll also find yourself trying to figure out just what it is you’re uncovering.

The end-goal here is to solve each puzzle as quickly and with as few mistakes as possible, with larger gem rewards for finishing a puzzle perfectly. Gems are needed to unlock further puzzles in a great move for both veterans and newcomers players can set the difficulty for the puzzles themselves, with higher difficulties granting larger gem rewards. HAL have done all they can to ensure no-one is left out.

The only real complaint I have is that if you’re not willing to hunch over a table, you have to result to a claw like grip on your 3DS to be able to play. This caused me considerable cramping pain across my palm and thumb at any length of time over 30 minutes, which, considering how easy it is to lose yourself in Picross 3D, can occur frequently.

Due to a build-up of personal issues I’ve been a bit stressed of late, and this has been a very cathartic game for me. Sitting there poking away while jigging along to the jaunty music, it’s kept me entertained and distracted nicely on my long journeys and for that I think it’s really quite lovely.

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In 2015, I lauded Super Mario Maker as one of the best games of the year. The addictive couch co-op/versus idea of creating fiendish levels for your friends and family to attempt was only bettered by the fact you could take those courses and, provided you yourself could complete them, upload them to the internet for all to play. So let’s start there: it’s a massive disappointment that this feature is completely absent from the 3DS version. I’m not going to dwell on it for too long, but as a huge fan of the idea (despite the, at times, less than perfect execution) of sharing levels, it’s a bitter let down that even with the unification of Nintendo accounts, this couldn’t somehow be achieved.

It’s additionally frustrating because courses created by Wii U players appear in the 100 Mario Challenge, but there is (at least) a slight concession that’s been made. If you have friends who don’t own the game but do own a 3DS, you can still have fun together. Local Wireless sharing means you can even send an incomplete course to a pal to help you finish it, and you can share courses for general play via StreetPass or, again, Local Wireless. The focus for the 3DS edition of this game is entirely on local community, and local play, so know that going in.

The rest of the game is mostly untouched (bar the removal of ability to add sound effects, weirdly), though with some new additions, and there’s no shortage of courses. The Super Mario Challenge is the best of the new modes, offering up 100 levels over four-course worlds that act mostly as a tutorial, teaching techniques you might not be overly familiar with if you’ve not played Mario Maker, or haven’t seen the insane ROM-hack levels people have been designing for years.

But it’s the challenges within these 100 courses that are the true meat of the single player areas, because each course has two optional objectives, ranging from the fiendishly difficult (complete the level within a certain time limit – one that’s always brutally close to the wire of what’s achievable), or the fun with a hint of tricky (carry a POW block to the end of a level that kind of needs you to hit a POW block to make it easy). The challenges are addictive, and show a Nintendo that understands the genre better than anyone else.

There are plenty of lessons for creation, too, with Yamamura (the dove) playing the part of expert Mario level creator, and after playing through each world in the Super Mario Challenge you’ll get new tools to play with, which let’s face it, is a far, far better solution than being forced to come back each day to get new items, which is how the Wii U version initially launched. Mary O (or Mashiko, depending on which you prefer) returns as the “guide” for the game, and along with Yamamura, there’s a lovely sense of humour to Mario Maker, as there was with its bigger brother last year.

As you’d expect, it controls as tightly as ever. Whether you fully get on with it is entirely down to which model of 3DS you have, and how comfortable you find it, but nobody in our house had any issues with it, and although the youngest player found the visuals a little “bitty”, I’m rather impressed with how well rendered Mario looks on 3DS. Not World, or 3, you understand, but I was interested to see that New Super Mario Bros. art style looks fine. Sure, nobody likes it, and nobody uses it for creation, but bar a slight loss of fidelity it still looks really good.

The 3DS version of Super Mario Maker is a weird game to recommend. It has the obvious shortcoming of the lack of online sharing, but it makes up for it with an interesting, fun, addictive challenge mode. It’s a shame there isn’t more inter-connectivity between the Wii U and 3DS versions, because the idea of taking your levels on the go to create and then go home and upload is the kind of thing the Nintendo Switch looks built for. Regardless, this is still a terrific game with plenty to do, that plays brilliantly. As long as you’re aware of its shortcomings, you can happily build courses on the go for as long as you want, there’s just not much point in doing so any more.

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You’ll be pleased to know that Game Freak has created a great game, pushing the limits of the 3DS to realise their vision for how Pokémon games should be 20 years on from their debut. It looks good, plays better and has that same addictive quality it’s always had. Say goodbye to your life – you live in Alola now.

After deciding to leave Kanto, Chris (that’s me, that’s my name!) and his mother travel to the sandy beaches of the Alola region in search of a new life; think of Hawaii and you’re pretty much there. You meet Professor Kukui and decide to become the very best (again), choosing from one of the new starter Pokémon, Litten, Rowlet or Poppilo. Once you’ve chosen (Litten for the win, by the way), it’s time to embark on a brand new adventure that feels refreshing but still manages to stay on familiar ground.

One of the biggest changes is the absence of Pokémon Gyms. Instead, you’ll take part in Island Trials. These trials see you fight a selection of Pokémon before going on to fight that trials’ totem Pokémon – a stronger version, if you will. Beating these trials gives you a wonderful item called a Z-Crystal, which can be used to give your Pokémon some powerful moves. It’s not over after your Island Trials though; you then have to take on that island’s Kahuna in a Grand Trial. A Kahuna is the kind of elder of the island, chosen by the mythical Pokémon guardian of the island. Once defeated, you’ll get your passport stamped and it’s on to the next island. These trials, both island and grand, feel much bigger and last much longer, creating great parallels with the Polynesian ideals that the game seems to pay tribute to.

The way Pokémon and humans interact outside of battle is much more obvious this time. You can be walking around a farm and see Miltanks working the field with their owners, or Snubbulls and Grimers chilling inside their homes. They aren’t stuck in a Pokéball, they’re out parading around Alola and it adds to the importance of their role in the games. Pokémon also act as travel for you; you can summon a Tauros to get you from one place to another a lot faster, or ride a Lapras to take you across water. These Ride Pokémon are a great addition and help to cement the bonds between pocket monsters and people.

Something Game Freak really wants to hit home is the bond you share with your Pokémon. Not only are they visible in the world and vehicles for travel, it’s also very important to look after them by feeding, cleaning and healing after battle. Pokémon Refresh is a new feature where you can feed your Pokémon jelly beans, fuss them by tickling and rubbing their tummies or their heads, brush their fur or dry them after a fight with a water Pokémon and so on. It’s a great idea, and only makes you fall more in love with them. I would constantly dote on Litten to make sure he was OK after a frantic battle, and feeding him was paramount. The better they feel, the better they perform so it’s certainly worth taking care of them. If you don’t keep it up, it won’t make them perform any worse, but it has more benefits than it lacks.

Battles are so much fun and they look amazing; animations are sharper and much more colorful. The more you fight, the more you learn. If you come up against a Drowzee for example, it’s up to you to experiment to see what is going to be most effective; however, the next time you face one, effective and super effective moves are highlighted so you know what you should be using. The coolest new feature is the Z-Move, and these unlock thanks to the Z-Crystals you find in the Island Trials. By unleashing a Z-Move, you pull off a powerful attack that unravels via some of the best animations ever to feature in a Pokémon title. They can do a substantial amount of damage, but can only be used once per battle.

The Pokédex looks great in Sun and Moon, thanks to the Pokémon, Rotom. He fundamentally brings your Pokédex to life by living in it, giving you useful hints and information along the way. Remember Pokémon Snap? Well in Sun and Moon you can take photos of Pokémon with the Pokéfinder. It’s another nice addition to bolster the complete package, and although there aren’t tons of opportunities to use it, it’s still pretty cool.

The multiplayer wasn’t available during the review due to servers not being live, but I got to see some of the features in action at a presentation by Nintendo in London recently. The Festival Plaza is a hub where you can meet and battle other players, trade with them, and buy loads of cool stuff with Festival Coins. Battle Royal is an awesome new feature where you can fight in 4v4 battles, taking it in turns to attack anybody in the battle you choose to. As the battle goes on, players move up or down in rank and the winner is the one who finishes first.

Pokémon Sun and Moon are filled with so much you’ll be absorbed in every facet from the moment you begin; TM moves are moves you acquire that can be given to any compatible Pokémon instead of being learned through levelling up, and there are Alolan variant Pokémon that are only ever going to feature in Sun and Moon due to their association with the climates of the specific Alola regions. Poké Pelago is another new feature that acts as a virtual home for your captured Pokémon to live in, and isn’t available straight away. You have to work hard to unlock all of the wonders of Pokémon Sun and Moon, but the benefits are worth it. It took me over four hours until the tutorial felt like it was over and I’d reached my first Island Trial; it could’ve been reached quicker, I’m sure, but there’s so much to do, hundreds of Pokémon to catch and a world that is brimming with adventure and excitement.

The post Pokémon Sun and Moon Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

A group of students are performing a send off to a classmate who is moving away through a Sachiko Ever After charm. An earthquake follows this send off transporting everyone into an alternate dimension. Heavenly Host Elementary School has everyone split up into different locations. This is where things get gruesome. As you look around the school, there are traps, corpses, spirits of students trapped there before. Your aim is to escape.

Very few games manage blending two genres to create a compelling experience like Corpse Party does. The combination of visual novel story telling with great voice acting and adventure exploration gameplay with object interaction will mean you never tire of the experience. There are multiple endings and it is fairly simple to get the bad ones without a guide, but I still always recommend your first playthrough in any visual novel esque game to be a blind one with no help, to get the best experience.

While Corpse Party may look like an upgraded RPG Maker game, each new iteration has allowed for various improvements both visually and quality-wise. The brilliant audio design that has some amazing Japanese voice acting and atmospheric audio along with the music blend in with the visuals to create something really special. A scene in the opening area has flies around a corpse and the audio really makes you feel like you’re right there next to it. Since the 3DS has two screens, there’s less clutter on the top as well making the experience even more immersive with a good pair of headphones.

There are two slight annoyances I had with the 3DS version. There’s no support for 3D during most of the game. I was really hoping for stereoscopic 3D but the only times 3D works and is worth it is when there’s some CG being displayed. The 3DS audio output is also rather low so it is almost impossible to enjoy playing Corpse Party in a noisy location. I wish there was an option to increase the volume when headphones are plugged in. Since this is the 4th release of Corpse Party, it would have been nice if the chapter that was exclusive to the PC version had been added here making it the definitive version with its own exclusive content and all previous content and improvements.

Corpse Party on 3DS is a fantastic experience. With Yomawari and now Corpse Party, the last few weeks have been amazing for horror fans. I’m so glad XSEED localised this 3DS version and gave me another excuse to replay Corpse Party with some new content and finally own a physical copy of it. If you’re a fan of visual novels or horror in general, you owe it to yourself to buy and experience this.

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Being, as it is, a best of collection of the three previous Rhythm Tengoku games, if you’re a fan of the series, you’re going to know exactly what is going on here. Unfortunately, being a greatest hits means that even if you’ve played any of the games in passing, you’re going to have your memory synapses firing as you play the minigames that make up Megamix.

Take Fillbots, for example, Rhythm Heaven on DS. This is a minigame that has you hold the button down to fill a robot with fuel, some large, some medium, in time with the music. The better you do, the greater your score. The second I played it, I knew what I was doing – I’ve played it before. Or there’s Rhythm Tweezers, where you have to pull the whiskers out of an onion man’s face in time with the music. I’ve played that too, and in a sense, we’ve all kind of played all of them, because they are all very similar. There’s little variation in how you actually play each challenge, and the difference only comes from the music and the visuals.

Now look, that may be a harsh criticism, because that’s a music game, really, isn’t it? Whether it’s Guitar Hero, Rhythm Paradise Megamix, or Amplitude, you’re doing the same thing over and over, only to a different song. But here it feels ever so slightly draining at times, because it’s just the same minigame from years gone by with better quality visuals. It doesn’t stop it being fun, of course, and there are new games as part of the package – as you’d expect.

Fruit Basket has a catchy, jaunty tune playing as you punch various fruits from the ground into basketball hoops. It’s actually challenging, too, to get the timing spot on, which is welcome, because elsewhere the initial playthrough offers a low difficulty barrier as you play through the daft story, which sadly offers itself and more of a barrier to getting on with the actual fun of playing, than anything meaningful. Each character appears and gives the same spiel about how he or she needs help doing something, which unlocks the four minigames you need to complete to pass the area. After the third or fourth area, it just becomes frustrating to have your playtime elongated by the story, a tale that is something to do with a weird creature trying to get back to Heaven World, and the aforementioned characters needing help to get their flow back… honestly, I don’t know why they actually bothered.

Much of Megamix is about collecting high scores and coins, which are not only for unlocking collectibles in the game’s cafe, but also to help choose the difficulty of each area’s final stage. Here, you get to play a genuinely tricky coin toss challenge, if you fancy it. The easiest of the three difficulties costs the most coins, so the game actively encourages you to play the harder version which is, well… it’s hard. The first you encounter requires you to flip a coin and catch it after three seconds. Initially it sounds easy, but once the timer and/or audio is removed, it makes it harder. These stages aren’t brilliant, but they’re different, and ultimately, holding them up against the remixed, remastered stages that I’m familiar with, they never stood a chance.

There’s plenty of content and plenty to unlock, but Megamix is just such a lovely game. The new visuals and remastered audio look and sound fantastic, and bar a few simple design choices (I don’t want to play a tutorial for every stage before I play it, just give me the option to skip it), it’s undeniably a brilliant entry point for potential new fans. If you’ve played the WarioWare games, and ever had a passing interest in the Rhythm series, this is the game for you.

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And it’s trying to be more than what your typical “Life Sim” usually aspires – with Disney character. Yes, there are lots of Animal Crossing-like elements of making your own way in a virtual world, but there’s also some light action-RPG segments to break up daily life in this rough approximation of the Magic Kingdom. You are brought into this virtual world, one filled with both human avatars and actual Disney characters, and are given carte blanche to live the Disney life in any way you choose, and oh boy, there’s a lot of different ways to live that life, through a wide variety of activities.

Of course, that Disney magic is the main draw here, especially when it comes to the excellent use of the company’s most recognisable characters, to whom you are gradually introduced as you spend more time in this familiar world. Yes, of course this is a game aimed at younger players, but if you’re the sort to have fond, nostalgic memories of Disney, then it’s always a pleasure to run into your favourite characters. Even I got giddy when running into Scrooge McDuck, in a rare appearance. In addition to your town, you’ll also unlock several worlds based on popular franchises, old and new – and younger Disney fans will be pleased to hear of the addition of a Frozen world, complete with Anna, Elsa, and of course, Olaf.

But when you’re not chatting to Stitch, or buying things from Huey, Dewey and Louie, you have a life to lead. There’s a pretty big emphasis on crafting – picking up raw materials through exploration of the hub world, individual quests and the occasional mini-game, and you’ll be using these materials to craft everything from the clothes you wear to the furniture in your house. Being stylish and coordinating your threads only helps to impress people more, and walking past citizens with a matching outfit will get you “Nice” points, which unlock a few bonuses. Early on, you’ll even end up as the proprietor of the local cafe, creating new recipes and even theming them in the hope of starting a party, complete with a special guest!

With this sort of game, it’s easy to be overwhelmed with things to do, but Magical World 2 implements a wonderful mechanic of unlockable stickers. Part achievement, part tutorial, part rough guide of what to do next, it helps keep a balance between the freedom of a life sim, while also offering a more linear path for those who prefer it (although the tutorial side of the mechanic does tend to drag on a little longer than needed). Different types of badge are available, relating to progress in different activities, as well as for the game’s Episodes. In a similar fashion to say, Super Mario 64, you’ll need a certain number of stickers to unlock parts of the game, but there are so many ways to earn stickers that it’s really not a problem, and there’s a lot of variety in terms of what you can do to progress further.

Outside of being a good citizen, interacting with the community around you, doing them favours and providing various services, a major part of Magical World 2 are the Episodes. As mentioned previously, you’ll unlock various worlds based on Disney franchises, and in these areas there’ll be an Episode Board, offering up various small tasks – mainly taking place in a basic action RPG/dungeon crawler, complete with enemies to defeat and more crafting items to find. They’re all incredibly basic, but are welcome diversions from the usual Life Sim grind. There’s even a few rhythm mini-games in there as well.

If you haven’t realised yet, there is a lot of content here. There’s hours upon hours of game to play, as much as any Animal Crossing release, and the fact that Disney characters are added to the mix makes it a much more engaging game than you’d realise. At its heart, this is a game for the young ’uns, but even I found more than enough enjoyment, mainly because it feels authentically Disney. It’s fun to meet these characters and interact with them in this way. It’s a game that’s incredibly easy to pick up, and while certain aspects do drag on (such as a few cutscenes that linger a little too long), it’s free of the time limited nature of other games in the genre. There’s no need to play every day, turn the game on at different times, or make it a part of a daily routine – it’s uncomplicated and forgiving, and that’s always a good thing for a game with so much to do. I wouldn’t say this is a particularly deep experience, but there are enough hooks to keep you involved.

Presentation-wise, the visuals are all on-brand with what you’d expect from the House of Mouse. Everything looks like it should, so everything is bright and colourful as you would expect. However, it’s not a terribly optimised title, with noticeably inconsistent framerates, married with a ton of short, but irritating load times for everything and it does take you out of everything that’s going on.

It’s going to be easy to chalk this up as a game for kids, but that would be incredibly unfair to Magical World 2. It ticks all the boxes of what a Life Sim should be, and there’s something here for all fans of the genre, but especially if you are a fan of all things Disney. Above all, it’s a truly magical alternative to Animal Crossing.

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Star Rush’s main mode is Toad Scramble, which has you running around collecting coins, playing minigames, gaining allies and fighting bosses across large scale maps. Here, the “Rush” in Star Rush comes into play as all players roll and move at the same time, making it a race to see who can get to elements of the board first, be it a power-up, an ally (Mario, Peach et al) or a boss. You’re free to make your own way about the board instead of going for the objective, but if someone gets to the boss square well before anyone else then there’s a mad rush where you have to hammer the ‘A’ button to dash to the pipe so you don’t lose ground in the fight. This at least gives lagging players a chance to catch up, but against people who know what they’re doing you’ll pretty much find yourself boned.

Despite all these elements you need to “rush” for, the pace of the game is still rather sedate regardless of all the pieces on the board moving at the same time. You’ve got to decide if you want to select a different ally to use, whether or not to use a power up, and despite the fact you can’t use different dice you need to select that as well. For each decision you make there’s a pause while the game makes whatever calculations it needs to and this slows everything down to a mind-numbing crawl.

The game maps themselves are nice and big, with distinctive themes and environmental elements exclusive to them, but the random placement for boss encounters can leave a lot of the board unexplored. The rewards for successfully downing a boss are greater than what you can accumulate from moving around the board, and it’s possible for them all to spawn on the same side of the map; what this results in are places littered with environmental hazards and collectables, but little incentive to actually go and explore them.

The Mario Party titles are always about the minigames, but in Star Rush they are too few in number and they’ve never really been a great leveller. Anyone who plays videogames is going to have a significant advantage over someone who doesn’t, at least for many of them. There’s a few where the outcome is down to chance or just good observational skills, but factor in the boss fight element and non-gamers will always find themselves at a disadvantage.

Not everything is open from the start; the minigames are filled out as you play them through the main party modes, and more game-types become available as your “Party level” goes up. You increase this by playing the modes that are currently available to you. Like XP, you get more depending on the performance put in.

There’s Coinathlon that has you playing minigames for coins to complete laps of a race; Balloon Bash, where you collect coins to trade for stars; Rhythm Recital, a rhythm action game with classic Mario tunes (but which never feels like you’re actually playing them); the rather unfair Mario Shuffle, a straight line race to the opponent’s end of the board; Boo’s Block party, a match 3 number puzzler; and a rather entertaining Minesweeper clone called Challenge Tower (which as much as I enjoyed it, I won’t ever go back to). The thing is, none of these are as good as Toad Scramble, and the effort required to unlock them isn’t really worth it.

What good does come out of this however is that everyone can play the game to an extent, non-owners can either play via download play granting access to a limited suite in multiplayer, or you can download the free “Party Guest” software which acts as a demo of sorts, but allows full game access when in a lobby formed by someone with the full software. It confuses things slightly, by creating a three tier system for play, but it’s pretty generous for anyone who doesn’t own the game.

On your own there’s extremely little incentive to play Star Rush for any considerable period of time. In a group there’s much more enjoyment to be had – and the download play/Party Guest system helps this along considerably – but that initial impetus fades well before the time required to unlock the extra modes, and the social aspect of a party loses something when everyone is staring at a separate screen rather than all focusing on one point. It is fun, but that fun is in short supply.

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Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice brings back the magic of the original platformers, and for a lot of the time you’re enjoying zipping through the beautifully colourful and challenging worlds with a great sense of freedom. Dr Eggman has discovered a new element called Ragnium, and he’s using it to build an army of robots to outrun our titular blue hedgehog. Along with the threat of the fat despot with a moustache, one of his rogue robots has gone bonkers and is also causing a problem for Sonic and his friends.

Ragna Rock has a wide range of levels, and you’re constantly shown a variety of different challenges. The standard platformer exists and is full of fast-paced movement and fast-thinking decisions to make. There has been a lot of effort made by Sanzaru Games to make each level varied, throwing in plenty of bad guys, moving platforms, disappearing platforms, boulders, spikes and much more. Along with the side-scrolling action, there are levels where you control a submarine, a boat, race against Dr Eggman on crazy race tracks, and even speed runs that remind you of those moments in Sonic 2 where you flew down those vibrant tunnels collecting enough rings to get the gems.

Not only can you play as Sonic, but all of his friends unlock relatively early so each one of their abilities can help you to overcome every obstacle. You can change between them by pressing the touchpad, which is handy as there are times when you need to skip between Amy’s hammer and Tails’ laser gun, before burrowing into the ground with the muscly brute, Knuckles. Each character feels varied and they all offer something new to the game, and even if you’re not really familiar with characters like Amy and Sticks, they are great to control and add to the fun of the Sonic universe.

Fire and Ice aren’t in the title for a laugh; instead they play a pivotal role in getting through the game. Pressing the L or R trigger changes the orb around your character to an icy or fiery glow. There are obstacles and platforms in Sonic Boom that can be frozen or melted depending on what you need them to be to progress. They vary your skill set and add another layer to gameplay, but there’s not really any other use for this ability, and you’re not required to use them for much else. With the speed you can sometimes travel through the game, managing to freeze and melt blocks can prove tricky, especially with speed runs so even though they may not be present for any other reason than barricades and platforms, they do offer a bit more than what you originally use them for.

Along with the standard ring collecting you’re used to, you can collect trading cards to take to Tails’ workshop so you can upgrade and build bot racers to challenge other gamers online. There are junk parts you can collect and take to Sticks’ Burrow, and hammer fragments to use at Amy’s House. Want to listen to the music or watch cut scenes from the game? Head back to Sonic’s shack and do just that. All of these challenges and options give you more reason to explore each level and find all of the collectables, so there’s plenty of replayability even after you’ve tried to get the fastest time.

Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice is a great little game with plenty of things to do. The gameplay and the fluidity of movement are very appealing, and changing abilities and characters is very easy to do. It somehow feels like a return to form, and even though the performances by the cast of characters are a bit ham-fisted and embarrassing, they’ll do plenty to entertain Sonic’s younger audience. I’m genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed playing Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice; it’s colourful, fast-paced and lots of fun.

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Apocalypse is set in the same universe as SMT IV but it shows an alternate take on the Neutral route (nearing the end of the previous game). Flynn (the protagonist of Shin Megami Tensei IV) is faced with new threats while he tries to save Tokyo. You play as Nanashi, a silent protagonist and are accompanied by Asahi who is also an apprentice in the Hunter’s Association. There are multiple endings but instead of being Law, Chaos, and Neutral endings, things are a bit different. I really enjoyed the character development and felt the story was consistently good in pacing and content as opposed to how things were in the previous title. There are some nice “got played like a damn fiddle” moments as well.

Gameplay is split up into a few sections that form the core loop you follow for the entirety of the game. You start out in a hub world that has item and weapon stores as you accept quests that take you to new locations. Locating a terminal in these enables fast travel that saves you the time and energy of fighting low level demons as you progress on the main quest line. There are side quests, of course, and you have the freedom to explore the open areas to grind for levels or just look around for relics to sell. Even the world map has seen some tweaks that make exploration a lot better.

Taking place in the same universe allowed the developer to improve upon things, from combat tweaks that are a godsend (no pun intended) to minor map icon improvements and quality of life enhancements to the user interface. The map will now highlight certain puzzle sections with icons, for example. Another welcome change is in the difficulty curve. Shin Megami Tensei IV is notorious for its crushing opening section (*cough* Minotaur *cough*) and drop in difficulty after, which turned off many newcomers and veterans. Apocalypse has a much better opening that is more accessible on easier modes and more balanced overall.

One welcome addition to the map is the ability to view your quest destination as a red flag symbol. There’s a new partner system in place that lets you switch out partners based on what you require and your partner will encourage you to scout demons to join your party and inform you when you defeat a demon who hasn’t been recruited yet. Another addition is the Assist Gauge that fills up with each turn. When said gauge is full, the enemy turn is disrupted followed by a stat buff or heal and a powerful attack on the enemy.

Combat is turn-based, and the press turn system in place since Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne is built upon further. Scoring a critical hit grants you a bonus turn and blocking or nullifying an enemy attack will cancel the enemy turn. Critical attacks also grant Smirk status that has been improved in Apocalypse as well. A character is granted the Smirk status by landing a critical hit or by nullifying an opponent’s attack. In Apocalypse, Smirk also has added effects to certain skills and magic attacks can also result in critical hits granting Smirk.

One of my favourite things about Shin Megami Tensei games is demon negotiation, which lets you scout or talk to a demon to coax it into joining your party or stock. Negotiation is restricted by level and demons at higher levels will not join you, but it’s a lot of fun even with frustrating situations where a demon asks for a good amount of your MP or items but doesn’t join you and decides to run away. The randomness and charm in the dialogue and absolute insanity in some cases is what makes me want to scout almost all the time. I had a demon say I look like a chimpanzee before storming away while another one called me a pervert and attacked. The aim of recruiting more demons is eventually fusing them in the Cathedral of Shadows to create more powerful ones to help you on your journey.

Since Apocalypse takes place in the same universe and involves multiple characters from Shin Megami Tensei IV and common locations, there are a lot of reuse of assets for visuals. Considering Apocalypse is an alternate look at the Neutral path and released nearly 3 years after, I was hoping for improvements in visuals. That said, animations during boss fights look great with 3D on, and the music combined with environments creates a memorable atmosphere. Some demons have undergone design changes which is great because I’m sure Atlus got a ton of negative feedback for the design of a particularly important demon in Shin Megami Tensei IV.

The previous title’s soundtrack is one of the best in all of gaming, and Apocalypse uses a lot of those songs while adding its own new tracks to the mix. This is a double-edged sword for me. While I loved listening to some of my favourite tunes again, I wish Ryota Koduka and co. had been given more freedom to create a completely new soundtrack because of the talent showcased in the previous entry’s score. Voice acting is great and demons now make a sound while attacking, giving them a bit more life instead of just being animated portraits.

One glaring omission is the lack of C-stick support. I found no way to assign camera control to the C-Stick and had to use L and R to move the camera. We’re in 2016 and yet we still see developers not giving new hardware owners the option to customise controls to use the new input methods.

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse is a mandatory experience for any RPG fan on the 3DS and a sequel worthy of being a numbered entry in this franchise. If you’ve been craving a deep and memorable turn-based RPG on the 3DS, look no further.

The post Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Dragon Quest VII’s story takes place in a world where only one island exists, and while the people of that island admit it seems odd that they’re the only inhabitants of this world, they never want to question it; well, except the hero of the story and his friend Kiefer. Not being content to do what they’re told, our young yet stalwart heroes set out to find the truth behind their empty world and end up on a time-hopping adventure of epic proportions.

I don’t use the that word lightly here, this game is literally epic in scale. We’re talking about an RPG where just doing the base story will take a hundred hours, but tack on sidequests and you’ll be around for considerably longer. It takes hours to take part in your first battle, and if you’ve managed to stick it out through this rather slow opening you’ll be gripped as you find new continents in the past where a grave misfortune has befallen them, and spend your time helping them out of the mess they’re in.

Finding each island’s story and solving what their problem is restores that island to the world map, giving you a much larger world to explore. Once you’ve solved the trouble in each place it’s fascinating to go back to the present day to see what has changed in the intervening years. These little sojourns are a requirement as you’ll find tablet fragments to open up new continents, but it never really grows dull, as you’ll regularly find new stories to be part of and new equipment allowing you to put up more of a fight against later enemies.

With this remake, random encounters have been dropped and instead enemies spawn into the world giving you the option to avoid them if you can prevent them from spotting you. Bizarrely, you don’t get any advantage for approaching them from behind, which seems like a glaring omission when you can control how you approach enemy fights. Also, in many dungeons the pathways are too narrow to be able to get past without instigating a battle. I know battling is an RPG’s bread and butter, but the sheer number of spawns in single areas can get rather irritating. Especially when they don’t really pose too much of a threat to you, but you can’t stop yourself from getting drawn in.

I say “not much of a threat” and I mean it; I skipped a lot of fights while wandering the overworld and still found myself not having too much trouble with bosses, let alone weaker world creatures. I may have been taken aback a bit by a couple of rather heavy attacks, but I was always able to heal my way around those efficiently.

The battle and levelling systems start off nice and simple, too, with basic commands for attacking, spells, abilities and using items, and as you level up you unlock new spells and abilities. This gets more complex by the 20th hour though, when you finally open up the job system, allowing you to bestow your party members with one of many roles to fulfil. These jobs level up separately to your characters as you beat strong foes, granting new spells and abilities to aid you in battle. Once a job has been maxed you can switch and start a new one, while retaining the abilities you already unlocked. Maxing out several of these then leads to secondary professions being unlocked, giving you even more stuff to bring the hurt to your enemies. If you’re a completionist, you’re going to be here for a really long time.

As I said in my I am Setsuna review, I like my RPGs old-skool and turn-based. I just prefer to be able to take my time with my decision-making when in battle, as well as have a mock roaming structure hiding a linear experience underneath, and Dragon Quest VII delivers that in spades. Where this gets let down though is in a rather clumsy inventory system that sees each character with their own separate allocations. There’s no shared pool, and constantly moving stuff between characters and the infinite allocation of the “Bag” slot can become frustrating as inventories tend to fill up quickly, and shopkeepers generally have to help you when you decide you want someone to have a new piece of equipment. That’s the thing with remakes: they should stay true to the original game, but you should always try and fix something that requires it – and this should have been changed for this release.

I’m also not a fan of the camera. In most dungeons it’s fixed isometrically above your group, but in the world you’re able to rotate it with the L and R buttons. There’s always an initial confusion when you move from location to location and this can sometimes result in you going back the way you came and having to wait for the transition again before you can return to what you were doing. It also feels a bit too close to the characters; I’d have liked it if it was further out, granting a wider field of vision. It just feels too claustrophobic.

Aside from that, Artepiazza has done a wonderful job remaking this. It looks great, the music is lovely and jaunty at pretty much all times, and the localisation work is great. The people of each continent have their own dialects and accents, which while initially confusing to read at times really accentuates how different each place feels compared to the last, giving each one considerable individuality considering the oft-repeated NPC models.

Dragon Quest VII is an excellent RPG only mildly let down by clinging on so vehemently to the original vision. A few changes just to improve those minor niggles would have been very welcome, but regardless of that this is brilliant work. It’s a game that’s truly epic in scale, with many mini stories that will compel you to find out what happened to every locale throughout the run time. It’s a wonderful journey through forgotten worlds, but be mindful of the sheer amount of time you’ll need to put in just to reach the end of the campaign.

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Anyway, Capcom’s issues with localising a title so heavily steeped in ancient Japan aside, they’ve graced us with the next chapter in the Gyakuten Saiban series where we find Phoenix in the Kingdom of Khura’in to visit former assistant Maya Fey who has been training her spirit medium powers there for two years. It’s in this country where Phoenix finds a heavily biased legal system where the last vision of the deceased is considered the truth and defence lawyers are considered evil. The hook here is called The Divination Seance, and grants the court the ability to see the last moments of the victim which more than likely tend to work against the favour of the accused. Sensing unfair practices going on, Phoenix jumps in with both feet into a legal system where if he loses it’s not just his client’s neck on the chopping block, it’s his too.

On paper The Divination Seances sound like an interesting mechanic, and if the story wasn’t so linear then they would be in execution too. As these games are basically interactive story books, these visions basically boil down to video footage that you need to interpret correctly and pick apart, it’s basically nothing that you haven’t seen before.

Aside from this, all the usual Ace Attorney staples are present and correct: Apollo’s bracelet perception, Athena’s psyche counselling, ridiculous logic and silly pun names (Pees’lubn Andistan’dhin is a particularly “good” one) all crop up to either give you a little belly laugh or a hefty eyeroll. Unfortunately it doesn’t take long for the usual flaws to crop up.

Only certain evidence is allowed to contradict certain parts of testimony, despite the possibility of several items doing so and as far as writing goes, this is probably one of the worst examples in the series of the terrible logic and unprofessionalism in court. I understand wanting to inject humour into the titles, but the amount of people attempting to pervert the course of justice has never been greater, and it stretches from the lowly witnesses to the very top of the legal system. No person would walk out without charge after lying on the stand, but any blatant lies are hand waved as a simple mistake.

Even up against perennial whipping boy Gaspen Payne, Phoenix’s points come across as that of a newbie and not someone who has won countless legal battles over the years. While this could be put down to Phoenix doing this in an unfamiliar country, it doesn’t excuse how amateurish his arguments are, and that especially doesn’t excuse Apollo, who is still practicing law in ‘America’.

Changing the game’s location to the Kingdom of Khura’in has allowed the designers to produce some remarkably good looking characters: first defendant Albhi Ur’gaid and Princess Rayfa in particular are lovely to look at, but then there’s the new prosecutor Nahyuta Sahdmadhi, resplendent in a light cream outfit, and with luscious silver locks. Nahyuta is a lot nicer to look at than Dual Destinies’ Prosecutor Blackquill. Seriously, his character design is stunning, he’s probably the best looking character in Ace Attorney history, so it’s a shame that they didn’t furnish him with a personality to match his looks. He lacks the malice of Blackquill, the gravitas of Godot, and the charm of Franziska, but hey, at least he looks good.

At least one flaw from the previous games has been fixed: as you move around doing investigative work, Phoenix and Apollo take notes on what it is they need to do next, this means that you’re no longer stuck as for what you should do to progress the story. As well as this, when everything of note has been looked at in a location, they conclude their investigation and decide to move on. You can continue to look at things for a bit more exposition if you so wish, but this is a handy concession for those who just want to get on with the story.

It’s nice to have Ace Attorney back, but the games are starting to show how stuck in the past they are. They may have moved onto 3D character models and environments, and they may have introduced new mechanics into the mix (although they are starting to overload the games with way too many systems), but the same old problems still arise, with valuable court life lost due to not presenting the exact thing the game wants you to, and some cringe worthy dialogue. If you’re an Ace Attorney fan then there’s a decent new game here for you to get your teeth into, but don’t expect it to be a step up from what has gone before, while series naysayers definitely shouldn’t expect this to be the game that makes them change their mind.

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Federation Force is a series of bite-sized missions that are suitable for 1-4 players in a similar way to last year’s multiplayer Zelda spinoff, Triforce Heroes. The onus is most definitely on playing with others in a co-op fashion, ideally in a team of four. This is clearly indicated by the nature of solo gameplay, where the game gives you an item that offers bonuses to attack power and defense, which is only available in the single-player mode, as well as the ability to bring up to three drones with you, to make up for the missing players. Don’t worry, lone gamers, I finished the entire game solo, so you don’t have to play with others if you don’t want to.

While series veterans are used to playing as famed bounty hunter, Samus Aran, this time around, it’s all about playing as members of the Galactic Federation: the galaxy’s team of peacekeepers, who occasionally work with Samus on missions. You’ll be in a fully-armed mech for the majority of the game, although there are some instances where you’ll be out of the safety of your metal can, and stealthing around in a very vulnerable, defenceless state. Each mission has a primary objective that needs to be completed, as well as a secondary one that can be achieved for bonus points. Points mean medals, which unlock various ways to customise your mech – of which there are plenty.

You’ve got your unlockable skins (which include a handful of amiibo ones for the compatible Samus and Zero Suit Samus figures) which also offer bonuses that allow you to carry more auxiliary weapon ammunition with you. Then, you have mods: chips you can equip that are found in each level and can be fitted to up to three unlockable slots in order to make use of a multitude of bonuses. Some will last forever, while others will actually break if equipped while dying or failing a mission. When found in each level, solo players will be able to take all of their collected mods at once, but in multiplayer, the team members with the highest score will be able to pick first (until all the mods have been chosen), meaning that it’s ultimately in your best interest to get the best individual performance, even if you are technically working as a team. It’s also possible to change the voice commands you can issue to other players via the D-Pad, and even the pitch of voice your character has.

Just before it’s time to ship out to the mission, another totally un-Metroid-like mechanic comes into play: you have to customise your loadout. You’ll be given a selection of defence items, offensive weapons, and utilities, but each one takes up a certain number of slots in your inventory, and as you can imagine, your inventory is finite. Not every item or weapon will be available for every level, and the game is almost suggesting that you experiment to figure out the right tools for the job, although I got by just fine by loading up with missiles and health packs for practically every mission, and then bringing along an elemental weapon, depending on which of Federation Force’s three planets in which the mission is set.

If you’ve played any of the Metroid Prime games, you’ll instantly be right at home with the controls. Prime’s lock on-centric mechanics were always a divisive one for FPS fans, but here on the 3DS, it still works great. “L” locks on, “R” allows you to free look with divisive gyro controls, while both together allows you to lock on and amend your aim slightly by tilting your 3DS, which is extremely useful for tackling fast-moving foes like Space Pirates. It’s all relatively simple and fits extremely well on the system. Bar the chibi-styled design that pervades all of Federation Force, it looks and feels like a fully-fledged Metroid Prime release, which only serves to remind you once more of what this game could have been.

It’s not like the 3DS isn’t capable, either. Most of the elements are there, and criminally it’s missing the series most crucial components: the atmosphere and focus on exploration. The framework is exactly what you want from a portable Metroid Prime, and there’s always constant mentions of what Samus is up to. For the most part, you’re either cleaning up after her, or using intel from her to fulfill a mission, and you cannot help but feel like you’d rather be doing what she’s doing. Especially when most objectives are “kill this” or “go to this room and use this terminal”, as well as a few escort-style missions where you’re delivering something from one place to another, which can be frustrating when playing alone.

But, instead of griping about what Federation Force isn’t, I can’t knock what it actually is: an excellent FPS on a portable. It plays well, the environments look great, and there are some great missions that stray from the usual template. It’s clear that the best fun is to be had online, and although the 22 missions won’t take you too long to finish, there are a total of three medals on each level to earn, as well as a hard mode that gives you another set of missions to unlock. Much like Triforce Heroes, your longevity is likely to be dictated by how much you want to play online or locally with friends.

Blast Ball, though, (the mini-game that offered us our first glimpse of Federation Force back in 2015) is not particularly fun, and lacks depth. I did manage to get a few online games, but each one involved a mad dash at firing at a giant ball to get it into the opposition’s goal. And that’s it. There are very few reasons to return to it after a couple of games unless you have friends to play with.

Ultimately, Federation Force isn’t really a Metroid game at all, then, but it is a relatively fun game that is actually quite enjoyable once you stop thinking about what it isn’t, and enjoy it with some friends online.

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You start off as a stranger, heading off into the world of Monster Hunter with great ambitions to be the best hunter ever. One of the most refreshing things about your character is that you start with zero abilities; it’s not your character that has levels to build upon, but the weapons and armour you buy and forge throughout the game. Killing a monster and harvesting its corpse gives you materials to create new stuff, allowing your creations to act as reminders of your conquests.

As for monster battles themselves, they can be both gratifying and tedious depending on how patient you are. Getting to these fights takes a bit of time as you’re asked to take on the menial and dull fetch quests preceding them, but when you come up against the monsters in Generations, it becomes a much better affair. Whether you’re new to the series like me or not, most of the monsters prove a challenge. The Great Maccao uses its tail like a caveman’s club and will charge right at you, giving you a split second to either dodge or strike, and the Drilltusk Tetsucabra uses its massive tusks and gargantuan boulders to hurt you. While there are many monsters to slay, there are four main beasts you’ll have to beat in order to progress, including the majestic leviathan Mizutsune and the Brute Wyvern Glavenus.

The main crux of combat is comprised of Hunter Arts and Hunting Styles. There are four styles which cater for every type of hunter. I went with the Guild Style as it seemed to provide a solid stance for beginners, offering 2 Hunter Arts to equip and a balanced attack. Although I never felt like I had anything special outside the Arts I chose, I could dodge, attack and move with enough grace and efficiency to succeed. The Aerial Style allows you to perform air attacks and evasions and the Striker Style gives you a whopping 3 Arts and a quicker route to use them. Finally, there’s the Adept Style and is for the more seasoned hunter, allowing you to launch devastating counter attacks called insta-moves depending on whether you dodge at the right time.

Hunter Arts are essentially special moves; they can range from wide-ranged power attacks or opportunities to heal yourself and your friends. Depending on the weapon you choose from, certain arts can provide a great edge in battle. There are 14 weapons in total, each with their advantages, disadvantages and skill trees, but some will not let you use equipped Hunter Arts. I tried the standard sword and shield and the axe, but it was the dual blades I found to be the most suitable to how I played. They’re fast and effective, taking a considerable amount of time to deplete my stamina gauge. Every player is going to be different, but the amount of options in the Hunting Styles, Arts and weapons are diverse enough and give you plenty of opportunities to mess around and find your favourites.

As a new feature, whether you love them or hate them, Felynes are now playable through Prowler Mode. Up until now they’ve been NPCs, but the Palicoes you hire can be used in quests and have some nice traits. They don’t use stamina and aren’t required to use pickaxes to dig for items, something that can be quite tedious as a human. They’re great to play as and at times can be more beneficial than playing as your hunter, with the added bonus of being able to upgrade their equipment too.

Although you’re playing on a 3DS, the visuals are really nice, especially when playing in 3D. Each of the four villages feel welcoming and full of life, with the different quest areas all diverse enough to be appreciated. The NPCs you bump into along the way have some great personalities and even the Felynes’ constant cat puns don’t grate until much later on (or when you’ve fainted in battle for the hundredth time). The music can be repetitive at times, but it’s a rousing score that helps motivate you.

Monster Hunter Generations is a tough slog with rewarding results. This is Capcom’s Dark Souls without the gothic horror. The upgrade system is great fun and the monster battles are superb. Whether you’re slaying or capturing, each monster feels different and a great joy to defeat. With the added inclusion of an easy to access multiplayer where you can team up with a multitude of other online hunters, a 100 hour plus playthrough is more than achievable.

The post Monster Hunter Generations Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Having not played the previous games on DS and PSP, I wasn’t lost at all in Code: VFD — there are some historical references but nothing felt major. The premise here is dragons descend onto Earth and things are about to get very bad for humanity. A video game corporation called Nodens Enterprise teams up with you and a party to save everyone (this is a JRPG after all). There’s time travel, hacking, rabbits who keep insulting you, cat ears, and more in 7th Dragon III Code: VFD. The story is never in your face but there’s more than your average Etrian Untold game and it keeps things interesting enough as you power through floors of dungeons.

Having played a few Etrian games as well as Bravely Default, I found a lot to like here. Dungeon crawling visually is similar to your traditional chibi style 3DS JRPGs while the combat and the layouts of enemies reminds me of Etrian in a lot of ways. In those games, there are FOEs. Here, there are dragons that are indicated by purple icons on the map. The difference is that you’re encouraged to stock up, prepare, and take out these dragons in each areas so you can build your base. The main hub lets you construct and upgrade various things, which in turn help you buy more items.

The customization options here are the real stars. There’s tons of portraits for both male and female party members and plenty of voice actor options for the few lines of voiced dialogue and battle dialogue — more than I could be bothered to preview before setting up my party. I can see why they didn’t bother doing an English voice over here as well which is something to consider before jumping in.

You start off with four playable classes: Samurai, Agent, Duelist, and God Hand. You unlock the remaining four in pairs of two with story progression. I absolutely love how interesting these classes are. Throw away your previous ideas of melee and healing because we have some unique classes here. The Agent can hack into enemies and make them attack each other, doing so with a range of great battle animations. The God Hand can stack attacks that cause God condition on enemies and do more damage. A team with two God Hands can unleash massive damage combos. Speaking of teams and parties, you have 3 members in your active party unlock the ability to add more sets of teams later on. The Duelist reminds me of Ace from Final Fantasy Type 0 with the card draw based attacks.

Skills are earned by using SP gained from battles. Just like in Shin Megami Tensei games, instead of doing an even distribution, I’d recommend focusing on what works for you. There are also party skills that have the inactive teams helping out with various things like breaking enemy defence. The Exhaust mechanic is like a limit break that fills up as you take damage and deal it out. This boosts your stats for a limited time.

Dungeons are lush and full of colour (and dragons and random battles). There’s a gauge on the top left that indicates how close you are to a random encounter. Another thing that should be familiar to Etrian veterans is how you should avoid taking too long in battles when there’s a Dragon (or FOE in the case of Etrian) nearby because they may ambush said battle. Initially, it feels like the random encounter rate is a bit high but thankfully, you unlock an item that lets you lower that rate early on in the story.

You will find yourself stuck wondering what to do and thankfully there’s a NAVI option in the main menu has your Navigator tell you what you’re supposed to do. This is very useful. You also have side quests that may involve regular fetch requests in the main Nodens building or being tasked with defeating certain enemies in dungeons. Some quests are important and you will be forced to complete them before progressing.

You probably already know how important music in JRPGs is to me and 7th Dragon III exceeded my expectations, even after being blown away by the opening song — every little note fits so well. Yuzo Koshiro manages to raise the bar with each soundtrack he does. The one complaint I have in the audio department is the lack of full voice acting. I don’t even mean an English dub.

At this point you’re wondering what’s wrong with 7th Dragon III. Well there’s two major annoyances I had with my time playing through the near 40 hour story. Random battles are fairly straightforward initially and great for experimenting with parties and new classes. These become very easy and you suddenly get hit with a massive difficulty spike in boss fights. Performance issues come in some slowdowns while exploring and just walking around. For a game that doesn’t even support 3D, seeing problems on the New 3DS is a poor show.

Overall 7th Dragon III Code: VFD is an essential RPG for the 3DS. Even with those faults, it is worth playing for any fan of interesting games involving loads of combat and amazing music. Hopefully SEGA consider localizing more of their Japanese games in the future.

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