Monday, December 27, 2010

Golden Sun Dark Dawn Review

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is a very story driven game. I don't want to spoil any of it because this is a game worth checking out. Here are the basics: The game takes place 30 years after it's predecessors. Players start as the son of Isaac, the main protagonist from the previous series. Turns out that Alchemy, the same stuff that was threatening the world back in the day is happening again, and it's up to the kids to stop it before the world is literally torn apart. So on top of having to save the entire planet, the characters are trying to live up to their parent's legacy.
The story is pretty interesting if not a little tedious. Sadly, the characters don't seem to know when to shut up. The dialogue sections of the game go on forever. The characters will talk way more than they need to for the story to progress. The cut scenes are so long that I was spending most of my time reading dialogue, which makes the game hard to play as a handheld game. The battle system for Dark Dawn is pretty similar to the previous Golden Sun games. It's the classic turn based battle system. Each turn players can select to attack or defend. Attacks are broken up into a physical weapon based attack, or a magic spell, called Psynergy. Throughout the game, players find and collect these little creatures, called Djinn (which will be familiar to Golden Sun fans). These Djinn each have an ability that players can use like a spell in battles. They also serve as the building blocks to the class system. Depending on which types of Djinn are attached to character, their class and spells will change. By mixing and matching the Djinn, players can customize the strengths of their party. Unlike their GBA counterparts the Djinn in Dark Dawn each have their own unique appearances which are purely there for aesthetic purposes. The Djinn are also used for summons, which is the best-looking part of the game. Players can call up huge giants or monsters to help out with the battle, and each one gets a big flourishing cut scene. They're all very cool. The Djinn system works pretty well, and it makes the game feel more original. It takes a while before players can earn enough of them to really customize their party. So for a major part of the game the parties stay pretty similar, and the game feels very standard and unoriginal. There are a lot of puzzles in Dark Dawn, which is great. Much more of the game is devoted to figuring out how to get through tricky temples and caves than it is about leveling up to fight a boss. Most of the puzzles are pretty basic though, making the game feel more like its geared towards a younger audience. Nearly every puzzle simply requires using the magic spell you most recently acquired.

In conclusion Golden Sun Dark Dawn is a very good game with very few drawbacks, the battles are standard, the djinn spice it up a bit and the summons are incredibly fun to watch. The story is interesting, but drags on a bit. It's a nice addition to the golden sun family.

The Legend Of Zelda Ocarina Of Time Review

The Legend Of Zelda Ocarina of Time is the fifth official installment in Nintendo's popular action-RPG series it is a game so enjoyable, it has the power to pull videogame players into it’s imaginative world and keep the player there for days.
GamePlay
Like all games in the Zelda series, Ocarina of Time follows the adventures of a young boy named Link. After a nightmare involving a certain young princess and the evil thief Ganondorf, the elven boy wakes up in his home village tucked away behind the mysterious Lost Woods.
Link is the only Kokiri in the forest without a fairy but not for very long he soon meets his traveling companion Navi as they set out for an adventure of a lifetime the quest, which turns into a rescue mission for Princess Zelda, leads the players through dark dungeons, vivid villages, the heart of a volcano, to the bottom of a lake, deep into a mystical forest, through a giant tree, a haunted desert, into the belly of a giant fish and even through time. Every time you discover a new corner of the Kingdom of Hyrule, you'll be amazed at the richness of scenery, the many things to do, and the amount of thought that went into designing it all. One example, players can spend hours just exploring a village, talking to the inhabitants, solving puzzles, and looking for hidden items. Ocarina of Time is not a platformer, a fact that takes some getting used to when trying out Link's various actions. There is no jump button. You can still jump at certain points in the game, but it is not integral to the gameplay that players actually control the jump themselves. Instead, Ocarina of Time introduces an auto-jump feature where Link will jump the last possible moment when running toward a ledge. It sounds annoying in theory, but it works very well for this type of game. The gameplay objectives will be instantly familiar to friends of the series. Push walls to find hidden rooms, use bombs to uncover secret passages, shoot arrows at certain objects to open doors, and so on With the use of the ocarina (a clay flute), players need to play certain melodies to solve riddles or warp to new places. Ocarina of Time introduces the ability to travel back and forth in time (very much like light world/dark world gameplay of A link to the past). Without giving too much away, consider this one: at one point in the game, you talk to a character as Adult Link, who tells you that a young boy with an ocarina did something seven years ago. Then you go back in time and actually do it. Then there is the ability to ride a horse it's so addictive, you'll catch yourself just galloping around and jumping fences aimlessly.
In conclusion Ocarina of Time is and I believe will remain a classic for years to come.

Distorted Travesty Review

Distorted Travesty is a "Fast Paced Satirical Action Platformer" made in Game Maker by Dark Yoshi. It follows the story of two gamers with no clear goals in life. These two are Jerry, the most hardcore of hardcore gamers, and Jeremy, who partakes in some light hacking and playing jokes. You control Jerry, while Jeremy sits on the fourth wall and gives you aid throughout the game. One day, when they break into the Integrated Electronics Factory to teach its CEO about the greatness of Jerry's favorite game, a mysterious entity known as The Darkness comes and steals him away to another world, one which is composed of all the games the two have played since their youth. Their only hope of returning home is to collect the Seven Magical Flavored Muffins throughout the world and use them to defeat The Darkness once and for all, lest they miss a new episode of the best series ever.

This game is extremely difficult even on the lowest setting has characters from various games and familiar sprites and sound effects.

Things I liked

1: Jerry's Claw is a unique yet slightly familiar way of melee combat slightly reminiscent of Megaman Zero's Z Saber.

2: Jerry's Spirit Magic yet another spin on an old classic which oddly enough is very hard to find in this day and age of Rpgs.

3: Jerry's Acrobatic abilities who doesn't love dashing onto broken step stones and watching them fall ever so slowly.

4: Ah yes the worlds need saving and yet the heroes are never around where did they go were they transported into other worlds as well?

Things I disliked

1: Trying to jump from small spaces and always ending up in the bottomless pits Classic Annoyance.

2: The Dialogue is boring Jerry doesn't say anything without two or three profanities in his sentence and Jeremy sits on the fourth wall and says things like "Are you going to grab [insert item here] or his random ping test which spams the screen with dialogue windows making it hard as heck to see.

In conclusion Distorted Travesty is a good game and is worth the download.
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