1998
A truly horrendous game. They got the "South Park" part of it right to be fair, with unique weapon types to this game, like snowballs being your regular weapon, dodgeballs that act as good indoor weapons due to bouncing off walls, nerf guns for rapid fire, Terrance and Phillip dolls for poison grenades. The humour is pretty good for what you'd expect from that era of South Park.
But as a game it is so BAD. The first and worst is the controls. The movement is so unbelievably sensitive, making trying to actually aim at anything near impossible, which became a huge problem in boss fights that only have a tiny area you can actually damage, or air-borne enemies, or skinny enemies like the aliens. I honestly gave up on the alien stages because trying to hit a target like that, with these controls, while they could fire off their projectiles that ate at health was just too much when the levels have no checkpoints.
Speaking of no checkpoints, the levels just feel like they drag forever. Not helped by the fact that the level design is pure ass and the only gameplay is to fight the exact same hordes of enemies over and over. Literally you start a level, move forward a few feet and fight a few mooks and a tank, walk a few more feet and do the same. It's so boring, repetitive and the bland aesthetics don't make it any better.
Sound design is also terrible, with the same character stock phrases said over and over.
If the controls were any better I could probably have at least played this to the end, but as the game got harder the controls just became too much of a handicap.
But as a game it is so BAD. The first and worst is the controls. The movement is so unbelievably sensitive, making trying to actually aim at anything near impossible, which became a huge problem in boss fights that only have a tiny area you can actually damage, or air-borne enemies, or skinny enemies like the aliens. I honestly gave up on the alien stages because trying to hit a target like that, with these controls, while they could fire off their projectiles that ate at health was just too much when the levels have no checkpoints.
Speaking of no checkpoints, the levels just feel like they drag forever. Not helped by the fact that the level design is pure ass and the only gameplay is to fight the exact same hordes of enemies over and over. Literally you start a level, move forward a few feet and fight a few mooks and a tank, walk a few more feet and do the same. It's so boring, repetitive and the bland aesthetics don't make it any better.
Sound design is also terrible, with the same character stock phrases said over and over.
If the controls were any better I could probably have at least played this to the end, but as the game got harder the controls just became too much of a handicap.
1992
Pros:
+The way all the different power ups have their own unique abilities is really neat. They're not just extra hit points or extra powers (mostly), they really add unique ways to get through a level.
+There's a lot of great designs, from the various power ups to the enemies. The stages look quite nice too.
Cons:
-Controls are slippery as hell and make any kind of platforming on small blocks impossible.
-It's got that unfair old-school difficulty, with many terrible game design choices.
-The level layouts are pure ass. Each stage is like a huge labyrinth with multiple dead ends. A game with multiple paths is great, especially when you can tailor each one to the specific power ups. What isn't great is making like 50 paths in a level and having 49 of them just lead to nothing.
-Enemy placements/bottomless pits and the like are placed in often unfair positions, making a lot of blind drops or sliding down a hill straight into a row of spikes.
-Many times the game requires you to progress via a random hole in the wall that is indistinguishable from a normal wall.
-The game is very unintuitive. I got a power up that sent huge lasers from my mask, so I figured it'd be a damaging thing. Turns out they reveal hidden blocks. That costume with the giant knights helmet? It lets you climb walls for some reason.
Mixed/Not important enough to be a pro or con:
~This goes in with the unintuitive, the first obvious assumption for the collectable gems is that they grant an extra life at 100 like all platformer collectables that are everywhere. Then I got 99 and the rest just kind of disappeared...weird. Turns out the gems grant you a bonus power that changes depending on your costume. That's such a neat idea, but why to activate it do you need to press a button combination that makes no sense? It isn't even mentioned on the controls screen in the options.
Note:
•So I was planning on completing this, but my save state got ruined. Probably fair to call it abandoned though since there's no real in-game save so you're supposed to complete it all in one sitting, despite the fact it has over 100 levels of pure BS.
+The way all the different power ups have their own unique abilities is really neat. They're not just extra hit points or extra powers (mostly), they really add unique ways to get through a level.
+There's a lot of great designs, from the various power ups to the enemies. The stages look quite nice too.
Cons:
-Controls are slippery as hell and make any kind of platforming on small blocks impossible.
-It's got that unfair old-school difficulty, with many terrible game design choices.
-The level layouts are pure ass. Each stage is like a huge labyrinth with multiple dead ends. A game with multiple paths is great, especially when you can tailor each one to the specific power ups. What isn't great is making like 50 paths in a level and having 49 of them just lead to nothing.
-Enemy placements/bottomless pits and the like are placed in often unfair positions, making a lot of blind drops or sliding down a hill straight into a row of spikes.
-Many times the game requires you to progress via a random hole in the wall that is indistinguishable from a normal wall.
-The game is very unintuitive. I got a power up that sent huge lasers from my mask, so I figured it'd be a damaging thing. Turns out they reveal hidden blocks. That costume with the giant knights helmet? It lets you climb walls for some reason.
Mixed/Not important enough to be a pro or con:
~This goes in with the unintuitive, the first obvious assumption for the collectable gems is that they grant an extra life at 100 like all platformer collectables that are everywhere. Then I got 99 and the rest just kind of disappeared...weird. Turns out the gems grant you a bonus power that changes depending on your costume. That's such a neat idea, but why to activate it do you need to press a button combination that makes no sense? It isn't even mentioned on the controls screen in the options.
Note:
•So I was planning on completing this, but my save state got ruined. Probably fair to call it abandoned though since there's no real in-game save so you're supposed to complete it all in one sitting, despite the fact it has over 100 levels of pure BS.
1985
I know it's an absolute classic, but playing it in the modern day is just a bit of a struggle. The controls don't feel tight enough for a platformer, and the way that they try to extend gameplay by making you restart games on gameovers in this era feels like too much of a time waster these days (luckily most modern releases of the game does have save states, but you may feel like that's cheating).
There's still some fun to be had here, and the music is always great.
Regardless of my low-ish score, the game is a 10/10 for history purposes.
There's still some fun to be had here, and the music is always great.
Regardless of my low-ish score, the game is a 10/10 for history purposes.
Pandora's Box (or Diabolical Box if you wanna be all American about this) is a very familiar feeling to Curious Village (or Curious Village if you wanna be all American about this). But it's definitely got improvements. Most notable, to me at least, is the introduction of a memo pad. In the last game only certain puzzles let you use the touch screen to take notes, but now every puzzle has a dedicated memo pad function. I would say the screen to write on is a bit small, but still (might be worth noting that I played on a 2DS XL so maybe the OG DS with the OG stylus was better?).
It also has more varied and interesting locations. I loved the first town you visit in the game, so it's a shame you don't get to go back there, but I still like Folsense too. The only real downside to this, if you wanna count it, is that it means certain hint coins are permanently missable from these starting locations. Luckily no puzzle is ever missable, as like the last game there's a dedicated spot to house any puzzle that is tied to a specific chapter that you didn't run in to.
As weird as it sounds for a visual novel, I don't play these games for the story (I just like brain teasers), so I won't say if the plot is any better or worse than before. It's got the same charm, yet weirdly feels like it's aimed at very young kids despite tackling themes like murder, and puzzles that I wouldn't expect the 5 year old certain dialogue and tone seems to market to, to be able to solve.
Speaking of the puzzles, I guess that's where this game hits its biggest snag. Might have been less noticeable on release with a year between them (in Japan they came out in the same year???), but playing the games close to each other you notice how many puzzles are just reworded or otherwise retooled versions of the last games puzzles. Like last game would have you divide a 5x5 square with images on it into 4 sections, so that every section contained the same images of equal amounts. You can find a couple of that exact puzzle here, just with new images so a new set-up can be tied to the explanation. And there's still a ton of block puzzles. I'm not a fan of those... If you are then you're in for a treat.
But no matter what type of puzzles you are a fan of, there's a lot of variety. I'm personally drawn to those ones that give you 5 or so suspects and you get a certain amount of detail of each one, so you have to work out who is lying. I'm really bad at anything involving shapes and trying to imagine flattened cubes as 3D ones. If you only care about completing the story you can skip many. I think you need to complete 80/138 story puzzles to complete the game? At the very least that was the last gated checkpoint I remember seeing. If you're like me you'll just use a guide for the ones that stump you... Don't worry, I didn't set it to mastered!
But I do wanna give the puzzles some credit in this game too. Many of them are much better tied in to what's going on in the story. There's still a lot of "I have no information to give you, but how about a random puzzle!" or "I'm not sure about that, but it reminds me of a puzzle about a similar thing" (so expect a lot of box-based puzzles), but now many puzzles seem like the characters are actually solving them in-universe to work through their quest.
There are also a small amount of those game-wide puzzles that are housed in your briefcase. They're a bit more involved this time too. The most complex has you getting camera parts as rewards from specific puzzles, then finding specific spots on the map to take a picture, then playing a spot the difference game, then finding the secret puzzle from the finished picture. It's puzzles on top of puzzles!
The cutscenes still amaze me for what they pulled off on the DS, and there's even more of them now!
Certain minor things that bugged me from the original are still present too. Like when searching for hint coins you can too often hit random objects that have Layton or Luke say something in a pop-up box, which sounds small (and it is), but given how hint coins could be literally anything, it's annoying to be spam tapping the screen and getting the same box over and over. Traversing long distances is also a pain as you have to keep pressing the movement button in the bottom right to open up the arrows for the next screen.
If you've played the first game you won't need selling on this one. You'll know if you'll love it or hate it.
It also has more varied and interesting locations. I loved the first town you visit in the game, so it's a shame you don't get to go back there, but I still like Folsense too. The only real downside to this, if you wanna count it, is that it means certain hint coins are permanently missable from these starting locations. Luckily no puzzle is ever missable, as like the last game there's a dedicated spot to house any puzzle that is tied to a specific chapter that you didn't run in to.
As weird as it sounds for a visual novel, I don't play these games for the story (I just like brain teasers), so I won't say if the plot is any better or worse than before. It's got the same charm, yet weirdly feels like it's aimed at very young kids despite tackling themes like murder, and puzzles that I wouldn't expect the 5 year old certain dialogue and tone seems to market to, to be able to solve.
Speaking of the puzzles, I guess that's where this game hits its biggest snag. Might have been less noticeable on release with a year between them (in Japan they came out in the same year???), but playing the games close to each other you notice how many puzzles are just reworded or otherwise retooled versions of the last games puzzles. Like last game would have you divide a 5x5 square with images on it into 4 sections, so that every section contained the same images of equal amounts. You can find a couple of that exact puzzle here, just with new images so a new set-up can be tied to the explanation. And there's still a ton of block puzzles. I'm not a fan of those... If you are then you're in for a treat.
But no matter what type of puzzles you are a fan of, there's a lot of variety. I'm personally drawn to those ones that give you 5 or so suspects and you get a certain amount of detail of each one, so you have to work out who is lying. I'm really bad at anything involving shapes and trying to imagine flattened cubes as 3D ones. If you only care about completing the story you can skip many. I think you need to complete 80/138 story puzzles to complete the game? At the very least that was the last gated checkpoint I remember seeing. If you're like me you'll just use a guide for the ones that stump you... Don't worry, I didn't set it to mastered!
But I do wanna give the puzzles some credit in this game too. Many of them are much better tied in to what's going on in the story. There's still a lot of "I have no information to give you, but how about a random puzzle!" or "I'm not sure about that, but it reminds me of a puzzle about a similar thing" (so expect a lot of box-based puzzles), but now many puzzles seem like the characters are actually solving them in-universe to work through their quest.
There are also a small amount of those game-wide puzzles that are housed in your briefcase. They're a bit more involved this time too. The most complex has you getting camera parts as rewards from specific puzzles, then finding specific spots on the map to take a picture, then playing a spot the difference game, then finding the secret puzzle from the finished picture. It's puzzles on top of puzzles!
The cutscenes still amaze me for what they pulled off on the DS, and there's even more of them now!
Certain minor things that bugged me from the original are still present too. Like when searching for hint coins you can too often hit random objects that have Layton or Luke say something in a pop-up box, which sounds small (and it is), but given how hint coins could be literally anything, it's annoying to be spam tapping the screen and getting the same box over and over. Traversing long distances is also a pain as you have to keep pressing the movement button in the bottom right to open up the arrows for the next screen.
If you've played the first game you won't need selling on this one. You'll know if you'll love it or hate it.
2017
Pros:
+Colourful cast of characters. In games like this I find that having a varied-looking roster is a big deal, and I'm happy to say that everyone in this game have their own unique look and personality about them. Some (all?) of them even have unique traits, although these seem to be minor, like a character who does an auto-side step when he blocks an attack.
+The variety of different arm types. I didn't know enough about this game before going in, so the fact there was so many different arms surprised me. They each have unique properties, and for a game called "Arms", they did a great job of making the arms feel like different weapons.
+The stages are another thing that I didn't realise were so diverse. I figured it'd just be big empty boxing ring-like stages, but there's quite a few nice looking ones with their own gimmicks, like those beyblade-type things.
Cons:
-Very light on content. Even with DLC there's only 15 characters and stages. There's no story mode and arcade mode is basically the exact same for each character. There's a couple of extra modes, like 1v100 or the 3 types of mini-games, but they feel like nothing more than a few minutes of distraction.
-Control customisation is severely limited. I had problems with both the motion controls and the joycons in grip controls. In motion controls I found moving with motion control to be a pain, but you can't change it to the joystick, and in the joycon grip the block button is in an awkward place and you can't change that either.
Mixed/Not important enough to be a pro or con:
~So I haven't unlocked every arm for every character, but with what I have unlocked, it looks like every character can actually unlock every arm? On one hand it's nice that they basically let you use any character you want without worrying about how good their arms are, on the other hand it does have a huge impact on how unique the characters are.
~The game clearly emphasises motion controls above any other control scheme, but to me it just felt like movement with that was way too slow. I can't call it a complete con because it does let you use the controller, but I can't call that a pro either because when you do use the control you can't help but feel like you're not getting the full game experience (and I'm pretty sure the control you have over the arms is limited when you play with a controller too, since you can't control each arm separately). So even though the game gives you some choice, it felt like no matter what I picked I was missing out on something. I think that if I was fully invested in the game (I'm only playing it as part of the free trial for Nintendo Online members) I would put more effort into getting used to the motion controls.
Notes:
•I haven't played a ton of online, but what I did try out was super smooth and fun.
+Colourful cast of characters. In games like this I find that having a varied-looking roster is a big deal, and I'm happy to say that everyone in this game have their own unique look and personality about them. Some (all?) of them even have unique traits, although these seem to be minor, like a character who does an auto-side step when he blocks an attack.
+The variety of different arm types. I didn't know enough about this game before going in, so the fact there was so many different arms surprised me. They each have unique properties, and for a game called "Arms", they did a great job of making the arms feel like different weapons.
+The stages are another thing that I didn't realise were so diverse. I figured it'd just be big empty boxing ring-like stages, but there's quite a few nice looking ones with their own gimmicks, like those beyblade-type things.
Cons:
-Very light on content. Even with DLC there's only 15 characters and stages. There's no story mode and arcade mode is basically the exact same for each character. There's a couple of extra modes, like 1v100 or the 3 types of mini-games, but they feel like nothing more than a few minutes of distraction.
-Control customisation is severely limited. I had problems with both the motion controls and the joycons in grip controls. In motion controls I found moving with motion control to be a pain, but you can't change it to the joystick, and in the joycon grip the block button is in an awkward place and you can't change that either.
Mixed/Not important enough to be a pro or con:
~So I haven't unlocked every arm for every character, but with what I have unlocked, it looks like every character can actually unlock every arm? On one hand it's nice that they basically let you use any character you want without worrying about how good their arms are, on the other hand it does have a huge impact on how unique the characters are.
~The game clearly emphasises motion controls above any other control scheme, but to me it just felt like movement with that was way too slow. I can't call it a complete con because it does let you use the controller, but I can't call that a pro either because when you do use the control you can't help but feel like you're not getting the full game experience (and I'm pretty sure the control you have over the arms is limited when you play with a controller too, since you can't control each arm separately). So even though the game gives you some choice, it felt like no matter what I picked I was missing out on something. I think that if I was fully invested in the game (I'm only playing it as part of the free trial for Nintendo Online members) I would put more effort into getting used to the motion controls.
Notes:
•I haven't played a ton of online, but what I did try out was super smooth and fun.
It’s pretty weird that this is considered a Super Mario game – a direct sequel to Super Mario World no less. There’s a reason Yoshi got his own series after this, since this gameplay is so different from typical Mario gameplay. I can appreciate the style it’s got going for it, the slower paced, ammo-conscious gameplay can be fun, if a bit frustrating. And baby Mario can feel too much like a burden at times. Overall, even if I don’t like the gameplay as much as usual Mario, it’s a charming game and has a soundtrack to match.
My main problem with the game is the collectables/score system. In order to unlock the hidden levels you need to get a perfect score on all stages, and that's fair. But getting that score is too much of a burden for me, since it requires 25 different collectable items in each stage AND max health (the collectables don't save either, it all has to be done in one run). This isn't a problem, there's plenty of games that I don't feel like fully completing, but Yoshi's island gives you no reason to collect ANYTHING if you’re not going for full score. It's an all or nothing kind of game. Either you go for a full score, or you ignore everything and just blast through the level. The issue with that is many levels can feel empty as a result. Like maybe the exit is just a straight line, and the game expects you to check the different elevations and hidden passageways to get everything, but if you don’t intend to go for 100% there’s little to no reason to go anywhere but straight forward.
I do like the levels for the most part. The game has a ton of unique enemy types and platforming gimmicks. However I disliked almost all of the underground, and sometimes castle stages. The maze-like structure just didn’t do it for me, along with the lack of visual variety.
The game is fine, the visuals are bright and colourful, it controls very well and the boss fights are all creative, albeit very easy. But once I had made the decision to not bother with the effort to get full points, the game started to feel hollow.
My main problem with the game is the collectables/score system. In order to unlock the hidden levels you need to get a perfect score on all stages, and that's fair. But getting that score is too much of a burden for me, since it requires 25 different collectable items in each stage AND max health (the collectables don't save either, it all has to be done in one run). This isn't a problem, there's plenty of games that I don't feel like fully completing, but Yoshi's island gives you no reason to collect ANYTHING if you’re not going for full score. It's an all or nothing kind of game. Either you go for a full score, or you ignore everything and just blast through the level. The issue with that is many levels can feel empty as a result. Like maybe the exit is just a straight line, and the game expects you to check the different elevations and hidden passageways to get everything, but if you don’t intend to go for 100% there’s little to no reason to go anywhere but straight forward.
I do like the levels for the most part. The game has a ton of unique enemy types and platforming gimmicks. However I disliked almost all of the underground, and sometimes castle stages. The maze-like structure just didn’t do it for me, along with the lack of visual variety.
The game is fine, the visuals are bright and colourful, it controls very well and the boss fights are all creative, albeit very easy. But once I had made the decision to not bother with the effort to get full points, the game started to feel hollow.
2013
The literal only thing I knew about this game before I played was that it was solitare with horse racing. Except it wasn't even the version of solitare that I knew, so I knew nothing about this game.
The mechanics work surprisingly well for two wildly different ideas. Though they do work against each other too. The luck based game of solitaire doesn't mesh well with the need to consistently do well for the horse part (or is it luck? Is every single game of solitaire technically winnable if you're not bad like me?). Then again there's a lot of luck involved in the horse racing part too, as you could end up perfecting the card game only to be sandwiched so tight in the final sprint that you literally can't possibly win. Or there's times when I do well on the set off portion only for other horses to bump me so far out of the "comfort zone" that it's impossible to come back from. So you've really got 2 layers of RNG to deal with, which is a bit frustrating in a game where winning trophies is the goal.
But what I really don't like about the game is the age system. A horse stops growing after 10 or so races, which means you can't gain exp, thus its stats are capped. When this happens you can play some more races in "mature mode" (some of which are mandatory for even getting the credits since they only show up in this mode), but after another 10 or so races in this mode (or 3 losses), the horse is retired. You can then breed that horse in the farm, but only for a certain amount of times before it becomes unbreedable and thus useless for the rest of the game.
What this means is you'll end up raising a shit ton of horses, raising them, getting them skills and exp, only for the horse to become unusable after all that effort and you have to start fresh. Sure you can use that horse to breed other horses, for a little while, but not only is this time consuming since you'd at minimum need a good male and female horse, but it takes a full round in "growth mode" to even make a baby horse, so you have to essentially waste a round just to get that offspring for the next decent thing to use. Then it just repeats over and over, and only by constantly getting good male and female horses AND overcoming the RNG so they do well in races, is there a way to consistently climb the difficulty ceiling of the game. Because if you've have a pair of horses that can make good babbys, but the babbys do badly in races, the parents will stop love making, and you're back to square one.
And that's not even getting in to many other aspects of the breeding system, like how horses with the same "peak times" are better compatible, or how to even be able to race in certain races your horse needs to be a short or long distance runner (based on that peak type stat).
Fun game absolutely destroyed by a convoluted and grindy system. But it should be noted this is ONLY a problem if you want to complete the game, which unfortunately requires winning every race in the game at least once, bar one "bonus" race. If you're content just jumping in to the game and playing some solitare, and racing some horses until you get tired of it, you'll have a lot more fun. The whole resetting your skills every time may still be a bit annoying though.
Let me give some more praises to the game too, the game has 5 unique owners whose horses you essentially use in racing - even your own bred horses will get one of the owners attached to them. They all have unique personalities and come in to occasionally chat with your protagonist in cheap little puppet-style scenes. It can be entertaining to see these colourful characters interact, but admittedly by the end of the grind I was skipping through all the dialogue. There are also unique horse models that you can get too, like horses with fire-style hair, a horse with a cat hanging onto its back, or a horse with a dragon shaped head etc. So that's neat.
The mechanics work surprisingly well for two wildly different ideas. Though they do work against each other too. The luck based game of solitaire doesn't mesh well with the need to consistently do well for the horse part (or is it luck? Is every single game of solitaire technically winnable if you're not bad like me?). Then again there's a lot of luck involved in the horse racing part too, as you could end up perfecting the card game only to be sandwiched so tight in the final sprint that you literally can't possibly win. Or there's times when I do well on the set off portion only for other horses to bump me so far out of the "comfort zone" that it's impossible to come back from. So you've really got 2 layers of RNG to deal with, which is a bit frustrating in a game where winning trophies is the goal.
But what I really don't like about the game is the age system. A horse stops growing after 10 or so races, which means you can't gain exp, thus its stats are capped. When this happens you can play some more races in "mature mode" (some of which are mandatory for even getting the credits since they only show up in this mode), but after another 10 or so races in this mode (or 3 losses), the horse is retired. You can then breed that horse in the farm, but only for a certain amount of times before it becomes unbreedable and thus useless for the rest of the game.
What this means is you'll end up raising a shit ton of horses, raising them, getting them skills and exp, only for the horse to become unusable after all that effort and you have to start fresh. Sure you can use that horse to breed other horses, for a little while, but not only is this time consuming since you'd at minimum need a good male and female horse, but it takes a full round in "growth mode" to even make a baby horse, so you have to essentially waste a round just to get that offspring for the next decent thing to use. Then it just repeats over and over, and only by constantly getting good male and female horses AND overcoming the RNG so they do well in races, is there a way to consistently climb the difficulty ceiling of the game. Because if you've have a pair of horses that can make good babbys, but the babbys do badly in races, the parents will stop love making, and you're back to square one.
And that's not even getting in to many other aspects of the breeding system, like how horses with the same "peak times" are better compatible, or how to even be able to race in certain races your horse needs to be a short or long distance runner (based on that peak type stat).
Fun game absolutely destroyed by a convoluted and grindy system. But it should be noted this is ONLY a problem if you want to complete the game, which unfortunately requires winning every race in the game at least once, bar one "bonus" race. If you're content just jumping in to the game and playing some solitare, and racing some horses until you get tired of it, you'll have a lot more fun. The whole resetting your skills every time may still be a bit annoying though.
Let me give some more praises to the game too, the game has 5 unique owners whose horses you essentially use in racing - even your own bred horses will get one of the owners attached to them. They all have unique personalities and come in to occasionally chat with your protagonist in cheap little puppet-style scenes. It can be entertaining to see these colourful characters interact, but admittedly by the end of the grind I was skipping through all the dialogue. There are also unique horse models that you can get too, like horses with fire-style hair, a horse with a cat hanging onto its back, or a horse with a dragon shaped head etc. So that's neat.
Pros:
+The story is pretty good, albeit short.
+Each move has its own level, meaning that if you level up flamethrower on one mon, every other mon who gets flamethrower will have the powered up version. It's a great quality of life thing.
+The post game is huge. It's almost like the main story is just a tutorial for the larger, but less narrative-driven post-game.
+Having Pokémon as actual characters is fun.
+The constant rewards you get from completing missions makes it so easy for that "just one more dungeon" feeling.
+The water colour aesthetic is pretty nice.
Cons:
-The power of moves and accuracy only shows up as a bar instead of as numbers in the main game, making it kind of hard to compare.
-You can’t filter Pokémon by rare quality, so if you want to find a specific one, good luck searching through the entire list.
-Shiny Pokémon are locked to “Strong” Pokémon, meaning about 20 in total. It's a pretty weird decision that ruins the surprise of finding random shinies.
-Since you can only control the three main teammates, if any of your recruits gets attacked at the back of the group, you have literally no way to get to them to save them. There's not even a tactics option where you can send a main teammate to stay at the rear of a group for such situations. It's incredibly frustrating to constantly get interrupted every step because your Pidgey at the back is being attacked every turn and you can't do anything about it.
-Moves are unbalanced as fuck. Multi-hit moves and room-wide moves are basically the only viable ones in the endgame. Moves with only one tile are borderline useless, making a large section of the mons useless.
-You can only recruit wild Pokémon if the player kills enemy. So you can deal 199/200 damage, but if your teammate Weedle does that last 1hp you won't get a chance to recruit.
-The item inventory stops expanding after a certain rank (until the very last rank, which is a huge grind). Considering it's the most important rank-up reward, having it be stagnant for like 70% of ranks is annoying.
-If your current party is full, you can't just send recruited mons to camp. You have to choose between letting them go or switching another party member and letting THEM go. This means you can recruit at max 5 mons per dungeon (or 7 if you wanna get rid of 2 of your main teammates). It's basically just forcing extra playtime by making you re-run dungeons multiple times.
-99 floor dungeons. Screw them.
-Dungeons that reset your level to 5. If this was a single dungeon as a one-off challenge it might not be so bad, but there are THREE dungeons like this.
-Can’t feed multiple stat boosting items at once. Have a bunch of gummis or vitamins to give your mon? Gotta do it one by one.
-Dungeons are all basically the same. The themes (of which are limited and reused) never really add any actual gimmicks outside of weather.
Mixed/Not important enough to be a pro or con:
~It's really repetitive, but kind of addicting at the same time.
~Most of the power-up orbs in the game only last for a single room or floor. Keep in mind that some dungeons have up to 99 floors. Trying to use them as any kind of strategy doesn't really work.
~Controls in a dungeon feel stiff and clunky. But it also has an automode which negates this. The fact that letting the game play itself is a SOLUTION feels like a con to me, but if it makes the game more fun to play then that can't be a bad thing.
Note:
•Alakazam’s team is presented as the best team in the game for the story, but it's only gold rank. For reference that's the 5th rank in the game, out of a total of 12. It's kind of embarrassing to see them get so much praise for being a rank that I managed to get to in the main story alone, let alone the 6 (apparently unattainable by anyone) ranks I reached after that.
•Being Pokémon saved this game. Like without the Pokémon coat of paint I think this would be a below-average game.
•I wanted to fully complete this, but gave up on Purity Forest because it's an RNG-filled mess.
+The story is pretty good, albeit short.
+Each move has its own level, meaning that if you level up flamethrower on one mon, every other mon who gets flamethrower will have the powered up version. It's a great quality of life thing.
+The post game is huge. It's almost like the main story is just a tutorial for the larger, but less narrative-driven post-game.
+Having Pokémon as actual characters is fun.
+The constant rewards you get from completing missions makes it so easy for that "just one more dungeon" feeling.
+The water colour aesthetic is pretty nice.
Cons:
-The power of moves and accuracy only shows up as a bar instead of as numbers in the main game, making it kind of hard to compare.
-You can’t filter Pokémon by rare quality, so if you want to find a specific one, good luck searching through the entire list.
-Shiny Pokémon are locked to “Strong” Pokémon, meaning about 20 in total. It's a pretty weird decision that ruins the surprise of finding random shinies.
-Since you can only control the three main teammates, if any of your recruits gets attacked at the back of the group, you have literally no way to get to them to save them. There's not even a tactics option where you can send a main teammate to stay at the rear of a group for such situations. It's incredibly frustrating to constantly get interrupted every step because your Pidgey at the back is being attacked every turn and you can't do anything about it.
-Moves are unbalanced as fuck. Multi-hit moves and room-wide moves are basically the only viable ones in the endgame. Moves with only one tile are borderline useless, making a large section of the mons useless.
-You can only recruit wild Pokémon if the player kills enemy. So you can deal 199/200 damage, but if your teammate Weedle does that last 1hp you won't get a chance to recruit.
-The item inventory stops expanding after a certain rank (until the very last rank, which is a huge grind). Considering it's the most important rank-up reward, having it be stagnant for like 70% of ranks is annoying.
-If your current party is full, you can't just send recruited mons to camp. You have to choose between letting them go or switching another party member and letting THEM go. This means you can recruit at max 5 mons per dungeon (or 7 if you wanna get rid of 2 of your main teammates). It's basically just forcing extra playtime by making you re-run dungeons multiple times.
-99 floor dungeons. Screw them.
-Dungeons that reset your level to 5. If this was a single dungeon as a one-off challenge it might not be so bad, but there are THREE dungeons like this.
-Can’t feed multiple stat boosting items at once. Have a bunch of gummis or vitamins to give your mon? Gotta do it one by one.
-Dungeons are all basically the same. The themes (of which are limited and reused) never really add any actual gimmicks outside of weather.
Mixed/Not important enough to be a pro or con:
~It's really repetitive, but kind of addicting at the same time.
~Most of the power-up orbs in the game only last for a single room or floor. Keep in mind that some dungeons have up to 99 floors. Trying to use them as any kind of strategy doesn't really work.
~Controls in a dungeon feel stiff and clunky. But it also has an automode which negates this. The fact that letting the game play itself is a SOLUTION feels like a con to me, but if it makes the game more fun to play then that can't be a bad thing.
Note:
•Alakazam’s team is presented as the best team in the game for the story, but it's only gold rank. For reference that's the 5th rank in the game, out of a total of 12. It's kind of embarrassing to see them get so much praise for being a rank that I managed to get to in the main story alone, let alone the 6 (apparently unattainable by anyone) ranks I reached after that.
•Being Pokémon saved this game. Like without the Pokémon coat of paint I think this would be a below-average game.
•I wanted to fully complete this, but gave up on Purity Forest because it's an RNG-filled mess.
This review contains spoilers
This turn-based RPG for my favourite franchise has always interested me, but somehow I never played it until now.
The story timing of the game was confusing. How do you make an RPG out of a saga that consists of one battle, a training period, and then another couple of battles? Well the answer is of course to fill that training period with a lot of filler. But first, the game actually starts at...the beginning of the 23rd Budokai arc? You actually start BEFORE the 3 year time skip too, during which you get to spend some time with Krillin, Yamcha and Tenshinhan on some game-exclusive training missions, both together and alone.
Once into the canon part of the martial arts tournament the game sets a weirdly misleading idea of how the pacing will go. Most of this arc is skipped. Plot points are only briefly brought up in dialogue (my favourite part is when they talk about how Piccolo "ate" Kami after he sealed him, only for Kami to appear in a later cutscene with no explanation), and every fight except Goku vs Piccolo is skipped entirely, shown only as static images.
So after we get 1 fight for this entire ass tournament, we move on to the main event, right? Well actually no, first we get the wedding dress filler arc! Which gets way more attention and time than the actual canon fighting arc. I guess it is more adventure-focused, so whatever.
By the time we get to Z and finally get Gohan as a character, he starts at level 1, while everyone else has the benefits of their training in previous chapters. Accurate to the story? Kinda (not accounting for Gohan's hidden powers). Balanced for gameplay? I mean... also kinda, they don't put Gohan in high level areas. But it's annoying to have done all that training just to start fresh with a new character.
Anywho from here canon plot points are given major focus, unlike the 23rd Budokai. Cutscenes go on for a very long time, pretty much explaining everything in detail. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's just...weird. Why start the game with this kind of rushed storytelling, as if you're acknowledging players should be familiar with the story, then afterwards make sure the player understands every story beat to the letter?
From here we kind of alternate between canon, anime filler and game-exclusive. The biggest chapter of the game, and the one that really tells you "we're a video game, we need more content that our separated cast can't bring!" being when you have to find the dragon balls, at which point Piccolo, with Gohan in tow, teams up with the Earthlings to look for them. Oh and Goku gets brought back by Baba to help them look! Can you imagine how insane that'd be in the real story? Goku being brought back mid-way through their training, to team up with still-evil Piccolo and the good guys? It's funny. And to get a lot of locations for this DB hunt, the game goes back to the original. You visit places like Muscle Tower, the pirate cave and Pilaf Castle.
So that's how you make an RPG about a very simple, small-scoped saga. You essentially shoehorn in everywhere from the series that doesn't appear in this era. And that's not even getting in to the game-exclusive areas.
I do like some of the little stories they added to the game. Plus there's one moment in said chapter where everyone teams up to search for the dragon balls, at the end of it they of course need to go their separate ways so they're in position to be in their canon spots when we get back to that part, well since Gohan is supposed to be kidnapped, but has been hanging out with everyone just fine, the game addresses this by actually having Piccolo offer Gohan to stay behind with the heroes, only for Gohan to say he wants to keep training. A surprisingly great character development moment.
This all gets even weirder when you realise that in Japan this was branded as a "Kai" game (it came out around the same time Kai started airing). But that just raises so many more questions! OK, it does help explain why they picked this specific period since that's where Kai starts, but why would it then add 23rd Budokai stuff that doesn't exist in Kai? Why does it add filler that only exists in Dragon Ball Z, that Kai specifically removed to make a more accurate retelling of the manga? If you were a kid who just started watching Kai, and then picked this game up, you'd be so confused, but even more confused when you learned many parts of this game aren't actually made up for the game, but came from the old anime. Why brand it a damn Kai game when it's clearly based on Z?!
So in summary the way this game handles story is an absolute mess. Oh and I figured the reason they didn't do a sequel is because the Namek saga would be awful for this type of game. You'd only really be able to play as Gohan, Krillin and Vegeta for most of it, and there's hardly any interesting landmarks on Namek to visit. And yet, the game STILL teases that a sequel was being worked on! It ends with them talking about the DB's on Namek (as in the manga) and then says "to be continued" before ending with a post credits screen of a silhouetted Freeza. What the heck was going on with this game? Let's not even get in to what the game would do if it ever got to the Boo arc, now that it used up Baba's 24-hour revival magic here.
I've already typed this much and I haven't even gotten to the gameplay yet. The story is easily the least important part of this whole thing, and yet the way it was done just fascinates the hell out of me.
Gameplay is fine. It's a pretty basic turn-based RPG honestly. There's a few things that stand out, like I don't know how many games have a dedicated "recovery" attribute where you auto-gain a bit of HP every turn. You've got a few special moves per character, but since Dragon Ball isn't known as being a very strategic RPG, you're mostly relying on brute strength with these. There's a few buff or healing movies, but I think only Tenshinhan's solar flare can cause a status effect. For the rest, you rely on items.
I don't think it's a bad battle system. It's simple, but it's flashy and fast enough. Basic attacks are a multi-hit combo rather than just a standard sword slash or something, and you even have the chance to get a lucky combo extender for extra damage. You've got a "sparking" meter which essentially acts as a limit bar. When full you can fire off a super move, or if multiple characters have a full one you can chain specific moves together to form an S-Combo. What is an S-Combo? Well it seems to just be literally watching the characters perform the moves as they would have anyway with zero difference, but now it has a unique name! I guess it might do more damage than using the moves alone? I basically never used these, just preferring to fire off the ultimate attacks.
There's a lack of polish in the translation that can be best seen by how the stats call one stat "Tc" which you'd assume stands for "Technique", especially since it's the stat that buffs your Ki moves. So what does every item that interacts with this stat call it? "Skill". Use an item that raises a characters "skill" stat and watch their "Tc" raise. Weird.
The speed stat also felt horribly broken. It's pretty simple how it's supposed to work - order in battle goes by biggest speed number to smallest. The first turn almost always goes like that, but why then does every turn after seem to shit the bed? Why is my Krillin going first on turn 1, but then 2nd on turn 2? There were no stat changes or status moves between. Why is the enemy attacking before or after me seemingly RNG? Why does the enemy sometimes straight up miss a turn? It's like the speed stat in this game is more a suggestion than hard numbers.
The game doesn't take much advantage of being an RPG by adding side quests. There's only 2 in the whole game, and both are long grindy ones rather than small self-contained stories. The first one has you give one NPC 1000 carrots. To get a carrot you need to equip a specific field item and defeat enemies, turning them into carrots. When using this item you do not get money or any regular item drops. So essentially you need to defeat 1000 enemies while forgoing the ability to gain cash or items, and you need to waste an item slot on it. Not very fun.
The other side-quest is pretty great though. Use Tenshinhan's mafuba to capture all non-boss enemies in the game. Whether the move will work isn't guaranteed, but you can raise the chances by lowering enemy health and giving them status effects, or getting new field-items (each is just an upgraded rice cooker). Sounds familiar right? Catching things by weakening them, into containers that have various tiers? To drive this point home even more, there are exactly 150 enemies in the game to capture. It's a very creative side quest. Albeit a grindy one, and the game lacks any info in-battle to say if you've already successfully used the technique on that specific enemy.
The games movement speed was a bit low, but it annoys me more because it has 2 different levels of unlockable speeds. Both are field items, meaning you have to use your slot on them if you wanna go faster than a snails pace. The first is gotten mid-way through the game (in a missable, albeit not easily, chest) and the second is the final reward for that capturing every enemy in the game mission. So yeah you'll likely have almost finished the game by the time you can get it.
Being slow is one thing, but I hate when a game offers what should be a run button as a damn unlockable.
The game has a secret boss, and it's no secret anymore that it's Broly. I guess fitting for the title, but surely Turles would fit both the title AND era? I'm not surprised at all they went with the more popular of the two though.
One other thing I wanna talk about is how in a couple of the chapters where Goku is in otherworld, Kaio sends him on a quest to a game-specific location (I think so anyway, maybe it was from a filler ep). For some reason in these 2 visits to this location, Goku is joined by a fully AI controlled Bubbles and Gregory. This assist party member thing NEVER happens outside of these chapters! Why are freaking Bubbles and Gregory implemented in this way but actual fighters like Chaozu and Yajirobe never get to see the battle screen? Lmao. It's not like it's a case of wanting to make sure Goku wasn't alone in his fights, because many chapters have characters fighting solo, including other chapters with Goku in Other World (like the Princess Snake segment). They're not even that helpful. They're mildly decent the first time, more as damage sponges than anything. But the second time they don't get any stronger despite the fact the enemies do, so their best use is to take a hit or two before they "run away" for that battle. I'd rather have just played Goku alone than have to sit through their animations every turn.
I feel like I've mostly complained about this game despite giving it 4 stars! But that's because it's only really the more minor complaints that are easy to hone in on. I can only really say that I loved playing the game in so many ways. I loved going through all these Dragon Ball locales with gorgeously designed backgrounds. The graphics truly can't be faulted. I liked the additional story stuff, I liked the music and little easter eggs. It's fun to fight well-known characters in a different way than the usual methods for Dragon Ball (fighting games or beat-em-ups).
It's an RPG for Dragon Ball fans, and the love of the franchise kinda just makes the game work in a way it would probably fail as a unique IP.
The story timing of the game was confusing. How do you make an RPG out of a saga that consists of one battle, a training period, and then another couple of battles? Well the answer is of course to fill that training period with a lot of filler. But first, the game actually starts at...the beginning of the 23rd Budokai arc? You actually start BEFORE the 3 year time skip too, during which you get to spend some time with Krillin, Yamcha and Tenshinhan on some game-exclusive training missions, both together and alone.
Once into the canon part of the martial arts tournament the game sets a weirdly misleading idea of how the pacing will go. Most of this arc is skipped. Plot points are only briefly brought up in dialogue (my favourite part is when they talk about how Piccolo "ate" Kami after he sealed him, only for Kami to appear in a later cutscene with no explanation), and every fight except Goku vs Piccolo is skipped entirely, shown only as static images.
So after we get 1 fight for this entire ass tournament, we move on to the main event, right? Well actually no, first we get the wedding dress filler arc! Which gets way more attention and time than the actual canon fighting arc. I guess it is more adventure-focused, so whatever.
By the time we get to Z and finally get Gohan as a character, he starts at level 1, while everyone else has the benefits of their training in previous chapters. Accurate to the story? Kinda (not accounting for Gohan's hidden powers). Balanced for gameplay? I mean... also kinda, they don't put Gohan in high level areas. But it's annoying to have done all that training just to start fresh with a new character.
Anywho from here canon plot points are given major focus, unlike the 23rd Budokai. Cutscenes go on for a very long time, pretty much explaining everything in detail. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's just...weird. Why start the game with this kind of rushed storytelling, as if you're acknowledging players should be familiar with the story, then afterwards make sure the player understands every story beat to the letter?
From here we kind of alternate between canon, anime filler and game-exclusive. The biggest chapter of the game, and the one that really tells you "we're a video game, we need more content that our separated cast can't bring!" being when you have to find the dragon balls, at which point Piccolo, with Gohan in tow, teams up with the Earthlings to look for them. Oh and Goku gets brought back by Baba to help them look! Can you imagine how insane that'd be in the real story? Goku being brought back mid-way through their training, to team up with still-evil Piccolo and the good guys? It's funny. And to get a lot of locations for this DB hunt, the game goes back to the original. You visit places like Muscle Tower, the pirate cave and Pilaf Castle.
So that's how you make an RPG about a very simple, small-scoped saga. You essentially shoehorn in everywhere from the series that doesn't appear in this era. And that's not even getting in to the game-exclusive areas.
I do like some of the little stories they added to the game. Plus there's one moment in said chapter where everyone teams up to search for the dragon balls, at the end of it they of course need to go their separate ways so they're in position to be in their canon spots when we get back to that part, well since Gohan is supposed to be kidnapped, but has been hanging out with everyone just fine, the game addresses this by actually having Piccolo offer Gohan to stay behind with the heroes, only for Gohan to say he wants to keep training. A surprisingly great character development moment.
This all gets even weirder when you realise that in Japan this was branded as a "Kai" game (it came out around the same time Kai started airing). But that just raises so many more questions! OK, it does help explain why they picked this specific period since that's where Kai starts, but why would it then add 23rd Budokai stuff that doesn't exist in Kai? Why does it add filler that only exists in Dragon Ball Z, that Kai specifically removed to make a more accurate retelling of the manga? If you were a kid who just started watching Kai, and then picked this game up, you'd be so confused, but even more confused when you learned many parts of this game aren't actually made up for the game, but came from the old anime. Why brand it a damn Kai game when it's clearly based on Z?!
So in summary the way this game handles story is an absolute mess. Oh and I figured the reason they didn't do a sequel is because the Namek saga would be awful for this type of game. You'd only really be able to play as Gohan, Krillin and Vegeta for most of it, and there's hardly any interesting landmarks on Namek to visit. And yet, the game STILL teases that a sequel was being worked on! It ends with them talking about the DB's on Namek (as in the manga) and then says "to be continued" before ending with a post credits screen of a silhouetted Freeza. What the heck was going on with this game? Let's not even get in to what the game would do if it ever got to the Boo arc, now that it used up Baba's 24-hour revival magic here.
I've already typed this much and I haven't even gotten to the gameplay yet. The story is easily the least important part of this whole thing, and yet the way it was done just fascinates the hell out of me.
Gameplay is fine. It's a pretty basic turn-based RPG honestly. There's a few things that stand out, like I don't know how many games have a dedicated "recovery" attribute where you auto-gain a bit of HP every turn. You've got a few special moves per character, but since Dragon Ball isn't known as being a very strategic RPG, you're mostly relying on brute strength with these. There's a few buff or healing movies, but I think only Tenshinhan's solar flare can cause a status effect. For the rest, you rely on items.
I don't think it's a bad battle system. It's simple, but it's flashy and fast enough. Basic attacks are a multi-hit combo rather than just a standard sword slash or something, and you even have the chance to get a lucky combo extender for extra damage. You've got a "sparking" meter which essentially acts as a limit bar. When full you can fire off a super move, or if multiple characters have a full one you can chain specific moves together to form an S-Combo. What is an S-Combo? Well it seems to just be literally watching the characters perform the moves as they would have anyway with zero difference, but now it has a unique name! I guess it might do more damage than using the moves alone? I basically never used these, just preferring to fire off the ultimate attacks.
There's a lack of polish in the translation that can be best seen by how the stats call one stat "Tc" which you'd assume stands for "Technique", especially since it's the stat that buffs your Ki moves. So what does every item that interacts with this stat call it? "Skill". Use an item that raises a characters "skill" stat and watch their "Tc" raise. Weird.
The speed stat also felt horribly broken. It's pretty simple how it's supposed to work - order in battle goes by biggest speed number to smallest. The first turn almost always goes like that, but why then does every turn after seem to shit the bed? Why is my Krillin going first on turn 1, but then 2nd on turn 2? There were no stat changes or status moves between. Why is the enemy attacking before or after me seemingly RNG? Why does the enemy sometimes straight up miss a turn? It's like the speed stat in this game is more a suggestion than hard numbers.
The game doesn't take much advantage of being an RPG by adding side quests. There's only 2 in the whole game, and both are long grindy ones rather than small self-contained stories. The first one has you give one NPC 1000 carrots. To get a carrot you need to equip a specific field item and defeat enemies, turning them into carrots. When using this item you do not get money or any regular item drops. So essentially you need to defeat 1000 enemies while forgoing the ability to gain cash or items, and you need to waste an item slot on it. Not very fun.
The other side-quest is pretty great though. Use Tenshinhan's mafuba to capture all non-boss enemies in the game. Whether the move will work isn't guaranteed, but you can raise the chances by lowering enemy health and giving them status effects, or getting new field-items (each is just an upgraded rice cooker). Sounds familiar right? Catching things by weakening them, into containers that have various tiers? To drive this point home even more, there are exactly 150 enemies in the game to capture. It's a very creative side quest. Albeit a grindy one, and the game lacks any info in-battle to say if you've already successfully used the technique on that specific enemy.
The games movement speed was a bit low, but it annoys me more because it has 2 different levels of unlockable speeds. Both are field items, meaning you have to use your slot on them if you wanna go faster than a snails pace. The first is gotten mid-way through the game (in a missable, albeit not easily, chest) and the second is the final reward for that capturing every enemy in the game mission. So yeah you'll likely have almost finished the game by the time you can get it.
Being slow is one thing, but I hate when a game offers what should be a run button as a damn unlockable.
The game has a secret boss, and it's no secret anymore that it's Broly. I guess fitting for the title, but surely Turles would fit both the title AND era? I'm not surprised at all they went with the more popular of the two though.
One other thing I wanna talk about is how in a couple of the chapters where Goku is in otherworld, Kaio sends him on a quest to a game-specific location (I think so anyway, maybe it was from a filler ep). For some reason in these 2 visits to this location, Goku is joined by a fully AI controlled Bubbles and Gregory. This assist party member thing NEVER happens outside of these chapters! Why are freaking Bubbles and Gregory implemented in this way but actual fighters like Chaozu and Yajirobe never get to see the battle screen? Lmao. It's not like it's a case of wanting to make sure Goku wasn't alone in his fights, because many chapters have characters fighting solo, including other chapters with Goku in Other World (like the Princess Snake segment). They're not even that helpful. They're mildly decent the first time, more as damage sponges than anything. But the second time they don't get any stronger despite the fact the enemies do, so their best use is to take a hit or two before they "run away" for that battle. I'd rather have just played Goku alone than have to sit through their animations every turn.
I feel like I've mostly complained about this game despite giving it 4 stars! But that's because it's only really the more minor complaints that are easy to hone in on. I can only really say that I loved playing the game in so many ways. I loved going through all these Dragon Ball locales with gorgeously designed backgrounds. The graphics truly can't be faulted. I liked the additional story stuff, I liked the music and little easter eggs. It's fun to fight well-known characters in a different way than the usual methods for Dragon Ball (fighting games or beat-em-ups).
It's an RPG for Dragon Ball fans, and the love of the franchise kinda just makes the game work in a way it would probably fail as a unique IP.
2016
I like the gameplay in fusions, it has a very novel battle system that is both very simple, yet has a lot of strategy behind it. Positioning plays a huge deal in the game, as knocking opponents outside of the invisible ring will cause extra damage, and reset their position on the timeline (basically making it so they have longer to wait for their turn). So it's all about trying to get opponents outside the ring, while keeping yourself far from the edge. But position also matters for many other things, like certain moves will only hit opponents close enough to you, or moves will fit in a straight line or arc, so you want to group opponents up in specific ways.
Then there's ki blasts vs physical attacks. Ki blasts cannot be blocked (although super attacks that are a "beam" type can be countered with a beam struggle if the opponent has an appropriate move and enough ki), but they do less knockback. Physical moves do more knockback, but every time you activate one, your opponent gets a chance to block it in a semi-RNG system where you have to predict which direction the attack will hit you. So if you think they'll hit you out the ring, they'd punch you from the left so you'd fly right, thus you want to block left. But they might be planning to hit you towards their teammate instead for a bit of extra damage, so it's semi-RNG in a lot of cases. Of course with AI specifically they don't always follow logic at all, so this block system can feel pure rng in some cases.
My biggest issue with the battle system is the lack of ability to speed up or skip animations. They are very slow, and repetitive battles. In big story battles it's fine to watch everything play out, but the majority of fighting in this game is just grinding or otherwise a filler battle to activate something else. It desperately needed a way to speed these up.
I've gotta give them props for the controls outside of battles too. Flying around a 3D space on a 3DS might seem limiting with only one circle pad (the additional one on new models does nothing) but they really made it work. And they managed to put all the iconic locations into the game by having the world take place in weird space-time distortions so all these landmarks everyone knows are just kind of scattered around.
Customisation is pretty good. Every time you unlock a new (canon) character you get the option to buy their outfit for your own CAC. This even includes things like Saibamen and Cell. So you can have a totally normal looking human on a Saibamen body.
But we're all here for the what-if fusions right? There's some really great ones here. But it's also where my biggest complaints with the game lie...
First of all, fusing and unfusing is such a tedious process. You go through so many confirmation screens, and every single time you do a fusion, or undo one, you have to reassign all the special moves the fusee's had. For a game that has this as a central mechanic, to the point they have a pokédex-esque completion screen for getting every single character, including fusions, the fact they didn't streamline this process is baffling.
Characters can also only fuse with specific characters, which makes sense, it's not like they could design a unique fusion for god knows how many potential results. But I'm not a big fan of the way they did this, because many characters only have 1 potential partner, but that partner can have multiple. Piccolo, for example, can fuse with both Pikkon and Boo saga Gohan (among some others), but both of these characters can ONLY fuse with Piccolo. That means if you want to fuse Piccolo with Pikkon, Gohan is left without a fusion, because you can't make multiple fusions with one character, you have to unfuse them first. There are so many cases like this, where one character can have so many fusion partners, but those partners HAVE to be with this one guy, leaving so many lonely non-fusees.
Then there's a bunch of characters that can't fuse with anyone at all.
Transformations count as their own character slots, and weirdly none of them can fuse with anyone. Even transformations of characters that CAN fuse. Like you can fuse base Kid Gohan and base Kid Trunks, but you can't fuse SSj Kid Gohan and SSj Kid Trunks into the Super Saiyan version of that very fusion. Literally all they'd have had to do is change the hair to blonde!
These are technically lies. Your OC can fuse with literally any character in the game. Of course because you get to design your OC with gender, hair style, and even race, they can't have unique designs. Whenever you fuse your character it's basically just your character + the fusion choice's hair style, with both their hair colour and yours thrown in (think how Gotenks has black and lavender hair). So if you decide to fuse your OC with Tenshinhan, you literally just create a bald version of your character lol. They're also the only ones able to fuse with the transformed characters. Even their name stays exactly the same, and their place in your "pokédex" is always 000. It's clear that OC + anyone is not supposed to be a real "fusion", but more like a power-up for your OC. I think this is a great way to do it since any other system would be like not letting your OC fuse with anyone, having a set design for them so they can make specific fusions with specific characters, or something.
You might look at the character list and go "holy shit there's over 1000 characters in this game!", and...yeah kinda. There's even some very interesting picks, like Bra and Gine. But only the first 110 or so are canon show characters (plus a handful of game-specific main characters). Then there's maybe 50-60 fusions of these canon characters. The rest of this millennial roster are pure made up characters. And I get it, you gotta have filler characters to pad out those filler fights. Some of them even get a bit of story in the game, like a female version of the Ginyu Force. But why the hell are their fusions so complex? These no need at all for these characters nobody even wants to use to have literal entire fusion trees with a ton of criteria for each one. Like let's say you want to fuse Jerry with Todd, but before you do that Jerry must have previously fused with Jeff, and Todd must have previously fused with Sarah. So now that you've done both of those fusions, you have to unfuse them (keep in mind the annoying reassigning of special moves every time) and now you try to fuse Jerry and Todd, but you still can't because first Todd needs to know this specific move! Why the hell did they make such intricate and convoluted fusion trees for these literal who characters?? Why is 80% of the roster just padding with weird models nobody gives a crap about? Literally the only thing it does is make the roster LOOK bigger, and make 100% completion not worth it.
If they just made it so that none of the game-only characters could fuse, except maybe a few unique ones that get spotlight in side quests, and make even just 50 more unique versions of canon characters, it'd have been so much better!
In short? This game is a fusion of a great concept with horrible execution, and fun but slow gameplay with no way to mitigate the pacing.
Then there's ki blasts vs physical attacks. Ki blasts cannot be blocked (although super attacks that are a "beam" type can be countered with a beam struggle if the opponent has an appropriate move and enough ki), but they do less knockback. Physical moves do more knockback, but every time you activate one, your opponent gets a chance to block it in a semi-RNG system where you have to predict which direction the attack will hit you. So if you think they'll hit you out the ring, they'd punch you from the left so you'd fly right, thus you want to block left. But they might be planning to hit you towards their teammate instead for a bit of extra damage, so it's semi-RNG in a lot of cases. Of course with AI specifically they don't always follow logic at all, so this block system can feel pure rng in some cases.
My biggest issue with the battle system is the lack of ability to speed up or skip animations. They are very slow, and repetitive battles. In big story battles it's fine to watch everything play out, but the majority of fighting in this game is just grinding or otherwise a filler battle to activate something else. It desperately needed a way to speed these up.
I've gotta give them props for the controls outside of battles too. Flying around a 3D space on a 3DS might seem limiting with only one circle pad (the additional one on new models does nothing) but they really made it work. And they managed to put all the iconic locations into the game by having the world take place in weird space-time distortions so all these landmarks everyone knows are just kind of scattered around.
Customisation is pretty good. Every time you unlock a new (canon) character you get the option to buy their outfit for your own CAC. This even includes things like Saibamen and Cell. So you can have a totally normal looking human on a Saibamen body.
But we're all here for the what-if fusions right? There's some really great ones here. But it's also where my biggest complaints with the game lie...
First of all, fusing and unfusing is such a tedious process. You go through so many confirmation screens, and every single time you do a fusion, or undo one, you have to reassign all the special moves the fusee's had. For a game that has this as a central mechanic, to the point they have a pokédex-esque completion screen for getting every single character, including fusions, the fact they didn't streamline this process is baffling.
Characters can also only fuse with specific characters, which makes sense, it's not like they could design a unique fusion for god knows how many potential results. But I'm not a big fan of the way they did this, because many characters only have 1 potential partner, but that partner can have multiple. Piccolo, for example, can fuse with both Pikkon and Boo saga Gohan (among some others), but both of these characters can ONLY fuse with Piccolo. That means if you want to fuse Piccolo with Pikkon, Gohan is left without a fusion, because you can't make multiple fusions with one character, you have to unfuse them first. There are so many cases like this, where one character can have so many fusion partners, but those partners HAVE to be with this one guy, leaving so many lonely non-fusees.
Then there's a bunch of characters that can't fuse with anyone at all.
Transformations count as their own character slots, and weirdly none of them can fuse with anyone. Even transformations of characters that CAN fuse. Like you can fuse base Kid Gohan and base Kid Trunks, but you can't fuse SSj Kid Gohan and SSj Kid Trunks into the Super Saiyan version of that very fusion. Literally all they'd have had to do is change the hair to blonde!
These are technically lies. Your OC can fuse with literally any character in the game. Of course because you get to design your OC with gender, hair style, and even race, they can't have unique designs. Whenever you fuse your character it's basically just your character + the fusion choice's hair style, with both their hair colour and yours thrown in (think how Gotenks has black and lavender hair). So if you decide to fuse your OC with Tenshinhan, you literally just create a bald version of your character lol. They're also the only ones able to fuse with the transformed characters. Even their name stays exactly the same, and their place in your "pokédex" is always 000. It's clear that OC + anyone is not supposed to be a real "fusion", but more like a power-up for your OC. I think this is a great way to do it since any other system would be like not letting your OC fuse with anyone, having a set design for them so they can make specific fusions with specific characters, or something.
You might look at the character list and go "holy shit there's over 1000 characters in this game!", and...yeah kinda. There's even some very interesting picks, like Bra and Gine. But only the first 110 or so are canon show characters (plus a handful of game-specific main characters). Then there's maybe 50-60 fusions of these canon characters. The rest of this millennial roster are pure made up characters. And I get it, you gotta have filler characters to pad out those filler fights. Some of them even get a bit of story in the game, like a female version of the Ginyu Force. But why the hell are their fusions so complex? These no need at all for these characters nobody even wants to use to have literal entire fusion trees with a ton of criteria for each one. Like let's say you want to fuse Jerry with Todd, but before you do that Jerry must have previously fused with Jeff, and Todd must have previously fused with Sarah. So now that you've done both of those fusions, you have to unfuse them (keep in mind the annoying reassigning of special moves every time) and now you try to fuse Jerry and Todd, but you still can't because first Todd needs to know this specific move! Why the hell did they make such intricate and convoluted fusion trees for these literal who characters?? Why is 80% of the roster just padding with weird models nobody gives a crap about? Literally the only thing it does is make the roster LOOK bigger, and make 100% completion not worth it.
If they just made it so that none of the game-only characters could fuse, except maybe a few unique ones that get spotlight in side quests, and make even just 50 more unique versions of canon characters, it'd have been so much better!
In short? This game is a fusion of a great concept with horrible execution, and fun but slow gameplay with no way to mitigate the pacing.
2002
Despite being the first Gamecube Mario Party this one feels more like an N64 version, and in many ways is even worse than 2 and 3.
For one thing the boards are still flat, but they don't even feel like they're integrated into their settings anymore. Every board just takes place on a metal walkway, with all the fun stuff being put as decoration, only interacting with any of it when an event space triggers. Even the N64 games despite their limitations managed to make most boards feel like you were walking around their actual locations, not just having a generic board with stickers slapped on it to make it feel like it fits a theme.
It has a pretty forgettable selection of minigames. And yet, some of the best in the series, like Booksquirm and Dungeon Duos, but the majority are very plain, if not annoying. Plus in terms of the big 3 (4 player, 3v1 and 2v2) it actually has less in each category than the previous 3 games, except 2v2 which it has Mario Party 1 beat. It's not by a huge amount (this game has 9 2v2 and 3v1 while I think MP3 and/or 2 has 10 each in those) but with the amount of lacklustre games, it makes them stand out more.
Maybe the worst thing about the game is the mega and mini mushroom gimmick. It's pushed hard, and while on their own they're not bad. Mega mushrooms give 2 dice rolls, can crush opponents you pass to steal 10 coins, but at the cost of skipping any optional spaces, including stars, while mini mushrooms offer unique paths, access to mini-only events and make your dice roll 1-5, which itself is a useful thing in Mario Party even without the mini aspect. The main problem is to make them feel more important than they are, there are multiple "Mushroom" spaces on every board, which will give you one of the two. This is not optional, and you cannot drop or trade items, so if you happen to find yourself unluckily getting 3 mini mushrooms with no way to strategically use them, you're SOL if you wanted to buy that magic lamp. Plus it feels like almost every board event (the ones that have arrows to "enter", not the green ? spaces) other than lotteries are locked behind mini mushrooms now, making the boards feel more empty as a result when you're not using mini-mushrooms, which is most of the time.
For one thing the boards are still flat, but they don't even feel like they're integrated into their settings anymore. Every board just takes place on a metal walkway, with all the fun stuff being put as decoration, only interacting with any of it when an event space triggers. Even the N64 games despite their limitations managed to make most boards feel like you were walking around their actual locations, not just having a generic board with stickers slapped on it to make it feel like it fits a theme.
It has a pretty forgettable selection of minigames. And yet, some of the best in the series, like Booksquirm and Dungeon Duos, but the majority are very plain, if not annoying. Plus in terms of the big 3 (4 player, 3v1 and 2v2) it actually has less in each category than the previous 3 games, except 2v2 which it has Mario Party 1 beat. It's not by a huge amount (this game has 9 2v2 and 3v1 while I think MP3 and/or 2 has 10 each in those) but with the amount of lacklustre games, it makes them stand out more.
Maybe the worst thing about the game is the mega and mini mushroom gimmick. It's pushed hard, and while on their own they're not bad. Mega mushrooms give 2 dice rolls, can crush opponents you pass to steal 10 coins, but at the cost of skipping any optional spaces, including stars, while mini mushrooms offer unique paths, access to mini-only events and make your dice roll 1-5, which itself is a useful thing in Mario Party even without the mini aspect. The main problem is to make them feel more important than they are, there are multiple "Mushroom" spaces on every board, which will give you one of the two. This is not optional, and you cannot drop or trade items, so if you happen to find yourself unluckily getting 3 mini mushrooms with no way to strategically use them, you're SOL if you wanted to buy that magic lamp. Plus it feels like almost every board event (the ones that have arrows to "enter", not the green ? spaces) other than lotteries are locked behind mini mushrooms now, making the boards feel more empty as a result when you're not using mini-mushrooms, which is most of the time.
There's some rushed development here, what with shorter levels and cut side content like races. But it doesn't feel like the game necessarily suffered from it, instead it's more like the game just got a higher focus on the action aspect (which may or may not be a good thing depending on who you ask).
There are times when I did feel the shortcuts taken though, like how some levels have 4/5 missions that all take place in the same exact area and just have you mow down hordes of enemies. The hovership sections are hugely nerfed and less fun versions of the spaceship battles. The arena battles don't have anything as flashy as the cage matches from before (but there are now a few extra challenges like cycling weapons, and of course the obstacle courses...which reuse the same routes for all 10 or so ones).
But Up Your Arsenal definitely has some direct improvements, particularly some quality of life ones. Being able to refill all ammo at once from a vendor is such a huge improvement.
The plot now feels a tad more focused by having a hub world that you go back to between many of the levels. I liked that it utilised many of the past side characters well. Much better than past games which kinda just chauffeured you from one planet to the next.
Great villain with fun chemistry with his sidekick/butler.
The Qwark Vid Comics are a really great side activity, not only letting you play as Qwark, but also bringing in a brand new style of gameplay (2D Platformer).
Even the Clank sections didn't feel that bad this time around. But maybe that's just because I'm used to them now. The giant clank battle was definitely infinitely less annoying than the ones in Going Commando though.
There's some things that I think remain the same too, obviously the combat itself is basically the exact same (which isn't a bad thing). But it even carries over the flaw of puzzles just not being hard. Like when you use the refractor it's always 100% obvious what you need to do, so it feels like you're just wasting a bunch of time to equip the item over and over. Plus like I said in my last review, I really dislike how the weapon upgrade system works in these games. It promotes using weapons in bad context, and, ironically, ignoring fully upgraded weapons because it feels like a waste of exp. It is at least nice to see how close you are to levelling up weapons in terms of numbers now though I guess.
I'd basically say this game is a sidegrade than an upgrade or downgrade to the last game. It giveths and it takeths away.
There are times when I did feel the shortcuts taken though, like how some levels have 4/5 missions that all take place in the same exact area and just have you mow down hordes of enemies. The hovership sections are hugely nerfed and less fun versions of the spaceship battles. The arena battles don't have anything as flashy as the cage matches from before (but there are now a few extra challenges like cycling weapons, and of course the obstacle courses...which reuse the same routes for all 10 or so ones).
But Up Your Arsenal definitely has some direct improvements, particularly some quality of life ones. Being able to refill all ammo at once from a vendor is such a huge improvement.
The plot now feels a tad more focused by having a hub world that you go back to between many of the levels. I liked that it utilised many of the past side characters well. Much better than past games which kinda just chauffeured you from one planet to the next.
Great villain with fun chemistry with his sidekick/butler.
The Qwark Vid Comics are a really great side activity, not only letting you play as Qwark, but also bringing in a brand new style of gameplay (2D Platformer).
Even the Clank sections didn't feel that bad this time around. But maybe that's just because I'm used to them now. The giant clank battle was definitely infinitely less annoying than the ones in Going Commando though.
There's some things that I think remain the same too, obviously the combat itself is basically the exact same (which isn't a bad thing). But it even carries over the flaw of puzzles just not being hard. Like when you use the refractor it's always 100% obvious what you need to do, so it feels like you're just wasting a bunch of time to equip the item over and over. Plus like I said in my last review, I really dislike how the weapon upgrade system works in these games. It promotes using weapons in bad context, and, ironically, ignoring fully upgraded weapons because it feels like a waste of exp. It is at least nice to see how close you are to levelling up weapons in terms of numbers now though I guess.
I'd basically say this game is a sidegrade than an upgrade or downgrade to the last game. It giveths and it takeths away.
2022
One of the most satisfying games I've ever played. The rush of fighting a huge group of enemies and perfectly weaving through them, parrying them and smacking them with the beautiful sound effects is amazing. It's a game that requires patience and a lot of repetition to be able to master every level. For that purpose, the (admittedly small amount) of levels are fantastic. On top of all being very fast paced levels that are fit for replaying with little to no breaks, they all look great and have neat set pieces; a big shout out to level 3 especially. A very minor thing, but there are a couple of empty areas that seem a bit pointless and on a first run are nothing more than 10 second breather, but on the 5th+ run make you wish you could just skip them.
Another issue I had at one point was when trying to get a good run, either for keeping your age down, or keeping the multiplier up so you can get the shrine skills that require the most points, the parts of the level you've perfected become a bit annoying to have to constantly run through until you can get to the part where you're struggling.
The age mechanic is a creative way to add a lives system into the game and tie it directly into the story. And the fact that death counters build up to make you skip more lives at once fits with the demand for avoiding mistakes.
There's a lot of skills to unlock, and this is one area I feel the game purposefully tried to drag out its small content. Skills themselves are easy to unlock once, but to permanently unlock them (so you can use them in any run), you need to purchase them an extra 5 times after the initial purchase - and if you've say, purchased them 4 extra times then start a new run, you'll need to do the initial purchase again before you can buy the final extra and unlock it for good. Doing this for all skills becomes a needless grind imo.
There also weren't enough context-sensitive skills, and as a result of the huge list of skills I probably only ended up using about 30% of them as they were the most effective against every enemy. That said, there are still plenty of skills that you can get which just make you feel that much stronger in the game.
Another issue I had at one point was when trying to get a good run, either for keeping your age down, or keeping the multiplier up so you can get the shrine skills that require the most points, the parts of the level you've perfected become a bit annoying to have to constantly run through until you can get to the part where you're struggling.
The age mechanic is a creative way to add a lives system into the game and tie it directly into the story. And the fact that death counters build up to make you skip more lives at once fits with the demand for avoiding mistakes.
There's a lot of skills to unlock, and this is one area I feel the game purposefully tried to drag out its small content. Skills themselves are easy to unlock once, but to permanently unlock them (so you can use them in any run), you need to purchase them an extra 5 times after the initial purchase - and if you've say, purchased them 4 extra times then start a new run, you'll need to do the initial purchase again before you can buy the final extra and unlock it for good. Doing this for all skills becomes a needless grind imo.
There also weren't enough context-sensitive skills, and as a result of the huge list of skills I probably only ended up using about 30% of them as they were the most effective against every enemy. That said, there are still plenty of skills that you can get which just make you feel that much stronger in the game.
2019
Despite the huge controversy involving this game, I really enjoyed it. Obviously it's still Pokémon, if you've enjoyed Pokémon at its most basic level, I see no reason you wouldn't enjoy this.
I absolutely love what this game does with gym battles, turning it into a huge competition. Everyone starting at the same time means you get a true feeling of progression, and as you go on you hear of more and more challengers who had to drop out due to it being too tough. The way it starts out with you registering with everyone else, then going to sleep at a hotel before waking up to see a crowd of people gathered to cheer you on creates such a huge scale of excitement.
It does kind of die down near the end unfortunately. By the 5th or 6th gym the challenge is treated almost like any other game, until we get to the finals, which once again bring up the scale far above anything seen in past games.
So overall I really enjoyed the story, even if it was simple. Just you, the player, on a quest to become the greatest trainer of all time. It's what all the games have technically been about, but this is the first one that truly made me feel like the game took it seriously. I also liked the little sub plots it caused, like Bede being disqualified and then picked up as the fairy type gym leader.
The difficulty in this game is a somewhat weird one. While I do feel like the game is scaled to exp share, the Wild Area makes trying to predict player levels a mammoth task. A player could skip the Wild Area completely and maybe be under-leveled, especially if they don't catch or beat any wild Pokémon. On the other hand a player could spend hours and hours in there before even getting their first gym badge. By adding so much freedom to the player without dynamic scaling, finding the sweet spot is difficult. I had a really weird experience myself, for the first 3 gyms I was slightly ahead of the gym leaders, then the 4th gym had a big boost and caught up to me, but after that, despite me not changing my play-style, I skyrocketed ahead of the rest of the gym leaders.
This weird level curve is especially prevalent in the "champion cup" as its called. It's essentially a long stretch of story which, while technically possible to take a break from and grind, isn't encouraged at all by the way it pushes itself forward. But when I started this section I was about 10 levels ahead of the first opponents Pokémon, then by the time I got the champion I was actually slightly under-levelled. The game essentially makes it that you have to be over-levelled for most of the climax to stand a chance against the final boss; it's such weird game design.
As for the Exp scaling, the game uses the method of giving less exp the higher level you are compared to your opponent. This works pretty well for the most part, but there's one major flaw: Wild Pokémon. For some crazy reason the wild Pokémon in this game are far above even the trainers in their area. Hell I ran into a few wild Pokémon that were higher level than me! Since a huge part of Pokémon has always been to "catch 'em all", naturally I did try to catch a bunch of Pokémon on my journey, but because they were all buffed to crazy levels, the idea of getting less exp for beating/catching lower level Pokémon kind of became futile. If they just lowered the levels of the wild mons it would have done so much to improve game balance. Of course you could just ignore them to not get the exp, but if your idea of game design is to not play as much of the game as you can, there's a problem.
Presentation in this game is definitely a step above anything we've seen in the series so far. Gym battles alone are a great example of this, as now there's no transition between the pre-battle dialogue and the battle itself. Instead the opponent and your character with get into position and it flows into the start of battle seamlessly. Add in a bunch of Mid-battle dialogue and it really helps make these battles stand out from the rest, whereas in previous games the only real difference between a gym battle and a regular battle was the music and a slight difficulty increase. Unfortunately it's not all great, a lot of the animations and cutscenes still look cheap. It's a shame because the very early cutscene of the starters showed such great promise, but nothing like that ever really came up again.
Going on to the things that make this game unique over other Pokémon games, let's start with Dynamax. Personally I hated it. Mechanically it just feels like a mish-mash of Megas and Z-Moves, but both of them done far worse. And from a practical point of view, trying to imagine these Pokémon fighting each other at that size is just ridiculous. I would have much preferred to just have no gimmick at all over this.
The Wild Area is decent. It's not super deep or anything, and the weather effects changing from area to area look janky as all hell, but it does a pretty good job of showing off a bunch of Pokémon walking around, making it feel alive and active. Raid battles are also a fun addition, even though I don't think they have the staying power I think Gamefreak wants them to. But the amount of rewards you get every time you clear one is bound to set off those happy chemicals in your brain that make you want to keep playing.
The gym challenges before the gym battles themselves are very hit or miss. On one hand we have creative ideas, like trying to gain points by catching/defeating Pokémon while also having to deal with an NPC trying to sabotage you, we have things that give a unique gameplay mechanic that we've never seen before in Pokémon, like the spinning cup thing, or Wooloo herding. Then we have ideas that aren't necessarily bad, but aren't new, like the water maze feels very similar to past gyms with switches/levels to control water flow. But then the last 2 gyms just gave up completely and made the pre-leader challenges just a bunch of trainer fights. Even the fairy gym, which is done in the style of a quiz - not a new concept, but they try to make it feel fresh by adding stat boosts/debuffs depending on your answer - feels worse than old versions as the questions no longer test your knowledge of Pokémon and instead just ask dumb questions about the gym leader that feel like they're purposely set up to trick you. Overall it's a promising concept that just wasn't utilised very well outside of a couple of gyms.
I had fun with the game, and other than a certain lack of undeniable cheapness in certain scripted events, which give the impression this was a 3DS game, it does its job just fine. What's wrong with it is what it doesn't have, because there's so much damn potential in this game just begging to come out. This could have easily been the best game in the series if they just put in some extra effort.
I absolutely love what this game does with gym battles, turning it into a huge competition. Everyone starting at the same time means you get a true feeling of progression, and as you go on you hear of more and more challengers who had to drop out due to it being too tough. The way it starts out with you registering with everyone else, then going to sleep at a hotel before waking up to see a crowd of people gathered to cheer you on creates such a huge scale of excitement.
It does kind of die down near the end unfortunately. By the 5th or 6th gym the challenge is treated almost like any other game, until we get to the finals, which once again bring up the scale far above anything seen in past games.
So overall I really enjoyed the story, even if it was simple. Just you, the player, on a quest to become the greatest trainer of all time. It's what all the games have technically been about, but this is the first one that truly made me feel like the game took it seriously. I also liked the little sub plots it caused, like Bede being disqualified and then picked up as the fairy type gym leader.
The difficulty in this game is a somewhat weird one. While I do feel like the game is scaled to exp share, the Wild Area makes trying to predict player levels a mammoth task. A player could skip the Wild Area completely and maybe be under-leveled, especially if they don't catch or beat any wild Pokémon. On the other hand a player could spend hours and hours in there before even getting their first gym badge. By adding so much freedom to the player without dynamic scaling, finding the sweet spot is difficult. I had a really weird experience myself, for the first 3 gyms I was slightly ahead of the gym leaders, then the 4th gym had a big boost and caught up to me, but after that, despite me not changing my play-style, I skyrocketed ahead of the rest of the gym leaders.
This weird level curve is especially prevalent in the "champion cup" as its called. It's essentially a long stretch of story which, while technically possible to take a break from and grind, isn't encouraged at all by the way it pushes itself forward. But when I started this section I was about 10 levels ahead of the first opponents Pokémon, then by the time I got the champion I was actually slightly under-levelled. The game essentially makes it that you have to be over-levelled for most of the climax to stand a chance against the final boss; it's such weird game design.
As for the Exp scaling, the game uses the method of giving less exp the higher level you are compared to your opponent. This works pretty well for the most part, but there's one major flaw: Wild Pokémon. For some crazy reason the wild Pokémon in this game are far above even the trainers in their area. Hell I ran into a few wild Pokémon that were higher level than me! Since a huge part of Pokémon has always been to "catch 'em all", naturally I did try to catch a bunch of Pokémon on my journey, but because they were all buffed to crazy levels, the idea of getting less exp for beating/catching lower level Pokémon kind of became futile. If they just lowered the levels of the wild mons it would have done so much to improve game balance. Of course you could just ignore them to not get the exp, but if your idea of game design is to not play as much of the game as you can, there's a problem.
Presentation in this game is definitely a step above anything we've seen in the series so far. Gym battles alone are a great example of this, as now there's no transition between the pre-battle dialogue and the battle itself. Instead the opponent and your character with get into position and it flows into the start of battle seamlessly. Add in a bunch of Mid-battle dialogue and it really helps make these battles stand out from the rest, whereas in previous games the only real difference between a gym battle and a regular battle was the music and a slight difficulty increase. Unfortunately it's not all great, a lot of the animations and cutscenes still look cheap. It's a shame because the very early cutscene of the starters showed such great promise, but nothing like that ever really came up again.
Going on to the things that make this game unique over other Pokémon games, let's start with Dynamax. Personally I hated it. Mechanically it just feels like a mish-mash of Megas and Z-Moves, but both of them done far worse. And from a practical point of view, trying to imagine these Pokémon fighting each other at that size is just ridiculous. I would have much preferred to just have no gimmick at all over this.
The Wild Area is decent. It's not super deep or anything, and the weather effects changing from area to area look janky as all hell, but it does a pretty good job of showing off a bunch of Pokémon walking around, making it feel alive and active. Raid battles are also a fun addition, even though I don't think they have the staying power I think Gamefreak wants them to. But the amount of rewards you get every time you clear one is bound to set off those happy chemicals in your brain that make you want to keep playing.
The gym challenges before the gym battles themselves are very hit or miss. On one hand we have creative ideas, like trying to gain points by catching/defeating Pokémon while also having to deal with an NPC trying to sabotage you, we have things that give a unique gameplay mechanic that we've never seen before in Pokémon, like the spinning cup thing, or Wooloo herding. Then we have ideas that aren't necessarily bad, but aren't new, like the water maze feels very similar to past gyms with switches/levels to control water flow. But then the last 2 gyms just gave up completely and made the pre-leader challenges just a bunch of trainer fights. Even the fairy gym, which is done in the style of a quiz - not a new concept, but they try to make it feel fresh by adding stat boosts/debuffs depending on your answer - feels worse than old versions as the questions no longer test your knowledge of Pokémon and instead just ask dumb questions about the gym leader that feel like they're purposely set up to trick you. Overall it's a promising concept that just wasn't utilised very well outside of a couple of gyms.
I had fun with the game, and other than a certain lack of undeniable cheapness in certain scripted events, which give the impression this was a 3DS game, it does its job just fine. What's wrong with it is what it doesn't have, because there's so much damn potential in this game just begging to come out. This could have easily been the best game in the series if they just put in some extra effort.
It's weird to think that Resident Evil 4 would work, let alone be considered a competing best entry game in the franchise along with REmake. It practically reinvents everything the franchise was known for, removing all signs of survival horror for a more action focused game. Puzzles are few and far between. Linearity is more pronounced now, with things like weapons no longer being found on the map, but bought from a merchant, along with weapon upgrades. The game even lacks zombies of all things, at least in the usual sense. It even adds elements that people just dislike about gaming in general - half the game is essentially an escort mission, and quick time events are everywhere.
So why is it so good?! I guess because the shift was done so well, the game acting so fluently in the genre, that newcomers may not even realise it hasn't always been this way. The shooting in the game feels so satisfying and set pieces are so memorable, such as the minecart section. The atmosphere is incredible too, which helps a lot to keep that horror Resident Evil vibe.
Inventory management is still around, but not at all like it used to be. Whereas old games were more about trying to juggle the many key items with your weapons and healing, this one gives you a ton of space, puts key items in a separate section completely, but now the literal positioning of your non-key items matters. Like before weapons take up varying amounts of space, but not just a case of shotgun = 2 slots and pistol = 1. A shotgun will take up a comparatively large section, and rather than fitting neatly into squares, you have to manoeuvre your items around in an efficient way in the trunk to maximise the amount of stuff you can store at once. It's like its own little minigame which is surprisingly addictive, and satisfying.
I liked the game a lot. Just a few minor nitpicks here and there, most notable for me was the lack of quick weapon switching. This game will have you swapping weapons a lot, so needing to go into your menu every single time to throw a single grenade can throw off the flow of the battle just a little bit.
So why is it so good?! I guess because the shift was done so well, the game acting so fluently in the genre, that newcomers may not even realise it hasn't always been this way. The shooting in the game feels so satisfying and set pieces are so memorable, such as the minecart section. The atmosphere is incredible too, which helps a lot to keep that horror Resident Evil vibe.
Inventory management is still around, but not at all like it used to be. Whereas old games were more about trying to juggle the many key items with your weapons and healing, this one gives you a ton of space, puts key items in a separate section completely, but now the literal positioning of your non-key items matters. Like before weapons take up varying amounts of space, but not just a case of shotgun = 2 slots and pistol = 1. A shotgun will take up a comparatively large section, and rather than fitting neatly into squares, you have to manoeuvre your items around in an efficient way in the trunk to maximise the amount of stuff you can store at once. It's like its own little minigame which is surprisingly addictive, and satisfying.
I liked the game a lot. Just a few minor nitpicks here and there, most notable for me was the lack of quick weapon switching. This game will have you swapping weapons a lot, so needing to go into your menu every single time to throw a single grenade can throw off the flow of the battle just a little bit.