I will be upfront here and admit that my initial impression of Magic Pengel was underwhelming. The first couple of hours felt extremely plodding, thanks to the opening glut of story cutscenes with awkward voice acting, the lack of part variety to attach to your Doodles (your drawable monsters for battle), and the initial grind for more colors necessary to both draw and further develop your Doodles. This initial grind can be a nightmare because a lot of the fightable villagers will easily outclass you in terms of sheer stats and stall you out by using Charge every other turn to heal off more damage than you can inflict, so you’ll end up wasting your arena time if you happen to challenge a super tough villager since there’s also no way to forfeit a match. It also doesn’t help that there’s a half minute loading screen every time you need to move to a new area in the overworld, so you’ll end up sitting through over a minute of loading screens moving between the two main arenas alone since there’s no fast travel and you’ll have to pass through the market every time. Not a great start for a seemingly great premise!

Get past this initial roadblock by winning a few arena matches and gaining enough resources to thoroughly flesh out your Doodles with better stats, however, and the game starts to find its footing. Combat is almost entirely turn-based rock-paper-scissors (magic trumps attack, attack trumps block, block trumps magic) with some degree of mind games. This fortunately does get a bit more complex later on; landing magic spells can inflict status effects such as paralysis and sleep upon foes, as well as temporarily lock or punish types of attacks depending on the spell used. This essentially adds another layer to the mind games, aside from the aforementioned Charge for healing/powering-up the next attack/resetting neutral; thus, combat isn't just mindlessly following the advantage triangle specified above. In addition, the colors and parts used (i.e. adding limbs, wings, a held weapon, etc) drastically change both your stat and skill distribution (explained in more detail here and here ), and since your drawing capabilities and max capacity are increased with each arena win, you’ll likely be redrawing your Doodles all the time anyways to keep up with the tougher fights while tinkering with new and expanded loadouts. Simultaneously, it becomes a lot easier to farm resources since your Doodles will finally have enough attack power to deal more damage than opponents can heal off with Charge, and you’ll earn significantly more of each color (a few thousand as opposed to a few hundred in the early game) upon victories. While Magic Pengel’s combat never reaches the depth of similar monster battling systems such as Pokemon, I nevertheless found it easy enough to get into the rhythm of the progression loop once I got past the opening grind, and it served as a solid podcast game that vaguely reminded me of my days laddering on Pokemon Showdown.

A word of warning though: as much fun as it is sketching crude creatures with your Pengel and watching your crayon abominations destroy developer-drawn Doodles with much more effort put into sketching, that is unfortunately just about all that this game has to offer. Magic Pengel’s narrative touches upon some interesting lore and story beats concerning both the world of color and the supporting cast (such as your friend Zoe’s connection with her missing foster father, a renowned Doodler that once worked for the king), but the game never goes into too much detail with its sparse storytelling, and it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger as your friends decide to set off on another adventure. While you can sell spare colors for gold gems, there’s not much to purchase from shopkeepers; you can buy a few brushes to further adjust your line thickness, but the only other items on offer are Doodles, and there’s no point in buying those when you’ll get far more utility out of drawing your own (especially because you can’t delete any part of a Doodle drawn by an NPC). Finally, the game is a bit lacking in post-game content. The only unlocked features are a new arena where you can engage in 1 v 3 or 2 v 3 fights for higher rewards, as well as a hidden boss that can be fought if you somehow grind one million gold gems. As such, I have to concede that a lot of the Magic Pengel’s surrounding elements could have used some more time in the oven.

Ultimately, I prefer the game’s spiritual successor Graffiti Kingdom for its more succinct runtime and expanded drawing utensils. Even so, I mostly enjoyed my time with Magic Pengel (the quaint charm and artstyle admittingly a big reason why), and I’d say it’s worth checking out if you want a taste of one of more creative monster collecting/creating games out there. I think Taito had something really special on their hands with this formula, and it’s a shame we’ll never see a game in this vein from them again.

Maybe I’m being too cynical with this, but I’ve never been more happy to see the credits in a game. They did a great job of fleshing the world out from Breath of the Wild. It truly felt like Hyrule was healing from what happened previously, but once you dug into it, you realized how boring everything was.

Combat was the same, sidequests are just fetch quests, and the story is one of the most forgettable in the series.

I want to love this game, but I also want a life, and I feel like I need to sink more than the 80+ hours to get everything out of it.

So after about 30 hours i finished it. I was close to giving up a couple times, but there was something about this game that always pulled me back. I loved the big bright colourful graphics, the animations, the different forms and their different attacks and perks. You can tell they really put a lot of effort into making a balanced game where you can get a lot out of every character if you put the time into it. The world map and all the different dungeons got a little grindy but still enjoyable enough to keep me playing. Oh shit, and the music! So fucking good dude. I had some of these tunes in my head for days.

I haven't got this addicted to a rogue-like since Hades, and that's a super high compliment.

So I needed something to cleanse the palate after 100,000 hands of Balatro and this did the trick nicely. Beat the game in 10 hours-ish and now going back to find all manual pages.

Stuff I really liked: The manual of course. Its so goddam cute, and a nice way to give hints and maps to the player. The music is superb, with some absolutely gorgeous tracks (between this and Cocoon, we're in a great era for indie soundtracks). I like how it rewards the player for exploring every inch of the maps, as secret rooms are often out of sight and obscured.

Stuff that was ok: graphics are nice, but not jaw dropping. Combat is basically Dark Souls-Lite, you got attack, dodge and then items and magic to use. Pretty basic, but serviceable. The game is pretty hard, and you will get more than a few very cheap deaths because the combat is not refined enough, and also the camera is too pulled back for really precise combat. Level design is ok, and the way the maps all connect is cool (and once again very Souls).

Stuff that got old, fast: cheap combat deaths, annoying enemies. Bosses are pretty hard, but mostly because of how spongy they are and how easy it is to get hit because of the imprecise controls and camera not being close enough to the action. Backtracking and not knowing where to go next. The manual gives you just enough hints, but man there is so much random wandering around and backtracking through areas, over and over again. Constantly pulling up the manual to check the maps to see where to go, just to get to the fast travel nexus area, to get to another area, just on the off chance there is some treasure or some room that wasn't accessible the first time through, but now with new abilities might be.....yeah that aspect of the game is tedious and boring.

With its Zelda inspired aesthetic and Dark Souls mechanics, this was a lot of fun. I like how getting the manual pages are so important, because without them you are basically wandering blindly through this world. Cute graphics, great music. Really good game, and with a few tweaks could have been a classic.

Edit: an extra 5 or so hours to get the Plat. The puzzles you need to decipher to get the secret treasures and fairies, not to mention getting all the manual pages and opening that friggin' mountain door tho.....ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS. Took me about 5 hours using online guides, without those it would have been about 50 hours, if I could have done it at all. Really obscure crazy "how the fuck did anyone work this out?" kind of logic. That input to open the mountain door is just bananas on its own. I kinda respect it, but at the same time, I don't wanna have to use guides to work this shit out. If anyone got the Plat without using a guide or getting any help, I call bullshit.

To be honest, I struggle to count a physical pinball machine as a video game, but alas it felt wrong to not include it in my list of every Star Wars game. So here we are, the Phantom Menace pinball machine, obviously I can't go out and find this machine from 1999, so y'know, no rating or ranking.

I bet it's some pinball, and I bet it's got some Star Wars!

(See all my Star Wars Rankings and reviews on my profile here, the list is titled "Star Wars Ranked.")

A pretty sweet F-zero type racer that offers some real challenge towards the end.

Obviously it doesn't reach the heights of F-zero, but it's still a great racer. You get that incredible sense of speed while visiting some pretty aesthetically cool Star Wars locations, while unlocking basically every pod racer known to man.

The controls can be sliiightly jank, as it's overly sensitive at times, also the main issue of this game is it's collision detection. Sometimes you will collide with basically nothing, some wonky hitbox, and it'll cost you the race, which can be pretty annoying. It doesn't happen that often but it exists.

There's a lack of pod customization as nothing ever changes visually, and the system to upgrade your pod is just kinda bland honestly. Really the 3.5 is for the blistering fast races. Even the course design isn't anything especially remarkable, this is what seperates F-zero from everyone else.

Still as previously mentioned, this game is FAST, and it's impossible to not find some fun with it. I see why so many people have nostalgia for this one.

(See all my Star Wars Rankings and reviews on my profile here, the list is titled "Star Wars Ranked.")

Per Aspera Ad Astra!

Mafia II foca na história e abre mão do mundo aberto. De fato, é impossível jogar este game sem lembrar um pouquinho que seja de Grand Theft Auto mas a comparação é de fato mínima. Mafia não foca em dar liberdade ao jogador e sim em CONTAR A HISTÓRIA.

Isso até faz o mundo do jogo ser totalmente raso (Poucas pessoas na rua, poucos carros, poucas falas, o mundo é realmente meio vazio e morto) e pra ajudar o game não tem nenhuma missão secundária legal ou interessante (Na verdade nem tem mesmo).

Real dá pra sentir que a 2K focou totalmente na história do game. O jogo foca na vida de Vito Scaletta, um garoto vindo da Itália pros EUA que serviu na guerra e que por inúmeros motivos entra pro mundo errado.

A história é o ponto alto do jogo, a violência e esteriótipos fazem você se sentir em um filme sobre a mafia. Os personagens tem um desenvolvimento muito legal, o que contribui com o desenrolar da narrativa.

Vale elogiar a dirigibilidade e o combate com armas do jogo, que envelheceram muito bem. Em contra partida o combate corpo a corpo é repetitivo e sem emoção nenhuma

Algumas outras limitações como por exemplo o protagonista não pular e não nadar (Bizarro o jogo nem deixar você chegar com seu personagem na água) ofuscam a boa narrativa do jogo.

Joe Barbaro eu sou seu fã.

PRÓS:
- Narrativa excelente.
- Dirigibilidade envelheceu bem.

CONTRAS:
- Mundo aberto não existe.
- 0 conteúdo secundário.
- Limitações bobas.

As I mentioned in my review for the first Dragon Quest, I bought the mobile versions of the original Dragon Quest trilogy on a whim years ago. Last year I decided to finally finish the first game, and now I've chosen to finish its sequel this year. Dragon Quest II is a sequel that is surprisingly a vast improvement to its predecessor.

In terms of gameplay, its exactly the same as the first game, but considering that Dragon Quest is a series known for following tradition that is no surprise. This time however, you're not alone. You get two party members to assist you on your journey, the Prince of Cannock and the Princess of Moonbrooke. Having these party members is pretty much a necessity as the character you play as doesn't have magic this time and the latter parts of the game, especially the final boss would be much harder without them. The other noteble addition is the ability to sail across the land on your ship which has been included in every other game in the series onward. These additions come a long way in making the game feel fresh and interesting in comparison to the first game.

Dragon Quest II is a massive step forward, but there were some things I didn't like about it. My first issue is something that bothered me with the original as well, and that issue would be the random encounter rate. While I can understand why they were a thing in the RPGs of old, it gets really annoying getting spammed with encounters every two steps I make, especially when I'm lost or trying to traverse a new area. My other issue is that the game can be pretty cryptic at times when it comes to finding all the things you need to progress. I looked up guides significantly more this time than I did for DQ1 mostly just to find out where to go or where to find a certain item.

As for grinding in this game? Surprisingly, it wasn't too bad. Enemies drop reasonable amount of exp to where if you do need to grind, you won't need to for long. It's probably just an improvement they added in later versions they made, but considering that grinding seems to be a gripe that most people seem to have, I expected worse.

Dragon Quest II is in my opinion an underappreciated game that laid a lot of the groundwork for the rest of the series. It felt much more like an adventure in comparison to its predecessor. Considering how the original trilogy is on basically everything these days, I'd suggest either emulating or dropping a couple bucks on either the Switch or mobile versions. It may not be as good as the entries afterwards, but with the amount of improvements it makes its definitely worth a playthrough.