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| Sean and Jeff's Totally Radical VG Review | |
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| Topic Started: Jul 7 2008, 06:43 PM (335 Views) | |
| Jeff | Oct 26 2008, 05:41 PM Post #11 |
Lord of Pie & BBWs
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BlackDjeffgo: Hello everybody out there in the big, wide interwebs of ours! For Four Against Nature - I'm Jeff! The mighty SFX: And I would be Sean. The mighty SFX: So, who here remembers the Sonic the Hedgehog series? The mighty SFX: Back when the first few games were out, that is. BlackDjeffgo: My cousin had a Genesis - and I'm such a dork, I even picked up BOTH collection games for my GameCube. The mighty SFX: They were awesome, right? I STILL play them on occasion today. The mighty SFX: Now, let's look at the series today. The mighty SFX: ... The mighty SFX: *sobs* BlackDjeffgo: Unfortunately, Mr. Hedgehog has been doing downhill since the release of Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. BlackDjeffgo: Sonic Heroes was... well, okay, but great. Shadow was... awful. BlackDjeffgo: 2006 was reportedly so bad people thought it was a beta release BlackDjeffgo: Sonic Riders was WAY too hard and its sequel was just unplayable. The mighty SFX: Yeah. Games have gone from Medicore to downright Atrocious since SA2. BlackDjeffgo: ... Well, Sega Superstars Tennis was fun... BlackDjeffgo: The only times Sonic has been exceptional in recent times was the Sonic Rush games for the DS, or when Nintendo held the license for him The mighty SFX: Well, I had my problems with Sonic Rush but we're not here to review that game. We're here to review the Sonic RPG for the DS: Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. BlackDjeffgo: Which was NOT made by Sonic Team - but by BioWare. I'm not particularly aware of what BioWare has done, honestly, so I wasn't sure what to make of it at first. I picked up the game because, hey, anything had to be better than Shadow, right? BlackDjeffgo: ... Oh-ho-ho... The mighty SFX: Well, it might be better than Shadow...not saying that it makes the game GOOD BlackDjeffgo: I don't know about that. Shadow is PLAYABLE. The mighty SFX: Hmm... BlackDjeffgo: Okay, let's dive right on in - the game is played by the stylus to move Sonic around The mighty SFX: Enemies will appear on the map and if you make contact with them, you'll enter battle. BlackDjeffgo: Does anyone else remember what I said before in both my Star Fox Command review and my game rants? Not giving us a button config is NEVER a good idea. The mighty SFX: Agreed. I always felt awkward trying to manuever around using the stylus. BlackDjeffgo: I, for one, would have been fine moving with the control pad. It worked well enough in the DS port of Final Fantasy 3. The mighty SFX: Seriously. Now, as far as battles go....well... The mighty SFX: ....I can't even sugarcoat it. It's horrible. BlackDjeffgo: Touch screen controls, for the fail. BlackDjeffgo: You tap the screen to select a command, you tap the screen again to select the subcommand where applicable and then you tap the person you want to use it on. Sounds simple, right? In general basic commands like "Attack", it's fairly intuitive, I give it that. The mighty SFX: Special techniques, also known as POW Techniques require you to use the stylus in certain ways to get the maximum damage out of it BlackDjeffgo: POW, which is probably an abbreviation for "the Poor fOol's using these Worthless things again". The mighty SFX: Although the input commands make me feel like I'm playing Elite Beat Agents and not Sonic the Hedgehog. BlackDjeffgo: I think that's being far too nice. The commands are stiff and picky as all get-out. The POW commands come in 3 flavors. Circles that you tap when they turn green (which gives you less than a second to react), tap the circle 8 times, or drag the style in the circle through a set path. The mighty SFX: It also annoys me that if you mess up even slightly the damage you do PLUMMETS. BlackDjeffgo: You absolutely must be 100% PERFECT in order for it to do anything. BlackDjeffgo: And there's no way to practice these, except to use them in practice. BlackDjeffgo: That is to say, in battle. BlackDjeffgo: That is to say, waste your time and effort to try and figure them out. BlackDjeffgo: There's really only 2 or 3 special moves worth getting per character, and that's for the characters worth getting. BlackDjeffgo: IE: Sonic, Tails and Knuckles The mighty SFX: Well, we haven't gotten far enough to see all the characters, so maybe some others may be useful... The mighty SFX: Not like we'll get that far, though. BlackDjeffgo: The game's biggest handicap is its difficult curve in that there ISN'T one. It's a wall that you will hit after the very first boss of the game. The mighty SFX: Once you encounter Robotic enemies is when you've slammed into the wall The mighty SFX: Because Robotic enemies can be categorized as the following The mighty SFX: You either can't hit them, or you can hit them, but you do almost nothing for damage. BlackDjeffgo: Oh, and the kicker? Humanoid robots will self-repair for obscene amounts of health if you do not clear the field in THAT SPECIFIC TURN. Which is funny, as story-wise, the robots were supposedly already severely damaged. The mighty SFX: This specifically pisses me off because these are the same types you can't do any real damage to unless you spam your POW moves. The mighty SFX: ....oh, wait. you have virtually no PP for most of the game. BlackDjeffgo: You're fortunate if you have over 10 PP before level 15. And the lowest amount of PP per move I've seen? 4. The mighty SFX: And the best moves to go with are moves that involve groups. The mighty SFX: So that means you will burn through it rediculously fast. The mighty SFX: Oh, don't bother trying to level grind. It's impossible. EXP is not determined by the enemy but more or less is set by the part of the game you're on and maybe your level. You'll get the same EXP in a battle regardless of the enemy you fight. BlackDjeffgo: Once you're "passed" a certain enemy plot-wise (which the game will decide for you) you'll only get 10 exp a pop The mighty SFX: I want to try to level Knuckles to get some more PP so I can use my Triple Tech with him, Tails and Sonic twice a round to take down the boss. He needs about 150 more EXP to level up The mighty SFX: So that's 15-16 more battles The mighty SFX: And even then I may need to level up Sonic another level to get some extra power...which will take another 1400 EXP...or ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY BLOODY BATTLES. BlackDjeffgo: But fighting enemies that the game decides "On-par" with you are going to be WAY over your head The mighty SFX: This leveling system might be DUMBER than Final Fantasy 2's level system. BlackDjeffgo: Which means you either squeak by via luck alone, or you die a lot. The mighty SFX: Learn to save often BlackDjeffgo: It also doesn't help that of the first 6 characters in the game, 3 of them are utterly useless. The mighty SFX: Rouge absoloutely sucked in comparison to everyone else, her supposed Armor Piercing move still doing all of 8 damage to the robots, Big was just too slow overall to be of use and...I didn't bother with Cream. BlackDjeffgo: and Amy is on-par with Rouge in terms of sheer suck The mighty SFX: Amy was actually useful for me because she was the only one able to do any real damage with physical attacks to the Robotic enemies. BlackDjeffgo: I couldn't get her to do that much. BlackDjeffgo: Regardless, you're then left with a difficulty and exp issue that creates a very nasty Catch-22 that you can not get around The mighty SFX: Yeah. The mighty SFX: Oh, the Physical attacks are much more of a threat than their techniques The mighty SFX: I lost Tails in the first round of a battle because all three robots I fought attacked him. BlackDjeffgo: I suppose we forgot to mention - when an enemy uses a special attack, you're given a similar prompt as your POW moves, which can help you dodge them. If the game feels like it. The mighty SFX: If you get them all it's a guaranteed miss. The mighty SFX: So if you master them the techniques are pathetic. Which is good because the Humanoid Robots have Crusher, which REDUCES ATTACK The mighty SFX: Have fun trying to fight self-reviving robots when even your strongest techniques do only one damage. BlackDjeffgo: Especially the stronger variants which can revive with 50 HP even, when you're lucky to do 10 to them in one attack. The mighty SFX: In short, Jeff and I are stuck on the same part where we have to fight three SWAT bots who have 200+ HP and revive with 50 HP at the end of a turn The mighty SFX: My strategy involved trying to spam the Triple Tech between Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. The mighty SFX: Which would have worked had one random robot in the group not decided to suddenly not feel like taking damage and took a grant total of 3 damage in comparison to the other robots taking about 30. The mighty SFX: And it's almost REQUIRED that you kill them simultaneously. BlackDjeffgo: I also don't like the very fact that they named them SWAT Bots - trying to link the non-canon SatAM cartoon to the SegaSonic canon. For those who forgot that gem, it was Sonic trying to be Captain Planet. BlackDjeffgo: Oh, and Steve Urkel. BlackDjeffgo: More importantly, the game is nearly unplayable due to its difficulty wall. BlackDjeffgo: So, let's stop and look at some other elements other than gameplay. The mighty SFX: The music is overall pretty good....because it's remixes from other games. BlackDjeffgo: The graphics are pretty good, admittedly. BlackDjeffgo: I mean, it's N64-ish, but nice. The mighty SFX: And a few unique songs, too, but it seems that me and Jeff have gone on different paths...so let's resync. Yes, the Graphics were overal good. Nothing to write home about but they did the job well. BlackDjeffgo: Right. Now, back to the music BlackDjeffgo: Well, the music is pretty good The mighty SFX: I've always loved the music from the Sonic games. BlackDjeffgo: Me too, and in that regard, the game did succeed. The mighty SFX: With only a few exceptions. (*cough*Knuckles' Sonic Adventure themes*cough*) BlackDjeffgo: I actually liked those songs, but probably for the reasons that weren't intended... BlackDjeffgo: Meh. BlackDjeffgo: Anyways, the graphics are decent, the music is fairly good. The mighty SFX: Now if only the gameplay didn't suck. BlackDjeffgo: The story is... well, some "Maruaders" show up in the wake of an all-out military assault on Eggman and... okay, screw it. It's like something off Fanfiction.net. The mighty SFX: Yeah. So...All in all, it looks like Bioware couldn't do much for the series' Sonic Syndrome. The mighty SFX: The question is, can the upcoming Sonic games, Unleashed and Black Knight change that? The mighty SFX: If they can't, then I'm declaring the series as a whole to be dead. BlackDjeffgo: We'll get back to you when we get the chance to find out. The mighty SFX: Here's hoping, anyway. BlackDjeffgo: Anyways, let's get to the usual wrap-up The mighty SFX: Overall best part? BlackDjeffgo: Well, I liked most of the music The mighty SFX: I concur. I also liked the CONCEPT of there being a Sonic RPG..... The mighty SFX: Overall worst part? BlackDjeffgo: The robots. The mighty SFX: Also agreed. The mighty SFX: Also while I like the concept, the EXECUTION? ....yeah. BlackDjeffgo: It could have been so much more, but it ended up sabotaging itself with the worn-out trope of difficulty in lieu of innovation. The mighty SFX: Any final words to say? BlackDjeffgo: At the very least, Unleashed looks like it might be good. The mighty SFX: I certainly hope so. The mighty SFX: Well, I guess that's the end of that. BlackDjeffgo: Well, for FAN, I'm Jeff The mighty SFX: And I'm Sean. Remember, if someone tries to touch you in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable, that's NO GOOD. The mighty SFX: *Shot* BlackDjeffgo: Good night, everybody! |
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Come visit me and my thought processes at my website: http://www.publishedauthors.net/tdotdw/news.html "In the cold light, justice and morality always look corny and you can't wave the flag and look cool. But like it or not, society needs its heroes." - John Hart; actor who played The Lone Ranger. | |
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| Root | Oct 26 2008, 05:53 PM Post #12 |
The Speaker for the Dead
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Sounds like Flyff: Single Player Edition Featuring: NO BUSINESS EDITION INCLUDED! I was never too into Sonic games either way, but meh. By the way, are they now trying to subtly rip off titles that are already made? You know, Black Knight = Dark Knight? Meh. Whatever. |
Does being the only sane one make me the insane one, in a sort of way? Though my eyes could see, I was still a blind man; Though my mind could think, I still was a madman... "Yes there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run...there's still time to change the road you're on" | |
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| Sean | Oct 26 2008, 09:18 PM Post #13 |
The ⑥of Four Against Nature
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Well, the game if I recall is supposed to be based off of Arthurian Legend, so...y'know, King Arthur, Black Knight, Holy Grail, all that good stuff. |
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5:53 AM Nov 30
