Video Game-Ranting Center

[CedarBranch]

This post by CedarBranch was thumbed up by:

Killswitch (October 11th, 2014, 9:09 am)

[Harmless]

will edit later or make another post regarding the awesomeness of the underrated Final Fantasy Chrystal Chronicals Ring of Fates for DS.

[*Emelia K. Fletcher]

♥♥♥♥ boi



so hyped for rebirth

[Kimonio]

You want to talk about ♥♥♥♥?

Let's talk about ♥♥♥♥.



Ah, Mountain Bike Adrenaline. Right from the start, you think it's a good game, I mean, just look at the cover art!


See? That's badass already. So let's pop it in and....okay so this menu screen is atrocious already. You will notice that there is no freeplay option on any of the courses, rather you have a set time you are allowed to ride around and explore. That's ♥♥♥♥. That's not even ♥♥♥♥, that's a dumptruck of bull that just ate a bull, and ♥♥♥♥ it out. Yeah. That bad.

The controls are also a bit awkward, and take some time to get used to. You will find that by doing certain button combos you can perform tricks, and by pressing certain buttons, you are able to manipulate the biker in some way...but they are not fluid at all. And what the hell is that thing? A triangle? This guy must be taking some major ♥♥♥♥ to look that buff, his shoulders are wider than his hips! This already is a polygonal ♥♥♥♥.

Ah well...let's get on to the first course. You can see it in the video above, it is not easy....wait, what is that.

They give you a platform

That is the width of your tire.

And they expect you to cross it?

...The ♥♥♥♥?

And if you fall, oh yes, if you fall, and you WILL, COUNTLESS TIMES, you must restart from the beginning, no matter where you are.

I will say that the failures are pretty humorous, and even though the game was absolutely horrendous to play, I did not mind trying to catapult my biker halfway across the mountain and watch him tumble down into a river.

Also, I should mention the rivers...did you know if you go at least a foot and a half, you will fail and sink? Yeah. And not only that...but you can be COMPLETELY SUBMERGED and STILL manage to ride the bike! And all that you have to worry about is your breath! But that's okay, this guy can sit on a bike, underwater, and hold his breath for well over two minutes!


Let's look at another...George and the Jungle: The Search for the Secret......well doesn't that already give you a clue.



....I'll pass. My two major complaints are the graphics and controls. Graphics, yes, I know they were meant to be cartoony, but jesus christ you can at least put some work into the hitboxes and models! And the controls...the movements are so slow and almost feel like you are fighting someone while playing. And if you hit the wrong button, you have to wait to hit another one. And the puzzles...no....just no.

Even the bosses are a nightmare. I'm grateful that the first one lets you pick up where you left off when you lose, because you'll need that. You will die. Multiple times. On the first boss. Because he hits like a truck.

And let's not even tackle the second one. Ever.

Needless to say I never finished this game. It can kiss my ♥♥♥.



There is one more...but for that one, I am saving it for when I can actually record footage of gameplay personally. It is a nightmare.

[KABOOM]

muu

[KABOOM]

guh

[Harmless]

The only issue I ever have with Kirby Air Ride is;

- Swerve Star is a bit too OP
- Quick-spinning should've admittedly be re-assigned to B button or something, it's a bit annoying when I'm trying to swerve corners and I quick-spin on accident, reducing my speed.

[Kimonio]

https://youtu.be/rJvmjq7Yb1U?t=1522
This ♥♥♥♥ boss.

Skip to 25:30 if the video doesn't automatically jump far enough in towards the actual fight. This game, while amazing and worth the cost, is insanely difficult, even at easy.

I'm at the third chapter boss, and I'm struggling.

You should totally play this, by the way. The trial is free, and you get to play the first...four levels?

But these ♥♥♥♥ bosses, for christ's sake.

[Harmless]

will edit later or make another post regarding the awesomeness of the underrated Final Fantasy Chrystal Chronicals Ring of Fates for DS.

oh, whoops

well I might as well type out my thoughts now

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicals: Ring of Fates: show

LISTEN AND ORGASM

The soundtrack is amazing! It's easily on par with some other games like Ace Attorney, Xenoblade Chronicals, Kirby Air Ride, and C&C even. And this isn't even my favorite track of the game.

I'm not even talking about for DS standards, even up to the present I consider the FF (not you frozenfire): Ring of Fates soundtrack to be one of the best soundtracks in gaming history. Speaking of DS...

The game optimized the DS's layout quite nicely. The top screen was where all the action was, and the bottom screen had the four party members, magicites, and a few other options. The gameplay is real-time, as this is the Crystal Chronical spinoff series we're talking about. Magicites are limited in quantity and required to use to perform magic, but that's hardly a problem when you can;
a. Increase max number of magicite types you can hold.
b. When enemies drop them like candy at halloween.
c. When Magic is pretty powerful and the targeting system for magic is actually quite cool.
Different varieties in spells can be casted when you mix and match magicites. For example, mixing a Fire with a Clear magicite provides the Barrier spell, which upgrades defense for some time. Mixing Fire, Ice, and Thunder creates Gravity, which deals gravity type damage and inhibits flying/jumping. Quite useful on a lot of enemies, though it takes some time to prepare (unless you have three human players which are well coordinated).

As for melee attacks, all classes attack differently and use different weapons. Clavats use swords, Yukes use staffs (which also shoot a mid-ranged magic ball), Selkies use bows, and Liltys use maces/ladles. Each class functions differently and have their own perks. For example, Selkies can double jump, Lilties can roll around inside their alchemist pots, and Yukes can gain equipment that allows them to cast magicite spells very fast.

As for the story... I'm not spoiling it. But despite the dialogue being a bit cheesy at times, it was incredible. It really was. And if you've ever played it, man the final boss was such an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, both in story terms and actually facing him.

As for the overall difficulty in the game, it's actually not too bad. Sure, you're bound to gain at least one game over, but I'd say the difficulty is balanced. Unfortunately, Hard and Very Hard difficulty modes are not recommended. For one, you start out with only one party member and gain the other 3 over time (they come in kinda quickly though, so don't worry). They're given bonus levels to accommodate coming in at later points in the adventure. That doesn't happen in Hard/Very Hard. Instead they stay at the levels you ended the Normal/previous difficulty with. which sucks a lot, making it hard to replay the game with all your good gear.

But then there's also custom adventures where you can create your own character and adventure through solo-player versions of all the levels in the game. You bet I spent a TON of time on that. The replayability is insane outside of the main story!

I think I'll leave my thoughts at that for now. Any more would kinda spoilerify the game.

[ChaosYoshi]

So I've been playing Pokémon Shuffle for a while, and while I do like some parts of the game, there's just so much held back by bad design whether it's from an oversight, or (most of the time) the god damn F2P monetization system. Sure, the entire game is beatable without the need to pay any money, but it's frustrating as hell to do so, which does not make me want to pay the developers as much as it makes me want to close the game and delete it from my SD card.

To start off with the good things, it shares the type advantages from the main games, much like the Trozei series does (in fact it's made by the same developer), and that adds a bit of strategic elements to the game. Each Pokémon also has unique abilities that can aid you during a stage, like clearing obstacles, preventing the target Pokémon from altering the field, or increased damage when you line up 4 or 5 instead of just 3 or at random. I also like how you can move the pieces on the board can be moved to any other spot as long as it makes a match. It's not as intricate as something like Puzzles & Dragons, but it creates a lot of options. Mega Evolutions are also used relatively well, as they all have unique abilities that help clear out the board. All you have to do is create enough matches of your lead Pokémon to make it Mega Evolve if possible.

Now with the stuff I can't stand about the game. For one, just like almost any other match-3 game out there on the market, long-lasting combos rely on luck, which some target Pokémon in the game are given so much damn health that you have to get lucky to even complete the stage, let along capture it. Oh yeah, like the main games, there's a capture system in this, too, and it relies on luck. The target Pokémon always has a set capture percentage, but if you finish the stage with more remaining moves, you can increase the odds in your favor. However, like I said, some of the Pokémon take a large beating, so by the time you finish the stage, you only have 1 or 2 moves left, which sometimes adds as little as 2 or 4 percent to your chances. This is incredibly infuriating, especially when the standard capture rate is already absurdly low (some go as low as 1%), and you only add 4% to those odds. You can buy a great ball to double your odds for 2,500 coins, but even that can fail (unless you get a 100% capture rate, of course). The good thing is that you don't have to outright buy coins with real money in this game, as completing a stage in this game gives you coins. The problem with that is that you only get about 100 coins (200 on Expert and more on certain Special stages) the first time you complete it, and 30 coins when completed afterwards, which means it takes forever to build up money. There are also stages that are structured to make sure that you cannot make any possible moves, and when that happens, the board gets shuffled as if you started the stage again, but without resetting your progress. That may not sound bad, but it's incredibly frustrating to have a perfect combo set up, only for the target Pokémon spam about 5 groups of hazards in a row before you can even move, usually guaranteeing that you lose that setup. But what about those unique abilities I mentioned earlier? Don't those help combat these hazards? Well, yes. They can. However, almost all of these abilities have an element of randomness, which adds to that first problem I mentioned. Those abilities that delete hazards always trigger when the hazard exists on the board, but it randomly select which hazard(s) gets deleted if there's multiples of the same one. And sometimes those abilities are outright disabled for an entire stage, which the player is not warned at all about. It's like giving the players tools to solve a problem, but then the game just inexplicably takes away those tools.

I don't really know if any of you cared in the first place about Pokémon Shuffle, but there's my rant about the whole thing.