Oh yeah, it's 1988 and that new RPG thing Phantasy Star is out! At least, that's how I imagine the '88 gamer kids talked back then. The game was a break through in RPGs for the consoles. The game was freakin' huge for the times, the music utilized a special sound chip that was, of course, Japan only. It had "fake" 3D graphics, and it had a female lead character. So, let's boot this thing up and see how it compares to the spoiled gamers of 2011
I do have to say, the graphics are very well done and the 3D effect would have blown my mind. It does make you feel like you are actually traversing through a dungeon. It was hard to get immersed without imagination back then. That's because the scenery is a bit dull and the dungeons are usually just brick wall mazes. Still though, the monsters and cut scenes are really well done.
Maybe it's the localization, or because the graphics took up so much of the games space, but the story was kinda meh. The towns folk littered in the game give you strange riddle-like clues and sometimes just useless information. Direction is another thing the game kind of lacked, too. It's debatable if it's a good thing or not. I'm not too much of a fan of being dropped off in an area with very little information, especially when you are so damn weak!
Monster encounters early on require you to just wait for the right monster to kill and fleeing from the rest. I'm not sure if they made it that way to keep you playing, but there is a tad bit of a grind just to progress. It's definitely not stream lined, and it's a little bit open. You can stumble into places you shouldn't be and get your ass kicked pretty bad.
Gameplay-wise it's everything you'd expect from an old RPG with turn based fights. It gets a bit dull and I had a hard time gearing up. It kind of sucks having to buy a piece of gear for a bunch of meseta and have it not be as good, or not for the right character. So yeah, the menus are a bit poor in design, which of course gets worked on as the series progresses. What's important is the game's historical impact! If you go back and play it without a walk through, prepare to sink some hours into it. I personally had to use a walk through at times, and you'll see why if you try the game out!
Enemy 585 is a puzzle based strategy game that is as fun as indie games come these days. I honestly don't have really a bad thing I can say about this game. The music, ooh the music! It brings me back to better days when games were more simple. There isn't much to the game; The goal is to guide the little pink guy with a helmet through obstacles using a bar that you control. Enemy 585 controls himself through the level and it's your job to collect coins and keep him alive until the level is finished. This game truly shows how complex games are not always the best. This is such a simple concept and yet it is as addicting as games come.
I really gotta give a thumbs up to the guys over at Nitrome for this jewel of an indie puzzle game. Enemy 585 is some of the most fun you can have online for free, hands down. If you're into puzzles, good music, and good times this game is a must play. I'm serious, I don't even know why you're still reading this post. You should be playing this right now. I mean, it's FREE! Come on, it doesn't get much better than that.
I have to give this game a solid 8/10
Also, while you're over at Nitrome, make sure to check out some of their other free to play games. They're all pretty fun. I gotta really hand it to those guys, they put out some awesome indie games and they're free; Doesn't get much better.
Best platformer ever! Honestly, I think this is my favorite platformer of all time.
Now, I am a huge fan of platformers. I mean huge. From Donkey Kong, to Mario, to Crash Bandicoot, to Banjo-Kazooie; I just really love them all. Maybe it's the great childhood memories. The game really brings me back to the controller throwing difficulty that most of these types of games bring to the table, but something about that just make feel at home.
WARNING
Super meat boy is not for the faint of heart at all. This game gives me nightmares because of how difficult it gets. When you turn this game on be prepared for hours of dying and frustration. Now all of that said, this game is hands down the easiest platformer to control. I want to give a shout out to the guys over at Team Meat for some of the best programming I have ever seen. This thing truly controls like butta. So, through your hours of dying at the very end of a level, you know that it was not unfair because the game controlled badly or the maps were designed poorly. Your deaths rest solely on yourself for messing up. There was not a single time where I died and I felt cheated by the game, only myself.
You play as Meat Boy, a character who is in love with Bandage Girl and Bandage Girl gets held hostage by Dr. Fetus who hates Meat Boy because he has found love and no one loves Dr. Fetus. So he uses obstacles and traps to keep you from your ultimate goal: To save your true love, Bandage Girl.
This game has it all: dark humor, amazing controls, interesting and fun levels, and even a bit of a story. I spent hours and hours button smashing and screaming in anger. I played this game for so long my hands started cramping. Super Meat Boy is on it's own level of addicting, I would compare it to heroin, not that I know what that's like. Super Meat boy is a must play for all gamers. I can't think of a single reason not to pick this game up and give it a try.
At 20+ levels per world, 7 worlds, 1 bandage per level to collect, and the time trials for an A+ rating so that you can unlock a much harder version of the level in the dark world, this game will keep you playing for hours upon hours. This game is a completionists dream. There is just so much content to keep you up at night screaming at your TV "I SAID JUMP!".
I'm not sure you know this about me, but I love niche games. I think they are some of the most creative and under appreciated games ever. I love companies like NIS and Atlus, they are always trying to create interesting and fun games that normally have the RPG element I crave. Thats why I was pleased to find this little gem by a company I've never heard of: Gungho Online Entertainment.
This game is taking the angry birds craze and KICKING IT (get it?!) to the next level. The game has RPG elements. You level up, you get gear, gold, and you can even change your character class. The story is silly, but it's basically all about the game play. You just kick your hero to the monsters, tap them to do their special, and then when they are on the ground they will auto attack in between turns.
Of course there are some flaws with the game. It does seem like there is the whole asian free game money trap going on. There is a premium slot machine which uses cash shop tokens. I've gotten 3 premium tokens for free and have gotten nothing but gold from the machine. After the fourth level the game charges you per level, making the game about 6 bucks. Still it's free to try and I think I'll be purchasing it.
The 7th Saga is a RPG that got to see the light of day from Japan via Enix. I remember picking this title up as a kid and enjoying it a lot. I thought it would be nice to go back in time and try it out. Oh my, how nostalgia has a way to make things seem better than they really are.
First off... check out the box's back text
"The graphics are eye-popping, breath-taking, stunning and unbelievable, not to mention incredible. This is no hack-and-slash, rip-your-guts-out fighter! This is the future of RPGs, right here in your hands! With music this good, you won't turn the sound off--you'll turn it up!No more small elves leading your team! This game contains real, believable figures. You won't be embarrassed to use your own name; you'll be proud. It's just you against six other characters in search of the 7 Sacred Runes. Whoever finds them... Rules the World. It's that simple, that easy. The only problem is you have some enemies, and I don't mean a few. I mean an army of things you've never seen before ready to raise the hair on the back of your neck and take you out the one swing. This is one powerful RPG. Can you handle it?"
Uhm, are we talking about the same game? There is so much wrong with that. The sound is garbage, the graphics are mediocre. No elves leading your team? I'm pretty sure Esuna is an elf. Real? Believable? That's why you can be a 5000 year old robot, demon, or dwarf. Y'know, because they're all real things! The only thing they aren't lying about is how the enemies will kill you in one hit. This game is hard, and not in a good way. The enemy scaling is terrible. In some dungeons you'll fight some of the beginner mobs, but go outside and you'll fight some huge mob that will rape you. The game's story is lame! It's hard to want to continue when you need to grind for hours just to get a few sentences of story.
The game is just ugly and clunky. Maybe I'm spoiled by modern RPGs but the whole user interface is just counter productive. Shopping is counter productive. Not like you'll be able to afford anything when you start the game off, anyway. Good luck, you'll need it!
The verdict? I should have never went back and played this thing. Maybe it was the RPG drought going on? Maybe it was just the only game I had at the time? All in all, this is one to be avoided, go play Mario RPG or something else.
F2P MMOs all seem to have certain trends to them. They use them to make money but are they actually pushing players away? These are the trends I find while playing that simply need to die off, for the better of the genre!
I think the reason that I could never stick with a F2P MMO that long is frustration. I'm not sure why, but do they think my rage will equal dollars? First there is usually a grind, okay, I'm fine with that to an extent. Now they add in something that just takes away from your game time, your small inventory!
Clear a dungeon, bag is full already. Since these games are usually banking on you buying some form of transportation from their shop, you're more than likely going to have to hoof it on back to town. Another problem is I'm not even sure what the hell a lot of the stuff in my bag is even for! So, out of fear, I hold on to the fragments, dusts, gems, and unknown crystals that seem to rain from the sky in abundance into my bag, wasting precious space. On top of that, your storage in game is normally just as small, or way smaller. Oh? Need to upgrade? CASH SHOP! OR spend 100 hours farming gold for enough money to buy it off of a player.
Everything is working against you! That frustrates me to no end. If I'm going to spend money, I'd rather spend it on stuff to make my bland character look cool, or a mount. Not spending real money on worthless inventory space. There is no reason that my 10-20 space bag can't be 80 slots. This is giving me more time gaming and less time bag juggling (LOL). Help alleviate the frustration of your poorly planned money trap of a game and maybe I might spend a little scratch on your super mystery fun box for 5 bucks that has a random chance of dropping more useless crap to fill my inventory. /sad
Honestly, I wouldn't even really call this "creation". They give you about 4 choices for hair color, hair style, and clothing style. That's about as in depth as they go. I find this to be a huge issue considering most people that I find enjoy these kinds of games enjoy immersion in their character and being able to make that character unique to their tastes.
Josh
I agree with Brandon. The choices are really, really weak! The face models are bland and all look the same. They even limit what color you can choose for eyes and hair. In its defense, though, most dungeon crawl hack 'n' slash style games don't focus on customization for some unknown reason.
Graphics
Josh
The graphics have a Nintendo 64 feel too them, but it isn't a bad thing. The game is visually appealing and some of the map designs are really good. It could use more types of monsters and character models. This really hurts the game because nothing really seems to change, even the "main" town is just the starter town with another starter town glued to it.
Brandon
The graphics were not that bad actually, for this caliber of video game they did a lot of things right. I'd agree with Josh that there is something about them that bring you back to the old Nintendo 64 days; A much simpler time in video gaming when you didn't have the rainbow graphics we have now to hide game play flaws. So, at first it was refreshing to see that old style of graphics but after a while they started to show some major issues with frame rates and character movement. All in all they weren't bad, but I would not call them great.
Sound
Brandon
The music, what can I say about this kind of music that hasn't been said already? It always starts out great, it gives you a terrific feeling of adventure; You're off to save the girl! And then it happens: you realize THIS IS THE ONLY FREAKING SONG THEY HAVE! Oh my god, I can't stand it when they do this crap. Very few games (Zelda) have been able to achieve the one song per zone and have a success. and the battle song, oh the battle song. Really? They only put one song in the whole freaking game for a battle!?!?!?! Depressing as it is, I think this game is better off played muted.
Josh
The music to the game is really good, at first. It isn't long before that epic battle music starts to just become background noise. The NPCs are annoying, and I'm not sure why games have characters shout one liners after special attacks. "TAKE THIS!" "HERE WE GO!" Honestly, you'll probably just mute the sound.
Gameplay
Brandon
We have made it finally the game play, oh, the game play. Now, this game does everything right at the start. It's appealing; The controls are fluid, the music starts good, you even get a bit of story. Things most of these free MMO's fail at being able to accomplish. But then it happens: you start realizing that that dungeon you just ran is pretty much the entire game. Yup, that's right. Dungeon grinding, that's all you do. I really was hoping that this game would not fall into that abyss that most free to play games fall into.
So, let's start with the dungeons. At first glance these dungeons seem to have a little thought to them and some decent artwork, even a boss at the end so it starts off well. The thing we started to realize, though, is in order to complete the different quests you had to go back to the same dungeon multiple times, so the dungeons began to get really old really fast. On top of all of that, you have to complete a dungeon on the easiest difficulty to get the next difficulty, so you end up having to play each dungeon a million times before you're able go to the next one.
The questing in the game was really not that good and the story behind it made no real sense at all. There was a girl and she got captured; Go save her... REAL ORIGINAL. I mean come on, you can do better than that if you're going with that story line. Your game play best be dam near flawless and we all know that this ones isn't.
Difficulty of the game started to become a huge issue for me because it was just too damn easy. Like seriously brainlessly easy. Mechanic-less bosses, boring trash mobs; You pretty much just end up spamming your click button through every entire dungeon. That gets real old, real fast. And on top of all of that, this game punishes you for trying something more difficult.
Josh and I found a dungeon that we could do in abyss. We were level 10 or so and the recommended level was 15. There was only two of us, and the recommended party was 4. So we figured that meant that this would be difficult for two people, and we were right. It started out fine and dandy, we were having a blast having to actually dodge the enemies because their damage output was high, and having to kite things was a blast and we were having a wonderful time until Josh said over vent "Hey Brandon, did you notice we are not getting any exp?" I was so furious I was about to just hit alt+f4 right then and there. May I ask the readers and possibly anyone that makes games: Why in the HELL would you punish someone for wanting more of a challenge?! That's about as dumb as an idea gets.
So at this point we really couldn't take any more of the PvE part of the game so we decided to dive into the PvP side of it. We figured, hey maybe they focus more on PvP and that part of the game will be better. NARRP! PvP blew. Maybe even worse than the PvE. The lobby was hard to navigate through and the games took forever to connect (thanks to their awful servers). Once we finally got to play, we did a 1v1 match to see who was the HIGHLANDER (and I, of course, won but that's besides the point). And we couldn't really hit each other because of the extreme server lag, so we both looked to each other as if we were skipping around on the ground.
Overall this game just disappointed. It looked cool, started off cool, and we both had really high hopes, but give this game about 5 hours of your time and flaws start flying at you left and right. It makes me sad to say that I don't think I will be going back and playing Dragon Nest again any time soon.
I give dragon nest a sad 5/10
Josh
This is the only thing that is making the game stand out and making it worth trying. The gameplay is really fun! I enjoy the combat a lot but the artificial hard modes are upsetting. Tacking on extra HP does not make a fight tougher. Fights tend to drag on in later levels, which makes me think the game is more focused on partying.
The reward sensors in my body did not go off like they should when I play an online RPG. The end bonus chests are usually filled with garbage and the drops are garbage. When you finally get a good piece of loot it's for a level 16 when you're running a level 11 dungeon. Everything is just backwards and seems to work against you.
The sense of wonder and not knowing what to expect is taken out of the game, too. Everything is the same, same, same with quests having you do the same dungeon 3 times. Nothing changes, not even with the different difficulty. Hell, give me some different colors at least. This really, really, really, hurts the game because if I'm going to be grinding the same dungeons, at least make them visually stimulating, or challenging!
Speaking of a challenge; if you want one be prepared to be penalized. The clear XP from a dungeon far surpasses that of any mob. The "challenge" is that the enemies have more health. No new game mechanics, no new strong, cool looking enemies (unless you count new looking as having a purple name instead of white - Ooooh neat!) It's what will make the game dull. Click, click click. No reward, nothing, just a pointless grind.
The grind is killer, the game will just have you run the quickest dungeon for XP over, and over, and over again. Usually there will be a level 30 person there helping, at least there was for me every time. Things to break up the monotony of the grind simply do not exist. PvP is for the end game crowd, it's not for the lowbie, which really sucks because it could be a fun way to break up the grind. Who am I kidding? The PvP is horrible, too. The fights last way too long, the system is terrible, the UI is terrible.
Dragon Nest is a game I realllllly wanted to like and get into, but for everything that I liked (which wasn't much) there were 5 things to make me smash my head on the keyboard. If you are looking for a game like this, pick up Phantasy Star Universe on the PSP, but seriously I'd sit this one out.
5/10
With all the negatives Josh and I both expressed about the game, we both still think that if you have some free time and are bored like we are most of the time, you should go give this game a shot; It might be your cup of tea. You never know, you might just fall in love. See for yourself and tell us what you think. Thanks for reading guys, see you next time.
