Pokemon is great. Picross is great. How could this game be anything but great? Is what I thought to myself. The doubts set in when the free-to-play business model was revealed. An energy system? Crypto-currency via in-app purchase? Recharging timers? These aspects already grated and got in the way for the last two digital Pokemon releases, Shuffle and Rumble World, so I had to roll my eyes.
And indeed those things are annoying to the play experience. It very quickly becomes apparent that the amount of Picrites you get is nowhere near the amount you need to get very far. But I had to quell the outrage. To enjoy this Picross game with very competent theming, I changed perspective. You get a lot of puzzles and some tidy bonus mechanics. So if you see it as a Picross game that costs $39, it doesn’t seem so bad. (The cost is a little high compared to recent eShop Picrosses, it’s true.) It must be a psychological thing to get upset when something is presented as free but then restricted, compared to paying upfront and enjoying it without further hassle. I dunno, I’m not a brain doctor. But I do know microtransactions are sucking the joy out of the whole gaming landscape.
Melodrama aside, how’s the game? Pretty great! Pokemon are super cute especially in pixel form, and the mission system is good for replayability (I ignored them the first time I did any puzzle so I could conquer them without hints, then went back for them). There’s a ton of puzzles that unlock in a fun little world map, and they’re playable in normal and Mega Picross modes. The missions then give you tablets which unlock a Micross-like mosaic of Primal Groudon & Kyogre. So between all that and the party of Pokemon you build up with different hint skills, it’s a much more game-ified Picross experience.
And it’s just as addictive to me as any previous Picross game. Maybe the simplicity of those is more relaxing, without worrying about missions or who you have equipped in your party, but I wouldn’t mind at all seeing more Picross games like this with other themes than Pokemon. Bring back the themed puzzles of Japan’s Nintendo Power SNES games. And while you’re at it, localise the two Club Nintendo Picross games you goons!
Like many gamers, I’ve held Majora’s Mask on something of a pedestal. I’d borrowed it from a friend back in the day and got all the masks. Revisiting it now it holds up; a true classic, and this is most likely the definitive version. It just didn’t quite fulfil the high view it had been built up to.
In fact, playing it now made me retroactively appreciate Ocarina of Time a little more. I can’t say that MM is strictly superior to its predecessor; it’s very purposefully doing something different, which is especially great in the Zelda series. Of course, it’s divisive: such criticisms as the 3-day system breaking the pace or feeling, when in fact I feel it is fundamental to the pace and mood of this particular game. Or that it’s too short, whereas I appreciate a more compact experience from time to time (I certainly don’t want something that drags like Skyward Sword).
You can’t look at this game critically without considering its origins as a rush job, reusing assets from Ocarina to meet a deadline. The way they twisted it makes this work very well for the story though, especially if you’re familiar with the prequel. Termina can feel very unsettling with its old faces in new roles, and said roles are much richer for the most part.
To elaborate, the minor characters and your interactions with them are deeper due to the sidequest system and the day cycle which gives them routines and events. There are less major characters with emotional impact like the Sages though; and perhaps intentionally, using your transformations and masks often acts as a barrier between Link and other people—I’m thinking especially of how Zoras and Gorons will actively mistake you for Mikau and Darmani when transformed. This gives a melancholy feel to proceedings since you know they’re actually dead.
So there is an emotional depth to the game, and I felt very driven to complete my final cycle after I’d got the Fierce Deity mask “perfectly”, Groundhog Day style. What a great movie. Anyway, I pulled it off for the most part: clearing the dungeons a second time is very quick due to boss warps. I especially wanted to finish the Romani Ranch and Anju sidequests while I was at it; I skipped Kafei’s final task though because he’s a selfish prat and if his pride is too much to go to Anju that’s his own damn fault. Sorry, I’ve got opinions. I’ve also got headcanons that the Hero of Time returns to Termina in his adult years and marries Cremia.
Ahem. As an evolution and expansion on Ocarina, MM is pretty much perfect, much better than Ura Zelda would have been. It’s also great as a Zelda series experiment. Maybe not a great jumping on point though. The additions to this version are also great; the improved Bomber’s notebook, all the little tweaks, the fishing holes. Of course, there’s too many rare fish which makes completion a bit of a chore, and the Zora swimming is severely nerfed. But overall, super nice game. One moon out of one.
Here’s two games that should be of interest to any Nintendo-watchers. They represent experiments into the “free-to-play” style of game that has proved so prodigious on mobile platforms. Given that Nintendo will now be expanding its business to mobile, people may be looking at these as examples of the direction they could go.
I reckon that’s a mistake though. Both of these games are more or less conversions of existing titles. Pokemon Link Battle and Super Pokemon Rumble existed already on 3DS, and it seems that these games just take the gameplay of their predecessors and slap a microtransaction model on it, with mixed results. For a better idea of what Ninetndo’s partnership with DeNA might bring about, I’d recommend checking out Final Fantasy Record Keeper, which is made by DeNA with a popular existing license.
As with most F2P games I’ve played, all three of the games I’ve mentioned managed to hold my interest for a while but inevitably the nature of the business model will impose itself on the gameplay experience. Sooner or later, the game will become too difficult or start to drag, requiring either tedious grinding or gouging cash for easier progression.
The most successful for me was Shuffle; I made it through all the stages prior to the first content update, at which point I discerned that the difficulty curve, which had seemed pretty fair, was just going to keep climbing and the return on my time investment was bottoming out. The puzzley gameplay was well suited to the short bursts, although said bursts were short indeed in “no money down” mode. I also appreciated the improvements they’d made to the mechanics from Link Battle, with Megaevolution, something approaching a story, and more strategic combo play.
Rumble World has a fun concept. Up til now, the three previous games in the series had not enticed me to buy them, but why not a free download? The simple isometric brawler style is well done, with plenty of chaotic colour and effects. The progression was a little odd though; you’re always acquiring better toys to use so you’re forced to sack off your old ones, whose abilities you may be familiar with. Ultimately the game is very repetitive, as you’ll be doing the same basic thing over and over. The reward is an endless stream of new critters, and presumably the draw is finding them all and getting to the next little story mission, but that wasn’t enough for me. Rescuing Miis that you’ve Streetpassed is a nice touch, but it then makes the game into an escort mission. And the endless ways to spend your currency always makes you feel poor.
Unfortunately I think both of these games haven’t quite nailed the balance of a free-to-play game. I always feel like I’m being asked to pony up for this or that, and that if I did make a purchase, it wouldn’t help me much. But then what do I know, I’ve never made a game like this and I don’t usually like playing them. It shows what you can do with an existing game structure to force it into this business framework, and it’s a little depressing that more and more games are like this by default. Even big-budget games you buy have more to buy in the game itself these days. But enough good-old-days ranting, I’ve got more games to play—with these, I could have kept going for much longer (as they want me to) but had to pick a point to stop and say “no more”.
I was pleased as punch to be presented with another portable Picross puzzle set. So ravenous was I for more relaxing and engrossing puzzles, that I raced through with no regard for reasonable restriction. Consequently, I quickly completed the collection.
Gah, can’t keep that up. At this point the refinement is very subtle. Picross e4 seems to have perfected the formula, bringing features from the three previous games. This one is basically just another e4, it doesn’t really change anything and is just more puzzles. And that’s perfectly fine with me. More please!
PS. A big wag of my finger to dumb old Nintendo, who have now released two Picross games that are exclusive to Japan, exclusive to Club Nintendo rewards, and are exclusively based on Nintendo characters. I want them so bad, and I just hate that they don’t care enough to make such a great idea actually available. Sigh.
After playing White 2 and finding it a bit of a drag, I skipped X & Y. My wife got it and was impressed, but I felt the need to step back. When this one came around though, it felt good for both of us to play it together. We agree that it’s probably the best one yet, and has lots of good features and improvements to the systems, but there’s drawbacks and even appreciated features that have been removed.
For this game, I planned out my team beforehand. I picked out one Mon from each generation to fill my team, with a good mix of typing and cool Pokes that I liked. I also had fun nicknaming them after Doctor Who companions. I ended up with Donna the Ninetales, Rory the Lanturn, Ace the Breloom, Frobisher the Glaceon, Captain Jack the Archeops, and Romana the Malamar. It was a fun team, and much more interesting than being stuck with a Poochyena or Swellow for the first few hours.
This leads to the first issue: a rather boring set of Pokemon available. Most of the time, you’ll be battling the same monsters again and again from a small pool of Hoenn natives, in the wild and with trainers. Sure the familiarity means you know how to deal with them, but it’s just bland and the game really doesn’t need to be any easier; I had no difficulties at any time with the challenge, which was disappointing.
A small range of Mons is symptomatic of a larger problem with these games: their status as remakes forces them into slavish adherence to the originals. It didn’t have to be this way, and they did a few things to the world to make it more interesting, but it still feels like an old game. The grid-based movement feels restrictive in this day and age, especially since they have taken half-steps to allowing freer movement—but only in certain areas. Hoenn too feels very samey, and my wife assures me that X&Y’s variety leads to this feeling like a step back—which it is, as it was designed years ago.
As for those missing features I mentioned earlier: once again, having your first Poke follow you around—HGSS’s star feature—is absent. Add on to this the lack of appearance customisation, which debuted in X&Y, on top of the game’s environments blending together somewhat, and screenshots begin to be hard to tell apart.
That’s not to say that it’s all bad; as I said, this may in fact be the best in terms of systems. The gameplay and UI are streamlined, so it’s better than ever in terms of playability. Movement, despite the jarring grid/free conflicts, is great with more options and control, not to mention the amazing Soar function that removes the need for Fly permanently. The bottom screen has tons of great options too, with the new AreaNav (map) and DexNav (showing you the area’s wild Pokemon) seeming almost no-brainers in their usefulness, along with X&Y’s less universally useful features that return wholesale.
Secret Bases and Mirage Spots, the other additions, are also fun and add variety. Decorating your own base didn’t hook me as much as I would have liked, but is a meaty update to the feature as it was in the original. These are added on top of a towering stack of features and activities, not all of which have to be bothered with, as I’ve come to realise, to enjoy the game fully. The post-game Delta Episode was also a good idea and cool, but let down a little by the dumb characters (the plot is very lacklustre in general, actually).
Still, the DexNav and the cloud-based cross-platform Pokebank storage system meant that this is the one where we finally went for full Pokedex completion. And, with the help of our HG and White 2 games, I’m very happy to say we achieved it! We missed a few mythical ones, due to GTS hacks not working anymore and not being willing to do browser hack injection, but it still counts. It feels good 2 B A Master. It feels like we’ve achieved all we can (and burnt ourselves out with intense breeding and evolving), so I’ll say Gen 7 will have to be pretty special to get me playing again soon.
I wish this game had done more to stand out from its source. I did own Ruby back in the day, but was only halfway through when we were robbed of our GBA and games on holiday. The nostalgia element that was leaned on quite heavily just did not factor in for me, and the music was simply annoying. Each new game should strive to better those that came before, and not make the compromises that made this a weaker game. Ah well, despite it all it was good fun and a great Pokemon game.
I’ve long thought that aside from the co-op gameplay, the handheld versions of the Lego games have offered a better, more polished experience. Is that still true in this game? Yes and no.
For a start, this has more bugs than I’m used to in the handheld games. Characters and scenery turning invisible, the character switcher not working properly, quest markers not being marked, and even a crash to homescreen, seldom seen on 3DS. Some of these are clearly the result of poor testing and QA on the game, which is a disappointment but not wholly unexpected from Lego games given my experience with them.
I mentioned the quest markers, but the whole system is also confusing. There’s no map as the “bit that’s not levels” is part open world hub, part Donkey Kong Country-style routed map, but you have the ability to pan around it. The system works well enough when you get used to how to control it, but the game gives you no way to keep track of quests or quest-related items. It’s a bit of a mess, and the rewards are a tad unsatisfying. (Also: the text is riddled with typos.)
On the other hand, the gameplay may be the best yet of these scaled-down titles. We have the “smaller levels and more of them” structure, varied between “puzzle”-solving levels and more combat-oriented ones. But the combat is more fun than the console game, with super moves, a dodge/charge, and ranged attacks on a different button that give you more options to keep it fresh. They’ve cut jumping, which sounds odd but gives them an extra button to work with and the levels are designed to require it only contextually, a smart move. Boss battles are also less QTE-heavy, which was the worst part of the main game.
Each level has a set of 10 challenges, which may be finding hidden items, completing under a certain time, not taking damage, etc. It’s a great idea to give you different objectives depending on the focus of the level, and really makes replays feel worthwhile.
I’ve heard that these design ideas that make this stand out from the previous simple scaled-down console ports were introduced in Lego Marvel Super Heroes (handheld), and further refined in The Lego Movie game (handheld). These aspects (the level structure and combat) have thus come out feeling good, but it leaves the quest system feeling half-baked as it hasn’t been used since Lego Lord of the Rings, and in fact may be worse than it was then.
Having now seen the third movie, my concerns about not including it have dissolved. There’s only a couple of new locations, which are included in the “hubs” of both versions of this game, and the only significant events are some battle scenes which I’m not too sad on missing out on. In fact, now that I’ve completed both games, I hope they don’t have any plans for DLC or another game.
Overall I’m quite happy with this one. Struggling through iOS versions has taught me to appreciate physical buttons and the second screen, not to mention the lack of in-app purchases, which made playing this on 3DS much more pleasant. The controls and interface are less clunky, and the characters and their abilities more balanced than the console version, making each one feel useful and cool at different times. Galadriel has wizard powers! No awkward item switching! Ahem.
These types of games tend to be overlooked; the big console release is accompanied by sometimes a very different game coming to less powerful systems, and sometimes that smaller version is ignored. In this case, I reckon that once again the handheld version is a better game; apart from, of course, the ability to play with a loved one co-operatively, which is such a valuable experience that it balances out the sloppiness of the console game. Maybe one day we’ll have the best of both worlds, or maybe they’ll let TT Fusion handle the main event for once. Well, I’ve been there and back again on Middle-Earth Lego games so until Lego The Silmarillion, farewell.
The time has come for another Picross review. The fourth Picross game on the eShop (fifth if you count that stupidly restricted-availability Club Nintendo one), what makes this one stand out? Oh and by the way, I found out the other day Japan is getting another, better Nintendo-themed Picross game that’s even more exclusive as you need Platinum status… whatever that means. Why won’t you let me give you money, you awful company?
Erm, anyway. What’s this one about? Well, it’s like the past ones, but seems like a culmination of them. A sort of best-of. Although now we have e5 coming too, but whatever. The point is, this one includes Micross puzzles from e2, Mega Picross from e3, and has extra reward puzzles if you have save data from the previous games on your 3DS. It could perhaps be a good introduction to the different things on offer in the series, and would then reward you for getting the past ones.
Of course, the trade-off is it only has two Micross, which are the best ones. The reward puzzles are Mega Picross, which will be bad news if you hated those. I found them refreshing, but I was glad there were lots of normal ones too. They’re also all lumped together instead of in Normal Mode and Free Mode categories, letting you choose at will whether to use Normal or Free rules for all puzzles. This instalment also features a page of bigger puzzles, 20x15.
Overall I’d say it’s the best one yet, especially if you’ve played the previous ones as it seems to have the most improvements, and synthesises modes from them. If you’re as hooked as me though, just get all of them! And wait anxiously for e5! Mmm, Picross.
This isn’t really a game, but it is a fun Pokémon themed drawing tutor. You’re gradually introduced to the various tools, along with more difficult Pokémon pictures. This is the first game in the series to feature one important tool: undo. I’d been interested in the previous Art Accademy instalments, but without undo a digital painting app is a no-go.
You get a lot of help in this app: reference pictures, traceable outlines, grids, construction shapes, pre-made backgrounds. There’s also a neat outline pen which draws on its own layer, and the colour of which can be changed in a single step.
The real draw card of this game, is of course, the Pokémon. To a large extent how much you like this game will depend on how much you like the Pokémon you get to draw in the main classes. I quite liked the early, cute Pokémon, but I didn’t much like the later ones, like Charizard (who is not a cool dragon, but an ugly fart). There are Pokémon from every generation, so there should be one everyone knows, even if it’s just Pikachu. If you don’t like Pikachu… you probably don’t want to play this.
In the primay lessons you’re in a class with your friend, who is really quite terrible at art. In the photo above I drew with my ‘other’ hand. I think maybe my friend drew his with his foot.
It’s a fun little game if you’re interested in Pokémon and want a gentle introduction to digital painting. I got the digital download, which is what I’d recommend unless you can find it for a really good discount.
Oh, and you don’t have to paint Pokémon, in free paint you can do anything you like. Just don’t expect print quality for export.
Here’s another guest review from my awesome wife. Personally, my favourite parts of Pokemon Art Academy were figuring out whether it, and by extension the other Art Academy games (the professor is the cousin of the AA tutor or something) are within the Pokemon universe itself, or simply a version of our world. Also looking at the derpy friend’s craptastic paintings; hilarious.
Once I found out that Japan has an exclusive Picross game, I was unreasonably angry. I love Picross so much, especially instalments in the DS lineage. I also love Nintendo and Nintendo-related crossover games. Such an intersection of my interests will never be available to me, just because I’m not part of the superior Japanese race with their superior Club Nintendo program. That’s how I felt.
Fortunately for me, my sister-in-law who lives in Japan decided to buy a 3DS, got the game, and finished it before she visited us. So at least I could see all the puzzles they included. I’m quite impressed, although it’s mostly the standard EAD stuff, lots of Mario and Zelda. Some nice surprises though and some weird Nintendo history hardware stuff, like the love tester, and even their head office.
It’s a little shorter than the e-series of Picross games, but the Nintendo-y-ness makes up for it. My salty fanboy tears have dried up now that I’ve at least seen it. And since coverage is sparse, I hope you too can appreciate seeing all this game has to offer… people that aren’t us.
Oh, by the way, it’s called Club Nintendo Picross and it’s been available from the Japanese Club Nintendo rewards program since 2012 for 80 coins.
Simple puzzle games can be fun, especially when they involve something you love, like Pokemon. Actually the reason I played this was motivated by my wife. She’s probably a bigger Pokemon fan than me, which is saying something considering how many hours I’ve put into Pokemon Pinball on the GBC. We both got this game so we could play the co-op mode. We hadn’t seen the DS original, but it’s not really connected too closely anyway.
For example, the DS one had a plot with humans and stuff, whereas this one just has locations to catch Pokemon. Normally I’d prefer a plot, but in this case it’s fine, since we played together most of the time. It’s focused more on unlocking new areas and Pokemon, doing certain conditions to find rarer Pokemon and so on. They also seem to have refined the gameplay in this one from what I’ve heard. It’s quite satisfying to move your little icons around freely to set up massive combos, especially when it pays off in a big attack.
It does get super hard later on though. We probably wouldn’t have made it to the end if we hadn’t been doing it together. There must be something we’re missing about the pace of the game or something because trying to find some of the secret Pokemon or just finishing some later stages was really frustrating at times. It does seem better with two of us though.
To me the game appealed because it had really cute representations of all known Pokemon, all mixed up together, hanging out in the wild, and you could catch each one and use it yourself. The match-3 stuff gets its hooks in though. Yeah I dunno, there’s not much to say. A fun diversion.
Oh yes, one more thing, the title exhibits that annoying feature of differing between America and everyone else (not counting Japan). They experienced the phenomenon of the untranslated title, a whole nother beast entirely, like Ni no Kuni or Tomodachi Life, or even Katamari Damacy. I don’t think this game or the word in particular has the cultural cache to pull it off, but on the other hand as a title Pokemon Link is very bland. So I’m conflicted.
Uh. What can I say? It’s more Picross. That is a good thing.
Picross e was good, and now I’ve figured out how to activate the auto-greying numbers I enjoy the gameplay a lot more. The macro painting mode was really cool, the individual puzzles are very different in style to normal ones and building up the picture is rewarding.
It still has the drawbacks compared to Picross DS, such as non-animated solutions (although the pixel art does look very nice), and lack of Nintendo-themed puzzles, which was a highlight for me. It also again ran out of content quickly, because I played it so ravenously. But that’s the style they’re going for, short and cheap, and frequently released. It’s like episodic gaming!
I also wish there were more harder puzzles, because the hardest ones began to really test me and forced me to strengthen my MIGHTY PICROSS SKILLS. I really love all of Jupiter’s Picross stuff. It won’t happen, but I wish they ported their old Mario Picross games to stylus controls, I would be all over that. It’s very hard to go back to moving a square around when you have such direct control on the DS.
I’ve also bought e3 and e4, and they to some extent replace Micross (the painting thing) with Mega Picross, which uses numbers over multiple rows, giving you a new technique to learn. I still enjoy Micross better though, so for the number of such puzzles in this game I’m tentatively awarding Picross e2 “best Picross e installment”.
Ah, Zelda. I’ve been playing them since Ocarina, of course. The three “big” entry point games for those of my generation are the original, Link to the Past, and Ocarina of Time. Unfortunately in the style of Nintendo at the moment, everything seems to be jamming on the nostalgia button HARD. Obviously this game leans very very heavily on LttP, which predates my own entry point. In fact I played LttP a few years after Ocarina, but it’s not “my” Zelda game, if you get me.
Consequently I don’t have the blind rush of giddy nostalgia juices for this game. Looking objectively at it though, I can say that it’s a very good game and I enjoyed it. I just feel weird playing it, because it’s so heavily based on a game I don’t have such a personal connection to, and indeed have only played once. There’s some lipservice to other games in the canon, but they’re a bit tacked on and feel out of place. Basically what I’m saying is it feels like the wrong way to do nostalgia.
Anyways the few improvements to the LttP formula, like having main character counterparts in the Dark World, having individualised Sages, shaking up the item acquisition and dungeoning, are very good decisions. Generally it’s good at giving you the things you need and want but still being challenging. Well, I say challenging because some rooms, tasks, and dungeons were tricky moment-to-moment but overall it’s an easy game.
It might just be my super skills, but I never died, and I always had boatloads of rupees. I never got lost or stuck, because there’s lots to do, which is a good thing. Not a good thing is the balance, although I have said the same about other Zelda games, and maybe Hero mode would have suited me better. It’s just that the things people have been saying about the risk and reward of the item system ring false to me, because I rented everything straight away, never died to have them taken, and just sunk rupees steadily into buying the items so I could upgrade them. Not very risky, and the rupees kept flowing in so when I’d bought everything it went straight to 9999 and I’m like “what now?”. So I bought a golden bee.
Anyway I had a great time finding all the things, collecting stuff and getting mightier. I liked interacting with NPCs, but ultimately that was pretty shallow and although the writing was good, it wasn’t a more personable experience than your standard Zelda game, and worse than several of them. I liked the Sages being people from the world that you’d met, but that’s ripped straight from Ocarina and like that game (and to a lesser extent, Wind Waker) they are removed from the world by the plot, making it a more dull place.
I didn’t want to get this game at first because it seemed like just another Zelda game, and that’s not what I wanted. But my lovely wife bought it for me, and so I had to play it. At which point I realised that playing just another Zelda game was something I could get behind. Especially when it’s as fun, addictive, and accessible as this one. Not exactly groundbreaking but it had some cool new features that will apparently inform the future direction of the series. I think they could stand to shake up more aspects of the experience (after all, Majora’s Mask is one of my faves) but this installment is perfectly solid. Yep.
I believe I’ve written about Yoshi’s Island DS here, and you must know it’s been widely criticised. Lazy design, just awful soundtrack, and mediocre art are a few of the common complaints. So when information about the new 3DS Yoshi game was coming out and it had the same developers attached, some red flags started going up.
I did enjoy YIDS in the end, maybe nostalgia has a lot to do with it. So I was looking forward to this too. I even preordered to get a little Yoshi egg game case. I played through it over about a week and, as I was expecting, was not exactly blown away. The level design is uninspired, the soundtrack is again awful. The art style is not bad, but is more a matter of taste this time as it’s all 3D models that evoke the original art of YI, but also make it more Mario-y, and thus less distinctive.
It has a few touches that I appreciated. Collectibles now are counted by set (red coins, flowers, and stars) instead of all up, which basically means that to get more completion in the game you don’t have to get perfect runs anymore. Oh no I can’t think of any more here come the bad points…
Items are still gone, and the goal ring now has a confusing system that awards medals (lame). Shooting eggs now involves an initial animation, limiting your twitch response time and making the process a tad unwieldy—lame. Eggs can randomly be yellow or red, which is fine and all for giving you some extra stars in a pinch, but a red egg will not bounce off walls. Lame. Yoshi now seems to run more slowly, as he must gain momentum; again, lame. There were quite a few little tweaks to the formula, but they were obviously not thought through because they add up to making the game feel worse than the two previous ones it’s aping. Very lame.
Oh, I remember. Each fortress (mid-world boss stage) now has a battle with Kamek, which cuts down on the unique boss battles (a highlight of previous games), but which is actually kind of cool because he’s always been untouchable. The fights can also be inventive in concept, more puzzly affairs. Although their execution can be dull to play through. So a mixed bag there.
The all-new mechanics are pretty bad. There’s big eggs which are highly situational. They’re given to you when required, and then you pass that point. Very badly implemented. The transformations are gyro-controlled, and I don’t have to tell you that’s a bad idea. They’re also very segmented from the rest of the game, which feels gamey and annoying. They also have a couple of concessions to the New Mario, Super Guide stuff which is so patronising. However, there is an excellent payoff to the aspect of the noob-helper character that ties into the ending.
Speaking of which, the final boss is boring and predictably completely rips off the original Yoshi’s Island, but worse. They then surprise you by literally throwing adult Bowser at you out of nowhere through a time portal. It makes no sense and really undermines the whole concept of this being a separate game series from Mario that takes place in the past.
As I said in my Club Nintendo survey, the good parts of the game are where it sticks to the formula put down by much better game developers 15 years ago. Ironically you could say those are lazy parts, but then the new parts to this game are very lazily implemented. The result is relentlessly mediocre. Of course I managed to get some fun out of it, being a fan of Yoshi’s games. It looks nice and play fine, but because it’s trying to evoke the original it just shows all the more what a pale imitation it is. I think it’s time for Nintendo to take the franchise a little more seriously, take it away from these guys.
Gosh I’m pretty negative eh? I still finished and enjoyed it, but maybe it’s best to stick to Yoshi’s Island GBA, out now on the Wii U. That damnable small screen view aside, it’s a great game.
If you have been living in some kind of Faraday cage, then Pokémon Y is a game where you trap a variety of creatures and use them to fight other people, making them stronger so you can fight better trainers. That might sound kind of cruel, but Pokémon Y is rated PG for “mild themes and violence”. This is a lot cuter than Virtual Cock Fighting 3D.
I haven’t played every Pokémon game. I’ve played bits of the first and second generation (Red/Blue, Gold/Silver) and most of Pokémon HeartGold. I rage quit Pokémon Black 2 about half way through and never went back. I was sick of the grind, rubbish menus, and stupid story.
Thankfully, Pokémon Y is not Pokémon Black 2. Many of the criticisms of Generation V have been taken into account in this latest iteration of the franchise. Some of the most notable changes include:
Improved menus
Less grind
Diagonal movement
More ‘old’ Pokémon early on
Streamlined, always-available, online battle and trading features
Rejigging the Pokémon types and type effectiveness for better balance
Character customisation
XP Share doesn’t reduce active Pokémon XP and gives all other party Pokémon XP too
No Rattata
Of course, Pokémon Y also introduces, or attempts to introduce, some new features too. There are two mini-game collections that can live on the bottom screen, as an alternative to the online feature buttons. The first is a puzzle collection focused on raising Pokémon’s ‘friendliness’ (not to be confused with happiness), and a sports-game collection for sub-stat training.
There’s also a new Pokémon type, the Fairy type, which is super effective against Dragon. Another really welcome change, is that you now get XP when you catch a Pokémon, not just knock it out.
Having been burnt by Pokémon Black 2, I was very cautious of Pokémon Y. I loved Pokémon HeartGold, and I wanted so much to love another Pokémon game, but I did not want to shell out $60 for more poo. Thankfully Pokémon Y is not a pile of poo.
I’ll be honest: there’s still room for improvement. The central city, Lumiose, is impossible to navigate without a map (I recommend this map), and even with a map it’s confusing. You can’t post screenshots to Miiverse, and you can only take ‘camera’ shots at specific locations.
The story doesn’t make much sense. I think there was some guy who did something bad a long time ago, and now there is some other guy wanting to “cleanse the world” or something. Point is, it doesn’t matter, really, what the plot is, and the game kinda gets that. The minions are silly, and they know it.
The difficulty curve in this game is much better. Not once did I faint, and I never had to spend hours grinding against wild Pokémon either.
I’ve heard some complaints about how the stereoscopic 3D is only available in battle, and select 3D environments, and drops frames madly. My advice is turn off the 3D. There is no reason in any game I’ve played on the 3DS to have the 3D on. It drains battery, looks wonky, is lower resolution, is darker, gives you a headache, possibly makes you nauseous, and never adds to gameplay.
Perhaps the most telling thing about this game, is that I am still playing it. It’s got me, hook, line and sinker. I’ve long since beaten the Champion, and now I’m just cruising around town on my skates, looking for trouble. Unlike previous games, I’m actually interested in catching all the available wild Pokémon, and even breeding and evolving Pokémon I’m not going to use, just to fill the Pokédex.
Guest review time! I’m all too happy to repost this great review of Pokemon Y by my favourite person and wife, Everbloom! She wanted to have a go at what I do and tried to avoid the pitfalls I regularly fall into. Good job!
In more recent news, the demoes for both of these games came out for both of these platforms on the same day. I downloaded and tried all of them. There’s a theme here because these particular games do not represent my usual forte. My oeuvre, if you will.
I never got Sonic, I find the classic games frustrating and the movement system is just wrong to me. The 3D games, according to popular opinion, I should just not bother with for the most part. But for me, free is the right price and I gave the demoes a spin. Get it? Because he spins.
Yeah, they didn’t win me over. Basically it’s like Mario Galaxy but all slippery and confusing. I did find that the 3DS version agreed with me much more than the Wii U one did, I mainly chalk that up to a much better presented demo that actually taught you mechanics and showed off different things you would be doing in the game. Also the more general trend of big console games being overdeveloped and valuing style over substance. This was represented subtly here, really the two were pretty similar.
But yeah I have tried a few Sonic games and they never clicked with me. This one blunders all over the line between smooth and fiddly, difficult platforming and the feeling of not being in control. I think that’s my general assessment of Sonic really, and I can’t go any more in-depth on this one just from a demo. So thumbs down.
As for Lego Marvel, well it’s a Lego game. I’m intimately familiar with them by this point, but it’s the Marvel side that I’m not big on. I’ve really only been exposed to the “cinematic universe” and all those other cinematic universes that they don’t have the rights to. Come to think of it, I’ve probably seen more Marvel movies than DC, but that’s probably because DC movies that aren’t Batman have been notoriously bad. But, I have more DC experience what with Sandman, borrowing some Batman comics from the library, watching the Justice League cartoon (and the Teen Titans one… one of them anyway). I’m not super invested in either of them though.
Anyways this is just another Lego game really, and if you’re not interested in the paerticular IP attached then you should just play Lego Star Wars again or something. It is the newest and hence shiniest one, and I guess it could have some new ideas? I don’t know, I just saw old ideas really. I’ve said before that I have more faith in TT Fusion (the handheld division) than TT to make a stable and interesting game, and for the second time I’m siding with the smaller iteration of the two games.
The 3DS has more new ideas with the rewards system and the super moves, although that seemed quite useless. But the sub-chapters thing with just one character at a time seems nice and less fiddly, with the little quest things inspiring quick replays. Sure it may be less ambitious and impressive than the console one, but I dunno I guess I’m once again feeling that I prefer the tighter experience than the bloated one with a million lighting shaders or whatever and the crashing.
Realistically though, if my wife was interested at all, the console one would be the only way to go with its big screen co-op mode. At least until the miniature version eventually goes on sale in the iOS App Store. So yeah it is just another Lego game, and I’ve played lots and have a few more to play still (just iPhone ones). In fact I’m doing Harry Potter 2 handheld now and it’s fairly alright. Ah, demoes. They don’t come often enough.
