Tag Archives: review

REVIEW: Animal Crossing: New Leaf

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There’s a lot I can write about Animal Crossing: New Leaf; so much, in fact, that I could write an essay about it. I won’t be writing an essay, but I would like to skim some of the things that make this game an improvement to the series.

The very first thing is its premise. Instead of simply being a villager, the first player is the mayor of the town. That means that instead of having a fully developed town, you actually have an underdeveloped town. The buildings are scarce, there’s no great tree, and the museum being empty actually makes sense. As the mayor, it’s your job to start projects and develop your town, including the new Main Street that houses all the shops in town.

Almost instantly you can see the improvements. You get to choose the map of your town (of 5 given to you) in the beginning, and from there, you get to select where projects are built. Want a bench by the beach? Go for it. A park? Sure! The amount of customization of your town is a really awesome feature. No one town will ever have the same town buildings and similar layout again. To add to the customization tab, you now have male and female specific clothing, accessories, and shoes. Yes, you can buy shoes. You can even buy socks! You don’t even need to wear socks and shoes if you don’t want to.

The art is very Animal Crossing, very cartoony and fun, but you can see a higher resolution and attention to detail, and the 3D looks fantastic (although I barely play in it). The music is good, but I’m still a fan of the original’s music more. However, 8AM’s music is pretty fantastic.

Everything else is pretty much standard Animal Crossing. So why is this game so great? All the little things that show a nice attention to detail:

– Nook now owns his own real-estate agency instead of being a shop owner/real estate agent. He also has house customizations for your door, mail box, roof, etc… for sale. Lyle, the Happy Room Academy rep, also puts up shop there. The Nook kids now run the actual shop.

– Labelle, working for Gracie in Animal Crossing: City Folk, is now part of the Able Sister’s shop, selling you accessories.

– YOU CAN SIT ON TREE STUMPS

– YOU CAN SWIM! And there’s over 30 new deep sea fish you can only obtain via diving. Unfortunately, to swim you have to have a diving suit on.

– The animals wave when you leave, and they very frequently ask to come over to your house or have you come over to theirs. It’s cool because they actually go to every room in your house.

– You can hang stuff on the wall. It may not seem like much, but it’s cool to finally put clocks on the wall.

– The island is back, and while you don’t have a cool island cabana anymore, you DO have the ability to play cool mini games with friends and make $$$$$$ thanks to the rare bugs that come out after 7PM.

– There are now 6 island-specific fruit instead of 1. It’s nice to see lemons and bananas.

– CLUB LOL!!! Yes, there’s now a night life in your town where you can actually dance to what DJ K.K. is dropping’ down. Unfortunately, it takes quite a while to get Club LOL, and until then you have no access to K.K. Slider. It’s my only real gripe with the game.

There’s so much more to it, but I haven’t unlocked everything, so I couldn’t tell you. So far, the game has been fantastic. If you’re a fan of the Animal Crossing series, do yourself a favor and go pick this up. You won’t regret it!

Gameplay: 10/10

Atmosphere: 8/10

Final Score: 9/10

Just Sayin’

REVIEW: Epic

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A couple weeks ago, instead of going to see The Great Gatsby, my girlfriend and I decided to see a movie called Epic. To be honest, I thought it was by Dreamworks or Disney at first until I did some research on Blue Sky Studios, and I have to say, their production value is really good. 

Okay, on with the review!


Plot:
 
The plot here is interesting, but not something I haven’t seen before. There’s a secret society of miniature people (the human-like Leafmen, the monster-like Boggons, and then the plants and animals are all living as well) that live in the forest, with the Leafmen and Boggons engaged in war that will determine if the forest lives or dies. Mary Katherine (or M.K. for short) goes to live with her eccentric father (who is trying to find the tiny people) due to a request made by her late mother, but after that goes awry, she ventures into the forest and is transformed to a mini size by the Queen of the Forest, Tara, and gets caught up in the war. It’s definitely an interesting angle for the way a forest lives and dies.


The characters all have pretty noticeable arcs, and they’re all pretty solid, although, like most of these movies, love between M.K. and the obvious male love interest happens ridiculously fast. I think it’s sad that that’s something I’ve become accustomed to, but given the relatively short length of the movie (about 90 minutes), I can see why it happens so fast. I wish more movies would take it slow, though.


Acting:
 
The acting is actually pretty good. Nothing really amazing, but nothing bad, either. Not much to say, here. It’s just really solid (except for a few parts, but they’re negligible).


Atmosphere:
 
The animation to build up the atmosphere is really, really good. The way they depict the forest and its secret inhabitants is really nice, and Queen Tara’s control of the forest was really cool to look at. They depict her walking over water with lily pads that instantly move to be under her feet as she moves, she can make tree branches attack with the flick of her wrist – really, the animation is superb. Also, the way things decay is pretty cool, too.
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If you’re a fan of animated films (or Ice Age) check Epic out. It’s a neat little film that’s really solid. It’s not incredible, but definitely a solid choice if you’re looking for a film to go see.
Rating: 3 out of 5 (stars)
 
Just Sayin’.

REVIEW: Iron Man 3

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Last Friday, I got to see the third installment in the Iron Man series. Does it live up to the hype? I would say so.

Plot:

The plot here is a typical super-hero plot. Some guy Tony Stark met years ago has now invented something called Extremis which causes humans to regenerate wounds (even body parts) and turn into super-soldiers. To be honest, I wasn’t too impressed with this.

What’s under this plot is a psychologically damaged Tony Stark trying to come to grips with what happened in The Avengers. I want to point out that one of my main concerns for this movie was if this was going to be before or after The Avengers happened, and I think it’s awesome to see that the movie (and I assume future Marvel films) will now all take place after The Avengers, meaning the characters are all affected by what happened.

Acting:

Robert Downey Jr. once again is a star. Ever since Iron Man, I’ve loved him as Tony Stark, and it feels like he’s only become more of the character now.  Don’t get me wrong, Gwyneth Paltrov (Pepper Pots), Don Cheadle (James Rhodes), and even Guy Pearce as the new villain, Aldrich Killian are all great, but Robert really steals the show.

I also have to give credit to the writing team here because, despite being the third movie, Iron Man 3 is still very funny; funnier than most modern-day comedies, I would say, and I think that’s impressive considering comedy films are made to make people laugh.

Atmosphere:

There’s really not much to say here, as the setting is pretty much the same as its been in all the Marvel films: modern-day USA.

I do want to point out that there is a lot less action in Iron Man 3, and instead focuses in on Tony as a character and how he’s dealing with what happened after The Avengers. This may seem off-putting, but I assure you, it’s still just as engaging.

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If you’re a fan of the Marvel films or the Iron Man series, I would definitely recommend this. It’s not perfect, by any means, but I think it ranks a little higher than Iron Man 2.

Rating: 4 out of 5 (stars)

Just Sayin’.

REVIEW: Fairy Bloom Freesia

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1

In the very limited free time that I’ve had when I’m taking breaks while working on homework for school, I’ve been stuck trying to find a game to kill said time. I noticed when updating Steam one day that I had a small little game called Fairy Bloom Freesia. I decided to try it, and wound up finding the perfect little game to play if I feel like playing something while taking a break.

Gameplay:

Fairy Bloom Freesia is an “anime” beat ’em up. It’s very similar to FTP (Free to Play) MMO‘s Elsword and Grand Chase. Fans of those games (like myself) will probably be fans of this game.

For those that aren’t, don’t let the anime tag deter you; this game has a really deep combo system that’s very customizable. Besides the basic moves that you can always learn, you also have special skills and passive skills you can equip (up to 4 special and 2 passive skills).

The various “modes” are fairly simple. There’s the classic beat all enemies, a protect mission that has you protecting what’s known as a vortex, and a boss battle. YOu also have access to a training mode in-between levels.

This is the game. Short, simple, and sweet.

There’s only one problem with the game, and that’s blocking. You take no damage from blocking, and to compensate for that you get a block meter that rises as you block more attacks. However, there’s a passive skill called “Hard Turtle” that allows your block to withstand more attacks before it breaks. When maxed out, it becomes almost impossible for it to break. This makes boss battles incredibly easy and not very fun as you can take on a block -> attack once or twice -> block pattern that continues until you’ve broken their guard, can get one combo in, and then rinse and repeat the process until you’ve defeated them taking minimal to no damage.

Plot:

The plot feels like it’s there simply to give you a reason to keep progressing through levels, and that plot is that you are Freesia, a fairy spirit protecting the forest. The characters are hardly worth talking about, either. Focus on the gameplay; the plot is good enough to move things forward.

Atmosphere (Music/Graphics):

This is what was most similar to Elsword and Grand Chase to me. In the formerly mentioned, the characters are cel-shaded, and Fairy Bloom Freesia has some of that cel-shaded style, but just in a higher definition. The forest has a spring, summer, fall, and winter “area”, giving you different backgrounds and music for each one, and I have to say, the music is pretty catchy. The backgrounds for each season are nice, the particle effects are nice, everything atmosphere-related is nice. I wouldn’t say any of it is great, though.

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Fairy Bloom Freesia is a game where you can take 5 minutes to play a level, stop, and still feel satisfied. Really, don’t let the “anime” part keep you away from this game, especially if you like beat ’em ups. You’ll enjoy the combo system, especially when you’re smacking enemies into each other and finding infinite loops.

Gameplay: 8/10

Plot: 5/10

Atmosphere: 8/10

Final Score: 7/10

Just Sayin’

REVIEW: Ghost Trick

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About a month ago, a friend suggested I purchase a game called Ghost Trick for the Nintendo DS. He hooked me by saying it was one of the best stories he’d ever seen. Curious, I decided to make the purchase, and I found myself with an absolute gem of a game.

Plot:
 
I won’t spoil this plot because I think it’s something everyone should try, but it is incredible. It starts out simple enough: you’re the ghost of a recently killed man, and another ghost, Ray, tells you to save the girl that is about to be killed right beside your body. It goes on from there. Really, it’s one of the finest plots I’ve ever experienced, and it’s all character-driven. There is only one external factor, and it’s the coolest twist ever. 
 
Characters:
 
All the characters have their own unique personalities and hidden motives for things they’re doing in the game, and it’s cool to see how they all come together to create the plot. My favorite has to be Missile, the dog that Sissel comes in contact with.
 
 
This is a really cool feature. As a ghost, Sissel has the power to manipulate small, inanimate objects, and has the ability to go back to 5 minutes before a person’s death and try to change it. The changing of someone’s fate is the core mechanic in the game, as Sissel must utilize his abilities to manipulate objects to change the past, and thus the future. This comes in the form of puzzles you must figure out, and I have to say, some of them were pretty challenging.
About midway through the game, you’re able to utilize another ghost ability – switching objects with similar shapes.
The only problem with Ghost Trick is the lack of re-playability. Once you figure the puzzles out, you know what to do and you already know how the mystery unfolds, and so replaying it takes away from so much of the game.
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Ghost Trick is a gem. It’s a game I had never heard of until suggested to me, and I’m glad I decided to try it, and it easily has one of my favorite game plots of all time. This game proves that games can have a deep, meaningful story, and still be an interactive success. If you like puzzle games or a good story, definitely pick this game up!
Score:
 
Plot: 10/10
Characters: 10/10
Gameplay: 7/10

Just sayin’