Tag Archives: thekapz

REVIEW: Fairy Bloom Freesia

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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’

OPINION: Casual players have less fun than competitive players.

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Do any of the following phrases sound familiar?

“I just want to have fun.”

“I play for fun.”

“You’re ruining games by playing competitively.”

Maybe you’re one of those who says this to others when getting beaten to a pulp. That’s okay, I understand; I’m just going to point out that your ego is bigger than my ego, and I play games competitively.

Outrageous? Not at all. When hardcore and casual – especially in games with a competitive scene – collide, there’s an almost instant animosity: casuals do not like competitive. Why? Because we, the collective competitive, take away from the experience (apparently), and make games not fun.

Before I delve further, I’m going to define what a casual is for this post (as to not offend everyone. LOL). Casuals are not retired competitive players, they are not players who only play every once in a while, they are not players that respect competitive play; casuals are players who degrade competitive play and players, and complain when they lose to said competitive players by utilizing those three phrases (among others similar to those).

See, the problem with those three phrases are that they implant this kind of hierarchy onto “how to have fun”. “Having fun” is at the top, and “playing competitively” is at the bottom.

I guess now is as good a time as any – casuals, you’re not having as much fun as I am.

See, no one likes to lose. We like to succeed. When we lose, we stop having fun (this is somewhat true – you can learn to accept defeat and still have fun, but I’m digressing). When casuals say they want to play for fun, they’re not just playing a game to “have fun”. No, they’re playing with friends that they can beat, or with a randomness factor so large that sometimes you can’t tell who is better and winning is almost purely by chance (Mario Party comes to mind as an example).

Casuals say that playing a game at a high level takes away from the experience, but think about this: have you ever played through a game and not gotten better at it? Difficulty curve is part of game design; the game is designed to become more difficult as you progress and improve. That means all the casuals who are beating these games are doing so because they’re improving, getting better; they’re playing at a higher level.

They’re justifying their losses by putting down those who are better, or put in more time and effort than they do, but it’s still not fun to lose. They’d be having more fun if they accepted that they’re not going to put effort into a game and will lose to those who do most of the time, or if they start putting in that effort and seeing some results. They’d have more fun if they learned how to take a loss and still have fun instead of getting salty and trying to make excuses as to why they’re getting their ass beat. They’d have more fun if they respected competitive play.

Oh, you play for “fun”? Yeah, right. Everyone wants to be good at what they play. The difference between casual and competitive is that casual blames the competitive for their loss, while the competitive blames themselves (or the game. LOL) for their loss.

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’

Global Game Jam 2013: My Experience

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Last weekend, I participated in Global Game Jam 2013, an event where, in the span of one weekend, people from around the globe makes games. And let me tell you, it was an awesome experience!

Friday, everyone met up at DePaul who was participating, singed up, and we watched the Keynote, which was very cool. Then, we got the theme our game was supposed to center around, which was a heart beat (something that can connect everyone from around the world, they said). I thought the theme was interesting, and after forming teams, we went right into brainstorming. Unlike a lot of those at DePaul, my team consisted of people I didn’t know. I think next year I’ll go into it with friends, but I figured being in a team with strangers would be a good experience, and it was. I had a lot in common with them, and when I find someone to talk about MegaMan Battle Network with, it’s always awesome!

By the time 8PM rolled around, we had our game idea, Murica. We went with a fat guy rolling around and eating various junky foods, trying to balance how much he was eating with how full he was and how fast his heart was beating. You lose when you have a heart attack or starve. It was supposed to strike at a theme about America’s obesity problem due to fast food while being funny and silly.

Saturday, I woke up at 7:30, got to DePaul by 9:30, and began working. At first, we were mainly doing some level design and getting lists of tasks we needed to get done while we waited for our programmer to finish the content pipeline for his engine. Because I was one of the producers, I dipped out now and then to check on some of my friends’ teams (and troll them. LOL), which was very fun, especially when I had one of my friends text someone, “We in there! #swag #yolo.” By the time 5PM rolled around, we had almost all of our art assets done, and by 9PM we were switching engines from our programmer’s custom engine to XNA because his engine didn’t have the ability to rotate a certain way (in programmer’s term, he had no forward Vector, which is bad. LOL). After XNA finally installed on his computer, he began translating everything to it, so the rest of the team relaxed and chatted. Unfortunately, we had to switch engines again due to a content pipeline problem XNA was giving us, and so we switched to Unity so more of us (there was only him and I programming, and since he had his own engine I really hadn’t been programming) could work on the project. By the time 3:30AM on Sunday rolled around, many of the teams looked very tired, and a couple teams were done and polishing. We had just finished a beta minus our heart and stomach features in Unity, and it was awesome. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the time and means to learn the many aspects of Unity and put everything in that we wanted, but what came out of it was a playable demo, and I think that’s what’s important.

By 11 AM, most teams were done and submitting (you can see a screenshot of my game as the header image for this post), and so everyone was pretty much relaxing and chatting about how they wanted to sleep. I know I sure did! At 11:30 judging began, and after all of that, I went home.

Global Game Jam 2013 was really awesome, and I will definitely be joining next year if I can! I learned a lot about producing, a lot about Unity, and I realized that I still have a long way to go before I can program with the big boys. Also, I should’ve taken more pictures so I could’ve put some in this post. LOL. Next time!

Just sayin’.

REVIEW: The Hobbit

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Years after enjoying the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I was really excited to see The Hobbit. After all, when I read the books, The Hobbit was the first one I read, and I still remember it well. How does the movie stack up? I’d say it does splendidly.

I’m not going to go into detail in case you want to read the book, but it follows the book quite closely, which is really nice. The character arcs and development all follow the book’s path, which is great, because there are some really nice arcs, especially Bilbo‘s and Thorin‘s as they come to accept – and even welcome – each other’s company.

Now, there were a few parts that confused me. The part where Gandalf and Saruman are talking and the part with the Forest Wizard (I completely forgot his name. LOL) are two such parts that I don’t remember being in the book. Fortunately, some friends of mine explained that these were parts from the Appendices, which are extra bits of story at the end of the books explaining some of things that the reader never read about, such as those two very parts. This does one very important thing for me – explain why this is going to be a trilogy.

You see, when I first heard that The Hobbit was going to be a trilogy, I thought to myself, “how in the hell are they going to make one book a trilogy?” Well, the Appendices are the answer to that question, and I think it’s an awesome idea now that I know it’s not just the book, because they go through half the book in the very first movie.

Now, as for the look of the movie: as I mentioned in a previous entry, I saw it in 48fps, which completely changes how the movie looks. But, the look is very similar to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which is very nice. The grandeur landscapes and towns all look fantastic, and even the Shire looks awesome. And in 48fps, it’s simply eye candy.

Oh, and the music, much like the trilogy, is fantastic.I have a soft spot for medieval sounds, however, so the music may not be your cup of tea. I definitely enjoyed it, though.

The Hobbit is a movie any Lord of the Rings fan will enjoy, especially those whom have read the Appendices, but don’t think that someone new to the series wouldn’t enjoy it. It’s got plenty of action, adventure, and good development and plot. Nothing stellar, but definitely solid. And believe me when I say that seeing it in 48fps is worth it.

Rating: 8/10.

Just sayin’

One Year

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Today marks the day of my first blog entry last year when I made a resolution to start and keep one. It’s been a pleasure writing for all of you who read my blog every week, and I want to thank you all for reading!

I look forward to a new year full of awesome stuff to write about!

Just Sayin’.