Mass Effect Inspired Writings - The Flaggorn Legacy - Part 1 - Green Blood on the Window

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the next installment of Mass Effect Inspired writings. Thought I'd return to these as they're something fun to do when I'm not writing scripts for work or genuinely have nothing to do in the evenings.

So, This time We're leaving the Turian and now following the Korgan. I'll also be using a different writing style for each of the 3 characters that have featured in the last 2 posts, just because I can ...  And Please remember I do not own any of the intellectual property owned by Bioware or the Mass Effect writers, I'm merely someone inspired by them.

There wasn't much time for the Salarian to react, as the force of the shotgun hitting his chest propelled across the room. As it did a wondrous fountain of blood gushing from the pathetic creatures nimble body soaked everything in the room... Including the hostages bound and gagged in the corner. There was no scream, only the thud and crack as the Doctors back hit a side table which, due to the speed in which the Salarian was moving, nearly split him in two as he made contact with it's corner. The only sounds that followed was continued whimpering and the sound of a thermal clip hitting the ground.

"Well", The now rather bored and slightly pissed off Vanguard remarked "How many more of you little toads does Sar'i'too have to slaughter before one of you tells me where are the plans to that weapon!" The weapon, being a new construct which was rather effective at making people explode into lots of tiny pieces and being developed somewhere on a mining world called Millin. However it so happens; that the plans for which, were being traded to leaders of other Mercenary groups on the Citadel ... all of which, were ether now decorating the walls, tied up in the corner or were killed by the Grenade Flaggorn had thrown into the room to cause collateral damage to inspire shock and awe.

All that followed was muffled inaudible cries, forged by ludicrous amounts of fear caused from the mere fact that the chances of any one of them actually escaping being rather thin to say the least.

"What's that?" Flaggorn joked "...Well what ever it was... it didn't quite sound like you were telling me where the plans were... more like you were begging for your lives." He removed the the gag from one of the three remaining leaders, all of which were Salarian.

"Please don't kill us! I'll tell you what ever you want! Just please don't kill me! I have a wife, she needs me, Please I got.."
"SILENCE YOU GIBBERING MEAT-PILE! Before I tear off your head and kick it out the window! Where are the plans?"

"Here, Here! Please, just let me go" The leader squirmed as he handed over a data-slate and flinched as Flaggorn yanked it from his hand.

There was then a silence that would make even an Elcor anxious as the Vanguard opened the data-slate and began to read the contents. Turns out the lab had been moved to one of Millin's moons, which was under heavy guard.

"Thank you Salarian... you may leave..."

"OH! Thank you sir, you have no idea..."

"...OUT THE WINDOW!"

If you've ever asked whether or not a Salarian could fly... the answer is no! First Flaggorn picked up the Mercenary and launched towards the window. Second, the head smashed through the glass pane creating an almighty crash as it shattered and boomed over the top of the little aliens crying and wailing. Next the Salarian began to fall, all the while flailing his arms and legs around and screaming at the top of his lungs. Finally he smashed head first onto an incoming Citadel taxi in mid air as a huge gush of green blood sprayed for meters around.

Flaggorn then quickly executed the remaining Leaders in the room and left, all the while covered in green blood.

This kind of work wasn't Flaggorn's usual gig, after all, he was now working for the N7 initiative and was "representing" his race on the global theatre of war. However this was different, this mission was unlike anything he had done before... this was personal. Flaggorn used to be a rather vocal member of the Blood Pack, he even had the clan's tattoo still on each of his testicles and while with them, he was involved in a mission... a mission that went horribly wrong.

Two years ago word reached The Traverse's largest mercenary factions that a new experimental weapon called "The Kraken" (named after the human mythological giant squid.) The gun, when fired, release eight long streams of plasma which waved across towards it's target. Once these streams reached the target and penetrated into inside the victims circulatory system, they would react with the blood cells inside the arteries and veins making them replicate at such a huge rate the victim would eventually explode. Not only was this a morale damaging display that would terrorise a huge amount of people, but also the plasma streams would only stop travelling until they hit a target's blood. This meant the streams could blast through the hull of a ship, through the walls and not stop until it actually hit a person... as long as the victim was within two miles, by which the energy created would slowly fade out. Needless to say, this turned a gun into a weapon of terror into a weapon of mass destruction, all of which mercenaries could do anything to get hold of.

At a a weapon display, which the Blue suns, Eclipse and Blood Pack were invited to, they were were betrayed. The arms dealer, a Drell going by the nickname "Silence" turned on the mercenaries and used them all as the targets for the demonstration. 

It was a slaughter! Only three people made it out that meeting alive. It was on that day that Flaggorn would promise avenge his fallen comrades as the last mission he would ever do. The last mission before retirement as a bounty hunter. 

Flaggorn quickly stowed away upon a ship that was travelling to Millin. There he would steal a small craft capable of getting him to the moon, drop himself two miles away from the base (out of range of the dangerous Kraken weapon) and approach on foot. There he would kill any guards on the way without raising any alarms, sneak his way into the facility and assassinate the Drell while taking the weapon for himself. At least, that was the plan...

-To be continued-

Thank you for reading this instalment of Mass Effect Inspired Writings. If you have a positive or negative response please let me know... Regardless... I'll catch you next time.

Belated Reviews - BrÜtal ****ing Legend! - UMLAUTS MOFO!

Greetings beautiful readers, welcome to the second instalment of Belated Reviews, where I review a game which has been out for ages, but maybe I just never expressed my opinions of, or I just missed the boat completely.

Today I bring you a game that's quite close to my heart, a game of awesomeness. But to do so Must tell an epic tale...

Long ago (4 years ago) lived a man unlike any other man he knew (probably) A man named Tim "The Schafernater" Schafer the man responsible for Double Fine and such games like Maniac Mansion, Grim Fandango and Psychonauts. One fated day The Schafernater (again, probably) was greeted by an almighty being know was "The God of Metal!" The God of Metal spoke onto the Schafernater and demanded he create a video game that was worthy of his awesome being. He wanted songs, that spread the power of Heavy Metal music to the people in order to spread his influence. The Schafernater got his crack team together, hired voice "talent" in the forms of Ozzy Osbourne and Jack Black and many, many others (Including Tim ****ing Curry. After acquiring other "voice actors" he then scoured (probably) the globe in order to find the most mindbogglingly awesome Metal music and placed it all... on an in-game car radio... And so it was... That BrÜtal ****ing Legend.... Was born. Why the bold umlaut? Because Germans are awesome!

 

As was the tale...

I actually rented this game almost a week after release (2009 and I ALWAYS regretted not buying the full game. I ended up having to rush certain parts and never really got to experience the entire game... Until recently... I've been meaning to by this game on steam since getting my new computer and I've finally done just that... I've (4 years late) purchased BrÜtal legend. (Yes the Ü will be bold every time I use it.)

At the time, the game was a mixed bag on release with some people feeling the game wasn't long enough and that certain aspects weren't as refined as they could have been whilst others referred to the game as "The Holy Grail" of all games, and a "Love Letter to Heavy Metal music!"

Regardless, there was no PC release. People asked and for 4 years they didn't get... Until now... So! Is the port any good? What are my views on the game in general? Do I "head bang" or "old man dance" on the spot? Let's find out.... Lower the gates!


Oh yeah... and SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!

Chapter 1 - Looky Looky!
BrÜtal Legend's world is set in a ... kinda old times, kinda parallel universe ... thingy place which is totally inspired and lives upon Heavy Metal rock music. There are trees shaped as Stage Scaffolding, there are giant Iron Crosses and other "Rock" inspired scenery.  That would have been okay... But then that's not nearly as BrÜtal as it needs to be. So EVERYTHING is hyped up to 11. Giant volcanoes in the distance mountains of skulls and sea walls created of giant speakers stacked onto top of each other. The world is colourful, vibrant and sexy as hell! As are the enemies and characters the player encounters. Everything from Demonic nuns (Yes... Demon Nuns!) Head bangers with shoulder muscles that could crush a bus and Goth Zombies... (Yes... Zombie Goths, not that different from actual Goths really) There's huge variety here and every new area will have the player just wanting to stand still for a moment and absorb everything they're seeing and just say "That is so awesome". Everything is perfectly themed, everything looks awesome. The addition of NO HUD UI allows you to gaze upon the world as you wish with nothing in the way, and you don't need a HUD UI anyway.

In terms of sound... well... It's as awesome as flying through the air in a car with an absurd amount of nitro with the engine roaring like a dragon whilst blurting out Heavy Metal music sounds like. It's pretty brilliant. The music variety in this game is LUDICROUS levels of insane... Like a Grand Theft Auto soundtrack but with only good songs and all of them make you want to nod your head and stomp your feet. The voice acting is spectacular, Jack Black gives (in my opinion, please do remember this is an opinion based review) his best performance, it's a perfect blend of funny one liners and ... his personality. The cameo cast all do an excellent job and honestly there isn't a bad voice acting performance. Sometimes you can pick out one or two... but here.. All good. Battle sounds are pretty good as well, mostly due to the fact the mostly everything is ether drowned out by rock music or actually IS some form of rock music, like a thunder strike caused by playing the guitar.

On PC compared to the Xbox 360 version I played, as you can expect, it's a leap and bound better. It still looks about 4 years old, but who gives a shit when the game looks and sounds this awesome. There are a few glitchy animations here and there which are likely never going to be fixed and I had the frame rate drop off for me a little when crazy shenanigans were happening on screen, but apart from that, this port looks and sounds AWESOME!!!!

OH, but beware gamer... NO GRAPHICS SETTINGS OF ANY KIND!!!!!!!!!!!! If you think your computer can't run the screen shot bellow... It probably can't!

Chapter 1 conclusion - BEAUTIFUL world which looks and sounds awesome. An album cover artist's wet dream!



Chapter 2 - Clicky Clicky

Get some tea.. this is going to be a long one...

So the game implements two/three-ish main game play styles. 3rd Person action combat, which focuses on using combo's with both an axe and an "electric" guitar. 3rd person strategy, very similar to a brilliant little game called Sacrifice where the player orders troops that are nearby to the player rather than commanding via a god-like birds eye view. And driving where you... drive (three-ish cause there's a surprising emphasis on driving around)

Firstly the action combat. left click (default) commands your axe, and holding it can use a more powerful attack while respectively the right click commands the use of the guitar. By varying combinations of the two and unlocking combo's and different moves the player can dispatch most enemies that come before them. As well as this the player can attempt to execute different "solos" which require hitting buttons in a particular order and tempo in a "Guitar Hero" kinda style. There can be from melting the faces of any low level enemies nearby to ...*Clear Throat* CALLING FORTH A GIANT FLAMING LED ZEPPELIN TO DROP ON ONE'S FOES! The combat for about half of the game can be rather entertaining and the solos are always fun to pull off (even though the LED ZEPPELIN!  Isn't un-lockable in single player until near the end of the game)However what ends up happing is that the combat on its own becomes stale. You'll have unlocked about 7 different combos but you'll likely only find yourself using two or three over and over and over and over again. The don't do nearly enough damage for them to be entertaining to use and it will take a long time to take down enemies by yourself. In addition to the AWFUL control scheme of left click right click, movement being WASD and the lock on being ***ing Ctrl... you end up just not locking on to enemies... It's rather annoying unless your happen to have tentacles instead of arms.

The strategy elements of the game are slowly drip fed to you throughout and the missions you'll be doing will most of the time be in order to explain the functions of different units in your army such as Roadies who carry large speakers on their backs and are yet invisible to the enemy and Head Bangers which smash things with their heads. About 2 hours into the game you'll start to have your actual first strategy battle. Eddie (the main character) can fly about the battle field and issue commands to units he flies over or alternatively he can do it on foot or at the seat of his car. The basics (and you really couldn't make this up) are that you must protect your main stage from the enemy whilst destroying their and capturing "fan fountains" by placing merchandise booths on top of them. What intern happens is engaging battles that involve you multi-tasking like a boss. This can at times be a little too much and you may struggle balancing hiring troops, while fighting enemy commanders, while fighting enemy troops, while observing the battlefield, while trying to pull off certain solos like the LED ZEPPELIN! While also trying to listen to the awesome music. As if this wasn't enough you can also double team up with EVERY unit in your army to do specific moves, like creating a mosh-pit.

This would all be fine... if it wasn't for the controls. The hotkeys for all these things are scattered everything and often require you to hold down a button while you must click an icon in a CIRCULAR RIDICULE obviously designed with consoles in mind. Example was me trying to build a booth on a fan fountain by pulling off the right combo, while training troops and within seconds fly away to safety. It's just too much without a good control system in place. You find yourself having to slow yourself down, when you just wanna go at the speed of light. For someone who's typically quite slow at build orders, to be slowed down by the controls isn't a great thing.

The driving is kinda borderlands-esk. You can explore the world by driving around it. Pretty standard. You can upgrade your car with different weapons, paint jobs and utilities such as bigger engines and more nitro. Controls are a little iffy, though this can mainly be because of it being a port. Controlling the car would be much better with a thumb stick though you're kinda forced to using WASD. However this doesn't mean that it isn't fun, upgrading the car so it can ALMOST fly while going super fast after a jump is a joy. And combine this with the soundtrack at the same time... It's forgiveable.

There are also tuns of collectables and side quests to complete which increase the total game time considerably. Collectables range from freeing relics and finding out the ancient history of the world you're in. Side quests involve range from two "types" of missions for me. The first is story focused side quests, in helping a certain non-recurring character in an inventive way, like helping a guy keep bassists away from a girl he's trying to chat up by creating a giant mosh-pit. These are the rarest of the two types and are relatively few in number. The second type are side quests where you do the same thing again and again for a certain character or characters. Like doing ambushes with a small force and if you lose the force you fail the mission. And and doing a race against are fast car. These get REALLY repetitive REAL quick. And you'll find yourself only doing these for the reward and for no other reason. This reward, which is for completing any mission or finding a collectable, is Fire Tribute which you can spend on upgrades and cosmetic gear from Ozzy.

The problem with the game-play here is the game tries to be a jack of all trades, master of non. None of the different game-plays are in-depth enough to not become repetitive later on in the game. The action isn't fleshed out enough and is two simplified, the strategy game-play is very simple and with only 7 strategy based missions in the game its not nearly as fleshed out as it should be (yet it's bar far, for me, the most fun gameplay style out of the 3) The driving's controls aren't slick enough for me, and can be abit wonky, but because of the music blaring out at the same time, and with all the funny upgrades you can get you'll still enjoy driving around.

There's also a Multiplayer mode in the game where you take part in strategy battles as one of the 3 factions in the game. These are pretty much giant missions from the main story but are quite fun. The problem is, is that it suffers the same problems as the single player in that it isn't fleshed out enough.

Chapter 2 conclusion, Not refined enough and tries to be too much at once. Still fun though. Controls are not suited for the PC at all however it's bearable. Too short and quite repetitive.
Multiplayer is alright.. but could be better



Chapter 3 - Fluffy Fluffy 
In BrÜal Legend you play Eddie Riggs (Jack Black) a rock and roll Roadie who feels that he was born too late in a world that doesn't care. Luckily for him when a piece of set falls on him and crushes him like a bug he is transported to a world of Heavy Metal. There he meets Ophelia (Jennifer Hale), the classic rock and roll chick love interest, and Lars (Zach Hanks) who the rebel against an evil demonic army lead by Emperor Doviculus (Tim ****ing Curry) and his lacky General Lionwhyte (Rob Halford) who is enslaving the people of Blade Henge. Along the way he meets, The Guardian of Metal (Ozzy Osbourne) a spiritual healer and Kill Master Lemmy (Lemmy).

Eddie offers himself forth as the person to put on an awesome show and take it on tour to free the world. The story is full of twists, turns and betrayal and is full of some of the most awesome lines in video game history like; "Now I bet you wished you'd worn a bib 'cause now you've got face all over your shirt!" and "Everytime you come back here, there's another ****ing scratch on that beautiful car" Spoken by Ozzy Himself.

The voice acting here is BRILLIANT! and every character is loveable.

The game is also bloody hilarious throughout and I'd actually go as far as calling this game a "comedy game" everything is rock and rolled themed and it gleams out all forms of exaggeration at the same time. You never feel like it's insulting Heavy Metal, just telling you that it's awesome because of X Y and Z.

In terms of actual story length... it's definitely a short one. Lasting only about 12 hours-ish being longer if you complete ALL the sides quests. Probably the biggest shame is the fact that the game is unlikely going to receive a sequel, considering the fact the story leaves on a kind of cliff hanger "I'll be back" kinda way.

As last time I will go through my favourite character/s and explain why I liked them so much so...

Emperor Doviculus.



Leader of the demonic armies and total bad ass. Voiced by frigging Tim Curry! He's everything you like in a bad guy and perfectly bends people to his will. You can also play as him in the Multiplayer which is awesome and the voice acting is bloody stellar! Did I mention Tim ****ing Curry?!

Chapter 3 conclusion - Too short, but still really, really good. Shame there will unlikely be a sequel.

Chapter 4 - Yay or Nay?

This game is a mixed bag. On one side, the game play is not as good as it should have been, it's quite repetitive and is too short. The game tries to be a jack of all trades but ends up being a master of none. On the other hand, You have a spectacular love letter to Heavy Metal bursting with charm and humour that not only makes the player feel frigging awesome but despite the game play not being brilliant, you never regret the time you spend with it.

It's an odd subject considering I always defend the line of "Games are to play, not to watch" but BrÜtal Legend is a perfect example of how this line of thinking can be wrong. This isn't the type of game to replay again and again because you want to unlock the different combo's or want to be able to be really good at online. Instead you replay this game cause you want to experience all the jokes and the story again. I've now completed this game twice... and you know what... I'm likely going to do so again.

This game's Theme, Music and Story throws the Gameplay over it's shoulder and carries it to the promised land of rock, places it down at the side of a beach, hands it a beer and says to it "don't worry buddy, we'll take it from here just sit back. Listen to some rock music and I'll be back in a jiffy"

An example of playing a game, in order to enjoy the things that don't have anything to do with the game play... Not that's terrible, but it's no where near as good as it could have been.

Final Thoughts? If you like rock music, enjoy having a laugh or two or just want an okay game to tide you over for a little while then pick it up. The PC version is available on Steam for £14.99 or your regional equivalent and although the controls are suited for the Xbox 360, Id still pick it up on PC just because it looks a thousand time's better. Just be sure to look into checking that you can run it before hand. Don't expect the best game ever, but expect to have a good time none the less!

My name's been ThespianHunter, Tim ****ing Curry!... And I'll catch you next time.

 
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

ThespianHunter Defends : Pokemon Mystery Dungeon - Gates to Infinity

Greetings everyone and welcome to another addition to the ThespianHunter Blog, where I talk about video games and other shenanigans we refer to as entertainment.

I brought a 3DS-XL yesterday! Yes, I can hear you already "OMG BRA, 3D IS SHIT BRO" And yes, illiterate reader (that really doesn't make sense, does it?) 9 times out of 10 I'll agree with you that 3D tech is the latest in cash cows in video gaming. It's a mixed back, a wild west if you will, of a very very wide range of quality implementations.  As for me, I enjoy 3D, I'm one of those strange and wacky people, who feel that 3D enhances the viewing experience (as long as making it 3D doesn't LIMIT the experience, an odd concept I know, but ill be getting to it) and as for the 3DS, I do enjoy most of it's little gimmicks it tosses around like a midget stuffed into a basket ball! For me and my current experience with the 3DS so far is that I love it. No need for glasses, it's all on the screen... but... well... I'll get to that later too.

But anyway, One of the things I got with my little "per-chase" (as it was the Monster Hunter Limited addition) was that I would chose from a selection of games what I would like to have for the simple sum of £5. Me being Me, I wanted to get something that, I was familiar with, however demonstrated what my new 3DS could do. And, out of the choice I picked.... Poke-mans Mystery Dungeon - Gates to Infinity. (which I'll be referring to as GoI, during this post)



And yes, illiterate reader "OMG BRO, BUT VESP! YOU SAID YOU DISLIKED POKEMON AS A CASHCOW! YOU HIPERCRIT BLAD" .. Yes, Yes, But reader as an uncle said to me long ago "You don't complain about the milk when you sucking it from a tit!"But yes, as cash-cows go, Pokemon is the biggest of them all, all is missing is a Pokemon-vile and I'm sure gaming journalists will be referring to the franchise as "sin amongst sin". But, as you may recall... I do actually like the franchise. And I wouldn't have got this game if I didn't! I especially like Mystery Dungeon Games.

An odd hybrid of rouge like "turn based" game play, with JRPG elements and team management, mixed in with a little bit more "kid friendly" entertainment.

And just under 10 hours in... OH MY is it aimed at kids (not that I mind, one of my biggest guilty pleasures is Viva-Piñata, a game easy to play, degree needed to be master! Those who have played it will know what I mean) it's clear in it's presentation, how it's story progresses and in it's character OH MY is it in it's characters.

As the game starts, you're a human, who "is in a deep dream" turned into a Pokemon, haunted with nightmares every night, and told "you must save the Pokemon World" You then pick which Pokemon "you look like" and then you pick what Pokemon is looking over you as you wake up in the middle of no where. So it began, I was a Pikachu and my best buddy in the Pokemon world was "Ajax" the Axew. You set off together putting together a team to save other Pokemon and uncover a bunch of mysteries.

From there you defeat nasty Pokemon, build up a Paradise for Pokemon, meet new friends and eat a fuck ton of berries. And that's the premise!

Now, why is this post called "ThespianHunter defends" well, whilst I was looking through guides on what to do during a brake in the story progression (which was needed, cause the story just keeps on progressing like a train on heavy tracks!) when I came across different reviews... negative ones. After reading through them I started noticing the review scores... at their lowest.. 3/10 at their highest 4/10 Even IGN, the worst reviewers on the internet for giving games too higher scores gave it a 4.5/10 and thus calling the game "bad".

Now, as you may know, I only give a score if I feel like I really have to, to express a point, I personally think meta-critic is a retched hive of scum and villainy being more corrupted than the Blight! but that's besides the point... What does a 3/10 imply... You know what it implies? .... Go on... guess!... I'll tell you what.... it's JUST AS GOOD.. as Steel battalion for the Kinect... a game.. that DOESN'T EVEN WORK! And what do I mean by "doesn't even work?" I mean "IT'S UNPLAYABLE!" ... So, this raises a question... "why the low review scores... Am I missing something?"

I don't think I am!

Thus, I present to you ... why I think Pokemon GoI deserves AT THE VERY LEAST a 6/10. I'm defending it!




Firstly, My points against, because I can understand some criticism aimed at the game.

1. The 3D Tech  I do like the 3D tech, honestly, I think it's rather nifty! There's great depth perception with clear levels of foreground midground and background. It's actually quite cool, it's also way better implemented than Monster Hunter 3. (yeah, bet that shocked you!) In Monster Hunter with 3D on highest, the text appears really blurry and the the 3D tech is only really noticeable in this fashion. (unless it's a cut-scene) In GoI Text appears nice and crisp. But.... That's when the screen isn't making your eyes bleed.

I can sum this up perfectly with a quote. My father, bless his bald head, is starting to lose his eye sight (as we all do when we become senile!) and He wanted to to see how I was getting on, so I handed the 3DS to him.... I saw tears.... Literally, the screen hurt his eyes so badly they started watering. his response "Ah well... It sounds good. Just a shame I have to look at it upside down from a mile away with my joke glasses on" And that's the main problem. You have to find that sweet spot where your eyes pick up the 3D and KEEP IT THERE at all times, alittle too much to the left and you'll go double vision. After about an hour of play your eyes hurt. Yeah... It does it better than Monster Hunter... but it still makes your eyes water. so abit of a mixed bag. (but when it works it's awesome!)

2. It's Clearly a Kids Game MD games are normally aimed at children. or at least Japanese teens and more so than other Pokemon games. kiddy themes, no one "dies", everyone want's to be a friend and there are nasty people who don't believe in friendship. There are some more, "adolescent" themes here and there, like rejection and how to take criticism etc but these are few and far between (at least 60% through the game) and you can tell that the game is even meant to be played by a kid, as you're reminded what you're meant to be doing every other minute via cheesy grins and dialogue to match. This for me, at times, feel a little too much, it goes overboard at times.

3. Repetitive nature Although the "mystery dungeons" are completely random every time you enter one, even if you enter the same one, how they're structured, how they look and a lot of the enemies you'll be facing are the same. There are different tile textures and some dungeons have some open areas which are cool to look at the first time round, but you'll be going into each mystery dungeon at least 7 times each to do different missions. Said missions only have a handful of different variations, you'll ether go in to find someone, something or take someone out. Furthermore although there are almost 150+ Pokemon in this game, you won't encounter even 90 of them until you've completed the game.

As an extension point of Pokemon variety, You can't evolve your partner Pokemon until you've completed the game. (bit of the bummer, but that's how it's always been)

Honestly, with this much repetition, unless there are some awesome things in post-game, I won't be replaying it.



4. Paradise building sucks! Meant to be a way in which the player can further-customise his/her game the edition of building Dojo's to train and berry farms (LOL POKEMON-VILE) to grow crops for missions is utterly redundant maybe if it was a little more fleshed out MAYBE it would be good, but alas it just sucks.

Time for the good then, can it redeem itself?

1. The story It's rather charming and seeps with the charm that Pokemon does all the time. It does get away with a lot of plot holes because, dude, it's talking Pokemon. But it's pretty good for what it is. I would have been good if it's "companion mode" (a free-play mode where you play as one of the Pokemon you've recruited as a team leader.) had some form of story mode for itself, but it's not here. There's no real choice within the story line ether, but in all fairness, if you wanted a Pokemon story, go read the Manga! or watch the TV series or...or... play one of the other thousand of games!

2. Augmented reality There's not much of it, but it is kinda fun to use ... kinda, (it's a half good point) You go around with the camera, find something circular and turn it into a portal to a mystery dungeon for you to explore. You can't explore it with your single player story team, but you can pick a little team and the rewards you earn are sent to your current character. These are however FUCKING DIFFICULT! and you will require to know your way around the game before jumping into this game mode. But it's pretty cool.

As an addition to this point, there are also some balance sensor mini-games here and there which are a fun little distraction, but they're not something which will keep your attention for more than a couple of minutes every now n then.

3. Rogue a-like  Aye. Indeed, rogue a-like... another one, right? A completely random chance of things happening, you can open a door and you can NEVER predict what's going to be behind it (some also have Permadeath, although this game does not) Seems the genre has had a huge resurgence lately... not that it's a bad thing! However I'm two sides about the genre to be honest, I like the random element, keeps the game fresh and exciting to experience. However there's always the annoying factor of it, and I can understand those who feel like they get dicked over. An example from the game, certain mission I was on I had to get to some stairs in this certain mystery dungeon, only to find 3 high level pokemon right next to their stair. But as is the fate of the dice. In this case, the genre the game is in HIGHLY improves it. It aids some what

4. Pretty Colours!  The game is VERY colourful and very (for me) aesthetically pleasing. The different dungeons are vibrant with colour, each being slightly different in its presentation, yet still being the same-ish style of layout (EG, the lakes look different, but they're all the same lake) If I would be critical about it I would say that the "dirt road" which seems to be everywhere (in the over-world and in the different dungeons) is quite repetitive, but at least it's a pretty dirt road!

5. The Game Play The game play is quite good for what it is. Each Pokemon can learn 4 moves (the standard in any Pokemon game) There are aggressive moves, that do physical damage to an enemy, that can be levelled in to more powerful versions with constant use. There are also non-aggressive moves which can't be levelled up, but help your efforts as a whole (like lowering the attack of all enemies in the room or putting a certain enemy to sleep). There is also a super attack. This attack can only be used every so often and requires charging after use. It's powerful enough to kill almost every enemy in the room via giant explosion. The gameplay is a mix and strategy and Hexbased turned based strategy. And is definitely fun. This is one giant elephant in the room however, you can't easily issue commands to each of your companions, they'll do what ever they see fit, which can sometimes be ... not useful at all. And sometimes they may run off to attack someone, leading them on a wild goose chase in the wrong direction, but returning to you until they're forced to turn around by a dead end.

So there you have it, my for and against. As you can see, yes, the game will never win game of the year, yes the game is not a brilliant master piece. But NO! It is not a bad game. It has it's problems, sure. But it's far from being a bad game. Look to the Kinect for "bad games". If my views drastically change by the end of the game I'll let you all know. But my time so far is enjoyable and I do indeed plan on finishing the game. After that... My name has been ThespianHunter, You can put my Onyx in your Cloyster... and I'll catch you next time