I'm pretty fond of Lloyd after he matures a little bit, but I think Sheena may be my favorite. I think her hair's actually black, though.
March of Reviews
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 On 03/20/2014 at 08:14 PM by Cary Woodham See More From This User » |
Here’s another batch of games I’ve been reviewing lately. As always, please click on and read as many as you can, and maybe even post a comment or two if you’d like. I’d appreciate it. Thanks a bunch. OK, on to the reviews!
3DS Birthday Bash StreetPass Meetup for the North Dallas/Plano, TX Area!
But first, an announcement. By the time some of you read this, it may already be too late, but if you are in the North Dallas/Plano, TX area this weekend, we’re having another one of those StreetPass meetups on Saturday, March 22. Same time, same place. If you’d like more info, just click on the link.
Tales of Symphonia Chronicles (PS3)
A lot of people say that Tales of Symphonia is their favorite in the Tales series. While I will admit there are some good things about it and the game has held up pretty well and I certainly played it a lot on the GameCube, I don’t think it’s the best Tales game ever. I just think a lot of people have good memories about it because it was one of the only RPGs the GameCube had! In fact, I don’t know if this is 100 percent true, but I heard that Namco originally had no plans to bring Tales of Symphonia to the US. It was Nintendo who paid Namco to translate it and hire voice actors so that the GameCube would have an RPG to compete with the PS2’s vast library of titles. Probably a smart idea; and I’ve always said that Nintendo has always done a good job of promoting certain RPGs in their own ‘special’ way.
Symphonia was the first Tales game to have 3-D battles, and they’ve improved a lot since that game, so going back to that may feel a bit clunky for some. Plus, the storyline is garbage. It’s all over the place and I couldn’t tell you what the plot is. The game is just too long and meandering, which is a problem I have with most modern RPGs anyway. I don’t even really have a favorite character. But there are some that are neat. Genis was cool because he was a kid, Raine was a teacher and teachers are always cool, even in video games. Sheena had purple hair and was a ninja, and Presea had pink hair and was a tank in battle. Who were your favorite characters in Symphonia? Let me know in the comments section.
But despite all my griping, this game is still a decent collection as two RPGs on one disc is a good value. It was kind of bittersweet playing Symphonia again, though, because when I played it on the GameCube many years ago, my brother Jeff was just a kid and he played it with me. In most Tales games, another player (or more) can join you in battle as long as you have another controller and another character in your party. We played through the whole game that way. Now that Jeff is all grown up and (mostly) out of the house, I do miss playing games with him sometimes. The lesson here is that you should always enjoy playing with your kids or siblings as much as you can, when you can, because it won’t last forever!
Now for a different take on RPGs. Have you ever thought about the other characters in RPGs, like the shop owner who sells you weapons? Those kinds of characters are mostly forgotten in games, but not here. In Weapon Shop de Omasse, you’re in charge of a blacksmith and weapon shop for a bunch of stereotypical RPG characters! You make weapons and polish them by playing Cooking Mama style mini-games, and then rent them out to RPG characters in hopes they’ll do well on their quest. I actually really enjoyed this one even though some other people I know did not. But then, I like weird and quirky Cooking Mama style games. If you’re interested, check out my review for more.
Speaking of unusual RPGs, this one is a soccer RPG! It’s very popular in Japan and Europe, and has spawned many sequels and even a cartoon show! You play as a bunch of middle school kids (kind of reminded me of the Mega Man Battle Network games in that aspect), and you all love to play soccer. Soccer battles have crazy special moves where you can turn the ball into a fireball, or the goalie can project a giant hand to stop the ball! Unfortunately, I didn’t really like the battles. It was hard to tell what was going on, and the learning curve is pretty steep at first. But the game is popular for a reason, so you may want to read my review and try it out anyway.
Super League Football Pinball (360)
And speaking of soccer, Zen Pinball’s newest table for the Pro Pinball and Zen Pinball games is a soccer themed one. You can pick a table based on your favorite Euro football team and play pinball with a soccer ball. Table rules were a little confusing to me, but I imagine anyone who likes soccer would enjoy it anyway.
Monkey Paw has been releasing a few import PSOne Japanese titles to PSN lately, and Wolf Fang was an arcade shooter similar to Metal Slug. You piloted a mech and could jump and shoot. You could ‘build’ your mech like how you select weapons in Gradius. It’s a two-player game, too. Only problem is that as an arcade game, it’s a bit short, but there are branching pathways for replay value. And it’s very import friendly, too. My brother Jeff called it “Armored Core Arcade.” Not sure if others would agree to that, but we liked it. Wolf Fang was also made by the now-defunct Data East.
Reader Review: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (Vita)
I had my friend review this one, since he has a Vita. It’s like an interactive digital novel, and my friend really liked it, apparently. The cool thing is that after playing this game, he said he may want to try more of the Phoenix Wright games (he only played the first one), so that made me happy.
Gabrielle’s Sweet Defense (iPad)
This is a free-to-play game from Natsume featuring their Gabrielle characters from other iPad and 3DS games. Sweet Defense is kind of like a reverse Plants vs. Zombies game, but it’s one of the better titles in Natsume’s series. I think the silly spooky characters are cute, way better than the awful Monster High stuff anyway.
Grandpa and the Zombies (iPad)
In this game you help Grandpa, who has a broken leg and is in a wheelchair, and you roll him around mazes in a hospital and other areas and try to reach the exit while avoiding zombies. It’s a puzzle game, and reminds me of ice block pushing puzzles found in Zelda dungeons and other games. It’s all right, but gets hard pretty quickly.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog about the games in Pac-Man Museum, but this is my official review of it. So I won’t go into it any more.
Conclusions
And that’s all for now! I probably won’t have a blog to post next week, unless there is something that you all are dying for me to write about (and if that’s the case, please let me know in the comments section). However, the week after, at the beginning of the month, I’ll have a new blog up with a HUGE announcement, so be on the lookout for that then! Later! --Cary
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