Fire Emblem Sacred Stones (Review 4)

Fire Emblem Sacred Stones
Gameboy Advance
Nintendo


Now.. Fire Emblem are my favourite games so this will be fun. Basically Fire Emblem is a strategy, turn based game that requires alot of thinking with every move you make. It is based on a map and you move like on a grid. Fire Emblem usually involves war, you get a certain amount of characters that you can place, which you must use to clear each map. As you progress you have to fight more and more, up to about fifty enemies verse your army of ten. You must attack and wipe out each of your enemies units to zero. If one of your units however reaches zero, they cannot ever be used again except when you start a completely new game. Every character uses a certain weapon ranging from swords to magic tomes or even dragonstones. Each character has a certain class like swordmaster, soldier, general and even Manekete (Dragonstone users that transform).

Thats the basics, now each character have their own stats which are health, strength/magic, skill, speed, luck, defence and resistence. Certain classes move a certain amount of spaces, plus terrain also hinders movements. Also there are two weapons triangles, melee and wind. Melee works as: Swords beat Axe, Axe beats Lance, Lance Beats Sword. Well they don't exactly always win, they have an advantage which lets say you have a sword and your opponent has an axe, your attack damage increases by one and your hit percentage goes up, while your opponent loses one damage and their hit percentage goes down. This may take a while for begginers to remember but it is vital at times.

Now unlike any other Fire Emblem game, you are able to move on a map not during battles and you can fight monsters to train up your characters even after you complete the game, there is also a tower and ruins that you can enter limitlessly just to train. So this is a brilliant step to take if you like games that lets you roam and fight after game completion. The storyline is brilliant, this is the type of game that falls heavily on storylines. I wont spoil any of it for you though. This game has to be one of the best games on Gameboy Advance... or ever. If you get addicted to any Fire Emblem game then this is for you. If you have never heard or tried Fire Emblem but you want to after this review, I strongly recommend Sacred Stones. It's pure brilliance.

The graphics, brilliant for Gameboy Advance, you will love every detail on the map, every detail on the characters and monsters and evern the battle animations. The amount of times you see them maybe the same but sometimes you just wont want to skip them. The sound is brilliant! You can tell it's Fire Emblem on first listen, just brilliant.

Overall I guess there is nothing left to say except that anyone that loves strategy, Fire Emblem or just wants to try a new game today, I suggest you get this, absoulutly amazing.

Gamesplay - Incredible, addicting and fun, worth it. 9.9
Sound - Classic Fire Emblem sounds 9.6
Graphics - Beautiful graphics 9.5
Lifespan - You will want to get past all difficulties and unlock all the secret characters 9.4
Overall Score - 9.7

This is deffinately another gem made from Nintendo, Bravo!

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (Review 3)

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

Gameboy Advance

Square Enix

I could finish this review in five words, that's all but that would be pointless. Those five words would be "This game is so addicting". I find it hard to put this game down after playing it for an hour. The way this final Fantasy spin off works is the battleground is a grid, you move your characters in turns, first with the highest speed and attack your enemies. Doesn't sound that much but believe me, it's more than that. For starters with the characters, they are split into five different races which are Humans, Moogles, Bangaas, Viera and Nu Mou. Each class specialises in different things, Humans are balanced, Moogles are more advanced with gadgets, Bangaas are the powerhouse, Viera excel in speed and Nu Mou are the best magic casters. Even though each race has their separate classes, what they specialise in helps with the stat growths on levels.

The game starts with you on your first day of school in an ordinary winter town called Ivalice. Which you make friends with a female called Ritz and a male called Mewt who gets bullied by the students. The whole game starts with a snowball fight, after a certain amount of turns, it finishes and comes into another cut scene. After school you invite your friends over later which Mewt brings over a book he just bought, this book is magical. After trying to read it but not making any process due to being a different language, everyone leaves. Once the night kicks in and everyone is asleep, the book opens up and kicks in, the town Ivalice turns into a country based around Mewt's favourite game, Final Fantasy (coincidence..?). You then wake up and find yourself talking to a Moogle called Mont Blanc. He is your new alley and decides to help you out after you run into a Bangaa which starts an engagement (or known as a battle). That's the beginning so far, I wont spoil the rest.

There is a huge variety of items on this game ranging from Amour, weapons, shields and items. Certain items when equipped allows the unit to learn certain skills after a certain amount of time wearing or wielding them. These skills range from Fire Magic to Beat down (higher power, lower accuracy) to Counter. Also each class has its own unique combo. A unit can have its primary class technique, a secondary from the skills it has learned, a reaction after getting attacked, a support skill and their combo.

The graphics of this game are really good for Gameboy Advance, the game maybe on a grid but its on a diagonal angle so it gives a 3D effect which works really well. Also the sound is alot of new music with the Final Fantasy feel, it gets in your head, easy to remember and recognise.

Overall this is a brilliant game, truly worth every penny, every part of it is brilliant. It's addicting, it's fun, it's Final Fantasy. Fans of Final Fantasy or newcomers to the series will love this game, a great spin off for sure.

Gameplay - Brilliant, simple and challenging, worth it 9.5
Sound - Classic styled Final Fantasy 9.4
Graphics - Brilliant, new styled graphics on the Gameboy Advance 9.2
Lifespan - You will want to finish all the missions and unlock all the hidden characters 9.4
Overall Score - 9.3
Another great addition to the Final Fantasy series.

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (Review 2)

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite
PSP
Capcom

Key code:
Monster Hunter Freedom Unite - MHFU

As soon as you load up this game and begin playing you set up your character like most games and you end up in a snowy village after a cut scene. In the cut scene you get knocked off a cliff after fleeing from a monster called a Tigrex. You start off with basic weapons and equipment, like most games. But with the controls, if you haven't played any of the previous games, will take a while to adapt too, no one is good at the beginning, no matter how you think you have played. There is no experience, no stats in your character, it all comes down to the weapon you wield, the armour you wear and most importantly, your skill.

The graphics with this game is just... wow... They are incredible for a handheld game, even better than the PS2 graphics. As soon as you climb to the top of the snowy mountains and look down, you will feel like you are actually there, or if you stand by the lake at night, just what a sight, the scenery graphics are really something.

The sound, incredible, every track you listen to from MHFU is truly brilliant, each song manages to stick in your head and suits every situation. Even some classic soundtracks from the very first Monster Hunter game are featured.

Now... with the skill, it all comes down to how well you can weild your weapon, for example, down the path I have been using which is the Bow path, first I will talk about the bow so its easy to understand what I'm doing.

The bow, which seems like it has one of the lowest attack powers from most weapons seems not very high but once you see what it can do it is truly an incredible weapon. From what I have experienced, the bow is the hardest weapon to master but once achieved, is likely one of the better weapons of choice. How it works is with charges, coatings, charge levels and aiming with distance. The aiming part acts as a sweet spot, if you manage to get the right distance then you inflict extra damage. The coatings add different effects such as sleep, paint, paralysis, power and others. You get a limited amount of coatings for each category but the arrows are unlimited. The charge levels can go up to four, increasing damage the longer you charge. Lastly the charges have another three categories, Pierce, Rapid and Scatter. With pierce it fires a single arrow through the monster and does multiple hits as it travels through, mostly best on long monsters.Rapid fires up to 4 arrows in a line in a vertical style, which works great on the small monsters. Scatter fires up to five arrows in a horizontal line which is best for wide monsters or taking out multiple monsters.

That's about it for the bow, apart from it gets stuck with the gunner armour type, which has considerably less defence than the blademaster armour, which are the two types of armour. Now the skill that you need is, hitting the monster in its weak point, managing to avoid every attack thrown at you and either breaking parts of the monster or severing its tail. Although this seems simple, it really isn't for beginners. Another thing to keep in mind that each quest has a time limit of fifty minutes. MHFU is split into lots of quests that can be redone whenever you want. After beating a quest you get rewards, you can also carve monsters for items, these items are used to either take them to the blacksmith to combine to make a new weapon or upgrade an old weapon, create armour, sell or combine with other items to create new items.

That's it really, there is not much of a story at all but this game is brilliant enough to go without a story, along with teaming up with friends for multiplayer. This game can keep you amused for hours, days, weeks and even months on end, it really does take a while to finish the quests, each one can last up to fifty minutes and even when you need to hunt the same monster again and again for armour or weapons, it really will keep you busy and it doesn't ever get boring, especially with friends, this game is truly a must!

Gameplay - Incredible, hard to get a hold of the controls at first but well worth it 9.8
Sound - Brilliant, going to stay in your head for a while and well worth turning up the volume 9.1
Graphics - Fantastic, truly incredible graphics, makes you feel like you are there 9.6
Lifespan - Can keep you busy for months, even years if you are that addicted 10
Overall Score - 9.7
Definitely worth getting, I would have to say it should have been game of the year when it was released!

Pokemon Brown (Review 1)

Pokemon Brown

Hacked by Koolboyman

This hack is based around the game Pokemon Red owned by Nintendo. This game starts out really well but kind of the same as Red. The intro pops up with asking for your name, then takes you to your house. You can tell as soon as you walk out of your house that its a completely new game, its fresh, its new, just uses sprites from Red but completely changes the layout, the plot and the difficulty. The starters are the same from Red which are Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle. As you head off to your first cave you are swarmed by Zubats in the wild but luckily they don't know any moves that confuses you which is a good thing. The cave offers good training and your starter will most likely evolve before getting through the cave. Along my journey I chose Squirtle so this review is based around Squirtles path.

As soon as you get to the next city there is a gym already, at this point I have had a few high levels already. Squirtle does pretty well against this gym as its water type which blocks its main moves. Also in this city you get the bike voucher already. The music all matches Red and so do the graphics but for a retro styled game this is pretty good. Sure there are a few glitches but that aside this is a brilliant game. 

When you begin to play this you can feel that this hack is more than a hack, it feels like it should be a real game, or atleast stick among the same ranks. I have to admit I had my doubts first but after the first few hours it really dragged me in and I couldn't stop playing it.

Some new features in this game are new types for example the gas type, which replaces the poison type for the Koffing and Gastley family. I don't know much about the new types but what I do know is that gas is weak to fire. One of the best bits about this game though is the difficulty. It is really challenging, especially at the end. After I beat the elite four with a team of level 60s, I managed to complete the last dungeon which my team managed to boost to the 80's. you better be prepared at all times in this game as it is very challenging to say the least.

Overall I have to say this is a fantastic game, with many things to find and do, I wont say as it could a be spoiler. If you are looking for a game to download today, I would surely recommend Pokemon Brown.

Gameplay - Brilliant, classic Pokemon gameplay with more added - 9.6

Sound - Taken all from Red, classic sounds with a few extra - 9.2

Graphics - Based around a Gameboy game, the graphics are pretty good - 9.3

Lifespan - Finding every secret and catching them all will take longer than you think, keeping you busy for a long time - 9.8

Overall Score - 9.4

This game is outstanding! I recommend giving it a go at the least.

Intro

Okay here we go, hey I'm Adam/Wolf_Kaioken and I am going to be reviewing games, I hope you all are looking forward to this as have never done a full review on a game online before. Here I would like comments on certain games to review, I am mostly reviewing old retro games up to the Gameboy Advance but i may also do a few newer games. First of all though i am going to review a fake game called Pokemon Brown.

Logo

I have done a basic logo and called it Game reviews for now, this is only temporary and basic, I will put bigger thoughts into the name and logo later in the project. Here it is.

Plans

Okay I'm deciding to do a leaflet which acts like a mini book containing game reviews done by myself, I'm also going to design a logo. What I'm going to do is review four games as my aim by the end of term, for this though I will need to play and complete these games. The games I'm going to be doing are some of my favourites. I'm even going to review a fake game or two. First of all I need to come up with a name, doesn't have to be big or anything, just something to suit for now, as it wont be permanent. Because I am thinking of doing this every now and then after this project, although the reviews wont be as frequent.