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The Review: Is Final Fantasy I – Anniversary Edition Worth It?

Since my PSP finally got hacked, I can “afford” to play games on it. Final Fantasy I – Anniversary Edition is one of the games I managed to complete in the last few months. All in all, it’s a remake true to its roots. Not much in the mechanics has changed, but the whole game received an excellent graphical face-lift, without losing its retro charm.

While the DS remakes of Final Fantasy are fun, the 3D graphics aren’t really that nice and, in my opinion, take away from the experience. On the PSP, however, Square decided to stick to 2D sprites, but made them in beautiful, high resolution which looks excellent on the PSP screen. The characters, backgrounds, enemies, effects, everything has been upgraded.

The mechanics of Final Fantasy I, however, remained the same. You get to choose between several classes, which differentiate in their stat growth on level up, equipment they can wear, and the maximum spell level they can eventually use. Each class can also, in mid to endgame, be upgraded, allowing for even higher level spells and more equipment. Final Fantasy I was one of the first proper console role playing games so the mechanics are pretty simple for today’s standards. This is why those who played these games in the past will love them, while those that started gaming recently might find them a bit dull or tedious. The frequent random battles do not help with this.

Other than the graphical upgrade, Final Fantasy I – Anniversary Edition also received a set of bonus dungeons, each with an elemental orientation and each unlocked after killing the associated elemental boss in the main story. The dungeons hold strong opponents and extra treasure, but not much else.

All in all, this is a game that true fans of the franchise should definitely play through. As for everyone else, try it. Some might give up after a while, but for those that stick with it to the end, it will be worth it.

The Verdict

Score: 8/10

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The Story of Emberwind

The kingdom of Grendale is being invaded by gremlins and it is up to you to save the day. You are Kindle, the only fire gnome amongst the gnomes of Grendale and the local watchman. With the help of your inventions and your snow owl friend, Wick, you can achieve this.

The Review: What is Emberwind?

Emberwind is an action platformer that has Super Nintendo written all over it. You go around and whack gremlins with your staff, unlock new moves and abilities, collect gems and other treasures and save the people of Grendale by lighting lamps and fireplaces to scare away and destroy the gremlins. As you progress, you increase your health by acquiring treasure and your strength by finding and freeing hidden fairies on each level. Every now and then, if you look hard enough, you can also unlock a new move which will allow you to jump further or higher, avoid taking damage, discover new ways to deal damage, or move faster.

Emberwind is incredibly polished. The graphics are old school and if I didn’t know better, I’d swear the game is from the Super Nintendo. The sprites are drawn nicely, the characters have great animations and there really is nothing about the look of the game you could complain about.

The music of Emberwind is orchestral and atmospheric, and it makes you feel heroic from the beginning to the end. The sounds fit the characters well, and none of it is bothersome like in some other games. Again, the game sounds like it should belong on a 16-bit console and this is a major plus for me.

The basic premise of Emberwind is simple. You get an objective for each level which you need to complete while scoring as many points and finding as many secrets as possible, and then you return to your owl and leave the level. At the end of each area, there is a boss, and you also get a flying level here and there. It’s really worth it to find as many secrets you can, since points give you extra health bubbles, while other collectibles increase your strength and other abilities. The game also tracks your time for each level, and you can revisit previous levels to beat your old records, which will also grant you extra points.

The Verdict

All in all, Emberwind is a great and polished game, definitely worth playing.

Score: 9/10

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The Review: What is Hammerfight?

Wow, this one actually surprised me! When I read that Hammerfight a physics game where you use mouse gestures to control your character, I expected an interesting gimmick that will grow old fast and just get in the way of the game. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

In Hammerfight, you control a flying vehicle with a huge weapon attached to it, usually a boulder on a chain or something similar. You use your mouse to move and to swing your weapon around and hit stuff. Now, this might sound a bit tedious, but it really works great. The physics are on point and it really does feel like you are actually hitting stuff. I have played the game for a few levels and, while it is hard, it never felt like it was hard because of the controls.

I didn’t get far enough, but it also seems that, later on, you get to customize your flying machine and weapons with various gems. Even without this, the game feels fun, but I have to say, I’m looking forward to that part.

The visuals and the story of Hammerfight are another great plus. The story seems detailed and interesting, the graphics look decent, with lots of attention to detail, and the music creates a great atmosphere. There are places in the game where you can chose which way to go, which also adds some replayability. In any case, a fun game. I recommend!

The Verdict

Score: 8.5/10

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The Review

Ancient Trader plays more like a board game than anything else. You select a scenario, each with different winning conditions, start with a small ship and begin trading. You go from port to port, buy low and then sell high, all while collecting treasure, fighting mythical sea creatures and avoiding or defeating other captain’s. You can get quests from ports for extra cash, buy some powerful artifacts and upgrades your ship’s weapons, cargo hold and speed.

Ancient Trader also quite pretty, and everything looks like a hand drawn ancient map. The effects are fine and the music fits well with the package.

Sounds fun, right? Well, not so much. You see, Ancient Trader is extremely simplified. You only have three types of merchandise, only three types of weapons which follow a rock – paper – scissor system, and that’s about it. Once you complete a single map, you’ve pretty much seen everything there is to see. Now, the game does support hotseat multiplayer, so that might be fun, but that’s about it. It’s pirates diluted to the point of not being fun anymore, at least not for me.

I know people hate that word, but I think an accurate description would be to say that the game is extremely “casualized”.

The Verdict

Score: 5/10, maybe 7/10 if hotseat turns out to be fun.

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Devil’s Tuning Fork

I downloaded this free game because I found the concept interesting. Basically, you are blind and you use a tuning fork to navigate around the world from a first person perspective. You use the left mouse button to fire a high frequency sound which then bounces of walls and outlines the area around you, or you can use a slower frequency sound with the right mouse button in order to detect weak floors and stuff like that. You can also use a charged up sound which is then fired to an area you target and then it spreads from there. This is used to outline distant areas or trigger bells and stuff like that.

Anyway, it’s an interesting concept, which looks great, but I’m not really sure how good the game is. It feels more like a novelty than anything else. There is a story somewhere in there to, and it seems to be scary or something, but I didn’t really feel it, as it’s to abstract.

Rogue Survivor

A zombie survival roguelike, of all things. Again, I’ve found this to be an interesting concept, but it’s still really early in development so it feels a bit cumbersome to play. Still, this looks like it could become the next minecraft/dwarf fortress if done well. I haven’t played it to much, but I will definitely follow it along.

Well, as you see, I decided to do something about my lack of playing games lately. I will try to find a cool game every now and then to “review” and even provide a link if the game is free. There are really some gems out there that should be discovered by more people so hopefully, a couple more will discover them thanks to a post here.

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Hardware issues, exams, Cataclysm released… I’m sorry to say, but this time, the only reason I haven’t been posting on this blog is because I really haven’t played anything other than WoW for ages.

Two days ago, I finally tried one new game – Super Meat Boy. It’s pretty cool and fun, extremely funny, but not something I intend to finish to fast. The levels are short and fast-paced, so the game is perfect when you have a few minutes to kill. I managed to complete one world and a few levels on the next one, but that’s about it.

Super Meat Boy Character Art

It’s Super Meat Boy!

Other than that, I played nothing, really. I tried a few games, but nothing of note or worth writing about. Since I also won’t be seriously playing anything for a while, I’m thinking about adding some other content to the blog. Maybe I will do some reviews or info on various indie games not many know about. We shall see…

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Installed it on Saturday, completed it today.

The game, like most CoD games, is very story driven, so I didn’t really want to spoil it to the few readers I have. Anyways, It’s a blockbuster, like all of the recent games in the series. There is nothing revolutionary in there, but the presentation is great and It’s really fun to play. The campaign doesn’t drag for to long and it ends before it gets boring or tedious.

I had issues with some minor bugs, but nothing I couldn’t handle.

Really, there is nothing to say. It’s a good, fun game to play and if you played any of the previous games because of the campaign, you should play this one. As for multiplayer, I’m not into it, so I can’t comment on that. Should you buy it? I’m not sure. It can easily be completed during rental, so if, like me, you don’t care about the multiplayer, maybe you should skip buying it.

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After lots and lots of justice dispensing and pure, 100% heroism, I managed to rescue 6 out of the total of 8 orphans, but the major still wasn’t satisfied. I also made a unicorn crap himself, helped a Leprechaun escape from the Leprechaun mafia, helped a guy build a high class village for the rich and wealthy, brought some stone and dirt for food for a really, really poor village, reconciled a smelly farmer and his wife, killed some demons, exorcised a village full of ghosts, killed a bunch of orques and all kinds of truly, truly heroic stuff.

More DeathSpank Art

A truly heroic man, that DeathSpank.

Since the major would do nothing, I decided to try and go find the other two orphans, at the castle of lord von Prong, the big boss behind the artifact and orphan theft. As luck would have it, they were looking for the remaining six orphans so, since I already had them, they decided to lower the drawbridge and let me in. I killed a bunch of orques in there, saved the last two orphans and ran into a locked gate.

I decided to go and return all of the orphans to the major, who organized a huge press conference, got some major publicity for his election and, in the end, instead of giving me the promised 100 000$, game me an I.O.U., stupid major. I went to talk to the old retarded grandpa to ask how to open the locked gate and, more importantly, how to defeat lord von Prong. He said that I need a sword, the Pronginator 3000 or something, and he will make it for me, if I get him the ingredients. He needs some 6×6 plain pelt, a lock of von Prong’s hair and some demon ore.

First I went and got the ore from the Demon Mines, that was easy enough. Then I went to look for the pelt salesman on the road east of town. He wasn’t on his usual spot, but I did find some dragon poo there, and more of it down the road. I followed the trail of poo to an old orc camp, where I found and defeated the dragon. Turns out, the dragon ate the salesman, so he climbed out of him now. I bought the plain 6×6 piece of pelt, and all that was left was the lock of hair. I remembered there’s a wig that von Prong wore in his museum so I went to try and take it, but the guards wouldn’t let me touch it. I asked them when they are leaving and they said at pi’o’clock, when it’s lunch time. I spoke to the guy next to the clock outside, but he wouldn’t ring the bell, since it wasn’t pi’o’clock yet. He also said that there’s a song that the lord usually sings which always brakes the clock, so I went back to the museum and played the song on the record player there. The clock shattered and the orque outside asked me what time it is. I said it was pi’o’clock, so he rang the bell and the guards went for lunch.

I took the hair and brought all of the stuff to the retarded grandpa. He gave me the sword, so I went back to the castle, where I promptly kicked von Prong’s ass. The mysterious, yet strangely attractive red-haired woman appeared again and thanked me for killing von Prong. However, she also said my mission is not over and revealed that von Prong was wearing the same type of thong DeathSpank was wearing. The difference is, my thong gave me the power to be the dispenser of justice and a hero to the downtrodden, while his just corrupted him. Anyways, there are more people in the world with the same thongs, so I have to deal with them to.

That, however, is a story for another time, since the narrator is really tired now.

THE END.

A Poster for DeathSpank 2 - Thongs of Virtue

A Poster for DeathSpank 2 – Thongs of Virtue

Anyways, see you guys in the next episode…

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It’s time to dispense justice!

After Shank, it was time to tackle this gem. Now, before you say anything, the game is simple, somewhat dull even. What saves it is the awesome humor. Without humor, I would play it for an hour and probably leave it. With it, I will probably complete it soonish.

DeathSpank Art

DeathSpank, a true Hero!

Anyways, our hero, DeathSpank, was looking for a powerful artifact, called “The Artifact”. He was lead to it’s location by a young boy, but they got ambushed and the boy got killed. He managed to finds the hut of the witch who allegedly holds the artifact, but she said it is stored in the nearby Demon Cave and I have to get a few items before going there.

Long story short, I helped a lazy fisherman, saved a little girl’s lemonade, err, I mean potion stand, killed a bunch of little monster thingies, destroyed a huge slime, stole cherries from a farmer to color some white horns red and give them to the witch, kicked the crap out of some demons, literally and eventually entered the Demon Cave. I got The Artifact, in spite of warnings from a guardian monk and went to give it to a mysterious red haired girl that asked me to get it (the motivation).

Before I managed to do that, I was ambushed by Orque and two of his orque bullies, got all of my stuff and the artifact stolen and left on the road. The red haired girl found me, told me where the nearest town was and said I should help the town with an orphan issue. I went there, got a new sword from an old retarded grandpa in exchange for an extra spicy taco, kicked the orque bullies’ asses, and got my gear back, then I saved two of the orphans, gave an escort to a merchant, killed Orque, cleared a monastery inhabited by very loud monks, hunted some Blinks, killed swamp donkeys in the swamp, explored two caves, killed some pipsqueeks and bigger pips, found another Demon Cave and found another girl in there.

The demon guarding her actually wanted me to kill him so he could be free of her, and soon, I found out why. She wouldn’t get in the bag so I could save her. She said I have to give her candy first before she will be getting in any bags, so I had to go buy candy at the town store. I was ambushed by orques on the way there. I gave her the candy and then she wanted a cell phone, so I had to go buy a cell phone at the town store. I was ambushed by stronger orques on the way there. Then she wanted a pony so I had to go buy a pony at the town store. I was ambushed by bigger orques on the way there. After all this, she said she wanted a daddy. I would have been touched by this, but by that time, I really, really hated her. Even though DeathSpank is prohibited by law to have children, he decided to be her daddy for a day and finally got her into the bag. I went back to town and left the game.

You can probably expect an update tomorrow.

“The evil of devils cannot compare to the evil of men because men are jerks.”

– Some Jerk