Jump to content
Banner by ~ Ice Princess Silky

Magic Note

User
  • Posts

    1,238
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Blog Entries posted by Magic Note

  1. Magic Note
    It's been a while since I last wrote a review. Well, seeing yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the original releases of Pokémon Red/Green in Japan on February 27, 1996, I thought it'd be a great time to review these games.
     
    These games were released in North America sometime in September 1998 for the Game Boy. You start off on a continent called Kanto as an unnamed boy (who's named Red) who is tasked by Professor Oak to fill the Pokédex and his grandson, Blue (who's called Green in Japan), is also chosen for the task. Along the way, you battle different trainers and wild Pokémon to get experience points. If a Pokémon reaches 0 HP, it faints. You can also apply status effects that can change the course of the battle, such as Thunder Wave paralyzing foes.
     
    What is a Pokémon, you ask? It stands for Pocket Monster, and they can be caught on fields, forests, caves, and with a fishing rod, in the water. You may even find them surfing in the water! As you get through the game, you'll earn Pokédollars for winning fights. Should you lose a fight, you'll respawn at the last visited Pokémon Center with half of your money gone. Poké Balls come in different forms, as the more rare it is, the easier it is to catch one.
     
    As for combat, there are fifteen types that work similar to rock-paper-scissors. Fire destroys grass, Water douses fire, and grass dehydrates water. There are more type advantages, disadvantages and even types that are immune to another along the journey. If you reach a certain level with a Pokémon (i.e. Level 7 for Caterpie), it will attempt to evolve. Pressing B cancels it, but if you choose to let the evolution go, it will evolve (usually increasing their stats).
     
    Speaking of stats, you have the usual attack, defense, speed, HP and special. Special in this game dictates special attack and defense. They can temporarily decreased and increased by moves in battle, or they can be permanently increased by vitamins you'll find. Speed also increases their critical strike chance, meaning a speedster like Persian can score critical hits more easily.
     
    Box management and trading are vital to completing the Pokédex. After 20 Pokémon fill a box, you'll have to switch to another one and save the game. You will find different aides for Professor Oak in route buildings who will give you items if you catch a certain amount of Pokémon.
     
    In certain towns there are gyms (not for working out, silly) where you have to fight the gym leader. As you fight them, their members will challenge you to battles. The gym leader will employ different Pokémon that you probably haven't met yet. Brock is the very first gym leader, who specializes in Rock types. If you picked Charmander as your starter, you're in trouble unless you can evolve Caterpie into Butterfree. Defeating him will get you the Boulder Badge and a Technical Machine, which in this case, teaches Bide. Be careful, once the TM is used, it's gone forever! Sometimes, badges can increase Pokémon's stats, or allow them to obey at higher levels.
     
    Eventually you'll find hidden machines that teach your Pokémon different field moves. These cannot be forgotten under any circumstance. In very rare cases, you will find Pokémon on the map deep within dungeons. These are considered legendary Pokémon, and you only get one shot at catching these. If you run away or accidentally knock them out, they're gone for good.
     
    The game tends to be criticized for its graphics, but trust me, I've played Game Boy shovelware with far worse graphics. Even then, it's passable for its time. The soundtrack is good and adds the atmosphere quite well. The gameplay makes up for it, with the player being able to come up with different team combinations to win.
     
    At the very end, you'll fight the most powerful trainers in Kanto, the Elite Four! They have to be beaten in one sitting and if you lose at any time, you start over from the first member of the Elite Four.
     
    Overall, despite time not exactly being kind to these games, they're worth a play through if you're looking for something to kill time with.
  2. Magic Note
    Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog! I'll be writing what's going on that's on my mind.
     
    For this entry, I want to talk about the upcoming Season 5 premiere a week from tomorrow. What do you think could happen in the first two episodes? What do you speculate could happen? It should be a good premiere, just what will happen will be revealed next week.
     
    Hope you guys enjoy it!
  3. Magic Note
    Ah yes, welcome to my first real entry on this website. Today I'm going to be reviewing the first Ninja Turtles game on the NES.
     
    Granted it's been many years since I last saw the 1987 cartoon, please bear with me if I make any mistakes.
    Konami released this game around the same time the classic arcade game was released. Unlike it, it was a 2D platform game that had overhead combat segments and the action sequences. This game sold four million copies and won Nintendo Power's Game of the Year award for the NES in 1989. Now, my main issue right away is how many liberties the game took with the Turtles licence. None of the major villains besides Bebop, Rocksteady and Shredder appear. There were multiple cheap shots in the game.
     
    The story is that the Turtles are trying to get a hold of the transformation gun to change Splinter back to his human form, and Shredder has it. He orders Bebop and Rocksteady to kidnap April O'Neill. Now we're off to save her and get the gun back.
     
    All four turtles were playable, and it seems Konami really messed up balancing them. Leonardo had his katana and had decent range and acceptable power. Raphael had sais and had the worst range and power. Michaelangelo had okay range but unimpressive power. Donatello, however, boasted excellent range and power.
     
    There are a few other weapons to use in the game. A boomerang, a shuriken, three shurikens and a scroll. The boomerang works as you expect it to be, the shuriken travels in a straight path, the three shurikens travel in a spread-out fashion, and the scroll summons a damaging wave of energy that deals massive damage to enemies in its path. There's an invincibility pickup that will cause your turtle to attack wildly, destroying enemies in one hit.
     
    Now for the main part of the game, where it all falls flat - the gameplay. The game is way too difficult in some places, and I'm not sure if they balanced the game too well. There are six levels in the game, and I'll go in-depth on each level. Before I forget, you don't recover any health from beating a level. Enemies respawn if you so much as scroll a couple pixels away, and the enemy groups also randomly change.
     
    Level 1 - The first level introduces us to a steamroller that will squash your turtles, one-shotting them. The bad thing is sometimes it shows up, other times it doesn't. As mentioned in the story above, April has been kidnapped. Now, if you lose a turtle here, the game lies to you as there's no extra turtle rescue in this level. Bebop serves as the midboss, whereas Rocksteady serves as the main boss of the level. I think everyone knows the trick on defeating him by now.
     
    Level 2 - Ah yes, the dam. This was the bane of many players back in the day, and for a reason. The Foot Clan planted eight bombs underwater, and if they go off, it's game over, regardless of how many turtles you had remaining. The swimming controls aren't the best and it's easy to be pulled by the kelp or electrocuted by the seaweed. I'm not sure how the seaweed could be electrical but oh well. Once you disarm the last bomb, you'll watch a cutscene where Shredder taunts the turtles that he has kidnapped Shredder.
     
    Level 3 - This takes place in the city. After hearing Splinter has been kidnapped, the turtles have to save him. The turtle van can shoot missiles to destroy steamrollers and barricades. By here, the jumping issues become much more pronounced because you have to make pixel perfect jumps to avoid being washed away by the currents or falling off a building. This is the first level where the game breaking Scroll weapon appears. You fight Mecha Turtle at the end of the level, who's a palette swap of the turtles, followed by some jetpack-wearing enemy who I don't even recognize from the show.
     
    Level 4 - This level takes place on the Foot Clan's Air base. The blimp is guarded by a Giant Mouser, and along the way there's hatches that will lead you the way. There's molten lava that will destroy your turtle if you so much as step a toe into it. There's also a full pizza in hatch #18 where it's blocked by a sarcophagus-style spiked wall that will kill you in one hit. Whether it was a troll move by the developers or not may never be known. In the same hatch, you face a giant Mouser who can be exploited by pressing start at the right frame.
     
    Level 5 - It's dark outside, and you're at an abandoned warehouse that was taken over by the Foot Clan. Now, this level has one of the hardest enemies in the game there - porcupines. I still don't remember that from the show where they shoot damaging quills at you that deals about a quarter of your energy. The boss of this level is the Technodrome itself. It has a chance of appearing in one of the three tunnels at the end. If you can't find it in one of the tunnels, you'll have a long trek back outside for you. Any of its attacks will deals massive damage to you. The scroll again makes quick work on the boss.
     
    Level 6 - The final level takes place in the Technodrome itself. Keep in mind there's no checkpoints whatsoever in this level. If you die near or at the boss, you're going back to the start of the level. Laser soldiers are annoying to face because of how much straight up damage they do against you. There are three sections in the Technodrome, designated by colours, all while facing the most powerful foes you've faced. After all that work, you go face-to-face Shredder, and sadly, he's the easiest boss in the game. The scroll weapon knocks him back quite a bit, and if you stay on the right platform, he won't be able to do anything against you.
     
    With that said, the gameplay is really unforgiving. Pizza power ups are scarce, after losing all of your turtles, you're only allowed to continue twice. The controls feel stiff at times, and the hitboxes sometimes aren't exactly accurate on both enemies and turtles. Remember what I said about the jumping precision? It's worse because of the floaty jumps, and steering them isn't too easy.
     
    The enemy selection is also absurd, to say the very least. Besides Foot Soldiers and Mousers, I don't remember a single enemy who originated from the show. Some of the worst enemies, as I mentioned are the mutant porcupines and jetpack soldiers.
    Overall: D+ It tries to capture the spirit of the Turtles series, but fails miserably in each way. Age has not been kind to the game either, as people like myself have been more critical of the game's flaws years after it was released.
     
    Thank you for reading!
×
×
  • Create New...