Let's Review!

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Let's Review!

Post by D-Rock »

So, I've had an idea of reviewing random things I come across. Started on DA, and pretty much stayed there after two reviews. Just seems like something to do for the fun of it. I'll say it now, there's little I outright hate as of this moment. So, what follows is my first one from my DA page.

So, let's review Power Rangers: Beats of Power.
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Power Rangers: Beats of Power is a fan-made computer game by Merso X using the OpenBOR engine. It's a 2D beat-em-up that takes place during the events of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, specifically around the second season. Most of the events take place before the power transfer. Playable characters are Jason, Kimberly, Zack, Trini, Billy, and Tommy as the White Ranger. Move off the character select screen, and Tommy as the Green Ranger is selectable. Nice choices, and while most of them play the same, they do have different attack animations and special attacks. Co-op play is available, but I haven't had a chance to try this with my brother.
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Here's what I found neat; voice clips for each character are present, and even video clips for when they morph. The zord segments also have a corresponding video clip. Available zords are the Thunder Megazord and Tigerzord Battle Mode. Like with the green ranger, move off the screen, and the original Megazord and Dragonzord are usable. Also, those things are unbelievably clunky!

Most of the levels begin with the selected ranger in their civilian attire, beating putties in order to proceed. Once the middle point is reached, Alpha will appear and grant the ranger their morpher. I really loved the use of morphing video clip! Two bosses then go to a zord battle, the rest of them the Rangers remain as themselves.

Fighting is simple, though I don't think beat-em-ups have to have elaborate controls. There is a charge meter that fills over time, and when full, the civilian rangers and zords are allowed to use a mid-range strong attack. As a morphed ranger, it doubles in size. Filling halfway grants a similar mid-range attack with their weapon, but completely charged gives a different attack; Jason has a long-range dashing slash, Billy does a multi-hit close range attack, Zack, Kimberly, Trini, and both Tommy's have projectile attacks. Decent variety, I think.

A few issues, but note that I played on a now outdated version of the game. Have yet to see if these were fixed in the more recent update.

The first boss didn't seem to have a hit box at all. He didn't seem to be able to hit me at all, leading to an incredibly easy fight.
Update: New version fixes this issue.

The rangers own hit boxes seemed smaller than the rest of the enemies. Or I just suck at getting in the right angle to hit, either one could apply.

One of the final levels had a pretty bad glitch. I hit the boss right when he appeared, knocking him off screen. Usually not a problem, as enemies can do that, and can actually be an advantage since you could trap them like that, leading to a much easier boss fight. But this guy couldn't be hit like that, and he wouldn't come back on screen. Thankfully, I was playing as Kimberly, so I kept using the Power Bow projectile around where he disappeared, which managed to hit him. Haven't tried it again to see if it repeats, though.

Little tip, once you run out of lives while playing alone, you have a fraction of a second to hit the pause button to bring up a character select screen, otherwise you'll get a game over and have to restart the level. What I do is just mash the pause button.

A lot of the sound clips do sound rather synthetic, which is especially noticeable while playing as Tommy. According to the credits, these were ripped from the show, but I'm guessing the conversion into the game wasn't perfect, especially as it can be really grating at high enough volumes. Still cool, though.

As for the music, it's instrumentals of the tracks used in the series.

The sprites are all edited from various MMPR games, which is a good thing. The civilian attire is edited from the SNES games, according to the Facebook page, while Tommy and Billy use edited versions of the MMPR: The Movie for the SNES. Here are comparisons;
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According to the site, stills from the show were used for their faces, then resized to fit the sprite. Pretty cool, I think.

It's a rather short game, but I found it enjoyable. Tried playing it with the default keyboard controls, but I was no good. I'm more of a console gamer. So I bought a wired Xbox 360 controller, alleviated most of my issues.

I'd recommend it as a Ranger fan, and as a decent game overall.

Merso X is working on a sequel for Power Rangers Zeo, which will use stills from the show for the entirety of the rangers, from civilian to morphed. Expect that one to take a long time to finish.

Download here http://gamejolt.com/games/power-rangers ... 0577#close

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So, yeah, will more or less follow that. I have another review, but I'll post that at a much later time. In the meantime, what did you people think? Is this good for a review? Also, after I post the second one, I guess I'll open the floor for others to suggest things to me.
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Re: Let's Review!

Post by Saturn381 »

Nice review, D-Rock. :)
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Re: Let's Review!

Post by Amazee Dayzee »

Really great review D-Rock. It is so professionally done.
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Re: Let's Review!

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Thanks. I'll post the second one I got later. I have had ideas as to what to review after that, but I haven't had the energy to sit through them again for this. Let's see what comes up.
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Re: Let's Review!

Post by IdleCurator »

Fantastic review D-Rock it was very well done, and so detailed.
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Re: Let's Review!

Post by D-Rock »

And another one. This one was the last one I made on my DA page. Also, this one is going to be a tad bit different. So without further ado, Let's Review Power/Rangers Unauthorized Bootleg.
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First off, not a typo in the title, the thing is actually called Power/Rangers. It's a 15-minute short film based on Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Produced by Adi Shankar and directed by Joseph Khan.

Apparently, the idea spawned from the fact that the Power Rangers were children asked to fight a war they had no direct involvement in. It's a fan-made "what-if" scenario, in which how this affected them may eventually turn out.

It did not turn out well for the Rangers. Not well at all. Going to go ahead and say this, but rated TV-MA for almost every possible reason.

Do note, none of the actors look like the original characters. You expect an independent studio to round up all of the original cast? Sadly, since the passing of Thuy Trang, Trini's actress, that would be impossible.

It begins with very, VERY brief glimpses of the Rangers fighting the Machine Empire (the villains from Power Rangers Zeo). As a side note, why are they using machine guns? Then cuts forward, Earth merged with the Machine Empire. The reason? Earth was betrayed by Rocky (second MMPR red ranger) after a peace treaty. He's interrogating Kimberly as to the whereabouts of the last remaining ranger, Tommy. Most of the rest of the short is a set of flashbacks dedicated to what happened to the rest of the rangers. This is where things get incredibly dark; really violent, very, well, "suggestive" is probably the only word I can use on this forum, and even substance abuse. And the ending is quite a trip. Unfortunately, I'll leave it at that.

As for my thoughts?

I really don't know what to think. For what it is, it's an impressive piece of work. Fight choreography was pretty good (about what you'd expect from the show, really), special effects weren't bad, story was pretty good, too. But it took the Power Rangers, a force for good, and made all of them really fall off the deep end. Now, the producer stated that in the real world, child soldiers often suffer from PTSD, so while I don't like it, it's more realistic. I mean, it was teenagers that Zordon recruited. While I do like it, a part of me didn't want to. But I still find appreciation for this possible scenario.

Alright, special effects. Only weapon we see is the Power Sword (I think, looked nothing like the original). Apparently it's a retractable blade, explaining where it was kept when not in use. There's also quite a lot of those futuristic computers, you know, holograms that can be interacted with? Pretty cool. At the very beginning, we can somewhat see a Megazord. Hard to see because of the camera angles and shaky camera, but it's there. Felt very Bay-ish, that part.

Fight choreography. While okay, and really reminiscent of the hammy acting in the original, there's not a lot. Only two real fight scenes, and only one of them actually has a morphed ranger. Bulkier design to actually look like armor. What little we saw of them, I'd say pretty good designs.
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At least, I thought so. Though looking at it now, it almost looks like a variant of the Spartan armor in Halo.

And speaking of that one fight scene, it's rather graphic. Blood splatters and gore are everywhere.

Oh, yeah, the reasons for the MA rating; blood and gore, extreme violence, and strong language throughout.

I learned of this on Instagram. I follow some of the actors from the series, and all of them have had questions sent to them regarding the short. Then my brother asked if I had seen it yet. I eventually did, obviously.

I know a lot of PR fans have been wanting a dark and gritty reboot for the original, and maybe this can be considered the answer. Of course, others considered it the answer to a question they never asked. It seems to be a "love it or hate it" short.

A few of the actors did say they liked it, even Steve Cardenas, who played Rocky in the original. Austin St. John, the actor for Jason, was upset when the video was hit by a copyright claim by Saban (which was eventually repealed). Jason David Frank, who plays Tommy in the series, was one of the ones who didn't like it, saying it made the brand look bad. Everyone will have their own opinion on this, which is how it always is.

Because of the rating and content, I will not link to the video. It can be easily be found on YouTube again, but you're on your own. Take my warnings with you. And if you do see it, tell me what you thought of it. I'm curious as to everyone else's opinions.

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I did have plans to review the original MMPR movie in honor of the 20th anniversary of its release, but that never happened. Also had a Power Rangers game I wanted to review, but two things; can't beat the game, and I didn't want it to seem that I did exclusively Power Rangers stuff. And then I never got around to reviewing. I'm hoping I'll change that eventually.
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Re: Let's Review!

Post by Amazee Dayzee »

Really great job on this one also! You are definitely improving!
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Re: Let's Review!

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Thanks. So, if you saw it, what are your thoughts on this take on the Power Rangers?

Also, it may be a little bit until I do another review, as this was the last one I made before it went silent. However, I have decided what I'll review next. It'll just take a little while, as I want to rewatch it before I do any writing. In the meantime, have the trailer for it. It's a completed miniseries, so go ahead and enjoy it now if you want.
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Re: Let's Review!

Post by Amazee Dayzee »

No I didn't see the actual movie, but I liked the review.
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Re: Let's Review!

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The movie accomplishes what the creator has stated was it's intended purpose was; pointing out everything wrong with dark & gritty adaptations of things that were never meant to be that way.

as a stand alone it's not bad, but side by side with it's original it is unquestionably inferior due solely to completely missing the point. the same as the vast majority of remakes/reboots/spinoffs like it.
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Re: Let's Review!

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I was going to write out a long review, but decided partway through TWO drafts, to super-condense it, otherwise the review would be at least about eight pages long.

So, Let's Review Phoenix Wright/My Little Pony: Turnabout Storm.
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Yes, this is a very weird one. Written by NeoArtimus on DeviantArt, this is basically a crossover fanfic with full voice acting. The whole thing is set up like the Ace Attorney games, which lends itself rather well to being able to listen to it while doing something else. Which is a good thing, as the entire series is in six parts, totaling around nine hours. It involves a murder case, with Rainbow Dash being the prime suspect, and Twilight accidently summoning Phoenix Wright when she wanted the best defense attorney. Going against them is Trixie as the prosecutor, and she is quite the opponent. There are quite a few twists and turns in the case, which really lent itself to many theories from viewers until the finale. I wouldn't see that much fan involvement again until Game Theory did their FNAF videos (note to self, finish the freakin' game!)

Do note, the series takes place between the first and second season of MLP, so much of the character development from after is not present. Also, Phoenix is from a time between Justice for All and Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.

Several original characters are involved; Ace Swift, the victim, Sonata, his manager, Cruise Control, a racer in the upcoming Equestria 500, and Lenora, another racer from the Griffin Kingdom, the latter two shown to have a dislike of Ace. Not to say that canon characters don't show up, quite a few of them turn out to be rather crucial to the case.

To keep it VERY short, I really liked this series. The ponies used various available vector art, while the Ace Attorney portions used rips from the DS games until the final episodes, which used the HD versions. A lot of music was sourced from the AA games, the MLP series proper, some of the fan works, and even original songs composed for the series. The music alone was awesome!

Felt like it had a very fitting end, too. There were such a huge number of ends to meet in the series, and all of them were addressed in the final trial.

I have come across comments from fans of either series, saying it made them fans of the other, which is what a crossover tries to do; bring together fans of different franchises. If you're not familiar with either franchise, don't worry, it's not too big of a deal. Most of it is explained in-video.

Do note, again, first few episodes has very noticeable sound design issues, especially evident with Trixie. I guess it took a bit for the microphone to work. Gets a lot better over time.

Series can be found here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... B9E509804A
Original music can be found here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... zh30_rBfFE
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Re: Let's Review!

Post by Amazee Dayzee »

I like the points that you made! Very well-written!
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Re: Let's Review!

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Well, thought I'd have something for Halloween, but nope. So, Let's Review Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor.
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Odd how I'm reviewing a cartoon that's triple my age, but I absolutely loved this growing up. Also, Sindbad's character is completely altered to fit as the villain.

Anyway, the story starts off with a song from Sindbad himself (of course, being played by Bluto). He doesn't like it when Popeye, Olive Oyl, and Wimpy show up, so he kidnaps Olive and has a roc (mythical bird, lots of mythical creatures show up here, too) destroy the ship they were on. Popeye then takes the fight to Sindbad, and manages to best the creatures thrown at him. But once Sindbad enters the fight, Popeye is very easily outmatched.

At least until he gets his trademark spinach! Then the tables turn VERY quickly.

In short, it's a very straightforward cartoon. Very impressive, especially for its time. A lot of the backgrounds were actually constructed sets which were filmed and then had the animation added in. This was one of the things that really grabbed my attention when I was little.

The cartoon is now in the public domain, so finding it shouldn't be difficult anymore. It was restored in recent years when it was decided to preserve it, which is a good thing, as most of the copies I've found had VERY deteriorated looks to them. Hey, a cartoon pushing 70 will probably have some wear-and-tear by the time people get to fixing it.

Can be viewed here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR65Ok-fuWs
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Re: Let's Review!

Post by Saturn381 »

Great job, D-Rock. This has to be one of my favorite Popeye cartoons.
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Re: Let's Review!

Post by Amazee Dayzee »

Nice job with this! It has definitely came out nice!
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Re: Let's Review!

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Alright, just saw this a few hours ago, so my review is going to be rather sloppy, but after my brother showed this to me, I just knew I had to do this.

So, Let's Review Dragon Ball Z: The Fall of Men.
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So, yeah, image definitely takes care of the "who made it" part of this review.

So, what we have here is a fan-made live-action adaptation of Future Trunks' time. What makes this REALLY different is the fact that it's not 17 and 18 doing the destruction, but Perfect Cell (how he achieved his Perfect form isn't explained, though, but hey, adaptations make changes). There's really no dialogue at all, except for narration coming from Trunks. In this case, he trains in the Time Chamber in order to become strong enough to beat Cell, while Bulma and Dr. Briefs are trying to finish the time machine to allow Trunks to warn the Z Warriors. Speaking of which, we see what happened to only a few of them; Chiatzu, Tien, and Krillin are all shown to be killed by Cell. Everyone else is implied to have met the same fate, as we do see shots of Kame House, King Kai's Planet, and eventually Kami's Lookout being destroyed.

Another difference from canon; Bulma is killed by Cell while looking for the final part to finish the time machine, and it's her death that allows Trunks to go Super Saiyan.

Afterwards, Trunks and Cell have a pretty epic battle, but Trunks had absolutely no hope of winning, even as a Super Saiyan. Defeated and humiliated by Cell, he returns to Capsule Corps to finish the time machine. As he's getting ready to head off, he's listening to a tape recorded by Vegeta, and he knows that there is still a glimmer of hope for his time.

The ending shot is him walking up to Goku.

And that's the end of it. I really didn't know what to expect of this at all, as I had seen the video pop up on my YouTube dashboard every now and again, but I loved this. Please know going into it, NONE of the characters look like their canon selves, but I would imagine that's to be expected. Super Saiyans look different too, but I think it works better; they get glowing eyes and white hair instead of green eyes and golden hair. Cell was a very interesting design choice. His body is that of Perfect Cell, but his face seems to be a combination of Perfect Cell and Imperfect Cell. It does look pretty scary. Another thing, I did read comments complaining about the actor for Vegeta; he looks pretty scrawny. Wasn't a detriment to my enjoyments.

The effects were surprisingly good, in my opinion. Yes, you could tell what was CG and what wasn't, but it wasn't bad. Fight scene was pretty cool, though the constantly moving camera made certain shots hard to discern.

Still, I definitely recommend giving this at least one watch. Let me know what you thought of it.

Can be viewed here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM20wwzl4Ds

PS: can't believe that they were able to work in the Over 9000 joke.
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Re: Let's Review!

Post by Amazee Dayzee »

That was a really nice documentary! I would have rather that the androids were still the antagonists but I guess it doesn't matter because it is really well-made.

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Re: Let's Review!

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I thought it was kinda crap.

The storyline is close enough to canon to be acceptable, but physical props would have made a more convincing cell than cg in a lot of spots. With the number of cosplayers out there that can nail an Anime character flawlessly, there really is no excuse for everyone being so badly off-model. Does a bottle of bleach for Trunks really cost too much? or dye for Bulma? And is it really that hard to find someone under four and a half feet tall to play Krilin? i could forgive minor errors if they weren't being lazy about easily fixed major stuff.

Still leagues better than DB:E though. Which isn't bad for something that has a production staff you could fit into an average kitchen.
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Re: Let's Review!

Post by Amazee Dayzee »

It was nice in a humorous kind of way. Of course I really wasn't expecting a lot but definitely better than DBE.
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Re: Let's Review!

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Huh, been a little bit since my last review. Well, here I go again.

Let's Review Choujin Sentai Jetman for the Famicom. (Images courtesy of my Retron 5)

This is actually the Power Rangers game I mentioned back in my Power/Rangers review! :P
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So here we have a tie-in to the live-action series of the same name, released in 1991. This series was right before Zyuranger, which would be adapted into Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, but enough about that.

It's a pretty simple beat-em-up game with some platforming. All five Jetmen are available, with three types of stats depending on which you chose;

Red Hawk/Black Condor with the Bringer Sword, strongest variant with shortest attack distance, eight HP
Yellow Owl with Wing Gauntlets, mid-range and mid-strength, seven HP
Blue Swallow/White Swan with Bird Blasters, long range and low strength, six HP
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You simply go through the entire stage until you reach a boss. Standard stuff. You have your chosen ranger's weapon, a short-range kick that has a slightly higher hitbox, so good for getting an enemy that's just above you, and a special screen-clearing attack, which you start with one, and another might be dropped by an enemy. Only one of those can be held at a time, though. This is activated with the Start button. Yes, Start. Tripped me out at first. Select is to pause the game. I don't know if it was the same on the original Famicom console.
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Once the end is reached, the boss appears, leading to a Mech battle, which is a one-on-one battle, almost like a super-simplified fighting game. Most of these monsters hold to a pattern of attack, so once you figure it out, it's not too difficult. Simply fight and block (weird how blocking in this segment is to hold Down on the D-Pad), and once your energy meter hit a certain level, you could press start for a special attack. The larger the special meter, the better the attack, though it takes a bit for it to fill up, so it's not a good idea to bull-rush these bosses.
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There are five levels that can be completed in any order, though I notice that the ones at the end are a bit more difficult. These first five stages must be completed before the final level becomes available, and this is where it got frustrating. Enemy placement is more hazardous, and I couldn't get the pattern down for the final boss, and he was strong! I have to admit, I had to resort to a cheat eventually. I was going to wait until I normally beat it to write this up, but that last boss was really frustrating me, which isn't helped by the fact that I'm not too patient.
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All in all, a pretty fun game, rather short, but a lot of these kinds of games were short then. I decided to get it to make use of a Famicom-to-NES converter I had made earlier as at the time I only had one Famicom game, but with the Retron, it's a lot easier to get it to work. And I still only have two games for the console! :lol:

Honestly, what I find odd is the fact that the game is entirely in English aside from the logo, while the following game based on Zyuranger is pretty much entirely in Japanese. Wonder how they decide these things.

Frankly, I was surprised that I was able to import it for around $20. The Zyuranger game, at the time I found it, was $40.
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Re: Let's Review!

Post by Amazee Dayzee »

What a really nice review! I like how you have went over some of the mechanics!
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Re: Let's Review!

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It takes a while to describe mechanics, as I prefer to show someone rather than tell, but not a possibility here, unless I decide to do video reviews.

Anyway, Let's Review The Orange Rectangle.
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So, strange way I found this; whenever someone gives me a llama badge on DA, I make it a habit to reciprocate with another badge. This time, ZeusThunderer’s page had an image for a game on their home page, and I was intrigued. I like puzzle games, so decided to give it a whirl. It’s a physics-based puzzle game for mobile platforms, a type of game I really lacked experience with.
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Goals are simple; guide an orange or blue rectangle to a goal. Each level shows you buttons in arrows that act as rockets. Each one sends you in one direction for as long as you press on the screen, a longer press giving you more speed and momentum. This is important to remember, as many puzzles require precise timing and momentum to reach your goals. Sometimes you just need a little shove in a direction, sometimes you need a lot of movement, sometimes you need to ram straight into a wall. Also, keep in mind that the levels appear to take place in a vacuum, so it’ll keep going in a direction until it hits a wall, a floating square, a bomb, or the goal. I have had to wait almost a minute for the block to drift to the goal. Use this fact to your advantage, as many puzzles require that type of patience.
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Some of those obstacles are downright necessary; floating blocks will act sort of like floating walls, bombs will send you flying in a certain direction, depending on your momentum and point of impact, and both have their uses and disadvantages. Many of these levels need to be planned out carefully, and there will be quite a lot of trial and error, especially in stages that feature gears. A retry button is readily available as well, so nothing is really rushing you, no time limit, no lives, just figure out how to get to the goal.

Background for all levels is a sort of space level, so the vacuum thing makes a lot of sense here. The music is rather soothing, in my opinion, so it’s perfect for making this game a way to relax.

Only gripes I can think of is the fact that the music doesn’t loop, it goes straight from one track to the next even if you haven’t finished the level, there is no indicator of which level you’re on, and when done, no level select. Nothing detrimental, though.

IT SHOULD BE NOTED:
At the time of this writing, there is only support for Android systems. Directions for download are over here. Decided it would be best to go through the DA page instead of straight to the Google Play shop.
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Re: Let's Review!

Post by Amazee Dayzee »

It really does look like a nice game. Maybe I should try it someday.
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Re: Let's Review!

Post by GreatKitsune »

I've done some anime reviews for MAL in the past.
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Re: Let's Review!

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What's MAL mean?
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Re: Let's Review!

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myanimelist.net
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Re: Let's Review!

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Basically it tells you the top airing anime at the moment.
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Re: Let's Review!

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It’s been too long, so I’ll try to get back into the swing of things. So, Let’s Review Star Wars: Twilight of the Republic. Do note, a spoiler for a very important event in Star Wars: The Clone Wars near the end.
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First off, this isn’t exactly a stand-alone title. It’s part of Disney Infinity, the toys-to-life video game. The starter set came with the game disc, the base that imports the character, Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano figures, and the playset figure, which unlocks said story. For now, I’m only going to talk about the playset story, not Disney Infinity.

It starts with Anakin, Ahsoka, Obi-Wan, and Yoda heading to Geonosis after learning that a droid factory was reactivated. After fighting their way through, they discover General Grievous, who they initially thought was the one behind the reactivation. They find him interrogating a droid unit, who was not under Grievous’ command. However, upon being discovered by the Jedi, he confronts them in a boss battle.

After beating him, the group takes the droid unit to Coruscant to learn just who sent it to reactivate the factory. While transporting it to be analyzed, it is captured by Cad Bane, leading to a chase sequence. Bane tries to destroy the head of the droid when he’s cornered, but it’s quickly saved, and Bane escapes.

While the memory is damaged, they are able to make out that the previous owner of the droid was Jabba the Hutt, and head to Tatooine to investigate further. Jabba isn’t willing to help, but Anakin sets a wager; a pod race against Sebulba. If he wins, Jabba tells them about the droid, if he loses, then they will be slaves to Jabba.

…Anakin was rather headstrong in the series, wasn’t he?

Of course, the game only continues upon beating him, at which Jabba informs them that he had sold the droid prior to the Geonosis event and right before he tells them who it was, the culprits show up. It turns out that the droid was under orders from the Shadow Collective, therefore telling them that the mastermind was Darth Maul. After defeating the Shadow Collective, they head out to where they learned was the ultimate target; a group of delegates staying on Naboo, which included Padme Amidala.

Once they arrive, they get help from Jar Jar Binks into breaking into the now under-siege capital. They fight their way through many obstacles, before finally confronting Maul. He was trying to build up an army for himself in order to take down both the Republic and the Confederacy, even stating that the Republic was already on the verge of collapse. He seemingly dies at the end of the battle by once again falling into a reactor, but Yoda informs them that he can still sense Maul, but for the time being, they have saved the senate.
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Well, it wasn’t too bad for a first experience at Disney Infinity. By the way, it has an interesting route in playable characters. The four mentioned are usable from the start, though Yoda and Obi-Wan are sold separately.

...you can tell VERY quickly what was one of the more criticized points in the game already.

Anyway, other Star Wars characters are unlockable for use in the Play Set by finding “Champion Coins,” each of which portray a Star Wars hero or villain. Most of them are not exactly well hidden, so it’s not much of an issue as to locating them. You still need the character figures, though. Unlockable characters are;

Darth Maul
Ezra Bridger
Kanan Jarrus
Zeb Orelios
Sabine Wren
Luke Skywalker
Leia Organa
Han Solo
Chewbacca
Darth Vader
Boba Fett
Rey
Finn
Poe Dameron
Kylo Ren

By the way, ALL Star Wars characters are usable in ALL Star Wars Playsets, but their Champion Coins need to be collected in each one.
Anyway, back on track, I found this enjoyable. There’s a lot to explore in each of the world, lots of side missions, and lots of collectibles. Most of said collectibles are things for the Infinity Toy Box, so if you know how to work that, you would have great incentive to find these things. Other things to unlock are concept sketches, and each mission does give you a decent amount of experience and money to use for the Toy Box. The higher the difficulty, the more you’re awarded, and things do get rather tough at the highest difficulty. You’ll want to get used to the combat.

One of the trickier side missions is hunting for mynocks. You can hunt them with any character, but a few don’t sense them on their radar, so it’s purely visual. Supposedly they make a distinct sound, but I’ve never noticed. Some of the side missions are kind of dumb, like throwing fighter pilots INTO their ships to send them off. Others are just plain silly, like food delivery for Dex. Still, a good way to grind. One is kind of cool, a simulation arena with waves of enemies. You can recruit younglings across the worlds, and they’re rather helpful. There are also challenges, but I haven’t done too many of those yet. Most are collectathons, but a few enemy waves as well.

I was DEEPLY disappointed with Jar Jar. He was unbelievably irritating! What really made me sad is the fact that Jar Jar actually managed to get a few moments of awesome near the end of the Clone Wars, and here he was into the character that everyone pretty much hates. Couldn't they have made him a bit more like at the end of the series?

Other than the unlockable heroes (I managed to beat Maul with Han), it’s rather anachronistic. Spoiler alert, Ahsoka had left the Jedi Order by the time the Shadow Collective came about. Other than that, this really works as a Clone Wars episode.

I think I spent about six hours on this, probably longer if I had done the rest of the missions. A rather short deal, but honestly, I expected it to be shorter, as I had no idea of what to expect. Also, from what I can tell, they got all of the voice actors from the Clone Wars series to voice their respective characters.

It was enjoyable, and I’m still having fun with the Star Wars characters in other parts of the overall game. But the main deciding factor for this game is the cost of additional characters.
Faith doesn't change circumstances. Faith changes me.
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