Post by Gilvan Blight on Jul 13, 2007 23:12:21 GMT -5
Note: I already wrote this review once and lost it due to the power going out, so this will be the shorter version.
[glow=red,2,300]Quickly:[/glow] not what I expected at all but pretty fun.
[glow=red,2,300]Summary:[/glow] A Dragon Quest Eight spin off and the first of the Heroes series to make it to North American Shores. You play a blue Slime in this one named Rocket (if you don't change it), who starts play in the big city of slimes hanging with his friends and playing with the Warrior's Flute an artifact your friends 'borrowed' from the castle treasury. Of course soon enough all hell breaks out and the city is ransacked by evil Platipi (yep platypuses, or whatever). You manage to escape of course and are then tasked with getting all 100 residents back from the evil villains.
This is a top down action adventure rpg style game similar to the original Zelda. You move around various maps and dungeons battling enemies, solving puzzles and saving slimes. Movement is done all with the direction pad with no use for the stylus. You have a very odd attack, you hold down the a button and stretch using the D pad, you then release A which launches your slime in the direction you pushed. Anything you hit gets bumped up into the air. You can then try to catch anything that got launched and toss it at other things, carry it around or send it back to town on special carts that roll through all levels. You go around catching things on your head and sending them back to town, these include townsfolk you rescued as well as items found and enemies.
Why do you send all this stuff back? Well near the beginning of the game you find a Giant Tank. This tank needs crew and Ammo. All of the items you find can be used as ammo for your tank. For the enemies you eventually unlock a museum and when you catch 30 of a type of enemy you can use them as crew for your tank.
The tank battles are like boss battles and there tend to be 2-5 on each 'level' These are fought the same way you play the main game. You move around your tank, bump into ammo, carry it to a cannon and drop it in. Your cremates do support roles like firing cannons, healing, invading the enemy tank, etc. When ammo is fired it slowly goes across the screen until it hits the enemy tank or some other ammo. A ton of the strategy in tank battles is trying to block opponents attacks with blocking ammo and having your hard hitting ammo go through. Once you do enough damage to a tank you can then break in and try to destroy it's engine, do that and you win the battle. All in all it's very odd.
You go through the game facing tougher enemies, harder dungeons and more difficult puzzles (most involving tossing something in the right place, or stacking the right combination of items on your head), until you have collected all the slimes and defeated the evil platypus gang (who grow in strength by the number of tails they have, silly Japanese).
[glow=red,2,300]The Good:[/glow] Rather fun. Very cute graphics. Great sound for a DS game. Great use of the two screens, especially during tank battles. Puzzles are just hard enough to make you think a bit without being frustrating. Controls once you get them are easy to use. Very unique game play that is rather addictive.
[glow=red,2,300]The Bad:[/glow] Not what you would expect. The biggest problem I had with this game at first is I was expecting a console RPG like all the other Dragonquest games, not some top down action game. I was disappointed until I grew to enjoy this odd game. I hit a point in the game where it looks like I need to do some collecting. This is somewhat annoying as I would rather just continue with the main plot and plow through it, not have to go back and collect ammo, then combine ammo in my magic pot, then update my tank just so I can win the next battle. I would have preferred all the ammo upgrading and collecting to be more of a side plot, a do it if you are into that kind of thing.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly:[/glow] Save points! Only one, only in the city. How annoying. When are dev's going to learn, especially on a hand held system, players like to be able to save anywhere. Especially in this game, as there is no penalty for death, so no advantage to saving over frequently to avoid it. Thankfully the DS has that nifty sleep feature, but that does drain the battery.
[glow=red,2,300]Overall:[/glow] I expected an RPG but got a top down Adventure ala Zelda. Thankfully though I got a fun top down adventure with lots of humor, cute characters, unique game play and quite a bit of fun. This one only retails for $30 new and is worth picking up if you like the DQ series or if you are an action rpg fan.
[glow=red,2,300]Quickly:[/glow] not what I expected at all but pretty fun.
[glow=red,2,300]Summary:[/glow] A Dragon Quest Eight spin off and the first of the Heroes series to make it to North American Shores. You play a blue Slime in this one named Rocket (if you don't change it), who starts play in the big city of slimes hanging with his friends and playing with the Warrior's Flute an artifact your friends 'borrowed' from the castle treasury. Of course soon enough all hell breaks out and the city is ransacked by evil Platipi (yep platypuses, or whatever). You manage to escape of course and are then tasked with getting all 100 residents back from the evil villains.
This is a top down action adventure rpg style game similar to the original Zelda. You move around various maps and dungeons battling enemies, solving puzzles and saving slimes. Movement is done all with the direction pad with no use for the stylus. You have a very odd attack, you hold down the a button and stretch using the D pad, you then release A which launches your slime in the direction you pushed. Anything you hit gets bumped up into the air. You can then try to catch anything that got launched and toss it at other things, carry it around or send it back to town on special carts that roll through all levels. You go around catching things on your head and sending them back to town, these include townsfolk you rescued as well as items found and enemies.
Why do you send all this stuff back? Well near the beginning of the game you find a Giant Tank. This tank needs crew and Ammo. All of the items you find can be used as ammo for your tank. For the enemies you eventually unlock a museum and when you catch 30 of a type of enemy you can use them as crew for your tank.
The tank battles are like boss battles and there tend to be 2-5 on each 'level' These are fought the same way you play the main game. You move around your tank, bump into ammo, carry it to a cannon and drop it in. Your cremates do support roles like firing cannons, healing, invading the enemy tank, etc. When ammo is fired it slowly goes across the screen until it hits the enemy tank or some other ammo. A ton of the strategy in tank battles is trying to block opponents attacks with blocking ammo and having your hard hitting ammo go through. Once you do enough damage to a tank you can then break in and try to destroy it's engine, do that and you win the battle. All in all it's very odd.
You go through the game facing tougher enemies, harder dungeons and more difficult puzzles (most involving tossing something in the right place, or stacking the right combination of items on your head), until you have collected all the slimes and defeated the evil platypus gang (who grow in strength by the number of tails they have, silly Japanese).
[glow=red,2,300]The Good:[/glow] Rather fun. Very cute graphics. Great sound for a DS game. Great use of the two screens, especially during tank battles. Puzzles are just hard enough to make you think a bit without being frustrating. Controls once you get them are easy to use. Very unique game play that is rather addictive.
[glow=red,2,300]The Bad:[/glow] Not what you would expect. The biggest problem I had with this game at first is I was expecting a console RPG like all the other Dragonquest games, not some top down action game. I was disappointed until I grew to enjoy this odd game. I hit a point in the game where it looks like I need to do some collecting. This is somewhat annoying as I would rather just continue with the main plot and plow through it, not have to go back and collect ammo, then combine ammo in my magic pot, then update my tank just so I can win the next battle. I would have preferred all the ammo upgrading and collecting to be more of a side plot, a do it if you are into that kind of thing.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly:[/glow] Save points! Only one, only in the city. How annoying. When are dev's going to learn, especially on a hand held system, players like to be able to save anywhere. Especially in this game, as there is no penalty for death, so no advantage to saving over frequently to avoid it. Thankfully the DS has that nifty sleep feature, but that does drain the battery.
[glow=red,2,300]Overall:[/glow] I expected an RPG but got a top down Adventure ala Zelda. Thankfully though I got a fun top down adventure with lots of humor, cute characters, unique game play and quite a bit of fun. This one only retails for $30 new and is worth picking up if you like the DQ series or if you are an action rpg fan.