3ds — Page 30

Things I’ve been playing recently

Posted on 07/04/2014 Written by deKay

Earthbound (Wii U)

Progressing well through this now. Well, at least I was until I entered Moonside where everythings is… wrong. The map is like Fourside only upside down, and all in neon. And there are invisible walls. And some people you talk to warp you all over the place but not to anywhere useful. And “yes” and “no” are reversed, except when saving your game. It’s very odd.

Oh yeah, and Paula got kidnapped by a green squidalienghost in the department store, which means some of the fights now are pretty hard as I had been relying on her Freeze “magic” (although it isn’t called magic – what is it? PP? What?) a lot.

Edge (Wii U)

I still have some eShop credit and this was reduced last week to just £1.79 or something, so I picked it up. It’s a nice puzzle game where you roll a cube around picking up smaller cubes and hitting switches which make the platforms appear, move, or transform. Seems good so far, but I’m only about 20 (short) levels in. The controls are a bit of a pain though – it’s too easy to allow the cube to keep rolling even after you stop pressing the direction pad, which is odd as it’s a cube, not a ball.

Animal Crossing (3DS)

Still playing this every day! Big news this week though – I finally managed to get a lighthouse! That space I’ve been saving on the clifftop for almost EIGHT MONTHS has now been filled with a lovely shiny lighthouse. Awesome!

I’ve also been trying to get more special tree stumps. I’d visited someone else’s village and they had at least two special stump designs that I didn’t, so I chopped down half my trees in the hope I’d find them in my own village. I didn’t. So a lot of time has been spent planting new trees.

Skylanders Giants (360)

Late to the party with this, as Skylanders Swapforce has been out about six months now, but someone was selling Giants (and ten Skylanders we didn’t have) for a bargain price, so I snapped them up. I’ve been playing it with my daughter, and although we’re only about four levels in, and it does seems like more of the same (only without the right-stick “waggle” events to open chests and locks and things), it’s just as fun as the original. Having a pile of new Skylanders to try is nice too. We’ve 27 overall now.

Steel Diver (3DS)

This was one of the “three for a tenner” games I bought a while back, along with Tetris 3DS and Heroes of Ruin. I can see why people complained at the price when it was £30, but for what I paid it’s a perfectly good title. You control a submarine and have to navigate through areas by moving depth and velocity sliders on the touch screen, rather than with the d-pad. Torpedo firing controls are all “buttons” on the touch screen too, as is the attitude “wheel”.

There are three different subs to choose, from a nimble but weak tiny one, to a strong but difficult to manoeuvre underwater tank. You actually have to play all of the levels with all three subs to unlock the later levels, and I’m currently struggling to pass Level 5, where there’s a massive ship you have to destroy, only I can’t. Boo!

Megami Paradise (PC Engine)

I have no idea what is happening. I intended to play this for Game Over, Yeah!! but couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do, so didn’t get to any areas where it was possible to die, so had to abort it. It appears to be an RPG where you control a girl at a convent school (it’s full of nuns). I managed to find some other girls who were stuck in chests or surrounded by frogs, and then found a dressing room where I could strip to my bra and knickers (but it wouldn’t let me leave the room until I’d put my clothes back on). Pretty standard Japanese fare, then. See:

999: fourth time through

Posted on 04/04/2014 Written by Xexyz

Each time I've played the game, I've chosen a different route, and have now completed three games in which Junpei was killed. The first, he was stabbed in the back. The second, he discovered a note in a safe which meant that he discovered the true identity of Ace, was told that Zero had lost the game, and then was knocked out by a gas grenade - I suspect he was killed after that. The third, he discovered a submarine, then found everyone else dead before being killed himself. Each time I've learnt more about my compatriots, the the extent that now, on my fourth playthrough, where I seem to have chosen some good doors to go through, I can piece together exactly what happened nine years ago and who everyone is. I think I'm close to the end of the game, and the amount of extra material I've had to go through on this playthrough indicates this might be the good ending. I hope so - I'm not sure I can face another playthrough.

Heroes of Ruin (3DS): COMPLETED!

Posted on 27/03/2014 Written by deKay

What seems like a very long time ago now, there was a sale on at some place I don’t even recall where three 3DS games were a tenner. Or something. One of those games was Heroes of Ruin, and since it was the first time I’d seen it alone for under ten quid, let alone with two other games for the same price, I leapt on it (along with Tetris and Steel Diver). Then they all went on my backlog shelf, and time passed.

Even longer ago, I’d played the Heroes of Ruin demo, and really rather enjoyed it. Why I didn’t start the full game the very second it arrived, I’m not sure. I was probably playing something else at the time.

Not very long ago (last week) I finally got round to making a start, and very recently (today) a finish.

For the first few hours play, I was hooked. The game plays out much like I’ve seen and read (but never played) Diablo does, or Skylanders, for that matter. You choose one of four classes of character (I went for Gunslinger), and then enter levels where you complete quests. These range from finding items, through defeating bosses, to solving some very simple puzzles. Or just reaching the end of the level.

In each level, you defeat foes who get increasingly more dangerous, but you get increasingly more powerful and well defended as you level up and find (or buy, not that you need to buy anything) better items and unlock new buffs and skills. You can return to areas later on to grind if you want (but you never need to), or complete other optional quests (which you never need to) for more money and XP (neither of which you need to grind for).

After a while, you move on from one type of area to another (you start in the caves, then go into the forest), which is filled with different, but similar quests and different, but similar, enemies. Later, the forest gives way to snow covered mountains, and that into a sort of ruined magician’s lab in a hole between dimensions. But the quests and enemies are strangely familiar.

And that’s it. Four areas. Sure, each area has several levels, but they all look the same. In fact, I’m pretty sure most are the same, just with the camera angle rotated. Which is a problem. Combined with the palette-swapped baddies and repetitive quests, Heroes of Ruin just feels like they didn’t spend enough time with it. Another couple of level types, a few more quests which aren’t the same as those already in it, and some more enemy designs and it would have been so much better. It doesn’t help that it’s such an easy game either. I didn’t die, never once had fewer than 15 of my 20 health potions left, never once used an energy potion, never needed to grind for XP, and never needed to spend a single gold coin. Only the final boss caused any real problems, and even that was only because he took ages, not because he was difficult.

I did play multiplayer a bit (it has drop-in, drop-out play for up to four players) which is fun, and even had voice chat, but ultimately it doesn’t change the game in any way, aside from make it even easier. For much of my playthrough I didn’t have anyone to play with anyway.

As it is, there’s no way I can complain for £3.33, and I did enjoy it a great deal, but I can see why it didn’t get the sales it could have.

999: it’s like a novel

Posted on 11/03/2014 Written by Xexyz

I've reached the end of the story, but I've not reached the end of the game. Let's rewind a bit.

999 (with a full subtitle of 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors) is an adventure game, with the core gameplay being based around exploration and puzzle solving to escape rooms. However, there's not a huge amount of exploration available to the player - instead, the main character (Junpei) explores the ship along with his new-found acquaintances, and the player is informed of this through reams of text. At times, this is almost like a non-interactive version of an interactive novel ... a novel, then.

What surprised me was how well the text is written. It could pass for a professional story, with appropriate descriptive language and varied vocabulary. There are a few occasions where the wording felt slightly off, but each character had their own voice and mannerisms, which led to an accomplished narration. It's sad that this should be a surprise, but there are precious few games with as much attention paid to their script.

So, having reached the end of the story, I've completed the game, surely? No. One of the limited interactive elements of the game is the choice of which doors to go through at three key points in the game. I ended the last game with Junpei being stabbed in the back, and have since restarted. Annoyingly, while I can skip through the text, I still need to solve the puzzles again in areas that I've been through before. But each playthrough should give more information about the characters, and I understand there are six potential endings. I'm not sure I'll collect them all, but the game is significantly quicker to play the second time around, so I'll see what else I find.

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy (3DS): COMPLETED!

Posted on 02/03/2014 Written by deKay

Well, this is it. Not only is the final game in the trilogy complete, but officially, it’s all over for Professor Layton now. Sure, there’s the Layton vs Wright game out in just a few weeks, but that’s not really a Professor Layton game, so doesn’t count.

I’d be amazed if Level 5 didn’t come up with another game though. Even if it’s just a continuation of the series but without Layton in it.

Anyway. Here be spoilers. Read ahead at your own risk!

Quite near the start of the game, I’d pegged Raymond as a bad guy. As the game progressed, I realised he was almost certainly part of Targent. I’d also begun to suspect Sycamore had a sinister motive too, but I certainly didn’t imagine the reality of them both.

More twist-tastically, I definitely didn’t see the Emmy reveal coming. I was convinced, due to her never appearing or being mentioned in the original three games in the series, that she was going to be killed off – and, near the end of The Azran Legacy, that definitely seemed likely. But no, the character was something else entirely.

Not only that, but the actual Sycamore, Bronev and Layton triple whammy? Off the loon charts. Astounding.

As for the actual game, it was the usual fare. Shorter than previous chapters in the series (I clocked it at under 15 hours, and several of them were doing the downloadable puzzled), although I’ve not 100%ed it, and almost certainly the easiest; The lack of 75 and 99 Picarat puzzles on the final straight made the ending of the game appear sudden, and there were virtually no slide puzzles (my Achilles heel) to speak of. Having said that, for the first time in any Layton title I reached one of the “you must have solved X many puzzles to progress” points, and came up short. I only needed a quick trip to Keats to solve three missed puzzles to fix that, though.

I’m not sure I like the idea of a Laytonless future now. You could argue the formula has run its course, and 6 consecutive years of puzzling with a man in a top hat is enough, but still… end of an era.