Showing posts with label game reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label game reviews. Show all posts
Saturday, February 18, 2017
Game Reviews: Age of Ishtaria
Hello everyone! As promised, now it's time for a review of Age of Ishtaria! If you haven't already, be sure to check out my side-by-side comparison of Spirit Stones and Ishtaria as well as last week's review of Spirit Stones.
As with last week, I'll be giving an overview of the game so you don't have to read through the massive comparison post to know what the game's like. Age of Ishtaria is a card-collecting battle game with a fantasy based storyline. You have two different types of stamina that limit gameplay as well as different types of currency to improve your gameplay, one of which can be bought with real world money. The main aspects of the game are events (of which there are multiple types), battles, quests, and card powering-up and trading. Every week there is a new event and there is a main storyline series of quests as well as event quests and harder quests for big prizes. Since I want to focus more on reviewing the game as opposed to the in-depth details, I'll leave game description at this and we'll move onto what I like about Ishtaria.
One of my favorite aspects of Age of Ishtaria is collecting all of the cards I can, all of which have beautiful artwork. There are plenty of ways to get cards in the game that don't involve spending real world money, so I have a fairly good sized collection so far, which makes me really happy. Gameplay itself is also very nice and has lovely graphics throughout all aspects, from quests to battles, events to Nightmare Rift, etc. One of the things I like the most about Age of Ishtaria is how responsive and communicative their staff are. While I haven't had to personally contact them, I regularly see posts notifying when updates will be made (usually once a week when the event changes) as well as after detailing what was updated. I also regularly see notifications about typos or glitches that were corrected as well as that an apology gift is being sent out to all players who log in within a certain timeframe, whether they were affected by the problem or not. I really like seeing that so much effort is being put into this game and I love seeing the new cards and events that come out every week (even if it does mean I have even more cards to collect to have a complete collection).
For dislikes about Ishtaria, I don't really have any. Obviously there are aspects that frustrate me (like a boss that's extremely difficult to defeat or skills not activating as often as wanted), but these are all a part of the game that makes it more challenging and unique. Just like you wouldn't expect GLaDOS to give you cake after the first level, I don't expect every quest in Ishtaria to be super easy (though I do like it when all the stars align and I get a 300% bonus rating). If I had to criticize anything about Age of Ishtaria, it would be that there aren't more details about unions in their in-game FAQ. I'm still figuring out what exactly unions are for as I go along as well as how to obtain the currency that allows you to upgrade the design of your union. Also, I am not a huge fan of everything downloading as you go to use it instead of when the game is first downloaded and installed, but I don't mind it too much as it helps reduce the amount of time to download the game and allows you to choose what you want to download and when, so you can wait to play or view certain aspects until you're connected to Wi-Fi (although it's hard waiting sometimes).
Overall, I would highly recommend Age of Ishtaria to anyone who likes fantasy or collecting games as well as anime-themed graphics.
Have you played Age of Ishtaria before? Are you thinking of playing it now? Let me know in the comments!
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Saturday, February 11, 2017
Game Reviews: Spirit Stones
Hello everyone! As promised in last week's post, I'm going to be reviewing Spirit Stones and Age of Ishtaria. This week, Spirit Stones.
Since last week's article is verrrrry long, I'm going to do a quick rundown of what Spirit Stones is for anyone who doesn't want to know all of the details. Spirit Stones is a turn-based, card collecting puzzle game with a fantasy based storyline. You collect and power-up cards to fight monsters and complete quests to progress the storyline. It limits how much you can play with different types of stamina and offers more difficult dungeons, big bosses that everyone fights against, and a player versus player system. I would recommend referencing the different sections of last week's post for more details if anything in this one is confusing. Everything there is broken down into aspects of the games for easier reference.
For starters, I'm going to talk about what I liked about Spirit Stones before getting into the aspects that could have been done better as well as the ones that ultimately led to the game's end. One of my favorite parts of Spirit Stones was collecting cards. They had a wide range of very nicely done artwork on them and it was fun seeing the changes as I evolved them. The puzzle aspect of the game was a lot of fun, albeit difficult at times, because it added a level of difficulty and helped me to become better at strategizing while playing. I enjoyed trying to power my decks up and beat stronger and stronger opponents. Overall, I really enjoyed the game and spent quite a few hours playing it.
One of my main frustrations with Spirit Stones was the overly difficult player vs player battles. More often than not I ended up having to fight a very high leveled player instead of someone closer to my own level. Additionally, occasionally I would randomly be unable to do battles and I had no idea why because the explanation was vague and I couldn't find any further information on it. Another one of my gripes is that many of the levels were overly difficult, giving objectives that could only be fulfilled if all of the stars aligned and it was also your lucky day. While I enjoyed powering up my cards, it was a bit difficult and quite expensive game-currency-wise to collect enough of the same card to evolve it completely, then try to remember what combinations of fully evolved cards made a new card, and so on. (I eventually looked up the wiki towards the end so I wouldn't be wasting my in-game currency evolving cards I didn't need.)
Overall, I enjoyed Spirit Stones quite a bit despite my frustrations with it and I was really sad to see it go away. However, after reading other's comments on the "We're discontinuing the game" post that was made, I could see that the development team had neglected quite a few bugs that essentially broke the game. I hadn't taken any part in the team gameplay, which is where the bugs were, so I never saw that aspect of the game, but I had noticed that there wasn't ever a new event or much in the way of updates to the game. I would give Spirit Stones a 4/5 from what I played in it and had recommended it to friends prior to its discontinuation.
Have you ever played Spirit Stones? Let me know in the comments below!
Go like and follow me on Facebook: facebook.com/CelesteChoCho
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Since last week's article is verrrrry long, I'm going to do a quick rundown of what Spirit Stones is for anyone who doesn't want to know all of the details. Spirit Stones is a turn-based, card collecting puzzle game with a fantasy based storyline. You collect and power-up cards to fight monsters and complete quests to progress the storyline. It limits how much you can play with different types of stamina and offers more difficult dungeons, big bosses that everyone fights against, and a player versus player system. I would recommend referencing the different sections of last week's post for more details if anything in this one is confusing. Everything there is broken down into aspects of the games for easier reference.
For starters, I'm going to talk about what I liked about Spirit Stones before getting into the aspects that could have been done better as well as the ones that ultimately led to the game's end. One of my favorite parts of Spirit Stones was collecting cards. They had a wide range of very nicely done artwork on them and it was fun seeing the changes as I evolved them. The puzzle aspect of the game was a lot of fun, albeit difficult at times, because it added a level of difficulty and helped me to become better at strategizing while playing. I enjoyed trying to power my decks up and beat stronger and stronger opponents. Overall, I really enjoyed the game and spent quite a few hours playing it.
One of my main frustrations with Spirit Stones was the overly difficult player vs player battles. More often than not I ended up having to fight a very high leveled player instead of someone closer to my own level. Additionally, occasionally I would randomly be unable to do battles and I had no idea why because the explanation was vague and I couldn't find any further information on it. Another one of my gripes is that many of the levels were overly difficult, giving objectives that could only be fulfilled if all of the stars aligned and it was also your lucky day. While I enjoyed powering up my cards, it was a bit difficult and quite expensive game-currency-wise to collect enough of the same card to evolve it completely, then try to remember what combinations of fully evolved cards made a new card, and so on. (I eventually looked up the wiki towards the end so I wouldn't be wasting my in-game currency evolving cards I didn't need.)
Overall, I enjoyed Spirit Stones quite a bit despite my frustrations with it and I was really sad to see it go away. However, after reading other's comments on the "We're discontinuing the game" post that was made, I could see that the development team had neglected quite a few bugs that essentially broke the game. I hadn't taken any part in the team gameplay, which is where the bugs were, so I never saw that aspect of the game, but I had noticed that there wasn't ever a new event or much in the way of updates to the game. I would give Spirit Stones a 4/5 from what I played in it and had recommended it to friends prior to its discontinuation.
Have you ever played Spirit Stones? Let me know in the comments below!
Go like and follow me on Facebook: facebook.com/CelesteChoCho
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Saturday, March 7, 2015
Throwback... Saturday? Harry Potter on the PS One
Hello everyone! So the other night I was feeling antisocial and somewhat depressed due to a date falling through, so I decided to bust out one of my old PS One games I'd recently recovered from back home: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. As mentioned in a previous article, I've enjoyed PS One games for a majority of my life, so I was thrilled when I was able to get one of my own after moving out. Now on to the Harry Potter game!
In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, you play as Harry when he first discovers he's a wizard and arrives at Hogwarts. While the characters and general story is similar to the original book, Harry Potter follows a different story line with a lot more running about and random character interactions that tend to go along the lines of "Hey Harry! We totally know you. You should do this!" This makes the game feel a little akward storywise as it pretty much depends on the player having previously read the book and know what part of the book they're butchering. Fortunately, I have read all the Harry Potter books multiple times in the past, so I'm not running around wondering why all these random people are suddenly so buddy-buddy with Harry. Or why this blonde kid has two characterless blobs following him around as he harrasses Harry and the school population in general for no aparent reason. This reliance on previous knowledge gained from reading the book makes the storyline very awkward throughout most of the game, but there's still enough of a congruent story line to explain events.
Years ago when I first purchased Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the PS One I struggled a lot with the gameplay and also got stuck. VERY stuck. My dad tried to help things along for me by putting cheats on our Goldfinger (a nifty little device that doesn't seem to exist anymore) for the game. Sadly, none of the cheats ever seemed to work properly as I still couldn't progress despite the requirements being met for certain in game missions. Recently, when I decided to pick it up again, I decided to start over at the beginning despite having a previous save file to see if I'd do any better with having several more years gaming experience under my belt. Not to mention I'd pretty much forgotten all the controls, so I didn't want to be flailing around aimlessly wondering what the heck I'm supposed to do. After the night's gaming, I'd pretty much caught up with my previous progress in the game, but let me tell you: It wasn't easy. Not in the slightest. To be honest, I can see more clearly why I struggled with this game so much and feel that it was rather poorly written. Annoying voice acting and seemingly nonsequitor story beside, the controls for much of this game feel very clumsy and poorly done to me. While having to manually adjust the camera isn't too uncommon for PS One games, sometimes the camera would be facing towards Harry, making it impossible to see the monster, lava, or whatever happens to be a threat in front of you. This makes losing health in the game very easy at some points. Fortunately, you are given the option to continue from where you last left off, rather than having to start at the last save point. One of the biggest frustrations I have with this Harry Potter game is the broom controls. When Harry's zipping around on his broom, the controls are opposite what I would expect. Instead of being reversed, up to go down, down to go up, the controls are up for up and down for down. I'm not sure this is entirely a bad thing, but I know I've struggled getting a hang of these controls even when I was younger.
Overall, I'm feeling this game will probably end up being no higher than a 2.5/5 in my book. It relies too much on previous character knowledge based on the books, has difficult controls, and is overall a frustrating game to play. While I still intend to finish this gam, I would recommend anyone looking to buy older games avoid it completely except for collector's purposes ("I have all the Harry Potter games! They sit, unplayed, on a shelf!").
Check out my fanpage (maintained by yours truly): facebook.com/CelesteChoCho
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In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, you play as Harry when he first discovers he's a wizard and arrives at Hogwarts. While the characters and general story is similar to the original book, Harry Potter follows a different story line with a lot more running about and random character interactions that tend to go along the lines of "Hey Harry! We totally know you. You should do this!" This makes the game feel a little akward storywise as it pretty much depends on the player having previously read the book and know what part of the book they're butchering. Fortunately, I have read all the Harry Potter books multiple times in the past, so I'm not running around wondering why all these random people are suddenly so buddy-buddy with Harry. Or why this blonde kid has two characterless blobs following him around as he harrasses Harry and the school population in general for no aparent reason. This reliance on previous knowledge gained from reading the book makes the storyline very awkward throughout most of the game, but there's still enough of a congruent story line to explain events.
Years ago when I first purchased Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the PS One I struggled a lot with the gameplay and also got stuck. VERY stuck. My dad tried to help things along for me by putting cheats on our Goldfinger (a nifty little device that doesn't seem to exist anymore) for the game. Sadly, none of the cheats ever seemed to work properly as I still couldn't progress despite the requirements being met for certain in game missions. Recently, when I decided to pick it up again, I decided to start over at the beginning despite having a previous save file to see if I'd do any better with having several more years gaming experience under my belt. Not to mention I'd pretty much forgotten all the controls, so I didn't want to be flailing around aimlessly wondering what the heck I'm supposed to do. After the night's gaming, I'd pretty much caught up with my previous progress in the game, but let me tell you: It wasn't easy. Not in the slightest. To be honest, I can see more clearly why I struggled with this game so much and feel that it was rather poorly written. Annoying voice acting and seemingly nonsequitor story beside, the controls for much of this game feel very clumsy and poorly done to me. While having to manually adjust the camera isn't too uncommon for PS One games, sometimes the camera would be facing towards Harry, making it impossible to see the monster, lava, or whatever happens to be a threat in front of you. This makes losing health in the game very easy at some points. Fortunately, you are given the option to continue from where you last left off, rather than having to start at the last save point. One of the biggest frustrations I have with this Harry Potter game is the broom controls. When Harry's zipping around on his broom, the controls are opposite what I would expect. Instead of being reversed, up to go down, down to go up, the controls are up for up and down for down. I'm not sure this is entirely a bad thing, but I know I've struggled getting a hang of these controls even when I was younger.
Overall, I'm feeling this game will probably end up being no higher than a 2.5/5 in my book. It relies too much on previous character knowledge based on the books, has difficult controls, and is overall a frustrating game to play. While I still intend to finish this gam, I would recommend anyone looking to buy older games avoid it completely except for collector's purposes ("I have all the Harry Potter games! They sit, unplayed, on a shelf!").
Check out my fanpage (maintained by yours truly): facebook.com/CelesteChoCho
I'm on Twitter: @animlolicouture
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