Porky Pigs Haunted Holiday is a 2d plat-former developed by phoenix interactive for the Super Nintendo Entertainment system.
Porky Pig wants to book a holiday and while looking through a brochure he falls asleep and has a nightmare about going on a spooky vacation.
The game is your standard plat-former and is in a way a little bit of a Mario clone considering that you damage enemies by jumping on them and you you can collect cakes, and once you collect a certain amount you are rewarded with lives and additional points, its just shame that this is not a very good Mario clone.
The controls are decent and are very easy to get used too but the level design is where the experience becomes a little frustrating, the stages are fairly simplistic but enemies are really quite difficult to avoid because they are placed really unfairly, a lot of the time they will show up last second or will be hidden under platforms making it almost impossible to not hit them and take damage.
Another frustrating problem with the stages is that some platforms are not clear that you can land on them, sometimes they look like they are just part of the background making leaps of faith the only way to check if they are safe or not.
On the bright side the game is very generous with its check points and offers unlimited continues making the game quite easy to play and making up for some of its less than satisfying game-play.
The graphics are fantastic for a licensed game and Porky is animated really well, he sometimes gets frustrated and taps his foot while scrunching up his face which is very charming and quite cute.
The most interesting and impressive part of the game is that every-time you restart the game either by resetting the console or using a continue the scenery of the level you are on changes, this is really cool and not something I would expect from an older video game such as this.
The boss fights were all very easy but I did enjoy seeing different Looney Tunes characters, I do wish that more of the main Looney Tunes were in the platform stages instead of just the boss fights.
The soundtrack really sucks, its the same annoying tunes played on loop and its not even good music I found myself muting the game after a while and playing different music instead.
Porky Pigs Haunted Holiday is an ok game but it really is nothing special, I really liked the animations and visuals but I wasn’t a fan of much else and overall I would say to skip this one unless you are a Looney Tunes Super Fan.
5.3/10
As a bonus this is a link to a review I did of Taz Mania on the Sega Mega Drive, this Looney Tunes game is much worse than the game I reviewed today so if you would like to see my views on that game check out the link below
Thank you for reading my review of Porky Pig’s Haunted Holiday for the Super Nintendo
If you would like to help support the website please use the donation button at the top of the page, your donations will help to improve the website by allowing me to afford products to review and to be able to execute any costly updates and changes, any amount in donations are welcome.
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The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening was released in 1993 for the Nintendo Gameboy, it was the first handheld game in the series and is by far the strangest. The game was re-released in 1998 for the Gameboy colour which is the version I am going to be focusing on in this review. I will be discussing the 2019 remake for the Nintendo Switch as well in order to see if it is better than the original.
After the events of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Link travels by boat to various islands to train his skills however during one of his voyages a storm destroys the boat and causes him to be washed up on Koholint Island.
He is rescued by a young girl called Marin who takes him to her house, after Link recovers his sword a mysterious owl tells him that he must wake up the wind fish to go home, the wind fish is inside of a giant egg on top of a mountain and Link must recover eight instruments from dungeons to wake him up.
Links awakening mostly follows a very similar pattern to the games before it as you will need to travel across Koholint Island solving puzzles, meeting new characters, discovering dungeons and defeating bosses, two new items are introduced in this game, one of them is rocs feather which allows Link to jump over small gaps and attack flying enemies and the other is the Ocarina which Link can learn to play music on to trigger events in the game such as teleportation, raising the dead and eventually opening the final dungeon.
2D side scrolling sections return in this game but they are executed much better than they were in Zelda 2, these are short and sweet and are a lot of fun, they are also the best places to find enemies from the Super Mario series. Mario enemies are all over this game its really cool and fits the sillier nature of the title, when you play the game you will realise that it is quite silly and comedic, this a Zelda game that does not need to be taken seriously and that is something I would like to see more of in the future.
There are a few things that I feel really hold back this game from being one of the better games in the series. The map is really confusing as nothing is easy to find, almost all of the buildings look the same and are labelled as shops, I really wanted to collect all of the photographer pictures but when I tried to find the the building before I took on the final boss I could not find it and eventually gave up.
I also think that a lot of secrets or dungeons are too cryptic and hard to figure out in this title, some things are more obvious than others but a lot of the time because the dungeons all look so similar you will find your self pulling out your hair trying to get through them.
I think all of these issues could have been fixed with some labels added to the map and I can only hope that the 2019 version of the game fixes this.
Visually the game looks really good, for the gameboy’s limitations the developers pushed the system to put out lots of colours and great animations.
I love this soundtrack, its really charming and fits the games setting really well, there are some classic Zelda tracks thrown in so you cant really go wrong, my favourite music is from Mabe village.
The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening is an odd game to say the least, its very charming and to a lot of people its one of the best in the series, I personally enjoy the game but I don’t think it doesn’t have its faults. The confusing map added a lot of stress to my play-through but apart from that this is a good title and I would like to see a sillier game in the series again.
Recently the game has been remade for the Nintendo Switch
On September 20th 2019 a new HD remake of Links Awakening was released on the Nintendo Switch, the game came with a beautiful graphical upgrade and new and impressive renditions of the music, the new soundtrack is fantastic and is just as enjoyable as the originals soundtrack.
Here is the soundtrack if you would like the compare the two
Unfortunately due to the game only releasing in the last 24 hours I could only find the soundtrack as one video however the up-loader has added time marks to skip tracks.
This game is filled with bug fixes and small improvements to the original game but I am only going to focus on the changes that I feel will have the biggest impact on returning players.
I love the new visuals, the game is extremely colourful and is a joy to look at, the designers took a very child friendly and almost toy inspired design for the game and it suits the silly nature of the adventure perfectly. the game is packed with wonderful visuals and smooth animations including a fully animated opening cut scene.
Some other important changes are new ways to play some of the minigames which are now much more challenging in my opinion, a much easier to read map that allows the player to place markers, the option to choose where to land after using warp pads and key items being assigned to buttons meaning that players do not have to go the inventory all of the time.
For me the worst part of the remake is its dungeon creator mode which replaces the photography in the game, players can use areas from dungeons they have finished to build new dungeons that they and their friends can play through. I generally do not enjoy creative game experiences like this so the loss of the photography which was my favourite part of the original game was a little upsetting for me.
Lack of photography or not it would be unfair to say that this is not the superior version of the game, it looks and sounds better and makes the experience a little less tedious than it used to be and that is exactly what you should expect from a remake, the developers put their hearts and souls into this and the outcome was a very good Zelda remaster.
Links Awakening DX – 8.4/10
Links Awakening 2019 – 9.3/10
I hope you enjoyed this review of The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening
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Crash Bandicoot was a hugely popular video game mascot back in the 1990’s but I think its fair to say that over the years his games seriously dropped in quality and changes to his character design and personality helped to lose a lot of fans over the years eventually causing the character to disappear from most games and media for nearly a decade until June 2017 when a HD remake of the original three games was released on the Playstation 4, before then being released on the PC,Nintendo Switch and Xbox One this year reintroducing Crash to a whole new audience as well as his previous fans.
In this review we will taking a look at the orginal games and then ill be giving my opinion on the High Defintion Collection where we will discuss a few differences between both versions of the games.
So without further ado lets take a step back into my childhood to the year of 1996 to discuss Crash Bandicoot
Crash Bandicoot: 1996
Doctor Neo Cortex has been capturing and mutating animals in the hopes of creating a mutant army to take over the world. A Partly mutated Bandicoot escapes from the Doctors Labotory and falls through a window landing on a beach and now Crash has to get back to the top of the mad doctors laboratory in order to save his Girlfriend Tawna.
The game takes place on the Wumpa Islands which are three Islands in south Australia that are all owned by Doctor Cortex which goes to show that Crash never really escaped from the Doctor and could easily be caught again.
On the islands Crash is able to run spin and jump his way across the land destroying all of the crates in his way and with the help of his friend Aku Aku a voodoo mask who can provide Crash temporary protection and invincibility the journey to save Tawna is made a little bit less stressful.
The gameplay is a 3D plat-former but its a little different to most games of the style, the idea of Crash Bandicoot is that players would play a plat-former from the perspective of a camera being able to record the character from more angles such as the front, back and side of the character instead of from a side perspective which was the standard back then with the exception of Super Mario 64.
Back in the day this was a really cool idea and for the most part the developers Naughty Dog did a pretty good job but with this being one of the first games to try this style a couple of issues were inevitable upon the games release.
The games controls are good for the most part but jumping is very floaty, a great example for where this becomes an issue is a level near the end of the game called Slippery Climb, Crash needs to climb the outskirts of Dr Cortexs tower and there are a lot of tricky jumps to make and small platforms to land on but this is made extremely difficult because the controls when jumping become awkward and really annoying. The best way I can describe these controls is for you to imagine that instead of legs Crash has wheels, when he lands after a jump he slips ever so slightly forwards before coming to a halt, this killed me so many times that it in a small sense it kind of ruined some of the game for me, but not all levels were so difficult due to this issue so it wasn’t so bad.
On another note the boss fights here are pretty easy, although they are a lot of fun, I would have preferred more challenge to them as even the final boss was simple enough once you learned a strategy to avoid his attacks.
The game does have collectables for completionists although it is not worth your time, if you collect every hidden gem you will unlock a secret ending although its not canon and these days it can just be viewed on YouTube, to be fair back then you wouldn’t have been able to do this so in 1996 perhaps it may have been worth more of your time. If you the find coloured gems you can return to some of the levels to find new paths, these often lead to hidden collectables and lives which can be useful and finally there are two keys in the game and if you get these you will unlock two bonus levels. The Reason why I do not recommend going for the gems is because you have smash every crate in each level and during every run you cannot die, even if you hit a checkpoint you have to go back to the beginning, Crash 1 is a pretty hard game minus the boss fights and the awkward controls making this challenge some what unbearable but if your up for it give it a go and see how you do, perhaps its just me and maybe I just suck at Crash.
The Soundtrack is interesting and in my opinion its well composed and each track suits each segment of the game fine, I personally don’t have any music in this game that I really enjoy but its good none the less.
The original Crash Bandicoot is a staple of my childhood but its not as good as I remember it being, its a fun game but it definitely has its problems, I wouldn’t say its one of the best games ever made although it is worth playing through at least once 6.6/10
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back: 1997
A year after the events of the first game Crash and his sister Coco are relaxing on a beach, Coco’s laptop battery has died and Crash heads towards their home to get another for her but before he can do this he is abducted by Doctor Cortex who asks Crash to find crystals for him in order to save the word from a great danger, Coco and Cortex’s ex assistant N Brio try to warn Crash not to trust Cortex leaving Crash to figure out whether Cortex can be trusted.
The same game-play style from the first game is in Crash Bandicoot 2 although a few changes were made here the first is that while Crash can still jump, spin and run he can now also slide, duck, crawl and dig underground, the game still offers various level types including those wear you ride animals but unlike pigs in the first game you now ride baby polar bears.
The boulder chase stages now involve Polar Bears also.
The Controls in this game are much better and the jumping isn’t floaty at all, Crash controls perfectly and it makes this game a lot less stressful and more fair as any deaths are legitimately your own fault. I think it should also be said that game is a lot easier than the first as well, it was rare that I really struggled with it when compared to the first game.
Gem collecting is done a lot better here as getting all the boxes isn’t quite as difficult plus getting the coloured gems requires you to do certain tasks which are all really fun to do for example the Blue Gem requires you to finish the first stage without breaking any boxes.
Crash 2 is one of my favourite game soundtracks, the music is upbeat and so great to listen too, almost every track in this game will have you wanting to dance and it still manages to change the music to fit the different areas of the game while still maintaining its fun vibes, its honestly very well composed and is just fantastic.
Use the link above to have a listen yourself.
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back is a great game and is one the best games for the original PlayStation, It has a better soundtrack, boss fights and general gameplay but I wouldnt say its perfect as the collectables while fun are still not really worth going out of your way for in my opinion however its still a great game none the less 9.7/10
Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped: 1998
After his ship crash lands back on earth Dr Neo Cortex awakens an evil being known as Uka Uka who is the younger brother of Aku Aku, the new duo gather the aid of the evil and time obsessed Dr Tropy and all three of them try to gather more power crystals from multiple time periods with the hopes of taking over the world.
As with the other two games this one still uses the same playing style but its the new content which makes this Crash game stand out compared to its predecessors, the first is the upgrades that Crash earns after defeating each boss, some of the most useful upgrades are the double jump and the ability to spin through the air and glide temporarily.
The Other major changes are the new level types.
You can now play underwater segments where you can get gun weapons allowing you to quickly blast through enemies and collect Wumpa Fruit.
Some stages need Crash to win a race while riding on his motorbike, this may have been put in the game as a means of testing what a Crash racing game would be like before the release of Crash Team Racing a year later.
In jet ski Levels you play as Crash’s sister Coco who must carefully glide across the water tracks making sure not to hit any obstacles that are in her way.
The animal riding segments return but this time you play as Coco who is riding a tiger across the Great wall of China.
The Boulder chase stages are back but this time you are running away from a rampaging dinosaur.
Aeroplane stages need crash to destroy some airborne targets before his own aeroplane is destroyed
Again the controls are perfect here so I have no complaints, the game is a smooth experience from A to B and the controls can not be faulted in my opinion.
The game tackles Gem collecting a little differently here but I think its done really well, the regular gems are collected by smashing all the crates but the coloured gems are hidden on secret paths on certain levels and its quite fun to get all of them in the game to the point where I can finally admit that its worth doing as this game is actually the easiest out of the three making this task not too daunting, if you want the secret ending in the game you need all of the gems and all of the sapphire relics which can be earned by getting the lowest acceptable time in the time trials which are also pretty easy to do in my opinion but still very fun.
The Music is great here and although I do still prefer the soundtrack for Crash 2, the music in Warped still manages to suit every situation and environment perfectly.
Crash Bandicoot 3 Warped is an amazing game, there is plenty of replay value and for once it really feels worth going to extra mile and getting 100 percent, the new bosses are really fun and they all have voice actors giving them more personality, the game isn’t too long but its also not so short that it seems a waste of money its a nice blend and with all of the challenges in the game it will take you a while to fully finish it, this is one of the best games for the original Playstation and in my opinion one of the best game ever made period and with that said I’m going to give Crash Bandicoot 3 the rating its deserves a well earned 10/10.
Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy: 2017
Almost 20 years after the release of Crash Bandicoot 3 Warped a HD Collection with remade versions of the first three games was released on the PS4 and then on PC, Xbox One and the Nintendo Switch a year later.
As I have already covered the basics the of each game this will only be a quick look at how this version, looks, sounds and controls as well as discussing some of the biggest changes and updates to these versions of the Crash games.
Lets face it this is the best Crash Bandicoot has ever looked, obviously when compared to the original games these will look better but that is not to say that the graphics were bad in the old games as those was a completely different generation and video game technology was not where it is today. In the N Sane Trilogy the visuals are more smoothed out and colours are more vibrant and crisp, the remakes have better uses of shadows and blending of dark and light colours. Even the environments are more realistic as the environment reacts more to the elements, for example plant life will slightly move due to the wind and when you stand in a puddle ripples will be made and so many more smaller details help to make these versions of the games so much more different and cool.
In game cut-scenes have also been remade with more modern visuals and voice actors, the cut-scenes look better than the game itself in my opinion, for example here you can actually admire the effort of the artists by noticing small details such as Crash’s Fur looking more realistic, the different marks in the wood or the patterns on the stones by the fire, each cut-scene is different and each is wonderfully drawn and animated in its own way.The Controls are for the most part fantastic throughout all of the games, the problem controls of the first Crash game have been fixed and Crash 2 runs like a charm but there is a small issue with the jet ski section of Crash 3 Warped, for some reason the controls are more difficult here, its really quite annoying to navigate in this version of the game but overall the controls are really good throughout and this minor problem should not put you off buying the collection.
With a remake there does tend to be changes to the formula or certain elements of the original, Crash N Sane Trilogy has a lot of changes but some are so minor that I do not personally think they are worth talking about however some of the bigger changes to these versions are really awesome and do majorly improve the game experience the best in my opinion are as follows.
The Ability to play as Coco in all three of the games
Time Trials in Crash 1 and Crash 2
If you die your box count remains the same in all of the games
The game gives you a counter for boxes, gems, wumpa fruit and lives
to see more changes that are not mentioned here click on the link below for a better listing
The soundtrack for the N Sane Trilogy is great and I have no complaints here at all, I personally think that this is the best way to appreciate the Crash Bandicoot music and I feel that the use of more music styles and more instruments makes these versions better than ever.
listen to the soundtrack above to check it out for yourself
The Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy is one of the best collections I have ever played, these versions of the games are better than they have ever been before and as a whole this collection is fantastic, it is worth every penny that it costs and its more lenient game play mechanics makes it a nice introduction to Crash Bandicoot for younger gamers as well as the fans of the series, of course there is the small control issue in Crash 3 and I was going to not give the game a perfect score because of this but the game also fixed the control issues in the first game which proved more of a problem than the jet ski issue here so with all said and done I am going to still give this a 10/10 because it really deserves it and sometimes you just have to look past one or two tiny problems to see a truly remarkable game.
I hope you enjoyed this review of the Crash Bandicoot original trilogy as well as the Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy.
If you respect my opinion I will respect yours
Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com
The Nintendo Switch is officially less than 10 days away from release and while there are a lot of games which have been announced I am only genuinely excited for three of them, those being Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 2 and of course the long awaited Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but what about the games that haven’t been announced?
These are the 5 games I want to be announced for the Nintendo Switch…..hopefully at E3
HD Remakes
Lets get the boring one out of the way first, Nintendo are great at making new games and expanding the universes of their video game characters but I still want to see more of their old games getting remade with modern graphics and controls, we all want Mario Sunshine and Luigi’s Mansion HD and so do I but I think some of Nintendo’s older titles would benefit from HD remakes, imagine being able to play Mario 64 in 1080p and without the dodgy controls and what about a HD remake of Donkey Kong 64 or Pilot Wings, there are a lot of titles that would be great as HD remakes but for me personally I would like to see a HD Metroid Prime Trilogy or HD Pikmin and Pikmin 2.
Animal Crossing
This November will mark the fifth anniversary of Animal Crossing New Leaf for the Nintendo 3DS, I think its time for a brand new Animal Crossing game and what better system to do this on than the Nintendo Switch, honestly I have never enjoyed the handheld Animal Crossing games as much as the ones released on stay at home systems and if released on the switch an Animal Crossing game would suit what I want and it could also be played as a handheld game for those who prefer playing on the go, so everyone wins however there are some major changes I want made to the series, first of all I want more creativity when it comes to building your town and by this I mean that players are able to build the islands themselves from the ground up also I think at this point we should be able to play as an animal if we want too, how about a character building mode where we can create our own characters in very unique and creative ways, I wont go into too many details on this as it may become an article of its own at some point.
Pikmin 4
Ok so Pikmin 4 has technically been announced for years but it hasn’t been announced for the Nintendo Switch so I still think this counts, I love cute things and the Pikmin games are no exception I like how Nintendo have taken a subject as dark as the extinction of the human race and made an adorable game series where you play as space captains who run around earth and control strange plant creatures to collect fruits and relics that have been left behind by humans, I haven’t gotten around to playing the third game yet but its on my to do list but in the mean time I hope Nintendo hurry’s up with Pikmin 4.
F-Zero
I think Mario Kart is a great game series but we get one or two of those every year, but we havent had an F-Zero game since 2003, for those who don’t know F-Zero is a fast paced racing game that takes place in space, the games went on to spawn an amazing anime series and F-Zero was one of the biggest inspirations for the Hovercraft’s in Mario Kart 8, I don’t know why this series stopped but many would agree that it needs to return in big ways.
Luigi’s mansion 3 plus a Dark Moon Port
I loved both of the Luigi’s Mansion games and I would really like to see a Luigi’s mansion 3, the changes I want to make in these games may surprise you but I think they could work, first of all I want Mario out of the game completely I think Luigi’s brother gets enough of the spotlight already, I want multiple playable characters which all have unique abilities and must be switched constantly to solve puzzles, some ideas of characters could be a toad, Luigi (obviously), Professor E-Gadd and Princess Daisy, also a new and more menacing villain and a scarier premise, that is my dream Luigi’s Mansion game and although I cant imagine this will ever happen I will still want a Luigi’s Mansion 3 and I know a lot of you guys do too.
Those are the top 5 games I want announced for the Nintendo Switch
Which games are on your list
I hope you enjoyed this article
Next week will be an article of my opinions of Nintendo DLC and how it could either succeed or fail
Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com
You can find me on Miiverse by searching for draskafer
We are officially only three weeks away from the release of the Nintendo Switch and in celebration every week up until the release I will be releasing articles expressing my excitement for the system.
On the 12th of January 2017 Nintendo released an hour long presentation discussing important information about their new system, I have watched the presentation multiple times and although I am very excited about the new console I do feel that Nintendo have made some rather critical mistakes.
Lets start by going over what I consider to be the most disappointing parts of the presentation
Here are the Cons of the Nintendo Switch
Apart from a couple of games the launch line up is not very exciting
At the moment games are very expensive, you wont likely be paying less than £50 for a game and some games cost even more
Accessories are also ridiculously over priced but to be honest Nintendo have never had great deals on their accessories.
There is only 32GB of internal storage but you are able to expand the storage by inserting a micro SD card
The battery life while you are out and about is between 2-6 hours which isn’t great but could be much worse
Only 1080p resolution on the TV and 720p on the tablet, may not seem like a huge deal but when compared the competition this is fairly low
No pack in game comes with the system
You need to pay to play online now
With the worst out of the way, I can finally talk about the Pros of the Nintendo Switch
The price of the system is only £279.99
The release date (March 3rd 2017) is earlier than we expected
Lots of third party developers are creating titles for the system
For the first time ever Bethesda Game Studios are developing for the switch,The Elder Scrolls Skyrim is being released on the system
Two brand new IP’s were announced, out of the two IP’s that were announced the most exciting for me was ARMS, ARMS is a non traditional boxing game that uses extendable arms to fight, it looks really cool and I am really looking forward to playing it
A sequel to Splatoon was announced
A brand new 3D sandbox Mario game was announced, Super Mario Odyssey has not had too much information released about the new game but we do know that it has a release date of Holiday 2017
A direct sequel to the ever so popular Xenoblade Chronicles was announced, Xenoblade 2 will be released sometime this year
Hyrule Warriors fans will be pleased to know that a Fire Emblem Warriors game is coming to the Switch
A HD port of Mario Kart 8 is coming in April, it includes all previous DLC, A brand new Battle Mode and new characters and tracks
Breath of the wild has a brand new trailer complete with voice acting and a release date of March 3rd was announced meaning that Zelda will be there for the launch of the system
So that was a basic breakdown of what I consider to be the best and worst parts of the Nintendo Switch Live Presentation, Next week I will be discussing the top 5 games I want for the switch which have yet to be announced.
I hope you enjoyed my look at the Nintendo Switch Live Presentation
Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com
You can find me on Miiverse by searching for draskafer
Not a Halloween review, there will be another spooky review but regardless of the fact that its October I feel a need to discuss this, Its important for all nerd kind
This is it, It’s finally happened Codename NX has been revealed and I am so excited I can hardly contain myself,
Link to the Reveal Trailer
We still don’t know everything about Nintendo’s newest system but we have just been given a lot of important information, first of all the name is not going to be the Nintendo NX but it is instead called the Nintendo Switch.
The reason for this name is because you are going to be able to play the system at home and on the go, sort of like a handheld/home console hybrid, included in the reveal trailer were a few unseen clips of the upcoming Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and from what I have seen so far the game looks amazing.
The screen shot here confirms the use of cartridges over the more modern Blu-Ray Disks we use for most consoles today, for old school gamers like me who grew up playing cartridges this is very exciting news but for more modern gamer’s it may be a little bit too unusual but have no fear because not only can cartridges hold much more data than a Blu-Ray Disk but they are also incredibly cheap to make which may mean that Nintendo Switch games may be sold for a lot less than games were for the Wii U, however cartridges are no where near as fast to load up as a Blu-Ray Disk so speed may be an issue for the new system lets just hope that the Nintendo Switch has a good processor and a lot of Ram to make up for this, the use of cartridges does make it extremely unlikely for backwards compatibility with the Wii U but it is possible that maybe we will able to play our 3DS games on the Television
From this picture we can see that we will be able to detach the sides of the gamepad to use them as controllers when we are playing on the go, to me it looks as if it is going to be a similar set up to a Wiimote and Nunchuck but the entire thing will be wireless and of course the button layout will likely be different, also it is shown here that the Nintendo Switch gamepad will have a feature on the back which can help stand it up right so we can relax on the train/bus while we are playing.
As you can see he is now playing on his TV and he is able to switch from TV to on the go mode whenever he wants, just so you are aware he is currently playing an Elder Scrolls game, I am not sure whether it is Skyrim Remastered or an upcoming game in the series but that is not important, what is important however is that this is a very good sign that we will see a lot of third party support.
A new Mario Kart or a port of Mario Kart 8? who knows but still very exciting none the less
Possibly a reveal that the more popular sports games are coming to the system? not my thing but I am aware that there is definitely a massive market for these titles.
Is this a teaser for Super Mario run that is to be released on the smart phone market soon or is it a teaser for an upcoming Mario adventure? the Amiibos on the counter seem to indicate that Amiibo compatibility with the system will be available in the future.
This is a screen shot taken of what I am assuming is to be the new Pro Controller, I personally do not like the design here, to me its looks ugly and boring so I am hoping that it will be more colourful and appealing to myself in the future.
I’m not sure if this is the original Splatoon or not but it definitely looks cleaner and graphically improved so it could possibly be a sequel.
The weirdest part of the Splatoon reveal was that it seems like it was played in a stadium and I don’t recall hearing anything about an event like this so I am certain that this part of the reveal was made using CGI but I could be wrong.
With a release date of March 2017 that is everything we know about the Nintendo Switch so far, it looks very promising but I do wish that Nintendo at least gave us an idea on the price since the system is only 5-6 months away from release it just seem like now would be a great time for this information to be released, to be honest we should able to pre-order the system by now but that is the only thing that’s really bugging me about the trailer.
I hope you enjoyed my look at the Nintendo Switch Reveal Trailer
Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com
You can find me on Miiverse by searching for draskafer
The Halo series is one of the most beloved video game franchises of all time, the series is often said to be revolutionary and a marvel to modern gaming.
I played the original Halo when it first got released and my 8 year old mind was blown away at how amazing the experience was, but does it still hold up today 14 years later compared to the newer entries of the series?
Halo’s plot is very heavily story driven, so I am going to explain the basic plot with as very little spoilers as possible.
A UNSC Space Craft called the Pillar of Autumn is heading home after the effects of the battle of Reach (A game I will get too some other day).
During the lengthy journey home a very large ring called a Halo is discovered, shortly after the discovery the Pillar of Autumn is attacked by a religious Alien Race known as the Covenent, when the ship is about to be taken over Captain Keyes (Commander of the Pillar of Autumn) orders the games protagonist the Master Chief to protect Cortana who is some very realistic Artificial Intelligence that holds information on the UNSC and the location of many hidden planets including Earth.
The Master Chief and Cortana escape the Pillar of Autumn but unfortunately Captain Keyes gets kidnapped by the Covenant, this changes Master Chiefs escape plan to a search and rescue which sparks the rest of the events in the game.
Halo is a first person shooter which for me is usually when I realise that I wont like the game as I have never really been a huge fan of this game play style.
Don’t get me wrong the game play is fantastic as it controls and feels really good but there really isn’t much that makes the game play feel any different too most other first person shooters with the only major differences being that it takes place in space and you are killing Aliens.
You spend the majority of the game on foot blasting the Covenant with an array of weapons including the famous Pulse Rifle which has been a staple to the series from the very beginning, personally as much as I love this weapon I would say switch for a shotgun as soon as you can because trust me later on you will meet another form of enemy which are very vulnerable to the shotgun bullets, for your secondary weapon I recommend that you find your self a Sniper Rifle so that you can take out most enemies from a distance before getting into a real battle (This is mostly for those play on the higher difficulty settings) the sniper is also in my opinion the best weapon to use on the more powerful and better protected enemies such as Elites and Hunters, you will also be armed with some frag grenades and some plasma grenades (Sticky grenades).
When your not on foot you will either be riding, driving, or shooting from some sort of vehicle, Halo offers a wide range of vehicles that you can use to your advantage, the most common you will see in this game will be Warthogs which are the main transport used for the Marines of the UNSC, another UNSC vehicle is the Tank which I highly recommend if you are lucky enough to find one.
The covenant also use vehicles which you can high-jack, the most common Covenant vehicle you will find is the Ghost which is a small hover craft type vehicle which is armed with a fairly powerful laser cannon, you will also see Banshees from time to time these are the same as ghosts but they have the advantage of flight so they can prove to be very useful, Wraiths are another type of vehicle you will come across every now and again, Wraiths are the Covenant’s version of the Tank.
Graphically the game is a bit disappointing, now before anyone comes to murder me please hear me out !!, the graphical design of the game is absolutely mind blowing and for the time not many games could compete with the efforts of game design that Bungie (Game Devs) put into this game, but generally for a game that got released in 2001 everything looks a little bit pix-elated which is not a massive issue but it is quite disappointing when comparing it to other games that got released the same year such as Fusion Frenzy and 007 Agent under fire.
on the other hand the soundtrack is absolutely amazing, at this point I gather that most of you are familiar with the main theme song for Halo, if you are you will be pleased to know that the theme song plays a hell of a lot in this game.
Halo Theme Song – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5yVOFokLVY
The rest of the music is still very good, its very orchestral and really is a wonderful experience for players to enjoy, it holds fantastic artistic values and is perfectly conducted to suit the games premise.
Overall Halo: Combat Evolved is a fantastic game that I highly recommend to any fans of First Person Shooters or fans of SCI-FI in general, it’s the beginning of a fantastic story, the game control smoothly and plays at a fun and fluent pace, the only complaint I have is the not so great graphics for a game that came out in 2001, I highly recommend playing the 360 remake Combat Evolved Anniversary because of this.
9.7/10
I hope you enjoyed my review of Halo: Combat Evolved for the Xbox
If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours
By Padawan
Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com
You can find me on Miiverse by searching for draskafer
The Legend of Zelda the Animated Series……… Wait no its not
The Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker is one of the most beloved games of the Legend of Zelda franchise and is often considered to be a masterpiece to gaming, but it never used to be looked at in such as positive light as upon the games release it was hated amongst fans due to its less serious plot and characters and its new cheerful and brightly coloured visuals.
Before just a few weeks ago I had only played this game once while I was visiting my cousins back in 2003, even though I only played the game for a short time the memories I had playing have treasured me for many years and I always intended to return the game hoping to have as much fun with it as I did back then I have now played through both the HD remake and the original thanks to my very same cousin kindly lending me the very copy we played those many years ago.
this is a comparison review so I will be using screenshots from both versions of the game.
So how did it hold up?
You play as Link an adventurous young lad who lives with his little Sister Aryll and his Grandmother on Outset Island, its Links birthday and as a gift his Sister lets him borrow her special telescope for one day, while testing the telescope out Link notices a giant bird carrying a girl and dropping her into the forest of fairies which is located on a hill above Outset Island, Link runs into the forest and to his relief the girl is absolutely fine and she introduces herself as Captain Tetra and at the same time she introduces her crew of Pirates, Link and the Pirates decide that its time to leave the forest of fairies but unfortunately as they do the same bird snatches Aryll and takes he away to the Forbidden Fortress.
The Pirates agree to help Link rescue his sister by escorting him to the Forbidden Fortress and after an intense mission impossible style journey to top of the fortress, Link finally reaches the top only to find out that the evil mastermind behind all of the previous trouble was none other than Ganondorf who has much bigger plans for the fate of the world other than simply kidnapping young girls and its up to Link the Hero of the Winds to stop him.
As I mentioned above Wind Waker didn’t do so well upon release due to its change in graphics and visuals but another reason for this is its game play, Wind Waker is the most interesting Zelda title I have ever played because unlike most other games in the series that mostly focus on a serious and dark plot with side missions and other objectives thrown into the mix as a bonus, Wind Waker does the very opposite because it has a big focus on exploring and discovery and less of a focus on the main quest, at the time a lot of Legend of Zelda fans didn’t like this new change of pace and they labelled the game as being a wannabe Zelda title, personally I really like the idea that the game wants players to create there own adventures as these days I feel that most Zelda games don’t have a massive emphasis on adventure which was originally the staple of the franchise.
Instead of a horse this time we are given a boat called the King of Red Lions, the King of Red Lions is one of the most useful characters in the game because not only does he help guide you towards your main quests goals but he is also the only way you can travel between towns, islands and dungeons, if you haven’t already guessed the majority of the game takes place in the ocean meaning that most of your objectives and goals are spread all across the world on different islands.
This is a Zelda game so there is a couple of dungeons that you need to complete in order to beat the game but like I said there isn’t many dungeons as the main focus here is side questing, the idea of exploration is really cool and I appreciate that they made this the main focus but unfortunately the map for the ocean kind of sucks due to there not being much indication of where certain areas are on the map, some of the main towns are drawn on the map but the rest is mostly blank and this makes exploring extremely difficult, frustrating and not fun.
There is a way that you can easily indicate where certain areas are situated on the map but from my experience the only way to do this is to feed your bate (red berries) to certain fish in the ocean, I found a couple of these fish and they did help me with mapping the coordinates of certain islands but I only found a few of them so they actually weren’t that much help.
I feel that this issue could have been fixed in a couple of ways for example how about nothing is indicated on the map but once you discover a new area or island it is automatically added to the map for you.
If you go on-line you can find coordinates to the different areas an example would be that the private cabana is situated on E5 this makes it much easier to traverse the vast world of Wind Waker so they could have fixed the map problem by giving you the opportunity to purchase the coordinates to certain areas in shops or from travelling merchants in the game.
The most obvious fix to this would be to simply provide the player with a physical map of the ocean packed in with the game that has all of the coordinates written onto it (Similar to the Grand Theft Auto games).
Finally for Wii U players the map is seen on the game pad so it would have been cool and useful if we could have drawn our own coordinates on the map using the stylus and the game pad.
This is the the only thing about the game-play that I really dislike so lets now talk about the more positive aspects of the game
With Link being a being a master swords man you are going to be doing a lot of sword fighting in the game and a new attack introduced in Wind Waker is a timed button command, this new attack can be triggered by the player targeting the enemy and not taking damage for a few seconds, then once the command appears they must hit the button before it disappears and if they are successful they will take hit the enemy while dealing some major damage.
Another staple in the Zelda franchise is that in every game a new item is introduced and this time around we got the deku leaf, the deku leaf essentially allows Link to float through the air until his magic meter runs out this is useful for when you are trying to reach far away ledges and platforms, another use to this item is you can blow gusts of air with it which is mostly used to power certain mechanisms in the game luckily this particular use of the deku leaf uses no magic.
This wouldn’t be a Wind Waker review if I didn’t talk about the Wind Waker, the Wind Waker is essentially this games version of the Ocarina, through out the game you will learn new songs you can play using the wind and to the usual Zelda fashion some songs are needed in the game when others are not so important but still useful, for example if you are using the original sail while sailing you will need to sail in the direction of the wind and if you play the Winds Requiem you can change which way the wind is travelling making sailing to your destination much faster and easier, another example is the Ballad of Gales which allows you to warp to previous locations you have already visited.
Since the game mostly focuses on everything beyond the main quest you would think that the Side Quests would be very creative and unique compared to side quests in other entries of franchise, but this really isn’t the case as some side quests are genuinely a lot of fun and really stand out such as the Pictograph Quest which has young Link taking Photographs for an aspiring photographer on Windfall Island but apart from the few like this most of the Side quest are generic fetch quests having the player collect 20 of a specific item to be rewarded with rupees or heart pieces, one of the most awesome rewards for completing one of these quests is that Link gains his own Private Cabana which was an unexpected treat.
Both the Gamecube and the Wii U version of Wind Waker have very tight and responsive controls which are expected from a Nintendo Title, the Wii U version is the most beneficial version to play if only for the player not having the need to pause the game in order to switch between items and treasure charts due to the quick and easy access to these menus on the Wii U game pad.
The Wii U port also has a less aggravating final fetch quest at the end of game due to Nintendo kindly removing the majority of the Triforce charts allowing players to only collect three of them compared to the original which made the player collect eight.
The most unique aspect to the Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker is its visuals, Nintendo decided to steer away from the realistic and dark visuals which had become the staple of the series and decided to go with something much more happy which gave more of a childlike and innocent vibe which produced some beautiful final results.
Here are a few screen shots I found of both versions of the game.
Wind Waker is a very lively and well animated game, the game itself looks like an artist has gone absolutely nuts with colours and detail, this is also the first time we have really seen Link have a personality as he clearly shows his feelings and emotions using facial expressions through out the game and by using these facial expressions Link can take some magnificent selfies using his pictograph, the graphics are outstanding and are what help make the game really stand out as a unique title in the series.
Wind Waker also has an amazing sound track that really suits the games atmosphere and charm, what makes Wind Wakers soundtrack really stand out is that it always remains fun no matter what situation it is presenting itself too, for example most of the music in the game is fun happy and cheerful but even when the game gets to its more serious moments such as dungeon crawling and emotional scenes the music changes to suit these new environments but it also keeps its fun and cheerful presence as if its reminding you not to take the game to seriously and this is a game design choice that I really enjoy.
The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker is one of the most amazing entries in the franchise due to how unique it is, it was the first game in the series to have a less serious plot, feel and pace which is a touch that I believe only this game could pull off, the game focuses more on adventuring than it does the main quest which is something that I believe Nintendo should implement into future Zelda titles, because Wind Waker chose to focus more on side questing and exploration I wish that the game had more interesting side quests and better map system because personally this left me very disappointed, the graphics are an interesting and risky choice but they work really well and honestly help give the game more personality, the music also carries this same risk but the final result really works in this type of game.
I will probably be crucified for saying this but I don’t think Wind Waker is one of the best Zelda titles although I believe I could have been if certain aspects of the game were executed better.
I may not have enjoyed Wind Waker as much as many of its fans but I do believe that it is a very unique entry to the franchise due to its personality and its charm.
Wind Waker 6.8/10
Wind Waker HD 7.2/10
Thank you for reading my review of The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker for the Gamecube and the Wii U
If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours
By Padawan
Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com
You can find me on Miiverse by searching for draskafer
Also me and some friends have recently started playing games together so please check out our YouTube Channel Hoenn Rangers, We haven’t played Wind Waker yet but I’m sure we will at some point whether we play the Game Cube or the Wii U Port.
The most interesting and impressive part of the game is that every-time you restart the game either by resetting the console or using a continue the scenery of the level you are on changes, this is really cool and not something I would expect from an older video game such as this.
![36714-Crash_Bandicoot_2_-_Cortex_Strikes_Back_[U]-16](https://ragglefragglereviews.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/36714-crash_bandicoot_2_-_cortex_strikes_back_u-16.jpg?w=328&h=258)
You can now play underwater segments where you can get gun weapons allowing you to quickly blast through enemies and collect Wumpa Fruit.
In jet ski Levels you play as Crash’s sister Coco who must carefully glide across the water tracks making sure not to hit any obstacles that are in her way.
The animal riding segments return but this time you play as Coco who is riding a tiger across the Great wall of China.
Again the controls are perfect here so I have no complaints, the game is a smooth experience from A to B and the controls can not be faulted in my opinion.
In game cut-scenes have also been remade with more modern visuals and voice actors, the cut-scenes look better than the game itself in my opinion, for example here you can actually admire the effort of the artists by noticing small details such as Crash’s Fur looking more realistic, the different marks in the wood or the patterns on the stones by the fire, each cut-scene is different and each is wonderfully drawn and animated in its own way.
The Controls are for the most part fantastic throughout all of the games, the problem controls of the first Crash game have been fixed and Crash 2 runs like a charm but there is a small issue with the jet ski section of Crash 3 Warped, for some reason the controls are more difficult here, its really quite annoying to navigate in this version of the game but overall the controls are really good throughout and this minor problem should not put you off buying the collection.
With a remake there does tend to be changes to the formula or certain elements of the original, Crash N Sane Trilogy has a lot of changes but some are so minor that I do not personally think they are worth talking about however some of the bigger changes to these versions are really awesome and do majorly improve the game experience the best in my opinion are as follows.
The screen shot here confirms the use of cartridges over the more modern Blu-Ray Disks we use for most consoles today, for old school gamers like me who grew up playing cartridges this is very exciting news but for more modern gamer’s it may be a little bit too unusual but have no fear because not only can cartridges hold much more data than a Blu-Ray Disk but they are also incredibly cheap to make which may mean that Nintendo Switch games may be sold for a lot less than games were for the Wii U, however cartridges are no where near as fast to load up as a Blu-Ray Disk so speed may be an issue for the new system lets just hope that the Nintendo Switch has a good processor and a lot of Ram to make up for this, the use of cartridges does make it extremely unlikely for backwards compatibility with the Wii U but it is possible that maybe we will able to play our 3DS games on the Television
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