Tag: RPG

Pokemon Gen 1 – Red,Blue,Yellow (1996/1998) Review

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Pokemon its officially the best selling videogame franchise of all time and one of my personal favourites to sit down and play, I have only ever covered spin off’s on this website so far but I feel that we should start deep diving the main series, starting with Generation 1 and covering Pokemon Red, Pokemon Blue and Pokemon Yellow (Green never left Japan so I wont be discussing that one here)

If you are new to this series you may be a little confused as to why we are covering three games today, to makes things even more complicated all three are the same game with just minor differences. The reason for this is because Pokemon games are made with the idea of trading with friends as its main feature, in order to make it impossible to catch all 151 Pokemon on one cartridge developers split the Pokemon into two packages, the basics are in both but certain Pokemon were only either in Red or Blue meaning that in order to catch them all you needed a friend with the other copy and a Gameboy link Cable. Yellow was released two years later in 1998 and changed some dialogues, sprites and gym battles to better represent to anime television series.

I will be covering as many differences as I can throughout this review and will try to give Gen 1 as much justice as I can.

After your initial set up and introduction to the Kanto Region by Professor Oak you soon find yourself at his Laboratory where he will offer yourself and your rival one of three of Pokemon, you get to pick first first from either Charmander a fire type, Squirtle a water type or Bulbasaur a grass type. I always choose Grass as it is strong against Rock and Water types which just so happen to be the first two gyms of the game.

In Pokemon Yellow, you dont get to choose instead you are given a Pikachu, your Rival who most name Gary would then be given an Eevee.

Either way after choosing your first Pokemon you take part in your first battle, at this point your level 5 Pokemon will only have a few moves, normally scratch and growl, Scratch an offensive type will damage your opponent and growl will weaken their attack.

As you level up by battling you will earn money to buy moves but with patience Pokemon will learn most of the best moves when they reach certain levels or evolutions.

In the games there is a total of 151 Pokemon and players can build a small team using Pokemon that they trap in Pokeballs, their are different types of Pokemon who will have advantages and disadvantages against others. In Gen 1 there are 15 types you can get Normal, Fire, Water, Electric, Grass, Ice, Fighting, Poison, Ground, Flying, Psychic, Bug, Rock, Ghost, Dragon, Dark and Steel.

As you progress through the game these encounters become more challenging and better Pokeballs such as Ultraballs are needed to ensure capture.

There are specials moves you find throughout your adventure which allows certain Pokemon to interact with the environment, these HM moves are generally very useful for example cut allows you cut down certain trees, flash can light dark areas, surf means you cross water, strength can move heavy boulders and finally fly allows you to fast travel back to areas you have already visited.

As Pokemon level up they may start to evolve this will change their form and ultimately make them stronger, it will also count as a completely new Pokemon which helps you on your quest to get all 151 (if you decide to actually do that) some however cannot exist or evolve without help from an item, early on in the game you get to choose between two fossils and which one you choose can resurrect an extinct Pokemon later on in the game. Items such as elemental stones or moon stones can help evolve Pokemons for example I used a moon stone on my Nidorino to get a Nidoking and then I used a thunderstone on the secret Eevee you can find to get my Jolteon.

Your journey takes you through many trials and landscapes, the main goal is to beat the gyms these are buildings with trainers and a leader focusing on one specific Pokemon type, gaining badges allows you further access to use HM’s and in turn further progress through the game.

For me the best part is actually exploring the different areas throughout the world, the SS Anne is a ship that is filled to the brim with Pokemon battles, its a great place to level up early in the game, Pokemon Tower a grave site for deceased Pokemon’s while pretty creepy its a fun place to catch the few ghost Pokemon of the game and my absolute favourite thing to do is find and catch the four legendary Pokemon Articuno, Moltres, Zapdos and Mewtwo (Mewtwo is only obtainable after beating the elite four)

A casino area in Celadon City is available in all three games, here you can play slots to earn or lose money, once you get high amounts of casino coins you can trade for rarer Pokémon’s, in Yellow a surfing minigame was added as one of the new features, it is a pretty fun game and is one of most memorable parts of Pokemon Yellow.

The Safari Zone might also be considered a type of minigame, you need to complete this to get Fly but its main purpose is as giant wild area filled with easier to catch Pokemon’s, you cant battle these but can make them angry or bait them in hopes of having a better chance of catching them, you only get 30 balls and can take 500 steps so try to finish the area and get Fly before you are forced to pay and start again.

As you slowly progress towards Victory Road and the Elite Four you will be catching and training many different Pokemons, its up to you to decide who will be your main team but you want strong Pokemon with a good balance of status and offensive attacks to win, this final stretch has you fighting 5 battles in a row with no chance to heal at a Poke Center so taking all of the potions and healing items you need is completely necessary.

This time around my final team was Venosaur, Ninetails, Snorlax, Nidoking, Jolteon and Lapras.

The soundtrack is one of my favourite videogame soundtracks of all time, there is not a single song that I dislike, I feel they all suit the game extremely well, the opening gets you so pumped for the adventure your about to go on and from there it just gets better and better, the creepy music from lavender town always comes to mind as quite unsettling, the silph co music is ton of fun and of course that battle music is insanely good. It could be nostalgia talking but this particular soundtrack really does mean an awful lot to me.

The first generation of Pokemon is what made up a lot of people’s childhoods, many a day was spent trading Pokémon’s and battling our friends using the link cable and today it holds up very well, there are not many people to trade with these days but the actual main campaign is a lot of fun, it has a great story, memorable characters and really fun areas to explore. The game can be very challenging because the difficulty does increase vastly as you progress so some grinding and strategy is required to beat the game.

The only issue I had with the game was that the item storage system was badly organised and I had to rearrange it and empty it a lot, the PC storage system has a limit so that filled up quickly as well, one final slight annoyance was that status effects happened far too often, I would get poisoned or burned then use the item to get rid of it but the opposing Pokemon would just reapply the status effect almost immediately, this happened a lot and while I know it is part of the game I feel maybe the developers could have made these effects happen just a little less often than they did.

Apart from these tiny set backs Gen 1 is a really a great set of games, obviously Yellow is slightly better than Red and Blue because you can get all of the starters in that game and that extra minigame is a bonus but these are pretty solid titles that even today I would give Red/Blue 9.0/10 and Yellow 9.3/10.

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Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link (1987) Review

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Ooh a sequel to the legend of Zelda, I cannot wait !!

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Zelda 2 the Adventure of Link is the weirdest Zelda game I have ever played, it was the second game released in the franchise and is considered to be the black sheep of the Legend of Zelda series, so without further ado lets check out Links second adventure.

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After destroying Ganon in the first game, it is revealed by Impa that Princess Zelda has had a sleeping curse cast on her and will only awaken when the seal protecting the triforce of wisdom is broken, Link can only break the seal by placing six crystals into statues hidden in palaces across the land.

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The game has an over world which is kind of similar to most of the 2D Zelda games although I wouldn’t expect to be finding too many secrets here if I was you, I found the over world to be quite bare with it mostly being used for grinding Experience Points and traversing between areas..

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Zelda 2 an action adventure 2D Plat-former with RPG elements, this was definitely a risky direction to take the series and thankfully it didn’t stick because while this game isn’t necessarily bad, if its game style became the series staple we may not have the amazing Zelda games we have today.

When traversing the over world Link can be forced into action platforming sections which require him to defeat enemies in order to gain experience points which can be used to upgrade his health, magic or strength once he levels up.

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Through out the game you can find many towns which can be used to heal, restore magic and to find wizards who can teach you spells, in order to find these wizards you normally have do something for example one wizard requires you to find a magic mirror and another requires you bring the wizards daughter a trophy you can find in a cave at the start of the game.

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The palaces have Link defeating enemies, collecting keys and opening doors in order to find the statues however in traditional Zelda fashion the palaces are tricky to traverse but with the platforming game style this feels more like a Metroid game in my opinion, at the end of each palace you must fight one of the very creative and difficult boss fights before finding the statues and handing over a crystal.

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Zelda 2 the Adventure of Link is an ok adventure game but it is far from a good Legend of Zelda title in my opinion, the biggest issue I have is that the games difficulty is unfair, there is a lot of grinding to do if you want any chance of finishing it, areas such as death mountain are too long with few power ups to help you survive and every time you get game over you are sent back to the first screen of the game, on a lighter note the game has a nice soundtrack, colourful and fantastic visuals and responsive controls but apart from that this is one Zelda game you could quite happily skip unless you really want to play it. 5.5/10

I hope you enjoyed this review of Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link for the Nintendo Entertainment System

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.

Thank You for all of your support.

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

Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga (GBA/3DS) Review

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Mario is back and this time its an rpg?

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Mario and Luigi superstar saga was released in 2003 for the Game boy advance it was developed by a team called Alpha Dream and was produced by Nintendo, as mentioned the game is an RPG and was likely made due to the success of the first Paper Mario game, Super Star Saga was very popular after its release and is still a fan favourite to this day so it was of no surprise that a remake was made for the 3DS I am just surprised that the remake didn’t get released before this, so which version of the game is better?

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The plot between both games is exactly the same with the exception that the remake has an additional campaign.

An evil witch called Cackletta and her minion Fawful go to Princess Peaches Castle with a plan to steal the Princesses voice and replace it with explosives, a Toad travels to the home of Mario and Luigi informing the two brothers about what happened, when they both arrive they find Bowser who was hoping to Kidnap Princess Peach but decided against it after he noticed the Princesses rather dangerous new set of pipes, instead the Koopa King decides to team up with the Mario brothers in order to help Peach get her voice back meaning that he could kidnap her without risking the destruction of his castle.

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The Game play is where the differences really start to show and the 3DS version has gotten a lot of backlash due to the changes it has made, in both versions the battle system is turned based and as far as I am aware the way you fight is also the same, the brothers can both jump, hammer, use magic and perform combination attacks in order to defeat enemies, the 3DS version is slightly more lenient than the original as I found avoiding attacks and performing combos here a lot easier than I did back in the day, there is also an easy mode that can be switched too at anytime so the battle system isn’t too complicated for younger fans either.

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The game is also filled to the brim with puzzles that the brothers must solve when travelling across the games large map, not many stand out to me but one of my favourites is the mine cart game and the barrel matching game on the pirate ship.

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The visuals in the original game are outstanding, it’s full of exciting and explosive colours, the animations are beautiful not to mention impressive for a game of that era and the little touches help bring a lot of emotion and well timed comedy to the game, the remake while also beautiful doesn’t really push the 3DS to it’s full potential and it’s more of a nicer re skin of what we already had than anything new and unique however it’s still nice to look at and still helps the game maintain its charm and originality.

The music is fantastic, the game has a great soundtrack which varies between nice and cheerful music to scary and intense tracks and each help to build up the mood of the game

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The biggest new addition to the remake is Bowsers minions a brand new 6 hour long campaign, the game is not what you would expect, I wanted a full RPG experience but it’s more of a game that focuses on building an army and levelling up your troops, I personally don’t like this type of game style so the fact that I really couldn’t get into it does not mean that you won’t

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Mario and Luigi superstar saga is one of the best RPG’s you can buy it’s fun, easy enough to learn and it gives a whole new and interesting spin to the Mario universe, the remake adds a whole new campaign and a new coat for the visuals which makes it worth buying if you like the style of games such as age empires and star craft otherwise I wouldn’t spend money on the 3DS remake as this is the only massive bonus available, you can also purchase the original game through the Nintendo Eshop for much cheaper than the 3DS version, I love both versions of the game so it’s hard for me not to give both version a very high score but I think the 3DS remake beats the original by a nudge due to the additional content and clearer visuals.

The orginal game 9.4/10

The 3DS remake 9.6/10

I hope you enjoyed my review of Mario and Luigi Super Star Saga for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance and the Nintendo 3DS.

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

Top 5 DS Games I want on Wii U E-Shop

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So a few weeks ago Nintendo released a press conference where they talked about new content in upcoming games as well as announcing some release dates for big Nintendo titles, one of my favourite announcements from the conference was that you can now purchase N64 and NDS games on the E-shop for the Wii U, I’m not too interested in the N64 virtual console as I do prefer to get most of my N64 as physical copies but the realisation that I can now play NDS games on my TV literally made me squeal like a little girl who got given a kitten covered in candy floss for Christmas and I just want to hug Nintendo into eternity right now, at the moment there is only two DS games available on the E-shop Mario Kart DS and Wario Ware touched and I was a little disappointed with this considering that the USA got Yoshi’s Island DS while Europe has to wait until May.

I may have been a little disappointed but I am still super hyped for what DS games Nintendo will bring to the E-shop and in celebration of the announcement here are my top 5 DS games I want to see on Wii U E-Shop.

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5. New Super Mario Bros

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As some of you may know New Super Mario Bros is one of my favourite Mario games of all time, it is essentially a remake of the original Super Mario Bros but with a few changes the most obvious change is the more modern graphics, the game also has a variety of music tracks, new power ups and a well detailed over world similar to Super Mario Bros 3, the reason this is so low on the list is because it honestly isn’t that exciting compared to my other choices but needless to say I think this game would look awesome on the Virtual Console.

4. The Professor Layton Series

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The professor Layton games are these surprisingly in depth puzzles games made by Level 5 Studios, the games follow the adventures of Professor Layton and his side kick Luke Triton, each game has our two protagonists working together to solve the hidden mysteries of different towns and villages, you slowly solve these mysteries by finishing many puzzles and answering many riddles through out the games, the Professor Layton series are great games to play by yourself on a handheld but I think it would be interesting to play them on the TV because with a bigger screen you and your friends can try to solve to puzzles together which seems like it would be a lot of fun also the games have fully animated cut scenes which I’m sure would be a real treat to watch on a larger screen.

3. The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks

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A few weeks ago I finally finished playing through Wind Waker and I had a lot of fun with it but I didn’t enjoy it as much I have enjoyed other games in the series which is why its two sequels are only at the number three spot on this list, these two Zelda games are very unique as they are controlled completely with the touch screen which is a concept I find very interesting as I believe it will add more of a challenge compared to how easy Wind Waker was, this is also the main reason why I want to play the two DS games as I want to see how the challenge differs as well to see what happens next in Wind Waker’s story.

 

2. Mario and Luigi Partners in Time/Bowser’s Inside Story

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I recently downloaded Mario and Luigi Super Star Saga for the GBA on the E-Shop and boy am I glad I did, the Mario and Luigi games are these surprisingly hilarious and well written RPG’s from Nintendo, the plots are always silly and the games are full of interesting characters and clever jokes, Super Star Saga is slowly becoming one of my favourite RPG’s of all time as it reminds me a lot of Super Mario RPG for the SNES, these games are charming, very challenging but fair and full of that Nintendo flavour so I really hope that Nintendo put these games on the E-Shop as I cant wait to play them all.

1.Any of the DS Pokemon Games

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Seriously Nintendo this needs to happen because not only would it be awesome it would also be extremely useful, I know many people who like to play the Pokemon Game Boy games using their super game boy’s and the Game Boy Advance games using the Game cube GBA adapter, the Pokemon series is a lot of fun to play on the move but personally I always have more fun playing them on the TV and I’m sure a lot of other people do too.

three reasons why Pokemon on the E-Shop will be useful

1. TV’s don’t have a battery life so you can play Pokemon all day without having to charge the console every four hours, the pokemon games are really long and require many hours of grinding so his will help.

2. Your friends dont need to climb all over you to watch you play the game, Pokemon games can get pretty intense and if like me you have friends who get overly excited when you find a shiny you will most likely have 10 different people crowding around your DS at the same time and with a TV this is not such a huge a deal as all of your friends can watch no matter where they sit on the couch.

3. Save States, there is no denying that the Pokemon games are tough and require a lot of patience the only way to retry a battle or a puzzle if you mess up is to either lose or reset the game which is extremely annoying , playing a Pokemon game on the Virtual console will allow save states which are going to be very useful as it make the whole experience less stressful and the best part is that you don’t have to use them so any hardcore Pokemon players wont be disappointed

The only problem I can see people complaining about is the lack or online battles and trading as it seems that this feature will be unavailable due to the original Nintendo Wifi Connection being shut down, but I have a feeling that Nintendo might be able to use their magic to some how make the online capabilities work.

Thanks for reading my top 5 DS games I want on Wii U E-Shop I realise that most of these are Nintendo titles but I cant really help that I’m a bit of a Nintendo addict, although my number 6 spot would go to the Drawn to Life games which I also hope get ported to E-Shop soon, what DS games would you like to see on the E-Shop?

thanks for reading this blog

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 new YouTube Channel Hoenn Rangers, We haven’t played any DS games yet but I’m sure we will some time in the future.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYmN8F6Q-eGOD0gp0anCdcQ

 

 

Paper Mario Sticker Star Review (3DS)

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I love the Paper Mario games with one exception the Wii version (Super Paper Mario) but I will talk about that game some other day. The Paper Mario games are great for many reasons, they are full of hilarious comedy, they have epic story lines and most importantly they are really fun to play. With me being a big fan of the series I couldn’t resist but to buy Sticker Star as soon as I possibly could

 

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The Story of Sticker Star is nothing of an epic tale which is a shame since other games in the series have had some really good story lines. The story line may not be epic but it’s not a terrible story line. The story is that the members of the mushroom kingdom are having their annual sticker festival which they have each year to celebrate to power of the royal stickers (five crown stickers which have the power to grant the wishes of the person who wears them).  When presenting the royal stickers Bowser gets his claws on one of them and the rest get blown away to other locations in the game. Bowser’s wish comes true and he becomes a super shiny sticker, he then kidnap’s Princess Peach and Mario has to save her.Image

Game play

The Paper Mario we all know and love is back, that’s right we have gone back to turn based game play with a little twist. We have gone back to turn based game play which is great but now we fight using stickers instead of using partners who have different abilities and powers and this works really well surprisingly.

It’s not just fighting you need stickers for in some cases in the game you will need to use stickers to communicate with certain objects communicating with these objects will either give you a new item which you can turn into a big sticker or you will need to communicate with certain objects in the game in order to continue.

You do not level up in sticker star which is unusual for a Paper Mario game instead you need to find health upgrades throughout the game to increase your overall health, you can get your health to a Max of 100hp and I recommend that you find all of these health upgrades because when you get to the Final boss you may need that little bit of extra hp.

Finally I want to talk about a certain type of sticker called a blue door sticker. Throughout the game you will find doors on objects but you are not able to access them. You are not able to access these doors because you need to buy some blue door stickers to access them, once you place a blue door sticker over the door you can then open the door and go inside. Inside these doors can be anything from money, sticker/objects or health upgrades. You will need to access certain blue doors in the game in order to continue but you can find them yourself.

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Apart from the story line the only other negative aspect to the game I can think of is that there are only 6 worlds and I can’t help but feel that there should be 8 worlds in the game.

 

Graphics

You’re going to want to crank that 3D right up for this game because the 3D really helps the game look amazing and it’s not the kind of 3D that hurts your eyes or makes you feel sick.  The game looks amazing, it’s full of colour, the characters and environments are smooth and at times it really feels like there is a real paper world in your hands, the 3D is perfect it doesn’t make the game look any different and it actually enhances the experience. I won’t say this too often when talking about 3DS games but if you get Sticker Star I recommend playing in 3D throughout the entire game.

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Music

My favourite Paper Mario soundtrack used to be from the thousand year door but now my favourite Paper Mario soundtrack is from Sticker Star. The music in this game is absolutely fantastic and so far some of the best I have heard on the 3DS. The music fits the characters and environments so well and just like the 3D it really enhances the experience. My favourite Piece of music is right at the end of the game before you go into Bowser’s Castle it is pretty much a rock and roll remix of the over world theme.

Final Verdict

If you like Paper Mario you will love sticker star and I highly recommend buying it. It looks and sounds amazing and finally turn based game play is back. Paper Mario Sticker Star is a hilarious adventure which can be loved by the whole family. The game may be amazing but there are a few issues I found with the game. The story line is basic and there are only 6 worlds in the game and for those reasons alone I am going to give Paper Mario Sticker Star a 8/10 the game had a few flaws but overall it is a very good 3DS title which is worth picking up.