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Apr 30th, 2013 at 23:57:05 - Tales of Symphonia (GC) |
Tales of Symphonia(GC)
Tales of Symphonia is a JRPG developed for the Nintendo Gamecube. A member of the “Tales” series of games it shares common traits with the others such as the linear motion battle system, attention to character development, and engaging story. It spans two disks and is definitely a long game.
Gameplay:
Tales of Symphonia's gameplay can be divided into three sections: towns and dungeons, the overworld, and the battle screen.
Towns and dungeons give the player a more traditional third person RPG view. In towns players visit homes to talk to villagers and can buy things at shops. In dungeons monsters spawn and players are met with puzzles to progress, usually involving an item called the Sorcerer’s Ring. To get in between the towns and dungeons the player must go over the overworld.
The overworld allows players to get from town to town. In this section players are shown a shrunk down over world and trek across the map to each of the towns, dungeons, and other important locations. As the player navigates the map they can find some chests and character skits which provide fun conversations between characters and usually provide some back story. Monsters appear as the player progresses and contact with a monster will initiate a battle.
Battles take place in a three dimensional world, but the player is limited to linear movement. Characters can either hack and slash with their equipped weapon or use special arts that take up technical points, similar to mana. During battle players can issue commands to their companions to better fight as well as use items. Once battle is over the player gains experience as well as GRADE which is used for the new game+ to buy perks for the next playthrough.
Story:
Tales of Symphonia begins in the fictional world of Sylvarant with main characters Llyod Irving, Genis Sage, and Colette Brunel in class. However the story soon finds itself far from a rural classroom and we are taken on a journey that crosses even dimensions. The story is long and just when you believe you've defeated the big baddie, a new boss appears. The story is constantly evolving, but is not hard to follow. Following the story is made easier by a story summary tab of the menus which chronicles all the important events the player goes through.
Game Session:
My playthrough of Tales of Symphonia netted over 40 hours thanks to all of the side quests and other features of the game. Having played the game previously I was able to start with the new game+ feature. This allowed me to carry over some of my items as well as gain twice the experience per battle. I found the game to be much easier with a greater level advantage. Even though I had played before I had forgotten most of the story so it felt like playing through for the first time. I tried not to get sucked into all the side quests and collectables, but I'm a collectionist and had to do everything. I managed to complete the game over around 5 solid playing sessions.
What worked?
Between the overworld skits, story conversations, and a few special scenes players will find that each character is deep and interesting. The game does a great job of pacing of the story as well, though it is a bit lengthy. The battle system is also fast paced and intuitive, easy to pick up but hard to master.
What didn't work?
In new game+, twice the experience makes the game laughably easy. Battles can become repetative if a player does not use arts as mashing A can win many battles. Also a lot of the many side quests can be hard to find and some require you to be in a certain stretch of the game or have specific skills on specific characters without telling you what these parameters are.
Final Thoughts:
Tales of Symphonia is a very fun game that any JRPG fan should play at least once. While it is very long, it is always engaging and will please anyone who plays it. The battle system is interesting and fun, offering many ways to play. The characters are deep and fun. You will laugh, you may cry, but you will definitely not be disappointed.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Apr 30th, 2013 at 23:57:55.
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Feb 28th, 2013 at 12:28:39 - Advance Wars (GBA) |
Advance Wars(GBA)
Advance Wars is widely considered to be one of the most influential games released for the Gameboy Advance. It paved the way for many more turn-based strategy games for hand-held gaming systems.
Overview:
Advance Wars, as stated previously, is a turn-based strategy game in which players choose a unique commanding officer(CO) and take turns manipulating troops around a map until the map's winning conditions are met. These conditions can be anything from destroying all enemy troops, capturing a certain number of properties, or capturing the enemy HQ(head quarters).
The game has a campaign room, Field Training, which is the tutorial, in-game shop to by new maps and CO's, a war room for playing special missions, a design room for making your own map, and a VS room to play multiplayer games as well as custom games.
Gameplay:
Advance Wars battles take place on a grid map between multiple CO's. Each CO has strengths and weaknesses. For example, Max is great with direct attack units but poor with indirect units. His direct units are granted a firepower bonus while his indirect units take a fire power hit as well as a decrease in their range of fire. Picking the right CO can win and lose certain maps. On each map there are many types of tiles ranging from landforms to properties. The properties can be captured using infantry units(properties have 20 health, infantry deals it's health as damage to properties). Once captured they will heal the controlling faction's units and will grant bonus funds used to build more units at factories, sea ports, and airports.
When one unit attacks another, depending on the defense bonuses granted by the land and the type of unit, damage will be dealt. The attacking unit will deal damage first and the defender, provided it is not destroyed, will return fire if it can. Indirect fire cannot be retaliated against. Before an attack is initialize an information screen pops up giving a general description of how much damage the attacker will do. This allows players to tell whether an attack will be effective and is a vital part of gameplay.
As the battle progresses, CO's fill up a power bar. Once it is full, a CO can unleash a super power. These range from fire power increase to making snow fall. These powers relate directly to a CO's strengths.
There are many other smaller factors to game play such as weather, transport, and fog of war. All of these are explained in Field Training.
Story:
The story spans from the Field Training to the Campaign. Playing through the Training Room introduces you to the Orange Star army, your nation, and the Blue Moon, a nation trying to attack you. The training missions are very in depth and teach most everything one needs to know to play successfully. Once in the campaign, the larger story takes over. Without spoiling everything, you travel across the map through various nations battling other nation's CO's while meeting new Orange Star CO's. An interesting aspect of the campaign is that the CO's you choose to use each map(you eventually have 3 choices for which CO to use in battle). Depending on your choice of CO, the layout of maps will change as well as the CO's used in the final battle. I ended up using the CO Andy a lot and ended up with Grit and Kanbei as my other two CO in the final battle.
Game Session:
Before I could start the Campaign I had to run through the Field Training, which was a glorified tutorial. It featured a very long string of maps designed to specifically teach basic actions and units. By the time I was ready to start the campaign I had already played a great many maps. The campaign was fun, offering different challenges each time. One map had me race to capture more properties than my opponent, while another asked me to find and sink a certain ship. The dialogue between characters was funny and the story was a fun tale of mistaken identity and political struggle. I completed up to the last mission with relative ease, but the final mission was extremely difficult. After many failed attempts I was finally able to out maneuver and out produce my opponent.
Once I'd completed the campaign I was able to purchase some new CO's for use outside the Campaign. I then tried my hand at the war room. These challenges increased in difficulty and I was only able to beat a handful with the CO's I already had. I suspect that unlocking all the possible CO's would allow me to better match the maps to a CO's strength. The War Room also featured maps in which you had to defeat two or even three armies at once. Beating one of those missions gave me the greatest sense of satisfaction.
I then tried my hand at designing my own map. After I finished the Island of Roadtree, I played the map and had a lot of fun exploring what I had created. As intended, troop movement was difficult as the trees that intersected roads often made stretches of the map difficult to traverse for some units. I also realized that I'd placed the two warring factions bases very far from each other and since the only production properties were near a team's base, re-enforcements were hard to come by.
Why is it fun?
Advance Wars was incredibly fun. It reminded me of a more immersive chess match. Any fan of strategy will love this game. The core of the game is seated solidly in tactical maneuvering of troops and use of resources, but the graphics and funny dialogue make it fun and seem less strict and militant. The replay value is extremely high as each play through the campaign can offer new maps and new end CO's. The War Room also offers challenging maps for those who want a real challenge. The addition of multiplayer also adds appeal though playing on an emulator I was not able to play with anyone else.
Final Thoughts:
There are countless strategies and ways to play, making the game playable time and time again. I would recommend this game to anyone who loves strategy games.
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