Game Review: Shovel Knight

What is 'Shovel Knight'?:

Shovel Knight is like an ancient relic someone dug up off the old days of gaming(Specifically 8-bit platformers). As the opening sentence would tell, it's a platformer from Yacht Games for the PC and gaming consoles. Having been funded via Kickstarter, the developers have delivered as advertised(With more to come). The main game revolves around the titular Shovel Knight, named after his signature weapon. After the loss of a beloved ally while exploring the Tower of Fate, his will for adventure is broken until his homeland is terrorized by The Enchantress and her group of rogue knights The Order of No Quarter(They seem to hate spare change). Seeing this as a chance to right his wrongs as they are all related to The Tower, he digs himself out of his slump and sets off.

Gameplay:

 

Shovel Knight pretty much replicates the kind of controls one would find off an old 8-bit platformer(I.E directional buttons for movement, two buttons for jumping and attacking. Press the up direction and attack for special weapons). Shovel Knight's shovel has many a feature itself besides being used as a beatstick. True to its original purpose, he can use it to dig up dirt piles for treasure or destroy certain walls and uncover hidden areas. A well-timed swing also lets him reflect projectiles, even magic. Somehow.

Another gimmick that Shovel Knight uses is the Shovel Drop, which is executed while he is in mid-air. By stabbing down his shovel, he can bounce off and damage enemies.

Besides his signature weapon, he can be also armed with various sub-weapons that give more options when dealing with enemies or even level obstacles.

Shovel Knight's source of growth comes from the Village and later the Armour Outpost, wherein he can purchase weapons or upgrades. The interesting thing about this is that you can actually find said weapons while going through the stages and finding the hidden rooms that contain them. Armour upgrades affect how Shovel Knight plays, like giving him more mana at the cost of reduced defense.

Why would you be interested:
-RETRO 2D PLATFORMING.
-Stages are designed well, each one with unique features and usually aren't long enough to make you tire of them(Unless you keep dying of course).
-Sub-weapons do more than
-Worried you missed a sub-weapon? Fret not, for a merchant in the town would still provide you with it, so there's no need to backtrack a stage.
-Story isn't overly complicated but it still gives a sense of investment.
-Some enemies and bosses actually test player skill to a degree as certain they adapt and bring out countermeasures to repeated tactics.
-You're rewarded with exploring and interacting with whatever you can find using your shovel, be it in the stages or back in town.
-Achievement/Feats that give a challenge to those who want more.
-CONTENT. Yacht Games has promised more content for the game like additional game modes and playable characters(Read as BOSSES). As of the time of this review, Plague Knight is a playable character alongside the Challenge mode with the Specter Knight expansion coming in the Spring of 2017. 

He makes an explosive entrance(You know. Cause he uses bombs-)

Why would you NOT be interested:
-RETRO 2D PLATFORMING. IT'S PRETTY HARD.
-Well-designed does not mean it's free from giving you nasty last minute surprises that send to back to the last checkpoint with a cheap death
-It's 2016. Everything has more buttons. Be it using a controller or keyboard, there should be a separate button for using sub-weapons instead of pressing up+attack.
-Specter Knight's stage does not have an Achievement/Feat titled 'Grave Digger'. Damn shame.

It was asking to be made.

Final Word:
If you've been interested in how old 8-bit platformers were like but can't be bothered to dig them up off the vast internet, this is your reference. Now you too can know the fun and frustration of the old days of gaming.

Mobile Game Review: Granblue Fantasy

What is 'Granblue Fantasy'?:

A turn-based Role-Playing mobile game by Cygames, Granblue's design would likely remind some of the famous Final Fantasy series(more for the older games in the series). It makes sense, since the initial designs and soundtracks are provided by Hideo Minaba and Nobuo Uematsu, who have both worked on the Final Fantasy series before. In the game, you play as 'yourself', a skyfarer who travels though various islands with your companions on adventures against the Empire as well as solving the mysteries behind the ancient beings known as the Primals.

(Special note: The game can also be played using internet browsers such as Google Chrome with this link: http://game.granbluefantasy.jp/#top )


Gameplay:

Prebattle set-up involves setting up your party members, Equipment and Summons. The latter two affect party members with passive effects(Typically damage boosts to characters of a specified element).

           

The combat itself is centered around these elements: Skills and Attack. That's it. Player/character skills are cast within the turn, meaning multiple skills can be cast in one turn before ending it by pressing the Attack button. As characters attack or are attacked, the Charge bar would get filled and they would use their Charge attacks when full. It can be saved up and stacked as chaining Charge attacks will cause a finisher move that is affected by how many Charges were triggered. As for enemies, they would mostly take a certain amount of turns before using a skill. Some are more special, with an Overdrive bar that boosts their abilities once a certain damage threshold is hit(Damage from Skill attacks are also counted), though conversely, if enough damage is dealt while they are in Overdrive, they would Break and have a reduction in ability as well.

As for character growth, there is Upgrading and Uncapping.Upgrading strengthens characters/weapons/Summons by having them absorb other material weapons/Summons(Though characters can just gain experience normally via battles). They all have a maximum level capacity, however, in which bring us to Uncapping, which increases their level capacity. Uncapping is somewhat easier for characters in this case since their materials can be hunted for, unlike weapons and Summons that need duplicates of themselves to uncap.

Granblue's primary means of revenue is the Premium Draw, which provides Rare(R) to Super Super Rare(SSR) items, through crystal earned from quests can be used to draw as well. 

Why you would be interested:
-It's so Final Fantasy
-Turn-based combat is easy to get into, though later requires more thought in distributing skills in battle.
-Game has Raid battles where players fight a super boss for rare items/materials, which provides a good means  for player interaction.
-Game is generous on crystals and early-game difficulty is reasonable.
-Various Classes to experiment or try out.
-Engaging storyline, with sidestories littered about.

One of the greatest mysteries of all as 'you' set out to find dad.

Why you would be NOT interested:
-It's so Final Fantasy IT HURTS
-Like most FF games, the game would have you start grinding. For? Everything. Materials to uncap characters,  forge items, levels, class points to unlock classes etc etc
-MORE LIKE GRINDBLUE FANTASY
-Class balancing needs work
-Playstyle can be affected by what characters you have on hand
-Game plays on a BROSWER no matter what. If you download the game off the App store(s), it'll play off a  browser by Cygames which makes the game fairly choppy and you might as well play it off the phone's  browser(Note that the link provided at the start of the post would still work on phone broswers)

-Difficulty spikes to the point where you'd need at least one SSR character to pull through or struggle  miserably.

At least they have the courtesy to show you the rate of-
Oh. 

Final word:
If you were an fan of Final Fantasy or traditional turn-based RPGs, this shoe would fit just right. Just watch for the grinding and relatively terrible draw rates.

Game Review:Battle Girl High School

What is 'Battle Girl High School'(BGHS)?:

BGHS is a 3D smartphone game by Colopl that tells what it is right off the title: An action RPG where you take charge of various high school girls as their teacher while they fight aliens and stuff.
If you want to play the game, you'd need to either:
1.Gain the APK file off a download site and manually install(Android users)
or
2.Somehow access the Japanese I-tunes store(iOS users)

The Gameplay:

With a team consisting of 3 girls, the game's combat is executed with one-hand: Dragging for movement, tap to attack and flick to dodge. The controls are simple to understand but still feel rewarding to master, considering that it combat happens in real-time and there's a combo system that gives the game a bit more depth than blindly tapping the attack button.Weapons also affect attack patterns. After playing for awhile, however, an odd realization would come: Leveling up characters through combat quickly ends up barely filling their experience bars.

Character progression actually happens more OUT of combat as you take care of the girls(Cause you know, you're the teacher). The means of which are to give them affection(though gifts and head pats. Yes. Head pats) and sending them to training/exercise. Due to the game having no stamina limit like other games, this system becomes the means of properly limiting playtime, since the training takes time(10 minutes for the quickest and 8 hours for the longest).

Rising affection unlocks perks for the characters. Each girl has their own array of 'class' cards that decide their stats and skills. As you increase affection, sub slots are unlocked to put in unused class cards which add a portion of their stats. This also means that when you get 'subpar' cards, they can at least still be used as stat supplements. Of course, increased affection also means you unlock more information of the girls, some class cards even having their own 'story'(Which is good if you understand the language).

Monetization comes in the form of using gems to summon class-cards or weapons. Besides purchasing, gems are rewards for clearing stages for the first time as well as completing certain requirements given by the stage.

Why would you be interested in it:
-Simple controls but combat itself still feels it has depth as you try to maintain combos while dodging enemy attacks
-Stages reward masterful play. Passing a stage normally gives 3 gems, but completing stage requirements gives another 3.
-Graphically pleasing
-Class-card system and sub-slots give flexibility.
-Due to above mentioned system, cards obtained via summoning will have some kind of use, be it as stat supplements or extra costumes. Duplicate cards are converted into items that allow remove the level cap for class-cards.
-Fairly generous with resources, making it terrifyingly friendly to newer players.
-Story content(For those who know Japanese)
-Head pat the cute girls.

A smile to protect.

Why would you NOT be interested in it:
-Using some weapons can be annoying cause they cycle through their patterns randomly.
-Play the game long enough and you'll end up crossing your fingers hoping not to get duplicate cards when you summon. It gets worse the more you play and summon.
-Character balancing can be a bit poor, be it in terms of stats or their special attacks.
-Missing out on a chunk of story if you don't know Japanese.
-Micromanaging. You are taking care of 18 girls in total by the end, so it might feel like a hassle to manage their growth. They also get upset if you neglect them and focus on select girls.

Oh no-

Final word:
If you don't mind the somewhat inconvenient means of getting it, the game is pretty well-made and friendly to get into.

Game Series Review:BlazBlue

*Dusts off the blog*
.....I should be here more often. Testing a new format of writing with this.

Anyway-

What is 'BlazBlue'?:

Blazblue sprite-based fighting game series created and published by Arc System Works in Japan, with English localization handled by Arcsys Games and Zen United in the North American and Europe regions respectively.

Beginning with 'Calamity Trigger'(Released in arcades in 2008 and 2009 on consoles), the game has spanned it's story across 4 games, ending with 'Central Fiction' in 2016.

The Gameplay:

As described by the image above every character has a basic set of four attacks: Weak, Medium, Strong and Drive. The first three are easy to grasp on how they work(Weak being fast but dealing least damage to Strong being slow but dealing most of the three). The Drive button is an attack or gimmick unique to each character, such as the character Ragna's Drive being able to drain health of opponents onto himself. Combining directional commands with attacks executes various other special attacks as well. If executed correctly, attacks can be chained, though naturally practice is required.

For the sake of those new to fight games, the developers did include a separate layout which makes executing attacks and chaining them easier, called the Stylish layout.

It basically allows instant execution of special moves and chains.

The game does not seem to take kindly to those who use it in the long term though.

A certain unique point of the series is that it has story focus, playing out like a Visual Novel with battles littered in between. The games also have various challenge modes to provide replayablility.

Although there has been changes to some mechanics between each entry, the basic combo system remains intact through the series.

Why you would get it:

Blazblue is one of the few fighting game series's that still utilizes character sprites instead of 3D models, feeling easier on the eyes. The game's combo system is one of the easier ones to pick up.

It has quite a selection of characters to choose from, so one is bound to happen on a character that appeals to them(Hopefully with the aesthetics and playstyles intersecting) . Fights are pretty fast-paced, with each entry adding new mechanics that can turn the tide of battle if used well.

Its story is a lot bigger than what most would see in fighting games, making one invested in the characters as they go through the struggles.

Like Japanese anime or fast-paced fighters? Then Blazblue would be highly recommended for you.

Why you would NOT get it:

Due to the nature of its system, the utmost focus in timing and muscle-memory is needed, cause the window for chaining some attacks can be very short. Like, 3-4 frames of animation short.

>This is a 'basic' Combo

Having a huge pool of characters can feel a bit overwhelming, seeing that there is 28 charac-

(Select screen from the latest game's arcade version)

THERE'S MORE!?

Balancing can be a bit of an issue here considering that there are 32 as of the current(Arcade) version of the latest game.

Likewise can be said of the story, the scale being a bit intimidating(We are talking a visual novel's worth of story here), but bits of plot are only better explained by their other media out of the main game(Prequel and side story novels).