#tingletalksgames

[tingletalksgames-blog]

Bayonetta Review!

When I first saw this game, I had heard a lot about it: strong witches, lots of hair, and I have seen her in the new Super Smash Bros. as well. I had finally got a hold of the combo disc for the WiiU and got to play through it and man was I blown away. I had known generally I was getting into a good game, ultimately ended with a wonderful, action packed experience that I can’t wait to continue.

Bayonetta is a sort of spiritual successor to a series called Devil May Cry (being made by the same developers Team Little Devils now renamed Team Little Angels), a game based around the metaphysical and the combat that takes place in between two groups of witches that had once held the peace of our world. Bayonetta is a witch that has awoken after 500 years with no recollection of anything, and has been dealing with angels and divine beings to pay for her deal with the Devil. After she finishes a job she is sent to the city of Vigrid to find a jewel that is said to be part of a set, The Eyes of the World. The Eyes are jewels that the witch clan Bayonetta is from, the Umbra witches, and the counterpart, the Lumos sages, watched over to maintain balance of the world. One day they had a huge conflict because of the jewels, hella ironic, and are plunged into a war where the Umbra witches must be eradicated. Bayonetta is the last Umbra witch and must find the Eye before it falls into bad company.

Bay has a small entourage of groupies that follow her through her journey that make up a wide and wonderfully ridiculous cast.  A man named Enzo who has underground connections and is reminiscent of a goofy mobster, and Rodin, her hellbent blacksmith are her main company and go to guys through out the game. They give her details and direction for the multiple places for Bayonetta to follow, as well as provide her upgrades. Along the way, you encounter the not-so-suave Luka, whose father you have supposedly killed whenever you had woken up. He proves to be more of a nuisance as you first deal with him, but becomes an ally of sorts in the later parts. A small child ends up accompanying you for a few levels named Cerveza and she won't stop calling you ‘Mummy’. She will be part of escort missions you have to carry out with her, but she isnt too much of a burden, Bayonetta cast pretty strong magic to shield  her. You also have a constant rival, a blonde woman who challenges you almost every level, pushing you to remember who you were and to ‘finish what they started’ so long ago. Her group pushes her along and helps you with where to go, items to get, and new objectives, and they are all thriving with personality so you don't have to worry about staleness.

Bayonetta has a fight to move on system where you have to defeat X enemies to move on. There isn’t a lot a exploration but there are a few collectibles and weapons to get throughout the game. Fighting the angels and divine creatures with Bayonetta is so smooth. Her combos and motions flow wonderfully as you jump and smash across whatever battlefield you are on at the moment. She uses either guns, a weapon, or her feet as her main weapons of choice and they all are useful in their own way. The game keeps things fresh by throwing in new enemies or mini bosses every few fights so that you don't just blow through the same few angels every time. A part that really had me stunned was how massive the boss fights were.You would fight against these huge monstrous beings and using Bay’s hair and weapons, you would take them down! Some of these guys would just tower over you or you would have to run along them just to get to one of their weak spots, it felt huge and epic to slay these guys!

The music was another cool piece of the game, every time something critical or huge was happening you would hear one of two options: bad-ass orchestral choirs or a female upbeat remix of Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon”. Once you hear one of those start you knew that things were about to get real and you had to get ready for something massive to happen. Apart from the music there were other things to appreciate within the game too such as minigames at the end of each level to get you more Halos, the currency within Bayonetta, so that you could upgrade Bayonetta's abilities and powers. Bayonetta also gets alternate costumes based on Princess Peach, Daisy, Link, and Samus to appreciate as well. While none boost your stats, they are aesthetically pleasing and the bonus things you do or hear with each costume are enjoyable as well. The Link outfit gives you iconic noises from the Legend of Zelda series when you collect items or open chest, and with the Samus suit she shoots from her hand cannon. Wearing the Super Mario princess outfits were my personal favorite, when Bayonetta does her combos she can summon huge fists and feet through the portals devastate your enemy, but when wear Daisy and Peach dresses, you summons Bowser’s appendages through the the portals instead of the dark hair figures.

My only gripe would be that the mini-boss sequences started to become dull in the later parts of the game, making smaller versions of the huge bosses that you has to fight each level was unnecessary and got monotonous. But all in all, Sega has outdone itself with Bayonetta. It's got comedy throughout it and has tons of the ridiculous content that Sega is known for. A fun, action filled, reference packed, bad-ass adventure that once completed, has you ready for the sequel. WIth Bayonetta 3 on the way for the Switch, I hope that they can keep Bayonetta true to her form, and keep hitting home runs with this series!

[tingletalksgames-blog]

Pokemon Colosseum

Being the first full length Pokemon game ever on console, Colosseum was one of the big hypes of the Gamecube for some of us Pokefans. While it hasn't aged well compared to the handheld games, it is still a different story with original and new mechanics for us to play through and get a look at Nintendo’s attempts to widen Pokemon’s scope. Turning on the game, I was excited begin, but after playing the game, I was left longing for more.

Pokemon Colosseum starts off with an intro not familiar to Pokemon fans: running away from guys you stole from. You, the spiky silver-haired protagonist named Wes, escapes a facility that belongs to the bad guys, Team Snagem. Snagem has been stealing Pokemon and closing their hearts, making them stronger, but much less compliant partners. Using your new device, the Snag Machine, you are on a mission to save the captured Pokemon and defeat Team Snagem to save all the Pokemon!

After a few scuffles with Snagem you meet your sidekick who has an extraordinary ability to tell which Pokemon, called Shadow Pokemon, have their hearts closed. She doesn't use Pokemon to fight, it's just you, so don't expect more than intel from her. This is critical because one of the new parts of this game are that you can only catch Shadow Pokemon that she identifies. If it isn't shrouded in darkness, it won't be yours, and it's a very limited number compared to the number of Pokemon spread across the 3 generations that were out at the time.

Her grandfather knows how to free the Shadow Pokemon’s hearts, allowing them to become trainable to you. After you go through a gauntlet of trainers, he shows you how to free their hearts and it isn't too complicated, just tedious.  As you capture the Shadow Pokemon, they have a bar that replaces the experience bar where they normally can be gauged on leveling up; this dark bar diminishes every time you use it in battle, call its name, or just walk around with it. Each Pokemon opens up differently, so using one in battle may not be as effective as walking around with it; each has a certain nature and that nature determines the quickest way to open its heart, whether it's necessary to battle it through tons of battles or just walk with it in your party until its ready. After you open their hearts they gain all the experience points accumulated throughout the journey and if they hit their evolving level, they evolve as well. For me, it took a lot of battles and wandering to actually open hearts but it tended to be worth the wait.

Colosseum follows part of the Pokemon formula, where you have an antagonist that leads a huge organization with leaders in different areas that you have to beat, but there are no gym leaders! The boss fights for Snagem are challenging, usually having a variety of Pokemon, including a legendary, that you aren't prepared for if you are forced to use Shadow Pokemon. The secondary task to the game, Mt. Battle, is a 100 battle challenge where you go through battles in sets of ten. Though It isn't mandatory, it can help you with freeing the hearts of the Shadow Pokemon if you find the main story isn't helping you enough. Although, be aware, every battle in the game is a double battle, meaning you always have two Pokemon out at a time which means they share the leveling up experience points and it can slow your adventure down drastically.

Catching the Pokemon was actually the hardest part of the game. Once your sidekick reveals the Pokemon in the battle, you have to try and dwindle it down and get it in a catchable state. Normally Game Freak, the developers of Pokemon, have it where the Pokemon are easier to catch as their health drops or are under a status condition like paralysis or poison. Game Freak didn't make this one, however, so I'm not sure if that’s why it’s off, but I could knock them down to what looks like 1 Hit Point and asleep and still have the same percentage of catchability that it started with. It may be a small gripe and notice from me, but If you are a long time veteran of the series you will notice it too. Unfortunately, the battles are the only thing this game throws at you for the sake of entertainment. There aren't contest or extras for you to do, it's a very cut and dry piece of Pokemon history for you to endure. There are ways to transfer Pokemon from the Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald versions so that you can complete the Pokedex you have, but it isn’t necessary unless you are trying to build a dream team.  

Although there were limitations to catching the Pokemon, the game was workable with the ones I was able to use. I had a diverse team that was able to handle most opponents, which had to be planned for properly because the game relied on double Pokemon battles. It's not a horrible game by any means, it's still fun to play with the 3D Pokemon models in something not on the DS or the 64. When I get to the sequel, Gale of Darkness again, I am hoping to see a more traditional feeling Pokemon game with more to do, I have high hopes and love a good Pokemon journey!

[tingletalksgames-blog]

Perfect Dark Review!

Perfect Dark was supposed to be a spiritual sci-fi successor to the classic 007 GoldenEye from the Nintendo 64 era in terms of gameplay. Knowing that, I expected a simple shooter without too much complexity, but upon completion, I can gladly report that this was way more than just an old school shooter, but a quirky, funny, sci-fi shooter that I didn't know I needed! Even more, there is multiplayer where you can play the story mode cooperatively or against each other!

First, let me preface this review with a confession. As you play through the story, the pause menu holds a lot of extra lore for the game--something I didn’t find out until the last mission. I feel the extra plot isn't necessary, seeing as how I grasped the bare minimum through the cutscenes and gameplay. You play as Joanna Dark, an Agent for the Carrington Institute, a corporation that sends agents on missions across the globe. Agent Dark has just completed her training at the top of her class and her first mission is to retrieve a scientist from an organization that has strayed far from its once good morals. As she runs and guns her way through to get the scientist, her employer, Mr. Carrington, gets held hostage at his estate and you must go save him after the scientist is safe. After you retrieve Mr. Carrington, the plot thickens like crazy. Area 51, powerful weapons, interstellar conflict, conspiracy, the President, it goes everywhere.

Apart from my ignorance of the subplots, I actually had a lot of fun with this game! The game handled wonderfully as an FPS, especially for such an old one: really smooth controls, fast and crazy action, there is nothing else I could want from it! There is a nice variety of weapons from human to alien-made that can spice up your combat and keeps things fresh so that you aren't using a pistol the whole time! You have to utilize your spy tools to perform various tasks, such as spying on meetings, laying traps for your foes, or even stealing disguises. For the first half of the game you are fighting a ton of humans so you have a while to get used to the controls until you can fight the much more faster and difficult aliens, Skegar. Some have armor, some run faster, but either way bullets are the answer, you don't have to stray too far from that truth.

The game played as an homage to the sci-fi genre. From wrist lasers, to little grey men, this game hits a lot of the tropes that go with the science fiction realm and incorporate it in a comedic and delightful way. I also enjoyed seeing its influence on today's sci-fi games, namely games like Halo;as you play you can see parts in the plot, like religious alien wars that end in conquering and killing planets or the gameplay, like the HUD or the controls, that cleary play a part in today’s game developers inspirations and it makes it that much more enjoyable.

Honestly, I wasn't ready for Perfect Dark. I thought this was an espionage/spy type game and instead got a great run and gun that was drenched in sci-fi. If I had known about all the story plot elements within the game beforehand I would have tried to get more invested, but I think my not having done so made it a more nostalgic and respectable journey. I enjoyed it for its fast playing, crazy content story, and without getting too caught up in the extra details, I still walked away enjoying Perfect Dark.  I am hoping that in the sequel the same elements and gameplay make a return!