Cereal historian!
I have several orders of business today. Let's start with a box of cereal. A simple beginning, no?
Last night I decide to have myself a bowl of Lucky Charms. My mom normally doesn't buy Lucky Charms and we get this generic MARSHMALLOW MATEYS, but last time she got cereal she got real Lucky Charms. I look at the box and I see it saying "NOW WITH CLOVER MARSHMALLOWS." This angered me, because they acted like they've never had clover marshmallows before. Well, THEY DID. A while back, perhaps a few years ago they changed their clover marshmallow to the CLOVER HAT marshmallow, and now their claiming the clover marshmallow is new? IT ISN'T. They didn't change trhe hat back mind you, they just ADDED the clover marshmallow, so technically, you've now got two types of clover marshmallow. The original clover, and its replacement, the hat. That is lame.
Second order of business. I said I would review Future Tactics, so prepare...
Welcome to Future Tactics, a game of innovative mediocrity!
So here's how gameplay works. You have three choices. Move, attack, and end your turn.
Movement: a circular range is depicted on the landscape. You can move many times in a turn, but each time you do you lessen your movement range by how far you moved. Also, you can jump, which is really just nice to have in there. You can choose to move before you attack, after your attack, both, inbetween attacks if you've got more then one. Really open.
Attacking: There are really three kinds of attacks. Hand to hand, line of sight, and ballistic.
Hand To hand: Basically for use when you can walk up next to an enemy who happens to be too powerfull for the other two attack types to damage very much at all.
Line of Sight: When used this mode of fire will take you into a first person perspective. Your vision will wander on its own at an irrational pace which is almost impossible to stop. Most of the time, the best you can hope for is to send the wandering in the opposite direction at a slower pace then it's previous direction. It's like trying to fire a gun as some sort of innebreated bear. Anyhow you press the "A" button to confirm you want to take a shot. This sight will stop where you pressed "A" after which you CAN NOT go back to move your sight. Now comes part two of this weapon. A line will move across the reticle which you must stop as close your target as possible, and hopefully as close to center as possible. You must do this once more with a line travelling from a different direction. Where the lines cross is where your shot will go.
Ballistic: This seems a lot more rational. With ballistic weapons you receive a top down view of your range made to look like a radar. A circle will move from your position, out to the edge of your range, and back again. Stop it on your desired range. Now a line will go in a circle, keeping with the radar theme of the firing type, and you must stop it when it is at the desired direction of fire. The weapon will then fire.
Ending your turn: When you choose to end your turn, you will be presented with three option. Rest, heal, and guard. Resting does nothing, healing recovers your HP but leaves you vulnerable to attacks, and guard shield you from attacks but can't be used for two turns after you use it.
This game has bugs on the version I played (Gamecube). This game wasn't playtested more then twice. TOPS. It doesn't have lot's of LITTLE bugs, just a few large ones. The ability to fly in the second level is one. Another is on the timed level where I paused while firing my last shot of the round, but afterwards it let me fire again. So I paused during firing again, and it gave me yet another shot. I did this 4 more times before just finishing the level. The next level I attempted to replicate the infinite shots glitch but insteadm the constant pausing and unpausing delivered unto me a most majestic sight. A blue screen of death filled with various numbers and variables. Twas a joyous occasion. So the game is a bit buggy. I mean, I found this bugs only playing through the game twice. Imagine the wonderous bugs you could find with THOROUGH playtesting.
STORYLINE: As for the game itself, let's start with the storyline. The storyline isn't great, or good. Nor does it fall under the category of "NOT BLOODY RIDICULOUS". You shouldn't care about spoilers so let me summarize. Here's the short version:
You murder some monsters.
Later on we'll look at the long version of the story.
Right now though, let's just rate the storyline like... a 2 out of 10.
GRAPHICS: The graphics in this game aren't horrid and the character designs are slightly above average. The character animations for various things like being idle and such are EXCELLENT so the graphics get a 6 out of 10.
GAMEPLAY: The gameplay isn't bad, but it really just doesn't have much variety at all. The games like a 3 trick pony. A few characters have some different stuff but frankly, they never had a good chance to use their alternate abilities. Once you unlock everything the multiplayer is highly customizeable, but you really won't play it, and the customization is a pain in the ass. So the gameplay gets a 5 out of 10.
Replay Value: Not much. 3 out of 10.
SOUNDTRACK: This game apparently has different songs for each level, but they all sound the same so you won't notice more then 2, but only because player turns and enemy turns have their own songs. But since their 2 songs that are changed by one note enough to be 40 songs aren't horrible(infact they're 2 songs are good, but they shouldn't pretend they have more then 2 song like they do in the sound test because they really don't) I'll be able to give the games soundtrack a 3 out of 10.
Overall: The game has some charm I can't cover in the other categories. I'll give this game a 6 out of ten. It's not bad for a bargain bin game.
Now as a bonus here's the long version of the storyline though, to distract you from the scores:
It's the future and monsters roam the land. People move around often, and you (Low) run into a moster camp with your father (named Father) and murder some monsters. Then you leave to your own camp and some monsters attack (wow... monsters) and you murder them and then your dad dies from nothing really explained to you. You and your sister (Pepper) go murder more monsters and are joined by Scallion, who claims to have a Ten Ton Gun, but he's full of crap. Anyway he tells you he knows a secret about the monsters and how they keep being revived, so you rush into ANOTHER monster camp and jack their immortality machine (after murdering some monsters). You go off to see some scientist chick name Caraway to see how it works and a british robot named Wardwarf joins you. You murder a few more mosters for good measure and reach the Caraway's pad where she proceeds to get the machine working and then shoots Scallion in the back of the head. You murder a few more monsters, and then Scallion is revived and you meet a general apparently named General, his daughter Peace, and some guy who scared your sister in the beggining of the game who calls himself Stranger (a name that is so lame, the game itself makes fun of it even though the game really isn't in a position to be making fun of anything). Then you fight the Stranger because he scared your sister and it doesn't matter if you win the fight or not. Then you go off to mountains and you are alone with peace. You don't know eachother at all but it's around this time that you totally knock her up unbeknownst to everybody else, and yourself. Also, you murder some more monsters. Then you set out to give the monsters their machine back with a bomb in it or something. You travel a bit and Pepper gets chased into a house and you rescue her by murdering some more monsters. You travel for months (you don't get the play through this travelling, but I've no doubt that along the way you murder some monsters), and you stop at a windmill, and you murder some monsters. You live at the windmill for like 6 months which you don't play through and then you murder some more monsters and boat down the river to a dam which you must blow up in order to murder some monsters. You drop the immortality engine and it breaks but that only matters in storyline. You go down to the bottom of the dam to retrieve it, and the dam is still going to blow up in 15 minutes. You retrieve the machine and leave before the dam explodes. Then you reach a barn and a monster wanting justice for all the MURDER you've been doing, shoots your sister Pepper in the head and she dies. You murder that monster right back, and afterwards the robot explodes killing itself and General (your best and worst characters respectively), before Peace gives birth to a baby boy. Then you go to a lighthouse and Caraway tries to fix the immortality engine but instead creates more monsters, which is fine because it just means more murder for you. Then for the games attempt at a plot twist it turns out the Stranger is you from the future (how... cliched... and dumb). Also the immortality engine was part of a machine that designed the universe but that really doesn't matter. Now you enter the tower where the monsters call home, but not before murdering more monsters... also, a boat trip. Then Low questions all the MURDER he's been doing but decides that it's too late now and forgets all about it. You murder some more monsters. Then you are faced with the only boss character in the game, which you murder. Then you murder some more monsters before tossing the machine into a quantum singularity which blows up the earth in the cheesiest manner possible. OH BUT WAIT. THE WORLD IS REWOUND BACK TO BEFORE IT WAS DESTROYED. It turns out Pepper hadn't died and she'd climbed out of her grave and left in hopes of finding a better game to be in while no-one was looking. Low goes to search for her, but this is the end of the game and thus the stage is set for the sequel that will never be.
NOW I remember what was so charming about this game. The storyling was COMPLETELY BLOODY RIDICULOUS!
There ya go. REVIEW COMPLETE.
I hate you all, unless I don't. I can never tell.
Last night I decide to have myself a bowl of Lucky Charms. My mom normally doesn't buy Lucky Charms and we get this generic MARSHMALLOW MATEYS, but last time she got cereal she got real Lucky Charms. I look at the box and I see it saying "NOW WITH CLOVER MARSHMALLOWS." This angered me, because they acted like they've never had clover marshmallows before. Well, THEY DID. A while back, perhaps a few years ago they changed their clover marshmallow to the CLOVER HAT marshmallow, and now their claiming the clover marshmallow is new? IT ISN'T. They didn't change trhe hat back mind you, they just ADDED the clover marshmallow, so technically, you've now got two types of clover marshmallow. The original clover, and its replacement, the hat. That is lame.
Second order of business. I said I would review Future Tactics, so prepare...
Welcome to Future Tactics, a game of innovative mediocrity!
So here's how gameplay works. You have three choices. Move, attack, and end your turn.
Movement: a circular range is depicted on the landscape. You can move many times in a turn, but each time you do you lessen your movement range by how far you moved. Also, you can jump, which is really just nice to have in there. You can choose to move before you attack, after your attack, both, inbetween attacks if you've got more then one. Really open.
Attacking: There are really three kinds of attacks. Hand to hand, line of sight, and ballistic.
Hand To hand: Basically for use when you can walk up next to an enemy who happens to be too powerfull for the other two attack types to damage very much at all.
Line of Sight: When used this mode of fire will take you into a first person perspective. Your vision will wander on its own at an irrational pace which is almost impossible to stop. Most of the time, the best you can hope for is to send the wandering in the opposite direction at a slower pace then it's previous direction. It's like trying to fire a gun as some sort of innebreated bear. Anyhow you press the "A" button to confirm you want to take a shot. This sight will stop where you pressed "A" after which you CAN NOT go back to move your sight. Now comes part two of this weapon. A line will move across the reticle which you must stop as close your target as possible, and hopefully as close to center as possible. You must do this once more with a line travelling from a different direction. Where the lines cross is where your shot will go.
Ballistic: This seems a lot more rational. With ballistic weapons you receive a top down view of your range made to look like a radar. A circle will move from your position, out to the edge of your range, and back again. Stop it on your desired range. Now a line will go in a circle, keeping with the radar theme of the firing type, and you must stop it when it is at the desired direction of fire. The weapon will then fire.
Ending your turn: When you choose to end your turn, you will be presented with three option. Rest, heal, and guard. Resting does nothing, healing recovers your HP but leaves you vulnerable to attacks, and guard shield you from attacks but can't be used for two turns after you use it.
This game has bugs on the version I played (Gamecube). This game wasn't playtested more then twice. TOPS. It doesn't have lot's of LITTLE bugs, just a few large ones. The ability to fly in the second level is one. Another is on the timed level where I paused while firing my last shot of the round, but afterwards it let me fire again. So I paused during firing again, and it gave me yet another shot. I did this 4 more times before just finishing the level. The next level I attempted to replicate the infinite shots glitch but insteadm the constant pausing and unpausing delivered unto me a most majestic sight. A blue screen of death filled with various numbers and variables. Twas a joyous occasion. So the game is a bit buggy. I mean, I found this bugs only playing through the game twice. Imagine the wonderous bugs you could find with THOROUGH playtesting.
STORYLINE: As for the game itself, let's start with the storyline. The storyline isn't great, or good. Nor does it fall under the category of "NOT BLOODY RIDICULOUS". You shouldn't care about spoilers so let me summarize. Here's the short version:
You murder some monsters.
Later on we'll look at the long version of the story.
Right now though, let's just rate the storyline like... a 2 out of 10.
GRAPHICS: The graphics in this game aren't horrid and the character designs are slightly above average. The character animations for various things like being idle and such are EXCELLENT so the graphics get a 6 out of 10.
GAMEPLAY: The gameplay isn't bad, but it really just doesn't have much variety at all. The games like a 3 trick pony. A few characters have some different stuff but frankly, they never had a good chance to use their alternate abilities. Once you unlock everything the multiplayer is highly customizeable, but you really won't play it, and the customization is a pain in the ass. So the gameplay gets a 5 out of 10.
Replay Value: Not much. 3 out of 10.
SOUNDTRACK: This game apparently has different songs for each level, but they all sound the same so you won't notice more then 2, but only because player turns and enemy turns have their own songs. But since their 2 songs that are changed by one note enough to be 40 songs aren't horrible(infact they're 2 songs are good, but they shouldn't pretend they have more then 2 song like they do in the sound test because they really don't) I'll be able to give the games soundtrack a 3 out of 10.
Overall: The game has some charm I can't cover in the other categories. I'll give this game a 6 out of ten. It's not bad for a bargain bin game.
Now as a bonus here's the long version of the storyline though, to distract you from the scores:
It's the future and monsters roam the land. People move around often, and you (Low) run into a moster camp with your father (named Father) and murder some monsters. Then you leave to your own camp and some monsters attack (wow... monsters) and you murder them and then your dad dies from nothing really explained to you. You and your sister (Pepper) go murder more monsters and are joined by Scallion, who claims to have a Ten Ton Gun, but he's full of crap. Anyway he tells you he knows a secret about the monsters and how they keep being revived, so you rush into ANOTHER monster camp and jack their immortality machine (after murdering some monsters). You go off to see some scientist chick name Caraway to see how it works and a british robot named Wardwarf joins you. You murder a few more mosters for good measure and reach the Caraway's pad where she proceeds to get the machine working and then shoots Scallion in the back of the head. You murder a few more monsters, and then Scallion is revived and you meet a general apparently named General, his daughter Peace, and some guy who scared your sister in the beggining of the game who calls himself Stranger (a name that is so lame, the game itself makes fun of it even though the game really isn't in a position to be making fun of anything). Then you fight the Stranger because he scared your sister and it doesn't matter if you win the fight or not. Then you go off to mountains and you are alone with peace. You don't know eachother at all but it's around this time that you totally knock her up unbeknownst to everybody else, and yourself. Also, you murder some more monsters. Then you set out to give the monsters their machine back with a bomb in it or something. You travel a bit and Pepper gets chased into a house and you rescue her by murdering some more monsters. You travel for months (you don't get the play through this travelling, but I've no doubt that along the way you murder some monsters), and you stop at a windmill, and you murder some monsters. You live at the windmill for like 6 months which you don't play through and then you murder some more monsters and boat down the river to a dam which you must blow up in order to murder some monsters. You drop the immortality engine and it breaks but that only matters in storyline. You go down to the bottom of the dam to retrieve it, and the dam is still going to blow up in 15 minutes. You retrieve the machine and leave before the dam explodes. Then you reach a barn and a monster wanting justice for all the MURDER you've been doing, shoots your sister Pepper in the head and she dies. You murder that monster right back, and afterwards the robot explodes killing itself and General (your best and worst characters respectively), before Peace gives birth to a baby boy. Then you go to a lighthouse and Caraway tries to fix the immortality engine but instead creates more monsters, which is fine because it just means more murder for you. Then for the games attempt at a plot twist it turns out the Stranger is you from the future (how... cliched... and dumb). Also the immortality engine was part of a machine that designed the universe but that really doesn't matter. Now you enter the tower where the monsters call home, but not before murdering more monsters... also, a boat trip. Then Low questions all the MURDER he's been doing but decides that it's too late now and forgets all about it. You murder some more monsters. Then you are faced with the only boss character in the game, which you murder. Then you murder some more monsters before tossing the machine into a quantum singularity which blows up the earth in the cheesiest manner possible. OH BUT WAIT. THE WORLD IS REWOUND BACK TO BEFORE IT WAS DESTROYED. It turns out Pepper hadn't died and she'd climbed out of her grave and left in hopes of finding a better game to be in while no-one was looking. Low goes to search for her, but this is the end of the game and thus the stage is set for the sequel that will never be.
NOW I remember what was so charming about this game. The storyling was COMPLETELY BLOODY RIDICULOUS!
There ya go. REVIEW COMPLETE.
I hate you all, unless I don't. I can never tell.