The Dance Dance Revolution Series

To be honest, this week I was going to review a completely different game. The reason I chose Dance Dance Revolution (or DDR for short) is because I’ve been trying to lose weight and gain some leg muscle, so I found myself playing DDR everyday. It then occurred to me that DDR is classified as a retro game, since it’s 10 year anniversary was in 2008, and because the game is originally for PS2, which is a now retired system. 

One of the many dance pads out there for players to use.

DDR was introduced in Japan by the game companies Konami (known for making Castlevania, Frogger, and Contra) in 1998, and was later introduced to North America and Europe in 1999. Dance Dance Revolution was actually called Dancing Stage for a short amount of time in Europe. The game became so popular that you can actually find DDR arcade machines in many different countries, and in popular gaming spots like Gameworks and Dave & Busters in the US. There are also DDR tournaments, where your DDR skills could get you a trophy and prize money. The reason that Dance Dance Revolution jumped to popularity was because at the time the idea was original, giving you a good workout while dancing to some awesome music. (Don’t like using your body to play? No problem! The game allows you to use a normal controller to play the game as well.) Konami’s music division, Bemani, also helped develop the game by creating original music with some of Konami’s in-house artists, while still making room for licensed music from different genres. 

Konami has released tons of different DDR game titles and editions, but while there’s so many different games to choose from, Konami made everyone’s life a little easier by doing one simple thing: keeping the menu layouts the same. From the oldest to the newest DDR games, the DDR menu keeps its simple layout for players. The controls and difficulties stay close to the same as well (although some DDR games don’t have beginner mode), making it easy for players to navigate through the different DDR games. For my review, I’m going to be using the menu from Dance Dance Revolution MAX 2 for my explanations, since it was my first DDR game! (I apologize for blurry photos, I don’t have the right gear to record gameplay yet so I have to use my phone. Bear with me!)

            

So let’s break down the menu a bit. We’ll start with the games Game Mode. In Game Mode, you first choose how you want to play: single player, with a friend on versus, or with two pads (I’ve seen people play double mode before, that nonsense is hard and I applaud anyone that can do it). Since I’m playing alone, I went with single player. Once that’s done, you then choose your difficulty: beginner (the mode name speaks for itself), light (for players who are better than beginner mode but aren’t quite ready for harder modes), standard (for more advanced players), or heavy (pro level dancing). Since the dance pad can slip around sometimes from all of the movement of dancing, I tend to play on light mode when I’m at home so I don’t twist my ankle while trying to keep up with the song I’m playing and where my dance pad is sliding off to. In the arcade versions of DDR,  the dance pads are large and metal, with bars behind you so you have something to hold onto while your legs go crazy. It’s much easier to play on the arcade versions of DDR than the home versions. 

     

So now we’re ready to pick a song, and there’s many different songs and genres to pick from! There are songs ranging from disco to techno, and some slow songs for you to cool down to when you’re warming up or starting to get too tired from playing so much. “Hold up, I’m not exactly sure how to play, or what’s going on on my screen.” The controls are actually quite simple: when playing with the dance pad, you place your foot on the correct arrows when they reach the top of your screen. There will be times where you’ll have to step on two arrows at the same time, so keep an eye out for that! The arrows that are green and have a trail following behind them are arrows that you keep your foot on. For example, if a long green up arrow is coming up, you step on the up arrow at the right time and hold your foot there until the green note is gone. So one foot could be holding a note while the other is still stepping on the other 3 arrows. (For you beginners that are freaking out over this, don’t worry! These notes are easier to deal with on the light and beginner modes of the game, so you won’t be expected to do anything crazy). At the bottom of your screen, you have the points that you’re earning with each step displayed for you, while at the top you have a green bar that shows you how well you’re doing. When the bar is green, you’re doing just fine. If it’s small and red, you need to start doing better or else you’re about to lose. If the bar is full and colorful, you’re on a roll and doing fantastic! 

After you’ve passed the song you’re playing, you get graded! I got a D, because taking pictures and playing DDR at the same time is really hard. If you get a new high score on a song, your grade is then displayed next to the songs title on the song select screen for everyone to see! If you’re not happy with your grade, practice and aim for a better grade! That pretty much covers Game Mode, so let’s take a quick look at what else DDR has to offer.

            

Workout Mode: In this mode, you get to make a workout plan for yourself! After entering your current weight and the weight you want to become, the game then brings you to song select, and after a song is played the game will tell you how many carbs you burned off and how long you’ve been playing. I’ll be using this mode for my workouts, since the game will save your progress and show you how much you’ve lost!

Lesson Mode: This is what mode I’d recommend to all brand new DDR players. The game will take you through a step-by-step lesson plan on how to play the game, and how to improve your dancing skills so you can increase what difficulty you play on!

Training Mode: Having trouble with a song? Maybe you’re having trouble with a just a certain part of a song? Training Mode allows you to pick a song and practice through different segments of it so you can finally get through the song with no trouble! 

Edit Mode: In this mode, you can take a song that you like and edit it! Add in your own notes, so that you have a beatmap that you can call your own! (I’d suggest using the normal controller for this part, it takes awhile to get your song just as you’d like it, and using your feet for the job will just make it take much longer).

Options, Records & Information: These are to use for your convenience, so at any time you can edit your games settings, check your highscores, and look up any information about the game you may need. A lot of the stuff in Information is legal rights and such, so you may click it once or never. It doesn’t effect your game at all.

Overall, the Dance Dance revolution games are for people of all ages. The game helps improve rhythmic timing and stamina all while having fun dancing around. As for weight loss, players have reported losing 10-50 pounds by playing DDR. One woman lost 95 pounds just by playing DDR everyday as a workout. There are so many different versions of Dance Dance Revolution (including a Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario version), so you always have plenty of uplifting and upbeat songs to dance to. The games are cheap and easy to find on sites like Amazon or Ebay, and the pads aren’t pricey either. If you’re looking for a great way to let loose, have fun with friends and family, or to get a good workout, then I recommend you look into buying games from the Dance Dance Revolution series.

By the way, I’m giving away some prizes on our Facebook page!
Got something to ask me? Wanna show me something? Want to send a game request?
Shoot me an email at systemshuffle@hotmail.com
or check out our facebook page!

Giveaway time!

Do you want to win a free Gameboy Color, Gameboy/Gameboy Color game, and a Pikachu figure form the 1990’s?
OF COURSE YOU FLIPPIN’ DO.
We did it! We finally hit 1,000 views on systemshuffle.com! As a thank you to everyone for the constant support, I’m doing a giveaway!

On October 19th, 2013, I’ll be randomly drawing a winner who will receive these prizes: A turquoise Gameboy Color, A Pikachu figure from the 1990’s, and a mystery Gameboy/Gameboy Color game! 
Click here to learn how to enter!

 

Sonic Heroes

At the end of the year 2003, Sega released a brand new Sonic the Hedgehog game for GameCube, Playstation 2, Xbox and PC. Japan got the first taste of this newly released game on December 30, 2003 while America was given the game on January 5th, 2004. Europe then received the game a month and a day later, and while everyone was excited to play Sonic Heroes, little did the world know how much a mess this new game would be.

I remember it being sort of a rainy day outside when my little brother Miles and I went to Gamestop to pick up the new Sonic game, and while at the time I didn’t think anything of the weather, I now think the world was trying to tell me something. My brother and I would always look at the manual and case of any new game we bought, so I recall looking at the back of the Sonic Heroes case and thinking how awesome this game was going to be. “They brought back old characters from Sonic Adventure and the Chaotix team?! You can play as 3 at a time?! New levels, new music, I can’t wait to get home! Maybe this game will have a Chao Garden!!” (Needless to say, I was very disappointed when I discovered that there was no Chao Garden.) I don’t remember much about when I played Sonic Heroes as a kid though. In fact, all I remember is getting really angry (which is strange, since I’m not an angry gamer). So recently, almost 10 years after Sonic Heroes came out, I was talking with my boyfriend Mark about how much he and other players hated Sonic Heroes. I didn’t understand why, and it bugged me that I couldn’t say if I hated Sonic Heroes or loved it. Not knowing bothered me so much that I picked it up for this weeks review.

There are 4 different teams to play as, meaning that there are 4 different storylines to play through. Each team consists of 3 characters, each having their own special trait. One character will have a flying trait that allows them to fly to high places and shoot down flying enemies. Another character will have the running trait, so when they’re selected your team moves much quicker. (WARNING: When going through loops and different parts of levels with the speed trait, be careful! The game can be very glitchy at times, and will send you right through the stage if you’re going too fast or if you move your joystick the wrong way.) The final trait is the power trait that allows the 3rd team mate to smash through obstacles along the way. The power trait is very over-powered (no pun intended), since the character with this trait can kill enemies much faster and easier than the flying and speed character.

I decided to start with the Sonic team, since it’s first in line. The storyline takes place a few months after the Sonic Adventure 2: battle plot, where we find Sonic running through a canyon of some sort. His best friends, Tails and Knuckles, fly down next to him in Tails’ plane to give him urgent news: Robotnick, their worst enemy, has returned! Robotnick sent Sonic and his friends a letter explaining that he has finally created the ultimate weapon, and that in 3 days, he will take over the world and he invited Sonic and his friends to try and stop him. After reading the letter, Sonic gets excited and goes “Sounds like an invitation!” Wait, hold on, pause. I don’t know about you guys, but if I had a device that I was completely sure could destroy the world, I wouldn’t invite the one guy who has foiled ALL of my past attempts at ruling the world to try and stop me, since odds are that HE’S GOING TO STOP ME.

While you can switch between characters at any second, you can only be one character at a time. Each different character also has their over team fighting stance. For example, when you play as the speed traited character, your other two team mates will follow directly behind you. If you’re the power traited character, each teammate will stand on either side of you, and when you’re the flying traited character your teammates hold onto you from below you. These different stances can make it easier for you to get rings throughout the game. 

         In Sonic Heroes, there were a lot of moments where fighting enemy robots could get very overwhelming, especially since the game can sometimes flood the screen with them. The solution to this problem was to level up your characters to fill up your team blast bar. “How do I level up my character to raise my team blast bar?” When you kill bad guys (or occasionally when you go through a checkpoint), colored orbs will be dropped for your characters. These orbs raise your characters level, making them more powerful while raising your team blast bar. Each character has a special colored orb: Speed has a blue orb, flying has a yellow, and power has a red colored orb. Once your team blast bar is full, you can press the Z button to use a special move the destroys all enemies near you. Note: Some of the levels in Sonic Heroes are very long (10-15 minutes depending on how fast you go), so I suggest that if you want to just get through the level as fast as possible, don’t kill enemies unless you absolutely have to. (There will be plenty of areas that won’t let you through without killing some robots blocking your path.) You’ll still get plenty of orbs along the way to use the team blast move, so don’t worry about that. If you’re going for a good grade on the level, good luck to you. There’s a time bonus at the end of the level that helps a lot, but if you’re sticking around killing robots for points, it’s going to slow you down by quite a bit.

Now I do have some little, nit-picky things to complain about with this game. For starters, the controls are extremely slippery in this game. There are lots of moments in the game where it wants you to come to a sudden stop, but since you can’t just stop on a dime, you end up slamming into a wall and sliding around until your characters decide to finally stop.  Also, unlike other Sonic games, enemies need to be hit multiple times before dying. They have a health bar, and can take up to 3-4 hits to finally destroy. This can prove to be rather obnoxious. My final complaint is the fact that the voice acting is just flat out awful. I know a lot of people complained that Sonic Team got new voice actors for Sonic, Tails, and others, but that’s not where my problem stands. It’s not that I’m not used to the new voices, it’s the fact that the new voices are wheezy, nasally and sound like they’re 4th graders having to read out loud in english class. Knuckles sounds like he’s screaming the word “Sh*t!” when he punches enemies, and when Tails flies he shouts “WHEE”, making him sound like he’s going to lose his voice from yelling. It stresses me out.

Overall, this isn’t a bad game, but it’s definitely not a game I would want to voluntarily play again. While the gameplay itself isn’t the greatest, the soundtrack is one of my favorite soundtracks from any Sonic game. I can now understand why my brother and I would get so angry over this game, especially after all the countless times we’ve fallen through stages due to a glitch, or have gotten killed due to cheap hits that the enemies got off on us. The storyline is nothing special, and is in fact extremely predictable. (Hmm, I wonder if the guy who get’s defeated in every Sonic game got defeated this time! Probably.) Sonic Heroes is available for less than $10 on Amazon for Gamecube, but unless you’re a Sonic fan who hasn’t played this, I wouldn’t buy it if I were you. Try it out at a buddies, or watch gameplay of it. Don’t put yourself through the amount of frustration this game creates.

Got something to ask me? Wanna show me something? Want to send a game request?
Shoot me an email at systemshuffle@hotmail.com
or check out our facebook page!

Super Monkey Ball 2

Super Monkey Ball 2. Is that not one of the strangest game titles you have ever heard?
“Hey man whatcha playin?”
“Oh you know, Super Monkey Ball 2.”
“Oh… What do you do?”
“Uh well, you’re a monkey… that rolls inside of a ball through mazes…”
“…But why a monkey?”
“Dude go ask Sega, I don’t know.”

I’m in love with this game, and have been since I was in my pre-teen years. I didn’t play much of the first Super Monkey Ball until years after discovering Super Monkey Ball 2, which came out for Gamecube in 2002 for North America. The Super Monkey Ball series was developed by a second-party developer of Sega’s called Amusement Entertainment, and Amusement Entertainment released the first Monkey Ball game as an arcade game. It wasn’t until 2001 that the developers decided to bring the game to home consoles. 

Super Monkey Ball 2 has plenty of different ways to be played. You have Story Mode, Challenge Mode, Practice Mode, and 12 different mini games to unlock and play. Since each mode is played differently, I’ll break everything down for you. Let’s start with the different modes and leave the mini games alone for a moment. The controls for all the modes are the same, and they’re easy to learn as well! You move your ball around with the joystick, and there’s a little map in the lower right corner that you can zoom in and out of by pressing the A button, but that’s it when it comes to controls! Your objective in all of the different modes is to go through different mazes and obstacle courses to reach the goal at the end in 60 seconds. It may not sound like a lot of time, but all of the courses are short enough to get through within the time limit. There will be levels that you’ll need to practice a bit before you can get an idea of how to beat the level (timing, different routes, ext), but with practice you’ll be a pro in no time! Now, let me explain what’s so different about the different modes you can play:

    

Story Mode

The story begins with an evil monkey named Dr. Bad-Boon appearing over an island in a blimp. He then takes a giant vacuum and sucks all of the banas out of the village all for himself, which Ai-Ai and his gang aren’t happy about. As Dr. Bad-Boon then goes to make his escape, Ai-Ai and his friends then use a magic spell to put themselves into balls and fly around the island (No, you can’t actually fly around while playing the game. Disappointing, I know.) The game then brings you to a screen with 10 different courses to play through. You can go through them in any order you please, but in order to get to the next area you have to complete all 10 courses. There are no bosses in this game, and there aren’t lives either so you get an infinite amount of chances. There are also play points that you can earn. The more you play, the more points you earn! You can then trade in these points to unlock more lives for challenge mode, or to unlock more mini games.

    

Challenge Mode

Have some friends over that want to play, but none of you want to play any of the mini games? No problem! In challenge mode, there are different sets of levels to play on that are similar to the levels you go through on story mode. The only thing different about challenge mode is that it’s multiplayer and you all have a certain amount of lives that you can use. Don’t worry too much, you do get continues even if you lose all of your lives. “Well then what’s the point of lives if they’re just going to give me continues anyway?” Well reader, if you get through all of the challenge courses and don’t use a continue, you get to move onto the bonus stages! How’s that for motivation?

Practice Mode

Practice Mode is exactly what you think it is. You’re able to go into practice mode and play any level you’ve reached in story mode and replay through it. Even though you can replay the level as many times as you want, you don’t get to record your score.

Let’s talk about this games mini games for a second. A lot of these mini games are broken and unbalanced, to the point of being unfair. In most of these games, there are items with different helpful actions, but the moment you turn them off is the moment you’re doomed. In racing with items off, there is no possible way for you to catch up if you’re in last place. In boxing, the items they use can be 1 hit KO’s to your enemies, which sounds like a fine thing for you but the moment one of your opponents gets a hold of one of those power ups, you’re through. Some of these games are poorly explained, or can make playing the game nearly impossible (lack of speed, courses that are impossible to read or figure out, and in some cases the game controls your character for you). My suggestion? If you’re playing Super Monkey Ball 2 with friends, go play challenge mode.

Overall, I’d give this game a 8/10 rating. The story line is cheesey, but the game isn’t played for the story but more for the levels themselves. The mini games are unfair, but can sometimes be fun if you’re playing with a group of friends who won’t take the game seriously. if you can laugh off how badly designed some of the games are, I think you’ll be just fine playing them. As for the games courses and controls, you always have full control over your monkey and the game does a brilliant job of teaching you how to improve rather than making some levels easy and some of them impossible. Most courses even have different routes you take for those who want the easy way through or for players who want a challenge. There are buttons hidden in the back of some levels as well that slow the level down to make things easier, but of course it’s all optional. The game is less than $10 used on Amazon, so go get yourself a copy!

Got something to ask me? Wanna show me something? Want to send a game request?
Shoot me an email at systemshuffle@hotmail.com
or check out our facebook page!

Shadow of the Colossus

That’s right everyone, I explained on my facebook page that the next review would be of one of most favorite games of all time, so today, I give you the review of Shadow of the Colossus. Shadow of the Colossus (or Wander and the Colossus in Japan) is a game Developed by Team ICO (named after one of their other games titled ICO) and was released October 2005 in North America and Japan for Playstation 2. The game was later released on Playstation 3 in HD, sharing a disc with a HD release of ICO as well. This isn’t your typical action-adventure game either since there’s no running around gaining experience points and levels with upgraded weapons like action-adventure games would usually have. Instead, all you have to your name is a magic sword, your horse, bow and arrows, and yourself. You have a health bar, a stamina circle that gets smaller as you grab ledges and jump around that slowly recharges when you’re resting, and your weapon slot displayed for you at the bottom right corner of your screen, so be sure to keep a good eye on those.

“But hold on, if this isn’t my usual action-adventure game, how on earth is it different?” Well hold on there reader, let me tell you the background of the story first. You play as a young man named Wander, who steals an ancient sword from his village, and takes a dead girl (who one can only assume he’s either friends with or in love with) to a forbidden land where he lays her on an altar. “Well, why would he do that?” Legend has it that if you take the sword to this forbidden land and defeat the Colossi that rest there, a god named Dormin will give life back to a passed away individual. That’s right, the game gets straight to the point: kill all of the Colossi and you win. The game consists of constant boss fights. 

Colossi aren’t the smallest creatures to fight. To find where these large gods are located, you hold up your sword and lines of light with spread from the tip of your sword. Move the sword around until the light evens out to a single line, pointing out the direction you must head on horseback to find your next battle. The world in this game is huge, so it may even take you a few minutes to reach the boss itself. Don’t worry though, the Colossi are the only enemies in the game, so you don’t have to worry about bumping into anything on the way to them. 

So how are you suppose to beat them? Well, each Colossus has a special glowing mark somewhere on your body, and it’s your job to get to that point and stab it until the Colossus falls to its death. As you go through the game, Colossi get harder and harder to beat, meaning there may be certain things you have to do before you even start looking for the mark. I mean, getting on the creature itself is a puzzle. Some Colossi even have more than one mark and in different places, so how do you find them? The same way you found the Colossus in the first place: get some distance, hold up your sword, and point in the direction of the Colossus. Where the light thins out on the Colossus’ body is where the mark lies. It’s then your job to find a way onto the Colossus and finish them. After defeating a Colossus, a dark clump of light shoots towards you and soaks into your body, causing you to pass out. You’ll awake back at the altar where you began your journey, watch a statue representing the Colossus you just defeated collapse, and move onto the next fight.

Shadow of the Colossus is a very emotional game, from the boss fights to the soundtrack. The story line has you tearing up and feeling as if you really are Wander himself. You start to feel like his troubles are your own, and that it’s you stabbing that sword, making those jumps and riding towards your next battle. It had stunning graphics for the time it was released (especially for a PS2 game), and music usually only plays during battles. I love that they did this, because think about it this way: You’re on horseback, riding to your next destination where you know something that wants to kill you is just sitting there waiting for you to arrive, all while just listening to the sound of your horse galloping across fields and stone. I have never played a game with a better build up before a fight or event, and it still gets me pumped every time I play. In fact, it was so intense for me as a kid, sometimes I would ask my friends or my brother to get to the boss for me since I’d always feel like chickening out and quitting the game.

Overall, this game is stressful, beautiful, heart wrenching game, and you’ll feel like you can take on things 10 times your size after beating it. I highly recommend this game to anyone who needs a good game that makes them think, that allows them to get lost within the games world, and lets the player feel like they’ve accomplished something after each and every battle. If you have a PS3, buy the ICO and Shadow of Colossus duo disc. The game looks amazing in HD, and ICO is another game that I’d recommend to anyone who wants a great game that makes you think (that’s a review for another time though). If you have a PS2, get a copy of Shadow of the Colossus on Amazon or Ebay for 15$ or less. This game is a an epic masterpiece.

Got something to ask me? Wanna show me something? Want to send a game request?
Shoot me an email at systemshuffle@hotmail.com
or check out our facebook page!

Chu♥Lip

Chu♥Lip, also known as Chulip, was released in Japan for PS2 October 3rd, 2002 by Victor Interactive Software and developed by Punchline. This adventure/ romantic simulation game was released in the USA as a GameStop exclusive 5 years later and was published in the US by Natsume. Natsume is more popularly known for publishing games such as Harvest Moon and Rune Factory in the US, one being another romantic simulation game and the other being an RPG. Chu♥Lip is about a poor boy who moves into the quiet town known as Long Life Town with his father, where he dreams of a girl that he kisses and falls in love with. He ends up meeting this girl, but she has no interest in him for his lack of romantic experience. It’s then your job to help the boy get as much romantic experience as he can, write a love letter to the girl of his dreams, and win her heart over. Oh, did I mention that by romantic experience I meant going around town to people who hate you for being poor and kissing them, along with completely demented people who live underground, crawl out of the earth at certain times of the day and making out with them too? Yeah. Your first kiss in your young boyish life is an onion lady that lives under the city, and you’re suppose to go brag about it to your father who then tells a tree while you’re sleeping what you’ve done and they make your heart stronger. Make sense yet? No? It never does.

Lets start at the very beginning of the story. You start with 5 hearts (your health), and the game explains to you that you can only kiss people when they’re happy. If you kiss them when they’re angry, they smack you down and hurt you. (Sounds a bit like real life to me.) The story begins with you finding the girl of your dreams and getting rejected, so you run to your father for help. He tells you to try writing a love letter to her, and on your way to send it you turn a corner to find a depressed telephone pole with a face and feet complaining about how people should pay their workers and no one can live without money before smashing into a wall of junk and running off. Believe it or not, that same telephone pole kicks you while you’re dead if you lose all of your hearts and is basically the biggest jerk-hole in the entire game. You finally get the the mailbox, but when you go to send the extremely awfully written letter that says “I love you so so much, kiss me next time, END”, a voice from the sewers tells you your letter sucks and that you should feel bad. He invites you to find him, and once you do, you learn that this voice comes from a strange looking head with feet with a paintbrush on his head. (Because that’s who you want love advice from, right?) He teaches you how to kiss people, and offers to help you in any way to get the girl of your dreams.

And that’s it. The game drops you there to figure things out on your own and there are no hints as to what the hell you’re suppose to be doing or how you’re suppose to be doing it. You’re now left to try and figure out how to kiss everyone in town (who still all hate you) without pissing them off or dying and your only friend is a head with feet who lives in the sewers. To kiss the underground residence in the game, you also have to know exactly what time they come out of their holes, when it’s okay to kiss them, and just how much damage they do when you mess up. Let’s pause for a moment. What exactly happens when you die? It’s simple, you just go back to your last save. Big bit of advice here: SAVE AS OFTEN AS YOU CAN. You don’t want to get far, mess up, then have to do EVERYTHING over again like I had to do a few times. To save, you go home and literally take a poop, while your father questions you for ever having to use the restroom.  

This is the most frustrating game I have ever played, because even though the game is filled with great lessons like don’t go out after dark (or else you’ll get shot), don’t run around naked, don’t smoke, and don’t go around kissing angry people, the game itself gives you no sort of help or hints as to what you’re suppose to do next. The story line in this game is actually extremely short to the point that if you know what you’re doing you can beat it in a day, but figuring out the side stuff without a guide would take you forever. Here’s the thing: The game KNOWS this. How do I know? Because while I was looking through the games manual, I came across a section saying “Warning! Spoilers!” and found the strangest thing I have ever seen in a videogame manual. The game gives you a guide. Free, no charge! In the games manual it literally tells you every step by step thing you need to do, when to kiss underground residence, and has a complete walkthrough on how to beat the game 100%. I spent 4-5 hours playing this game aimlessly without even thinking to look in the manual! I mean, why would I? Unless you’re what I was like as a kid where you’d get a new game, open it in the car and read the manual on the way home, how are you ever suppose to guess that there’s anything but game controls and credits in the games manual!? I mean, that’s all there ever is! If you wanted a guide for a game, you’d have to go out and spend $15 dollars for a thick magazine of a book that tells you every unlockable and every bit you need to know. No game just gives you the game guide, so how was I suppose to know?

So I grabbed my boyfriend and had him play through the game while I read out exactly who he needed to kiss, where to find them, where to get hidden items, and so on (because like hell I was going to play through all of that again). This time around, the game was much more enjoyable, and I would actually describe it as a scavenger hunt rather than an adventure game or simulation. I was actually able to enjoy the silly (yet creepy) character designs and personalities of the NPCs themselves now that I knew who to trust, who not to trust, and who’s okay to kiss. It made the game a lot less stressful and more enjoyable.

Overall, without using the guide this game is the most frustrating and terrifying game I’ve ever seen. Using the guide given to you makes you feel a lot safer and not so blind as to what you’re suppose to actually do. It’s a funny game to show friends for a good laugh, but the game itself is kind of stale. I bought the game for $5, and for that price is was worth it, but I would never buy it for anything higher than that. The characters have different personalities that keeps the game interesting, and you learn more about Long Life Town as a whole, and the game actually has some strange depth to it that if I wanted to play a game that was sort of a puzzle and a strange form of entertainment at the same time, I’d actually replay through Chu♥Lip.

Got something to ask me? Wanna show me something? Want to send a  game request?
Shoot me an email at systemshuffle@hotmail.com
or check out our facebook page!

Magic Pengel: The Quest For Color

“Long ago…the world was a place devoid of color. And so it remained until the Spirit of Creation made four simple shapes using red, blue, green and yellow. These shapes became…the Sun, Sea, Land and Wind. Afterwards…the Spirit of Creation made two other shapes. The first was Mankind, possessed of a free mind. The second…were Doodles, possessed of a free body. Humans were able to create Doodles and Doodles made new colors. The world was filled with color and the humans were happy. One day however…a king was born among the humans. This king…in order to obtain more colors…enslaved the Doodles. But in doing so…The human king deeply saddened the Doodle King. The Doodle King pleaded with the Spirit of Creation. “Spirit…Please, do not let those whose hearts are impure continue to create Doodles. If you grant this wish…I will return to you both my body and all the colors under my control.” The spirit granted the wish…and from then on, only those who possessed a pure heart were able to create Doodles. The Doodles were freed from their enslavement. But… The cost was heavy. The Doodles lost their king and many of the world’s colors disappeared. Frustrated…The human king looked to control those humans still able to create Doodles. In doing so…He turned one group of people against another and brought misery upon the world.”

Magic Pengel: The Quest For Color was developed by Garakuda-Studio and Taito for Playstation 2 in 2002, and published by Agetec in North America. Studio Ghibli, creators of the films Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and My Neighbor Totoro, also collaborated with this game. I spent years trying to remember the title of this game, since I could remember everything about it from my childhood except the games name itself. About a year ago, I finally spent a day going through Google searching things like “doodle game” and “doodling battles video game” until I finally got a hold of it. It was definitely hard to get my hands on since (at the time) it was hard to find for sale, but I can’t explain how happy I was to have it back in my collection.

I feel the menu speaks for itself in this game, so I’ll leave most of it alone. The only things I’ll explain is Transfer Doodle, where you can bring over a doodle from a certain file to another file to use. I clicked new game, and the story from the start of the review started to play,  (If you haven’t read the story at the beginning, I recommend you go do so now, it’s kind of important,) Once the story comes to an end, you wake up on a grassy, fenced off cliff, and you’re asked to enter your name. After your name is entered, a creature that looks like a baby with a tail flies on screen, requesting that you draw a circle to create the doodle that will begin your journey. This little cutie is our very own Pengel, whose magic allows us to create doodles! On the drawing screen, the red line on the border of the doodling screen erases as you use the X button and analog stick to draw your circle, representing how much free drawing room you have left. The number next to the colored symbol represents how much of that color you have left to use. This will be important to remember when the time comes to draw your own doodles later on. I made my “beautiful” little circle doodle, as the intro song begins to play. The doodle bounces around, causes trouble with a nearby… cat? Dog? It barks like a dog but it looks a lot like a cat… Either way, your doodle gets nearly chased off of a cliff, until a girls comes out of nowhere to rescue your doodle, but falls into the ocean doing so. (You can imagine she wasn’t so happy when she gets back up to the cliff.) She proceeds to scold you, growls at the cat-dog and questions if you’re from around town. Her brother comes crying up to her, revealing her name is Zoe, and your Pengel gently flies around the little boys head to calm him down. Zoe becomes extremely excited to see that you have a Pengel, and begins to explain to you how you can make a doodle.

                                                                 What to know about making a doodle:

• You start out with 4 default colors: Red, Indigo, Green, & Yellow.
• You have different categorized body parts that have different functions on a doodle. You only start with the body option and the hard option (which is used to make horns or details).
• You start with a default brush, the thick brush. You can buy other brushes from townspeople that you can talk to later on for a certain amount of gold.
• D-Pad moves your camera up, down, left and right, while the analog stick rotates the angel of the camera so you can work with your doodle in different ways. X is to draw, and the square button is a sudden undo button. The triangle button allows you to go to the tool options.
• You can preview how your doodle will look once it’s finished and in the real world. Actions you can preview are jumping, dancing, walking, and many more.

After you finish your doodle, you’re allowed to name it for yourself. As you can see, I tried (keyword, tried) to make a bunny-like doodle and named him Bunz. You’re then brought back to the doodle books main menu, where you’re shown your doodle and it’s type, stats, and creator name. The type of your doodle depends on the colors used when creating your doodle. So experiment with different colors for different doodle types! Once your doodle is finished, you then follow Zoe and her brother into town to enter the kingdoms tournament. One of the only things that bugs me about this game is the fact that loading screens between areas take about 20 seconds to load. I know that may not sound that bad, but then you have to travel between areas a lot, the time adds up. Another problem, you wouldn’t ever know you had to sell color gems to get gold if you didn’t pick up the hint the game lays out for you. Once you get into town, Zoe says that she wants to check in on Grannie really quick. A cut scene then shows her handing over a gem to Grannie and stating that she’ll come pick up the gold later. That’s it. That’s your hint that if you go to Grannie, you can sell gems for gold. I, on the other hand, am not very good at picking up hints. I need games to spell things out for me, so I didn’t have any idea I had to do that until way later into the game.

The time has come to enter the tourney! Since it’s the very start of the game, tourneys only go 1 vs 1 (one doodle vs one doodle), but as you go through the game battles become 2 vs 2 and 3 vs 3.  Once you’re entered into the tourney, the battle begins! Even though I could do a great job at explaining what to do (not really), I’ll let Zoe take this part over.

I follow Zoe’s instructions, and go with the skill Magic, hoping that my enemy goes with either Magic or Attack. Also, you can not use the same skill twice in a row. For example, since I used Magic, I can’t use Magic again for another 2 turns. You also can’t use Charge on the first turn. If you and your opponent use the same skill, you will both do damage, but the doodle with the higher agility will attack first. There’s another frustrating aspect of the game. It’s exactly like rock, paper, scissors. The problem with that? It’s luck based. As much as your knowledge of the game and how your opponent may play might help you, it still all comes down to luck. If you hate anything luck based, I am warning you right now that this game is not for you. The whole game is based off of battling doodles, so this luck aspect will never go away.

What happens when you win a battle: If you win a kingdom tourney, you will obtain a good amount of color gems, a pengel level up, and unlock a new body part to use on your doodles. If you lose: You get a very small amount of color gems, but this is the games way of allowing you to grind battles and slowly earn colors to use on your doodles so you can become stronger for the next battle. There is more to the storyline of the game, but because the game is a shorter game at that, if I say anything past this point I’ll end up spoiling something for sure. As for the game itself, the basic aspect of it stays the same. You go through battles, unlock more brushes, colors, and parts for your doodles so you can proceed through the game.

Overall, I adore this game. This is honestly a game for all ages, and I think it’s extremely underplayed. As fun as this game is, with the gameplay and the slow loading screens, I would recommend this game to patient players. This isn’t a game you button mash in, it’s one that you take your time in to make doodles, grind battles to get colors, take a nap between loading screens, and relax. I know that PS2 games are no longer sold in most GameStops, but if you can find this game online for about $20-$30 I would get is ASAP. Even if you’re not an artist or have never tried to doodle before, this is still a good game to help you get in touch with your creative side.

Got something to ask me? Wanna show me something?
Shoot me an email at systemshuffle@hotmail.com
or check out our facebook page!

Bomberman Fantasy Race

Bomberman Fantasy Race was released for Sony’s Playstation on August 6, 1998 in Japan, July 2000 in Europe, and March 31, 1999 in North America. The game was developed by GraphicResearch Inc. while Atlus released the game in North America, while Bomberman Fantasy Race was released by Virgin Interactive in Europe. The game is a spin-off of the Bomberman Series, and I personally haven’t met many people who have actually heard of this game. Around the late 90’s, the Mario Kart series had been getting a lot of fame and praise which made Nintendo’s competitors start popping out racing games like crazy. Series that had nothing to do with cars in the first place suddenly had a racing game with their name on it such as the Jak series, the Crash Bandicoot series, Lego Racers, and the Bomberman series.

Bomberman Fantasy Race was honestly one of my favorite games a kid, so you can imagine my excitement when I got a hold of this forgotten racer. I never got very far in the game as a child since I didn’t really know what I was doing, which honestly worried me when I picked it back up as an adult. Usually games that I could never beat as a kid ended up being disasters  when I played them years later (take the Rugrats games for example, oh god). So I was hoping that my naive childhood self hadn’t tricked me into thinking this game was good when it may not actually be all that great.

 

When you start up the game, before you even get to the start menu, the game brings you to a screen where you can either load your data or make a new file. I decided to go with a fresh start for the sake of the review, where then the game let me pick a character to permanently play as and a name to create using 5 letters. I went with the main character Bomberman himself, entered my name, and started my fresh file. Now, if you wait at the start screen and don’t press any buttons, the game will bring you to the only tutorial in the game. You have to figure out the rest of the controls yourself, or go to the options and configure your buttons to be the way that’s the most comfortable for you to play with. I found this a little confusing, especially when I started my first race and didn’t really have any idea as to what I was doing. Nearly every button has a use too, so take a race to figure out what the controls are or read up on it in the manual.

Here you have our main screen that consists of several different options, such as:

• 1 Player: Unlocking Stages and earning money for your character by yourself in races.
• VS Mode: The multiplayer mode of the game that you can play with family or friends in.
• Options: Typically settings for the game.
• Time Attack: Practice on different tracks and race against your own shadow while trying to beat your own timed laps. Great for practice!
• Stable: Buy different Louie’s and Tirra’s here to race with!
• Bank: Keep your money safe and sound here while you save up for your favorite race track, Tirra or Louie!

 

Louie’s and Tirra’s are what you ride to the finish line in Bomberman Fantasy Race! That’s right, instead of cars, the player uses one of two different animals to make their way to victory. The game starts you off with one of each species, making you save money you earn from races to buy the rest that are available. Louie’s are rabbit type creatures that are very light and easy to jump around with, while Tirra’s are faster but harder to control when it comes to turns and jumps. Each have great traits that make them equally good to pick from, so go with your gut and pick the right creature for your racer!

 

Starting up 1 player mode brought me to the screens above, where I chose which creature I wanted to ride, and was given the option to spend money on some items I can start with in the race. I could save my money and use random items available for me to grab throughout the races coarse, or start with the advantage of having two pre-bought items.  It’s not exactly clear what each item does, but they are guaranteed to help you in some way, so experiment with them!

 

Next is stage select. This stage select is different than other racing games I’ve seen, that’s for sure. Each course costs a certain amount of money to unlock. You use money you’ve won from other courses to do so, and the more expensive the course is to unlock the more winnings you’ll get for placing first. The harder the courses get, the more difficult they are to read. For example, it may be hard to tell when a sharp turn is coming up, or what parts have a jump pad you can use to speed ahead everyone else. Practice makes perfect on these courses, so don’t be afraid to run through them a few times to perfect them! Once you’ve gotten first place on a stage, a star will show up on where the stage is on the map letting you know you’ve completed it. You can still replay the stage, it’s just a friendly reminder that you came out on top. The stages are Bomber Coast Lake, Oyna Mountain, Bakuzan Ski Course, Star Express, Waca Isl Beach Side, and Bomber Circuit. The game gives you Bomber Circuit for free, giving you the opportunity to earn money right away.

 

Unfortunately, since I don’t have a camera to record the race itself and taking pictures while playing is extremely hard, I couldn’t give any photos of the race itself. Even so, there are still things to say about the race. One, the computers DON’T CHEAT! They’re at a decent level where they’re challenging to beat, but it’s not impossible to do so! Because the game is a Bomberman game, bombs are involved. Even if you don’t pick up any items off the track itself, you always have bombs on hand to use. You can throw them at your enemies to slow them down, or you can get the timing just right and drop a bomb directly in front of you, giving yourself a small speed boost! You also use the D-Pad to move in this game, not the analog stick, so make sure to take breaks between races or else you’ll end up like me and get a hand cramp. It takes a little getting used to, but it’s not too uncomfortable to play with. If you get in first place in a race, you’re given a bonus round to yourself after the race is done. In the bonus round, you do a single lap around the course and collect as many coins as you can. The amount of coins you grab are the amount you keep, and you also get a time bonus that gives you more coins the faster you complete the bonus round.

Overall, Bomberman Fantasy Race has yet to disappoint me. This game has a very simple goal of becoming the best racer around, while unlocking different stages and creatures to ride. It gives a great feeling of accomplishment and is for players of all ages. The game does lag a slight bit at times, but I really believe it’s from the game pushing what the Playstation could do and what’s capable of. If you have $10 to spare and want to try out a great racer for a rainy day, or get this as a gift for a younger family member, you can order Bomberman Fantasy Race on Amazon, or download it in the PS3’s online store.

Make sure to like us on Facebook!