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User:Xykeb Zraliv/Reviews
from Zeldapedia, the Legend of Zelda wiki
This is a page where I will be reviewing games, as implied by the title of the article. I will be selecting certain games from this list to review. The criteria I will be judging games on are Plot, Characters, Setting, Gameplay, Sound, Graphics, Lenght, Replayability, and 100% (these are subject to change, however).
Contents |
[edit] Animal Crossing
[edit] Plot (N/A)
Because of the nature of the Animal Crossing games, where you simply play without a set "goal" as such, you cannot really have a full-on plot. The only plot is introduced at the beginning of the game, where you are moving to a new town and meet a cat named Rover on the train ride there. He phones his friend Tom Nook, who sells a house. However, you're really, really poor and can't afford it, so you work part-time for him. After this, the plot is of no importance. But honestly, with a game like this, plot doesn't matter.
[edit] Characters (8.5/10)
The characters in this game mostly consist of the randomly selected characters that live in your town. They are all animals, where you are the only human. There are so many of them, and almost all of them are likable in some way. The characters that have set identities (some of the main characters like Tom Nook, Rover, etc., as well as some characters that visit your town) are all well-rounded characters. The characters really are what makes this game feel special, and what make you feel like you're really living in this town you've created.
[edit] Setting (8.5/10)
The setting is a small country town that you are moving to. It feels like a large forest, and you live among animals (no, you're not Tarzan)....there's not really that much else to say. That's all you need. Everything is just laid right there in front of you :)
[edit] Gameplay (8/10)
The gameplay consists mostly of just walking around, talking and helping other townsfolk, stuff like that. You can also fish, catch bugs, dig up fossils, and cut down trees.
[edit] Sound (7.5/10)
There are some great songs in there, but nothing truly ground-breaking. The sound effects are all done perfectly, at just the right times, however.
[edit] Graphics (8/10)
The graphics are deliberately cartoonish and all the characters have big heads. That's all there really is to it :P It is nice-looking overall, though.
[edit] Length (N/A)
There is no end, so there is no length.
[edit] Replayability (N/A)
There is no replayability, because there's not ever an end to the first game you play.
[edit] 100% (N/A)
Unless you consider collecting every single item in the game 100%ing the game, it doesn't really apply.
[edit] Overall (8/10)
Overall a great, enjoyable game. It's probably one of the best games out there that isn't an action game.
[edit] Banjo-Kazooie
[edit] Plot (5/10)
Errrr, so a witch named Gruntilda wants to be the prettiest person ever but her magic cauldron says that a bear named Tooty is the prettiest person ever so she kidnaps her and Tooty's brother Banjo and his roommate Kazooie have to go save her by invading Grunty's lair and finding golden jigsaw pieces. That's....it really. Yeah, um, not much to say here.
[edit] Characters (8/10)
Pretty much ever character you encounter in this game has some importance, and they all feel unique in their own way. Additionally, many of them have hilarious quotes. However, I personally feel there weren't enough of them.
[edit] Setting (8.5/10)
Basically, everything takes place in the cave-like area called Gruntilda's Lair, which is, um, Gruntilda's lair. Throughout the lair are several "worlds", all of which have a specific theme. Each world is perfectly made to fit its theme. Loses points for having fairly generic themes, however.
[edit] Gameplay (9/10)
This is where the game really shines. Basically, it is a 3D platformer, but instead of just jumping around like Mario they actually learn a bunch of different things, like flying, temporary invulnerability, and shooting eggs. There is a command for pretty much every Z+(other button) combination (Z+A is a backflip or "super jump" if you will, Z+B is a forward lunge, etc.).
The one problem that I (and everybody else) had with the game is the extremely retarded note system. Basically, there are 100 notes in each level, and you have to collect them to progress through the game. However, there is a huge flaw in the system: whever you leave a level or die, you have to start all frickin' over again. The notes you got count as your "note score" for the level, and you collect more notes if you beat your note score, i.e. get more notes than you did last time. This isn't really a problem in the first few levels, but it can get annoying in the later ones if you die and it totally kicks your ass in Rusty Bucket Bay, where you instantly die in the engine room if you fall. Blah.
[edit] Sound (10/10)
One of the best parts of the Banjo-Kazooie series is the amazing music, composed by Grant Kirkhope, likely the human incarnation of some sort of music god or something. Fantastic. Every. Single. Song. No exceptions, whatsoever. That's not an exaggeration, every song that you can find anywhere in this game is fantastic.
The sound effects are pretty good, all used well, nothing to complain about really.
[edit] Graphics (8/10)
For the time they were great. I'm not really one to give games "mercy" because they're older, but in this case I don't really care that the graphics are outdated. You can clearly tell what everything is, and that's what really matters.
[edit] Length (8/10)
Not too long, just a little on the short side but that's ok.
[edit] Replayability (7.5/10)
I've replayed this a good few times. I wouldn't say it's one of the best games to replay, but it's way better than some others.
[edit] 100% (8.7/10)
It's fun to get all the Jiggies and notes in the game, although it is a tad easy. However, the one issue I have with the 100% is all the goddamn Mumbo Tokens. There are like 115 in all, I believe. The fact that you don't need all of them, as well as the fact that there's no real counter for them (telling you how many more there are to collect, when you've got all in a level, etc.) leads me to feel absolutely no need to 100% them.
[edit] Overall (8/10)
Fantastic game, but with some noticeable flaws in the system. Still, it's definitely worth buying if you ever get the chance.
[edit] Banjo-Tooie
[edit] Plot (8/10)
Since her defeat in Banjo-Kazooie, Gruntilda has been trapped under a huge boulder. Then one day her sisters come to rescue her. Banjo, Kazooie, Bottles, and Mumbo are playing cards in Banjo's house when Gruntilda comes to destroy said house. Banjo, Kazooie, and Mumbo evacuate, but Bottles stays in the house and gets brutally murdered and mutilated. Gruntilda sends her minion Klungo after Banjo and Kazooie and everything goes from there.
The plot in this game is a lot deeper, and a lot darker than the plot in Banjo-Kazooie, which was clearly based on stereotypical fairy tales.
[edit] Characters (10/10)
Fantastic. Brilliant. Every character has something to say, and even then most of the characters have humorous moments. Almost all of the characters make you want to help them, as opposed to the formula from Banjo-Kazooie where you run around and help people just for the sake of getting a Jiggy. Of course, you get a Jiggy when you help people here too, but that's not the only thing fueling you.
[edit] Setting (10/10)
The worlds now are still stereotypical, but they still feel like they have a very original feel to them, something that Banjo-Kazooie lacked in certain worlds. The overworld, or "hub" world, if you will, is now a lot bigger than Gruntilda's lair, and it feels less linear, leaving more room for exploring.
[edit] Gameplay (9.999/10)
The gameplay is more or less identical to Banjo-Kazooie, only improved. The note issue is fixed entirely, and unlike in most games you actually keep all the skills you learned in the original game. On top of that, you get to learn a whole bunch of new moves, way more than you learned in Banjo-Kazooie. Now you can actually grab ledges, split up Banjo and Kazooie, and even fire grenades. Loses 0.001 points because of the disgustingly impossible race with Canary Mary in Cloud Cuckooland.
[edit] Sound (11/10)
If I gave Banjo-Kazooie a ten, I must give this an eleven, because it is even better. A new batch of songs, and every one is even better than many of the BK songs. So fantastic on ever possible level. Grant Kirkhope is truly a god.
Sound effects are more or less the same as BK.
[edit] Graphics (8.1/10)
More or less identical to Banjo-Kazooie, with some minor improvements here and there.
[edit] Length (9.5/10)
Just a tad long, but almost perfect length.
[edit] Replayability (10/10)
Somehow this is one of the few games that I never get tired of replaying. Ever. I replayed his so many times, I've memorized the location of every Jiggy, and I could probably write a walkthrough if I wanted to.
[edit] 100% (9.5/10)
Overall, it's just the right difficulty to 100% the game. Not too incredibly hard, but not a walk in the park either. Backtracking is required, and there's some tricky stuff you have to do to manage it. Loses half a point because of the disgustingly impossible race with Canary Mary in Cloud Cuckooland.
[edit] Overall (10/10)
While there are just a couple of flaws in the system, it really doesn't deserve anything lower than 10. There was so much work put into this game, and everything, and I mean everything, was an improvement from Banjo-Kazooie, which was a fantastic game in its own right. The game is fun to play every time you play it, and if you like 3D platformers, I can almost guarantee that you will play it more than once.
[edit] Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
[edit] Plot (3.5/10)
Grunty comes back. She and Banjo and Kazooie try to fight but fail epicly because Grunty's just a head and Banjo and Kazooie are fat because they ate a lot of pizza. Suddenly a T.V. in a robe appears and makes Banjo and Kazooie less fat and gives Grunty an artifical body. He is apparently the Lord of Games (aka L.O.G.), who made virtually every game in existence and is singling out Banjo-Kazooie for no particular reason. Banjo, Kazooie, and Grunty then engage in pointless minigames in an attempt to win the rights to Spiral Mountain. Yawn....
[edit] Characters (0.000000001/10)
The reason I hate this game so much. Nobody, and I mean nobody (ok fine, maybe Grunty) acts like they should. Humba Wumba is now a teenage cowgirl selling pointless blueprints. Mumbo is an asshole mechanic that insults Banjo at every turn. Klungo, whose stretched S sounds I originally found funny, is now completely illiterate. Kazooie, who used to have clever sarcastic remarks, is now a b**** that just insults everybody. Bottles demands payment for everything he gives you. Jolly Roger, who was the subject of some clever and subtle yet obvious innuendos in the last game, is now made like a stereotypical gay person (I'm willing to bet that some actually gay people were offended), not to mention he engages in the black market for absolutely no reason. I could go on, but you get the idea. Earns 0.000000001 points because L.O.G. was a moderately clever touch. Not enough to save this game, however.
[edit] Setting (2/10)
You're in a big town unfitting for a Banjo game, and you go to a bunch of artifical areas that all look like they've been tainted with human civilization.
[edit] Gameplay (4/10)
You build a bunch of vehicles, which is entirely unfitting for the Banjo series, and you ride them around. As you progress, you get better parts so you can build vehicles that are better able to survive the crashing you will encounter 90% of the time, due to the badly designed levels on top of the speed you have to go at to get anything done. 40% of the game is pointless racing, which I've never really liked in the first place, and they're not even quality races, they're just you crashing into things and falling off ledges until finally getting lucky the 500,000th time you attempt it. So many challenges are impossible to beat, and will leave you screaming in frustration. I'll admit building the vehicles and riding them around can be fun for a bit, but it gets old real fast.
[edit] Sound (6/10)
It's ok, but I didn't really find any of the songs that notable. Pretty much everything is a remix of another song in the series, on top of that, and while I do like remixes sometimes, I hate when games are filled with them. Sound effects are too different from the first games and make the game feel odd and out of place (which it is).
[edit] Graphics (1/10)
Disgusting, truly disgusting. This is what modern gaming is doing to us. Games like Halo, Call of Duty, Gears of War...they've infected the gaming community to the point where everything has to look realistic. Sometimes that works, but Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is the prime example of when it does not. Everything looks wrong: the characters are all blocky, the game has no charm whatsoever, and combined with the vehicles you've pretty much got a real life simulation, only with talking animals instead of people. Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie belong in the Nintendo 64 era, where you could really feel the magic that they put into the levels by looking at how cartoony everything looked. In this game, I felt nothing like that.
[edit] Length (7/10)
Meh, decent length I suppose. I don't really care in this case.
[edit] Replayability (0.5/10)
Playing the game once is bad enough.
[edit] 100% (0.3/10)
Gave up on it a long, long time ago. Beating all the challenges is something that nobody in existence has the ability to do.
[edit] Overall (3/10)
This game sucks. There are maybe 10 fun moments strewn around the game, but overall you're looking at a mountain of challenges you don't want to do, contact with a bunch of annoying characters, and constant crashing. Don't play it. Ever.
[edit] Deadly Creatures
[edit] Plot (7/10)
Really weird and distant from what's going on, yet eerily fascinating at the same time. Basically, you play as a tarantula and scorpion living in the desert, and these two guys are searching for some kind of treasure. It doesn't sound impressive, but it's actually really creepy and well-done. Could've been more inventive and engaging, though.
[edit] Characters (6/10)
Um, well there's the tarantula, the scorpion, and the two guys in the desert. The tarantula and scorpion don't talk, of course, so the only characters with any real value are the two guys looking for the treasure. They have some good quotes, but overall it's not one of the game's fine points.
[edit] Setting (9/10)
It's the desert, like I already mentioned. The game centers around insects and arachnids, but there are also some other animals, like lizards and rats. It's just a really cool setting overall.
[edit] Gameplay (8/10)
The gameplay in this game is really good, but by the end it starts to get a little redundant and boring. Because of the motion controls, it can also be difficult to hit with the attack you want to hit with. Playing as the scorpion is a lot more fun than playing as the tarantula, because it centers around combat. Also, the finishing moves are fun and delightfully violent (I'm not really a fan of violent stuff in general, but these things are just epic).
[edit] Sound (7/10)
Pretty good I guess. Fits the themes of the game. It isn't memorable at all, though.
[edit] Graphics (9/10)
Great for the Wii, and thankfully the realistic graphics actually fit really well here. The animals all look like real animals. The surroundings all look like the real things. Can't complain, really.
[edit] Length (7/10)
A little short.
[edit] Replayability (6.5/10)
I've replayed it once, but somehow I don't find it as enjoyable the second time around.
[edit] 100% (6/10)
I don't really bother with it. This one of those games where there are 2,000,000 collectibles that are impossible to get all of and don't really reward you with anything worth the trouble.
[edit] Overall (7.5/10)
A great game, but with some extremely obvious flaws that should have been worked out before its release. It's still definitely worth playing, however.
