Tag Archives: review

Pandora’s Tower Review

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Pandora’s Tower is the third game in the exclusive trio of Japanese games for Wii which included Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story. Pandora’s Tower however features less RPG elements than the aforementioned titles and is far more reliant on hack and slash action with a strong dose of gripping adventure. You’re tasked with a quest which sees you climbing 13 dark and deadly towers to defeat the powerful Master which dwells within each and everyone.

Fans of the Legend of Zelda series should enjoy what the game has to offer – which is plenty of action based combat and a few brain teasing puzzles, but the overall package is nowhere near as polished or as innovative as any of the acclaimed games within the Zelda franchise. The storyline however is the games coup de grace as it’s something that gradually emerges as you progress through the game, leaving you wanting more – which it does to a successful effect.

Pandora’s Tower is a dark and brooding fairy tale, with its Brother Grimm inspired storyline, and a traditionally noble hero devoted to rescuing the one person who he would ultimately give his life for. It’s just a shame that I found the game became increasingly monotonous. It’s because you know that once you have successfully defeated the Master in the tower you move onto the next tower, and rinse and repeat.  Pandora’s Tower is an essential purchase for those that are still attached to the now rather ageing Wii, but for those who aren’t there’s better entertainment to be found elsewhere.

7/10

Edge Magazine Reviews Mario Tennis Open

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Edge magazine has awarded Mario Tennis Open a respectable 7/10 in its latest issue. Sadly there’s no excerpts from the review, but it would be safe to assume they enjoyed the game. Edge magazine is notorious for its harsh scoring system so 7/10 is reasonably good. Mario Tennis Open is due for release May 20th in North America and May 25th in Europe.

Fire Emblem 3D Scores Highly In Famitsu, Plus Eight Minute Video

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Japanese gaming publication Famitsu has awarded Fire Emblem: Awakening for the Nintendo 3DS a fantastic 36/40 review score. Each of Famitsu’s four reviewers decided to award the highly anticipated game 9/10. Fire Emblem Awakening is the third Nintendo 3DS game in recent months to be a awarded a high score from Famitsu, with Kid Icarus: Uprising receiving a perfect 40/40 score and Kingdom Hearts 3D receiving 38/40.

Kid Icarus: Uprising Review

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It’s been roughly twenty-five years since we last saw Kid Icarus but has the agonizing wait been worth it to see our newly revived angelic hero? Well the simple answer to this question is yes.Basic story:

In Kid Icarus: Uprising, Pit must defend himself against the dark goddess Medusa and her malevolent Underworld Army. With help from Palutena, goddess of light and guardian of the human race, he battles enemies in the air and on the ground as each chapter is divided into Air Battle and Land Battle stages. Players can enhance the action with a nearly unlimited arsenal of collectible weapons, from Bows to Cannons to Claws, each with their own unique characteristics and play style. Players can also fuse weapons together, resulting in a single weapon that takes on some of the characteristics of the original two.

Controls:

As numerous reviews have previously stated the controls on Kid Icarus: Uprising come across as rather hit or miss. The flying sections work extremely well. You use the Circle Pad to move and the Stylus to aim and shoot. It’s reasonably intuitive, but sadly you’re only in the air for a limited amount of time. It’s when Pit hits the ground that things don’t work quite as well. You use the Circle Pad to move forward and the Stylus to turn. It’s not as bad as other reviews have cited, but I admit that you could find that it feels slightly cumbersome. This problem is probably eradicated if you use the Circle Pad Pro, but it further reinforces the fact that Nintendo should have included a second Circle Pad on the Nintendo 3DS as standard.

Visuals and 3D:

Kid Icarus: Uprising looks magnificent running on the Nintendo 3DS. The level of detail and the environments really take advantage of the system. It may not look quite as impressive as Capcoms visually splendid Resident Evil: Revelations, but it’s certainly close. Where the game falls down is the 3D. The problem is that you’ll have a hard job using the Circle Pad and the Stylus whilst keeping your Nintendo 3DS still. This always poses a problem for 3D games as the Nintendo 3DS needs to be kept perfectly stable. You can use the stand but that only works if you’re sitting at a desk, so it isn’t entirely practical. To be honest I couldn’t play the game with the 3D on, which is a shame as when I did turn it on the game offered unparalleled depth.

Closing comment:

Despite the game’s jarring controls, Kid Icarus: Uprising is definitely one of the best games on the Nintendo 3DS. It’s fast and frantic, the visuals are absolutely gorgeous. It features a wonderfully epic soundtrack, and to top it off it includes an addictive multiplayer mode. It may have taken twenty-five years to see Pit return, but boy has it been worth it. Kid Icarus Uprising proudly stands alongside Super Mario 3D Land, Ocarina of Time 3D and Mario Kart 7 as one of the best games Nintendo’s latest handheld has to offer. An essential purchase if you can just look past the frustrating controls.

9/10

Seattle PI Says Kid Icarus Uprising Control Scheme Renders It Borderline Unplayable

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Today appears to be the day when the North American Kid Icarus Uprising reviews go live, and so far they appear to be a mixed bag of reactions. Seattle PI claims that the game is borderline unplayable when Pit’s feet hit the ground. The review also states that Kid Icarus Uprising is virtually unplayable in 3D without perching the 3DS on the included black plastic stand. The publication awarded the Kid Icarus: Uprising two and a half out of four.

While this fast-paced 3-D adventure is certainly a hearty reintroduction of Pit, unless you already own Nintendo’s latest hand-held gadget or have been anxiously awaiting Pit’s return for the past 20 years, there are fundamentally too many flaws with the game’s handling to make “Uprising” worth sacrificing any money to buy a 3DS.

IGN Awards Kid Icarus Uprising 8.5/10

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Despite Japanese gaming publication awarding Kid Icaus: Uprising a perfect score, IGN has decided to award the game 8.5/10. The publication states that the game is fantastic and features stunning visuals, but it’s ultimately let down by a frustrating control scheme that would have been rectified if Nintendo had decided to include a second Circle Pad on the Nintendo 3DS.

Kid Icarus Uprising is a fantastic game full of superb action, stunning graphics and art design, incredible music (truly some of Nintendo’s best), humorous dialogue and solid gameplay. Despite that, it suffers from an equal number of problems, including some very frustrating and awkward controls, a fairly repetitive level structure, characters that talk too much and action that sometimes overwhelms the 3DS’s relatively small screen.

What’s important to remember is that Uprising’s strengths truly outweigh its weaknesses. The game is simply addicting, both in its arresting, fast-paced action and its ability to inspire repeat visits with its scalable difficulty, bite-sized mentality and seemingly endless amount of unlockable content. Kid Icarus Uprising is yet another stellar entry in the 3DS’s growing library. Much like Masahiro Sakurai’s Super Smash Bros. series, Uprising is not without its flaws – but you’ll be too busy having fun to notice too much.

Edge Magazine Awards Kid Icarus Uprising 8/10

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Respected, but sometimes controversial, gaming publication Edge has awarded the forthcoming Kid Icarus: Uprising on Nintendo 3DS a solid 8/10. The magazine states that Kid Icarus: Uprising is a smart splicing of Star Fox and Zelda, which should please fans. Kid Icarus: Uprising is exclusive to the Nintendo 3DS and is due for release March 23rd.

Kid Icarus is back, then, and it turns out we did miss him. With Uprising, those internet petitioners finally have something they can be proud of.  The control scheme initially seems lopsided, but works wonderfully for the flying sections, while any slight clumsiness on foot is countered by a responsive dodge.  A worryingly compulsive weapon-fusing system thrown in, adding a chunk of the Pokemon gene to a game that already feels like a smart splicing of Star Fox and Zelda.

Mario Party 9 Review

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So who would have thought we would be at the ninth edition of the immensely popular Mario Party series? Thankfully, Mario Party 9 once again delivers fun by the bucket-load. Whether you’re embarking on the satisfactorily long single player mode, or you’ve got some friends round to play the Party Mode, Mario Party is billed as the ultimate party game and on that front it absolutely delivers.

What’s the background story?

You and your four acquaintances will be competing against each other on an interactive board to collect Mini Stars which the inexplicably evil Bowser, and his bunch of malicious cohorts, have stolen. You’ll need to get these mini stars back at all costs, and once you do, you’ll then be crowned the Super Star.

So what do you actually do?

You’ll traverse an interactive board game which is littered with mini stars and mini games. It’s your job to collect more mini stars than your rival. You’ll roll a dice which will determine how many steps you can make on the board. Some of the squares contain mini stars and other squares can deduct mini stars. Other squares will contain interactive mini games that utilise the Wii Remote in many unique ways.

So what do these mini games involve?

There are eighty mini games to be found in Mario Party 9 which will find players making pizzas, riding dolphins, shooting through hoops, escaping haunted mansions, and even racing snowmobiles. The mini games themselves are fun, accessible and simple and can be practised before you take the plunge. You’ll be flicking, waving and tilting the Wii Remote in plenty of unusual ways in a desperate attempt to beat your rival.

So what’s lacking?

I was initially going to give Mario Party 9 a score of nine, as it is immensely entertaining, but after some thought I’ve decided to dock half a point due to the lack of an online mode. In my opinion it’s a missed opportunity from Nintendo. However, you would be hard pressed to find as many games that deliver the fun, charm and sheer enjoyment you’ll get from Mario Party 9, and for that reason alone this game comes highly recommended.

8.5/10

Kid Icarus Uprising Scores High In The Official Nintendo Magazine

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The official Nintendo magazine has awarded Kid Icarus Uprising an impressive 91% in its latest issue. The publication states that the game is “remarkably beautiful” and is “stunning to behold”. Kid Icarus: Uprising is due out exclusively on Nintendo 3DS on March 23rd in both North America, and Europe. Here’s a few choice extracts from the review:

“It’s stunning to behold, in fact, a visual masterpiece on 3DS that routinely surprises with impressive, expansive and detailed sprawling landscapes”.

“Rich fantasy world” which has been “teased from the abstract visuals of an 8-bit NES game”

“The single player campaign is huge, for a start, and it sits alongside two full-featured local and online multiplayer modes [offering] countless equippable weapons and powers that work across both.”

“It takes perseverance to comfortably wrap your paws around the game’s on-foot sections”, but adds that “it’s intuitive enough once mastered”

“[It feels far bigger than the console upon which it appears, it’s deeper than most home console titles and more content-packed than any other 3DS game yet released. Pit might’ve been sorry to keep us waiting, but this was a wait worth every second.”