Tag Archives: Android game

Game Reviews, Games

Hunt for Red Panda, The (Android) Review

Leave a comment

Developer/Publisher: Zagrava Games Studio || Overall: 4.0

Ever wonder how reviews worked back in the day? Whether the ancient Romans used one Roman numeral out of another Roman numeral to grade things or if big studio hits like Achilles were later compared to some startup’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona? I’d imagine there was a person or place someone could go for information on that sort of thing. There had to be experts in the field or some sort of specialty school where someone could gather the local opinion about a work of art. Then again, newspapers have been published since 59 BC and it’s possible that they had some sort of ancient Entertainment section that graded local art, plays and everything else in some way, shape or form. Opinions certainly aren’t a new thing after all and I’m sure there had to be some way to spread them.

dali-persistence
It may not have the backing of a AAA studio like The Catholic Church but Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory works as an Indie hit.

Now that I have successfully alienated everyone who didn’t get my attempt at an art joke, it’s time to review The Hunt for Red Panda. Developed by Ukraine-based Zagrava Games Studio, The Hunt for Red Panda is set out to bring something different to your iOS, Andriod or Windows 10 device. Especially since art restoration isn’t usually a video game’s main mechanic. Still, different doesn’t always mean better…

While novel in its approach, The Hunt for Red Panda was never really all that fun. Best described as a slowed down (and far more artsy) version of the Trauma Center series, the game has the player examine art pieces for inconsistencies and then have them removed by using a small set of tools. Like Trauma Center, the game has the player juggle through each tool for maximum efficiency under the time limit but, unlike it, every tool seems to work exactly the same. Every problem in the picture may require a different method to fix but those methods always involve dropping a bit of good ol’ chemical solution onto the painting, selecting the right tool and then rubbing at it to reveal the painting’s true form bit by bit. This means whether you are erasing, repainting or cutting out sections of a painting; they all require the exact same three-step process. This all leads to the very definition of monotony as you find yourself repeating the same action over and over again throughout the game.

7wiM9bB
…and over and over and over and over…

There are some attempts to break the monotony but they really only serve to mask the tedious gameplay and not as a way to fix it. Along with the typical search and destroy objective of each painting, sometimes they ask the player to find ten random contradictions within a time limit, search for the smallest inconsistencies or swat away flies while fixing the painting. While different in nature, they all end up being the exact same thing as you find yourself once again rubbing away at every problem like a young man in adolescence. (Hiyooo!) There are also a number of mini-games that suffer from the same tedium. Each is a set of repeated actions or quick little games that hardly offer anything notable other than an extra hint for your next painting. While that is helpful, since they basically point out an inconsistency with every use, they are hardly needed for one very specific reason.

This game is very easy. There are attempts at difficulty with the time limits and a time penalty every time a tool is used on the wrong object, but that hardly matters since The Hunt for Red Panda picks up exactly where you left off for every stage. This means getting the high score is a simple matter of coming back to the stage and erasing the last pieces you missed. The whole process becoming a matter of when instead of how as you are guaranteed the highest score with enough playthroughs. Furthermore, the amounts of hints per stage resets every time you revisit, meaning that even the worst player can eventually achieve the highest score.

3ZbVHZX
Don’t feel too good about those three stars, they’re the game’s equivalent of participation trophies.

In terms of graphics and sound, The Hunt for Red Panda does fine on both counts. Each art piece is well represented and the inconsistencies always match the style of the painting even if they do look out of place (but that’s sort of the point). There is no real flash though, so if you are expecting to look at something other than the pretty artwork, you’ll be disappointed. Otherwise, the music and sound effects aren’t all that bad either. Neither is grating on the ear nor are they going to win any awards for sound design. Overall, there is nothing really to hate here.

The Hunt for Red Panda may be different but unfortunately it isn’t better because of it. Marred with repetitive gameplay and a very low bar when it comes to difficulty, the game gets very old very fast. While there may be something here for those that have a deep appreciation for art, I can’t imagine this holding the attention less art savvy folk for too long.

When performing the same task ad nauseum as Unnamedhero, Eduardo Luquin can be reached at Unnamedheromk13@gmail.com.

Game Reviews, Games

Mighty Crew: Millennium Legend (Android) Review

Leave a comment

Developer/Publisher: AminiLab || Overall: 7.0

Claims are tricky things. At one end of the spectrum, a confident boast can garner the attention of the masses. Big and bold claims are usually preceded with both naysayers and hype-builders in equal measures, but the important part is that it gets people talking. At the other end, claims can also serve as the minimal measure by which something is then graded. A product or person loses a degree of novelty when they merely match their claim and it usually only results in a passing grade no matter how impressive the feat. The whole act is lacking the element of surprise and played down in foresight. Worst yet, if the claimed isn’t reached, the following disappointment makes it look much worse. This is usually why it pays to be careful when making a claim and why humble beginnings are often times best. With that in mind, prepare yourself for the best damn video game review to ever grace the eyes and minds of mankind.

 

Taking a break from my usual types of reviews, I’m going to examine the claims made by the game Mighty Crew and see how they stack up to the finished product. Mighty Crew is a free-to-play offering by the folks at AminiLab for both your iOS and Android devices. Though don’t let that sidetrack you, I still plan to give all two of my loyal fans a high quality review (Hi Mom!). A review score and my usual half-assed critical approach will follow.

 

“Mighty Crew: Millennium Legend – is like the Mario, like a nordic Mario-berserker armed cap-a-pie!” – Excerpt from the Official Website

No, not at all. Mighy Crew may be a lot of things but comparing it to “the Mario” seems like a misstep.  The game doesn’t even have a reliable jump mechanic and most of the game happens on a single platform, making it neither a Mario game or much of a Platformer in general. I’m also sure that “cap-a-pie” isn’t actually a word no matter what google or Merriam-Webster has to say about it. The game doesn’t even have a serious subplot where the protagonist hides his drug addiction behind cute item names: “Super Mushroom,” “Fire flower.” Yeah, right.

viking_mario_by_dlax1
….and to no one’s surprise, you can find anything
on the internet.

“Is a beautiful meld of action and RPG, of slasher and side-scroller.” – Excerpt from the Official Website

That’s more like it! “Slasher and side-scroller” is a much more apt description of the game than being any sort of implied Mario clone coupled with Viking overtones. Mighty Crew plays more like an old-fashioned beat ’em up with some RPG elements throughout. The typical progression has the player going through the level killing everything in sight, and gaining EXP and items along the way. The EXP and items are used to acquire new abilities and increase stats respectfully. Though why the website would contradict itself on the same page, and much less the very same paragraph, about its own genre is anyone’s guess. But for now, the point goes to Mighty Crew.

 

“Hundreds of Tools of Destruction” – Line from Trailer.

Indeed. The game offers you quite the selection of items and a generous amount of equippable spaces to outfit your character. The items ranging from mundane to rare, even those in the same categories have noticeable differences between them. While one may be a typical sword that simply hacks away at a monster’s life, another may slice ’em, dice ’em, light them on fire and spread that fire to any other monster that touches them until all that’s left is a wonderfully crisp buffet of monster meat. Of course, some of the better gear is kept behind a pay wall but even something like the sword that I just mentioned is available for free. I just so happened to be lucky enough to earn it as a reward. So for this claim, I proclaim it as the truth.

 

“Entertaining Dialog You’ll Never want to Skip!” – Excerpt from the Official Website

I’m sorry. I skipped. I skipped a lot. The dialogue really isn’t all that interesting and it often only serves to give you a primer on where the characters are, why they decided to go there or who they need to alleviate from their oxygen addiction. There are attempts at character throughout the conversations between Princess Vallindoria and the mighty barbarian you control but they mostly fall by the wayside during the heavy exposition. The story isn’t anything great as it is a typical tale with all too familiar beats; nothing really outstanding.

 

“Manual Controls and Autofight.” – Line from trailer

To explain, Mighty Crew gives you two control options for your barbarian badass. The first is an automatic option that basically has you pointing your character in a general direction and watching them fight. With a simple press on your phone’s screen, the character will walk to that location and automatically fight anything within range. The other option gives you more direct control, offering both a virtual joystick and an attack button to control your character. Both have their benefits, though while the automatic option makes it easier to manage your special abilities, I preferred having more direct control of my character. Regardless, the game plays fine in both options.

boss_king_black_0
Protip: Using the Manual control, you can avoid all damage by
staying at the center of this boss up until its second form.

“Free Boost to Upgrade your Stats.” – Line from the Google Play page

Not so much free as they are “free”. There’s a price to pay, it just doesn’t come out of your pocket. Instead of money you are required to invest time as the game “treats” you to an ad (many times for another mobile game) for one of three random boost. Though the upgrades are very helpful since they can increase your health, damage or critical rate, the ads are a surefire way to break any immersion the game attempts. This isn’t even the only example of their liberal use of the word “free”, the game also offering one “free” resurrection per level if you are willing to watch the accompanying ad. Still free is often only associated with money and these ads are entirely optional, so in this case, I’ll give Mighty Crew a “point” for technically backing up their claim.

 

“No Time to Run Test! Mighty Crew Release!” – Excerpt from the website

In a rare case where I wish a claim made by a game company wasn’t true, this game could have used a bit of quality assurance. Even worse, the particular problems I ran into could have been easily caught with some testing. More times than I could count, I would defeat all of the enemies in a stage only to be trapped there waiting for the completion screen to show up. My dauntless hero denied a warrior’s death by faulty programming that forces me to restart the game instead of the evil that stalks the land like a true champion. A bit of testing could have also helped to root out another of the games major detriments: the repetitiveness. The game is a constant slog of entering a stage, killing everything, and upgrading, which then mirrors itself upon reaching the next stage. Sure, there are things to do in-between and playing it in short burst can stave off the impending boredom a bit, but the monotony is still present. I can only hope that some future testing can fix these two problems.

Dungeons
Thankfully, the game does mix it up with its level design. You’ll traverse the
long and flat cave, the long and flat dungeon, and…you get the idea.

“Find out how good our designers, wich are have made out game style so comic-attractive and brutal in the same time.” – Excerpt from the website

Nope. Not even trying.

 

So with three claims in the bag, two claim denied, a point I would rather keep in quotes, another claim that I wish didn’t go through and a big fat nope to end it all, we come to a grand total of 4+”1″ out of 8 or just 5 out of 8 claims kept if you round up. If my math is correct, it isn’t all that much lower than the 7.0 score I gave it up top. Mighty Crew isn’t terrible, but it isn’t terribly good. If played in short bursts it could even be a fun time waster. For now though, I leave you with a claim that I can keep. This is the end of my review for Mighty Crew and I’ll see ya next time.

When not writing reviews as Unnamedhero, Eduardo Luquin can be reached at unnamedheromk13@gmail.com.

–

If you are interested in trying out Mighty Crew: Millennium Legend, you can use the following codes for free in-game currency:  #press20x (1000 crystals) and #gift20 (100 crystals).

Games, Game Reviews

Puzzle and Dragons (Android) Review

Leave a comment

Developer/Publisher: GungHo Online Entertainment|| Overall: 8.5

Hardware Used: T-Mobile G2 with Android 2.3.4

With its roaring success in the Land of the Rising Sun, (that’s Japan, because the sun doesn’t rise elsewhere) GungHo Online Entertainment now intends to addict America with its special blend of Puzzle, RPG and Free-to-Play/Pay-to-Win elements with the straight-to-the-point title Puzzle and Dragons. Though, does the game deliver a fun experience that can garner the attention of an American audience, or will it simply fade in obscurity like many other Japanese imports?

Nintendo Gameboyvirtualboy

If you need me to tell you which of these imports was a failure and which wasn’t, then videogaming
might not be the right hobby for you.

 

Puzzle and Dragons is the unholy combination of the puzzle elements of Bejeweled, the monster mechanics of the Shin Megami Tensei series and a dash of Pokémon for added flavor. While each game is addictive in its own right, someone in Japan thought combining the three would make an addiction juggernaut of the likes that mobile gamers have never seen before… and for the most part, he was right.

 

Puzzle and Dragons starts you off with the wholly “original” idea of having you pick one of three elemental monsters: a fire monster, a water monster, and a plant monster. You are given a random “rare” monster to further entice you to collect more monsters. Afterwards, you are thrown into a seemingly endless supply of dungeons to capture monsters, level and evolve your collection, as well as level yourself up — all to eventually continue the vicious cycle when you find that you can now take on stronger enemies and dungeons. All of which aptly describes your journey through the game.

Mega-Evolutions-of-Classic-Starters-700x372puzzle-dragons-main

Okay, I don’t care how it happens but one of you
is helping me catch a Mewtwo.

Game design in Puzzle and Dragons is actually pretty solid. The meat and potatoes of the core game will have you encounter wave after wave of monsters in each dungeon until you reach the boss monster. During battles, the monsters will attempt to attack and reduce your hit points to zero. You’ll counter by matching up elemental gems to make your corresponding monsters attack and reduce the enemy’s hit points to zero. The best moves are when you form a chain of matches, which further multiply the damage your monsters dish out.

 

Along the way, you collect more monsters while making enough coins to further advance your monster team. While the premise is simple enough a layer of strategy is added by the various special abilities each of your monsters provide that sometimes cause extra damage, other times restore your HP, and can even convert one type of elemental gem into another. Taking these special abilities into account when forming a team of monsters can mean the difference between beating an enemy monster that your current level shouldn’t be able to handle or having a boss curb-stomp them. Furthermore, special “Leader Skills” further shake things up and add another layer.

 

Puzzle and Dragons also resides in the easy-to–learn-but-hard-to-master category, though the game does a sufficient enough job at explaining the basics, it leaves the more advanced strategies to the players to find them on the internet or discover them in a happy accident. Overall, the gameplay is fun and engaging.

Strategy

This is an example of strategies derived from a
“happy accident.”

 

On the other side of the Free-to-Play coin is the fact that Puzzle and Dragons is a Free-to-Play mobile game and has no shame in reminding you of that. While plenty of activities can be done with the in-game currency, namely leveling up your monsters and evolving them, there are activities that require a special form of currency called a “Magic Stone.” The activities vary in usefulness; you can revive your monsters in a dungeon, regain their stamina so you are allowed to play longer, or get a turn at the hallowed “Rare Egg Machine” for an almost guaranteed chance at a strong monster for the price of five Magic Stones. Then, once their usefulness has been established, the game proceeds to remind you at every turn that they can be purchased in their online store, especially when you have none left.

 

Now, a fair warning to new players: the game will attempt to make it seem like Magic Stones are easy to come by as it bombards you with them early on in your career as a Pokémon Mas… Persona Use… Dragon Tamer(?). Know that this is only temporary and the stones quickly become a much rarer commodity. That’s not to say that you’ll never get them, and that you can’t eventually achieve the same results with a lot of hard work, but the game is more than happy to offer you an easy way out if you wish to throw money their way.

 

The controls in this game sometimes suffer the same foibles that many touch screen based games have, but work enough of the time for that to not be a problem. The game never really asks you to do any more than tap the screen or drag your finger along it, and barring an occasional accident, you are able to do just that with no problem. The other elements of the interface are also easy to use. On the main menu, everything is visible and doesn’t require more than three taps to get somewhere, and in the dungeon the elemental gems and monsters are in clear view. The only problem I have with the touch screen controls is that the gems seem a bit too close, making it hard to see the gems around the one you’re currently in control of. Of course, it could just be my fat finger and small phone that are the real problems.

 

Visually, the game doesn’t really offer much outside the portraits that come with each monster. They are often colorful, creative and somewhere along the lines of adorable, ferocious or a very specific fetish that I’m sure applies to someone. In contrast, the backgrounds are mostly just pallet swaps (recoloring the same textures) of the same hallways. The special effects are just as bland and usually involve a ball of colored light that hits the opponents, followed by an uninspired effect that represents the element used in the attack.

Echidna ArchangelLilith Flame Girl

Ladies…

 

The music unfortunately hits the same note (see what I did there), and is just as bland as most of the visuals. You are constantly subjected to the same slightly upbeat and so-often-forgettable-that-I-had-to-log-into-the-game-to-remember-it music in every dungeon. The monotony is only broken up by another, more intense song that is also played at every boss encounter. The sound effects are just as forgettable and really don’t do anything different that you haven’t seen before.

 

Now, a special note should be added as to why this game is so addictive. Not only does it provide solid gameplay, and a vast collection of monsters to collect, improve, and form a team around, but the game is also constantly in the midst of some sort of special event. The events serve many purposes from providing the user with fresh new dungeons to explore, the chance to collect rare monsters such as angels, demons, and batman (I’m not kidding), and also the ability to collect more of the coins, experience, and “Magic Stones” to make team building all the easier. Furthermore, these events often come and go, so it pays to log in daily to check out what is going on, what you can take advantage of, and exactly how long you can take advantage of it. In conclusion, the events give an incentive for players to log in daily.

BatmanPuzzle

Okay, let’s be honest here… you’d make a much better leader of this team
than me, so I’ll just stand back here and let you call the shots.

 

Despite the hiccups in the audio and visual department, Puzzle and Dragons is a fun and addictive game. The combination of bejeweled-like puzzles, collectable monsters, and a Shin Megami-like advancement system seemed to have meshed well into a game that is indeed playable, and worth a look.

When not writing reviews as Unnamedhero, Eduardo Luquin can be reached at unnamedheromk13@gmail.com.