Nana MarfoA student with a passion for game development and all things Japan. Archives
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BladeBall Arena:Review19/2/2019
Kept you waiting, huh? Sorry, I have school, but I want to review smaller games for now. This game was made by Cosmetic Crystal Games, who also made a games such as Galactagirl, an demo of a Sonic style game, that I tried a while back. Might do a review on it at some point.
Anyways, rules: 1.Spoilers are abounding, and depending on the game, can spoil the experience. This one in particular is very story heavy, so be warned going into the review. 2. I will not put aside any bias, but will try to be fair for games I do not like. This is my personal opinion. If you want to send your opinion, please do so in the comments below. 3.I am covering the PC version. Welcome to the site, itch.io games. This is my review of BladeBall Arena.
Gameplay
I'm skipping the story section scene because this game has none, so we can jump straight into the games mechanics. Which are in my opinion, a bit clunky to say the least.
You moving using either the WASD keys or arrow keys on a Keyboard, or the D-Pad on a controller. You have 2 major attacks, either spells or your slash. I will say I like the escalation of energy tennis from a link to the past, but it took me a few tries to get use to the movement of the players,as they feel very stiff and slow. This was a bit annoying to me, as I feel that if the controls don't instantly click, the game begins to fall apart. However, once you get the hang of it, it's REALLY fun,especially if you have a player or 2 to play it with.
This game has multiplayer, and it is a blast. I ended up playing this with my younger sister and younger cousin on the Sunday before your reading this, and needless to say we had a lot of fun, and it evident that this is where the game is mean to shine, because playing this game alone, there is not a lot of fun in it. Well, at least it's not an arcade game asking for quarters, because I would play this anytime. My sister is even begging for me to play with her again.
Looks, Sound and Final Thoughts
The game has a distinct classic meets modern look, and even has a CRT filter(which I turned on just to mess with my sister and cousin), which is very nice. The music is not very memorable, but works given the context. I can say that this game is fun, but I really think that you need to have some friends and family close by(multiplayer is only local for this game) in order to get the max enjoyment out of it. It's definitely fun if have younger siblings that need to be occupied by something, or you are just looking for a game that you can have fun with at your next party. It's free on itch.io if you want to try it out.
Game reviews are BACK! This was short, but I hope to do more of these in the future. I also wrote about Boneko if you are interested in that game, so go read my review of the demo on GameSavvy.
Buttt that's it for now! Thanks for reading, have a great day/night, share if you enjoyed it and take care. Written by Nana Marfo BladeBall Arena(C) Cosmetic Crystal Games
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#LoveYourBacklog Week 201915/2/2019
Hey all! Welcome to my entry for the #LoveYourBacklog week in 2019. Thanks to bothLaterLevels and LividLightning for making this blogger tag. So let's begin!
State of my backlog I play anything from NES games to more modern games,free game jam games to AAA masterpieces although I can say that eventually, time is found to play games, even with the rock on my back that is school. I am also gulity of downloading itch.io games and not starting them.
Games most likely never to be played
I actually most of the games on my backlog(even if it's just for 5 mins),but I think Momodora I and Momodora II is the ones that I might not play, because I keep hesitating on if I should play those games or not. Let me know in the comments if I should to Momodora III and Momodora:Reverie under the Moonlight, since those seem better than the first 2.
Shortest Game
Halen:Ballad Of the Blade Thief. I have actually started this one, and it was fun! Really do want to finish it someday. I love the humor that Halen brings.
Longest Game
Hyperdimition Neptunia Re:Birth 1. I started this as well, but this time, it was in December, and it's a JRPG. I love the design and charters and gameplay, but like Final Fantasy XIII, this may take me a while.
Game that has spent the longest time on the backlog
...Cricus Core Final Fantasy VII. I KNOW, I KNOW! Look I love Zack just as much as the next person, but I just couldn't get down with the game's Controls. I will say the writing is really good, but for me, when the gameplay breaks, everything breaks.
The person responsible for adding the most entries to your backlog
My friend Jennifer(yes, the one who did art for me), since she gave me a lot of Japanese games I should try out, but I can't say not Ellen of LividLightning. I mean she gave me 2 JRPG's to play in Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning Reterns, among others like Banjo-Kazooie. And that's it! This was a good event to partake in. Thanks for reading, have a great day/night, share if you enjoyed it and take care. Written by Nana Marfo All games(C)Their respective owners
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And the hero saves the day! - Snow Villars, Final Fantasy XIII.
Firstly, a huge congrats to Luke of Hundstrasse for winning Janauray 2019! I will try and get a bonus post out containing my dream video game ideas, but for let's go with this ideas.
Luke's setting goes to the one place not affected by politics: SPACE! So I think would be fitting for the adventure to be helmed by a person who knows the world of space very well. For a game taking place between the rings of Saturn, you need to have an expert. A person who could survive everything. Or should I say... a robot.
I'm not sure how the hero would play if I'm fully honest, but he would be like Megaman X, who has the ability to think, feel, and make their own decisions. I can't go into the plot for this, but I really want to keep a strong theme of prejudice and emotional relating in this game. In Megaman X, for as much as we didn't see humans, despite being a completely different race to them, he still wanted to protect them from mavericks.
The robot it's self wouldn't look that much different from a human in that setting, just having enhanced strength and speed. This would leave them respected but feared. Also gender is a not-issue here, male, female or gender fluid, the robot would still deal with the prejudice of human, and possibly being taken for granted. Anyways, I'm going to leave you guys with a monologue I came up with for the character. It highlights the robots feeling towards the place she inhabits, and how she can deal with death. To make sure this is used to good effect, I will say thank you guys for reading, have a great day/night, share if you enjoyed it, and take care. Here I have been, for my entire life cycle. It's like I was bulit for this ship. Bulit to protect it. I feel a strong connection to this place, it where was bulit. Or born, if you can call it that.
Written By Nana Marfo
Snow Villars belongs to Square Enix Megaman X belongs to Capcom.
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Took me a while, but I'm back on the New Game hype train! I loved Season 1, and it will always hold a special place in my heart. But how does the next Season stack up?
Rules: 1.Spoilers are abounding here folks. If you want to watch it blindly... go watch it. Spoilers are here. 2. Depending on the Anime, this can get NSFW. 3. I am watching the subbed version. 4(New rule I should have made for animes with more than 1 season). If you are reading this, I expect you have watched New Game season 1, or at least read my review on them. Time to make some more games! This is my First Impressions of the second season of New Game!! It's Spring. And practically a year to the day that I joined Eagle Jump. I'm used to the company by now.
Aoba heads to work on the day that marks a year that she first joined the company. She is ready to be a good example for the new hires, but is saddened when she finds out that their are no new hires this year. The team is currently relaxing and helping other teams out, as Hazuki can not descide what she wants her next game to be about, and it's setting.
STEP by STEP UP IS AWESOME AND I LOVE IT. It so fun and up beat! The visuals do have some new characters that we have to be introduced to, but I love the fun that New Game brings to it's intros!
This episode features a lot of call backs and references to the first episode of Season 1. While I do like this, it also makes this episode feel a bit "rehashed" in certain aspects, and does drag down the episode quality a little bit for me, as it's also similar in structure.
Which is a shame, because a lot of the setup here feels natural. Hifiumi has in part learned to mesh better with the team, but she says in an interview that she wants to totally conquer her social anxiety. It feels like a natural continuation of the storyline that was going in Season 1, where she wanted to smile more. There's also Yun, who wants to feel more part of the team. This feels like a good arc to take her down, but besides clashing heads with Hajime, I don't know where this really came from. Still, it will be good to see where this arc goes.
That's a GOOOD question, Aoba. They actually provide a good reason for this(AKA the reason this a "Cute Girls doing Cute Things" anime), which boils down to Hazuki's preferences, which in universe, makes sense.
Anyways, before all the interviews, Umiko goes to meet with Nene, and she's actually learned to program her own small game! However, she has a few problems, which Umiko helps her to fix. She also know the feeling when programmers pray that there are no bugs, which I know too well. You see why I love this anime a lot?
Umiko also says that when ever Hazuki agrees to change the specks, she has to get her forehead flicked. Uh oh, Hazuki's in trouble.
The group go to a cherry blossom viewing(it is spring in Japan, after all), and Rin is ecstatic when Ko complement her cooking. In Season 1, it was implyed that Rin had romantic interest in Ko, but I can tell it's going to be more of thing a here. The episode ends wit Hazuki announcing a character design competition, and Aoba realising this is her chance to become a chatterer designer, just like her idol, Ko. I won't comment again on the visuals, since it's the same from season 1, but I can say that I loved this first episode, as it was a lot of fun, despite the re-hashing bringing it down for me a little bit for me.
Finally, I'm back to this anime! Can't wait to review for you all! I have another anime first impressions planned for this month, before moving on to a few reviews. Look forward to it!
But for now, thanks for reading, have a great day/night, share if you enjoyed it and take care. Written by Nana Marfo New Game(C)Kadokawa Pictures Inc.
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In Review: January 20191/2/2019
Hey all! Welcome to the first in review! I saw that a lot of people did end of the month summaries for their blog, and I want to try and start doing that this year!
These will probably come out on the first Friday of each month. So let's begin! Writing Summary January was a good start to being more consistent with the blog. This month was a mix of my own games and anime, although I do feel I need to add some more game reviews to the site. More on that in a bit. Posts written this month NM Gameworks #19:Updates, Updates, Updates Xuan Yuan Sword Luminary: Review Later Level's Question of the Month: January 2019 GameSavvy pieces this Month Why watching Let's Plays is so fun GameSavvy's most anticipated games of 2019 My favourite art piece this month
Awesome things I read/saw/did
-LightningEllen did a first impressions post on her though on Mirror's Edge. I do really want to play that and it's sequal, Mirror's Edge Catalyst. -HellyonWorks did a great series of art for the last 7 days leading into the worldwide release of Kingdom Hearts 3. -NipahDUBS also did a great series of cosplays to celebrate this over the last 29 days as well. -SomecallmeJohnny has kickstarted his reviews this year with Celeste and Hollow Knight! -Pix of Shoot the Rookie did a great job summing up the year for her website, as well as summing up what she played on her sick day. -Princess Rose has been streaming all the Kingdom Hearts Games in the lead up to KH3, and SokkaXI did a drinking stream to celebrate it. Games I have been playing So because school beginning to ramp up(it's only gonna get worse), I haven't been able to play games that much(although I have been playing more than I though) Going for 100% Steam Achievements in Final Fantasy XIII and starting HyperDimention Neptuna is the only things that I can really say that are note worthy this month.
I also completed the 3rd episode of Life is Strange. It's a really tragic ending for Chloe, and I won't go any further into what I thought, because my friend tells me it only gets worse from here. No spoilers in the comments please.
I also begin playing Kingdom Hearts 1, 2, Chain of Memories, and Birth By Sleep. If you can't tell, I really love Kingdom Hearts. 1 is still as clunky as ever. 2 is still as fun as ever(especially since I can play it with a controller now). COM is also still really fun. BBS with Terra is actually not so bad now, though he still sucks to play as.
I don't have a PS4 or Xbox One, folks, so please don't judge me for this! I also watched KZ's LP of Kingdom Hearts 0.2, just to keep me up to date with the series.
New Merch I got some great merch DaPandaBanda and KeybladeXarin! Redbubble messed up my address with the print order somehow(the stickers I got in the the time frame they said it would come in, and the address was fine.), but the stuff I got was awesome! Feel good to finally have some video game merch.
Other Stuff
I'll be honest, not been feeling too great, or confident... at all, but I'm slowly getting back to where I feel is my best. I'm working on getting the first T-Shirt ready for February-ish. It might be a slow month, got exams at the end of it, but it shouldn't be too bad. It's also good to say that we are in a post Kingdom Hearts III world! Hope everyone is enjoying the game! This month I'm going to start working on some more projects, including a big 3D scene(don't know if I'll finish it though), but I'll also try and work on some anime first impressions. I'm also going to try and look at some itch.io games, just give some games to review while I try and finish bigger games. And that's it! Sorry for the mish-mashed schedule, and I did want another post to come this week, but I had to do some school work over the weekend, and I was wiped out. Anyways, thanks for reading, have a great day/night, share if you enjoyed it, and take care. Written by Nana Marfo All content used(C)Their respective owners |