VVVVVV (Letter V six times) review

Final thoughts and Verdict:

VVVVVV is a fun little indie game that I enjoyed. It has good gameplay, fun cartoony 8-bit graphics, fantastic music, and a overall retro feel. I think my only grip I have with this game is how short it is, you can beat it in under 5 hours. That being said, I'm giving VVVVVV seven out of ten stars. It is a "Good game." If it had more content it might push it up to eight. This game only costs five dollars, so it is definitely worth buying.

Happy space faring!

Oh okay! I'll will actually finish the review. But what more do you need?

The Story:

So we start out on this space ship, with these stick figure guys. And before anything else can happen, something goes wrong with the ship, and everybody teleports off.

But when Captain Viridian materializes he discovers that he and his crew have been separated. And to make matters worse the dimension they are in is unstable, and has messed up the ship. So as Captain you must find your missing crew members, and escape this dimension.

It's pretty straight forward. The plot isn't what you will be playing the game for, although you will get more details from computer terminals left behind by the people you used to inhabit this dimension, and the order in which you save crew members, but I'll get into that later.

Gameplay:

On the surface VVVVVV appears to be just like any other platformer, but that's thrown through a loop once you discover the main gameplay mechanic. Captain Viridian can't jump, instead he processes the unique ability to flip his gravity, making him fall upwards.

This is a pretty cool mechanic, but it can get frustrating when you come across one of the games many collectables, only to find that if you could jump it would save you time.

Dang it.

Most of the game takes place in a large over-world that leads to the games various "dungeons" that will lead to rescuing a crew member.

As I mentioned before there are many collectable orbs littered through out the many that can be easy to locate, but a pain to collect.

As for the dungeons, there are many spikes, and other obstacles, that want to wreck you. Luckily there are check points every ten feet or so, so that you can get right back into the action after you bite the dust. Every dungeon throws something new into the mix, from lines that make you bounce, to a dungeon that keeps scrolling upward. It is nice to see a game that can add one tweak to the gameplay, that helps keep it fresh.

Most of the game is based around timing, so if you are bad at this in games, you are probably going to dislike this game.

Music and Presentation:

The game looks like an old game from the Atari era, and gets the job done. It is a little simplistic, but that is where some of its charm lies. As for the music, I love it, it's generally really good. It can get annoying once some of the tracks loop of the hundredth time, but other than that it is good.

I now refer you back to the beginning, where I gave the game a score.

Happy Halloween btw.

What over EIGHTY page views this month?!!

That's right folks, thanks to you there has been over eighty pages views in just the month of October.

Wow.

I have to thank you guys, because this is just amazing! I am really happy about this if you can't tell.

Wow.

Anyway thank you all for just checking my blog out.


On an unrelated note, I am planing on several new posts before the month ends so stay tuned.

Rock, Paper, Scissors, and Fantasy (Fire Emblem Review)

Well I've got a cold, so I guess I'm going to be reviewing Fire Emblem.

Fire Emblem is the seventh game in the fire emblem series. Why did they release the seventh game in the series as the first, you ask? Well to find that out, first we have to check out Super Smash bros. Melee.

Nintendo with their wisdom decided to include two characters from the Fire Emblem games: Marth, and Roy.

Marth is the first main character from the fire emblem game starring in the first and second games. Roy is the son of Eliwood who is one of the three main protagonists in Fire Emblem seven.

These two characters being included sparked interest in the Fire Emblem series. This and the fact that the Advance Wars games had received critical acclaim, prompted Nintendo to release Fire Emblem games internationally.

YEEEEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So anyway this game was developed by Intelligent systems, the guys who made the Advance wars games, so if you've played those you may be in some familiar territory.

The Story:
So the story takes place on the continent of Elibe, where bad stuff is happening.  You take on the role of a Tactician (who's default name is Mark) who is found unconscious by a young woman named Lyn who lives on the plains of Sacae.

After Mark and Lyn are attacked by bandits and her home destroyed, Lyn decides to join Mark on a journey. A few days later they bump into a pair of knights, who reveal that Lyn is the grand daughter of the marquess of Caelin, and that her grandfather's brother Lundgren is trying to take control of the throne.

This is as far as I will go into the story as not to spoil things, just know that the story is very interesting and you will become invested in the well written characters.

Although the dialogue could be better.

Gameplay:
The game plays in some ways very similarly to the original Advance wars game, except in this instead of guns and tanks you have swords and axes. The map is divided into a grid of squares like a board game, depending on your different characters movement speed they may be able to traverse the varying terrain with a quick pace, it could also help if one of is riding a horse, Pegasus, or Wyvern.

There are also some RPG elements in this game, including the ability for your units to level up and gain higher stat values, and the fact that there are different unit classes such as Mage or Cavalry.

It may seem complicated and it can be, but all you really need to know at the beginning is the weapons triangle. The weapons triangle is basically a glorified game of rock, paper, scissors, where Swords beat Axes, Axes beat Lances, and Lances beat Swords. Knowing this will help you achieve victory, although your opponent may be able to beat you even when your weapon beats his. Like if his weapon is made of a stronger material, or if he is a higher level then you.

And there are units who don't follow the rules of the weapons triangle, like Archers and Shamans, but in the end everything is balanced in a way that will make the game fair and fun.

Well not always fair for you.

Now one thing that may turn new players away is the difficulty. Not only can the game be hard to learn, the main gimmick of the game can feel punishing. If at anytime one of your units is defeated in battle that unit cannot be used for the rest of the game, you will either have to start the level over or play without one of you favorite characters. And this can happen a lot, and when it does it can become so frustrating. I can't even count how many times I've had to restart a level because of this. Although looking at it from a different point of view it may be fun and welcoming to have added difficulty, it certainly is satisfying to beat a level that was giving you such a hard time earlier.

There is some multiplayer in this game but it's kinda meh. It would be much better if you could use a huge team of units and move around the map skillfully trying to kill of the other players team. But it does work that way.

Music and presentation:
The graphic in my opinion look great, your units seem to bounce to the music, and the fighting animations are flashy like they should be.

The Music is very good as well, but it can get old after a while. Good thing though there are a lot of different tracks. Here is one my favorite tracks.

Final Thoughts and Verdict:
All in all Fire Emblem is a very deep and fun game. It does have some problems like the fact that you may want to break you Gameboy after one of your favorite high level characters die, but it is very fun none the less. Fire Emblem gets nine out of ten stars! It is a "Must Play!" Game.

Have Fun!