Steve's reviews.

[Stove]

I've always wanted to review things. So you know what, I will do it.
Note: I recommend you read these reviews using the shadow skin. I will make all spoiler text in black. So if you don't want it to be spoiled, DO IT NOW.

Ok, I'm going to review the game I've been at NONSTOP for the past...like, 5 days.
Kirby's return to dreamland, a retro revival of the old kirby platfrom-suckem-copyem action (anytime I say suck someone says how sexual it sounds.) The last time we had a proper platforming Kirby game on console was 16 years ago if I recall (I belive SuperStar was the last one) so, naturally, this stirred quite a bit of hype. Does it live up to said hype? We shall see.

Story:
Ok...so, Story. ...Kirby games generally have very shallow/small stories. This one is better than most, but still retains its shallowness. So basically, Kirby and co. (Co. Being Meta Knight, King DeX3, and that bandana-clad Waddle Dee you brutally pwned back in Memta Knight's ship.) are enjoying a peaceful day (seperately, well, D3 is chasing kirby who's got some cake.) when they all see this beautiful starship crash. Kirby and co. check it to find this weird alien unconscious. He wakes, and checks his data screen which shows that all of his energy spheres (which are apparently fuel or something) and parts of his ship have been scattered along Popstar. This guy's name? Magolor. His home planet? Some barren place called Halcandra (although it is questioned later) So, anyway, Kirby basically says he'll help, and the others agree. And that's basically half the story. Why is that not spoilered? That's the opening cutscene.
Ok, so once you recover all 5 scattered ship parts from various enemies (no idea why they keep the parts or fight buuut whatever, maybe they think it's shiny?) the guy Takes you to his home planet, where apparently this dragon Landia is causing trouble. So of course, you help. Once you Defeat Landia, however, Magolor steals the crown on the dragon'e head and puts it on. Apparently it's a crown that gives nigh limitless power and the ability to levitate. So, in other words, Magolor's just a dick who used us to get power since his ship got beaten by Landia, the guardian of said crown, then used us to steal said crown. Yeah, real heroic. In the end, you fight Magolor, now mad with power, and due to our weaky weakness, we are only able to break said crown, thus making Magolor useless again. The End.
Boy that was a long spoiler. Anyway, I actually liked this story, it actually had a bit of depth. But, it's still shallow in the end. I mean, the main character's don't even SPEAK.

Story: 6/10
Note: some are confused as to why these four are working together. Well first, D3 actually has good intentions, proved in Brawl, and various other games. He's never really the "Big Bad" except in Kirby's Adventure. Thus, there's really nothing between them. Of course, he's got greed. I figure he helped since he figured Magolor would give him a reward. In the end, he's not the worst.
Meta Knight? Kirby and Meta are simply Rivals. Also, it's shown Meta is a Kirby too. I wanna think in my mind they're like brothers or something.
And of course the Waddle Dee works for either D3/Meta. So whatever they say goes.
So, yes.

Gameplay:
The gameplay is the same action that every Kirby fan knows (of the non-spinoffs at least) it's the sane as ever, but this game is much like superstar in the sense that there's a TON of attacks for every ability.
Well, not a ton, but at least 4 for every ability. This variance is nice, and allows for some more complex attacking. It's the same as ever over 20 years, and it's still good. And with a whopping 26 abilities (more than ever before) and 5 "super abilities", it's even better.
Gameplay: 9/10

Graphics:
I don't take graphics into priority when picking games, however they're certainly nice. The characters are decent, but the environments...the environments are amazing. Very eye pleasing. The entirety of Nutty noon, save two levels, has this beautiful sunset background.
I love every level's scenery and environment except for maybe 3,4 levels (most of the 6th world.) Even the icons, health bar, effects, it all looks great. Given, I've seen better on the Wii, but this is still great.
Graphics: 8/10.

Music:
Oh my. The only other games that have offered me so much great music are the Super Mario agalaxy series. I love EVERY TRACK in this game without exception. You're walking through a dark cave? You get ominous techno music. You going through a sunset valley with wind blowing in your face? You get a beautiful, lighthearted piece. Preparing for a boss? Tense, building music. Final boss? A magnificent, epic piece that tops them all. From beginning to end, this soundtrack is amazing.
Music: 10/10

Difficulty:
This game, despite all it's great qualities...is easy. It is.
At least, that's what you think until You're playing in extra mode, where all the bosses are harder, literally two hits will kill you, and there's many more enemies. The game has plenty of easy, and not so easy parts. It definetly varies.
Difficulty level:
Early - 3/10
Late - 6.5/10

Multiplayer:
Oh yes, the main new concept of this game! (which isn't so new, it's been done TWICE for 4 player, and 4 times for 2.) 4 player co-op! And the first time this has been put on console for kirby too! Yes, your friends can join in (if you have any) and help, playing as either DeDeDe, Meta Knight, a spear weilding Waddle Dee, or another colored Kirby. This is really a lot of fun (I played the whole game in one day with my godparent's daughter(she's awesome.)), however..it makes the game even easier. ...unless your teammates die a lot. Since you share lives, this becomes problematic. It's good, but could use improvement.
Multiplayer: 7/10.

Length/Replay Value: There's a lot to do in this game, from completing the game's single player chalenges and going for the Platinum medals, playing the sub games, beating the roughly 10 hour story, coming back months later and beating it a second time with ramped up difficulty, playing subgames, the two arenas, getting all 120 energy spheres...there's actually quite a bit. I'd say you can squeeze out about 50 hours from this game before getting bored. This is a good thing.
Game Length: roughly 10 hours
Full length: 40-50 hours.
Replay Value: 7.5/10


Overall:
This game is amazing. If you're a fan of platforming or Kirby, this is a must-have for your collection. It's not perfect, but it's a very good game.

Story: 6/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Graphics: 8/10
Music: 10/10
Difficulty: 7/10
Multiplayer: 7/10
Replay Value: 7.5/10

Overall: 7.7/10
Good

[Stove]

BRAVELY DEFAULT REVIEW OHMYGOD I HATE THIS GAME

Bravely Default is a game developed by Square Enix, the developers of the Final Fantasy series, the Dragon Quest series, and so on. Square Enix's recent endeavors have ranged from okay (Dragon Quest 9) to just plain bad (Final Fantasy 13), so when I found out who was in charge of Bravely Default I was skeptical, to say the least. I enjoyed the demo prior to the game's release and was convinced by a friend (*cough* Alberenza *cough*) to purhcase it. I did, and I played. And played. And played for over 50 hours until I beat this torturous game. I wanted to like it; I was hyped due to the overwhelming positive response to it, and the first four chapters were fun and great. However, what was fun and great quickly turned tedious due to a good story that quickly took a turn for the worse, gameplay that became repetivite due to it, and an overall frustrating experience. I won't spoil anything, but as an all in all synopsis, I felt Bravely Default was a waste of time, and as thus have sold it to help pay for Mario Kart 8, as I'd prefer to never see that game again.

Story: 5/10
The story starts off well. Cliche, but pretty good. The characters are pretty interesting and develop well over the course of the game, even after the point to where I lost interest. However, the plot itself quickly took a turn for the worse in chapter 5, where I began to feel as though the story was just there to extend the game and felt lazy. This drastically lowered my interest in the game and even caused me to put down the game for a couple months after the incredibly frustration it gave me. The story ends decently well, turning back around somewhat towards the end, but I cannot forgive the 10-20 hours of garbage in the middle, therefore I give it a 5.

Gameplay: 8/10
This is where Bravely Default shines. It's battle system harkens back to the days of older RPGs with its turn based style, with a nice twist in brave and default. Default is an option similar to defend that lets you build up a brave point, whereas brave lets you do multiple actions in a turn, but be burned out if your Brave Points go below 0. It's a neat little system that kept the battles interesting. However, I noticed later on it's also very easily abused, with some strategies literally being a 100% win button with almost no flaws whatsoever. Some of the later bosses I could use one of these strategies and literally set the game on auto battle and let it do the fight for me as I win without taking any damage. In addition, there are many recylced and buffed enemies (due to the plot) that make it feel more repetitive as "you've seen this guy already, he was just a different color last time." The game also has poor balance in its classes, with melee far exceeding magic users that aren't healers, and brave literally makes most random encounters "1-turn, no damage" wins. It's unfortunate, but good for the most part, and like the story, better in the first half of the game.


Graphics: 6/10
The graphics are mostly unremarkable, even for a 3DS game. I've seen a few very crisp looking 3DS games with beautiful, memorable locations (Kid Icarus; Uprising, Ocarina of Time 3D, Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon...even Pokemon X and Y look better.) and this is not one of them. The chibi style for the characters is pretty lazy and doesn't look good at all, and the environments (especially the world map) remind me of Final Fantasy 3. That's not good at all.

Music: 7/10
This game's only saving grace is it's tracks for the most part are very good. However, they're also re-used to death. Instead of giving each dungeon more character by giving it its own music, the same three or four themes are used the entire game. The final themes in particular are very nice, but 1% of the game does not save the other 99% of repetitive music.

Difficulty: The game has an adjustable difficulty at any time in the game, but for my playthough on Hard, it was actually pretty difficult.
Early: 6/10
Late: 9/10

Length/Replay Value: 5/10
It's a long game. If you do everything, I'm sure you could squeeze at least 70 hours. However, this is a game that should only be played once. It's replay value is nonexistant.
Length: 50+ Hours.
Full Length: 70+ Hours. (9/10, that's a good length.)
Replay Value: 0/10.


Overall: Bravely Default was a waste of my time. There's nothing more that I can say.
Story: 5/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Graphics: 6/10
Music: 7/10
Length/Replay Value: 5/10
Overall: 6/10
Okay


I give it an okay because that's what it was, but it feels far worse than that due to just how much the game was hyped and praised. I must be strange or something, because I don't see what a lot of the praise is about. It's repetitive after the halfway point, and too long because of it. It feels lazily done, and it's only real saving grace is its Gameplay mechanics.

[Indigo]

Well, you know something's wrong when the whole selling point of a game is appealing to old-school nostalgia and it becomes the most hyped and praised RPG since FF7. I mean, putting it in other words, the selling point is genericness in a new cover. Not that it's a bad thing, but yeah... I'd expect it to only be 'okay' unless playing old-fashioned RPGs with cliche stories is your thing, or if there's enough nostalgia for that.

Not like I can say much for it, but it's not like the hype and praise wasn't obviously a rose-tinted glasses kind of thing.

[Deleted]

(Replying to your post in the other thread) Unfortunately, an unbiased person does not exist. I would prefer it if you tried to make it more clear that your opinions are subjective, though taking the views of other's into account is always a positive.

SPOILER: Click to show

Oh, and there are multiple endings to the game. Was Airy or Ouroboros the final boss in your play through? Just saying because the Ouroboros ending is the true ending, and I believe that it is very much worth it, but it requires you to go through the rest of the loops (as shown by the number on Airy's wings) in order to fight him, so you may not be interested, and of course you've already sold the game.

I have to agree that the dungeons were dully designed, and there were some dominant combat strategies (that I don't think worked on the ultimate boss) but the chibi style is a preference and I do not consider the character designs lazy due to the number of alternate costumes the game presents, which all look nice and are unique to each character. I love the way Nintendo first party games look on the system, but I don't necessarily want every 3DS game to have that crisp look, and I like the way this game looks regardless.

The plot is repetitive but I get a lot out of the second half, because I love meta/plot twisty type things (especially the reveal, the plans of, and the motivations of the main villains, and the depth the seemingly simple characters such as Ringabel and Braev gain). I especially like the one part where the characters are tempted into living idealised lives with previously dead loved ones, and other subtle change as time goes by. I also love the ways in which you reach the endings, as they cleverly factor in player agency in both cases. Eventually, it also becomes incredibly fast to blitz through the second half as many of the side quests and bosses become optional, and later on if you do choose to take them you get some insight into the bosses. One other thing I like about the plot is the way in which it integrates seemingly ancillary features such as the friend summon system into the plot, especially against the true final boss.

I understand your position, but I must always remind myself that you are ever the type to let a singular aspect of an experience that you didn't enjoy to ruin the experience as a whole, which is a shame, but little can be done about that. On the other hand, I also have a higher tolerance for tedium, especially in games, since I tend to always play through them when I'm at my least alert and when listening to youtube videos and the like. Bravely Default can definitely get tedious if you're trying to leave no stone untouched, or if you don't know the direction in which you're going.

I haven't thought about the game as much since I completed it, but I'll still easily take this game over any of the Final Fantasy games I have played in my life time. Besides bad games like XIII, I do prefer this to games such as IV and X. I haven't had much experience with FF.

[Stove]

Yes, I did the six loops and got Ouroboros. It was painstaking, and frankly I find the plot in the first half of the game better since it isn't so repetitive.