Blueflower's Gaming Blog and Reviews

[Yugi]

Oh yeah, there was a port of MGS3 for 3DS.

It's not that bad, so if you're interested in the series, go for it!

[blueflower999]

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask:

Or, as I like to call it

Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracles:

Gameplay: 10/10 I've finally found it guys. The only Layton game where I enjoyed doing the puzzles. I don't know whether this game was actually much better than the predecessors in this regard or I'm just slowly going insane, but I'm pretty sure it's the former. Miracle Mask's puzzles are all loads of fun. My least favorite puzzles in the series are the ones where you need to do math and input a numerical answer. I much prefer the ones where you interact with elements on the touch or top screen to solve the puzzle, and this game had much less of the former and much more of the later. Besides the puzzles, the investigating portion of this game is also much improved and much more to my liking. It's sort of hard to explain, but the new method of navigating has you using the touch screen to look around the environment with a magnifying glass in an almost 3D perspective. Finding Hint Coins is much easier, and the environments look much more lively and interesting in a 3D perspective rather than in a flat one. If there's one work I would use to describe this game, it's just... so pretty. Some people might not be huge fans of them, but I love the character models. They just work really well and show the personalities of all the characters with the animations they use. I'm not going to spoil what it is, but Chapter 6 in this game has some gameplay totally different from anything else in the series, and while it does drag on a little longer than I thought it should have, it's still a nice and refreshing change of pace. All in all, I don't think the Layton series could be much better than what is presented in this game gameplay wise.

Addictiveness: 9/10 It was pretty hard to put this game down. Miracle Mask is fantastic in that the puzzles don't take away from the experience at all. In other games, it was sort of like "Ughh the story is great but the puzzles are so boring", but that's not the case with this one, making it even more fun to play.

Story: 10/10 It's Layton. What more do I have to say? Unless you go into the game expecting Unwound Future, you'll most definitely be impressed with this game's story, and I really can't say much else without spoiling things.

Music: 9/10 I've really started to take a liking to Layton music, and this game's soundtrack really hit home with me for whatever reason. As always, my favorite tracks at the time of writing will be posted below.

Monte d'Or (Carnival Night)

[close]

Puzzles Abound (The puzzle theme)

[close]

The Theme of the Main Villain (Spoilers?)

[close]

Illusion

[close]

Not even really sure why I like this one, it's more for the atmosphere

Misgivings

[close]

The Masked Gentleman's Theme

[close]

Character Design: 10/10 Like pretty much all Layton games, the cast in Miracle Mask is cute, memorable, and nearly perfect. Layton, Luke, and Emmy are all among my favorites as they have always been. Inspector Grosky looks magnificent in his 3D model. The comic relief character, Hannah, is also pretty hilarious. The NPCs aren't as terrifying as Unwound Future's, but are also significantly less bland then they are in Curious Village.

Humor: 8/10 Like in most Layton games, the humor is never really too "IN YOUR FACE", if you will. Layton is usually better at more subtle humor, which I've grown to respect. My personal favorite comic moment in the game is when Luke sleeps late and wakes up to find the Professor and Emmy gone. When they return, the conversation is essentially "Hey! Where were you guys?!" and then Emmy says "Sorry Luke, we already caught the Masked Gentleman while you were asleep, it's time to go home". Another ridiculously humorous character is the bumbling Inspector Grosky, but I really can't do him justice in this review.

Difficulty: 7/10 I've got to say, this game had by far the lowest amount of what I would deem "BS Puzzles" than the other games. The only puzzles that really had me ripping my hair out were the ones where you have to divide the chess board into sections that all have an equal number of black and white pawns. Other than that, there were much less puzzles with numerical input as answers, which made me quite happy.

Other Memorable Features: The minigames in Miracle Mask are among the better ones I've seen so far, but are much more frustrating as they go along than the regular puzzles are, so they're not for the faint of heart. In addition to the main story, Level-5 posted a Daily Puzzle every day for quite a while, and they're all available in the Bonuses section in case you really crave more Miracle Mask style puzzles.

Overall: 10/10 The perfect Layton game. I've finally, finally found it.

[SlowPokemon]

A+++++++++

I love this game and I loved this review, especially your comments about the humor and 3D aspects. Best comment: "not sure if they were actually better or I'm slowly going insane." Awesome music selections, by the way.

I forgot to ask you this, but didn't the Reunion Inn music strike you as really scary for Layton? Or was that just me lol

[blueflower999]

I forgot to ask you this, but didn't the Reunion Inn music strike you as really scary for Layton? Or was that just me lol

Miracle Mask Spoilers

It was more dark and sad to me than scary. All those stories you read, which are, of courses, symbolic of the Masked Gentleman's anger, were pretty sad and out of place in a Layton game.

[close]

[blueflower999]

I have a few reviews planned for the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

[blueflower999]

I've been lazy. My apologies!

I've wanted to review this game for some time now, and it just so happens that Wolf posted a review of the sequel today, so I thought it would be a good time!

Plants Vs. Zombies:

Please note that I have the DS version of this game, and so that's what I'll be reviewing. I'm aware that it's also available on PC as well as some mobile devices and consoles.

Gameplay: 9/10 Plants Vs. Zombies is easily the best tower defense game I've ever played. It starts off as a very simple game and gets more and more complex as it goes on. You start off with five lanes, each of which are attacked by Zombies more and more over time. You start by planting Sunflowers in the back row, which generate sun that is used to buy other plants. Pea Shooters are the basic offensive plant that shoot one pea at a time forward in their lane at a Zombie. Like I said, it sounds simple, but by the end of the game you have the option to use over 50 plants and are battling against about 25 different types of Zombies, each of which have their own strategy of making it to your side of the screen and different plants that counter them. The terrain changes too. For instance, on Night levels, sun never falls from the sky. When you battle Zombies on the roof, your Pea Shooters don't work because the room has an angle, so you use catapult plants instead. There are also levels that take place in the backyard with a pool, so aquatic plants are used as well. There are 10 levels in each area and 5 areas in total (front yard day, front yard night, backyard day, backyard night, and roof). Every fifth level, there's something different than the standard gameplay. For instance, level 1-5 is a bowling minigame and level 4-5 is a vase-breaking minigame. After beating certain levels and finishing the game, you unlock numerous other game modes. Mimigames has about twenty minigames in it that are very fun and put creative twists on an already fun game. Puzzle mode makes you think and plan out strategies in two fun game modes. Survival tests your endurance to see how many waves of Zombies you can take. This is barely scratching the surface, but in short there are tons of stuff to do in the game. You'll most definitely be getting your money's worth.

Addictiveness: 9/10 I've been very much addicted to this game the past few weeks. In fact, it an Ace Attorney have dominated my handheld playing time, and you all already know how much I love Ace Attorney, so that's saying something. As I mentioned above, there are tons of game modes, and that contributes very much to the addictive factor; once you're done playing in one mode, there's always another that you haven't played in a while.

Story: 1/10 There's really nothing in the way of story from what I can tell other than that you're a house owner who is getting ambushed by wave after wave of Zombies for several days.

Music: 9/10 This game has freaking awesome music. A lot of it has sort of a terrifying-but-silly feel to it, which really adds to the game's charm. All of the level themes are particularly fantastic. I know I said that I play the DS version, but I'll be posting the songs from the original PC version because YouTube has better quality uploads of them.

Front Yard Day

[close]

Front Yard Night

[close]

Back Yard Day

[close]

Back Yard Night

[close]

Roof

[close]

Ultimate Battle

[close]

Definitely my favorite song in the game. Highly recommend listening to the whole thing.

Final Boss Music (Spoilers)

[close]

So freaking good.

Character Design: Not counting the plants and the Zombies, there's only one real character. Crazy Dave is essentially the narrator for the game, and he pops in every few levels to tell you something about what's coming up or some random piece of information. He's hilarious and very "crazy", as his name would suggest. Of course, the Zombies are all a riot. You have everything in this game: pole vaulting Zombies, football Zombies, Zombies riding Zambonis ("Zombonis"), bungee jumping Zombies, dolphin riding Zombies, etc.

Humor: 9/10 This game has an absolutely charming sense of humor. The plants and Zombies all have really clever names, especially the plants. The Pea Shooter is your basic attacking plant, which shoots peas as its name suggests, but is also named after a type of gun, a "pea shooter". Later, you get a type of plant that shoots two peas at a time called a Repeater, and later a plant that shoots peas in three lanes called a Threepeater. All kinds of jokes like that make Plants Vs. Zombies sort of a parody of the horror genre.

Difficulty: 8/10 The later levels in the game can be fairly difficult. Being prepared for so many Zombies forces players to pick their plants very carefully (you only get about 7-9 slots depending on where you are in the game). Some of the mini games can be difficult, and the Survival levels are intentionally brutal. This game has something for everyone: difficult levels for gaming experts and a campaign with a learning curve that will make even the worst gamers experts by the end.

Other Memorable Features: While playing the game, Zombies sometimes drop plants which are added to the Zen Garden, a feature that allows you to water plants and help them grow. As time goes on, plants in the Zen Garden will drop money, which is useful for buying upgrades, extra seed slots, more plants for the Zen Garden, and many other things.

Overall: 9.4/10 This is one of the few mainstream games I've played that I feel deserves every bit of the hype.

[SlowPokemon]

Awesome review! Before you played it I had no real interest in playing this game, but this review as well as your comments on Skype have earned it a spot on my to-play list.

I listened to a few of the music tracks while reading the review and although the ultimate and final bosses were good, my favorite one that I listened to was "Roof"--it has a very cool vibe and is really the perfect sort of music for this type of game.

Nice job!

[blueflower999]

To celebrate me completing the school year and the 5 year anniversary of the first game, it's time for another review!

Plants Vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time:

It's about time is right! I got this game a few weeks ago on my iPhone, and I'm certain I've played it every day since. It's the most addicting thing ever, and it's totally free. I recommend everyone with an iPhone or Android pick it up if you want to try out this excellent series!

Gameplay: 10/10 Plants Vs. Zombies 2 is easily the best tower defense game I've ever played. It takes everything the first game did right and multiplies it ten times over. New plants, tons of new zombies, and quite a few new level mechanics make this game just as good, if not superior, to the first game. For the most part, the gameplay remains both similar enough that fans of the old game will be very pleased, yet different enough to feel like a completely different game. Plenty of new plants are introduced, many of which take new and creative twists on preexisting plants. For instance, the Pea Pod is a variety of Peashooter that you can plant multiple times on the same square to multiply its damage. Rather than taking place around the player's house (front yard, backyard, roof, pool, etc.), this game takes place in several time periods including Ancient Egypt, Pirate Seas, Wild West, and Far Future. Also in contrast to the first game, where you can find a zombie on any level once they're introduced (with some obvious exceptions, i.e. finding a pool zombie on the roof), you'll never see a zombie from Ancient Egypt in the Far Future. This means that each time period has its own unique strategies and different plants are more or less useful. For instance, the Spring Bean is very useful in the Pirate Seas, but completely worthless in every other world. Many features continue over from the first game, such as the Zen Garden, having minigames in between real levels, battles with Dr. Zomboss, and the Suburban Almanac, which provides humorous descriptions of plants and zombies. The biggest change to the gameplay by far is the edition of plant food. Certain zombies glow green when spawned, and if you kill them, they drop plant food for you to collect. Placing plant food on any plant will give it a certain boost which is different for each plant. The Peashooter shoots rapidly forward for a few seconds, the Potato Mine clones itself, and the Sunflower generates a ton of bonus sun. While there aren't quite as many alternate playing modes as PvZ1, there are still plenty of challenges to be had in each world. Each time period has 25 levels, which include minigames, a boss battle, a conveyor belt level as seen before in the first game, and many challenge levels. Challenge levels include restrictions such as never having more than X plants, never spending more than X sun, or surviving while protecting some preexisting plants. Perhaps my favorite part about this game is the fact that it's being updated all the time. Far Future was released in March, and they're making at least one more world, presumably the Middle Ages, that should be ready in a few months or so.

Addictiveness: 10/10 I beat this game about a month ago and still find myself playing every day, sometimes for hours on end. It's really a bad habit and I need to overcome this addiction, but dang, this game is fun. It's free too, so if you have an iPhone or Android, be sure to check it out.

Story: 3/10 Literally the best "so bad it's good" plot line I've ever seen in a video game. After the first few tutorial levels (which take place in the front yard of the first game), Crazy Dave is shown eating a taco. He then proceeds to jump into a time machine (named Penny) to go back in time to eat the taco again, and for some unexplained reason you go along, for some unexplained reason there are zombies wherever you land, and for some unexplained reason you travel to the future before traveling to the present to retrieve Dave's taco. Yeah.

Music: 9/10 While not quite as iconic as the first game, there are still plenty of outstanding songs in this game, and many of which are remixes of songs from the first game. Both the Dr. Zomboss battle theme and Ultimate Battle get remixes in each time period. Ancient Egypt, Pirate Seas, and Wild West all have pretty good regular themes too. Far Future's is OK, but I'm not a huge fan of it as of yet. There's even a pretty sick remix of the front yard theme from the first game.

Ancient Egypt

[close]

Pirate Seas

[close]

Wild West (Personal Favorite)

[close]

Wild West Zomboss Remix (For an example)

[close]

Far Future Ultimate Battle

[close]

Front Yard

[close]

Character Design: 9/10 There are only really three characters in this game, all of which I've named: Crazy Dave, Penny the totally not DeLorean clone, and Dr. Edgar Zomboss. While all three are hilarious, fairly colorful, and enjoyable characters, the real characters that most of the game is spent with are the plants. While they don't say anything, the plant's designs never fail to amuse and endear me. This game furthers this by adding unlockable costumes for each plant. I haven't gotten all of them yet, but the Repeater gets a viking helmet, the Twin Sunflower gets sunglasses, and the E.M. Peach gets Mega Man's helmet. Just like the first game, all the plants are useful and have a time to use them. Some I like more than others, but I use all of them from time to time. There are no bad plants.

Humor: 9/10 Lots of corny jokes. To list some would be a disservice to anyone who wanted to play the game, but Dave and Penny have these hilarious exchanges before the start of certain levels that usually entail a one liner or two. In addition, the Suburban Almanac is just as witty as it was in the first game, and is still a pleasure to read through.

Difficulty: 7/10 If you were able to beat the first game fairly easily, then this game shouldn't give you too much difficulty. If you do have trouble on certain levels, then this game has both paid DLC and in game currency to help out. Seven plants are available to purchase with real money and there are some temporary powerups able to be bought with coins during a level. In addition, the Zen Garden allows you to "boost" a plant, which means that for one level that plant will always use its plant food effect once placed, which is quite helpful.

Other Memorable Features: Each world has a survival mode-esque area that is quite addicting. It keeps track of your high score and I always find myself wanting to play them to beat my previous one. As mentioned above, the Zen Garden is used both for money (growing Marigolds) and for boosting plants (growing everything else). Every day now, there's an event called a Pinata Party that takes place in the front yard and has zombies from all four locations. Winning these results in huge prizes, and occasionally a plant costume.

Overall: 9.5/10 While largely similar to the first game and likable for different reasons (as many sequels are), it still stands out as the superior title. Also, it's free, so please try it out if you have the time!

[blueflower999]

Time to review a game that I really don't have all that much to say about, but wanted to say something about it anyway.

The Stanley Parable:

I don't really know what to say about this game. So far the best description of it I've seen is the game's description on Steam:

"The Stanley Parable is a first person exploration game. You will play as Stanley, and you will not play as Stanley. You will follow a story, you will not follow a story. You will have a choice, you will have no choice. The game will end, the game will never end. Contradiction follows contradiction, the rules of how games should work are broken, then broken again. This world was not made for you to understand."

Gameplay: 8/10 You play as Stanley, the generic silent protagonist. It's really hard to put the experience of this game into text, but I'll try my best. You follow a story with a Narrator and walk through Stanley's office building. The Narrator will say things like "When he came to a set of two open doors, he chose the one on his left." Of course, as the player, you have the chose to enter either the left door or the right door. Obeying the Narrator's instructions through the entire game results in the "True" ending, which actually resolves the plot (kind of) and makes everyone happy. Disobeying the Narrator at any point results in various effects on the plot. Explaining them or giving any kind of examples would be a huge disservice to anyone wanting to play the game, so I won't. Similar to many choice-based games, there are multiple endings. The Stanley Parable has about 18 Endings, but you can slice the game in numerous ways, so that number is more variable than you might think. Occasionally you'll get to interact with things by clicking, but mostly this consists of pushing buttons and opening doors. You can't jump or perform any real actions, so this game is entirely based on exploring the possibilities with the narrative video game. It's really quite bizarre, and you can tell the creators had a lot of fun programming it. Like many Steam games, there are numerous achievements you can get, but none of them follow convention. They have qualifications like "This is an achievement" and "Don't play the Stanley Parable for five years". There's even an achievement called "Unachievable: You can't get this achievement". Yeah, I don't know.

Addictiveness: 7/10 It is a rather short game, but the whole premise is so hilarious and intriguing enough that you'll probably spend a day, or at most two, playing it a lot. It only takes about 4-5 hours to beat the whole game though, so it's not something that'll take most people a while. The replayability is there, but not that much stronger than your average game.

Story: ?/10 I really can't say anything here or even give my own opinion on the story. Is there a story? Is there not a story? I beat the game and researched as much as I could but still can't decide. It's really quite intriguing. Play the game and make up your own mind.

Music: 6/10 Because there's a Narrator who speaks at pretty much every opportunity, I didn't spend much time listening to the music. There's really not a lot in the game, and what I do hear isn't particularly memorable. There is, however, one decent song that sticks with me because of the sheer hilarity of it: The Narrator calls for some "adventure music" or whatever and this starts playing:

Adventure Music??

[close]

The otherwise eerie and lonely tone of the game is completely shattered as soon as that starts playing.

Character Design: 4?/10 This is another section that's difficult. The Stanley Parable is the only story based game (if you can call it that) which doesn't have any characters and yet continues to tell a story. Stanley does pretty much nothing, so The Narrator is really the only person who arguably qualifies as a character. What makes him really interesting is that his role changes drastically depending on the choices you make. Some paths make him your best (and only) friend, where other choices make him quite cruel and almost evil. Other than those two, there really aren't very many other moments of significance that I can talk about without spoiling things.

Humor: 9/10 Oh gosh this game got me to laugh a lot. It's really wacky, bizarre, and just downright absurd at times. Sometimes it satires other video games, other times the Narrator's narrative is plain hysterical. It's really quite well written and his voice acting is really well done and conveys a lot of emotion.

Difficulty: 0/10 Unless you count figuring out how to get all the endings as a challenge (which it kind of is because some are more obvious than others), there really isn't anything that can be considered hard or easy about this game.

Other Memorable Features: There's one ending that involves pressing a button to prevent a baby from crawling into the fire. It goes on for four hours before the game ends and shows the ending. This is also the only game I've ever played that spoils itself and then proceeds to tell you that it's spoiling itself. I'm not even kidding.

Overall: 8/10 I think the best description of this game is in the beginning of the trailer. "It's brilliant. Why? That would spoil it. You'll just have to trust me."

I apologize for my lack of commentary about most of the game, but that's really all I can say without ruining the experience. In short, it's a really weird and unique game with a great sense of humor and an interesting "story".

[Dudeman]

Come on Stanley! Let's go find the story!
(Ah, the adventure music has to be the best track in video game history. I NEED to get this game!)

[InfinitySoul]

Some pretty impressive reviewing going on here! Good job!

[blueflower999]

Some pretty impressive reviewing going on here! Good job!

Thanks! You have a pretty good taste in games yourself.   

[mikey]

Reminds me of zork

sounds fun.

[blueflower999]

Little Inferno:

It's Little Inferno! It's Little Inferno just for meeee!~ I actually played this game back in the winter, but I'd thought I'd wait until the most inappropriate time to review it (the middle of summer). Either that, or I was just lazy. Who knows?

For those who don't know, Little Inferno is a gem of an indie game that's available on numerous platforms including the Wii U, iOS, and PC. Personally, I bought the version on the Wii U eShop for 10$. Whenever I talk to anyone about this game, I always show them the trailer first (which is also available to watch in the game), so if you're interested, I'll start with that.

Little Inferno Trailer

[close]

Gameplay: 8/10 Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about the game. Little Inferno's gameplay is pretty simple: buy objects in the catalog, burn them, and then they drop more money than they cost. Doing this allows you to slowly build up money and purchase the next catalog after burning all the objects. However, before the next catalog is available for purchase, an increasing number of "combos" is required, which involve burning two or three objects at the same time. The game provides a list of combos by name, and the names are clues to which objects to burn. For instance, the combo "movie night" involves burning a television and corn (resulting in popcorn). Occasionally objects will also drop stamps, and completing combos awards stamps as well. These can be used to make shipping packages instantaneous. In the beginning of the game, the shipping is pretty quick and stamps aren't really necessary. However, the last object in the game takes about five minutes to ship, so it's recommended saving stamps for the last few catalogs. The best part of the game is when every couple minutes a spider will crawl down into the fireplace, which you can burn for 100% free profit (and occasionally a stamp). Burning on the Wii U involves dragging your finger across the touch screen to either light things on fire or move them around. The graphics looks gorgeous on the gamepad (and they would on my TV too, but I hate flat-screens and refuse to use HD TVs) and the gameplay is simple yet so fun and addicting that you'll want to play through to the end. Occasionally a letter from any one of three people arrives in your mailbox, and these are what largely progress the story. (Yes, a game about burning things in a fireplace actually has a story, but more on that later).

Addictiveness: 8/10 While it is a fairly short game (only about 3 hours or so), the addictive level is high because of both the story and the simplicity of the gameplay. The objects always have you wondering what'll happen when you burn them, and there's always an incentive to continue. Most people would beat this game in a day or two.

Story: 8/10 I can't say too much here about the story to avoid ruining it for people, but it is rather good. Granted there aren't earth-shattering plot twists like in Professor Layton or incredibly fleshed out characters like in Ace Attorney, but there are nice moments and likable characters and the story provokes a lot of thought and makes the game quite memorable. The premise of the story is explained in the video trailer I linked to above, so go watch it if you're curious.

Music: 7/10 The music in this game isn't phenomenally diverse, but the main theme of the game is remixed several times throughout and it's really one of my favorite pieces of video game music. The best version of it in my opinion is the theme that plays when reading a letter from the Weatherman, and that's the version I'll place below. There are some other okay songs, but that's the one that sticks out to me the most.

Reporting From The Weather Balloon

[close]

Character Design: 8/10 There are only really a handful of characters in the game, but most of them are surprisingly memorable. To describe any of them in detail would be a little too close to spoiler territory, so I'll just say that many of them are more interesting than they first appear. My personal favorite character is the above mentioned Weatherman, both for his awesome theme song and other reasons that I can't disclose.

Humor: 8/10 This game is pretty wacky and it's clear that the three guys who made it had some fun writing the dialogue. The letters you receive, depending on who they're from, are usually written in a quirky and sometimes goofy manner that help cement the character in the player's mind. There's also a lot of in-your-face or even dark humor when you burn certain objects. For example, burning a toy school bus results in hearing children screaming before the bus explodes.

Difficulty: 5/10 The only difficulty that comes from this game is a direct result of having to figure out combos to buy the next catalog. Usually this isn't too hard because even though the number of combos required increases each time, the number of combos available also increases, so usually with a bit of trial and error it can be done. In a game that only takes about three hours to beat, there's nothing too difficult.

Other Memorable Features: In the game, the player burns objects in his Little Inferno Entertainment Fireplace. That fireplace is made by the Tomorrow Corporation, which is also the company that made the game Little Inferno. So you're playing as a kid burning things in a fireplace made by Tomorrow Corp while you burn things in a game made by Tomorrow Corp. Yeah.

Overall: 8/10 Definitely among the more unique concepts for a game I've seen, Little Inferno is very good for what it is and leaves a surprisingly strong message on the player. It's a little expensive on the Wii U, but the iOS version is very much worth the price.

[SlowPokemon]

Woo!!! Haven't thought about this one for a while.

While it seems as though it's not much of a game, it's one that sparked me (no pun intended) to tell a lot of people about it upon completion, which doesn't happen terribly often. I totally agree that the developers obviously had a lot of fun making it and that it ends up leaving an impact even if it's a strange little oddity of a game.

Excellent review.