Retro Game Friday: De Blob

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m back with a cult classic. It’s De Blob!

Plot Synopsis: Initially a lively and colorful city populated by its equally colorful and diverse citizens, the Raydians, Chroma City is suddenly invaded by the INKT Corporation. A corporate military dictatorship, INKT is led by the villainous Comrade Black and dedicated to the eradication of color through its “War on Color”. Chroma City quickly falls to the invading army of Inkies and color-draining Leechbots, leaving its landscape barren, its flora withered and its fauna in hiding. The citizens are rounded up and turned into “Graydians”, encased in homogeneous gray prison suits distinguished only by a bar code on the back of each shell. The Graydians are forced to serve as both menial labor and as a living resource of ink, the latter of which is mined literally from their sadness…

Plot: The plot is nothing amazing, and it fits the family game setting that De Blob has. So nothing amazing, but nothing super bad either.

Gameplay: The gameplay is pretty simple, you get paint of the three primary colors and paint the world to restore it. It’s nothing amazing, but it’s pretty fun for a while. That being said it’s a bit a one trick pony as the gameplay doesn’t really ever change all that much.

Art: The art is okay, but is dated. Thankfully there are ports with updated graphics to the current generation of consoles including the Switch.

Music: The coolest part of the game, at least to me as a person who knows game design from coding to artwork, is the fact that the music changes as you play. As you continue painting objects the music becomes more and more active, and Blob’s current color determines the instrumental being soloed. It’s pretty interesting, and a brilliant piece of game design.

Overall: If you get the chance, you might want to check this out if it’s on sale.

For those who like: Platforming, Fun Gameplay, Great Musical Score.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.

 

 

 

 

Retro Game Friday: Opoona

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering a really obscure game. It’s Opoona!

Plot Synopsis: The planet Landroll was impacted by a large meteorite composed of crystallized dark energy. Half of the star, once lush and verdant, died from the impact, becoming the Deadlands. Life for the survivors changed drastically; the impact caused a shift in gravity, causing the sun to become tidally locked to the planet. Species died and vegetation withered in the heat; mysterious creatures, known as Rogues, emerged from the meteorite and began to attack people. Humans eventually built sturdy glass domes over Landroll’s surviving cities. Sanctuary, an island floating above the northern pole, was unaffected and habitable areas outside the domes became the wild lands.

Several hundred years after the meteorite impact, Opoona and his siblings, Copoona and Poleena, are on a family vacation from the star Tizia with their parents, Momeena, Dadeena and co-pilots Troc and Noix, travelling in a spaceship to Landroll. Momeena tells Opoona that her brother, Roidman, lives on the planet doing research on how to reduce the Rogue population. Shortly after, the spaceship is attacked by mysterious dark energy, and the three children are placed into separate escape pods before the spaceship crashes on Landroll.

Three days after the crash landing, Opoona awakens from a coma in Tokione Dome and is informed of the incident, and told that his parents are being treated by Sages in Sanctuary.

Plot: The plot is okay, but rather simplistic. It’s not super amazing or terrible, but mediocre. That’s probably why this game is so damn obscure.

Gameplay: The gameplay isn’t a classic turn based combat like you might expect of a JRPG. It’s closer to a Tales of Game, although maybe comparing it to Ni no Kuni would be better. If Ni no Kuni had no minions.

Art: The art hasn’t aged well, which is to be expected of both a game that was made in 3D and a game made for the Wii. Sorry Nintendo lovers, but almost every third party Wii game looked like crap.

Music: I don’t remember a whit of it, sorry.

Overall: An easily skippable game, that being said if you get the chance to play it for cheap or free, you might as well give it a shot right?

For those who like: JRPGs, Simplistic Art Styles, Real Time Combat Systems.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.

Retro Game Friday: Soulcalibur Legends

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering a spinoff of a series that is often overlooked. It’s Soulcalibur Legends!

Plot Synopsis: The story of Soulcalibur Legends takes place between Soul Edge and Soulcalibur, and is based around Siegfried Schtauffen’s transformation into Nightmare. The game begins as Siegfried finds Soul Edge on a ship. He battles Cervantes on the deck of the ship.

Plot: The plot is pretty sparse, and frankly isn’t all that good. But if you are a Tales of fan you’ll enjoy the guest character Lloyd Irving from Symphonia!

Gameplay: This had both co-operative gameplay and competitive gameplay. Frankly the gameplay wasn’t that good either.

Art: Terrible, and it’s aged incredibly poorly.

Music: Don’t remember a whit, but probably wasn’t that good.

Overall: Skip this entry of the series, even if you are a hardcore fan of the Soul series.

For those who like: Action-RPGs, Mediocrity.

Not for those who don’t like: Either of the above.

Retro Game Friday: Metroid Prime 3

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering the final entry in the Metroid Prime Trilogy! It’s Metroid Prime 3: Corruption!

Plot Synopsis: Admiral Castor Dane, leader of a Galactic Federation fleet, calls for a meeting with Samus Aran and three other bounty hunters—Rundas, Ghor, and Gandrayda. The bounty hunters receive orders to clear a computer virus from several organic supercomputers called “Aurora Units” in the Galactic Federation’s network. Suddenly, the meeting ends abruptly when Space Pirates attack the Federation fleet. Samus and the other bounty hunters are deployed to the planet Norion, where the Space Pirates are concentrating an attack on a Federation naval base. While suppressing the attack, Samus learns that a Phazon asteroid, called a Leviathan Seed, will soon collide into Norion. Samus and the other bounty hunters attempt to activate the base’s defense systems, when they are suddenly attacked by Dark Samus…

Plot: The plot is actually really good, and I enjoyed the heck out of the story for this game. It’s a pity that it played less desirably than the prior entries.

Gameplay: This was the only entry to be made for the Wii, which led to some unfortunate design choices like the choice to make use of motion controls. However other than that, it was easily the best entry in the series and was quite a blast to play if you could get over the awkward controls. It also was the first game in the series to take place on multiple planets instead of just one like the prior two games.

Art: It hasn’t aged well, but for the time it was pretty good looking. But if you were to play it now, it’d be an eyesore.

Music: Very well done, creepy in the parts where it was supposed to be and heart pounding in the action sequences.

Overall: A great entry marred by aged graphics and motion controls.

Retro Game Friday: Ōkami

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering a classic game that is one of my all time favorite games! It’s time for Ōkami to shine!

Plot Synopsis: The game is set in a Nippon (Japan) based on Japanese folklore, and begins with a flashback to events 100 years prior to the game’s present; the narrator describes how Shiranui, a pure white wolf, and Nagi, a swordsman, together fought the eight-headed demon Orochi to save Kamiki Village and the maiden Nami, Nagi’s beloved. Shiranui and Nagi are unable to defeat Orochi, so they seal the demon away.

In the game’s present, Susano, a descendant of Nagi and self-proclaimed greatest warrior, breaks Orochi’s seal due to the fact that he does not believe in the legend and wants to prove it false; Orochi escapes and curses the lands, sapping the life from every living being. Sakuya, the wood sprite and guardian of Kamiki Village, calls forth Amaterasu, the sun goddess, known to the villagers as the reincarnation of the white wolf Shiranui, and pleads for her to remove the curse that covers the land. Accompanied by the artist Issun (an inch-high creature known as a Poncle), Amaterasu is able to restore the land to its former beauty.

Plot: The game’s plot is great, and while it’s not full of twists and turns it’s still a great story. I won’t say much more other than that the influence of Japanese Mythology is huge, and if you are knowledgeable about it you’ll love the plot even more.

Gameplay: It plays a lot like Zelda, and that isn’t a bad thing at all. That being said I think that it definitely improves on the formula by adding different weapon types you can use for primary attacks. The Prayer Beads are quite fun. The other big feature of this game is to stop time temporarily and draw on the screen with a brush to perform attacks, or solve puzzles. It’s quite well done, and while it was a pain in the ass on the Wii port, the PS3 HD version doesn’t have any issues at all.

Music: The music is amazing, it’s full of Japanese folk music and it’s perfect for this game.

Art: Here is the real kicker and what makes this one of my top games of all time, the artwork for this game is just amazingly well done. It’s just stupendous.

Overall: If you haven’t played this yet, you should play the HD version on PlayStation Network right now!

For those who like: Great Games, Amazing Artwork, Fantastic Music, Excellent Gameplay, Solid Plot.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above, but if you hate all of that you aren’t a gamer.