There's only so many ways that the classic Harvest Moon farming game can be spun without entirely exhausting the series. As that has more or less already happened, it's really no surprise to anybody that Natsume had to expand their franchise to encompass different types of genres, so in this particular case, they decided to try their hand at turning the farming game into a new sort of puzzler.
Much like many other puzzle games for the DS, you'll be familiar with the sight of colored blocks on top of a grid board. But unlike typical puzzle games, each different color represents a different type of vegetable, which you must grow from the size of a seed upwards, until it's fully grown. Once it's fully grown, you can send your little garden sprite to harvest them. Depending on the level, you either have to harvest certain type(s) of crops in general, or collect a specified number, or collect more crops than your opponent. It gives an interesting competitive edge to the game, but at the same time, this makes some of your levels frustrating.
Add to this that, once you think you've finished the game the first time around, you learn you've only just begun. Which is good on the one hand, because if the game ended at the beginning of your first game, you'd complete the whole thing in possibly under an hour's time. The downside to this is that you'll unlock new characters...with whom you'll have to follow the same exact storyline with from beginning to end; the only variation being their own special type of power-up moves. Some of them make the game considerably easier, while others make it almost impossible to complete.
While at a first glance this game seems like it's just a quick little knock-off Harvest Moon game, it's actually surprisingly complex. If you enjoy challenging puzzle games, you'll most likely enjoy this. You'll definitely get your money's worth for the amount of time you get putting into this game! Rating this 7 out of 10 HM crops.
In an industry where there's stiff competition for new and original games, it's often difficult to even attempt to market tried and true classics that have survived the test of time for decades, if not centuries in some cases. With all the new cutting edge games out there, it's really impractical to try to release any of these said games alone. Instead, you must try to package as many of them as possible together and make them more appealing this way. Sometimes, it works, sometimes it doesn't. In this case...well, it's not too great.
For a start, upon booting up this game, you'll find that the music is SO whiningly annoying that you'll almost immediately turn the sound down, if not entirely off. This should be your first clue that it's not the greatest game ever. Second, the graphics. Oh man... You're first presented with a number of different random avatar heads to pick from to create your own player file with, but none of them are particularly original, and almost none of them, sans for one or two, even seem practical to use since they're so odd looking. (Customization would have been nice here...there's another point docked off.)
So you've made it past the random dismembered heads to choose from and entered your name. Fantastic. You're now presented with three game categories: board games, card games, and puzzles. Under each of these categories are a number of different games to choose from to play. Under board games, you're presented with:
- 4 in a Row
- 5 in a Row
- Backgammon
- Checkers
- Chess
- Chinese Checkers
- Gomoku
- Mahjongg (10 Seconds)
- Mahjongg (Countdown)
- Mahjongg (Match)
- Mahjongg (Point Race)
- Mahjongg (Standard)
- Peg Solitaire
- Reversi
- Same
- Superbrain
Under card games, you'll find:
- Blackjack
- Freecell
- Hearts
- Klondike (Deal 1)
- Klondike (Deal 3)
- Omaha Hold 'em Poker
- Texas Hold 'em Poker
And last (but not least), beneath puzzles, you'll find:
- Arrow
- Blocks
- Catch the Butterfly
- Combine
- Dots and Boxes
- Influence
- Kakuro
- Magic Square I
- Magic Square II
- Magic Square III
- Match 3
- Matchsticks
- Memo Pair
- Memo Quartet
- Memo Trio
- Minefield I
- Minefield II
- Minefield III
- Music
- Puzzle Pieces
- Puzzle Strip
- Spot the Difference
- Square Puzzle
- Sudoku
- Symboku
- Trace
- Way
Now, initially I was going to go through and give a little review of each of these... but then I realized something: I'd be doing 50 mini-reviews on games that, at best are mediocre, and at worst, well... While I give the makers some credit for cramming so many games onto one tiny little cartridge (this is still a novelty for me, you see, having grown up with the oldschool Nintendo and Gameboy games when I was a kid, when you could only fit one single game onto a cartridge that was considerably larger than that of a DS one), quantity does not override nor equal quality, as is evidenced here. It seems like at least a few of the games here were just made up to flesh out to a nice round 50, but on the other hand, even some of the classics weren't executed very well. Mahjongg, for instance, is near impossible with how tiny they drew the tiles for this game. I gave myself a headache from squinting at the screen. Other games, they seem as though they'd of been much better had they of given an option for multiplayers that didn't involve having to purchase more than one copy of the game. It's just a little strange, you know?
Between the shoddy graphics, sound, and execution of each game... I've no choice but to rate this game poorly. 2 out of 10 mediocre games.
As you may have noticed (well alright, it would be impossible not to notice this), the number game of Sudoku seems to have taken the world by storm especially as of the past few years. It's been around for ages under different names, but the fact remains the same: people seem to be enamoured by this strange, yet addictive game. What exactly is the appeal, you may ask?
Well, for a start, as of late the game has been touted as helping to keep the aging mind sharp, and to make the growing mind more acute. There's plenty of people who, even upon the game being explained to them, still won't understand it. As a result, there seems to be an air of eliteness among those who do understand it, and cling to it that much harder as a status symbol. (Not entirely unlike Starbucks.)
This particular title tries to put a new spin on the game...with varying degrees of success. The storyline is more or less your typical murder mystery, which you must help to solve - albeit not playing as any given one of the characters in particular. You're playing from a third person type of perspective, which gives the game somewhat of a strange tone to it, but not entirely bad. Just different. The graphics are pretty meh... The map is downright embarssing in its quality (or lack thereof). If it were better quality, I'd probably be reminded of Animal Crossing, but...it's not, so it doesn't. It's more like you're sitting there and watching a movie unfold and as you complete more an more puzzles, you unlock more and more of the storyline. It's a slow and tedious process, but it gets the job done.
As for the puzzles themselves, they basically are just a typical Sudoku game, but with a slight twist: Instead of being presented with a typical 9-grid Sudoku board, you're presented with a whopping six 9-grid boards that form a globe (well, ball) that you have to entirely fill in to complete each level. Some levels are relaxed, and you can fill them in at your leisure, while others are timed so tightly that if you don't complete it by the time the hourglass at the side of the screen runs dry, you'll be losing some of the numbers you inputted on the grid and will have to re-enter them. And then there's still other levels where you have to race against the clock to use your grids to crack combination codes, chase after criminals, etc. It gets pretty intense for something that used to be thought of nothing more than as an old people's game.
If you're not much of a Sudoku fan, STEER CLEAR of this game! There's a total of about 240 puzzles before you're done. If you're into that sort of thing, then step right up! You'll love this. Really.
Rating this a 6 out of 10 Sudoku balls.
One could ask, upon seeing the title of this game, What possible Titanic mystery could there really be? The ship went down, end of story! Well, this game isn't about that....not entirely, anyhow.
In this game, you're not even traveling on the Titanic itself - rather, the game takes place in 2012 (ooooh, ominous year there...) - 100 years to the day of the original Titanic's voyage. You'll be travelling on the Titanic II - which looks identical to its fateful predecessor, but is updated with modern techology to keep things safer. However, there's a mysterious passenger on board who's written you a secret anonymous letter, telling you that they've planted a bomb somewhere on the ship that will detonate soon if you do not uncover a set number of clues around the ship to find out who this person is and where they've hidden the bomb.
In between searching for clues, you'll be speaking with your crew on the ship, who'll more or less just be there to tell you random facts about the original Titanic. (This proves to be more of an educational game than anything.) As you search the ship - which is drawn out in EXCRUTIATING detail to look photograph-esque, might I add - you'll find portions of long lost diary entries of someone who travelled and survived the original Titanic's voyage, and details an intricate love story (think Jack and Rose) that took place on the ship before it went down.
Most of your gameplay will be in levels that are much like I Spy, with a few additional mini-games thrown in here and there to keep things interesting. There's a whopping 19 chapters... Despite this game being rated for ages 3 and up, I doubt there's ANY young child who could appreciate (or even read) such a storyline, but even the ending if you do find the bomb in time and have to cut the wires to keep it from detonating... This doesn't seem very appropriate for a young child to be playing. However, if you have a child about 10 years old or older who'd like to play this, I'd say go ahead - they'd probably learn quite a bit from this game! The game itself ends all too soon... I wish it were longer, but how long can one really drag something like this out? It's a fairly simple, and yet at the same time, complex game. I liked it. I'm going to go ahead and rate it a 7 out of 10 iceburgs. (Oh....too soon?)
In a market that's so over-run by dozens upon dozens of games that are essentially the same exact thing, just by a different company, it makes things really difficult in the way of finding any that are worth bothering with.
Based on first appearances alone, this game does not look particularly appealing or impressive. The box art looks like something I could have drawn myself and then digitally colored in on Paint Shop Pro. Even if you get so far as starting up the game, the eyes on all the characters are TERRIFYING. This says a lot coming from me...the girl who usually likes huge eyes. (What can I say? I am a Liza Minnelli fan, after all.) These, on the other hand, look like they'll try and eat your soul in your sleep.
Creeptastic characters aside, once you pass the main menu, you're brought to a screen that looks like a typical office desk. The different items in front of you open the different game modes and such.
Upon entering career mode, you'll be placed inside a salon setting (you'll be viewing it from an aerial view while deciding which customer(s) to take next) where you'll either be trained to perform a new salon treatment or given a goal of a certain number of customers to take care of in a certain amoutn of allotted time, without letting X number of customers leave in frustration from waiting too long. (It's easier said than done.)
Unlike most other salon/beauty games, this one runs the gamut in REALLY going the extra mile to have different treatments of all sorts so that you don't grow bored. I'll quickly touch upon each of them:
- Manicure Prep - You file each nail smoothly and proceed to push back the cuticles. You know they've got the realism aspect down when I cringe at even just the sound of the nail file. (I can't stand them in real life, either.) Simple enough.
- Manicure Color - Basically just as it sounds. You have to grab the nail polish color your customer wants and neatly paint their nails with it. However, with the time limit allowed for this, it makes it a challenge to paint the nails neatly. This is akin to real life, though. My mother was a beautician and always amazed me at how fast she was trained to paint nails. They evidently do train you to do it under a certain time limit.
- Manicure Clean - You must chip away the old nail polish with a nail file before using nail polish remover to get rid of the rest. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for one small detail... It was brought to my attention by my brother as he looked over my shoulder at what I was playing that the way they animate the fingers for this part, they look more....um....how do I say this? They look like a very inappropriate part of the male genitalia to be putting in a children's game. I know, it's not SUPPOSED to be one, but once it's pointed out to you, you realize that it DOES, indeed, look like this. Freudian slip? Accident? Intentional subliminal message? You decide.
- Face Mask - Slather on a facial mask, blow into the microphone to dry it, and then rinse it off. Easy stuff...except that each customer wants their rinse water a different temperature.
- Blusher - Straightforward. Find the correct color of blush and apply it to the cheeks. Do it too fast, however, and you'll have to blow away the excess cloud of dust you've just created.
- Eyeshadow - This one's a little misleading, as you'll be spending more time applying the mascara here - and not with a wand, either; you have to trace it onto every lash... - than doing the actual eye shadow.
- Lipstick - Another fairly straightforward one. Get the customer's shade of lipstick, apply it, and coat it with clear lipgloss to make it shine.
- Henna - Now here's an addition that I can't say as I've ever seen in another beauty game! I really enjoyed doing this part, although I wish they'd of had more designs. You would take the dark henna and trace the outline of the design your customer wanted, and then fill it in with a pre-determined color. Again, having to do this quickly and neatly so you don't run out of time.
- Hair Wash - This part, although I knew it would have to be in the game, I wasn't too wild about. Set the water temperature accordingly, get the hair wet, apply shampoo, lather it up, re-adjust the water temperature, rinse out the shampoo, and then blowdry the hair dry. However, the blowdryer is powered by you blowing into the microphone, and having to continue doing it non-stop until the hair is completely dry. Not a very nice thing to do to an asthmatic...
- Hair Style - Just like it sounds. You brush out the customer's hair and then either straighten or curl it, depending on what they want.
- Cut & Color - Make sure to note the length on the top screen that the customer wants. It's unfortunately done a little bit subtley, so the first time around, it's a little tricky figuring out what they want. Once the hair is cut, dye their hair the color they want. (It's usually blonde.)
- Pedicure Prep - See Manicure Prep.
- Pedicure Color - See Manicure Color.
- Pedicure Clean - See Manicure Color. Also, this one is particularly more disgusting, because the toenails always look like they're diseased or something until you finish cleaning them. (GAG.)
- Back Massage - This game's salon is pretty much a full out spa, isn't it? Here, you must tap and rub your customer's back accordingly to the onscreen instructions.
- Foot Massage - Pretty much the same as the Back Massage, with some circular rubbing thrown into the mix as well.
- Hot Stones - Ooooh, nice touch! Match up the correctly-shaped stones with the outlines that show up on the customer's back, and remove them at the appropriate times, lest you want to burn your customer.
- Sensors - Now this one confuses me. You attach sensors to your customer's back, twist them, wait for them to turn green, and remove them. Um... okay? Your advisor tells you that these are the top of line in massage technology, and that they can detect pain. So, wait, are these doing any massaging, or just telling you where the customer hurts? I'm so confused...
And that's it! While the game is a good time killer, career mode doesn't drag out so long that you wish it'd hurry up and end or anything. It strikes just the right balance for length. So, aside from creepy character eyes, inappropriate looking fingers and a few minor grammatical errors in the dialogue, the game is actually pretty good. :) I'm going to rate it an 8 out of 10 teasing combs.
For a company that touts itself as being highly education, seeing as they're the same people who run the television station of the same name, you would assume at least that they would at least try to turn out a high quality product. But we all know what happens when you assume...
My very first thought upon booting up this game was that it seemed a little odd that there were only 3 breeds of ponies to pick from. On top of this, the only one I'd of been interested in, the Shetland pony, thanks to the way the markings were animated ended up looking like it had leprosy and was missing a huge chunk of flesh! Instant turn-off. I'd rather not play with a zombie pony... but at the same time, wouldn't that make an interesting premise for a potential new game? (You heard it here first if it ever happens!)
First impressions aside, once I got into the actual gameplay, I began to think that perhaps this is actually a pretty decent game. There was realism in the small details such as not stroking the pony too hard or fast, lest it not enjoy it (resist the urge to make the obvious comment here...I'm biting my tongue so hard right now). The foods were even more specifically fine tuned and realistic to what real horses eat than what most horse simulators offer, the bathing process was more or less accurate, you can teach them tricks (and actually have to memorize just how you got your pony to do them), and what caught my eye as being unique to this game... It appears you're able to teach your pony to pull a pony cart! (I'm biased. Some of my best childhood memories were spent riding along the nature trails behind our house in a pony cart.)
Or at least...you're supposed to be able to do this. What's the problem then, exactly? Well... the game is severely glitched. There's no way for you to end even your first day and put your pony to bed for the night. It won't let you. You're probably figuring I must have done something wrong, or overlooked something, but no. I hit up Google for the answer of how to end the first day, and it appears you can't. The few and far between reviews I found on this game all had the same thing to say about it, that it's glitched and therefore useless. :( Which is really a disappointment when you know that the game had a LOT of potential to possibly be amazing, but is useless. There's no way to update these games with a patch, being on the DS and all, so about all you can do is return them, get your money back, and hope that the company recalls all the glitched games and replaces them with fixed cartridges. But until when and if that happens, this game is getting a rating of 1 out of 10 ponies. I don't feel like I should even be rating it that highly, but what else can you do?
While at a first glance, this may appear to be a Sims 2: Castaway knock-off, if anything, this may be where Maxis got the idea for their game for. I remember playing the PC version of this game when it first came out, and was fairly impressed with it as well, so naturally I was eager to try out the DS version of it when I learned that there was such a release.
For those who are unfamiliar with the premise of this game, a plane full of unfortunate travelers crashed on a deserted island far away from anywhere. Without a hope in world for being rescued by anyone, they're left to their own devices for attempting their own survival. There were only about 6 or so survivors, of varying ages and abilities, so you really must choose wisely in how to use them.
It's your job to guide these villagers through their daily lives and to help them build up a small civilization for themselves. They must build huts, forage for food, hunt, procreate, learn skills that will help them in their lives, and, possibly most importantly, unlock the secrets of the island.
The latter of these tasks proves to be the most difficult, as with the way the game was designed, there's very little in the way of even hints to give you an idea of what you need to do to unlock the island's well-kept secrets. This is probably your biggest challenge aside from getting your villagers to adequately procreate enough to keep their population steadily increasing. Why? Because they do get old and die off... so it's imperative that you get them to live as long as they can so they can accomplish as much as possible.
There are milestones that your villagers will celebrate, such as the number of years it's been since the plane crashed on the island, honoring their ancestors, etc. Not particularly necessary, but I thought it was a really nice touch!
Try as I might, I was never able to unlock quite all the secrets, so I'm not sure if there's an official end to this game or not or if it's just open-ended to play until all your villagers eventually die, but either way, it's very time-consuming. If this sounds like the type of game that would dig, then this game is probably for you! I'm rating this game a 7 out of 10 villagers.
In times like these when shovelware runs rampant and it's easy to find at least a dozen games with the same exact premise, it can be a little daunting to know where to even start to try and find a decent game from any one of these overdone genres. Which is where I step in: to find the few rare gems amongst all the fodder.
Last weekend, I had a nasty cold that left me curled up in bed, not wanting to do much of anything, and had about the attention span of a goldfish, which left pretty much any game requiring any considerable amount of thought or concentration completely out of the running for what I should try next. So I perused through my extensive game collection and picked up this one that I'd never so much as really looked at before: Pony Life.
I'll admit, I didn't have very high hopes for this game - I mean, really, there's so many out there seemingly just like it, I figured I'd play it for 15 minutes, toss it aside, and never look at it again. Wrong... A week later, here I am... having wasted just about the entire week on the thing.
The graphics didn't originally strike me as being anything particularly special, given that this is a DS game and all and we've seen their history with how most 3D game graphics look. But even so, there's a painstaking amount of detail paid to almost everything in this game; from the ponies themselves to the scenery to just...well...everything! As the seasons progress and change, so do the settings of each scene. They're not new maps; they're exactly the same, but recreated to reflect the changing seasons. This is done SO very well that it left me feeling nostalgic for the days when I was growing up and really did own a pony, and went riding on the trails behind our property. My favorite of the seasons, without a doubt, had to be the winter season, where all the maps are blanketed in a coat of white Christmas snow. Ice crystals hang lazily, yet elegantly from the weeping willow tree in the pasture. The only location not kissed by winter is the beach...which I suppose makes sense, but at the same time, doesn't, as all the locations directly surrounding it were all snowy. Small continuity error, but I digress.
You have to do the daily upkeep, naturally, with each of your ponies - feeding them, brushing them, cleaning them, petting them... The one thing that I couldn't help but notice is that it conveniently leaves out the fact that if you own ponies, you'll need to clean up their poop. A LOT. Anyone who's ever owned a horse will tell you that this is one of the very first things that springs to mind when you think about horse care and upkeep, because they do so dang much of it. To leave it out altogether like this? It almost immediately disqualifies the game as being realistic in and of itself.
That said, there are other qualities that this game possesses that help win back points in the realism department. Each pony has its own distinct personality and temperament based on breed, and they also each have their own personal tastes with things such as the type of food that they're fed. One pony may love a certain kind, another may hate it. If you pet or brush them in sensitive spots, they're liable to freak out a little and buck. It's the little things like this that most other similar games tend to leave out but this one put in that I appreciate. You also get to choose from a number of different styles of saddle blankets, saddles, and bits to dress them up in... or mix and match them! (Another thing many similar games won't let you do.) You can also change your rider's styles like this, but I wish you could've customized her appearance as well. (I definitely wouldn't have picked a blonde if it had been up to me.)
Of course, this is by no means the entire game. (What sort of game would it be? Ah yeah...another typical horse simulator.) Well, this one's better than that: Each season that you return to the ranch, there's a new competition to train for and take part in. You've got typical rodeo type games (stuff like having to pop balloons on a course while riding, collecting flags and dropping them into the matching colored cones, gathering rings on a sword), show jumping, dressage (for those not in the equine world, NO, this has nothing to do with fashion :p), obstacle courses... There's so much to do. And with each game year that passes, your competition grows stronger. It will eventually reach the point where unless you get an absolutely perfect score, you'll be beaten by your competitor, and it will take another game year to get back around to that competition to try and win the title. A little daunting, sure, but it does make this a more lengthy game than it probably otherwise would have been.
My only other real gripe with this game is one point that'd probably be a selling point with really little girls is that, there is a magical forest area that, if you can complete the course, you're rewarded with either a golden feather or a magic mushroom. Upon equine ingestion of either, they will either sprout wings and become a pegasus, or they'll eat the mushroom and become a unicorn. Now, I don't know about you, but it seems like a pretty bad idea to me to put the thought into little girls' heads that if they feed their ponies feathers or mushrooms in real life, that they'll turn into one of these mythical creatures. Just my opinion, I could be wrong, seeing as not too many kids own ponies anymore.
Overall, the game's not terrible. It's better than most in this genre, so I'm going to go ahead and rate it a 7 out of 10 little ponies.
I'm just going to get it out in the open right off the bat to get it out of the way: with a title like Angel Cat Sugar, of all things, I was torn between a feeling of 'what the hell is this?' and a strong feeling that this game would be heavy on the Engrish, if you know what I mean. The fact that the cover even tells you that it's made by the creators of Hello Kitty only exacerbated this feeling. Not that there's anything wrong with Japanese games; I like them from time to time, but I thought this one might be pushing the envelope a little too hard.
Surprisingly, this game really isn't like that at all. Yes, it has very much Sanrio-inspired graphics (which are so cute, they just might make you puke) and the dialogue is actually coherent. I had no trouble reading it. The storyline is told in the style of a children's bedtime story, which makes this game good for younger players. There's no real chance of them getting freaked out or traumatized by this one; there's nothing that scary in it. The bad guy, even, is just a storm cloud with a moustache and a crown. (Not too scary.) Also, the majority of the characters in this game all have spice names, which is cute, if not kitschy. It does give it a definite sort of charm, though.
You more or less control your character, which is a little angel cat named Sugar (I'm guessing because she's so sweet?) through all the heavenly worlds (no, I'm serious...this cat is in Heaven), where she'll prance or leap around, leaving trails of sparkles in her wake. (Or is it sugar?) You collect hearts and such (it's different in each level) while helping out characters in each of the levels find their missing items, all working up to the antagonist of each level, who each have one of Sugar's friends held captive, which she must free. She is challenged to a type of duel each time that she must win to free her friends, leading up to the duel with the Storm King. It's all pretty straightforward.
My only real gripe with this game is the touch screen controls. Whenever you need to use the umbrella, or the watering can or anything, there's a small delay between when you try to summon the item and it actually shows up. It's more annoying than a real problem, since this game isn't exactly challenging in the slightest, but I thought that it would be worth mentioning.
Overall, the game is targeted for a very young audience, and for its intended audience, I will rate this game an 8 out of 10 angel kitties. Obviously, older players are not going to care much for this title, and they'd want it rated much lower. But this isn't for them. I'm rating this for the kids; they need something to play too.
Yawn... Another day, another Diner Dash knock-off. Sometimes, these type of games can work, as previously noted in earlier reviews of mine, but this one... I'm pretty much on the fence on.
Once again, you'll be playing the part of a generic main character whose job is to run a generic food processing plant--I mean, you'll be running a candy factory. (I know. You're sooooo surprised by this, right?) You'll level up, buy bigger and better equipment for your factory, yadda yadda yadda...
What makes this game any different from all the rest? Well, for a start, it's a candy factory instead of the usual restaurant, which appeals to the inner child in most of us. (Even the diabetics.) You'll be working along a conveyor belt to fill customers' orders, sort them by color and type, and wrap them in decorative gift bags for extra money. It's all really self-explanatory if you've ever so much as played a single game from this genre before. The only difference is you have to arrange the candies in the right order while on the conveyor belts, which gives this game a nearly Bejeweled-esque feel to it. Not necessarily bad, just a little different. The only problem with this approach is that with how small the DS's screen is, having to work with such small pieces is tricky, even with a stylus and a perfectly calibrated screen. It is not impossible, however. (I still managed to complete the game within several hours' time.)
The music is enough to drive anybody nuts. It's absolutely saccharine... but then, what else would you expect from a game based around candy? (Oooh, yes, I know. Painfully bad pun. I apologize. Almost as painfully cheesy as every single name in the game, as well as the different factories, being candy-related!) The graphics are decent enough... They're nothing fabulous or anything, but they're not bad. Given the genre, they're pretty standard, really. However, one thing I hate that brought this down from being a typical game of the genre to a mildly subpar one: the loading screens. There is NO REASON WHATSOEVER that this game should be taking so long to load every level! For how simplistic the graphics, the sounds, and the controls are, it should be an absolutely quick loader... and yet, you're sitting there waiting a minimum of often 10 to 20 seconds PER LEVEL for the screens to load. What gives?? I was NOT so wild about this. I kept putting the DS down and trying to multitask since it would take so long (oh yes, A.D.D. city, right here!) and I kept forgetting about it since the loading screens were taking so horribly long, which meant it'd be half-way into a level at times (my bad for turning the sound off I guess) before I'd notice this, and I'd end up having to restart the level...meaning I'd have to sit through the loading screens again. You can no doubt see how this quickly became a vicious cycle, no? So, that's a major drawback in the game as far as I'm concerned.
Another thing that I don't understand about this game, even after having completed it, is how your competition repeatedly sabotages your candy factory, and yet, you never get to sabotage them back! Why is this, exactly? I can understand the whole turn the other cheek mentality, but if this were a real factory, and I were getting sabotaged repeatedly like that? You can bet I'd be taking some action to either get even, or get the cops involved! But I guess the designers felt that there would be less of a game to do without this, so...whatever. I just don't even know.
The method for stacking your candies (which isn't necessary, it just garners you extra points) is also a little awkward, not to mention, wastes your time. I'd advise you to just not bother with it...I finished the game with barely ever even so much as remembering that I could do this. Instead, invest in your machines to make them run faster, and you'll be amazed just how much it helps.
One final noteworthy point: not to give out any spoilers here (and I'm being careful not to spoil the plot), BUT, the game ends on a very cliche "To Be Continued" note. However, I checked Nintendo's website, and despite it having been released over a year ago at this point, there's absolutely no mention of there ever being a sequel in the future. So why end the game on such a note? Just to leave the possibility open to there maybe being a second game someday? I'm not entirely sure just how much more you could do with such a limiting storyline, so I don't see how there ever could be a sequel...which adds to my argument that the game shouldn't be ended like this. Far as I'm concerned, unless you have a sequel in the works, don't end a game this way. It's just frustrating.
Overall, I think I'm going to rate this game a 6 out of 10 candy wrappers.
Before you say it, I know what you're thinking. God, not *another* fashion designer game... AND it's by Ubisoft? This is going to be a trainwreck... I know. I thought this too. But you know what? I can honestly tell you that I was pleasantly surprised by this one... It really wasn't bad!
Despite my horrible skepticism about how this game would be before I even picked it up (I mean, c'mon. Just LOOK at the cover!) based both on appearances and the company that released it, I decided I'd do it anyway, if even just for having some new material to review. I swear I can vaguely recall a computer version of this game a year or two back, but the gameplay was nowhere near similar to this, and I don't even know for a fact if it truly was the same title or if it was just similar. Anyway, I digress.
First impressions were immediately made when upon starting up the game, I took note that the main character looks like a redheaded, younger version of the Supernanny. (I think this is the second game I've made such an observation on... Either she has a really common face, or I have issues. More likely, a combination of the two.) The defenses were up. Anyhow, upon entering the Runway Mode of the game, we're immediately thrust into the world of Jojo Cruz; former fashionista extraordinaire. After taking about 20 years off from the business, her work has been eclipsed by that of her rival, who's effectively taken over the fashion scene. At the urging of her daughter, she's decided to get her designs back out on the runway again and resume her rightful place as top designer. The question becomes, can she do it?
As you probably have already surmised, you will indeed be playing the role of Jojo as she spreads her designs through New York, London, Sydney, Milan, Tokyo, and of course, the fashion capitol of the world, Paris. In each level, you'll be presented with a theme (if not multiple themes) that you'll have to design your creations to accomodate. Some of them are simple as a color; others are prints vs. solids, some are based on eras, while others as mash-ups such as Flamenco Punk or Cowboy Glam. It is these latter types of themes that will force you to have to become increasingly creative in how you both approach your designs and in the way that you think about pairing your outfits together.
I'll admit that the plotline is a little dodgy; while I did try to skim through the dialogue bits at the beginning of each level, I also found that the dialogue screens scroll through too quickly to read in many instances, and I finally gave up trying. They're not really important to the gameplay anyhow; what matters is that you take note of which items will work for which cateories as they flash by at the beginning of every level. This is your only real challenge aside from every level being timed, and only having about 10 seconds or so to prepare your outfits and debut them down the runway. There's no time for dillydallying; speed and quick thinking are virtues if you want to want to succeed at this game.
The graphics were surprisingly better than I'd anticipated, given the animation style both used on the box and for the characters during the dialogue screens. During the actual gameplay, it's different and it's improved. Same goes for the runway shows. So I'm giving the game high marks in this area. I wish I could say the same for the sound. I played the majority of the game with the sound turned off. The music mostly isn't too terrible, except for one horribly annoying high pitched wail that goes off during the design screen about every 5 - 10 seconds that could trigger a bout of tinnitus in just about anybody. For how awful that sound alone was, I do have to deduct points off my final rating of the game for that.
As you complete levels throughout the game, more and more items will become available to use in the Dress Up Mode portion of the game. Although I only played with that for a brief time, I can safely tell you that it's nothing more than yet another virtual dress up doll game when you play it on that mode. It could have easily been left out of the final product, except for that with this game's length, I guess they needed something to help flesh things out a little more. I completed this game in three sittings of a couple hours each; I'm quite certain that if one were determined to, they could easily complete the whole game in a single day.
Overall, I think I'm feeling generous and I'm going to rate this game a 7.5 out of 10 couture outfits.
As a gamer who's both a sucker for simulation games, and especially medically-themed simulation games, it seemed to me that a game with a title like "Hysteria Hospital" would be a surefire win! Leading up to its release, not much was said about what exactly the plot of this game was, nor much of anything pertaining to how the game itself would be played. Would this be another Trauma Center type game? (Oooh, I hope!) Would it be like Lifesigns? ...Not as good, but I could still get into that! Would it be like that awful Grey's Anatomy game? Oh, I could only pray the answer was no. Or, would it be its own special new type of game I couldn't even imagine yet? That could be exciting too! Needless to say, I was very excited to get my hands on a copy of this title, as it came up as being a 'related' game in every review I read of any one of the myriad of other medical titles out there.
Well... I can't say as that this game really particularly fits any of these descriptions. Rather, it's yet another Diner Dash-esque game. Which wouldn't necessarily be bad in and of itself; I like Diner Dash! The problem with this game, however, is sheer monotony that leaves you feeling like you may need to visit this hospital by the time you're done with it.
You're basically in charge of the most ghetto hospitals in the country, and it's your job to take care of your patients' needs with what little resources you have. Now, here's the added catch: you only have so long to play each level, and there's both a minimum number of patients you must see per day as well as a cash quota you must hit. Therefore, you have to get as many patients in and out of the hospital as quickly as possible. Sound familiar? I feel that it's a direct reflection of our country's current health care system. Anyone who's had to spend any time, ever, in an emergency room will quickly be able to see this. They don't care so much about the patients themselves as they do about the money. And if you don't have the necessary equipment to treat your patients, you send them away in an ambulance to a neighboring hospital for treatment instead. Of course, these patients will neither provide you with any much-needed money or boost your patient quota for the day, so this option should be used sparingly as possible.
What's more, you also have to adjust just how much your doctors get paid, as well as your pharmacist and general costs for hospital repairs. The more you pay out for these things, the more quickly you'll be able to treat patients, but at the same time, it also depletes your bankbook quickly. A perfect balance must be struck to succeed. One thing you should never skimp on in this game is the cost for repairs. If you don't pay the maximum price, your machines will break down frequently, and it often takes longer to fix them than a patient is willing to wait for before leaving angrily in frustration.
As you level up through the game and you accumulate cash, you'll be able to buy more and more machines for your hospital; thus increasing the number of patients who come to you that you'll actually be able to treat. This is a good thing! But, watch out: when you migrate from one hospital to the next, you do NOT get to take your equipment with you, nor are you reimbursed the costs. You're essentially starting all over again from square one each time, and the demands only become higher and higher.
What frustrated me most about this game is that unless you purchase things in an exactly specific order and know the perfect amounts to pay for everything, you will not be able to finish this game. You'll back yourself into a corner that there is NO way out of, and then you'll be screwed. Nice, huh? While I do like a challenge (who wants to buy a game they're just going to complete within a day or two?), if they'd of taken this down just a notch, it would greatly improve people's satisfaction with the game. Mine included. They should have included some sort of way to work yourself back out of the hole you find yourself in if you get that far, but alas, no. Even if you try and sell back equipment for cash, you don't receive full price for it, making this pointless to even attempt.
Now for the technical aspects: The animation style used in this game isn't bad...It's not great, but it's not bad. I found it rather cute, actually. However, due to the crammed nature of the pixels on a DS screen, it makes for some rather interesting results in the appearance of some of the individuals in your game. For example, your pharmacist is indeed a black man, but with both the animation style used and the shading in the game, it appears as though the game's developers gave the pharmacist some VERY stereotypically (almost to the point of being offensive) thick black lips. Also, when the quick treatment tables become dirty after use... Well, gross though it may be, they always look as though they've been defecated upon. Either the designers weren't very careful in just how they tried to illustrate the dirtiness, or every patient that comes in has some SERIOUS bladder control issues!
The patients themselves that come in are very limited. You see approximately the same 6 patients over and over again, and often end up with two of the same patient right next to each other in the waiting room. Somewhat strange demographics that they decided to go with here. And doesn't anyone else find it strange not only that the mothers who come in holding babies NEVER put the babies down, but that for all these mothers, none of them come in to actually have a baby? Very odd indeed.
The treatments approaches aren't even close to being accurate. Rather, they're supposed to be humorous (ahahaha, did you see what I did there? ...You didn't? Darn. Medical humor always goes over everybody's heads...), but unless you actually read the descriptions, then chances are the humor will have gone over your head and make the whole seem very amatuer. Let me give you some examples of the "treatments" this game offers:
- Bed - This new hospital bed has 25% less bed bugs than last year's model!
- Quick Treatment - Get patients in and out before you can say 'malpractice'.
- X-Ray - It's 10 times more extreme than the Y-Ray!
- CAT Scan - The CAT scan has three settings: regular, delicate, and permanent press.
- Dentist - We never hear patients complain, but they sure do mumble a lot.
- Steam Machine - Can you feel the heat?
- Mechanical Cow - Stress is no match for this machine.
- Electrotherapy - Make sure patients sign the fine print before treatment.
- Operation - He slices; he dices. Patients won't know what hit them!
- Cardiology - For patients with chest pains who haven't seen the bill yet.
- Ultrascan - No one knows how to use it. But it's so high tech, we trust its diagnosis.
- Physiotherapy - Gives patients a run for their money.
- Skin Treatment - A dermo-treatment that smoothes wrinkles and smells like pine!
Definitely not the sort of place you'd want to be treated, I'm sure! (Unless, of course, you had a death wish.)
The sound effects in the game aren't too bad. Actually, in certain circumstances, they're disturbingly accurate. The dentist drill was enough to make me cringe EVERY time a patient got treated by the dentist, and in some instances, had to turn the sound way down. It's a game you can't really turn the sound off on without it affecting your gameplay. There's a sound that plays every time a patient arrives in the emergency room, and this is something you need to know. Therefore, if you turn the sound off, you're only hindering yourself.
The controls are fairly good, but a little bit glitchy in a couple spots. The most notable of these is with the operating table... you can put a patient on it no problem, but it can be a little more difficult to get them back off of it afterwards. I don't know why they occasionally just get randomly stuck on there, but they do. It's very annoying, since it mostly seems to happen when you're having an otherwise fantastic round.
The game overall is very average. Nothing special here, and there's not much I can say for it that makes it stand apart from the crowd. It lacks originality, but more importantly, it lacks the variation it so desperately needs to keep the gameplay fresh. I'm going to give this game a 5 out of 10 scalpel rating.
