Know how I normally do nothing whatsoever but bitch about how bad the Imagine line is? Forget all that for a moment - or at least, for the duration of this review.
While I won't lie to you and tell you that this is a fantastic game or anything, I can tell you that it's considerably better than the usual tripe Imagine releases, and if you're looking for the better titles they've put out, this would be one of them.
In addition to not basing itself around a stereotypical feminine career path (unless you count Nancy Drew), may I just say that I LOVE the jazzy music they use for this game? (If there's one thing I'm a sucker for, it's jazz.) Any game with a cute cat as a sidekick earns even more bonus points. You go and name that cat Ozzy, and well... the levels of awesome are off the charts! (Especially when this cat has THE best attitude ever.)
Ignoring the fact that your character looks absolutely nothing like the chick on the box (she's a blonde and the girl on the box is a brunette, as you can see), the animation style in this game is superior to most of the rest of the series. I was quite surprised, to say the least! Sure, it's very comic book style, but I love it!
As for the game itself, think of it as Nancy Drew mixed with a hint of Phoenix Wright, as if it were watered down for little girls. An interesting combination, if I do say so myself. You're a detective who must collect clues and figure out mysteries, obviously enough. There's plenty of mini-games and searching for clues packed into the game to keep things interesting though. Even on the "easy" difficulty, there's an element of challenge to this that the other Imagine games don't possess. Maybe the company is finally starting to figure things out? One can only hope. There's even fight scenes which, for lack of better wording, give a whole new meaning to the term "fists flying". (You'll see what I mean if you play it.)
One of the only things I didn't like about the game is the navigation of the map. it's not TOO terrible, but it doesn't always move in the direction you want it to, and it takes a bit longer than you might like it to to reach your destinations. A small flaw in an otherwise pretty decent game. My other gripe is that you're unable to pause during mini-games but again, this is just a minor set-back. (I often play while multi-tasking, but for the age-range this game's intended for, that probably shouldn't be a problem.)
There's just one thing that puzzles me: The game ends on a "To Be Continued..." note where you're supposed to rendevouz with your character's father. I don't know if this means there's another mission you need to unlock in the game or if there's another game coming. What I did notice is that there's a special area to type in a code... Where do you get this code, and what does it do? Hmm... another mystery to solve!
I'm going to go ahead and give this game a glowing review of 7 out of 10 dectective's magnifying glasses.
It's not too often that I encounter a game that's so terrible, I can't even play it. Even with skullnumbingly boring titles, I'll usually sit through it and stick it out for the duration of the game to give it a fair shot. Most bad games usually still have some redeeming factor. But then, there's others like this one that I can't even say that about.
On the heels of Drawn To Life, this seemed like an intriguing concept. But here's the problem: You're dropped directly into the game with NO tutorial or even a clue of how to play whatsoever. Through trial and error, you'll find that you're able to jump, and that you can draw basic shapes of circles, squares, triangles, rectangles, and straight lines in which to aid your navigation (which could be considered "unpredictable" on a mild day, at best) throughout the world. For each shape drawn, however, it draws away from your health points, as do the usual hazards such as running into enemies, falling on spikes, etc. You can erase what you've drawn for extra health, but it will use up your markers, which are too few and far between to depend on. So, how exactly DO you play this? Who knows! I searched high and low on Google for walkthroughs, tips, ANYTHING... and apparently everyone's come to the same conclusion: this game is virtually unplayable. What a waste. Should you be skilled enough even to progress past the first level somehow? That's okay - you won't make it far. See, this game is set up like the old NES games... If you die, you aren't returned to the same spot, or even the beginning of the level. Oh, no... You're returned to the start of the GAME. And with the navigation being as iffy as it is? It doesn't matter how many times you play it through. It doesn't make it any easier. Much of the problem lies in the fact that about 9 times out of 10, your shapes and lines will not register. You can sit there and draw them over and over for god knows how long before it'll finally show up. If you're lucky, it'll be the shape you were trying for. Chances are, it won't be.
The concept of this game was good, but in execution, it fails. Hard. Giving it a 1 out of 10 stick figure men.
Okay. Seriously, one of these days, I will learn to run away screaming any time I so much as see another Imagine title come out.
Unfortunately, today is not that day.
That aside, this game confused me greatly. With a title such as what this has, was I in the wrong to have assumed (well, you know what happens when one assumes...) that this game was going to somehow be about school field trips? That's what it sounded like to me! Evidently, I wasn't even close. You're a teacher who's overseeing her class on some sort of month-long camping trip. Um... I'm not sure what kind of camping trip a teacher could take her class on for an entire month (here in America, it's standard protocol for 6th graders to attend a 1 week long 'outdoor school', but that's it), so this was the first puzzling point to me. Especially since the kids look and act no older than 3rd graders, tops. Anyhow, it's never discussed what the point of this trip is or anything - just that there's an evil rival teacher who wants to bring about your downfall. It's very strange. I also haven't quite figured out why the students refer to their teacher on a first name basis...
It won't take you very long at all to find out that these kids are downright BRATS. They talk, play video games, dance on the desks, etc. ALL during classtime while you're trying to teach. Try to give them a test, and they'll all try and cheat off one another. (Also, what's with all the bees everywhere that sneak into the classroom? I feel like I'm stuck in an Eddie Izzard sketch - "I'M COVERED IN BEEEEEEES!") Add into this that they're CONSTANTLY fighting with each other, which you have to break up each time, and bedtime is an absolute nightmare... They're divided into three bunks, and at any given moment, they'll be jumping on the beds, screaming their heads off, losing items, etc. You're stuck to calm their asses down and get them in bed, lights out, lock down time. If I'd of wanted to do this, I didn't need a game to do it, I could've just walked upstairs and dealt with my siblings instead. Unless the point was to try and show kids what they look like when they're being totally bratty to their parents, I have NO clue why they included this in the game. It's just irritating and re-affirms my decision that I never want to have kids of my own.
There's missions you have to complete each day which include things like running, fishing, singing, climbing, digging, pitching tents, etc. At first, they don't seem so bad, but they get very old and repetitious quickly, and it feels like you're just going through chores. Since this makes up the entirety of the game, sans for the lame dialogue scenes, it seems like they could've added more variety to things. What about the typical camp activities, like arts and crafts, or canoeing, or archery? None of that's included here, and it's disappointing to me.
The climbing scenes, after the first few levels, begin to send out obstacles like birds pecking at your students heads, or snakes dropping down out of the trees and attempting to strike your students. Um, excuse me.... If you KNOWINGLY sent these kids to climb up trees that you KNOW there's snakes in, this spells out only one thing in my book: LAWSUIT!!!
The waterfall scenes don't seem much better. In addition to the waterfall itself looking like it was something that was drawn in MS Paint (surprisingly, it's about the only part of the game that I have an issue with the graphics on - this had strangely good graphics for an Imagine game), while you're trying to fish - and in such an odd fashion, might I add; who just holds a net in a waterfall and hopes for fish to land in them? - much debris comes flying over the waterfall as well. Flower pots, paint cans, fat kids... Unless this was a social commentary on how bad pollution is for the environment, I don't quite see the point of this either.
Both in the digging and tent pitching levels, you're bombarded by snakes and crabs who try to undermine your efforts. All you're left to fend yourself with is a measly fly swatter. I don't see how a fly swatter would help you fend off either of these creatures, seeing how smacking either of them with one would just piss them off and make them MORE likely to attack in real life, but I digress. Bad planning on Imagine's part.
The marathon races are pretty strange too. You'll have to crank a siren, blow a whistle (which always made me dizzy as hell trying to keep it up for long enough - asthmatics, beware), crank a noisemaker, clap a pair of oversized foam hands, blow an airhorn, amongst a few other things to try and make your kid run faster. Your secret weapon: CANDY! Oh yes. Teach them that sugar highs will win games! *FACEPALM* Honestly, what were they thinking? WERE they thinking? I don't think so.
And then there's the singing levels. Oh GOD, how I cringed at these. The 'singing', as it were, is nothing more than a poorly emulated "laaaa" sound from a midi program. (I used to have software to make such files with and remember the sound effects for voices perfectly. This sounds JUST like that did.) They also sing badly, even for kids. Add to this that the faces they make while singing looks like someone's coming at them with a chainsaw and they're screaming for their lives, and it's really not a fun level to have to play over and over.
After you sit through the horribleness that is this game? You find out there's NO ENDING.
Read that again.
NO. ENDING.
You just wasted hours - possibly DAYS - on this retarded game, only to find that there's no ending, no tying up loose ends, just a 'free play' for you to use. Why, pray tell, would you WANT to still play the same things OVER AND OVER that you've already been doing for the past who knows how long and driving yourself crazy with? No. Just, no. Skip this title, guys. Do it for your sanity.
2 out of 10 bratty students.
A few years back, I remember the sudden slew of Diner Dash knock-off titles that came out for PCs. Some of them were good, and others sucked royally. But they were coming out in spades seemingly every other week (hmm...inspiration for Imagine? ;) Sorry, sorry...). Some of these better titles that continued to sell well began to be made for consoles and handhelds, and one of these titles was Burger Island.
Released by Destineer Games, I didn't think that I'd heard of this company before until I looked at their list of releases on ther website. They've actually put out a good number of games that I'm familiar with! The Full Metal Alchemist games, Candy Factory, Cate West: The Vanishing Files, Emergency! Disaster Rescue Squad, Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine, Dino Pets, just to name a few. As I've liked almost every one of these games when I've played them, I was expecting a good game, and this one didn't disappoint! (What a nice change from what the usual has been lately...)
The premise is this: You're a tourist visiting a tropical island somewhere or other (it's never disclosed where exactly, but I pretended it was some tiny island off of Hawaii), and you somehow end up washed up on the shores of this island in the middle of nowhere with no hope of recovery. Instead, you make friends with the locals and try to make the best of your current situation. So what better to do while stranded on a strange island than to open your own burger joint, am I right? (Yeah, okay. I don't understand the logic on that move either, but that's neither here nor there.)
You train to learn to cook burgers, fries, and milkshakes. Never together; they always have their own levels. As you level up through the game, you'll pick up newer, more complicated recipes for each of these. The trick is to keep up with the speed of the customers without making a single mistake. Mess one detail up, and they'll get mad and leave. (Harsh critics!) It's not too hard until you hit the final bend on the map - that's when they REALLY speed up to an insane level! (And of course, they never want any of the simpler recipes by that point.) It's challenging and a little bit maddening at times, but in a good way.
The one comment I have to make that confused me is the way they divided up the difficulty system on this game. They aren't labeled as such; they're labeled by the different sizes of fast food meals. Who would have ever figured that "kiddie sized" would mean the hardest difficulty level? It's just a little confusing. With how hard it was on that difficulty, I was almost leery of how hard the others would be....only to sail right through them and go "that's it?".
Overall, I'd highly recommend this game to just about anybody! I'm going to give it a big 8 out of 10 burgers.
You know, from a company such as Majesco, I tend to associate them with high quality level games. Silly sometimes, but usually pretty awesome. These are the people who brought us such titles as the Cake Mania series, Age of Empires (well, the DS version, anyhow...), the Cooking/Gardening Mama games, Operation Vietnam, just to name a few of the large myriad of games they put out. But, for every game company out there, there's bound to be duds. This, sadly, is one of them. A HUGE one.
My suspicions were already raised just from the fact that the cover art for this game looked like a cheap knock-off of the Bratz line (another bad influence for kids, but I digress...), and it was being touted around EVERYWHERE prior to its release. It was on tv, it was on internet ads in kids sites like Neopets, Nick.com, Stardoll, Gaia Online; you name it, and chances are it was there. I noticed there was a huge lack in these ads showing any gameplay or telling much of anything of what this game was about...just that there was a LOT of hype surrounding its release. I figured I'd try it out.
There's a reason you never really heard about this game again after it was released.
It SUCKED.
I'm not saying that to be catty, I'm not even saying that because it's a HORRIBLE influence for kids, I'm saying it because it sucked hard, plain and simple. So, all that cutesy cover art on the box? Forget about it. The only time you'll see it in the game is during the storyline sequences (which are vague, at best). Everywhere else in the game, you'll be subjected to a craptastic barrage of TERRIBLE 3-D art. I thought I'd seen bad in the Imagine line, but good lord. This ranks right up there with it.
The gameplay itself is more or less a virtual, 3-D board game. Every single level is laid out in a fictional mall, with more moving parts than the inner workings of a clock, and so many vibrant colors that it looks like a gay pride parade threw up all over the place. The game spaces span over multiple floors and have elevators and escalators to move between them, as well as shops every so many spaces where you can buy job promotions, BFFs, and/or hot new boyfriends. Okay, I cannot be the only one who thinks that this is a horrible message to send to little girls! Want that big job promotion? Buy them off! New friends? Lavish expensive gifts on them and they'll love you! Hot boyfriend? You can buy those too! Horrible. HORRIBLE message. But what can one expect in such a consumerist society anyway?
Add to this that all during your gameplay, you have to withstand terribly annoying music and even MORE annoying random voice clips that seem to have no rhyme or reason with the characters they're paired with. I had to play the game with the sound off because they annoyed me so badly. Imagine being stuck in a room with 4 valley girls who only say the same 4 or 5 phrases over...and over....and over... It gets on your nerves.
The rest of the gameplay is fairly straightforward. You spin a wheel, move however many spaces that the wheel lands on, and you'll either gain points, lose points/BFFs/boyfriends/secret cards, or have the option to shop. You get a goal at the beginning of each level to complete before the end of the round (oh, did I mention there's only 5 turns a round?) and if you fail to complete this, you'll have to play it all over again until you do. Sometimes your secret cards may help you, but usually...not so much.
To be honest, this is one game I couldn't play all the way to the end. It drove me so nuts with how incredibly stupid the whole concept of the game was. I played through the first 5 or 6 rounds and finally gave up after seeing that it's just the same thing over and over and really isn't even fun. The other 3 girls in the game will do nothing but take every excuse to backstab you at every opportunity that presents itself , and one ends up feeling quite victimized after playing. How exactly does that spell out fun? I'm giving this game a rating of 2 out of 10 raging hormal teenage brats.
Imagine this (pun intended), if you will: You are given an all expenses paid trip to girls only band camp. (Okay, okay, go ahead. Insert the obligatory "this one time, at band camp..." joke here.) Now that we've gotten that out of the way, you'll be spending a week here in this camp. You get to pick whether to join the punk, pop, or rock cabins, and from there, you'll be picking whether to learn drums, guitar, or keyboards primarily for your time here. (You'll end up playing all three at various points throughout the game, so don't stress too much over your main pick.)
Aside from the mostly pointless dialogue (and small assignments) that goes on with the other campers (I guess the makers felt they needed to round out a feeling of the whole camp cameraderie experience), you'll mostly just be playing and practicing music. Just like any other music-based DS game, everything's based on rhythm. You tap along with the drums, strum your guitar (while hitting the arrow keys at the same time to form chords) and plink away on the keyboard. It's all pretty simple stuff, but then, let's keep in mind that this game was made for kids. Even the hardest songs aren't that difficult to play. The game suggests that you put away your stylus and play this game with your fingers, but I ignored the suggestion and just used my stylus instead (and did just fine). I wouldn't advise the usage of fingers on the bare touch screen at any time.
You'll find that even with the endless amounts of dialogue, the game still progresses quickly, and if you don't bore yourself silly playing this, you can probably finish it within a few hours. (I couldn't sit myself through it all at once though, I'll admit.) This is a fairly run of the mill title, easily expendible. I'd skip on this one if I were you. 4 our of 10 guitars.
When I first stumbled across this game, I was expecting something akin to the Imagine: Wedding Designer game, expect perhaps a little more maturely based (judging by the pictures on the box). Having been involved in the planning of several weddings in real life, you could say I've "caught the bug", as it were, and couldn't resist picking this one up.
While I can't tell you that it's even remotely similar to the other title (because it's nothing like it), I can tell you that it IS an interesting game! Your character is a wedding planner who has to help plan 3 couples' weddings. About 90% of the levels you'll play are pretty much like "I Spy" games, but in a good way! They're VERY challenging, even for someone who's quite skilled in these games. The items you find, however, are at random; they usually don't have anything to do with weddings. But that's beside the point! Adding to your challenge is that you are given a 5 minute time limit...not for just one, but completing TWO levels in the allotted time given. It's harder than it would sound, believe me! If you don't complete the second puzzle under the time limit, you have to do them both over again until you do get it. Eventually you'll learn the different hiding spots for most of the different items, which makes the game easier as it progresses, but it takes a while to catch on, since they're not always in the very same spot.
In between these puzzles, you must also fill your clients' requests that they email you (but they'll usually do this before a level, which will often distract you and make you forget what they wanted). In addition, there's other bonus mini-games such as having to bake the wedding cakes, stitch the wedding dresses, do last minute shopping in the middle of hectic rush hour, etc. As these 'disasters' happen in each couple's story, it makes me think one thing: you need MUCH better colleagues! ;)
I only have one real complaint about this game, and it's that the accuracy you need with your stylus is SO overly hyper-sensitive that even with a 100% perfectly calibrated DS (and now I've seen the difference between my old one and my brand new one), you might have to touch certain items a couple times in slightly different spots to get it to register. If your calibration's even a little off, chances are you won't be able to play this game. Most things like the search levels, you can get through trial and error, but for the stitching of the wedding dress? It will render you helpless if it's not precisely on it. (Just thought you should know!) But overall, it's actually a pretty good game. I found through a little bit of searching that there is apparently a whole line of different "Dream Day Wedding" games (although only the one for the DS as of yet) so who knows? There seems to be a whole array to pick from to try next, and I hope Nintendo will release some of these other titles for the DS as well. :) I'm scoring this game a 7 out of 10 wedding bells!
Apologies to any regular readers of this blog for my lacking in updates on this thing as of late. My poor little white DS Lite (whom I'd lovingly bestowed the monicker of "Lennon" to) passed on to the great video game portal in the sky about a week ago. After researching my repair options, it turns out the cost to get it repaired, plus shipping and handling, would only end up being about $30 less than purchasing a brand new DS altogether. So, after a moment of silence for Lennon....
....
......
.........
I bring you...
LIZA (with a Z!):
Sexy little thing, isn't she? ;) (Okay, I'll give; I googled "red ds lite" and grabbed the first picture that came up because I was too lazy to grab my camera. But she looks exactly like this, regardless.) The red DSes came out about a month or two after I purchased my other one, and I've been drooling and ogling over them ever since. I can't believe I finally own one! :D My only complaint is that the touch screen emits a high pitched squeal whenever it's turned on; no, this is not from a game or anything. It does this even with no cartridge in there. Through a little research, I found out that almost ALL the new DSes do this, apparently. So until someone finds a fix (y'know, apart from mailing it back to Nintendo to do it because if it's been going on this long with the newer ones, they clearly don't know what they're doing), I'll just play with headphones on to block that out. (I have mild tinnitus and vertigo, and this particular pitch aggravates it greatly after just a few minutes. Environment-blocking headphones work pretty great for keeping that noise out of your ears. Just a little heads up in case anyone else who reads this suffers from similar problems and has a newer DS.) If anyone could drop me a line if a fix is found, that would be amazing, thank you!
Keeping up with Imagine's line of very female-oriented games, the line has now brought us Imagine: Soccer Captain. (Bet you $5 they never touch on another sport unless it's something else equally as 'feminine', like softball.) Oh! But what's this? We have a celebrity endorsement by Mia Hamm this time around; that must make this one better than usual!
Ummm...no. There is nothing particularly special about this game whatsoever. In fact, I'm not sure if Mia Hamm even knows her name was borrowed for the cover - even in the game, the only hint to her likeness is that the coach's name is "Coach Mia". (You never once hear a last name.) Her character also looks NOTHING like her, might I add. Wowwww. Talk about false advertisement. Imagine is always finding new ways to re-define that term!
But back to the game in question. True to typical Imagine style, they've designed this game so that there is no real knowledge of actual soccer needed. Playing by their rules, all you have to do is run a ball up and down a field and know which goal to kick it into. Period. No caveats. Now, I'll admit that I have zero sports knowledge in pretty much any given sport, but even I'm pretty damn sure there's a hell of a lot more to the game of soccer than just that. In a line that prides itself on allegedly being "educational", it seems that they should be teaching ALL of the rules of soccer.
This is another Imagine title that depends solely on 3-D graphics. The opening title sequence is very misleading, as the animation used there is in fairly good quality, but not one bit of the rest of the game looks A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G like this! There are some characters you'll encounter that look semi-decent, but then others - your own character included - barely even look human. For the customization options being so limited, why are the graphics so terrible?? The music in the game is about the same: sounds fantastic at the opening screen, and lousy everywhere else. What a let down! I was expecting more with how it started.
You're placed onto a team with very cliched other players. There's a totally stuck up snob who's only on the team because her daddy owns a (rival) soccer team, a timid girl, a gamer geek (who seems like she was only included to throw out free PR for Nintendo), and one other fairly normal girl who's supposed to have been your character's best friend since grade school. Sure, the mix sounds pretty realistic to real life, but in execution, it falls flat. Every team you play against is the same way: you have a team of over-caffeinated speed junkies (I'm NOT kidding!), a team of old grannies who should be in a retirement home, a team of girls with anger management issues, a team of midgets, a team of Amazonians, a team of hippies, etc. The first time you encounter each of these teams, they seem a little interesting. However, for how long you'll be playing this game to completion, you'll grow VERY sick of them quickly.
You'll play through an entire season of 14 games, plus a championship game. I assumed this was where the game would end.... That's what I get for assuming. (You all know the old phrase about what happens when you assume!) You enter season 2, only to find that ALL the dialogue with other teams is now being recycled and shortened to the briefest lengths possible. Had the dialogue stayed fresh, I wouldn't have minded wasting almost a week on this game, but it didn't. I figured that surely, the game would end after season 2... NOPE! You play for 5 seasons, with the option to retire or continue playing. As I figured the storylines would keep on going if I continued, I opted not to retire. Big mistake. (Now I'll never know how the game was supposed to end. :p)
Each season has a new dilemma for your team to face. In the first season, your character and Amie get swept up into a bitter popularity contest of their fans, all of which sparked from a stupid comment Amie had to make on a public blog. Season 2 sees Sasha and her father through their differences about his loyalties to his team and why his daughter doesn't play there. Season 3 is spent on a reality show following your team around and starting drama just for TV ratings (the producer looks suspiciously like the Supernanny, AND her name is Mary Jo. Coincidence?). Season 4, the team owner dies and as his son takes hold of the reins, he wants to relocate the team. The local community barely scrapes up enough cash to keep them local. And then season 5, groundhogs have ruined the stadium grounds and a crazed groundskeeper blows everything to bits in an attempt to get rid of them. Seems like an odd place for the game to end, doesn't it?
The gameplay itself is less than incredible. In addition to the lousy graphics, the controls aren't up to snuff either. Your players don't turn on the stop of a dime (which makes navigation difficult, especially when the other team's players are surrounding your active player), can't aim worth a damn, and the methods for shooting and blocking are pretty lame. To shoot into the opposing team's goal, normally you'd have to aim, then are brought to a screen where you adjust the strength of your kick, and you have to line up the ball with a specific pre-determined point inside of the net. If you're off by a little bit, you will not get the goal. Even if you DO line it up, more often than not, the goalie will still block your kick. Your other option is a quick shot where you just aim and shoot while running, but it's virtually impossible to make this method work, so you may as well stick to the long way of doing things. To attempt to block a kick from going into your goal, you're brought to a screen with a grid of about 12 squares. They'll light up at random, and you have about 5 to 10 seconds to hit them all as they light. Miss some, and the team will probably make their goal. Get all of them, they still might make the goal. Somehow, this game is seeming VERY one-sided, doesn't it? Take into account the redundant quick tips that appear on the upper screen before each match, and you'll be frustrated with this thing in no time.
As you rank up through the different matches, you'll earn points for each win. Every time you wi the fan popularity meter, you'll unlock a new sponsorship. This seems pretty cool... until you find out that these sponsorships are just leading up to a game deal with Ubisoft, who RELEASE THIS VERY GAME. Um, excuse me....what?!
I can't imagine (pun intended) anybody going wild over this game. Soccer enthusiasts won't have their needed adrenaline rush that makes soccer a wonderful and exciting game for them in the first place, and non-sports buffs will quickly lose interest. Who was the target audience here, then? Once again, I will issue this open plea to Imagine: PLEASE, hear our cries to just slow down on trying to crank out as many games as quickly as you can, and focus on putting more emphasis into the QUALITY of your games! You'll get much further with fewer high quality games than many crappy ones. You're just shooting yourself in the foot. Thank you.
I'm giving this game a rating of 3 out of 10 soccer balls. Honestly, do yourself a favor and don't even waste your time.
In the advent of games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero, one would imagine that music-based games would both be picking up more speed and improving in quality in order to beat out their competitors. I've found the former to be true, but the latter... not so much. (It's becoming like the cooking game franchise: a dime a dozen, and most of them are mediocre.)
If you judge games by their covers, you might think this game has some potential. The Japanese usually know how to make pretty good games, right? It appears to be animated in anime style. A winning combination! The promises made on the back of the box also seem appealing:
- A Tale of Music and Love - A great family story of teenage proportions, will our girls pick love, or their love of music?
- To Trade or Not To Trade - Using local wireless connectivity, players will be able to trade items, outfits, and instruments they unlock with friends and family!
- Fame Is All You Need! - Earn your audience's love and watch your girl's appearance change!
- On The Road To Stardom! - Perform your heart out at eight tour events, ranging from basic open-mic nights to stardom arena venues!
Not to burst anybody's bubble before even playing this, but I will point out that this is evidently a lying kind of game. There is no dating for any of your girls, nor does there appear to be any option to connect wirelessly to other users. Unless the original Japanese release had these features and then removed them before the U.S. release, then this is false advertisement, and an immediate dock-down in points.
Upon booting up the game, you'll be greeted by four colorful girls: Mio, Mai, Kara, and Reena. Like the Powerpuff Girls, each girl has an assigned color. You'll also be treated to the following prologue:
This town first grew to prominence as a center of international trade.
The city planners saw its potential and designed the city to be a bustling metropolis. As it grew, more and more businesses moved in, and the city became a center of culture and commerce.
Every year a contest is held in the center of town where bands from all over the U.S. compete at the "Rock of Fame" to be the best band in the country.
The contest is called "Rockin' Pretty". It is also known as, simply, "RP".
The band that wins gets a record deal.
Not only that, but the fame of the contest guarantees several hits for the band, and total stardom.
Winning Rockin' Pretty is the dream of musicians the country over.
One of those musicians is Mai, who dreams of one day winning the Rockin' Pretty contest.
Today, Mai is in the lobby of Rockin' Hits Studio, watching the DVD of Rockin' Pretty with Kenneth, who works at the Instrument Center.
With a prologue like that, who wouldn't be lulled into a false sense of expecting something great here? I mean, this game has a storyline! That's more than Rock Band or Guitar Hero can really say for themselves! Unfortunately, the game is a disappointment. Not only does it play right into the hands of the American Idol mentality (read as: you don't need real talent, just so long as you're popular!), but the execution of this game is just downright poor.
Level 1 is performed as an Open Mic Night. Your girl, Mai, is sitting watching the Rockin' Pretty contest, and wishing that she could someday compete. The shopkeeper, Kenneth, just happens to have a younger sister (Kara) who has a band already formed who are just short a guitarist, but ready to rock. Without much consent, Mai gets shoved into the group and expected to play, same night, no practice or anything. In the real world, this would no doubt spell out disaster, but in the video game universe, it works out okay.
You find that your first song is entitled, "See You Again". Now... I'm certain I'm not the only person who expected to hear the Miley Cyrus song of the same title when I saw the name of the song, right? Well, it's not the same song... It's not even remotely similar (which I suppose is good for copyright reasons), but the song - as well as ALL the songs in the game - sound as though they were thrown together with cheap MIDI software.
You have the option of either playing guitar, bass, keyboard, or drums. There's three difficulty levels for each song, which comes in handy when you're saving up points from each song you perform for outfits, hairstyles, and instruments, but otherwise becomes nothing more than a pain in the neck to continue playing through over and over when they're not even good songs.
Just like in real life, to play each instrument, you must play in a different way. Choosing the guitar, you'll see 3 colored rectangles on a guitar neck (I'm suddenly having a feeling of deja vu back to Guitar Hero....I don't know why...). Unlike in Guitar Hero, however, these are not buttons. As your song progresses, you'll see colored boxes sliding up the guitar's neck. When they line up with the rectangles of the same color, strum in the same direction that the boxes are coming from. Oh? What's that? Direction?? Ah, did I forget that you're apparently playing a double-necked guitar? They're parallel to each other, but the boxes appear on the necks at different times, which makes it trickier to keep up with when you're still learning how to play.
Choosing to play bass is incredibly easy. It's the same concept as choosing the guitar on here, except that you have a single neck, and the only other real difference is that occasionally, you'll be tapping the boxes instead of strumming, sans for boxes that have diamonds in them. You'll strum those. The problem is that the controls are a little wonky in this game, and it doesn't ALWAYS register when you hit the notes.
The keyboard is my most loathed instrument in this game, which is quite a turn around from how I feel about them in real life. With this, you have lines coming from either end of the screen, aiming towards one another on specific keys you're meant to hit. When they come together, you hit the note, or notes if there's more than one. The problem here is that it's virtually impossible to get the timing right! If you wait until the lines come perfectly to the center of each key, you've waited too long. If they're just hitting the top and bottom of the key, you have some shot of it telling you that you got the note(s) right, but especially in cases where there's multiple keys involved, it will still tell you you're wrong.
The drums in this game are alright, I suppose. You have four circles, which are meant to represent your drum kit. With the exception of the yellow one, which is very obviously your cymbal, good luck telling apart what's supposed to be what in actuality. So you get colored circles you need to hit when they line up with the matching drum of yours, and on occasion you'll find a circle with an arrow in it. Just swipe your stylus in the direction of the arrow at the right timing, and you're good to go! It's not very hard, but much like with the bass, it will occasionally not register your notes.
You will also take notice that, regardless of what instrument you're playing, that on the top screen will be two lines dividing up your screen into 3 horizontal sections. In reflection to how well (or badly) you play, you'll have stars fall from the ceiling whenever you hit a correct note. If you play well, you'll have a big pile of stars up to the top of the screen by the end of the song. As long as your stars hit anywhere in the top section, you'll get a quick bonus at the end of the round: shooting stars flying in every direction! Catch as many as you can for that many additional points. The more points you have at the end of the song, the more cash you've earned for that gig. Pretty straightforward, right?
As you progress through the different venues and complete the songs, you'll unlock things to buy as well as watching your story unfold. Unlike in real life, no matter what you do, you're going to end up on Rockin' Pretty and win it. You can't fail. At worst, you might have to replay a song to get through it on a passable level, but there's no real options in anything that change the outcome of the ending of the game... which seems a little odd for something that's based on a competition.
At the end of the game, after the credits roll, you have the option of re-playing any song in the game that you might have enjoyed and want to play again, as well as hosting a photo shoot for your girls. You can set them up in different poses in different locations, but it's all fairly limiting, and if you're above the age of, say, about 5, you'll probably find this pretty boring. I'm glad I only had to waste a few hours on this game to complete it... I'd of been pretty upset if it had taken me weeks, only to discover that.
Overall, I found this game to be a snoozer. Even though it's rated for everyone, I'd say that the ideal target age range that should play this (that would get the most out of it, anyway) would probably be about 5 through 8 years old. Any younger and I think it would be too difficult for them to play, and any older and I think they'd be bored with it. I'm rating this game a 6 out of 10 Japanese pop stars.
Before I even start this review, okay. I know what you're thinking. I'm incredibly and painfully immature for still geeking out over princess games at the age of 24. Well, on the one hand, you're right, but just trust me on this one: this one's worth it.
First of all, "Princess Debut" was put out by Natsume. You know... the same people who brought you the smash hit that everybody and their mother loves, the "Harvest Moon" series. This immediately raises the bar of expectations from this game, and it does not disappoint!
The very first thing that struck me about this game was the animation style. It's very heavily anime and sickeningly cute, but for most of us females who play these titles, cuteness is a virtue. ;) Anyway, it immediately reminded me of the old DOS-based "Princess Maker" game. As it turns out, the animation style is not the only thing about this game that's like "Princess Maker". The way that the game itself is played is very, VERY similar as well. You play the role of a girl who fantasizes about princess life with her schoolmates, only to suddenly find herself thrust into an alternate universe, where there's doubles of not only herself, but all the boys at school that she knows, going under very similar aliases. The real princess has swapped places with her for a month, as there is a huge dance competition coming up, and she doesn't know how to dance, and wants your character to take her place. So you do, and this is where your adventure begins. You meet all the different princes and pick any one of them as your dance partner. They all have distinct personalities and storylines that come along with them (although, the main storyline essentially stays the same, no matter who you pick). With whomever you choose, you must attend daily dance classes to improve your technique, stamina, and learn new dances. As you go along, more and more side-storylines unfold, as do unlockables. Every relationship with each character is very in-depth, varying depending upon your previous interactions with them. This is another major bonus in my book.
The 3D graphics used during the dancing scenes leave a lot to be desired, as do the equipment scenes whenever you change outfits (I always have to skip those, as they manage to trigger vertigo with me), but the 2D graphics are exquisite. I was struck by the level of detail used in each and every scene - seriously, NOTHING is left out. There's always something new to notice each time you play it. It's absolutely stunning in comparison to most DS games. The music, while very much in oldschool MIDI format, somehow manages to work for this game. Maybe it's because it also adds to the throwback feel of this being a new-generation "Princess Maker" game, I don't know. But it doesn't cheapen the feel of the game like most games do when they use MIDI music nowadays. Natsume definitely knew what they were doing! (But then, Natsume are pretty much masters of their craft. ;))
As for the gameplay of the dancing scenes, the technique quite reminds me of playing "Elite Beat Agents". It's a little tricky when you're first starting out, because you never know quite what moves are coming up and where you ought to be, and what you need to prepare to do. But, much like with "Tetris", you quickly discover the small box off to the side with the next few upcoming moves, and this helps immensely in most cases. It's hard to keep up both reading those and performing the moves for the faster dances, but that's part of the fun! It'd be pretty boring if they were all slow, monotonous dances.
Another thing that I liked is that all the locations on the map are named after different dances. They include:
- Viennese Waltz Lake
- Tango Garden
- Samba Square
- Jive Park
- Rumba Beach
- Cha-Cha-Cha Arena
- Waltz Castle
- Foxtrot Forest
Pretty cute, huh? I thought they were, anyway. As a dance nerd, it was a pretty nice little novelty.
I only have about 2 complaints with this game. Well, maybe 3, but the third hardly counts. First, I wish you could customize your character (although, truth be told, she looks about how I would have made her anyway. I have a type.). Second, try as I might, I can't seem to figure out how to unlock everything, despite having re-played the game several times through, choosing different dance partners each time. And third....I wish the game were longer! I won't give a spoiler and say how the game ends, but I'll just say that I wish it continued on further from where it stops, or that there were a sequel. (Who knows, perhaps they'll make one if this game sells enough copies!)
Overall though, it's a pretty fantastic game. I'm going to give this game a 9.5 tiaras out of 10. Not quite totally perfect, but pretty darn close!
While Maxis/EA Games have created quite a franchise empire with the Sims series, one of their newest endeavors has been the MySims line of games. Maybe the Wii versions of these are better, I don't know, but as of yet, I haven't been too impressed by a single MySims title yet.
As you may have surmised by the title alone, MySims Party is basically yet another Mario Party rip-off. Everybody's gotta jump that bandwagon while it's still rolling, right? In this (and any MySims) game, you'll notice that the characters look absolutely nothing like their regular Sim game relatives. They're much shorter - chibi form, really - and cuter than normal Sims. There's a heavy Japanese anime interest here. Whether that's a good or a bad thing is your own call. I personally think they're awfully cute, but at the same time, think they're trying to appeal to a much younger age demographic here.
So, here you are, placed in this new Sim Town (oh, am I allowed to call it that? I remember the actual Sim Town game...) and you create your own character. You'll find yourself doing this quite a bit - you'll need at least 3 characters to build teams with later on in the game, but I don't think there's any limit to how many you can make. So knock yourselves out - make a bunch of MySims with varying skill levels! (I personally made 4 different MySims, and true to form, I based them off real people. "Team Liza Minnelli" had a nice ring to it. ;) I made Liza, Judy Garland, Goldie Hawn, and Gene Kelly for use in my teams.) Your level of customization is both limited by what clothing and hair style items you've purchased for usage as well as the game itself not having a huge variety in styles either. That was one downside to me.
Now, you can cruise around town, chat with other villagers, and generally explore things. This is mostly unnecessary, but it's a good time-waster. What you really need to do is go to the center of your town, inside the huge castle. Guess what? Now you're REALLY in the game. You'll find each time you go in, a new festival has opened up for you to play.
What's this? Festivals you say? Yes, festivals. Each one has a certain number of mini-games which you must play and beat to win the festival. This, more or less, is what the entire game is all about. To continue in my review, the rest of my focus is going to be on each of the mini-games, as this is where 99% of your gameplay is going to take place.
- Pass and Check - You're more or less playing teacher's aide here. You compare the top and bottom screens and place a check mark when the documents match. If they do not, you slide the document to the left. Very easy game, it should give you a quick win!
- Hush Hush Library Rush - You clean the floor of the library, but if the librarian catches you making too much noise or running, she'll come yell at you, costing you precious time. It's a pretty simple game once you get the hang of it.
- My Mix Masters - It's more or less a record scratch beat game. If it worked correctly, I'd probably really like it. It doesn't always pick up when you hit the correct buttons though.
- Haunted Hunted - This sort of makes me think of what I thought "Ghost Hunters" was going to be all about. You go inside a haunted mansion, equipped with a gun. Don't hit or run into the ghost, or he'll attack. Try to hit the other players for points.
- Sushi Scramble - Memorize customers' orders and make sushi! Customers get upset if you're slow, or you get their order wrong. Ever played Diner Dash or Burger Island? This mini-game is a lot like those.
- Chemistry Calamity - You must mix the chemicals in the same exact order as those on the top screen, and then mix the test tube in the same direction as the directions indicate. As long as you can remember the colors, the only part that might give you any trouble is the actual mixing.
- Spaghetti Spin-Off - Maybe it's because I'm of heavy Italian descent that I viewed this mini-game as painfully stereotypical, but...it is. Not all Italians exist solely on spaghetti. Regardless, in this game you must twirl the spagetti up onto your fork without dropping it, and attempt to eat more spaghetti than any of the other players. It's harder than it sounds...
- Soft Service - Another Diner Dash-esque mini-game. Check the customer's order and place ice cream on the cone. Hurry and bring it back to your customer, and don't get the order wrong! You'll do more running and pushing the other players out of the way in this game than anything.
- Vroom Service - Bring the guest's orders to their hotel rooms! Be sure to check the map on the top screen. This mini-game more or less has a very maze-y feel to it.
- Skull Finder - You get to play archeologist here! Use your pick-axe to chip away all the surrounding dirt from the bones, but be careful not to hit the fossils themselves! You'll also be employing the microphone for blowing away the excess dirt you've already knocked off.
- Clap Happy - Famed MySims fashion designer Nikki is putting on a fashion show! Every time she poses, you must clap (using your L and R shoulder buttons) as quickly and accurately as possible, trying to out-clap the other players.
- Air Guitar Star - I'm pretty sure everyone's familiar with Guitar Hero at this point, so I'll just sum this one up as being Guitar Hero without the guitar.
- Okay Bouquet - Customers come in and request very specific bouquets. Fill their orders, tie the bouquet up with a bow, and ship it off! Easy peasey.
- Petal Platform Peril - I don't like this one much. Jump from platform to platform, collecting as many flowers as possible. But watch out! The other players may jump on your head and knock you down, as may falling boulders.
- Keys to Success - I think they were running out of mini-game ideas by the time they got to this one. Pick up various keys and look at the tip: if it matches the lock on the treasure chest, try it out and see if it opens it or not! Personally, I really can't stand the sound that plays when you rotate the keys. It sounds like a ratchet.
- Mallet Melee - Let's rip off a little bit more from Mario, shall we? This is pretty much a poor man's Super Smash Bros.
- Signal Search - Cell phones have become such an integrated fixture in our lives that I'm sure all of us have had to run around, trying to find a signal at some point or another. Why not make a game out of it? Well... EA Games did!
- Spotlight Please! - Maybe it's because I'm a theatre geek, but I loved this one. You have to follow the little Shakespearean actor around the stage and try to keep the spotlight on him at all times. But! He immensely enjoys messing with you, so be prepared for him to randomly bolt across the stage at any given moment, just to make you sweat.
- Sim-Fu Showdown - Try out your kung-fu --er, Sim-fu -- moves on a bunch of wooden robots! ....Yes. I did say wooden robots. (I don't know how exactly that works out, either.)
- Fashion Mogul - Trace the designs on each shirt as closely as possible. If you mess up, you'll be forced to repeat it. This mini-game feels more like work than a game. Is EA Games training kids to work in sweat shops? Hmm...
- Crystal Clear - Oh, I like this one! (Probably because I always win it. ;)) Each player is sat down in front of a dirty crystal ball. Your mission? Clean that sucker up as quickly as possible before anyone else does! You have to rotate the ball to get the whole thing. Be careful not to miss any spots!
- Sudsy Salon - This mini-game, I have yet to successfully win. It sounds simple enough... You're in a hair salon, lathering up a customer's head with shampoo, and then rinsing it. But you have to completely cover 100% of the hair AND finish first. The latter is what keeps messing me up.
- Skater Scamper - Bleh, I hate this one, but then, I suck at most skater games. You're on a skateboard and must perform tricks as well as not run into anything, while at the same time trying to cross the finish line first. Did I mention that you'll have to use the button controls AND the stylus to do this? I think it's that coordination that's rendered this game impossible for me to win.
- Soccer Bounce - Pretty easy stuff - you hit the correct buttons while the soccer ball is still up in the air to hit it again. Don't let it fall to the ground!
- Bus! Stop! - Ummm....you chase after a bus as quickly as you can, trying to make it stop. (What'd you think this game would be with a title like that?) It's a total button masher; you just hit any and every button in sight to run.
- Catch the Crook - This one's pretty fun, albeit a little challenging! Just like it sounds, you must chase after a crook that's on the loose. You can collect power-ups that he drops, but watch out! He also drops obstacles in your way when you least expect it. If you fall too far behind, you're out!
- Clothing Cut-Out - Very similar to Fashion Mogul, you have to trace the patterns on the fabric to cut the pieces out in order to make clothes. A steady hand is absolutely crucial for this game (as is a properly calibrated DS screen).
- Pretty Pottery - When I read the title of this game, it conjured up images of spinning clay into fine works of art. Not the case here. All you're doing is taking potted plants and planting them in a garden according to a map of where each plant needs to go. Yawn.
- Gone Fishing - Well, there's not much to say here, is it? It's exactly what it sounds like.
- Hidden Treasures - This one's pretty fun. You're unleashed in a darkened warehouse full of boxes, and it's your job to run around and open them all, searching for treasure! First player to 5 hidden treasures wins.
- Sleeping Sophie - This is another L and R shoulder button game. Use L and R to jump a balloon full of air quickly as possible until it pops and wakes Sophie.
- Pastry Puzzle - I like this one a lot too. You're working in a bakery, and with each order that comes in, you have to figure out which way to place the pastries in the box to make them all fit. (No, you cannot stack them.) Try it! It's more fun than it sounds, I promise.
- Hang Gliding Hurricane - OMG, I hate this mini-game with a burning passion. As an asthmatic, I do not have the greatest lung capacity in the world. In this mini-game, you have to steadily blow into the microphone (for I think 30 seconds or a minute straight) while trying not to crash. The harder you blow, the faster your hang glider moves. I always end up out of breath and dizzy as hell every time I try to play this one. :( I don't like it at ALL.
- Fortune Finders - This mini-game takes a little bit of luck to win it. You and the other players are unleashed in some woman's yard to dig and try to find buried treasure. Each piece has a different value. Whichever player collectively finds the most treasure wins!
- Shuffle Cup - Remember that old 'ball under the cup' trick? This is that game...except that it's played in a seedy casino where the power goes out and you're unable to see what's going on for a moment. Hardly fair play by any means.
- Plane Pop - You fly a plane in this mini-game and try to pop as many balloons as you can. Each balloon you pop helps fill a meter at the bottom of the screen. When it's filled, you can use this built up energy to zoom through other planes and birds, which would normally knock your plane out of the way.
- Bumper Boat Battle - I wouldn't have used the term "bumper boats" here - that would insinuate something akin to bumper cars. This is nothing like that. You simply sail your boat around the islands, look out for whirlpools, and try to reach the goal first.
- Fashion Reaction - Grab the clothing from the bottom of the screen that matches the pieces listed on the left, and model them in the dressing room! This should be another easy win for you.
- Perfect Slot Jackpot - This slot machine doesn't so much rely on chance (as real ones do) as it does on good timing on your part. You decide when each wheel stops turning.
- Spotting Safari - The whole point of this mini-game is to spot as many animals as possible. If you find one, quickly hit the A button before it goes back into hiding! If you move around the jungle quickly and have a fast reaction time, winning this game should be a cinch!
And that's all of them! Overall, I wouldn't say that I particularly loved or hated this game, I'm fairly neutral on it. I guess it's alright if you really need something to pass the time, but otherwise, I think I'd leave this one to the younger kids to play with. I'm giving it a 5 out of 10 Mysims rating.
In thinking about my old NES game collection and remembering which games I have the most fond of memories of playing, Felix the Cat has always ranked pretty highly on that list...even if in part because it was the very first video game that I ever completed all on my own, with no help from either my dad (who was, at the time, the biggest gamer I knew) or from the Game Genie. (I don't think there ever were Game Genie codes for Felix...I could be wrong.) Regardless, upon recently figuring out NES emulation for my DS, Felix was the very first game on my list that I went out of my way to track down a copy of.
Instantly upon booting up the game, I was greeted by that friendly opening screen that I'd seen so many times before during my youth. It made me smile. That aside, once beginning the initial gameplay, I was immediately taken aback by how similar the gameplay is to the old Mario games,
or even Mega Man. In modern games, you don't tend to run across side-scrollers too often anymore, so it was quite refreshing to play one again. The premise also reminded me of Mega Man, in that we have an evil scientist hellbent on destruction (who, in this case, is keeping Felix's girlfriend Kitty hostage). So, of course, Felix must save the world. (What else would this game be about?)
So here you are, in this Felix bizarro world of hamsters and cannons and sombrero monsters and walking trees--was somebody dropping acid when they created this game? I'm pretty sure that somebody was doing some heavy drugs. (Then again, this was all based off the old Felix the Cat cartoons. I'm pretty sure that opium was legal back then.) Like Mega Man (and unlike Mario), you cannot jump on your foes. Oh, no. Instead, all that you are armed with is your little yellow magic bag (we'll get back into that in just a second), out of which you can punch with a spring-loaded boxing glove. (It's all based VERY much off the old cartoons, which, if you've ever seen them, you'll understand.) Its range is VERY short, but it'll get you through long enough to either find a random heart or a power up bag.
Oh, what's this? Power up bags? Well, you know how in Mario, you travel through pipes? In Felix, you travel through giant versions of your magic bag. Once inside, you will find many powerups, usually a heart, and some milk cans. With each heart, you power up to the next ability level. (When you hit the last one, any additional hearts will just give you extra lives.) However, their usage is very limited. As soon as you get one of these powers, 10 hearts will appear in the upper left-hand corner of your screen. Each one stays for about 5 seconds, and when the hearts run out, you lose the power and are bumped back down to the next lower one. HOWEVER! You can get around this with those trusty milk cans! Each milk can will give you a few extra hearts, and I think if you manage to hook all three, it powers you back up completely. Not a bad deal....except that when you need them most, you can never seem to find the damn things. Sometimes these magic bags have a second bag on the righthand side of the screen that serves as a segway to further on in the level - again, much like the Mario pipelines.
So now that you've found your first heart, wherever it may have 
happened in the level, you'll no doubt notice that Felix's appearance has suddenly changed. He now wears a black top hat and carries a cane. No, not a cane, a magic wand. He's a magician now. (But according to my 10 year old sister, it's "totally a cane - Felix turned into a pimp!" Wowwww.) You will notice that when you go to attack an enemy now, you no longer get the springy punching bag. Instead, you throw a ring of stars out around your being in every which direction, creating a brief force field that will hit anything in close enough proximity. Still not a great power, but it definitely trumps the glove by a long shot.
Your next power up gives Felix a car. This vastly increases your mobility speed as well as gives you a projectile missile which shoots from the front of the car whenever you beep your horn. (It's one of the only vaguely realistic sounds in the game that doesn't sound like a bleep or boop.) I think that of the power ups for the regular ground levels (you have different powers in different levels, such as sky or sea), the car is my favorite. It's the most versatile and is easiest to work with.Once you surpass the car, you get a 
tank. Sounds pretty awesome, right? It's big, it's heavy, it shoots cannon balls. What could be better? Um... the car. Seriously, the tank is bulky and cumbersome. You have to really work at making sure the trajectory on your cannon balls will actually hit your targets. You can't jump very high in it. It baffles me that this is the top power up in the regular land levels.
Of course, the power ups are different in different levels. In air levels, you start out with an umbrella (think: Mary Poppins) and upgrade to a hot air balloon which looks like Felix's head and throw what appear to be frisbees at enemies, and finally are upgraded to an airplane. I love that little plane... Then in the water levels (above water), you only have 2 power ups: you start out in a little inflatable raft, and you upgrade to a dolphin who you ride on the back of. Underwater, you start out with a snorkel, upgrade to riding on the back of a bubble-blowing sea turtle, and finally to a submarine that, like the hot air balloon, looks like Felix's head. This one, by far, is the best of the underwater abilities, as even though it's big and cumbersome, you can't beat this thing's missiles. They're long range, they shoot straight ahead (which is more than can be said for most of the projectiles in this game), and they're powerful. It's about the only thing that will really help you during boss battles.
It's overall a pretty typical oldschool NES game. You defeat bad guys; if you fall down holes or land in water, you die; your levels are timed, etc. All stuff that usually was a part of any video game back then. The levels are divided up in similar fashion to Mario as well (i.e. 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 2-1, etc) with three parts to a level...in most cases anyhow. There are 9 levels, and I suspect that since this is a game about a cat, 9 levels/9 lives. Get it? The last two are sort of a joke though. As you spend the game trying to reach the Professor, you reach level 8, and I think it only has one part to it. You just fly around in a spaceship and try not to die. (Easier said than done.) Level 9, if I recall, only has 2 parts before the final battle. Should you have had an easy time defeating all of the other bosses throughout the game, this will be a cinch for you. Especially since you have not one, not two, but THREE magic bags in the actual battle screen to duck down into to grab power ups and extra hearts inside of. You can come in completely unprepared and still get the tank to fight the Professor with. He takes a little bit longer to defeat than the other bosses, but it's the same general concept.
There's only two possible outcomes for this game. If you lose, you'll 
see a screen with a sad little Felix being tossed out into an alleyway while Kitty looks on longingly from the moon. However, should you succeed in beating the game, you'll reach Kitty, who's still all tied up, but hopping around in excitement for you finally have saved her; hearts floating up out of her head. "Congratulations! At least FELIX! You rescued Kitty! I love you, FELIX!" And then you watch a cutesy little sequence where Kitty and Felix fly off into the sunset--no wait, scratch that. They fly back home to Earth together, all smoochy and everything in the spaceship, and "THE END" flashes across the screen. 
Yes, it's short, but it's sweet, and a lot more memorable than a lot of other NES game endings of that time period. The ending has stuck with me over the years for some reason, and I didn't realize just how vividly I remembered it until seeing it again. This game, which took me all day to beat as a little kid, took me a grand total of just barely half an hour to complete this time around - playing it for the first time in about 17 years, to boot! (Damn, I'm old.) It's a pretty simple game, overall, and I'd say it's still a good early starter game for kids. Know your roots!
This was by no means the greatest ever game created for the NES, but I think it has quite a bit of quality to it that's stood the test of time. I'm going to go ahead and rate this 7 out of 10 little kitties.
Okay. With as much as I've whined and complained about the Imagine line of games, you're not doubt asking yourselves why I keep putting myself through this torture time and time again every time they put out a new title. Masochism, maybe? I don't know. And yet, I jumped through hoops to score a copy of this one pretty much as soon as it was released. I honestly can't even answer the "why?!" question anymore.
Anyway... It would have appeared that Imagine finally put out a better title than usual. You play a girl named Katie who inherits the family boutique from her grandfather, and has to keep 
one-upping and outdoing the city rival, Mr. Cheepo (who looks creepily like Alec Baldwin). This "boutique" eventually turns into somewhat of a mini-mall in which the mayor, the elite (Miss Van der Velt, who looks suspiciously like Paris Hilton), and pop star Ashley all shop at and increase the popularity of. You have to thwart off shoplifters (who are sent to your store by Mr. Cheepo), keep all your customers happy, and generally do a LOT of running back and forth between departments.
I find it interesting that you spend more time having to guess what exactly your customers want to buy than anything else. Even when it fits the bill, there's times when they still don't like what you present them with. What-ever. More curious is in your toy shop, where Katie creates her own stuffed animals, not a single stitch goes into those plushies. You just stick them together willy nilly and they magically hold. (Wow, I hope no kid gets the idea to try this out at Build-A-Bear or anything...) And no matter how you sign your name on your creations - even if you just scribble, it will still use the signature you used on the initial contract you signed when you inherited this boutique. (Better sign it neatly, or it'll mock you in the face every time you sign anything for the rest of the game!)
I guess I have no room to complain here because it's the same way the real world works too, but for every holiday, your boutique gets all pimped out and commercialized for each respective holiday. Which I think is just further perpetuating things a little bit more with the current generation, but oh well. Also, Katie must be awfully uncomfortable. Any time she's not moving around, she automatically strikes a model-esque pose; one leg extended far in front of the other.
Overall, I had very little to complain about with this title. The accuracy of the stylus even seemed to be fixed for this game! The loading screens are a little slow, but anyone can live with that. My only gripe - and this may just have been my cartridge, I don't know - is upon completing the jewelry store chapter, my game ALWAYS locks up. No matter what I do. I even created a new file and started again, and it did it at the same spot, 3 times. If anyone else has had this problem, I'd like to hear about it. Otherwise, I'm going to try and get a refund, or else just sell the sucker on Ebay. What a pity.... I knew there had to be a catch.
Since I don't know whether or not the glitch was because of faulty programming or the cartridge itself, I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt and assume I got a dud here. The game, APART from that, I will rate a big fat 7 cash registers out of 10. Which is much more than I can say for pretty much any other Imagine title I've tried this far.
You know, I grew up a farm girl. (Horse ranch to be exact, but I digress. We always had lots of animals around.) Even though this game was probably meant for, oh, I don't know... 3 year olds probably, I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt and try it out anyhow. Free import from the UK to review. Why not?Observation number 1: The girl on the cover of the box doesn't even look like the girl in the game, strangely enough. What's this? False advertisement already? The guard is going up, and the game hasn't even begun yet. But the music sounds nice enough, so I'm still keeping an open mind.
There's three difficulties on which you can play this game: easy, medium, and hard. (Truth be told, with the exception of about 2 activities, it's exactly the same thing and difficulty on each difficulty level.) You have to play through the game to unlock each of the upper levels above it... Which wouldn't seem to bad IF THE GAME WERE DIFFERENT ON EACH DIFFICULTY! Seriously, would it have been that hard to give Emma three little adventures instead of...well...one?
Oh yes. You heard me. You play it through just to find out YOU GOT CHEATED. Who wants to play the same fairly-lame game through more than once? Not me, but for you lovely people, I did it anyway. The plot essentially is that Emma has come to visit her Uncle Jules (whose laugh makes me think of Charles Aznavour big time - he seems to be the lone Frenchman in this otherwise very British game) on his farm, and that while she's helping him tend to the animals, one of the mother hens has lost her chicks and needs Emma's help finding him. There's more emphasis on finding the chicks than the chores. The storyline is VERY short, even for a little kids' game. You could seriously complete this game on any difficulty in half an hour, tops. The lasting appeal for re-playing is not very high.
The dialogue in the game is almost laughably English. I keep getting mental images of all these animals (plus Emma) being uppity, snobby characters with the highly upper crust British accents. For example, my favorite line in the whole game is said by the noble horse: "I'll greet this fox with a firm hoof! A good thump with my iron shoe and that will be the end of him!" A close second would be the donkey's poem:
Oh sweet grass on the path of the barn!
You are so nice when I eat you!
When I look at you,
my soul is at peace!
Ah, how lovely it is to graze near the barn!
I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I giggled over it. Anyway, throughout the game you go through a sequence of chores: you must collect eggs from the henhouse, catch falling eggs in a basket before they hit the ground, call the donkey to you, collect bundles of hay and place them in a cart, race a bunny against a fox, blow dandelion fluff into the wind, milk a cow, match animal sounds with the animals that make them, feed the animals, round up piglets and sheep, identify different vegetables, water the garden, shake apples out of the trees in the orchard, collect ripe tomatoes, and build a scarecrow.
All of this builds up to a very moral-ish ending of that it's bad to run off to play and leave for somewhere without telling your parents because it will make them worry. (Told you it was aimed towards little kids.) The opening and ending videos aren't the best quality I've ever seen, but they're not too bad, all things considered. It looks really low-budget, but if they'd had more money to play with, they might have been pretty nice.
I'm pretty sure the bonus features take longer to completely play out than the actual game. There's an Animal Families game (which has nothing whatsoever to do with actual animal families - it's a typical memory card matching game), a Dress Up Emma screen (which makes absolutely no impact on what Emma wears in that actual game at all...that was a letdown to me), real life recipes, and a virtual vegetable garden to water and grow. The best of of these is probably those real life recipes, which include:
- Grapefruit cup
- Potato pancakes
- Fruit ice cream
- Pound cake
- Quiche
- Steamed fish in foil
- Orange salad
- Apple tart with a moustache
- Tomato soup
- Beefburgers in breadcrumbs
- Mini-gratin
- Chocolate cake with glasses
Overall, I'm pretty sure I'll rate this game a solid 4 milking cows. Not too strong, but the bonus features are at least a little bit redeeming.
Know how I normally do nothing whatsoever but bitch about how bad the Imagine line is? Forget all that for a moment - or at least, for the duration of this review.
