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thetombedspirit · 2 months

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So, I just finished the main story of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora - WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!

First off, I want to talk about the cons of the game before jumping into the pros, but to be honest with ya, the cons are few and far in between and were more about personal preference then the performance of the game itself.

For starters:

1. The Glitches - Like literally, during a few quests, there will be some dialogue, but it'll randomly cut out with the excuse that enemies are near by, when that is absolutely not the case. It was only so bad that I had to exit to the main menu and then get back on in order for it to fix, so this was minor in comparison to other glitches like falling through the map randomly (which happened to me once during my play through of Far Cry 4 :p)

2. The Language - This is just a little peeve of mine, but I wish that the Na'vi, at least when talking amongst themselves and to us, spoke in Na'vi. Like, if Ubisoft could record a whole 'nother language for Far Cry Primal, they could have done it here. And I also wish that the animals, especially the Palulukan, were referred to by it's Na'vi names rather then human names.

3. The Main Character's Name - This is minor really, but I don't like how we are not given a name. Like, I get that it's fun coming up with names for our original character, but it's a bit isolating to only be referred to as 'the Sarentu'.

Not only does it make it seem like our identity as a member of a respected clan matters more then our identity as our own complex individual, but it feels weird when you read notes and listen to audio logs about the other Sarentu kids and not one thing about us, especially when Alma talks about how they're acclimation to life in the Resistance. Like how we're developing doesn't matter at all in comparison to how Ri'nela is coming into the role of leader and Tsahìk.

Not even a mention of our relation to Aha'ri when she writes about her murder and how it could be affecting us.

Like, just a gender-neutral name to tie things in, like Dani in Far Cry 6, would go a long way to make our character feel like a part of the story and not just a nameless side character doing all the hard work, like the Rookie from Far Cry 5.

4. The Villain - This is more of a 'meh' thing for me. Like yeah, Mercer was an asshole, but again, pulling from Far Cry here, who had amazing, complex villains like Vaas Montenegro or Pagan Min, and what we get is... a entitled, racist narcissist whose barely there, and therefore we get zero from this guy. He was more annoying then anything, like literally every time he talk, my eyes rolled into the back of my skull.

Like, could you imagine if AFOP made Mercer like Pagan Min, the tyrant king of Kyrat who had a relationship with Ajay Ghale's mother to the point where he was sympathetic to the loss of his mother. Pagan Min would just randomly call Ajay on his radio like an eccentric father-figure, and in two endings of the game, he'll actually help you out, taking you to Lakshamana so that you can place your mother's ashes beside her, just like she wanted, which is very generous considering that in one of those endings, it's after you lead a massive rebellion right to his door-step, taking out his generals and so-on! (Pagan is my favourite Far Cry villain is you haven't figured that, Vaas is a close second)

If you gave Mercer that kind of depth, then maybe you can actually understand why Teylan would believe Mercer wouldn't hurt anybody when he gave the location of the Resistance Base away.

Harding as well was mediocre. Just a hard-as-nails general that's running a pouching operation on the side. Like, if you made her even a fraction of insane like you did Vaas, I could actually be into it.

So anyway, on to the pros!

1. The Gameplay - I know people moaned about the mechanics being too similar to Far Cry, but honestly, that was what drew me to it when I first saw the trailer for it! Far Cry is my favourite first-person shooter franchise (Far Cry 4 and Far Cry Primal being my favourites). The crafting of weapons, the hunting for food, skins and ingredients and the little things what made it unique was amazing to me,

The hunting was a pain, because half the time (for me anyway) I could almost never get a clean kill for the smaller or quick-moving animals, but I think it was done super well. When you hit an animal in the old Far Cry games, they either just drop dead or run away and bleed out quietly. But here, when it's an unclean kill, the animal squirms and writhes in pain before succumbing to it's wounds, really driving in the whole point of the Na'vi way of life (that's how I saw it anyway).

And the Memory Paintings, though tedious at most times, was another fun and unique mechanic to the game and felt very Na'vi to me and I enjoyed concentrating on them all and hearing the MC's interpretations of the Memory Paintings and the Sarentu Totems.

And the moments when you're flying on your Ikran or Pa'li made me feel like I was in an RPG, like Horizon, so that was a nice little touch. It was like they mashed two of my favorite games into one.

And in the end, it's not the gameplay that makes me play the game. It's the story.

2. The Harmful Effects of the RDA - There was not a minute within this story where it's quests and stories didn't resonate with me.

How the Kinglor of the Aranahe forest was displaced by the RDA's actions, giving us a Yellowstone situation where a key member of the ecosystem was being pushed out and it was causing all sorts of problems for the local flora and fauna.

The aforementioned poaching in Zeswa territory, where the Zakru were being hunted and killed for their tusks and how even their long deceased skeletons were being pilfered, very similar to elephant and rhino poaching, especially as Zakru are sacred animals to the Zeswa.

And then the Yavä, the green fog that brought sickness to the Kame'tire, something that happened, by the way, because the RDA disposed of the Sarentu's bodies by using caustic chemicals!!! (like, what the FUCK, Alma!) but anyway, is very reminiscent to the diseases that European settlers brought in to the native populace, who never had to build up immune systems for it and suffered because of it.

What I'm getting at here, is how big of a problem the RDA is, not just for going to war with Jake and the Omaticaya, but also by causing the exact same problems that people did on Earth and are still doing to Earth. In so many, seemingly innocuous way, the RDA are negatively effecting the ecosystem, the wildlife and the locals in their pursuit of a paycheck that, realistically, would never be able to use until they get off planet, and that is if they don't die on an alien moon because of all those problems.

3. The Efforts of the Resistance

Every time I got to talk with the Resistance members was a highlight for me. I truly do not understand how some people don't like Priya. I found her adorable, and she gave me Penelope Garcia vibes from Criminal Minds. And her budding romance with Resistance Pilot Anqa, whose history with incursion on her desert homeland inspired her to take action against the RDA.

Or Hajir's regrets for playing part in the Severeds origins, concluding how they are in a constant state of anger and sadness.

Or Billy, who break-dances as he's helping you escape imprisonment, before sacrificing himself to save what's left of the Resistance.

And then there's the Na'vi Clans that I just loved and each and every one of it's characters had me giddy. The playful old grandmother in Nefika and her immediate action to take us in and show us around the Hometree, the Zeswa sisters and their rightous anger over the poaching, the eccentricities of Okul and their faith in the Kame'tire's tradtions.

Honestly I could go on and on about every single character in this game. Nalin and her tentative offer to fill in the void of mother during the party, the Burden Carrier and the Milk Crafter who got drunk off their ass, saying the zakru can fly while we're trying to warn them of impending danger and Mosaka, who not only gave our clan's location away to the RDA, but used their deaths to manipulate his way into power and control over the clan by framing Anufi for their demise. (BTW, fuck you Mosaka)

That's all I got for now, but once the DLCs come in, I am defiantly playing through the whole game again and I may come back to this post with an update when that happens, along with my stance on said DLCs.

So, hope your all having a good day and buh-bye!

#Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora #na'vi #john mercer #general harding #teylan #the sarentu #ikran #the rda suck #the aranahe #the zeswa #the kame'tire #zakru #alma cortez #jake sully #the omaticaya #earth

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blobsreviewsofgame · 6 years

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Sonic Generations (Nintendo 3DS)

Sonic Generations 3DS is a platformer by Dimps released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2011. I don’t like it.

The story is a bit different compared to the console/PC version. Besides Tails, none of Sonic’s friends are in it.

Classic Sonic is running around in Green Hill Zone for some reason and comes across the purple halloween ghost called “Time Eater”. Skipping ahead in time, we see the preparation of the blue hedgehog’s birthday party. Sonic comes across it too early with Tails being the only one at the place. Then the time eater appears and they both get sucked into the white void (that is now just a level select menu).

Eventually they come across their classic counterparts, team up and find out why this all happens. The writing is a bit better compared to the console counterparts but it still isn’t the greatest Sonic has to offer in terms of story. Like Tails and Classic Tails actually doing something besides talking in the story.

But the cutscenes are like Sonic Rush Adventure and Colors DS’ cutscenes, sadly. There’s a dialog box with text, characters do grunts, poses and mimics and sometimes they slide across the screen. It’s not like fully animated cutscenes with voice acting is an impossible task on 3DS (Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice does this) but it’s probably more so because the game just got rushed.

Gameplay isn’t too hot here either.

Classic Sonic plays through the levels in 2D. He can run, jump and spindash, like always. The rolling here actually works more like how rolling works in the old games than Generations does on consoles but the levels never really use rolling in some clever way. It also has the Game Gear Sonic 1 rolling glitch. Just jump and roll constantly and you’ll gain speed instantly. The first 3 levels for him are basically just 1:1 the layout of the original game and the levels afterwards are either straight lines, waiting to jump on slowly moving platforms or homing attacking à la Sonic 4.

Yes, Classic Sonic has the homing attack. More specifically after he watches Modern Sonic do it a bunch of times, he learns the ability (aka: after the 1:1 layouts of the original games from the Classic era). He also watches him do the boost later on but Classic Sonic doesn’t actually learn that, making the cutscene pretty useless. Odd.

Now, Modern Sonic plays through the levels in… 2D. Oof, but hey, because this is Dimps here, the levels are going to be like Sonic Rush where you do tricks and stuff, right? No.

Modern Sonic is mostly just about walking on even ground boosting through a lot of enemies, waiting to jump on slowly moving platforms or homing attacking à la Sonic 4. No tricks to fill up the boost meter, no satisfying chiptune crunches for soundeffects, just boring. There is an attempt at making setpieces but those are often not connected to the main gameplay (platforming, memorizing and looking cool) and instead are something like a minigame (press A at a specific time, hold down the boost button, etc.).

Boosting is even slower than it was in the previous handheld games. It almost feels like a run button with invincibility, it’s that slow feeling.

Speaking of Classic Sonic learning the homing attack only later, Modern Sonic only learns the stomp later too by Tails giving him “30% lighter shoes”. …Even though he was already able to stomp in both versions of Sonic Colors.

There aren’t 3 zones per era anymore too. We have Green Hill, Casino Night and Mushroom Hill for the Classic era; Emerald Coast and Radical Highway for the Dreamcast era and Water Palace and Tropical Resort (from Colors DS because Classic Sonic gets a 1:1 layout again and maybe Modern Sonic tries to be like Colors Wii but it’s not 1:1 there) for the Modern era.

Why not include Heroes or something from the Advance games for the Dreamcast era and something from Sonic Rush Adventure for the Modern era (because Rush’s Water Palace is included for some reason)?

Bosses are also here, just like in the console games.

The 3 character bosses are always racing levels where the enemy is hindering you with their attacks if you’re close around them. The levels for them also reuse assets from a level you already played through but with a different layout and background music.

The actual bosses are rather okay but a bit soulless feeling.

The final boss from Sonic 3 is a bit too slow and you can’t always counter his attacks which is a missed opportunity and the way he gets defeated is lame. It starts nicely with the Sonic Rush-like build-up (camera zooms in 3-times while being frame freezed) but then he’s doing a falling animation, getting stuck in the air and fading to white.

Biolizard is dragging the attacks a bit out too much and it can feel like forever before showing its weakspot. And it doesn’t do the Sonic Rush build-up at the end… aw.

Egg Emperor (isn’t that from the Dreamcast era again?) is okay but Eggman’s voiceclips get repeated way too often and the spinball looks strange while swapping planes because it’s often tilted for no reason.

But it does have the Sonic Rush build-up! Except it doesn’t do freeze-frames this time and he just freezes there while explosion.gif animation files are pasted on top of the boss model a lot.

But at least the time eater fight is actually better than the one in the console version.

Story mode doesn’t require to play 9 missions in the 3DS version btw but we do have to play 7 special stages. And no, Super Sonic won’t be playable in normal levels.

Special stages in Generations 3DS are basically remakes of the ones from Sonic Heroes. You control a running Modern Sonic in a giant tube where you go left or right to collect colorful spheres. Collecting them gives you boost energy. Sometimes, you also need to jump over spike bombs by jumping through dash rings.

The goal of the special stage is to catch up with the emerald, like Heroes. Unlike Heroes though, it’s super easy and the controls work. Hooray?

If you thought missions are just absent in this version, well, no, not entirely. There’s a separate mission mode here with 100 missions. You unlock them randomly by playing the online mode or you can spend 5 playcoins to unlock 1 mission. If you don’t want to play online, that’s 50.000 steps to be able to play all 100 missions.

Missions are now always under a more stricter time limit and require you to e.g. collect a bunch of rings, defeat a bunch of enemies, earn more time by destroying monitors and getting to the goal or not getting hit once. Sometimes it has new layouts, most of the time, it doesn’t. It takes about 2 hours to play through all 100 of them, a bit more than how long story mode takes.

Playing through a mission also unlocks something like illustrations and pictures, high-poly 3D models or music from past games (which you can only listen to; also in standby mode with headphones).

There’s also something I wish the actual Generations would’ve had: Online VS mode.

You can play this game with other people online and you can choose to play either the 16 main levels or race to the emerald in the 7 special stages… in about 10 to 15 frames per second. It’s not very pretty. The races also work via local play (wireless 2 players with both having cardridges) but surprisingly, I haven’t found anyone yet who also has Generations 3DS. Oh, and it shares a profile card with each other which shows what ranks you got in each level, a screenshot from a game of your choice, your favorite Sonic the Hedgehog game (even the ones you don’t expect are there), your score (which depends on winning and losing in online battles and the amount of times you played a stage) and how long you’ve been a Sonic fan.

There’s also a time trial mode here which lets you upload your record online, like Colors DS. You can also share time trial ghosts and profile cards through streetpass but good luck finding someone via streetpass that also has streetpass data for Sonic Generations 3DS.

Sometimes it also rewards you if you’re doing something online by giving you a random item for your next playthroughs of a level, like 10 rings or an electric shield. Fun fact: You can only get an electric shield for Modern Sonic that way. Anyways…

The music in Generations 3DS is basically the best part of it but unlike Generations on consoles, you can’t swap the music out with something else. I think Dimps could’ve at least added an option to play music from your SD Card while playing levels because I don’t want to hear Radical Highway’s awful remix ever again.

My 3DS Activity Log says I’ve put in 171 hours into Sonic Generations 3DS but would I recommend it? No, absolutely not. While it does have a ton of useless unlockable content, playing it is a chore or just a borefest. It’s clearly a cashgrab and not much else. Don’t bother with it, okay? It’s just draining.

There, @squadalaguy! I finally reviewed it! :P

#Sonic Generations #Review #Sonic the Hedgehog #2017 #SEGA #Sonic Team #Dimps #Nintendo 3DS

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