Thursday, December 4, 2014

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse for the Nintendo 3DS

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse is a Nintendo 3DS & Wii U eShop Exclusive game by WayForward. Released on October 23, 2014, this is the 3rd game of the Shantae series.

Shantae is a Half Genie and the Guardian Genie for Scuttle Town. In this game, thanks to a pirate named Risky Boots in the previous game Shantae: Risky's Revenge, Shantae is no longer a Genie.

FUN: This game captures the essence of what a classic platformer game should be. Since Shantae is no longer a Half Genie, she has to use Tools and Weapons, instead of transformation magic from her previous games, she picks up along her journey to aid her even further. The Touch Screen for the 3DS makes for easy access to her items such as health items and extra attack weaponry and power.

The controls are smooth and the button placement makes anyone who hasn't played a Shantae game before easy to pick up and play. The characters and music also makes the game quite enjoyable. FUN - 2.

REPLY: The reply value for this Shantae game is actually quite unique. There are 3 different ending for this game; Any% complete, 100% complete, and 100% Speedrun. However, you can't unlock the 100% Speedrun until you beat the game once with either Any% or 100% complete. On top of that, beating the game once will unlock, Pirate Mode!

Pirate Mode allows the player to start the game with all the Pirate weapons and tools you picked up during your 1st playthrough. This allows quick shortcuts and gives you a better chance at the 100% Speedrun ending for the 2nd playthrough. REPLAY - 2.

STORY: The story starts off with Shantae getting awoken by a load bang outside her lighthouse. When she goes and checks it out, she finds out that Ammo Baron is taking over the city! During her trek through Scuttle Town, she finds the Mayor you told her that Ammo Baron owns the town now! After finding and defeating the Ammo Baron, Shantae is given a summons saying that she is fired as the town's Guardian Genie for attacking the owner!

After being assigned to her house until further notice, Shantae gets captured by Risky Boots. Risky then tells her to give her back her crew and weapons. Shantae being confused by this quickly states that she doesn't have her crew and weapons. Risky then shows Shantae that her Uncle has one of her crew member locked up. Before Shantae tried to find an answer to why, a dark mist enters Risky's crew member and transforms it into a Cacklebat! Risky releases Shantae when she realizes there's a bigger problem, the Pirate King is being revived! It's up to Shantae and Risky to stop this from happening before the whole world becomes the Pirate King's. STORY - 2.

DIFFERENCE/ORIGINAL: In all of the other Shantae games, Shantae was a Half Genie. Being a Half Genie gave Shantae the power to Transform into animals by dancing. In this game, thanks to Risky Boots in the previous game, no longer has that power. Instead, Shantae has to use weaponry and tools she picks up and buys in order to complete her quest. That's preety much the only difference about this game. DIFFERNCE/ORIGINAL - 1.

DIFFICULTY: The Shantae series and WayForward knows what makes a great platformer. Smooth controls and easy button placements. Those two things makes the game easy to pick up and only your skills and what you learn from playing the game will help you along the way. Most of the time, it will be you own doing that will get you killed. From not having enough healing items to forgetting a simple pattern to get through. Most of the mistakes will be you and not the game's. DIFFICULTY - 2.

TOTAL - 9.

Well, that's Shantae and the Pirate's Curse in a nutshell! I will be reviewing Shantae 1/2 Genie Hero for the PS Vita when it comes out, so be sure to check out my Non-Nintendo VG review Blog to read it! Until next time, this has been the Nintendo Rater! See ya!

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley for the Nintendo 3DS

Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley was made by the company Natsume for the Nintendo 3DS. Released on Nov. 4th, 2014, this is the new addition to the Harvest Moon series. This is the 3rd Harvest Moon 3DS game (2nd if you only count Only for 3DS games. Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Towns was for both DS & 3DS) Natsume made for Nintendo.

FUN: This game is a great addition to the famous Harvest Moon series. With the whole land left to your creative genius, you can make the land any way you want it. The game kind of makes you think a bit of Minecraft in the way of land forming. They also brought back the lift and move Buildings like in their previous game Harvest Moon: A New Beginning. However, this time you need the help of a guy by the name of Doc and his devices Insta-Buildings and ARCHITECT (Yes... In the game, the name is in all caps). The whole raising crops and animals has become a bit easier thanks to the story part of the game and money making is very easy due to all the Mine throughout the land. On top of all that, the marriage and kid aging is fantastic. FUN - 2.

REPLAY: This is a Harvest Moon game... The only replay value it has if you want to play both Genders or you accidentally deleted you file. Unless you do either one, this game is endless. REPLAY - 0.5.

 STORY: The story goes as followed. You find yourself in a heavy snowstorm, climbing a mountain path. Upon reaching the top, you hear a voice saying go inside the house in front of you. Of course you do & you go to sleep. While asleep, you dream of the Harvest Goddess. In this dream, she's asking for your help to save this land. When you wake up, you find 3 Tools; a Watering Can, a Hoe, & a Shovel. After grabbing the tools, you step outside to hear a voice calling for help. You go to the spot where the voice was and shovel to find one of many Harvest Sprites. He then tells you that the Harvest Goddess became weak and thus this land lost the other 3 seasons to an endless Winter and they need your help in bring back those seasons and the Harvest Goddess. STORY - 2.

DIFFERENCE/ORIGINAL: This Harvest Moon game surprisingly has quite a bit of Originally in the game. Sure, as I said before, the creating land part feels like Minecraft, however... they never did something like this in any Harvest Moon game. Usually, you can only rearrange Items and, last game, Buildings. This time, the whole land is in your hands. Shape it to however you want it. On top of that, there are new crops to grow and well as new fodder and food to make thanks to recipes. There's even recipes for buildings! There is quite a wide range of interesting people you meet in the game, from an inventor named Doc (who makes me think of Doc Brown from 'Back to the Future'), a Blacksmith who talks in 3rd Person (who became my Father-In-Law due to marriage in the game), a rich girl, and a very young girl looking for her mom and her only clue is a pendent with her picture in it. On top of that, there are only 3 Bachelors & Bachelorettes in the game. For your kids growing stage, you are given Formula Milk to feed you kid and you will need to buy the recipes to make it as well. If you don't feed your kid at least once during the day, you will be woken up in the middle of the night by the kid's crying and your energy level will go down for the next day. On top of that, you will wake up at 8am instead of your normal 6am. During your kid's growing stage, your kid will get the Sleeping Sickness and it's your job to find a cure! Another new thing is the requests. Requests can be story based or just something that appears when you raise friendship levels with people (it also help raise them too). The Sleeping Sickness that your kid gets is actually an added bonus story request (mainly due to Natsume knowing you will be getting married and raising a kid). Lastly, you can ask the Harvest Sprites you awaken to help you with chores such as helping your flowers grow and growing special Sprite Trees (which is needed to get Mysterious Lumber to build your Giant House in order to get married and have a kid). DIFFERENCE/ORIGINAL - 2.

DIFFICULTY: None. Nana. Zilch. This is a Harvest Moon game. Even the story and the requests are easy. I finished the story before the 1st year was over and for certain requests you can use a Save & Reload Cheat that refreshes what appears in the mines and what type of wool, eggs, and milk you can get (due to the items have to be the same Quality in order for it to work. Only annoying part). Raising crops and animals are quite easy as well. DIFFICULTY - 0.5.

TOTAL - 7.

There you have it! Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley in a nut shell! Hope you gamers enjoy this review! Until next time, this has been the Nintendo Rater! See ya!