Game Reviews

Here are thought's I have on some random video game's. Some new, some old, some just becasue I have nostalgia

Click a game to jump its review

"BIONICLE Heroes"
"Pokémon brilliant diamond and shining pearl"

BIONICLE Heroes

Release Date(s): NA: November 14, 2006; EU: November 24, 2006; NA: April 24, 2007 (wii version); EU: May 25, 2007 (wii version)
Platforms: PC; PS2; Gamecube; Xbox 360; Wii
Time played at time of review: Likley around 15 hours in last playthough around 95% complete; Quite a lot when longer
Notes: This game also had a Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance, and J2ME (old mobile platform) versions, but they are completely diffrent games then what I am reviewing

BIONICLE Heroes is one of the first person shooters of all time.

It was made by the UK developer TT games after they created Lego Star Wars, and I believe is the last game they developed that didn’t follow the formula that they created with Lego Star Wars (at least until the Skywaker Sega and the upcoming Lego batman game).

I am not going to give a full history on BIONICLE here, as it would take a while, I only have a surface level understanding of it, and this game is not even cannon as it breaks the lore in tons of ways so it does not matter anyway.

The game itself is a third person shooter, and is very simple. The combat is mostly point and shoot no taking cover, no special abilities, no dodging or dashing. The game does offer several different weapons, that cover all your standard video game guns (be it recontextualize to be more kid friendly). You got your smg, shotgun, rocket launcher, sniper rifle, grenade launcher, and of course, the classic big laser beam. They are all very useable, throughout the whole game besides the sniper rifle as there are no real long-range combat situations, and the scope controls suck. Weapons and your max health can also be upgraded with money you find throughout the levels, but you can get through the game quite easily without them, it mainly just speeds things up.

You can change weapons anytime by changing “masks”, which essentially changes you into one of what would have been the current Bionicle figures on sale in real life at the time (lore wise it is there mask giving your unnamed player character their skills and abilities). I will touch more on abilities later but in terms of combat, all the masks do is change your weapon, move speed, and armour. Speed is the only useless stat and is only noticeable in the downtime between fights.

When you start a level you will only have a limited selection of masks, but can find the rest (and copies of what you have already) throughout the level. When you lose all your health you do not die, instead you lose the current mask you are wearing, you only get a game over when you lose all your masks. However, I don’t know if this is done on purpose or just a big oversight, but when you do lose a mask all collection points for that mask will respawn, so as long as you only use the masks you know have spawn points nearby, they can be recollected right after you lose them making you effectively immortal.

The level design in this game much like the combat is extremely simple, you mostly just keep going forward taking out anything in your way.

The game has “puzzles” tied to using the right mask’s ability (the correct mask always happens to spawn nearby) but most the time the puzzle is just equip the right mask then either hold or tap the A button. The only exceptions are the fire and water masks, which let you walk on lava and water respectively, and then even more rarely the ice mask which can use there ”sniper rifle” to destroy certain objects blocking the way.

Each mask also has a hidden extra ability you can buy, but ALL of them are just you can now hold down the A button on new objects to find hidden collectables.

There is one last kind of roadblock you may find where the path is blocked by golden bricks. To get past them just keep killing enemies in the area nearby (they keep respawning until the roadblock is gone) to charge up a meter to activate hero mode. In hero mode, you are invincible for as long as you want! It will not expire until you clear the golden bricks, and of course how do you clear those bricks….by walking up to them and holding down the A button of course.

Almost every level ends with a boss fight which mostly involves dodging there attacks until they drop there shields so you can shoot them. Sometimes golden bricks will show up, so you will have to kill the normal enemies that spawn in to help the boss to enter hero mode, so you can use the bricks to make a random object to hit the boss with to damage them or break there shield. When a boss is on their last bit of health, they normally lose all their arms and/or legs and sit there helplessly until you make the last shot to end them. Honestly if everyone was not made of Lego that be extremely dark for a kids game (well any game really).

I am probably making this game sound boring, and that is because it is for anyone without nostalgia for it, or under the age of six…!

However, I would not go as far to say it is a bad game. It set out to be a shooter game made for kids, and does a good job at it. Yes, it is simple and very forgiving but that kind of is the point.

Last thing I want to mention, the soundtrack for this game is surprisingly good. I would 100% look it up on YouTube

Did I just make a probably bad review just to say a game I played when I was a kid has good a soundtrack… Yes yes I did.

Pokémon brilliant diamond and shining pearl

Release Date(s): Global: 19 November 2021
Platforms: Switch
Time played at time of rewiew: 170 hours; Have all trainer stars beside battle tower(I am working on it)
Notes: Please note while my opinion will likely come across regardless, this review expects you are familiar with the original games.

Pokémon brilliant diamond and shining pearl (will be shortened to BDSP, from now on) are the worst main line Pokémon games ever made, (and the second worst Pokémon game ever made) in my opinion. There not bad games, but while I will stand that even if flawed modern Pokémon games do still have passion put into them, (they just don’t get the development time to fully realizes there vision), BDSP was only ever made as a quick cash grab. From what we can tell from leaks they got scared people wouldn’t like them trying something new with legends arceus, (which turned out to be one the best-reviewed Pokémon games for the modern era) so commissioned a third party developer to make those remakes under a very short time crunch. The game was developed by ILCA, and I would like to say while I am about to really rip on this game a lot, they did a good job with the time they had. From what I seen they had just under a year of development time due to the late commissioning of this project so honestly the fact the game came out in a mostly playable state is impressive.

Right first let us talk about the few good things about this game. Graphically for a fateful remake in 3D, I do like the art style they chose. I know some people may think it is cheap, but I think it has charm, the only complaint I have is the overly excessive blur filter applied everywhere outside of battle. The water effects are a standout graphical element in this game but I think that may possibly be a default unity engine effect. The game’s remastered sound track is also very good, the only track I don’t really think meets or beats the original is Cyrus theme. It does not really have the same sense of dread in my own opinion, but I will not go as far to say the new version is horrible.

Gameplay wise its fine. HM’s are replaced with a new in game smartwatch app, that can summon your local random Bidoof to do HM move’s for you instead of a member of your team, so you no longer have to give up move slots for weaker HM moves just to get around the map. Modern exp share is now in the game as standard, and the battle system is using the sword and shield battle engine so you have all the modern battle mechanics and moves from gen 8, (beside Dynamax), meaning of course fairy type is now in the game which was not a thing in the original. Lastly the map now has objective markers, which is helpful for the newer stereotypical Pokémon players who just smash the A button and don’t read, which I assume will be useful for them as, the game does have some backtracking across the map near the mid game (it’s nothing bad you will have fast travel by that point).

The game also has two completely new bits of content, the grand underground, and Ramanas Park. The grand underground is mostly the same as the original games underground, (with some stuff removed I will touch on that later), but can now be played online and Pokémon can be found and caught here as well. In the post-game, the range of Pokémon that can be found here expands, to have many Pokémon not in the original games. Ramanas Park replaces the pal park as given Pokémon home now exists to transfer Pokémon between games it would have been useless in its original form. Instead, the replacement Ramanas Park lets you spend new rare ore, you can find in the underground to encounter legendary Pokémon not in the original game. Between those two features (and both versions), you can catch every non-mythical Pokémon up to gen 4 which is pretty cool, I must admit. To help make this easier statues can be found while mining, which when put in your secret base will boost the spawn rate of certain types of Pokémon.

Last thing I can think off before I go to the hate side, outbreaks can be tracked via the objective window in the post-game, and you can see the Pokémon in the over world in an outbreak. This is just a visual thing you still encounter them in tall grass as normal.

Right that is enough Mr nice Cyndaquil time to tear this game to shreds!

This game aims to be a fateful remake of the original games, and so adds very little new content only really adding in quality of life improvements from the modern games, and changing stuff that doesn’t make sense anymore (pal park) or just because in some cases. Issue is we have come to expect much more from Pokémon remakes, there are no new storyline’s or events, no completely new area of the map, (all new areas replace old ones), and no effort to add in the generations new battle gimmick to link it in with the current main games, (although to be fair that last one is a blessing given how bad Dynmax can be). Even the stuff that is new or changed is often for the worse.

The grand underground is the only real reworked feature, that I can say is there to add something new to the experience, but that removes elements from the original underground. Traps are gone, so you can no longer troll your friends, and secret bases can only be decorated with statues, taking away the base bit of secret base, and turning it into more of a crappy museum.

Contests have been completely reworked and dear god they suck so bad. Gone is the dress up mini game, gone is the old dancing mini game, gone is the surprisingly complex move showcase. Instead it’s now just a really bad rhythm game you play while you’re Pokémon “dances”. It just feels lazy and there is no real progression anymore. In the original, you got new dress up elements by talking to NPC’s after each contest, now you get nothing. You can still earn the ribbons for your Pokémon but that is it. The rhythm game itself is very basic; you only have to press one button in time to a beat. The timing of pressing said button though seems stupidly strict. I admit this may have to do with HDMI latency, but even on a decent gaming monitor, I find it impossible to win the harder difficulties, unless I am playing in handheld mode. My inputs just feel a bit too delayed when playing docked. I do not feel this with other timing based games like platformers on the same monitor.

The game has all the flaws of the original diamond and pearl that were fixed in platinum, because the game had to be fateful even though an enhanced version of the game already existed they could have based it off. The famous issue with the originals lack of fire types is back. You do get one more evolution line in brilliant diamond version specifically, thanks to the underground, but beside that until post game, you are still limited to the original one evolution line of fire types if you did not pick Chimchar, as your starter. None of the NPC trainer’s uses there updated platinum teams, so Flint the fire type specialist has to get creative, and the electric gym leader still uses water types. One funny side effect of this is that one of the steal type trainers in the steal gym now uses a fairy type due to the updated typing, (fairy is weak to steal for the non-Pokémon nerds here). Move sets and in some cases, held items were updated at least.

All areas are remade based on there diamond and pearl designs not platinum. Many areas that got a facelift in platinum have gone back to being bland for no good reason.

Due to the game not being rebalanced at all for the exp share the game is now extremely easy, though to be fair this is not a new issue for Pokémon remakes. However, at the end of the game when you face the elite 4 they decided to give them massive buffs. They now have full competitive move sets, items, and EVs, which is a bit unfair given you as a player, do not get access to the tools and items to train your own Pokémon to that level until the post-game. I did beat them on my first try as I am a veteran Pokémon player, (who was using some perish song bulls*** to cheese some of the more powerful Pokémon they use), but for the average player who likely got confused when I said EVs, this fight is going to be a very hard brick wall compared to how easy the rest of the game is. It is not impossible by any means, you can just over level or make sure you have the right type counters, but while I do want harder Pokémon games, this is just bad game design! You don’t just suddenly start-making use of mechanics the player doesn’t even have access to or ever explain, in an otherwise easy game.

The game is so fateful, that bugs from the original game are back. An example of this is the ability suction cups which had a bug with it’s out of battle effect not working. It was fixed in platinum but is a thing again in this game! If you are wondering how this even happens, the game reuses most of the code of the original games for everything beside battles and graphics. Normally this is fine, other remakes/ports do this, but they also normally do not unfix bugs! This is very likely due to the games rushed development (which is also fateful to the original games ironically).

Talking bugs there is (or at least was) a ton of new bugs added in this game. Nothing game breaking thankfully, but enough to hurt the experience. Your character can sometimes randomly teleport onto a bridge you’re walking under, characters that follow you will get stuck or just disappear really easily, you may see graphical artefacts on terrain, you can skip the ice gym puzzle by walking diagonally, some textures fail to load, Spinda pattern RNG is broken so badly Pokémon home won’t let you transfer them in or out the game, in old versions of the game you could duplicate Pokémon, and the shiny charm only works on eggs despite the item description saying it should work on wild Pokémon. Some of those bugs are fixed, but I am sure there even more I have not mentioned as well. (Check out this video for examples of those bugs and more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2zawkCor6A).

The game also launched in a very incomplete state. It had a massive day one patch for a switch game (around 2GB after decompression), and that patch added multiplayer (beside online battles and wonder trade), the whole postgame, mystery gift, Ramanas park, the opening movie, the f***ing ending cutscene, and the games remaster soundtrack. If you did not play with the patch, the music was an extremely cursed low quality version of the original games music. It took 3 months to add online battles, and then an extra month on top of that for wonder trade. I feel sorry for anyone who got this game without internet access near launch; the game started printing copies excessively too early.

Overall, BDSP are not bad games but that is only because the originals were ok games. These remakes are the most cash grab game Pokémon has ever come out with, and I am happy that legends arceus sold well enough that were not getting any more faithful remakes like this, at least as of time of writing.

If you have not played a gen 4 game before this game is still the most cost effective way to play it, and the worst bugs have been patched. For veteran players while it is a decent upgrade to the originals, I would stick with your DS and play platinum (if you have a copy), for a better-enhanced experience.