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[miniallumgames]

So I finished Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and it absolutely destroyed me.

Characters wise I’ve never rooted for the team as a whole and as individuals more. The ending is very bittersweet but it makes sense. I’m going to rant about it because I love it.

After the boss died, I just expected a happy ending and everyone travels around or live their remaining time together. No that’s how that played out.

And my first thought after the ending was that I wish that they could stay together but THATS WHAT THE VILLAIN WANTED TOO. The happy ending of Noah and Mio being together in this world and having a baby is actually what N had. And it would be a betrayal for all they fought through. I was not ok when I realized.

So Noah is an amazing character with an amazing body to boot (Afagshshah like actually why would they give the protag defined pecs and a nice tight ass lol).

Both Noah and Mio were born out of the wishes and regrets from N and M to bring change in a forever unchanging world. The crossroads is something N has been through over and over again and he will always chose M. Noah chooses the other path and it’s Mio-less with outside influences like Consul C that N did not have help him there. (Consul C being as important as Mio is so important to me and the music that plays in his battle is A++++)

The game makes it clear that Noah holds all the power, he wields the sword. So when the final boss dies, he is the reluctant one but he steels himself once everyone and Mio tell him it’s ok. AND to make sure he, himself, doesn’t back out or does something stupid, he thanks his OP sword and throws it into the void (ocean that probs is between two worlds). Both throwing any regret he might have and resolving himself to the future.

After Noah and Mio says thank you to each other but not goodbye. Then we move to Sena and Lanz and the song “Where We Belong” start because it’s the first goodbye.

“Guess... we won’t be training together any more,” is when the singer start singing as a balm to the player. It becomes clear that the team is going to be separated for a very long time and there’s no way around it.

However “Where We Belong” is used as a song to describe the scene AND a promise to the player before the characters themselves tell each other that they will meet again. It persists through all the goodbyes and only ends when Noah and Mio shouting I’ll find you.

The song is saying that right now it’s not the time for them to be together but in the future no matter what happens even if they’ve changed into different people, they will meet again. And I can’t wait for that.

For anyone who didn’t see the post credits scene, Noah wakes back in child form and hears the off seer song, thus choosing to follow it. And from the story we know that song can transfer feelings which has now transcended time and space.

Okay rant over I’m going to listen to “Battle vs. Sorrow” and “Where We Belong” and cry again.

[miniallumgames]

It’s Never Ogre...

Shrek 2: “It’s a real game”

Platform played on: Gamecube

Genre: A Joke

Allum’s Rating: 4/10 for loners, 7/10 for co-op

General Review:

So, this is mad late, even pushing into Mini’s week. This is also extremely long just to warn anyone. Mini’s gonna be pissed. Mini hasn’t seen any of this. If anyone cares enough, thank Mini because they recorded some of our conversations in the notes. Those will be spread out in the review. Oh sorry, I meant long ass shitpost.

It was originally a solo playthrough and as an avid Shrek fan, excitement permeated the air. Nothing was going to stop this hype train for this first review, except the game being clear pretty early on that it was for more than one person. So as the kind soul and partner it’s imperative that Mini was bestowed with [begged] the position as loyal squire in this arduous and rewarding journey of Shrek 2.

So Shrek 2 is basically the movie as a game. The game is unbearable at times and filled with puns. There’s a lot to this game especially in terms of gameplay. It changes its rules often, but in such a way it can be taken as refreshing instead of annoying. It’s far better than most movie/TV show video games and more effort is put into this game than necessary.

There is absolutely no reason for this game to have fully fledged out character models, boss fights, more than 5 world maps, voice acting, and a lot more. It exceeds all expectations that both Mini and I had. This game does have it flaws and an abnormally large difficulty spike. However, that will be evaluated in the main game summary.

The main set-up of the game is a beat-’em up with four characters available at any time. These characters can vary and each with their own unique abilities. The flow of the game is changed per chapter and per level. After a level, sometimes there is a mini-game, announced by the Magic Mirror, “It’s Hero Time” and it is just one player/character playing an entire game by themselves and the game will not continue until it’s completed. Some of these are rather easy and can be completed in one go while others will test your mettle and question your entire life as to why you are playing the same minigame from Shrek 2 for an hour and a half. Every chapter is something new and it can span upon the entire mainstream video game format list. It might not sound interesting now, but listen when I say Grand Theft Auto is involved.

The game’s menu is a storybook and when something is clicked, sometimes there will be a random voice line from either Shrek or Donkey. Imagine going to options and suddenly the thundering voice of Shrek shouting, “OGRE POWER!!!”. Anyway it’s a good presentation of the menu and far better than the usual title screen = menu deal.

[Allum: So menu’s pretty nice *starts exploring and clicking on stuff*

Mini: It’s Shrek, I’m surprised there’s no toilet humor-

Shrek (out of nowhere): OGRE POWER!!!

Mini: Excuse me?]

In the beginning the game starts with our lovely, playable main cast of Shrek, Fiona, Donkey… and the most important one of them all: Gingerbread Man, why is he here so early in the game? He doesn’t make an appearance in the movie until the third act, but now he is available in the first chapter of the game. It’s alright because his purpose of being in the party is to hit random targets placed all over the swamp and distract surprisingly timely alligators with cookies. As for the other characters, Shrek can lift various objects and either throw them or place them in their designated spots. Fiona can apparently slow down time with the use of an hourglass, while Donkey can burrow kick objects into submission.

The story for Chapter 1 is that Fiona and Shrek got an invitation from Fiona’s parents to meet the lucky man who Fiona married. Shrek isn’t going to go without supplying on some eyeballs for the road and the game becomes a beat-’em up/collectable. This is the main format of the game, but it changes itself every so often. Playing the game for the first few moments was pretty fun until characters started getting stuck and locking the camera in an awkward position. The AI is the same as the majority of escort mission AIs, dumb as bricks and likely to die.

Mini played as Donkey while Gingerbread man was mine and for some reason his candy cane is a homing jump attack. The first objective to continue with the game is to collect eyeballs for unsuspecting snails in the swamp. Simple and nothing really remotely interesting, until five minutes later… Robin Hood and his French out-of-the-closet men show up to fight.

[Mini: Is it just a collectathon?

Allum: I fucking hope not. I ain’t a completionist.

*moving to next part and then in game cutscene*

Robin Hood: OH MERRY MEN!

Allum (in stunned disbelief): Mini, please explain to me why Robin Hood is French?

Mini: He isn’t French? Maybe he turned French when Fiona kicked his tights so high up his ass.]

They were surprisingly hard. There were far too many of them and Shrek and Fiona died in the process. Afterwards, it was time for fairy collecting using time-slowing hour glasses and at this point, why didn’t they just leave after getting the eyeballs? Shrek just needed his disgusting trail mix for the onion carriage.

Anyway despite feeling as though much accomplishment has been made, Shrek 2 showed itself as Dark Souls with its map design. It circled back into Shrek’s home and it turned out that Lil’ Red took over the home to make chicken soup. The place was infested with chickens and the goal was to hit the chickens into the pot. Yes, when a chicken is hit, sometimes the chicken will fly halfway throughout the map to its boiling death.

Then our merry band of heroes was then somehow convinced to journey with Lil’ Red to her grandmother’s house. At this point, our merry band of heroes should be almost stupidly late to meet the King and Queen of the kingdom and this is probably why the King hated Shrek so much because he was three days late due to collecting eyeballs, capturing fairies, and hitting chickens.

After arriving to Grandma’s house, the chapter was still not over. It was mini-game ti- sorry, “It’s Hero Time” and this time it’s Fiona’s turn in the spotlight and this one throughout the entire game is the easiest one in the whole game, but no one told us. The goal of this one is to make birds explode with Fiona’s singing. It is basically DDR and with every button Fiona sings until the final button mash where she belted so high that the birds that were trying to keep up explode.

Finally, it was the end… of chapter 1.

[Mini: That was pretty fun. I guess. (referring to Fiona’s mini-game)

Allum: Yeah, the game has a pretty good feel to it. Music is good too.

*After intro to Chapter 2*

Mini: FUcK no. Are you serious?]

As to why Mini freaked a little, Gingerbread Man ditched us for a date and Lil’ Red joined in, but the main reason was that Chapter 2 is a giant escort mission. At this point, it should almost be obvious that Mini was my saving grace in this arduous journey and this was only Chapter 2 out of 11 and it only gets worse.

Yes, the second chapter is escorting the 3 blind mice throughout a horrible forest/graveyard. A witch wants them for one of her spells and turned the horses back into mice and so the gang has to help out. The mice are disturbingly fast and the cheese does almost nothing to distract them from the various death traps waiting for them.

The best way to win was to rush as fast as possible past the mice and the two party members whose abilities are vital to this stage were Donkey and Lil’ Red. Donkey uses his burrow blast to kick old trees and gravestones to use as paths. While Lil’Red can rings bells that open gates with her spin jump and throw apples at mouse traps and rats.

Apple throwing is the most infuriating thing since the apple’s direction is thrown by which direction Lil’ Red happens to be standing and the mouse trap doesn’t go off if the apple doesn’t hit directly on it instead slightly over it. In any case, that was the most troublesome part of the escort mission.

The game also introduces a drunk knight as another enemy and initial thoughts were that he was going to be an easy enemy just more health. Instead he can’t be stunned and can keep using his sword spin move until every character is rolling in their grave wondering how an idiot took them down. The answer to that is because each hit from the knight takes half of the health bar away and the game doesn’t have that wonderful boon of invincibility frames.

Finally in the end of the escort mission, the real villain shows itself, “It’s Hero Time”. It’s the start of something evil. This time it’s Dragon and Donkey’s turn to shine in Hell. Once the mice are escorted safely, Fiona gets into the onion carriage and right before Shrek can get on, the witch casts a spell on the carriage and sends it down a path where it will fall off a cliff. This Hero Time is just a dodger, but there’s a weird delay in the inputs and it might just take a couple of times until it’s finally over and Fiona is saved.

Now Chapter 3 is something real special.

[*plays Chapter 3*

Allum: Wow

Mini: It’s just a shitty version of GTA.

Allum: What are you talking about it’s magic.]

Yes, Chapter 3 of Shrek 2 is a really shitty version of GTA and received my complete adoration and Mini’s complete hatred. Shrek and the gang made it to Far Far Away and are suddenly given the positions of deputies to help out the old father-in-law. Shrek’s just there to suck up while the others are just… there. This part of the game is the buggiest as every time the camera tilted a certain way the screen would turn a pale blue and the only thing besides the screen looking like someone accidentally hit fill on MS Paint are the shadows of the characters as grey circles.

Anyway, the only thing that’s GTA about it is there’s a star system only up to 3 stars. The easiest way to get beaten up and to get those beautiful 3 stars is just to hit a knight. Sure it might be fun to hit random people with apples or kick them halfway through the block with a burrow kick, but isn’t having Shrek carry a knight the good old Shrek way.

The goal is to help out the kingdom with thieves, escorting princesses, and helping Humpty Dumpty in several mini-games. But it’s more than any one of us expected. This section is very easy to complete because it can just end once talking to the King, but no one told us that. We both assumed that every mini-game had to be finished and some mini-games took more than two tries, but they were all doable.

Every single mini-game was played to agonizing completion. One mini-game was to escort Cinderella while she goes shopping and beat up the 40-50 armed men ready to steal from her. There was one that included beating up the Pied Piper and his children stealing rats. Shrek has his “Hero Time” just throwing outlaws into a police wagon. Another one tests platforming skills to collect Humpty Dumpty’s body. Last ones include chickens and then following a troll stealing jewels to collect them. He instakills anyone in one hit and an ‘I hate you’ note written in orc’s blood. Blah, they’re done.

On to Chapter 4, no more dilly dallying. No more with Keeping up with the Cinderellas.

Chapter 4 is a godsend. Sort of depending on how well you can press buttons. There’s no map, it’s just a rhythm boss fight with Puss-in-Boots. Anyway the King hires Puss-in-boots to kill Shrek and Fiona is left behind in the castle and left out with Gingerbread Man. This is the first time that it follows the movie in the sense that Puss-in-boots just pops out of nowhere to fight. If you make one mistake, that character is dead and you move on to control the next character. It’s just dodge and parry, the button game with the cat in the pretentious hat.

Chapter 5: Back to the basics

This section is back to the simple get to the goal and beat things up along the way. This time Shrek and the gang went to Fairy Godmother’s house to get a happily ever after for him. When they arrive, Shrek doesn’t have an appointment and can’t get in, but Lil’ Red apparently had one and just leaves the group without a care in the world. Puss-in-Boots replaces her and not surprisingly very stealthy and agile. His abilities include walking on conveniently placed ropes to the switch and looking like a deranged orange when he jump.

[Gingerbread Man: “Things would be easier if I was brown”.

Mini: What kind was joke was that? A race one? A cookie joke? Is it even a joke? What was that?]

So they are headed to Jack and Jill’s farm to get a package so they can ‘deliver’ it to Fairy Godmother’s house. There is no reason to pad the game for this long and if they followed the movie’s route, it would have been long enough, but credit is given to inserting new places in the Shrek Universe. The only enemies are pumpkins infused with Fairy Godmother’s magic or drugs. Let’s be real she is the mafia. The rest of the map is just filled with easy puzzles using mostly Puss-in-Boots to solve them. This section is relatively easy and short, but that is only because it is just practice until Chapter 5 reveals its true self.

The real level is another “Hero Time” and this time it’s Puss-in-Boots turn. Platforming rears its disgusting face in the worst way possible. In platforming, it’s acceptable to have 5 to 6 platforms until a checkpoint, but there is no checkpoint in this whole thing. It consists of platforms, ropes, and piranhas. It’s all about timing on the ropes and which way is fastest to the goal because there is more than one path. It’s honestly not that hard, but that’s only because Mini did it.

[Mini: I’m done *walks out*

Allum: Where are you going?

Mini: To get coffee, so I can try to work out why you are trying to test my love.]

Chapter 6 and this time Mini is gone. Thank goodness this time, I didn’t need help.

It’s a pretty small map once again, but it follows the same format as Far Far Away. It is chock full of mini-games and this time they are not optional. These are far easier than the ones in Far Far away and are actually enjoyable. The music and the colors make it extremely fun and whimsical. There are cows, bees, and giant carrots in the map really adding to the farm atmosphere.

The story as to why Shrek and the others have to help out in the farm is because the Three Little Pigs are lazy and they won’t give them the package until Shrek and the others finish their own for them. This is probably one of the best maps in the game and most of the mini-games are rather fun. There are so many puns in this map that Mini would have left the city if they heard all of them. Every time the mini game begins or is complete, the pig who assigned it makes a pun. These puns are masterpieces and although the writing in this game is awkward most of time, this time it is A+.

A favorite would have to be the start of the chicken collecting mini-game.

[Pig: Now don’t go killing ze chickens, I don’t want Poultry-geist running around”

Allum: *snorts*]

This game has the party go around hitting chickens and then the chickens fly up into the air and then disappear into thin air, hopefully to their coop if not then into Lil’ Red’s pot of death. A small map with some enemies and roaming chickens. Simple and easy, nothing horrible about it. There is also an egg collecting game that is impossible to fail and is reminiscent of a Mario Party game. The needle in the haystack one is just a clusterfuck based on luck. There are either 16-25 haystacks and the needle is in one of them. The more haystacks are hit, the more rats are released. At one point there were so many rats, the poor slave called Gamecube started to make the worst crying sounds and the reaper named “Lag” showed itself.

As always there’s “Hero Time” and it’s Gingerbread Man’s turn. It has nothing to do with him being a cookie or any of his skills or acquaintances. This poor living cookie has to climb up a ridiculously large hill to get a pail of water while avoiding being crushed by giant tomatoes that want him decomposing for their future children. There is nothing sophisticated about it. It is just a simple ‘get to the goal’, but it is a waste of Gingerbread Man.

Finally, the Pigs give the gang the box to deliver to Fairy Godmother’s house. And guess who’s back! Mini came back to suffer with me. Oh yeah so is Lil’ Red.

Gingerbread Man left us probably because he needed a milk bath after the tomato incident and so Chapter 7 appears. Chapter 7 is when the game amps up the difficulty. It starts off easy in the first puzzle, which is just having Shrek move crystal orbs around until there are no more lasers in the way. If any of the characters hit the laser, a bunch of heavily armed men will show up. The best part of this section is that Smokey the Bear showed up sleeping on one of Fairy Godmother’s couches.

Now here’s where the game starts to flip its middle finger. “It’s Hero Time” with Lil’ Red and the Fairy Godmother. Now normally it only takes a couple of times to finish these mini-games, but NOT a full hour of my life. So this poor girl has to run on a 3 conveyer belts with giant spikes in between each one as a short magic-buffed grandma tries to sucker punch her into the afterlife with homing magic missiles. And all she has to defend herself are apples.

Eventually, Lil’ Red won and the chapter continues with our heroes finally making it to the potion room. It’s pretty much a team effort to get it and it’s fun.

Then it’s a mob fight. There are just so many. We lost a few times and the fight started from the beginning.

We wanted to just go to sleep, but there were only four more chapters left. We came too far.

There were at least more than 50 guys there and the feeling of death was washing over us. Still wasn’t over, Ryan Seacrest shows up as a boss fight. He hit pretty hard for a pretty boy, but he was no match for the patented, old ‘hit and run’. We beat him up and then his mommy comes to chase us out of their home. There was an actual chase scene, but far more manageable than her boss fight. But we did it, we got the potion.

[Allum: FINALLY!!!!

Mini: Don’t wake the neighbors.

Allum: They’re having sex again. Don’t even try. *sassy pose*]

8th Chapter is fine except for the “It’s Hero Time” segment. At this point in the game, Shrek and Donkey have transformed into a handsome guy and a white stallion. They’ve been locked up because Fairy Godmother sees him as too handsome. Now it’s finally time for new characters to have their time to shine.

This game feels new again because half of the party has been replaced. It’s jailbreak time with fairy tale characters. Gingerbread Man and Lil’ Red are back in action and finally on the team at the same time. They all have the same abilities as always. But there are two new characters, the Big Bad Wolf and Fairy. Starting with the Big Bad Wolf, he deals a lot of damage and his special is his blowing ability which helps with a lot of the puzzles. His animations and lines are actually rather nice and he plays similarly to Shrek as the tank except that he can stay in the air longer due to his dress.

Now onto the Queen herself, Fairy, she is amazing. Yes, her name is Fairy and no, she is not Tinkerbell. It says so on her character profile. Whatever, she’s so badass. She is the leader and drill sergeant of the team and she takes no BS. Her abilities include flying, granting others the ability to fly temporarily, and becoming a machine gun. Her normal attacks fire extremely fast and her movement speed is faster than anyone else. Her only bane is that because she is floating the entire time, she can’t press buttons or lift objects, but that’s what the others are for. She doesn’t need to do anything besides kill and float.

The actual level is a good old regular prison break mission. The goal is to break out 2 out of the 3 Little Pigs and Shrek and Donkey. There’s no big tricks or super aggravating things in this part. It boils down to bring something to somewhere to open a door, press a switch, or blow a giant boulder up/down a slope with Big Bad Wolf. There is actually some challenge with the game because if the characters are detected a lot of enemies will come to attack them and those enemies hit like a carriage. Overall, this is probably one of the best parts of the game along with Far Far Away and Jack and Jill’s Farm just because all the characters are really fun to play with.

“It’s Hero Time” is actually not rage inducing. It is far better than the previous one with Apple Thrower vs Magic Missile Caster. This time it’s the Big Bad Wolf’s turn and it’s technically the same as Puss-in-Boots’. It’s a simple get to the goal game except there is some platforming and instead of piranhas with predictable attack patterns, there are rolling bombs. Poor Wolfie has to do this to get the key to free Shrek and Donkey. We actually got it on our first try so that’s why this one isn’t so scathing as the others.

Time for Chapter 9 and now party switch-a-roo time!

[*Chapter 9 starts and playable characters show up*

Mini: You RUiNeD It! *Points at the screen* MY QUEEN.

Allum: More like your machine gun.

Mini: My Queen has fallen… *drops to her knees*]

Good-bye interesting cast of characters and interesting party chemistry. Welcome back Shrek, Donkey, and Puss-in-Boots. Interesting thing now is that Shrek and Donkey now count as one character because the whole time Human!Shrek is riding on top of Horse!Donkey. They are now the main damage dealers in the team and are extremely fast. Shrek now wields a giant lance and can throw an unlimited amount of damaging magic potions at enemies. They can break large objects and crystals. The two people from Fairy Tale Heist Team that stayed are the Gingerbread Man and the Big Bad Wolf.

However this stage is once again pretty good and rather easy. It’s just simply running through the map and slaying down enemies. The level is designed like a temple and looks like it was copy-and-pasted straight from a Lara Croft or Uncharted game. It’s a rather pretty level as it There is some pretty good background music too. It’s rather mystical sounding and pleasant to listen to.

There’s a pretty varied bunch of enemies here instead of just normal men. There are spiders, giant spiders, frogmen, and golems. The only real threats are the spiders and stone golems. The spiders have shown up before, but now there are more of them and if three of them gang up on any character, it’s basically instant death as there is no invincibility frames to allow the character to escape. The stone golems and the golden golem are probably the biggest threat because they have the largest HP bar and hit extremely hard, but can be easily taken down with Shrek’s magic potions.

“It’s Hero Time” and it’s almost the last one and it is genuinely a horrible experience. It is tiring and requires absolute focus, but it’s fucking hilarious. So Fairy Godmother surprises the gang and kidnaps Snow White in her glass casket. Then Shrek and Donkey chases after Fairy Godmother and Snow White as they’re racing down the in a mine cart. It would have been funnier if the controller didn’t go flying. Fairy Godmother takes at least 7 times to take her down and it’s a long mini-game for that. Shrek and Donkey are only allowed 1 hit and then they die. Never in my years have there ever been such pure, unadulterated hatred for a game and twisters in Harvest Moon exist.

After what felt like a lifetime, it’s over and the gang is back in Far Far Away. Chapter 10 and guess what, the gang are now firefighters and their mission comes from Smokey the Bear who turns out to also be Papa Bear. This was honestly the best part of this chapter. But also why isn’t Smokey helping out and if he was there to prevent fires, why are there several fires all over Far Far Away. No more bugging out into a pale blue death screen this time, thankfully.

It’s an easy mission of just putting out fires by using Big Bad Wolf or a water cannon and breaking down doors to let people escape. There wasn’t anything hard about it and is rather pointless. Smokey had no reason to stop these random group of people and tell them to put out all the fires and save all the people from the doors that won’t open from the inside. It contributed nothing and it was just to ease the player’s tension from the previous “It’s Hero Time” and to get them prepared for the next part of the level.

[Allum: It’s a trap. That giant gingerbread monster is going to appear and it’s going to be an escort mission.

Mini: That part’s obvious. Why are you freaking out?

Allum: I don’t know. One of us has still to react to this game.]

Surprise, it’s an escort mission. It’s even more aggravating this time. This time the gang is escorting Mongo, that giant Gingerbread Man, through the entire town. He’s such a huge target it’s not even funny. So the gang has to destroy the knights using water cannons/catapults that shoot disturbingly fast while running through roofs. Mongo is so easily killed and we actually had to turn up the brightness on the TV because we couldn’t see what we had to use to defeat the knights and if we actually got them.

After the roof section, it’s the same thing, but on the Far Far Away version of Beverly Hills. It is easier than the roof section as long as Shrek and Donkey are used correctly because now a bunch of enemies will come out and only Shrek and Donkey can knock them out easily. Mongo will be on one side of the street while Shrek and the others will be on the other. The Gingerbread Man can now direct Mongo to destroy obstacles on Mongo’s side of the road with his throwing cookies. It’s pretty creative and a test in multitasking and timing. Nothing feels better than throwing a cookie and more than thousands of dollars of property damage is done.

And finally the last “It’s Hero Time”, and who else would the last hero be in Shrek 2 than Mongo, the best character in the movie. This time it’s rather easy compared to the other ones because it is timed to be less than a minute and it is just a still turret section. The goal is to protect Mongo and it was the most exhilarating part of the game because the game was almost over. The banquet was almost upon us and we were not going to waste any more time.

So… Chapter 11… That lil’ old chapter. The banquet did not happen and we turned off the Gamecube and got coffee. Who cares about a sense of accomplishment? Neither one of us was willing to put anymore time on Shrek 2 for the Gamecube.

Let’s get this straight, WE DID NOT FINISH THE GAME. Because this section is such bullshit. It is a multi stage boss fight against Fairy Godmother. So Shrek and Donkey turned back to normal and Fiona is back in the party. GIngerbread Man and the Big Bad Wolf are nowhere to be seen. A part of me wished that we could finish it, but it’s just the worst thing ever. Fairy Godmother and Ryan Seacrest doesn’t fight fair. We got up to third stage and that’s it for the review.

So the first part of the boss fight is with the drunk knight that can take down half of a character’s health in one hit. But now there is 10 of them. And they surround the party in a circle. It took a while before we got the trick was just to wait in the middle because the knights can’t actually spin move all the way into the middle to hurt the party. They have an indicator to show when the knights will stop their spin moves and it’s that their armor will fall to their ankles. This took six times until we figured that out.

The next stage of the fight is with a troll that switches between running up to a character to hit them and throwing bombs. This troll showed up in previous chapters and is just as easy as the previous times. If anything this part is just to let the party heal up as there are health potions on platforms that only Puss-in-Boots can get to. This troll hits pretty hard, but goes down in 3 hits from a kicked back bomb.

The last stage that we got to is a pseudo fight. Fairy Godmother will come down to fight, but the fight stops after a little bit of her health is missing. The real part of the stage is when Ryan Seacrest shows up and makes a lame ass joke about Trolls and unleashes not 1, not 2, but 3 trolls onto the battlefield. We were probably just unlucky because 1 troll was throwing bombs while the other 2 came rushing at the party and easily took them all out every time. And that’s the end of our Shrek 2 journey.

In conclusion, play this game if you love Shrek or want to test the strength of your relationship. It’s a fun ride with friends, but it’s not the best game to play alone. Someone has to be there to share the rage and frustration. Most of the levels are pretty varied and no one level is the same. The music is rather whimsical and it’s clear that a good amount of effort was put into it. The cutscenes get worse the more you progress through the game and sometimes the AI will glitch out. Because we couldn’t finish the game, we found the credits in the menu and decided to watch it. It is fabulous and is better than any of the game’s cutscenes. Every name in the credits is accompanied by a renaissance caricature of the person and the background for the portrait is never the same. So the game is the same as the credits and the credits are the same as this review, far too much effort has been put into it.

[miniallumgames]

Seigaku’s Edition: Shusuke Fuji

Tennis no Ouji-sama: Motto Gakuensai no Ouji-sana: More Sweet Edition

Seigaku Edition: Shusuke Fuji

Mini: This boy gave me a run for my money. Enjoy his review.

Shusuke Fuji

Rating: 8.75/10

Mini’s Comments: A prodigy after my own heart. The only reason why I’m not rating him higher is because Allum kept peeking over my shoulder and making comments while I was doing his route and I couldn’t fully enjoy it.

This man is one sly dog. Like whew I think I actually blushed playing his route. I can finally say that I am really happy with a route so I finally made a check-list. It checks off everything that I need in a route, a constant quirk, continuous progression in the relationship, memorable interactions with people other than heroine-chan, cute dates, and romance. They are actually hard to find all together, but these are what I’m judging each guy on.

He was consistent all the way through and holy crap did he tease the hell out of heroine-chan. Oh okay deep breath… and breathe out. So ya this route is pretty good. Fuji has a bunch of interests that he shows off to heroine-chan and she seems pretty interested in them too. This is probably the only time that I’m happy that a character has almost way too many CGs. I was so surprised that most of his events and even his dates come with CGs, which also begs the question of why was so much effort put into him?!

Alright time to get a bit more into it. The beginning of his route pretty much opens up with him taking photos of the flowers in the venue then heroine-chan comes in and he offers to take her photo. Right now the teasing is pretty low and I was just thinking, hm okay pretty cute scene in the beginning. She goes to him again to get the printed out photo and he calls her cute. At this point I was happy to have constant progress. There’s one more event before teasing starts to increase and it’s the good old “heroine-chan get injured”. It’s basically the same thing, but instead of high speed tennis balls, it’s boxes and this time CG of open eyed Fuji staring down at her. Fuji keeps taking me by surprise and I’m not sure if I can stop him.

Funny thing, the more he likes heroine-chan, the worse the teasing gets. So once he invites her to the first date, which is a romance movie. There’s a lot of movie dates, but this one is the best. Heroine-chan tries to be sneaky and get him to say some romantic lines from the movie by being “there were some really nice lines from the movie… what were they again?” Too bad Fuji catches on to it, but then counterattacks with some super romantic lines from the same movie like a cool smooth operator, that both me and Heroine-chan both didn’t catch on. I blushed so hard that I embarrassed myself.

Afterwards, it’s just some decent conversations with him and seeing him with his younger brother, Yuta, between the first and second date. Heroine-chan felt bad when Fuji pretty much cornered his brother to come home from the dorms for the weekend and the scene was actually pretty funny. The second date happens and it isn’t as fun as the first date, but she gets to know Fuji better since they go to a botanical garden and he’s into botany, especially in the cacti area. Anyway I didn’t expect anything to really come afterward, BUT a day later he gifts you a cute lil’ cactus and gifts me a CG. Sweet guy, bit sadistic.

Anyway after the waste of two days of just cutscenes, the festival happens. There are two stands that I remember with Fuji. One of them is the monjayaki stand with Sengoku, just because Sengoku is always used as the ‘make guy jealous’ guy since he’s a huge flirt and all. (This is the one time Fuji gets jealous, savor it) The big event is with Yuta where Fuji just pretty much forces himself into his brother’s cafe and gets his brother to serve him and Heroine-chan. Heroine-chan makes a throwaway nice compliment about Yuta and Fuji is like “Hm, do you want to be Yuta’s sister?” (Sly Dog) Yuta also has some nice lines in this too saying “better take good care of her (Heroine-chan)” and Fuji just teases him back to the point Yuta runs back to the cafe.

If I had to nitpick , Fuji had almost too many CGs, his confession was pretty throw away, and the end game event was him taking her skiing with his family so pretty eh. Heroine-chan has some decent lines and there was a pretty serious talk between her and Fuji about the word ‘prodigy’, which is normally used to describe him and he doesn’t really like it.

In conclusion, I had fun. This route was bad for my heart and I honestly didn’t expect to be teased so much. Most of the route was pretty good. He was one that I felt was more complete than the others even if I thought the skiing trip was eh, I appreciated that he took her with his family. Evil man, far too much for my heart if they kept that high level of teasing all the way through.

[miniallumgames]

Seigaku’s Edition: Shuichiro Oishi

Tennis no Ouji-sama: Motto Gakuensai no Ouji-sama: More Sweet Edition

Seigaku Edition: Shuichiro Oishi

Mini: Lol only Oishi has his head cut off.

Shuichiro Oishi

Rating: 6.5/10

Mini’s comments: I stand by the nickname, cockroach for Oishi just because of the hair. But he’s great, not as super boring as he looks!

Listen, I’ll be honest… I wasn’t expecting much from this route. And I’ll be honest again… it’s far better than Tezuka’s and a little bit better than Echizen’s just for the end part. As for the introduction to Oishi, he’s basically the mother of the group. He’s very attentive and caring to the point that heroine-chan thinks that he’s also caring for her as a mother later in the game. (I’m not sure if it isn’t obvious right now, but Dense heroine-chan is REALLY DENSE)

Oishi’s common events are the Hamlet Play and the Cotton Candy Stand, same as Tezuka. However nothing really comes out of it. But having Oishi play Hamlet’s mother is hilarious knowing that one of his nicknames is the Mother of Seigaku. Other than that eh.

It starts a bit slow in the beginning and it picks up on the last few days. I’m not sure what I’m looking for in these routes, but I want a steady build up at least. Before he starts to get a strangely sudden crush on heroine-chan, his topics aren’t very interesting and he doesn’t have that much of a personality in front of the heroine-chan, actually in the game at all. He doesn’t have a lot of interactions with others. If he did, it was off screen which is the worst.

He gets jealous very early though, I had him up to heart level 1 and he started to get those jealous lines. Not like that’s a problem because there’s a lot of Seigaku members scattered around in other areas to talk to. It was really boring for the first few days and I was ready to jump ship and hitch a ride on another guy (and I did a couple of times, sry Oishi).  

HOWEVER, he does redeem himself albeit in the last few days. I’m not kidding when I say his route is the best in the last few days because he’s the only one out of all of them to have a third date. As I stated, the two date days are 8/28 and 8/31, but Oishi actually invites heroine-chan outside for stargazing. It was pretty cute and his end game event pushed him over past Ryoma. It’s just scarf fluffy fun! He doesn’t have a lot of CGs and it’s fine, the text is better than a CG on DS screens. I don’t really need more sparkly CGs than they give.

His conversations did not get any more interesting and his interactions with people other than heroine-chan were still lacking. However compared to Tezuka, he has a constant in his route and it’s about aquariums and Oishi and heroine-chan bond over it. They even go on a date to an aquarium and it was pretty cute.  The one interaction that I even took note of was probably the most “OMG” one. So Kikumaru and Oishi are talking and then heroine-chan comes in and Oishi notices her immediately forgetting Kikumaru. (How dare you Oishi!) Anyway, Kikumaru gets jealous and storms off saying well why don’t you just play doubles with her then! This drama doesn’t last very long thankfully and soon, Kikumaru is Oishi’s main wingman.

I laughed super hard when that happened and I wished Oishi’s route was more of this. He has romantic and cute moments, but I love seeing him with his teammates being hilarious. I wish that they would put in more of him being a mom or getting pissed off because that’s where he shines. He needed a little more, but what is there is already pretty good.

[miniallumgames]

Seigaku’s Edition: Kunimitsu Tezuka

Tennis no Ouji-sama: Motto Gakuensai no Ouji-sama: More Sweet Edition

Seigaku Edition: Kunimitsu Tezuka

Mini: Ugh this one made my head hurt. Anyway second one!

Kunimitsu Tezuka

Rating: 4/10

Mini’s comments: Who? Oh one of the guys on the cover. I’ll be real with ya’ll this was a hard one to write.

He was a snoozefest. To be fair he might be the most boring out of everyone that I’ve played in Seigaku, but I’ll reserve that judgement until I finish all of them (missing like 1 more). So I take notes when I play each route and I didn’t write anything that super stood out to me. There was one word that stood out in my notes that perfectly describes his route and it was... “bland”.

I almost feel too mean with a 4/10, but honestly for someone who is featured on the cover of the game, I expected something more. It didn’t have to be super great, but I was expecting for my heart to go doki-doki more than once. From the beginning to the end, I didn’t feel my heart skip a beat. He was on a steady level when it came to his events, which I like instead of trying to find which topic would bring me the most hearts. On another note, his topics don’t bring interesting conversations.

His common events are the Hamlet Play and the Cotton Candy Stand. I’ll be fair a lot of his points came from the Cotton Candy Stand. He made a really funny cotton candy and he also took Heroine-chan  out to buy cute plastic bags with mascots on them because he didn’t know what girls and kids liked.

So Tezuka’s route starts off normally although rather differently than the others. heroine-chan is a lil’ different in this route. She falls in love with the guy first and he is completely oblivious to it. I was so excited in the beginning for her to get into hijinks and find ways for him to notice her. She goes up to him and she sees him reading a book and she asks if he has any recommendations. Let’s be real, we all know what heroine-chan is after ;).

As I said, this is super great and I can totally see a whole set up for a CG where she has trouble with a sentence and he leans in rather close. But too bad, there’s no payoff. It’s just a regular old conversation that’s only brought up again once and then they ditch it in one go. This is another point that I’ll bring up when I’m reviewing these. I like a constant in my route just so it can feel like their relationship has some consistency and development. Just like a trope or a quirk. Each guy has one and it works very nicely, but Tezuka’s quirk is books and it doesn’t persist throughout the entire route.

Anyway good things about the route, I guess the end game event? Not even sure if that was even that memorable, but it gave me the most life out of Tezuka. He brings heroine-chan to the mountains to go hiking and he FINALLY has a change of clothes. I’m not saying that all the other guys have a change of clothes oh no some of them are always wearing their uniform. But it was too late for me to be super happy, I was so jaded at the route and so happy that it was finally over.  

So I should finally talk about the man of the route and not the route, Tezuka. In the game, he’s really stoic and instead of a really stern senpai, he’s more like a middle-aged liberian. Not the fun one either. He just goes through events and nothing really phases him which is BORING. I hardly remember his interactions with other characters and when I do replay them, they don’t give me anything more about Tezuka in terms of personality. Even his interactions with heroine-chan seem forced. Tezuka isn’t the funnest to read about, but he does have a surprising amount of CGs.

I’m not saying that Tezuka as a character is horrible, just what we get out of him from the game, which is nothing. There needs to be more fun or silly situations with him and sadly one of them is out of his own route. He has a bunch of really funny quirks like being scared of horror stories and he can be really cool and the strangely, funny straight man if you’ve ever watched the anime, but sadly there was none of that. In the end, all I can say is Tezuka just needed to react to things better than how a cow reacts to a fly.

[miniallumgames]

Seigaku’s Edition: Ryoma Echizen

Tennis no Ouji-sama: Motto Gakuensai no Ouji-sama: More Sweet Edition

Seigaku Edition: Ryoma Echizen

Mini: So here’s the first one. There’s 3 others for today!

Ryoma Echizen

Rating: 7/10

Mini’s comments: His route might not be as deep as I’m making it out to be. Also I’m rather biased towards Ryoma so this is a bit of a weird review.

I’m not sure how much I expected out of Ryoma’s route, but eh it was honestly pretty enjoyable. I’m not going to say that it was perfect by any means, but it kept me interested in continuing the route through and through. He has moments with other Captains and tennis members from other teams and if you read the manga or watched the anime, it’s always nice to see Ryoma interacting with people and showing his lovable snark.

Ryoma’s activities and festival stand are the Hamlet play and the Cafe (of death). The Hamlet thing is pretty funny and Ryoma in a blonde wig is adorable. The Cafe is hilarious and I’d crack up at the whole thing ranging from Inui’s drinks to Fuji’s ridiculously spicy food. His route is hilarious and there’s a bunch of nice moments coupled up in there. 

His route pretty much begins when the heroine-chan sees him with a stray cat and then she talks to him again to see a picture of Karupin. Ryoma eventually is enlisted/tricked by Atobe to be Ophelia in Atobe’s Hamlet play. There are some shojo style events that happen before and between the two dates. The dates were forgettable, but Ryoma does show off more sides to him in those dates. I honestly don’t remember the second date too well, except in the last few moments when they’re resting in the park he gives her that speech to stop treating him like a kid. (Or was that the first one, see what I mean?)

My favorite moment in Ryoma’s route was when heroine-chan comes up to him to discuss cafe decorations, but then Tezuka comes in to block Echizen with questions about the cotton candy machine. She immediately gives all of her attention to Tezuka and then Ryoma goes to sulk. I felt so sad for him like “no bby come back, this emotionless robot means nothing to me!!!” If anyone needs any backstory behind this, Tezuka is one of Ryoma’s biggest rivals and when Ryoma talks about ‘difference in power’, he means Tezuka, Fuji, and possibly his father. When she goes to look for him, Ryoma sounds so depressed and although it’s nice that there’s jealousy, it’s a bit much when it hits on further insecurities.

Relationship-wise, it seemed pretty equal between heroine-chan and Ryoma. Ryoma has the usual case of “she’s looking down at me because she’s one year older than me”. This is nice because of what I said before as in Ryoma has insecurities that heroine-chan touches on, albeit without knowing. However, she does have insecurities of her own that are rather downplayed, but are still there. She tries her best to keep up with the chibi tennis genius than just being by his side and cheering him. In the end game event she becomes the Seigaku’s tennis manager for the men’s side and is learning to play tennis so she can be a good enough practice partner for Ryoma. This felt complete and that’s enough.

[miniallumgames]

Mini’s First Game Review

Game: Tennis no Ouji-sama: Motto Gakuensai no Ouji-sama: More Sweet Edition Platform: Nintendo DS Genre: Otome/Dating Sim

Patch: https://sites.google.com/site/otomeundercover/otome-projects/gakupuri-ds

  Mini’s rating: 6/10 General Review (non-spoilers and sorta long) :

So I played this game a few years ago and spent a good two weeks on it. I played it with the english patch if anyone is interested in the patch there’s a link below the picture. I honestly didn’t know what to expect from a Prince of Tennis dating sim except hey I found Ryoma Echizen cute ten years ago, maybe those feelings haven’t changed. I decided to do this one for the first game review because all the routes are pretty quick and it’ll sorta set the tone for the kind of reviewer I am.   The premise of the game is that King Keigo Atobe rented an entire huge venue and wanted to do a school festival. So a lot of the schools and characters from the anime/manga show up. Atobe set the whole thing up to be a competition for all the schools to show whose stand/performance/any school festival thing is best. He offers some cool prizes to net every sucker in. It’s your job as committee member to keep everything organized for your school. If no one has played one of these visual novel games on a DS, you have to turn your screen so it looks kind of like a book which is kinda cool.

  The protagonist is pretty shoujo. Depending on which character you choose, the protagonist will fall in love first or the guy will. It’s pretty obvious on the guy, who will do what. I’m not sure what more to say about her. She’s rather likable and bland sometimes, but she does have a backbone. She’s pretty sensible at times too, like not going out with a character who’s been missing for the majority of his route (looking at a certain guy).

So the cool thing about this game is that it’s fully voice acted and it can actually have the character’s say your protagonist’s name, but the delivery can seem kinda off. Especially in the confession scenes, when their voice acting is so smooth and then your name in a really casual tone comes up, it breaks any sense of immersion. The audio kinda sucks, but it’s rather quick to get used to. I think that it’ll probably sound better on an emulator?

Mechanics wise, it’s pretty simple. I’ll even give you a rundown of how the game works. You start off choosing the school you want to attend (it will show all the options of guys and a pretty cute uniform), naming your character, and choosing the pronunciation for your character’s name, pretty much all jap names. So in the beginning, there will be a pretty long intro that you can go into the settings menu and skip or press the right trigger, but I recommend to at least watch one per school because you should understand some of the plot(?).

To win at the game, you stalk a guy 3 times a day to try to talk to him and there’s several different topics. At first they’ll all be busy, meaning they’re not close to you yet and so just keep stalking until they want to talk. They all have a heart meter that will go up if you talk to them or stumble upon an event. The events are super important because they’ll net you the most hearts and if you miss one, you won’t have enough hearts in your meter to get the next event, ending the guy’s route pretty early on. Choose the answer that nets the most hearts because that’s generally the right one.

The days to watch out for are 8/25, 8/28, and 8/31. (They’re more like checkpoints if anything) 

So 8/25 isn’t really set in stone, but you should have the guy ask for your number by this date or you need to really go for those hearts before the next date. 

8/28 is the first date and the guy will call you the night before, so he better have your number. You need the first date to go on the second date. 

8/31 is when you max out on hearts if you haven’t already. After that you’re mostly in the clear. One warning is don’t talk to another guy around your main guy if he gets jealous after 8/31. This can ruin the whole thing and you’ll get the bad ending, which is the normal ending if you didn’t romance anyone.

I only managed to mess up one time so good on me and in the spoilers, I’ll review every guy’s route.

(There’s a lot of them so… I have my work cut out for me.)

Because there are over 30 guys and so I will try to review them one at a time or by school. I won’t lie some guys definitely better treatment than others. Some of the routes are so disappointing while others are really good, but that’s to be expected from a game with over 30 guys. 

My final thoughts for this game is that it’s just fun. I don’t recommend it if you are really in the mood for serious plot and dramatic tennis play. This is basically just fluff put on a DS game with precious tennis boys put on it. It’s just a feel good game and what I love about it is that it knows what it is. It’s just there for romance geeks who love shoujo events. Mechanics wise, it’s unimpressive, but simple enough. The UI works and there’s nothing complicated about it. Can the writing be better, hell yes, but is it offensive, no. So if you just want a romantic cultural festival simulation with the guys from Prince of Tennis then get the game.

[miniallumgames]

Just saying giving intros

Mini: Hello! I’m Mini. I generally play otome games, romance games, or anything with a female protagonist.

Allum: Hi, I’m Allum. I don’t really have a set preference so any game I play will be a surprise to everyone what I review.

This is just preliminaries and greetings.

The format of our blog will generally be one of us will write a review/reviews for the week. We will give a score from 1-10 and have non-spoiler comments about the game. Any spoilers or rants that we want to do will be under keep reading.

We will be taking turns, switching after one week. This is to prevent both of us from being burnt out and having enough time to prep for the next review.

Our first review will be done by Mini and we will start this blog on June 21st.