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| Thread: Review your own Games | |
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william
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
LummoxLewis
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posted July 24, 2006 12:48 PM |
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Review your own Games
Here you can make your own reviews about games that you have played.
They can be games from any age, console, anything.
I will write mine when completed, but I look forward to seeing some really good reviews.
____________
~Ticking away the moments that
make up a dull day, Fritter and
waste the hours in an off-hand
way~
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orbvius
Adventuring Hero
Oblivious
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posted July 27, 2006 10:08 PM |
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Phantom Brave
Published by: NIS America
Developed by: Nippon Ichi Software
Genre: Strategy RPG
Release: 31 August 04 (Japanese re-release on 3 August 06)
http://nippon1.jp/consumer/phantom_brave_best/#00
Introduction
Nippon Ichi, popular for its strategy rpg games on PS2 ever since their debut 'Disgaea: Hour of Darkness', releases their third title 'Phantom Brave'. Strategy rpg lover will definitely jump in joy over this new series.
With Japanese trademark 'anime-styled' characters and a rather good music, just judging Phantom Brave by its aesthetic qualities will make this game pale in comparison to many other rpg games. Beneath its mediocre appearance is a very good and complex system.
Story
Phantom Brave started with Marona working as a Croma, a kind of mercenary. Being persecuted and young, she was often bullied by cilents. Being her phantom guardian, Ash, can only be at her side invisible while Marona endured such ill treatment.
Marona, no different from our childhood story's Cindrella, portrayed Phantom Brave's advancement of storyline and ambience.
Usable Characters
You start off with Marona, Ash, a soldier and a healer.
With a bit of money on hand, you can create Fighter, Valkyrie, Mystic, Healer, Soldier, Blacksmith and Merchant for a dirt fee eacb. As you progress, you can unlock more characters that you can create, including monsters.
What is good about creating characters to use is the player need not be restricted to use storyline-related character(s) provided, with the only exception Marona. Hence, the playing style of Phantom Brave is moulded according to its player's preference.
Characters can be generically classified under 'Might', where the emphasis is on physical damage and having a higher hp or 'Magic', where the character is more apt at casting damaging spells.
Character Class
Other than all the mentioned classes above, which belong to the human class, there are Owl classes and Putty classes as well. Not forgeting the monsters, there are a total of 56 types of characters you can create.
Titles
Except for Marona and Ash, all other characters you have or create starts with a title. Titles affect your characters' attributes directly. Also, there are various ranks of title, each providing better bonuses as you claim to be of that higher rank title.
Weakness and Resistance
All characters created will come with various weakness (eg. -10%) or resistance (eg. 10%) of Fire, Wind and Ice.
By ultilising the right skill(s) against monsters weak against that particular element, the monsters will receive more damage and vice versa.
Character Attribute (or Stat)
Character's attribute are pretty much the usual stuffs that most rpg uses, as listed below.
HP - Your Life
Strength - Affect directly on how much damage you deal with 'physical' attack
Defense - Reduce your physical damage you receive
Intelligent - Increase damage for 'magic' attack
Resistance - Reduce the magical damage you receive; also improves healing spells.
Speed - How often you act
Weapons
In Phantom Brave, practically anything that you can hold can be your weapon, including monsters; dead or alive.
Items, when equipped, affects your characters attributes directly with its own attributes, weakness and resistance.
Skills
Characters and items come with skills. As you use skills belonging to the same category more often, you become more proficient in that particular skill category.
Using the same skill often will result in leveling of that skill, making it better.
To gain a skill, items can be refined by a blacksmith to learn a new skill or combined with a character; allowing the character to gain existing skill(s) permanently by using mana point.
Skills can be classified under six categories, mainly
- Physical
- Energy
- Magic
- Natural
- Time/Space
- Support
- Healing
Every class (including Marona and Ash) starts with certain proficiency (S being the most proficient to E being the least) for the six categories. In order to ultilise a character to his or her fullest, you may want to train in the categories where the character is more proficient at.
Battling
After fine tuning your characters, you start the game by engaging battles after battles as you progress with the story.
While playing, you are either watching the cutscenes, in a battle or on your sanctuary island customising your characters. With only a few sets of background settings and monster design, this repetitiveness only suit hardcore players who want to play, which is exactly the type of audience Nippon Ichi is targeting.
After the first few hours, patience and perserverance are your only virtues that you needed to rely on to complete Phantom Brave.
Closing Comment
While Phantom Brave isn't something a casual gamer will pick up, it packs the good characterization system and a good battlefield for you to pit your characters against AI. Eliminate the learning barrier for old school strategy rpg players, this is definitely a game worth its salt.
Although Phantom Brave used a plain story, but its simple, naive characters simply makes you love them for its simplicity.
As a game that is focused on its gameplay, it is a game worth playing, provided that you are equipped with endurance for repetitive battles.
Presentation - 7.0
Simple personalities makes it easy for the characters be accepted. After all, the potagonist is only a child. A Cindrella save the world storyline, everything presented are plain but acceptable.
Graphics - 6.0
Simple anime-styled characters used with soothing pastel colors that portray the artwork of the artists is as good as the artist's work.
Backgrounds of battlefield are rather crude and boring.
Sound - 7.0
Music matches the mood of the game. Japanese voice over matches its characters physical appearance and emotions perfectly.
Gameplay - 9.0
As its selling point, everything in Phantom Brave revolves around its character customisation and how you brought out your characters potential in the game.
Lasting Appeal - 8.0
After completing the game, you are free to roam the world of Phantom Brave, fight several tough monsters and the only cap your characters can level to is 9999.
Overall - 7.4
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TitaniumAlloy
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Professional
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posted July 30, 2006 02:57 PM |
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I hate it when people say 'there is already a thread like this', but, I think there is already a thread like this...
Moderator Edit: Tell you what then, If you think there is already a thread like this then go ahead and find it. Post a link to it. Let us know about it instead of just saying: I think there is already a thread like this.
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John says to live above hell.
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william
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
LummoxLewis
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posted June 29, 2007 07:17 AM |
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OK, I should have wrote some reviews ages ago, so here is one from me now, and hopefully this thread can get active 
Crusader: No Remorse
Crusader: No Remorse was a DOS game made in the year 1995.
It was made by Orion, and for a game for that time, it was extremely good.
One of the more notable things in this game are the graphics.
The graphics are unlike any other DOS game that I have seen before.
When I first played this game, I was blown away by it, and at that time, I was about 5 or 6 years old, so of course I was blown away.
But I was old enough to realize that this game was different from all other DOS games out there.
This one, in my opinion, changed the way games were played, and it definitely changed my opinions of games, forever.
You start off as a person, who has no name, but is known as a Silencer, as that is what he is.
You start off with just one gun, and immediately see what this game can do.
The environment is destructible, which was new for a game of the time.
You could destroy barrels and they would then explode, you could destroy alarm boxes, footlockers, health stations, doors, wall cameras, and much more.
You wanna get through a door, but do not know where to find a card?
Simple, just get a rocket launcher and destroy the door, and have fun.
There are also many things that are interactive with the environment, such as valves, which might pour out steam or fire from a cracked pipe, and if an unlucky solider walks through it, he might get caught on fire and die.
The AI in this game is also very good.
If you see a civilian, they might walk or run to an alarm box, and then set off the alarm.
If you walk in front of a security camera, then the alarm will get raised and soldiers will come and try to kill you.
To get from one level to the other, there are certain teleporters that you have to go through.
In some of the levels, there are teleporters that will kill you, but luckily there is a sign saying "out of order", but if you are stupid enough to try to go into the teleporter, then you will find yourself a horrible death.
The guns in the game are awesome.
You can have shotguns, rifles, rocket launchers, bazookas, pistols, automatic pistols.
There are also guns which are different, like ones that rip the flesh off of you and just leave your body as a skeleton, and you die.
There are also ones that make you just disappear.
Sometimes, if you shoot at a soldier with the bazooka, then they will catch on fire, and start screaming, while walking while they are on fire.
In some of the levels, there may be water below you, and in front of you, you may have destroyed an exploding barrel, and then some of th wooden floor may fall off, so you gotta jump to get over, and survive.
There are many things your character can do in the way of control, such as jumping, rolling forward of backwards, crawling, side rolling and of course walking forward and backward.
At times though, the control of trying to shoot at something can be a bit annoying, but as you keep playing it, you will get used to it and start to like it.
Crusader: No Remorse is a game which changed the way games were played and made, and this game definitely changed my view of games and how I played games.
10/10 from me
____________
~Ticking away the moments that
make up a dull day, Fritter and
waste the hours in an off-hand
way~
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