Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1579https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5482Over the years, I have been a Pokemon player that enjoyed most of the games released. However, this game tops the other versions that were recently released onto the DS. For one this game runs at a relatively fast speed compared to the other Pokemon adventure games released on the DS. This is probably due to a new engine that is more compatible with the DS system while the others before this one were worked on by an older engine. To the actual game, the game seems to be revamped in which the graphic designers took more time to make this game as much in 3D as possible. This includes the new battle scenes and certain areas the developers thought was a necessary placement. The negative impact to the 3D art is the bits of pixel edges that appear in any 3D design they imputed, however this is not of any concern to the player in most cases because the pixel edges are very minor when compared to the entire image. To add on, the game also gained a new feature that really combines social aspects to it called a dream world. The way the developers implemented this into the game ended with a great success as it attracts players to play on this feature to gain the many rewards it offers. As a result, there are more players being slightly social even though the game targets little kids to teenagers. Now to go with negatives a bit more, one of the downsides to this game is the addition of features that seem redundant like new mechanics that seem utterly useless for any case and a new battling system that seems like a way to attract more players but in game are really useless. Another bit of annoyance is the mechanic of events in the game as some events only happen during certain times and certain days. This feature makes the game seem more realistic but sadly not all people, even some kids, have the time or aren't able to play during those times, thus making the system redundant to some. Even with the negatives however, I find myself enjoying it enough to see a difference between other generations on the DS. Hopefully I continue playing to understand the usage of some of the other mechanics I have yet to discover a use for, but will soon enough.Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:47:59 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5482&iddiary=9805https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5490If I could say one word about this game, it would be EPIC. This game brings together unique mechanics that are not very popular in the non-civilization RTS franchise which include squads and customization. The squad mechanic of the game really brings out the unique quality the most as the squads contain a certain amount of units that can be customized with specific weapons and upgrades to do better in combat. The squad mechanic also brings in two other mechanics that are very rarely seen such as morale and commanders which can bring a realistic effect to the game with lower morale leading to decrease combat effectiveness and commanders that increase the effectiveness of squads. Another great mechanic is the introduction of capture points that give resources instead of controlling a resource gathering unit. This helps players concentrate greatly on the battles instead of resource gathering thus leading to more entertainment to the player. The developers however did a slightly poor job of balancing the races out as some races are overpowered compared to other races. They try to balance this in a way by limiting unit production by squads and requiring long-to-research tech, but in the end it tends to side with the overpowered races. However, the other features of the game really show the effort done by the designers and developers as the game tried to a great extent design the models and units to the greatest of details from the original table top game of Warhammer 40,000. The design of the levels are also balanced in which no race has a resource advantage over the other as well as tactical advantage over the other as well. The audio of the game is excellent as well with units having unique phrases and war music to really keep the player in a pumped mood when playing. Overall the game is excellent when the mechanics are all implemented and I hope to enjoy the game further to see if the overpowered races are balanced by some other tactic by other races in which would make the game almost perfect in most standards. Wed, 12 Dec 2012 23:37:45 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5490&iddiary=9788https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5483I started playing this almost immediately after I watched someone else play it on Youtube. I really enjoyed this rhythm-based game, more than any other like DDR or rock band as it takes a great amount of reflex and concentration to play. My favorite part to it is the additional modifications that allow newer players to get use to songs and their rhythm before really playing. This mechanic allows the players to understand and "get use to" the game as well. Another mechanic that is really implemented in the game is player control of the game as the song maps, or "beatmaps", are made by other players for others to try. Customization of the style of the game can also be edited to fit the player's personal preference and this is either done by the player or by another player. The only mechanics really implemented by the developers is how the game works and the format of the game, other than that its just a player controlled game. A great feature that's designed by the developers is a high score board on certain songs they choose to rank in which many people compete for that high score title. This attracts much attention as it is online ranking on this free game and gives motivation to other players to reach that top title. Now, the one negative to this game is the limited selection of music as most of the songs available are either japanese songs or some kind of english rock which really bothers me. Besides that, its a great game that can be buggy in some parts and sometimes have errors with start ups however if it starts running, the engine runs smooth with very little bugs and I hope to continue playing to enjoy a challenging computer version of DDR on my computer.Wed, 12 Dec 2012 20:54:18 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5483&iddiary=9786https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5492I started playing this game and started to think, "why am I playing this?". The game presents itself in a extremely childish manner as if it was targeting only age groups below the age of 5. The game not only sways itself a bit from the older game mechanics of the series, but changes it into a rewards system that rewards players with "money" to buy items like dolls for another new feature as a house where they can decorate it to how they want by using the "money" to buy them like said before. However, the developers rid of a death penalty system and lives to replace it with losing a bit of "money" when you get hit or fall of the map. The game brings no challenge to the player and requires little to no effort to actually beat the game. If the developers wanted to target that young audience, they did a great job as the game's ridiculously simple controls and play style allows anyone to play the game. The easy AI programs of the enemies also contribute to the game's easiness as they are meant to be easily overcome by children. The design of the levels and music also bring out that joyful and cheery mood to the players where it is never something dreaded or even slightly dark so far with my experience. Another part to the design of the game was designing the whole game with a basis on yarn which in return brings out a positive and childish atmosphere for the player which is perfect for the young players that are playing and also makes the parents feel more comfortable when purchasing this game for their child. Overall I am not looking forward to continuing this game as it is too childish, even for my mind.Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:47:35 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5492&iddiary=9785https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5484I finally got myself to play this game as it was on sale on steam at that moment. When I first tried it out, I noticed a similar title screen to that of Minecraft which lowered its originality value. However, this game proved later on to be more like a more RPG-like 2D version of Minecraft as it contains more RPG mechanics than Minecraft like mana and a currency system. Now to add on to this RPG mechanic, the developers seemed to do a good job in adding these newer elements to this game while keeping the original format of sandboxing to make an experience of enjoyment and satisfaction that only other sandbox games like Minecraft can compete to. Now to turn from that, another thing to point out is the semi-perfect implementation of sound to the different biomes of the game like having a dreaded horrible song for the underground to a happy joyful song when on the surface area. Another great thing the developers changed around was the character as the player can hold items from one world and bring it to another. This feature is semi-unique as only some RPG games actually have this mechanic, but Terraria makes it unique by being a sandbox game that contains this mechanic. Another great part of the game is the small blocks that allows the player to further express any creativity and also shows the work of the developers to balance the game's 2D feature with the world. Overall, the developers did a tremendous job in the development of this game to make it balanced and fun with the combination of RPG elements in a sandbox game. I hope to progress through the game and discover any other mechanic that I would have missed in the first 40 minutes of playing. Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:25:00 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5484&iddiary=9783https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5089I played this finally and I have to say that the game is wonderful when it comes to visual and audible representation, but its hard to say for the actual game play and mechanics. In the visual representation, it was amazing. The characters are animated and designed with almost no detail missed. On top of that, the levels were designed beautifully to the point of a movie-like environment and an environment that suits the situation, like a beach for a peacefully happy scene. The audible representation is wonderful as well that is well implemented in the game play to give the players some nice battle music to play to. However, the actual game play is not very impressive as it does not follow some of the original parts of the Final Fantasy series regarding to managing and side quests. Instead, the developers adjust older mechanics to replace most mechanics of management and concentrates more on going though a story plot. Although the story plot is excellent in the way it is implemented, the game pathway makes it similar to the layout of Candyland, except has a story and no short cuts where it goes from start to finish with no real choice in the matter. Now to add on to the mechanics, the actual fighting and game play seems to concentrate on the design and art of the levels and fights instead of on the actual game play as it is very repetitive in fights and very time consuming as the fights can last for long periods of time, even with little fights. This in itself forces players to either grind for hours to end fights slightly quicker or to endure "long" fights with enemies which in a way, add to the repetitive factor of the fights when seeing the same move used over and over again for hours. The good portion to this is a stagger system that can end fights quickly if uninterrupted where the enemy takes extra damage and in later parts of the game can trigger movie-like fighting while in the game play. The downside to that is the sudden player dependence to the stagger system to do any true damage to bosses or enemies which can bring up the repetitive factor again. In general this game is boring when it comes to actual game play however, the game's visual/audible representation make up for the repetitive factor so much that I am looking forward to beating this game just for more.Wed, 12 Dec 2012 00:51:21 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5089&iddiary=9777https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5480I finally got the motivation to start playing this game and I will say, "it is an amazing turn-based strategy game. What I really enjoyed is the developer's idea of putting power ups and specializing commanders to the game. This on its own forces players to think differently with unit compositions and go for units that are benefited by the commander. Another great feature is a risk factor as you can attack an enemy, it can sometimes be ineffective in destroying an enemy completely in which they counter attack. This can tempt players like Risk where they can risk attacking an enemy to destroy them, but can be attacked back and possibly destroyed in the process. To add on to all of this, there's also different factors to the units like ships lose a certain amount of fuel each turn, just blowing up if it runs out, and movement restrictions that prevent certain units to move to one space or lower the available amount of movement because of terrain. The implementation of this really shows how much the developers wanted to balance out the game units to produce reasonable and fair game play. Now to move away from game mechanics, this game also has a great way of implementing sound to the game as they added certain sounds to the different commanders to express their personality and also add character bios to allow the characters to really "know" the commander they are using and understand the story a lot better. The story is also perfectly, or semi-perfectly narrated into the game in which the game gives background story on what happened in the previous game and continues on in a forward progression that does not confuse the player. If the player is confused, a good explanation is given that also progresses with the story so there are no sidetracking. Overall this is a great game that really challenged me and I am looking forward to progressing in this game so I can see what happens next into the story.Tue, 11 Dec 2012 23:55:13 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5480&iddiary=9776https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5128Today, I played the story mode of this game. So far the game pays for itself by its great RTS format and its intensive storyline. This game impresses me the most with the addition of actually acted out movie segments in the game that brings out realism to the whole RTS experience to the players. That combined with the actual gameplay which actually reacts to attacks like squads of infantry crawling when under fire by rockets to decrease damage taken, exemplifies the complex amount of complications and work that the game programmers needed to do to accomplish this. The other part of this is the excellent sound and 3D models of this game that really bring out the realistic feature earlier said before. Finally, the game also has a nice command interface that is basic enough for any player to enjoy and figure out. Overall this game is excellent so far for a game of 2007 and going to continue it to explore the RTS experience of this game. Sun, 23 Sep 2012 17:42:11 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5128&iddiary=9445