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Showing posts with label Game Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Game Reviews. Show all posts

Sunday, 24 May 2015

Skyblazer (Super NES)

Ashura, Lord of War is a bit of a swine. Centuries ago, he and his group of warlords attempted to plunge the land into darkness, crush the Mystic Pantheon and 'stamp out the light of reason' (I'm not making this up). Fortunately, a great magician called Sky-Lord appeared and, after a hard fought battle, managed to banish him from the realm forever and trap him in limbo, The years passed, Sky-Lord became a legend, Ashura was never heard from again, everybody had a big slap up meal and a party to celebrate and it seemed that everything was fine in the world.

Unfortunately, a 'gifted' (ie stupid) apprentice sorceror has now accidentally freed Ashura, and he's now back with a vengeance. Not only has he gone and created a new army of warlords, but he's also kidnapped the sorceress Ariana and he's hell bent on resurrecting his master Raglan, Lord of Darkness, King of Destruction too. Obviously, the prospect of this happening is even worse than a wet weekend in Rhyl, so it's up to you, Skyblazer, the last living descendant of Sky-Lord to put a stop to him.

Ashura kidnaps the sorceress....just because he can.
Skyblazer kicks off with a short training stage where you have unlimited lives and a chance to learn the game mechanics. Controls are tight and responsive, and Sky is pretty agile and can cling to vertical surfaces ad climb up and down them, and also attack whilst hanging onto a wall. He dispatches enemies with a combo melee attack and can also fire magic blasts, though this uses up some of his magic gauge.

At the end of this section, you get a brief cutscene where the four-armed Ashura appears, kicks your ass and kidnaps the sorceress. Your only ally, an old man, then tells you that you're too weak to fight Ashura in your current state and so tasks you with defeating Ashura's warlords in order to gain extra abilities....so off you go through the various stages (around 17 in all), defeating various bosses and turning Sky into a tooled up spellcasting powerhouse along the way. Sounds like the recipe for a good game, right?

Sky can climb or hang from any vertical surface.

Well, yes and no. Skyblazer certainly looks the part with extremely impressive visuals, detailed parallax scrolling backgrounds and a fair few special effects using the SNES's mode 7 trickery thrown in with most boss fights utilising it in some way or other. The platforming and combat with enemies feels polished and never unfair, and there's a a fair bit of variety in the environments, with forest, ice, desert, water and sky stages all thrown in for good measure alongside a couple of auto scrolling 'shoot 'em up' style sections and mode 7 bonus stages that have you flying into the screen and collecting gems for extra lives.

The main problems with Skyblazer lie in it's design and execution. Stages feel extremely bland and linear, with only the odd secret here and there. The bosses, whilst they look impressive, all have ridiculously simple attack patterns that are very easily learned and avoided (even Ashura and Raglan themselves right at the end of the game are a doddle to beat) and fighting them is more of a chore than a test of skill, something which becomes very apparent on the final stage when you have to fight most of them all over again, boss-rush style. And as for the abilities you get for defeating them....asides from the Comet Flash ability you receive really early on, the Heal spell, and the Fiery Phoenix ability you obtain right before the last stage (which is only needed for the Ashura boss fight and nothing else), they're all pretty much surplus to requirements. The stage designs never encourage you to use them, never present you with any situations where they could really help out, and so they become virtually useless and a very poor payoff for the effort you put in.

Flaws asides, it is a very nice looking game.

And that leads to another of Skyblazer's big problems...it's far too easy for the most part. Enemies and traps never seem to do much damage, there's always plenty of Health and Magic pickups, and gems litter the stages in abundance so you'll have built up a stash of extra lives in no time...indeed, Sky feels pretty overpowered before he even gains any extra abilities and once you've gotten hold of Heal, you become almost unstoppable. The game contains a password system too, but there seems little point to it as you can breeze through it from beginning to end in less than an hour once you've gotten the hang of things.

It seems a pity that I have to be so critical of Skyblazer as on the surface, it has quite a lot going for it. It plays extremely well, has decent (if unspectacular) music and looks fantastic most of the time. But scratch beneath the surface a little and you'll find that there's not much there. It's a shining example of style over substance and the gaming equivalent of 'all fur coat and no knickers'. It's a fun experience while it lasts, but it doesn't last anywhere near as long or gel together anywhere near as well as it should, and then comes to an end without really having picked up any pace at all. Mostly, it's a pity that they never made a sequel to it, as some better level design, boss fights, and character abilities could have gone a long way into making Skyblazer an all time classic. The foundations for the gameplay are rock solid. But ultimately it just fails to live up to the huge potential it shows in it's first couple of stages, and that's a damn shame.

TromaDogg's Final Verdict: 6.5/10

Wednesday, 20 May 2015

Rocket Knight Adventures (Mega Drive)

Back in the 16-bit era, everybody was seemingly trying to ump on the mascot bandwagon. Mario and Luigi were already well established, Sonic the Hedgehog was the new kid on the block making waves and every other publisher out there wanted a piece of the pie. Whilst there were some absolutely horrendous attempts like Bubsy and Lester The Unlikely (shudder...), there's also quite a lot of unsung heroes who, for whatever reason, never quite achieved the success they deserved.

Konami, unlike the mere shadow of it's former self it's become recently was a force to be reckoned with back in the late 1980's/early 1990's and published many of the era's most most well received games, both licensed and original. Most people who were gamers back then will instantly remember games like Gradius, Contra/Probotector, Castlevania, and also likely fed large amounts of their pocket money into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Simpsons and X-Men arcade machines. But not all of them seem to remember Rocket Knight Adventures, or even if they do, chances are they've never played it, or only know it by way of the recent Rocket Knight Adventures HD game that was released on XBLA and PSN. And that's something that honestly makes me sad. It's a game that not only deserves wider recognition, it should be being used a lot more often as a benchmark for what makes a good, enjoyable 2D platformer.

Released in 1993 as a Mega Drive exclusive (although it's later sequel, Sparkster, would also confusingly spawn a spin off game of the same name on SNES), Rocket Knight Adventures tells the story of Sparkster the opossum, bravest of the Rocket Knights and part of an elite group of warriors sworn to protect the kingdom of Elhorn against the Devotindos army (basically an evil group of pigs) and a former Rocket Knight turned traitor, the Black Knight Axle Gear. The plot isn't really too important to be honest, it's all your usual fantasy guff that's just there to flesh out the instruction manual. What you need to know is that your character Sparkster can hang upside down from some platforms by his tail, is armed with a sword that can fire short range projectiles and a rocket pack that enables him to fly for short distances and can boost him forwards or upwards by first charging it up and then releasing the button.
Axle kidnaps the princess - what an asshole

The first thing that strikes you about Rocket Knight Adventures even before you take in the visuals is the music...it's absolutely superb. Each of the 7 stages has a really catchy theme and there's also a separate theme for minibosses and end of stage bosses that kicks in every time you run into one as well. Sparkster controls extremely responsively and there's never any times where you feel that a missed jump or damage taken from an enemy wasn't your own fault. The graphics look beautiful for a game of this era...the main sprites are all full of character (hitting a pig enemy for instance will cause it's armour to fly off and for it to run around in it's underwear as a kind of a homage to Ghosts 'n Goblins)...Sparkster himself has a range of cute facial expressions for everything he does...jumping, taking damage, rocket boosting, falling after a rocket boost and even an idle animation...and the background details are excellent. On the first stage for instance, you can see a castle on fire in the background, which turns out to be the next area you're heading towards....and if you look at it really closely, you can even see the Stage 1 boss and Axle Gear's airship hovering around it too. Meanwhile, in the foreground forest that you're travelling though you can see butterflies fluttering about. It's little things like this that constantly draw you more into the game and breathe a lot of life into it.

Using your reflection to get ahead
The stages all seem to have had a massive amount of time and care put into them, in that you never know what to expect next. Rocket Knight Adventures is a game that constantly throws new ideas at you right up until the very end, and almost seems afraid of doing the same thing twice. Once stage for instance has the top of the screen obscured so that you have to use the reflective (but deadly) lava underneath to see where the next platforms are, another has you on the top of Axle's airship fighting high speed winds, whist there's also the usual suspects like a minecart and underwater stage for good measure although even these feel like they've been done in a fresh way. From time to time, Sparkster will even power up his rocket pack, don his goggles and embark on a 2D scrolling shoot 'em up section for a short while. The game never becomes boring and almost challenges you to keep up with it.

Even the boss encounters are a tour de force of inventiveness. Far from being just the normal, dull 'whack the enemy a lot of times until it dies' affairs, you'll often have to engage in multi stage fights. The second stage boss for instance will fire laser bolts at you from the front...destroy the front cannon and it'll then sprout long robotic arms that you have to deal with. Destroy these, and then the back cannon starts firing at you as well. One later stage even has Sparkster and Axle Gear having a boxing match. In 2 giant Pig Mechs. It's fascinating to see just what will come next and you'll be driven to see it through until the final credits.
Taking some slight inspiration from R-Type...

In fact, there's nothing really negative I can say about Rocket Knight Adventures. It's a supremely well put together game that ticks all the right boxes...it's not too short, doesn't outstay it's welcome and never becomes impossibly difficult...even those few of you who think it's all a little too easy will be tested by the 2 unlockable difficulty settings, Most importantly it's an absolute joy to play and even coming back to it over 20 years later, it has the edge over many similar games that have been released since (including it's own sequel, but more on that another time). It's still such a good game that it even makes Rocket Knight Adventures HD look like an insult. If you're one of those people that's never experienced the original then you really owe it to yourself to try it out, and come back and thank me when you do. If you are one of the people who's played it and understands why I love this game so much, dig it out and give it another go. You'll be glad you did.

TromaDogg's Final Verdict: 9.5/10

Wednesday, 13 May 2015

Rain (PS3 download exclusive)

Rain, or 'rain' (without the capital R) as the game calls itself isn't a title that I'd heard of before I saw it crop up on PSN network a couple of years back. At the time I was really intrigued by the concept, but didn't actually download it due to being a bit short on cash, and so it just went completely out of my head for a long while. Fast-forward in time to last Xmas and I noticed it had been discounted so I decided to download it to give it a go at a later date. Recently, and still not having read any reviews, I decided to finally fire it up and try it out.

Developed by Sony's Japan Studio, of Ico and Shadow Of The Colossus fame, the game has a very similar Ico-style feel to it. You play as a young boy who, after seeing what looks like a girl being chased by a shadowy figure, travels through a doorway into an alternate dimension to rescue her. On the other side of the doorway, it's always dark and perpetually rains, and this is the whole premise the game is based around....in this world, most living creatures are invisible (including the boy and girl themselves) unless they're standing in the rain and can be seen by their ghostly silhouettes. It's a clever idea, and lends itself to some interesting puzzles, such as being able to sneak past monsters by walking underneath an overhanging ledge so you stay out of the rainfall and they can't see you. Unfortunately, this also applies to the monsters as well, but you can always see where you and they are by looking at the trail of wet footprints each character leaves behind.

As the boy searches for the girl he chased after, it soon becomes apparent that a large monster is constantly stalking the children and chasing them from area to area. Only ever referred to as 'The Unknown', you always get a sense of dread when this thing appears as it can outrun and kill you easily if it spots you. There is no combat in Rain whatsoever, so you have to outsmart it instead, which usually involves either finding the best places to hide, or distracting it whilst you sneak away. Distractions in Rain are caused by making noises (usually by jumping in puddles), or using an item such as a doll to attract the monsters' attention, and you'll have to learn to use them if you want to see the story through to the end. Thankfully, the checkpoints are fairly generous and you're never sent back too far if you die, and the game also offers hints if you keep making mistakes and die repeatedly.

Run, Forrest! Run!
Rain, like Ico before it manages to tell a compelling story with few words and without ever naming the main characters. By subtle use of the soundtrack alongside the incessant faint thrumming of the rain it even manages to convey emotions such as loneliness, fear, and joy when they're called for. It constantly manages to maintain your interest whilst driving you forward to the next chapter, and even though the basic game mechanics and how the puzzles work never really changes, it manages to keep things fresh by putting a slightly different spin on things each time you encounter a new enemy, or The Unknown comes charging after you to attack you again.

Rain certainly isn't the longest game you'll ever play (clocks in at around 7 hours) but it's just the right length for it not to outstay it's welcome and be remembered as an enjoyable experience rather than one that dragged. When it ends, it ends pretty much at the point where it can no longer present you with new ideas or ways to do things, and also has quite a satisfying conclusion to boot. On top of this, completing the game also unlocks 'memories' (additional storyline details) that are hidden around the levels in the form of floating orbs that only appear when you're close to them so it's a perfect excuse to relive the adventure at least one more time, even if it never quite manages to reach the same kind of heights that Ico and Shadow Of The Colossus did

TromaDogg's Final Verdict: 8/10

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - NES (also ported to various formats)

The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ('Hero' Turtles, you say? GTFO)  console and computer game is a bit of an oddity. During 1989 at around the end of the cartoon show's second season, Konami released a 1-4 player scrolling beat 'em up based on the show into arcades. It was an instant massive smash hit. Not only was the game itself great...extremely playable, excellent looking and full of music and speech samples from the TV show (which was probably the most popular kid's programme at the time on both sides of the Atlantic), but the beat 'em up genre was already riding high on a massive wave of popularity at the time with games like Double Dragon, Renegade, Final Fight and Golden Axe all doing the rounds and raking in impressive amounts of money from arcade goers. So when Konami also released a Turtles game for the massively popular NES console, you'd be forgiven for thinking that it'd be a port of the arcade game.....but you couldn't be more wrong.

The Turtles game that hit the NES was a 2D single player hack and slash platformer with some overhead sections inbetween....a very different beast to what had wowed gamers in the arcade. The license alone still ensured that it was a top seller...over 4 million copies sold...but for many who wanted to play the arcade game at home with their friends, it was a huge disappointment.

Despite this, it's still quite an interesting and unique game in it's own right and does a decent job of capturing the atmosphere of the TV show, if nothing else. The music sounds fab for the most part and the areas are well drawn out and designed, with a good mixture of underground and sewer stages as well as a number of building interiors. Although you can only play as one of the Turtles at a time, you can also switch between them whenever you need to, so if one takes a lot of damage and is low on energy you can swap him out for a fresh Turtle or you can make tactical use of a specific Turtle's weapon....if there's guys on a ledge above you for instance, you may want to switch to Donatello and use his long reaching bo staff to take them out.
Going for a ride in the Wagon

This mechanic does however present problems of it's own. If you swap to another Turtle, the old Turtle still keeps it's existing energy bar and this carries across even when you defeat a boss and move onto the next stage so if you don't make sure to find a pizza and top up, you may find yourself unable to use a particular Turtle at a crucial moment. Picking up a pizza will only replenish the currently selected Turtle's health too, so if you've got all 4 needing a top up, you may have to scour around for more pizzas which can be pretty time consuming. The team members are also massively unbalanced too, with Donatello having both the most powerful and longest reaching weapon (fnar!), Leo being weaker but still having decent up/down attacks but then both Michelangelo and Raphael both being about as useful as a chocolate teapot with weedy short range weapons and no downward attacks. If one of the guys loses all their energy and gets captured, that's it...they're out of the game completely, permadeath style until the whole team goes down (and having to 'continue sends you right back to the start of whichever overhead map stage you're currently on, with any collected weapons or items removed)...this also makes things massively frustrating if you get stuck with either Mike or Raph near the end of a stage.

Oh, and did I mention that you can only continue twice, before it's back to the very start of the whole game?


Seaweed = death
The original TMNT game also has one of the most notoriously difficult levels in all of well known NES games....the underwater section by the dam where you have to defuse bombs. Whilst I've never struggled too much with this section myself (even after not having played the game for years, I was still able to do it first try, albeit with switching around of the Turtles to conserve their energy bars) it was a game breaker for many people. The swimming controls are sloppy and a little unresponsive, unseen currents keep nudging your Turtle towards hazards and making them swim slower in some directions, the amount of traps and hazards is pretty ridiculous, with spinning blades, electric zappers and even lethal seaweed out to get you...and on top of this the time limit is extremely tight and unforgiving....run out of time and it's an instant game over and back to the start of the dam level, and you have to go through a lengthy 2D platforming section before you even get to the underwater bit. It's extremely poor game design, and even though games back then were just generally tougher, a checkpoint or 2 at least wouldn't have gone amiss.
Who are these guys?!?

The variety of enemies is also...shall we just say...a little weird. While the bosses are the usual suspects like Bebop, Rocksteady and Shredder (although oddly enough no Krang, even though the Technodrome itself features in a boss fight), the normal enemies range from Mouser robots and a couple of Foot Soldiers to a downright bizarre selection of mutant eyeball thingies, giant frogs, some weird robot that spits fire at you and then explodes and attacks you with it's head, guys made out of fire, bomb dropping robots and strange flying things that attack in groups. Hardly any of these enemies appeared in the TV show, and it feels like an odd design choice for Konami to have put them in here. It actually makes me wonder if when they started development on the game it was something else entirely and then just had the Turtles shoehorned into it when Konami got the license. Its probably something we'll never know the answer to. They also respawn constantly whenever you leave the screen too, so be prepared to fight them over and over and over and over again.

So do I think it's a bad game? No. It does try do be a deeper experience than just going for the easier option of being a brawler, but it's one that could have (and should have) been quite a bit better than how it turned out. Some of the platforming sections are frustrating in the extreme, requiring fairly precise jumps and not helped by the floaty controls for jumping at all, and the team members being so unbalanced in their abilities really does hurt things, as does the inability to play with a friend. Some of the enemies take a silly amount of hits to kill...it's bad enough when you've got enemies on the first stage taking 2 or 3 hits to take down, but by the time you get to the Technodrome, a lot of the enemies are taking 5-6 hits a time each unless you've managed to collect a lot of subweapons along the way to take them down with, but it is still fun to fight the more familiar boss characters, and it's the only Turtles games so far (to my knowledge) that allows you to drive around in the Party Wagon and blast things so it does deserve some credit. Most people would be better off just sticking to one of the more well known scrolling beat 'em up games from the series though.

TromaDogg's Final Verdict: 6/10

Monday, 11 May 2015

Rage - Xbox 360 (also available for PS3, PC)

With the imminent release of the new Mad Max movie this weekend and a new upcoming game on the way that looks great, it's crazy that up to now there's only ever been one official Mad Max game released before, and that was on the NES in 1990. It didn't even get a release outside the US so it's unlikely that too many people in Europe will have ever even heard of it, let alone played it. However, there have been a few games released over the years that were obviously very heavily inspired by Mad Max that have filled the gap nicely. Rage is one of those games.

Released in 2011 and developed by id Software of Wolfenstein/Doom/Quake fame, Rage puts you in the shoes of an Ark volunteer....basically, what's happening is that a large asteroid is about to hit the earth so a selection of people are being placed into cryogenic pods within 'Arks', the idea being that in the future everybody can just wake up, rebuild society and everything will be hunky dory. At least that was the plan.

What you'll soon realise is that something's gone badly wrong. You awaken in the future, but the Ark you're in has malfunctioned. All the other cryogenic pods around you contain corpses, and upon making your way outside, you're attacked by a group of bandits. You're soon saved by Dan Hagar, a human survivor and taken to his camp where you find out that while you were sleeping, the world's gone to shit and what's left of the world's populace is struggling to survive in small settlements surrounding by wasteland inhabited by mutants. Dan sorts you out with a vehicle  and weapons, and soon you're off doing missions to help make everybody's lives easier, upgrade your kit and move another step closer to cleaning up the world.


The visuals in Rage are absolutely stunning, some of the best I've seen on the Xbox 360/PS3 and even pretty much match most of what the Xbox One/PS4 has put out so far. Environments look real and all the characters who inhabit them are well designed and believable. The main weapons, whilst there's not a huge selection of them, are extremely satisfying to use and all feel like they pack a punch. In between areas, you'll be driving around in vehicles that look like they straight out of a Mad Max movie, performing stunt jumps and fighting off enemy cars with machine guns and mounted rockets, as well as taking part in arena races...all of this is a lot of fun and could pretty much have been fleshed out into a full game itself. The main storyline missions for the most part are also quite well done too...often after completing an area, you'll have to return to it only the second time around you have to navigate it in a different way due to changes that happened during or after your first visit there. It makes the world feel more alive and keeps you on your toes not knowing quite what to expect. There's also a couple of interesting minigames to contend with...one is kind of like a first person homage to Smash TV, another has you playing a 'Magic: The Gathering' style card game using cards you find hidden around the areas whilst out on missions. I even spent a couple of hours trying to beat the game's version of Five Finger Fillet, the old classic pastime made famous by Bishop in Aliens, where you try to look hard by stabbing a tabletop through the gaps in your fingers and invariably end up in the nearest A & E Department wondering why you've now got a stump instead of a hand  Everything you do leaves you wanting more, and to see more of what the world has to offer.


Unfortunately, that's it's biggest downfall...as when the end inevitably comes, it's pretty abrupt and almost without warning. There's no huge boss fight to finish things off with, no epic conclusion to the story other than a glimpse of hope for the future and setting up a possible sequel, not even a reasonably sized cutscene. It feels like it just closes it's doors on you, shuts up shop and says 'Right, that's your lot, time to play something else!' You can't even free roam the world after completion and revisit your favourite areas. It's a real shame it does this, as it badly drags down what is otherwise an extremely enjoyable game. It's premature ejaculation in digital form.*

However, if you want to feel like a post apocalyptic badass, you could do a lot worse than play through Rage. The visuals suck you in, the action keeps you pumped, and there's plenty of side activities to keep you entertained along the way. It's just a shame that just as it really starts hitting it's stride, the credits roll and it's over. Hopefully, this won't be the last we see of Rage though, and there's more to come from id. Especially if Mad Max: Fury Road is a success.

TromaDogg's Final Verdict: 8/10


*apparently 'The Scorchers' DLC does go some way to fixing this by adding six new area and letting you continue to play after the game ends, but I'm judging the game as it was when I played through it, without add ons.

Sunday, 10 May 2015

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - Nintendo DS (also available for iOS)

'YOU HAVE DIED!', screams the blurb on the back of the box. Blimey, that's a bit depressing isn't it? You've not even put the game card into your Nintendo DS yet and you're already pushing up the daisies. That is exactly what happens at the start of this game though. After a very brief intro showing a pointy haired guy who appears to be called 'Sissel' lying dead on the floor in a junkyard in front of an (as yet) unknown woman, you awaken as a ghost with absolutely no memory of who you are, what's going on, or what you were doing there. After having a bit of a conversation with a haunted lamp that calls itself 'Ray' (yes, really!), you discover that you can possess and manipulate certain objects, which is referred to in-game as performing 'ghost tricks', and that you only have until dawn to work out what the hell is going on and solve the mystery behind your murder or you'll fade away completely into nothingness. And it's past 7pm already. So, you'd better get a move on. Luckily, you can also manipulate time to some extent too...

Change how scenes play out with 'ghost tricks'
You'll soon notice that the woman is not the only other person in the junkyard, there's also a very dodgy, hitman looking type with a big shotgun skulking around. Did he murder you? He certainly wants to shoot the woman you've just seen. Another short cutscene plays out and soon she's also lying dead on the floor. This is where you learn the game's main mechanic....basically, if somebody gets killed and you need that character to stay alive, you can rewind time to 4 minutes before their death and then use your powers of ghostly object manipulation to prevent it (and before you ask, no you can't prevent your own death this way...it only works on other people). This leads to quite a few interesting scenarios where you'll have to watch how a scene plays out, rewind time and then use what you've learnt to create distractions or make things happen at vital moments in order to defeat the bad guys and get slowly closer to the truth. Fail, and you'll have to rewind time and try again. A good job then that you can do this as many times as you need to.

Ghost Trick is a very easy game to play. Everything is done via the touchscreen and a couple of icons and you'll have the controls mastered in no time leaving you able to concentrate solely on the storyline and how to solve the puzzles. The visuals and animation look great throughout, the music is suitably atmospheric (with each major character having their own themes), there's a nice variety of locations and the storyline moves at a fast pace and keeps you constantly interested in what's going to happen next, or what new bit of information you'll uncover about Sissel's death....some of the scriptwriting is laugh out loud funny, though that's to be expected considering it's by the same developer as the Phoenix Wright games. And as with Phoenix Wright, it's full of twists and turns too. I was kept guessing about a couple of things even right up until the very end.

Unfortunately though, as enjoyable as the game is, it isn't too challenging. None of the puzzles will take you more than a few attempts to solve, and even though the story has a decent enough length (took me around 15 hours), it's also extremely linear and once it's done, it's done. No unlockables, no extra modes, nothing. But other than Phoenix Wright, there's really nothing else quite like it on the DS, the whole concept of the 'ghost tricks' is quite original and well implemented and used, and that alone is enough for me to give it a recommendation. It's also fairly cheap to pick up now too, so there's really no excuse for not at least considering giving it a go. Whilst it's not quite on the same level or complexity as Phoenix Wright, I'm pretty sure that any Ace Attorney fans will still lap it up and enjoy the ride immensely while it lasts.

TromaDogg's Final Verdict: 7/10