New Serene Reviews

Okay time to start off 2010 with a bang (yeah it's almost March I don't care) so I'm going to go back to reviewing. To start off we shall be reviewing TWEWY today.


Genre changing video games have come out rather minimally in the past two to three years. Almost as if the industry as a whole is afraid of testing the waters with something that has the potential to be ground breaking. I’m utterly afraid at how many games that could have had the power of KitN were potentially thrown away in recent years due to this fact. One such game that kinda has me at both ends of this spectrum is The World Ends with You, or as I will state through the rest of this review TWEWY.
Where do I start off, well TWEWY is made my Square Enix and Jupiter, it’s amazing that such a large company that already is rolling in the dough to allow an original game to come through.
After actually loading and playing the game I noticed something, it looks like a standard generic JRPG, now I’m all for a JRPG, I’m not overly picky but, when it comes to practically using every Stereotype of the JRPG genre TWEWY has nearly all of them. Characters with spiky hair that looks like they spend ALL of their money on hair gel, check. Characters with unnatural hair colors (check). The list goes on and on with nearly no end.
There were some brief colorings of hope when it comes to characters in JRPG. Instead of the typical hero who wants to do everything and anything to save the world. This character is a loner who rather could give a rat’s ass when it comes to others and their feelings and needs as it’s noticed during the opening third of the game. However, don’t let this sight be a sigh of relief for those WRPG fans who used to like JRPG’s. As over the course of the game the character goes through life lessons that make him realize others are important. It’s like a bloody lesson that you would see on FUCKING NICK JR.
The game itself is a love-hate relationship that is so push and pull that it makes me question whether or not I love this game or if I absolutely hate it. The game features real time, pick your own battles system for combat. Which in itself is amazement when it comes to seeing all of these turn based games that seem to be the norm?
The combat itself is also new and original, using both screens for combat with you on the bottom screen using the pins that you get during the course of the game. Your partner, which changes during the course of the game on the top screen attacking the enemies with attacks. I like the idea for the combat I just think that it was rather a badly done, with both screens attacking at the same time; it turns into a clusterfuck of trying to look at each screen to check where the combined health bar is on each side so you can make sure you do not need to heal. Hell sometimes if you don’t look at the top screen you will be attacking air and are hammered by an attack.
Pins are the main form of attacking for the main character, each pin uses different abilities, however some pins are just rehashed with a different brand and stats than other ones. Pin evolutions come in three ways, simple combat, mingling with other Nintendo wi-fi products, and shutdown where you turn off the game. Sometimes it just get’s hectic using the pins as when it says that a pin could evolve and you want it to, you figure out it’s the wrong evo type and have to start all over with a new fucking pin. It’s irritating especially with some pins that require a shit ton amount of pp.
Pins are activated with various actions of the stylist, such as swiping on the enemy, yelling into a mic (which is always wonderful in public btw), and finally on my list, drawing a circle. I thought we got past the days were games were overcritical when it comes to what qualifies as a fucking shape. Drawing a circle and having the power activate on this game is just overly too tedious, as the game won’t accept it unless it’s perfect within 98.6 accuracy.
The challenges that you need to do to advance the game get rather old after a while and sometimes just feel like they take forever. They use the “kill generic enemy spawn a specific number of times in this area” repeatedly with little to no variation, at least when they get to the last third of the game; they throw out this idea for a “you are a wanted criminal I will kill you and get the ultimate promotion” kind of idea.
Overall TWEWY just feels like too much of it was left on the cutting room floor. It felt like the game was setting itself for a 20-hour adventure before it got to pin collecting afterwards. However there was barely 10 hours in the game and there is zero replay value. The concept was good and the music for the most part was well done. However, the game fails to try to break away from the generic JRPG mold and if it does, it’s barely, since the main character has all the features of a typical one, but instead of giving him a huge fucking overcompensating sword they give him magical pins that can heal you and spit fire. If you are looking into this game, by all means don’t let me stop you. Though don’t come crying to me when you realize that the game in a whole is too short.

Update: Due to my new laptop having a mic, I'm probably going to be changing my review style to being spoken instead of written. A review is easier to do and it's a lot quicker from what I've done. I'll be doing my first audio review to Persona 2 Innocent sin within a week or two.

Nice review. I liked reading it etc

I thought the game was pretty good, myself.
The plot was fine with me, which is saying something because I almost never take video game storylines seriously.
It wasn't as bad as all that, in terms of cliches...maybe because the characters kept switching out...
But you should've been harder on the combat system, I think. Damn top screen

Also, a suggestion: It might help to use more indentations in your reviews.
Walls of text can be hard to read, and scare away the weak-hearted.

Catbread wrote:Nice review. I liked reading it etc

I thought the game was pretty good, myself.
The plot was fine with me, which is saying something because I almost never take video game storylines seriously.
It wasn't as bad as all that, in terms of cliches...maybe because the characters kept switching out...
But you should've been harder on the combat system, I think. Damn top screen

Also, a suggestion: It might help to use more indentations in your reviews.
Walls of text can be hard to read, and scare away the weak-hearted.

Yeah for some reason that happens whenever I post my reviews, which is why I have been motivated to move to audio instead of writing.

I wanted to start off with this review with saying “Final Fantasy VI takes everything that I loved from other games in the series mixes them up and makes a rather disgusting stew that I can barely touch without the mixture casting holy on its sorry ass and killing itself.” However this is what I’m going to finish this opening paragraph with. Final Fantasy VI is a game of light and dark, one side tasting like magnificent mint chocolate chip ice cream, while the other half reeks of foul smells leaking out of the backside of an animal with the runs.
The biggest success with the game is the story itself, a great majority of the record size 14 character party is excellently written and for the most part doesn’t really fall on the traditional JRPG sterotypes of today. The story revolves around an environment foreign to any Final Fantasy before hand, a more technological environment with machines and a steampunk art style. It is about an evil empire trying to conquer the land with the use of magic (sounds a lot like the second Final Fantasy if you ask me). There really isn’t a main character in this one, though you could probably argue successfully that Terra is the main character of this game as she gets probably the most or dang near it possible use.
The combat system though the same old JRPG formula of turned based, random monster battles, is fixed up from previous installments. It still uses the Active Time Battle system that had started with the fourth game in the series. In fact both VI and IV have a lot of similarity besides using the same amount of Roman numerals. All of the characters in VI have specific abilities that can only be used by the character in question. Like Celes ability to suck up magic like a black hole, or Terra’s ability to turn into a pissed of purple people eater.
However there is one major addition that makes VI superior to IV in terms of gameplay. The first of which is the addition of the magicite system. My biggest issue with FF IV was the fact that at end game only two people could heal and if they died, you were practically screwed over. The magicite system allows for everyone to learn magic, just equip a magicite and once you win a fight you get magic points which help you learn spells. My biggest issue with the system is that some of the most important spells are so hard to learn and even to acquire.
The thing that really pisses me off about this game is the second half. The first half of the game is so magnificently done, great story, great plot, great fighting, and what made FFV one of my favorites, the fact that you are told where you are to go but don’t actually have to and can go explore at your own risk. The second half lacks a great continuation of story and plot. As well as the major thing, it’s open ended format is so open that it has no direction, it places you with one of the 14 characters you get and sends you out into the new world to find everyone else. It doesn’t even offer you any help to begin with besides a little hint on where ONE person is, with the other twelve still left in the dark. It’s like they paid homage to Phantasy Star II on the Sega Genesis and basically told you to go complete the game with nothing more than a knife and a Newman that barely is usable. If the entire first half of the game sucked and the second half was the same I wouldn’t be as angry due to the fact that the first half sucks enough to cover the second parts ass. But it doesn’t the first part is so epic, so inspring, just show stoping that it makes the second half seem like the developers just stopped caring and desided to throw a quarter of a plot into the last half of the game.
My favorite Final Fantasy game will always be the fifth one of the series, not because of the plot because that was weak. But because of the combat system and the tag along Job Class System, both of which went hand in hand and complemented each other. The magicite system and combat system of VI complement themselves much like the fifth but due to the earth shattering 14 party members, it makes it more tedious then anything as you got to bring 12 of the 14 into the final dungeon, and they all practically need to be versed in the high level magic which takes ages to get. FFV has a similar grind mentality but it’s not as overkill as IV due to the fact you only got to do it for four characters one third of the total from IV.
FFVI is a great RPG and lives up to the expectations of all Final Fantasies sure, but the fact that it gets cut off half-way through the game and the second half seems like a clusterfuck of deadlines missed due to the first half being so incredibly awesome, it keeps it from reaching the upper echelons of FF games where both story and game combine into one great game.