It's a beautiful game. Great story. Fantastic music. Wonderful characters. Stunning art direction. I love all of that and it's fun. A lot of fun. And the Wii controls work well (except for the sword items, but I like the beads more anyway. And dodging, which I never had to do. So, no big deal.) But there isn't much game to this game. The bosses are a lot of fun, but only the Moon Cave, Oni Island, and Wawku Shrine are actually long enough to be dungeons and are fun. The other dungeons can be completed in a matter of minutes and require no skill whatsoever. The Water Dragon was joke. The rest of the game is held together by walking and talking, over, and over, and over again. Story is important, but the gameplay is not there to support the length of this game. Sidequests consist of collecting random items, while walking around, for no real reason other than to collect them. I loved the part where I had to restore all the Cherry Blossoms in Sei'an City because there was actually a point to doing it. But events like that are few and far between in this game of walking and talking. The false endings bugged me. The game is divided into four parts. If the game ended the after the first time I beat Orochi I would've been happy. Things were summed up nicely, it didn't feel too short or too long and for the length it was by this point - three bosses, one small dungeon, one medium dungeon, and one large dungeon seemed pretty good. But then it kept going. Which would've been fine. But it felt like a sequel. By that I mean it sorta kept going without connecting itself to what I just did. For the rest of the game you barely revisit the characters and place from the beginning of the game. It was like that for each part of the game. Beat the big dungeon, forget about everything you just did, and move on. So, that was bugging me. Because each part was basically a different game, the difficulty would keep resetting. Small dungeon, medium dungeon, big dungeon, and then small again. O_o And then big, and then no dungeon XD, and then big, with a couple of other tiny ones scattered through there. The environments are great. Zelda really needs more than two towns to visit. This game has plenty, thankfully. Some places you don't have to spend much time in, and some you do. I like any of the areas where I had to shrink down because it was basically The Minish Cap but in 3D. XD It was cool and the enhanced Wii colours really brought those areas to life. It was fun. But, for all the praise I've heard... how great it is. Worth buying a PS2 for. A "flawless" game. All of this great stuff. I was just let down. I don't know why. I really must've missed something. It's a great game, it's a lot of fun. But I can't be the only one who thought that the dungeons were too short and easy. I'd be fine with how much walking and talking there was (I like the amount), if there was actually enough game to support it. There wasn't. At all. Then, knowing that everyone loves this game I was hoping the end would redeem it and show me what I was missing. The final boss suffers from the same thing as Metroid Prime 3. Too easy for a final boss; easier than the first boss. But thankfully it is a long battle, so that was good. So, that went by and I was hoping the epilogue would blow me away or something. But Capcom and Ready at Dawn screwed me over by removing the ending and the credits. The game just stops. Like the the last episode of the Sopranos. So, here I am. Just finish a game that I really, really wanted to like (well...more than I do. I do like it. But I really expected it to be one of my favourite games based on what I've read) and Capcom and Ready at Dawn go and leave a bad taste in my mouth. Not a good way to end this experience Looks great and the Wii controls work well. Even if the ending and credits weren't cut, this game is really overrated.

I'm not sure. All I knew about LostWinds when I purchased it is that everyone except GameSpot (of course. It's a Nintendo exclusive) gave it great reviews. And I knew it was short. That's it. I didn't know it was platformer (I was actually expecting like...a light RPG or something XD) and I didn't know it was episodic. Going into it and knowing it would be a short-lived experience was fine because it was fun. But for it to end just so abruptly without any resolution just "To be continued..." appearing on the screen... it was really annoying. This game is like the first level of a much larger game. A game that I would like to play. Okay, review time. :D STORY: Standard adventure platformer fare. There's an evil-doer. Now go collect stuff. AUDIO: There's three songs in this game. That's it. The title screen, which doubles as the credits theme. The battle theme. And the main theme that plays everywhere regardless of where you are or what you are doing. The main theme is nice. It's relaxing and zen like and lends itself well to this short pick-up-and-play title. But when you travel through different villages, and fields, and through caves and it's the same tune... I dunno. I would've liked at least a separate cave theme. There might've been a theme for the final boss, but I didn't notice. VISUALS: I like the art direction in the game. It's just pretty and cute and light. The style looks a bit like the Tak games, but that's okay. GAMEPLAY: You control Taku (I think that's his name) with the control stick. You just move him left and right. Everything else is done through the Wiimote. You really play as the wind in this game, not Taku. Use the wind to make him jump and fall smoothly. Use it to light torches, defeat enemies, carry water, toss rocks, etc. And it's the basis of the few attacks you learn. I like this concept and it's fun using the wind just on everything just to see it move. The reactions of people you annoy are amusing, especially the old guys. All that said though, I think it would've worked better on the DS. The stylus is just more accurate and precise than the Wiimote, but I got over it quickly. The enemies you defeat are very primitive and Goomba-like. Just blue blobs. The just latch on to you and you take damage. To defeat them just shoot a gust of wind at them. That's it. The blobs disguise themselves as birds and crabs sometimes and you have to use some other attacks that you've learned to defeat them. Non of them are much of a threat. You just wander around the world and use the wind to get you places. You're looking for treasure chests that contain the memory of some guy name Deo. First two take a bit of time to find, but then the last two are just too easy and require little effort. Then you beat a boss and the game ends. Should take you under three hours to beat, maybe a bit longer if you want to find all the hidden idols - WHICH DO NOTHING. WTF? Why did I go out of my way to collect them? No extra move. No extra level. Not even a congratulations. The end doesn't change either - I decided to do the boss again after finding the idols to see if something was different. Nope. So, in a nutshell the game is ridiculously easy, but cute and fun. It's like Kirby's Dream Land but easier. It'll probably replace Kirby as the game that you go "If you can't beat this... @__@" It's too short and while I appreciate the art style and the ability to control the wind I don't think it was worth $10 - especially when you can get some amazing and classic N64 titles for the same price. Should've cost as much as a NES game. I did like it though. And I want to play the sequels when they're released. I just wish they're longer - unless it's a limitation of WiiWare in general. :x

No, wait. Uhh....I don't have one. No objections. This game was pure awesomness. I had been meaning to play Phoenix Wright for ages. It had become such a big meme on Nintendo fansites that I knew I was missing out on something. Last week, Erica lent me her copy of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and I lent her Banjo-Kazooie (have you played it yet? >:[). so.much.fun. And very surprising. I knew very little about this game. I didn't know what to expect. But, it certainly wasn't this. After many discussions with Erica about my dislike of games that are more cutscene than game and how unimportant characters are as long as the gameplay is good. .... I take it back. T__T; You win. The game is basically one gigantic cutscene with very little gameplay. All you have to do is sit there and tap the screen when prompted. XD But, it's just plain fun. When you solve a case you feel like you've really accomplished something. You have to think, all the characters are unique, and there's some nice differentiation in the cases you have to solve. The whole thing just felt very refreshing. I fully intend on purchasing all the games in the series sometime after my birthday. The only downside is replay value. I know all the answers now. On the few times I'd run out of objections, when I went to do it again I just breezed right through. Not exactly fun. The first four cases (understandably) aren't the greatest use of the DS' controls, but it works. The last case did a better job. I liked finding fingerprints. But...it felt tacked on. I can't really complain about the graphics. I just wish some of the characters had a few more poses (Meekins and his blowhorn....) Going to be using GameSpot a lot more hopefully. Same with Backloggery - which I signed up for today. A gaming related post should be up on LJ later. Anyway, thanks for letting me borrow the game, Erica! ^___^

Finished Metroid Prime 3: Corruption today. With a time of 16:10. I've finished Prime and Hunters. XD I played a bit of Echoes, but I couldn't get into it. I really should play it though. Anyway MP3 was very good. The original Prime was one of the greatest, most rewarding games I had played. MP3 doesn't give me the same feeling, but it still a very well-crafted game. Which is the point of the Prime games. They feel like games. Not movies that you play. They're very gamey...you have to shoot doors to open them. The control scheme for MP3 was perfect. I think. I would the advance setting and kept lock-on...on, since I was used to lock-on from the original Prime. I can't speak for the other play modes, but that combination was perfect. Very simple, yet excellent. Only flaw as far as the controls go is that when Samus pulls a lever or something, she uses her left hand. For you to do the action, you have to use your right hand. Rather jarring and breaks the illusion. I'm sure they could've mapped those movements to the Nunchuck instead of the Wiimote. The game looked great. Once again, Nintendo used a fake version of widescreen - which really displeases me. But the framerate is smooth, and in motion it is easily superior to the other Prime games (still screencaps really make it look awful). What I didn't like about this game, was the same think I disliked about Hunters. The original Prime is one very large world, made up of interconnected sub-worlds. To an extent, its free-roam. There's a lot of backtracking. But, overall everything feels very real and organic, almost as if it were living. In Hunters and Corruption you fly to various planets instead of having one large interconnected world. In Corruption, there are then areas of those planets that you can only access by flying, so the interconnectedness is severed even more, The game is still a First Person Adventure (not a First Person Shooter) like its predecessors, but I think it has a lot more shooting. Which isn't bad. The puzzles are still there. I think they just found a better balance this time around. The original Prime's final boss was the hardest I'd faced. When you beat that thing, you felt so relieved that it was all over. Unfortunately, Corruption's final boss is easier than its first boss. :x Voice acting is very well done too. So, yeah. Very enjoyable experience and a must have game for Wii owners even if you haven't played a Prime or any Metroid game before. Like the other installments in the Prime series it is completely immersive once you get into it. Now that that's out of the way...I still have Diamond too complete. And, I do want to. I'm just having such difficulty enjoying or getting into the game. I don't know why I don't like this one or Ruby and Sapphire. They're all pretty much the same game. I loved the original, and GSC, and FR and LG. Not sure why I don't like the others. With Brawl on the way, I'm going to be playing a lot of Melee so I stand a chance against you guys once we're online. Also going to have a new Animal Crossing blog.