A Witch’s Tale for the Nintendo DS, i...

 

A Witch’s Tale for the Nintendo DS, is a story about a young witch, Liddell, who dreams about being the greatest witch in all the world. Even better than the great Queen Alice who sealed away the evil Eld Witch over a thousand years ago. In order to do this Liddell decides to set out and find the powerful ancient magic that was sealed away when Queen Alice sealed away the Eld Witch. So, Liddell goes to a ancient castle rumored to harbor a powerful magic. In the process of searching for the said magic, Liddell breaks the seal on Eld Witch releasing her and her evil magic back into the worlds. In order to rectify her mistake and to claim the title of the all time most powerful witch, Liddell sets off to save the princesses and seal the Eld Witch back up. You are joined by an ancient vampire Loue, who is a mentor of sorts and helps you learn to travel between the worlds. Your allies in battles are dolls, you start off with one and you find more through out the worlds.

The game is great in the sense of it blending together the Grim’s Fairy Tales, Nightmare Before Christmas and traditional Japanese culture.

So the game is very pretty. The environment is done very well in a way that each world is unique and it is easy to understand the theme that they are running with. It is interactive and the game does do a good job of pointing out to you what you are suppose to be picking up, or paying attention to. (Normally special items are highlighted with white sparkles, very pretty!) In each world you have to do mini mission in order to earn the ingredients needed to exchange to get the boss keys to defeat the Eld Witch’s evil spells and save each land’s princesses. The only draw back here is that no one comes straight out and says exactly what you are suppose to do so you tend to spend twenty minutes or so just figuring out what exactly you are looking for. There is a lot of doubling back as well, which tends to get very annoying after awhile, and door ways can be hidden in nooks and crannies in the game so it takes a lot of searching to make sure that you have found everything that you are suppose to find.

The game is controlled solely on the touch pad, all of the buttons have been deactivated in this game so you relay only on you stylist. The combat system is pretty unique in which your spells and items are brought up on a revolving screen to be selected. Once a spell or item has been selected you have to slide it across the screen to select who you are attacking or defending. There is no auto switch for this game so after awhile battles tend to become tedious and even though the enemies are never very hard, they have a ridiculous amount of heath so it takes about five minutes to defeat them. They also seem to be concentrated in certain areas verses being spread through out the maps. You can go almost five minutes on the maps before you encounter monsters or, in other areas, you can encounter monsters every two seconds.

The music in the game is very good. It has a good sound track through out the worlds and different music when you are battling monsters. It isn’t the annoying background music that you would rather have off than on when playing. The music defiantly compliments the scenery and the story.

The graphics on A Witch’s Tale are very nice. There are not any cut scenes in the game more like pretty pictures and the characters dialogue coming across the screens. Both screens are used well, one not dominating the other for your attention at any giving time. Even though commands are given on the bottom of the screen dialogue is given at the top.

All in all, the game is good. It could use a little work when it comes to the battle system. The story itself is unique and the graphics are top quality, but the battle system, is nothing new or exciting . The game itself also needs to be better at explaining what you have to do, wandering around randomly until you discover what you have to do gets old really fast. Overall I have to give the game a solid seven. It has a good concept but needs to be reworked a little bit to become even better.

I would have to agree that game journ...

I would have to agree that game journalist should be actrual journalist, verses
writers who are picking it up as a hobby. I am a firm beleiver in living things to the experts verses have to to hear from non informed people. Another thing that is important that was in the readings was having a story to tell. Like the people who discribe games by using persnal experiance is awesome because it draws you from the get go. 

Finale Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Ech...

 

Finale Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Echoes of Time

            Finale Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Echoes of Time for the Nintendo Ds, from Square Enix, is the newest game in the Crystal Chronicles series. Just like the other Crystal Chronicles games you are still able to choose which tribe you would like to be from. There are the Clavats, which are skilled swordsmanship, Yukes, who are scholarly and are good at magic, Selkies that are quick and light on their feet, and then the Lilties, which are shorter and favor hammers and spears.   The story revolves around you the hero waking up on your sixteenth birthday to compete in a rite a passage. After going into the woods and defeating the monsters, including the huge one at the end,  you go into a forest clearing where there is a huge crystal floating over a pond. You meet Sherlotta and she announces you pass your test and gives you a crystal as a present. Before you even have a chance to savior your victory, you find out that one of the village girls has fallen gravely ill with Crystal Sickness which is an ancient disease that is caused by crystal that have long since left the world, but not really. This is when the hero set off on their journey and the game begins.

            The graphics in this game is pretty top notch even though it is on the Ds, where a lot of games can get blocky during game play. There are the cut scenes in the game that are masterfully done, but still have the option of skipping if you really didn’t want to spend the time to watch it. The dungeons are done very well, the only thing is you go back though each level twice, if not three times! They do vary slightly but still going though Fire Mountain level three times can get old very fast. Another draw back is that you can’t change the camera angle at all so you can miss things if you’re not careful.

            Even though you start off with a very basic look, the characters can become unique to you by the various armor you can buy or create, and a very fashion foreword moogle found in the town can give you character a new look every so often. (He changes your hair color!) You can create other party members to help you along your journey, or try and hire mercenaries to help you out. The draw back about that though is that a lot of the puzzles in the games need you to be able to be in two places at once, and even though you can switch back and forth from your characters, they tend to go following after you even though you want them to stay on the stupid button!

            The game play itself isn’t too bad nothing is too difficult, except may be the puzzles at times. When it takes you two hours to figure out how to move a crept from one side of the room to the other can be a little dishearten but it is still pretty reasonable. Though the later levels can get pretty long and you are on the verge of tears because the save crystal has yet to show up! Even while battling the major bosses if you die they give you hints to destroy the boss and they put you right back in at the end instead of starting over again.

            There is a multi player function to the game which is very fun. You have one player that is the host, whose story you will be advancing, while the other players are helping out the host.  They get to keep what ever items they pick up and the keep what ever level that they level up to while playing on someone else’s game. The only draw back to this is that the game can get kind of clichy and lag a bit if there is to much going on. There is also another way to play multiplayer or even single player with out advancing the game, and that is Quest Shop. It is full of mini games in which if you play and do well in you win money and items, none of them are to hard and are pretty fun to play.

            Over all Crystal Chronicles Echoes of Time is a great game.  The story line is pretty clear and helps with the game not hinder, the graphics are what we expect out of Square Enix and is wonderfully done. The only draw back is that it is much easy to play as a multiplayer verses trying to be two people at once to advance the game. Over all I Give Echoes of Time for the Ds an eight out of ten!