Pokemon Shining Pearl (NSW)
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| Catch them all. |
I finally got around to picking up Pokemon Shining Pearl, the remake of 2006 Nintendo DS game Pokemon Pearl for Nintendo Switch. I picked Piplup as my starter (his later evos look awesome) and the box legendary Palkia also looks cool. I have to say, the game was pretty boring in the early hours with not much going on aside from you hopping from one town to the other. After getting the sixth badge, the game finally opens up with you getting to use Strength and Surf to reach new areas.
The story tasks you with travelling the Sinnoh region and collecting all kinds of Pokemon, which is the series standard. It was boring initially, but managed to pick up later with the villainous Team Galactic's plans coming into fruition and the characters having a more active role. That and the difficulty took a much-needed spike when you reach the Pokemon League and battle the Elite Four and Champion, who all were tough to beat even when you're prepared.
Funny story: Back in 2008, I just got a DS Lite after by OG DS' top screen snapped off. I was looking for a new game to go with it and came across two: Pokemon Pearl and Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. I was a mega Sonic fan at the time so I chose went with the latter as I didn't get into Pokemon until Gen 6 in 2013. Despite it being mediocre, I really enjoyed Dark Brotherhood as a kid and I replayed it around 3-4 times since I didn't have much games at the time. That said, I wish I went with Pokemon Pearl as that game soared up in price while Dark Brotherhood is comparably cheap lol.
I originally wanted to get the DS copy but it's way too expensive nowadays so I got the remake. All in all, the game took me around 25 hours to beat with me seeing around 144 Pokemon and doing some exploring around. Happy to have finally played Gen 4 after all these years.
Destiny Connect: Tick-Tock Travellers (PS4)
An adventure through time.
Destiny Connect: Tick-Tock Travellers is a small-budget RPG from Nippon Ichi Software (creators of Disgaea) and it stars a group of kids and their robot on a quest to restore the flow of time after it stopped on New Year's Day 2000. The story was simple yet fun as it's aimed at younger players and RPG newcomers with brief amounts dialogue and a non-convoluted story. Gameplay is turn-based and was pretty solid too. The main draw is that Isaac the robot can change classes like a boxer, fireman, and samurai, with each class bringing new sets of skills.
Visually, the game's decent with its cartoony art-style that's oddly reminiscent of the human NPC designs of Sonic Unleashed. That said, there were lots of pop-ins and graphical glitches here and there despite it using Unreal Engine 4. The soundtrack was amazing, with the battle theme being a standout. Lack of voice-work is a real issue as some story moments felt hollow without any emotional delivery. It's also a pretty short game at 11-12 hrs with no side-quests and small areas to explore. Still, Destiny Connect is a decent choice for players looking to get into the RPG genre.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection (PS4)
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| Cowabunga! |
The TMNT: Cowabunga Collection is a compilation of classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle games published by Konami in the early 1990's. It contains over 13 games ranging from the GameBoy to the Arcades and they're mostly 2D beat 'em ups that has you playing as the four turtles. Three of the games are 2D fighters and they've aged as you'd guess--- not so good.
My favorite games in the collection were the TMNT Arcade game, Arcade and console releases of Turtles in Time (amazing level variety and the sprites hold up), The Manhattan Project (had fond memories playing a bootleg copy on my GBA), and the SNES Tournament Fighters game. I now appreciate Shredder's Revenge even more after playing the collection as that game was full on the references and callbacks, which were cool.
The games are easier to play for newcomers as they pack optional enhancements like infinite lives, rewind, quick saves, and invincibility modes. Still, the Tournament Fighters games were a pain since the CPU was cheap, easily reading your moves.
Overall, it's a fantastic collection for those who grew up during the turtle craze of the 90's and it has some mostly timeless games. I hope Konami follows Capcom's FOOTsteps and release a Vol. 2 collection featuring the games based on the 2003 TV show--- the turtles I grew up with!
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