Level Up: Digimon Digital Card Battle

And Cheap Dam-Month continues this week with a look at Digimon! Yeah, with how often I’ve talked about Pokemon, it seems appropriate that I finally follow up with what was known as their big competitor. I’ll get into what I think of the series as a whole some other day, but for now I’m just here to talk about the card game. So let’s look at the only non-handheld game this month: Digimon Digital Card Battle for the Sony PlayStation.

Digimon Digital Card Battle is played with decks of 30 cards made of up of Digimon and Option cards. The game field is comprised of an active Digimon and your hand of 4 cards (which gets refilled at the start of your turn) that are visible to your opponent. At the start of your turn you may discard a Digimon for an amount of Digivolution points. If you have enough points and a higher level Digimon of the same color as the active one (example: a Red Champion to be placed on a Red Rookie), then you may spend the points in order to change your Digimon into the higher level one. (Unlike the Pokemon card game, it does not keep the damage that has been dealt to its previous form.) After that, you choose an attack, which are color coded red, green and blue. Generally, red is your most powerful attack but is often the target of enemy skills, green is medium but usually a safe bet, and blue is weak but uses special skills.

Once both sides have picked an attack, you may choose to use an option or Digimon card from your hand, or a blind card from the top of the deck. These can increase the damage you deal, give your Digimon more HP or any number of effects that can greatly change the outcome of a battle. Once all that is set, both Digimon attack each other (starting with the player whose turn it is). Once a Digimon’s HP is reduced to zero, it (and all previous forms) gets discarded and the player who knocked it out gets a point. A game is won when a player gets 3 points or his opponent has no more Digimon in his deck.

Choosing a Digimon to send out is a bit interesting in this game, since you don’t need to start off by sending out a Rookie: if you have no Digimon on the field, you can send one that’s a higher level, but at the cost of cutting its attack and HP in half for each level you skip (1/2 power for champion, ¼ for ultimate, etc…). Though if you really don’t like what you got, you can choose to discard your hand at the start of your turn and draw a new one. Skill points have also been implemented in this game: you’ll get partner Digimon, and as you win matches, they get experience points and new options you can attach to them. These partner Digimon can actually be quite useful in an otherwise unimpressive deck.

You may be wondering how is it that something like the partner Digimon were implemented in real live. Well, they weren’t. As a matter of fact, this video game has almost no resemblance to the actual card game: Digimon needed specific combinations to Digivolve, your hands weren’t shown, the decks used more cards, etc… The Digimon card game was actually one of my favorites, so I’m disappointed that it’s been replaced with a glorified RPG battle system. Instead you’ll often find using the same attack over and over again is the best strategy. The only kind of cool thing about the game play is deciding whether to sacrifice a Digimon for its ability, Digivolution points or to keep it to use in combat later (which can make or break your victory).

I can’t really think of anything more to say about Bandai’s Digimon Digital Battle Card. It took what I think was a great card game, and turned it into a more strategic version of the regular RPG system of “choose attack and wait”. The graphics aren’t that impressive: most of the game is laid out in menus, except for during the attack phases, which seems to just reuse graphics from Digimon World. I find the music repetitive, dull and all kind of samey-sounding, so the Digimon’s battle cries are not worth keeping the volume up. There’s a story, but it honestly makes no sense: something about a tower, and Digimon being evil, but CARD GAMES are what decides the fate of the world (Pokemon trading card game worked because there weren’t real Pokemon). It’s like every step was taken to make it a boring experience: adventuring has been replaced by tedious menus, the music is boring, the graphics are nothing new, the game play is just waiting and repeating the same actions and the story drags on. It’s not a bad game really, it works well and there is some potential in the game play, but it only just passes. I give Digimon Digital Card Battle for the PlayStation 6 levels out of 10.

Level Up: Pokemon Trading Card Game

Well another August is here and it’s time for a theme month. This year’s theme is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but it’s also inspired by one of CR’s shows on That Guy with the Glasses called Cheap Damage, where he looks at various table top, card and other kinds of games. Though I’m not expert in that field, I do remember playing some of the collectable games that were giant fads while growing up. And, what do you know; most of them were turned into video games! So this year I’m kicking off Cheap Dam-month with Pokemon Trading Card Game for the Game Boy Color.

The Pokemon Card Game is played with decks of 60 cards of 3 types: Pokemon, Trainer and Energy. The trainer cards allow you to do things that you can’t normally do on your turn. These include dealing more damage with your attack, drawing extra cards or healing your Pokemon, for example. You may use one per turn. The Pokemon are what you fight with. You need one Pokemon as your active and you can have up to 5 others on the bench to either be switched out or come in once the active Pokemon has been KO’d. The energy cards are used for the attacks: most attacks require you to “attach” a certain number of energy cards of a certain type (displayed next to the attack name) to a Pokemon. The white star is “normal” and any energy card can be used for it, while the others need an energy card of that matching symbol. Once your active Pokemon has enough energy on it, you can choose to attack once at the end of your turn. The opponent’s active Pokemon takes the damage indicated next to the attack, but a lot of attacks have additional effects, so be aware of its conditions. Once a Pokemon has more damage than HP, it is knocked out and it and all cards attached to it get discarded. The opponent who knocked out the Pokemon may take one of the “prize cards” set aside at the start of the match. A game is normally won when a player draws all of his prizes, but you can also win when your opponent has no more Pokemon on the field or when they cannot draw a card from their deck.

Of course, one of the biggest things about Pokemon is the fact that they evolve, and that has been implemented in the card game. You may only play down “basic Pokemon” (the first stage of any evolutionary line) in an empty slot. Once a turn, if you’re holding the evolved form of a Pokemon you have in your field, you may place it on top of that Pokemon. The evolved Pokemon keeps everything attached to the previous form, but is cured of attack effects and can no longer use the attacks of its last form. And though not every Pokemon has them, you should check your Pokemon’s weakness and resistance (which effects how much damage it may take), retreat cost (the amount of energy cards you much discard to switch your active Pokemon) and Pokemon power (which are free to use abilities).

Now, with all that said, the best thing about the Pokemon Trading Card Game video game is that everything I just said would also apply to the actual card game. So, if you’ve play it before, transitioning to this version should not be a problem (keeping in mind there have been many additions to the card game since this was published). It’s great how they were able to authentically recreate the experience.

Pokemon Tading Card Game is interesting when you think about it; it’s a video game version of a card game based off a video game. That being said, it’s a great recreation of a great card game that used inspiration from the video game really well, but knew when to take liberties. The basics are simple, and as you’ll play, you’ll learn how to balance a proper deck, what the better attacks are and how to adjust for your strategy. The problem is if you’re already familiar with the game, you might not get all that much game play out of it: I built 2 decks as quickly as I could and wiped the floor with everyone until the elite 4, and even then I just slightly edited one deck to win. The link cable feature could have offered good competitive play at the time, but if you had all the stuff for it, you probably had the actual cards. The best use of the game today is for anyone who wants to play the card game, but can’t find anyone around to play with or finds card collecting to be too expensive. The over world graphics look comparable to the first gen games and the recreation of the cards are almost flawless. The music is only alright though. Basically it’s a game that didn’t aim to do anything complicated and succeed beyond expectation. I give Pokemon Trading Card Game for the Game Boy Color 9 levels out of 10.

Level Up: Double Dragon 2 & Renegade

We’re continuing our look at beat-em-up games in honor of Adamant Ditto’s Beat-em-up month: the Revengance. Let’s take another look at one of the series that helped popularize the genre with Double Dragon 2: The Revenge (that sounds familiar) for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

There are a lot of changes between Double Dragon 1 and 2 on NES. First off, you’ll notice that in Double Dragon 2 you can play as both Billy and Jimmy Lee, which is confusing since Jimmy was the main antagonist in the first NES game. Double Dragon 2 is a lot more of a straight port, while a lot where a lot of things were changed in the first game. (This might be a result of Acclaim and Technos now handling this instead of Tradewest.) Jimmy becoming a good guy might have been necessary anyways, since you can now play 2 players simultaneously, a big plus on this game over its predecessor. However, this comes at the cost of the leveling up system and though it doesn’t really hinder this game (since you still have all the skills), I do miss it.

One more change I have to mention is the controls: B and A now do the same thing, but in different directions. If you’re facing to the left and press B, you’ll do a regular punch to the left, but if you press A you’ll do a kick towards the right (and vice versa). This can be a good way to prevent enemies from sneaking up on you, but it is odd to have to keep remembering to switch buttons so you don’t start kicking air.

The graphics are weird, as it looks like they were trying too hard. I think “Rob Leifeld like” best describes it: the characters have tiny heads when compared to their massive arms and chests. They got weird bumps all over their bodies, so it’s funny to see them walk on such relatively tiny feet. And that’s the last thing I really have to say about Double Dragon 2, otherwise I think I’d be explaining obvious things, like you beat people up in this beat ‘em up. So, how about I move on to a related game? Here’s Renegade for the NES.

Guru Larry does a better job at explaining how Renegade and Double Dragon are related in his review of it, but basically Renegade could be considered Double Dragon’s father, while the Kunio-Kun series would be the mother. The first Kunio-Kun game was released in May of 1986 in Japan, but when Taito got the western distribution rights, they decided to make a few changes (mostly re-skinning the game) and called it “Renegade”. Technos apparently liked “Renegade” and decided to combine elements from both versions, and so Double Dragon was born.

It’s important to note that Renegade came before a lot of beat-em-ups because it doesn’t seem that impressive. Don’t get me wrong, the game is still fun, but it’s very restrained: you mostly stick to side streets and just punch regular people. The game is also hurt by the fact that the multiplayer is turn style and it also uses the “B attacks left, A right” control scheme. Punching is still satisfying, but a lot of enemies can break your combos and get in cheap hits easily.

The graphics are kind of bad. A lot of backgrounds look flat and most people are really oddly shaped, making their animation frames look weird. However, the music is really good. For most tracks, the rhythm is really up-beat and lets you know to have fun. This might have to do with the fact that this game was possibly inspired by the 1979 movie “The Warriors”, and some of the music from that sound track could easily be compared to the tracks in Renegade.

So those are my thoughts on two NES beat ‘em ups that left me a little underwhelmed. Now, Double Dragon 2 could actually be considered one of the better multi-player experiences on the system, but when it comes down to it, a simultaneously 2 player version of the first game would be better than this one. And though Renegade has an interesting history behind it, that’s not what I rate the games on (like with Popeye). Both of these games are of fun, but I felt like they were an honest try away from being great. You could easily find worse beat ‘em ups though. I give Double Dragon 2 8 and Renegade 7 Levels out of 10.

Level Up: The Simpsons Arcade

Around this time last year, Adamant Ditto decided to start “Beat-em-up month”, and this year it’s back with a “Revengance”, so I’m celebrating again. Now one thing that’s surprising about beat-em-ups is how some of the most iconic games in the genre include licensed titles, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, the X-men arcade game and even (relatively) recent entry Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. However, one that surprises me the most is The Simpsons Arcade game. Who would of thought a show with little fighting would make for a great game where people fight? However, that’s not the game I’m here to talk about: there is actually another Simpsons Beat-em-up that people tend to miss because they think it’s the same game (more on that in a bit). So let’s now look at the Simpsons Arcade available for your mobile devices.

I will start off by saying that I do not think this is a port of the original arcade game: there are too many features changed, the levels are different and the publisher is Electronic Arts instead of Konami. This could be considered a remake, but I still think that would be stretching it. However, the games do feature some of the same aspects. This is why I decided not to do a classic vs comeback, because some might say I’m just comparing ports, which is not the point of that feature. Even if it is a port, it has enough differences that it’s still worth checking out separately.

The game starts off with a cut scene where Springfield's most powerful citizens (and Krusty), are discussing Project: Operation mission, which is a secret plan to “steal all of Springfield’s natural resources or something” (the game rightfully assumes that you don’t care). They hide a flash drive in a donut, which happens to accidentally fall into Homer’s hands. Once Homer has his mysterious donut taken from him, he thinks about how delicious it must be if it’s worth assault, so he chases after it.

The story works in a tongue and cheek tone that plays the fact that this is a Simpsons brawler. I can’t help but enjoy the amount of personality that comes through in a short time. Though this might only work because I know the characters before hand, the quick lines the boss and mid-boss characters say tend to get a Dr. Hibbert chuckle out of me.

You’ll play as Homer as you bash your way to your delicious goal. (Mmmm, goal *drool*) You sadly can’t play as one of the other Simpsons, but they do still make an appearance in the form of special move items. You can also find other Simpson cameos for extra lives. You can also get extra lives in the mini-games between levels.

The hit detection and controls are spot on (though using an arcade stick on the touch screen can make your finger slide off). However, there is one BIG ISSUE: minimizing restarts the game. Even if you pause it, loading another app or going to the home menu will send you back to opening credits and title screen. You have the option to continue, but you have to redo the whole level. Now this isn’t a long game, you can probably beat it during a trip to Shelbyville, but mobile games should not work like this.

The Simpsons Arcade is a great game for your mobile devices and truly another great Simpsons beat-em-up (or great new version of the old one, depending on your view on the subject). There are issues with how this game works in regard to the platform it’s on, but those can be over looked as the content itself is really good (I’d like to say that there’s also a possibility for an update, but it’s been a few years since this game had one). If you’re a beat-em-up fan or a Simpsons fan, you really can’t go wrong with this game: the game play is classic, the story is well played and the characters are all recognizable and full of personality. The game looks just like the show (though Homer’s eyes are looking in a weird direction) and it uses voice clips from the actors too. If you’re not a fan of either I still recommend you check out the free trial version, and the full game is only 99 cents. I give The Simpsons Arcade for the iPhone 9 levels out of 10.

Level Up: X-men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse

Once again I am here to celebrate Canada Day with an X-men game. Last year I talked about X-men Legends, so it only makes sense that this year I review it’s sequel. However, before I start on that, I want to comment on something I said in the first year of Level Up. Since this is a game again published by Activision, I want to talk about how Activision was my favorite gaming company. There WAS a time where I thought they were doing great (for most of the 6th generation in fact). However, there was a noticable change during the last generation. They used to release a variety of games, but it started slowing down and X-men Destiny seemed to killed it. I’m not exaggerating when I say I can’t remember the last e-mail sent that wasn’t about a shooter or Skylanders game. They did just release the Deadpool game and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game is set to come out, but it seems like big exceptions to their normal “shooters n guns” releases, rather than the mixed bag I think it used to be. Regardless, here’s one of their games that was part of a great series they published (with developers Raven Software and SuperVillain Studios): X-men Legends 2 - Rise of Apocalypse, available for the PS2, GameCube and PC, but I’ll be playing it on the Microsoft xBox.

The gameplay is quite similar to the last game. For those of you that need a refresher or haven’t listened to that one, here’s a recap. The game is basically an action-RPG where you use parties of four people and fight brawler style with each player able to actively control one person. You have your basic light and heavy attacks, and you can use mutant powers by pressing the R button and pressing one of the main buttons (this uses energy though). You gain experience with each person you fight and, once you level up, you can allocate points to make your character stronger. You can also equip items to them to help their stats and you cary a number of health and energy potions you can use at any time. You also collect money, which can be used to buy equipment or potion, as well as revive fallen x-men (otherwise, they stay down, but still gain experience). Caught up? Good, because there isn’t that much changed between games. Most of the mechanics have been balanced out though, and there are more mutants and abilities allowing for more variation.

In the last game, the X-men had faced off against Magneto, and though he’s their main villain, another game where he basically just went “I’m trying to destroy the world again” would have been kind of lame. This time, the main villain is Apocalypse, who decided that the “Age of Apocalypse” is at hand and starts kidnapping mutants for unknown reasons. However this time you don’t just get to play as the X-men, but also as members of the brotherhood, as they are trying to save their members and stop Apocalypse from enslaving all of mutant kind too.

This is played out rather well. The game starts out partially in medias res, so it immediately intrigues you to see Magneto and Wolverine working to free Professor X, and you’ll want to figure out what is going on. That being said, the ending is not all that satisfying, as it basically boils down to a fight, and then “back to the status quo!”

X-men Legends 2 is, in a way, a very typical sequel video game. It pretty much uses the same game play mechanics, the same characters, a continuation of the story, etc... but offers more of it. In a way, I can’t praise it much, because it only really did what was expected from it and didn’t take many risks. On the other hand, it IS still better than the last game, and the story shows significant improvement with the new direction they decided to take. The graphics aren’t noticeably better though (still fine... from a distance) and the voice acting has it’s ups and downs (though Josh Keaton playing  Cyclops is  BIG up!). Basically, what I’m getting at is, if you liked the last game, you’ll like this one too, but if weren’t a fan of it, this one won’t win you over either. I give X-men Legends 2 for the xBox 8.5 levels out of 10.

Level Up: Lilo & Stitch

Ok, I just got to admit this right away: I love Lilo & Stitch. This is one of those Disney movies that manage to avoid most of its tropes and yet still be great: it’s not fantasy based, there’s no princess, there’s no big musical number, etc… Really the story becomes about two of the oddest best friends who find each other. As someone who was often the “weird” one in school growing up in school with an unconventional family, I can also sympathize with what Lilo is feeling at the start of the movie. Beyond that, we’re dealing with space aliens for a good amount of the run time, which is cool and makes for some damn fine action scenes. It’s really the kind of movie that I think has a little something for everyone and I still enjoy watching it every time.  If you haven’t seen it already, please check it out. So yeah… Um… what was my point again? … RIGHT! Lilo & Stitch for the Game Boy Advance.

The game takes place sometime after the movie. Lilo and Stitch are playing one day when suddenly aliens come and kidnap Lilo *for no particular reason*. Stitch then grabs 4 guns out of apparently nowhere and faces off against what I call the “Space otters”. Ok, I joke about it, but I really like alien designs in this game, as it looks like something we might have seen in the movie.

The first level has you playing as Stitch to shoot aliens. At this point, you might think that the whole game is going to be something like Contra. Surprisingly, in the next level, you play as Lilo, which plays out more like a puzzle adventure. She can’t fight enemies so you’ll have to tactically avoid them and instead focus on triggering the correct sequence of events to go on. You’d think this would be a harsh change, but these two styles complement each other. First off, Lilo still controls much the same way as Stitch, so it doesn’t feel like two different games. Furthermore, it shows how different Lilo and Stitch are, which was kind of a theme from the movie, but they still manage to find a solution and be together.

However, it wouldn’t surprise me if you never get to see Lilo’s stages during a play test. The game starts out difficult, especially for something seen as a children’s cartoon. The game doesn’t really seem to get harder once you get used to it though, and the number of levels is pathetically small. You’ll probably have trouble simply getting started with this game and then you’ll breeze right through it (however to me, that was just motivation to play it again right away).

Graphically speaking, this game is gorgeous! You’d half expect flat looking characters with really thick outlines, but the colors are all well-chosen, the details perfectly handled and they’re all fantastically drawn, though perhaps a bit small. The animations are really smooth, but they don’t take up more time than is needed, so it doesn’t hinder the game play. As a matter of fact, the only animations I would have a problem with are the movie clips used, as the downgrade is really noticeable and distracting. The cut scenes between the levels aren’t good either, as they’re just still images with text. It’s not terrible, I know a lot of games do this, but for the effort put into getting movie clips in the game, there could have been some put into the cut scenes (though they are still gorgeous).

The sounds in this game though aren’t good. Again, the quality from the movie rips is noticeably lowered, seeming to clip when I listened to it. The sound effects are passable for the most time, but poorly chosen quite often; a lot of hard click or pop when the sound should be something smoother. But the real fail is the music. You’d expect either something that gets you pumped and ready for action, or something really up-beat and ready to have fun. However, the main track of the game (for example) seems to be a Hawaiian inspired number (which is appropriate) but it’s really more relaxing that anything else, which NOT what this game is (with its difficulty). This continues for most of the game.

Lilo and Stitch is a game that really surprised me, as I did not expect it to be this good. Of course, I bought it thinking that it would be passable, but when you deal with licensed movie games you tend to set your expectations low. When I managed to really get started with the game, I found myself praising Digital Eclipse and Disney Interactive for putting a bit of creativity in the game play and not just making a run and gun shooter. That’s not to say I can overlook the game’s glaring flaws though: it is difficult considering the target audience, the music is very ill-fitting, you could change Lilo and Stitch to original characters and NOTHING is affected and the game is way too short. This prevents me from giving the game a great score like I wanted, but with its fun game play mix, smooth controls and beautiful graphics, I still highly recommend it. I give Lilo and Stitch for the Game Boy Advance 7 levels out of 10.