HOME Review

Dreamworks Home Review

Review Written By: Adolph Vega

http://www.dreamworks.com/home/

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3D

HOME looks very good in stereoscopic 3d with many scenes taking good advantage of the extra dimension but the 3D never wows the viewer.  The 3D looks sharp and vivid and you will notice that many of the scenes were specifically crafted to look better in 3D.  One specific scene with the Eiffel tower is the peak use of the 3D and makes a tense scene more immersive and exciting.  For the most part the 3D is subtle and only used for backgrounds being in different layers, but occasionally the movie will have pop out 3D with bubbles flying out of the screen and character pointing outward.  Overall the use of 3D was fun and enjoyable and a nice addition to the cinematic experience.

Final Verdict: Good 3D

Movie

Home starts its story in an unfamiliar fashion; space aliens have successfully invaded earth and relocated humanity. The space aliens are called the Boov and they are fleeing from another alien race who are threatening them.  The movie is focused on a specific alien named “Oh” and a young girl named Gratitude aka 'Tip’ Tucci and her cat named Pig. Tip has managed to evade capture and embarks on a journey to be reunited with her mother. During this time Oh has become an outcast from the other Boov and along the way he meets and befriends Tip a unlikely ally. Oh is voice acted by Jim Parsons whom is widely known for his role as Sheldon in the popular TV show “The Big Bang theory”.  Popular singer Rihanna voices Gratitude aka Tip Tucci. The characters of Tip and Oh have good chemistry together on screen and have well written dialog that works well for both characters. I found both the characters of Oh and Tip to be likable and have good personalities that translate well on screen. I really have to give credit to the writers for having such a diverse cast and avoid the traditional stereotypes. The aliens coming to earth and having trouble adapting to earth is a overused cliché but this movie handles it well enough to keep things flowing without being too familiar. Many of the plot points within this movie I found predicable, however the movie does have a few interesting twists and turns.  The movie feels frantic in pacing and rarely gives you time to develop the characters or give depth to the story.  I found many scenes to be clever and enjoyable; sadly many of funniest scenes were showcased in the trailers and ads for the movie. I really enjoyed how the Boov interacted with their technology and how and misinterpreted the human race and traditional western culture. One element of the movie I found odd was the complete lack of any military presence or resistance to the Boov alien invasion.  The absence of a military presence is understandable due to the context of the movie being geared toward a younger audience, but it still seem like a strange thing to exclude from a movie that is about a space alien invasion. The movie ends on a happy note and leaves the viewer feeling satisfied with all the major plots points being addressed and some nice character development. Overall I found the movie charming and enjoyable, yes many moments predictable and cliché but overall it was a better than I expected and a very entertaining animated movie. 

Final Verdict: 7/10

© 2014-2015 Dreamworks Animation LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask 3D Review

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D Review 

Review Written By: Adolph Vega

 

3D

The 3D within this game looks fantastic, and is similar to looking into a diorama with the 3ds screen being your window into this world. Your character is within the center of this 3d world and objects have great 3D depth distance and fantastic pop-out 3D depending on the environment and situation. The game nativity has 3d environments and the stereoscopic 3D only adds to the immersion of this game's world and characters.  This game uses the same 3D graphics engine that was present in the previous Zelda 3D re-release of Ocarina of time. If you have a circle pad pro accessory or New Nintendo 3ds you have direct control of the camera and it makes this world viewpoint easier to navigate and more interesting in 3D. It's very satisfying to move your character and see something in the distance comes closer to you both in game and via stereoscopic 3d. This game is a fully realized 3D game and the 3D graphics are impressive and fit the game like a glove. The game looks sharp and vivid in 3D but the 3D isn't perfect as the problem with ghosting double images happens. This problem with double images happens when contrasting colors cause issues with the eye. This issue cannot be fixed because it’s fundamental flaw within the 3ds hardware and the game’s ghosting can become distracting.  Once you start playing this game in 3d for any substantial amount of time you may find difficult going back to playing it in 2D. This 3D is one of the best examples of making 3d work well in the gameplay.

Final Verdict: Great 3D

Game:

 

When you think of a Legend of Zelda video game what do you think of? The character of Princess Zelda herself? The Triforce? Gannon? The Master sword? Except for a very minor cameo from Princess Zelda this game has none of those things. In fact I would have no problem if this game wasn’t part of the Zelda universe because it might make people more confortable with the games concepts and stop the endless comparisons to other Zelda games. This game is very strange, dark and has gameplay elements that are totally unique and unlike anything else within the Zelda franchise or any other video game for that matter. In this game you play as Link and suddenly find yourself transformed and in a strange world of Termina. Termina has a major problem; the moon is going to crash into the world in three days. Skull kid is wearing majora's mask and has caused many strange and unfortunate things to happen to the land of Termina and it's residents. To help stop the moon from ending the world and stop skull kid you must travel in each cardinal direction and save that area. As you travel across Termina you will meet several characters gain masks, gain items and abilities to help you save the world from the impending doom. The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask 3D is a remake of game that originally released in 2000 on the Nintendo 64. I have played the original game, the re-release on the Nintendo GAMECUBE and finally this 3D remake for the Nintendo 3DS. I have always enjoyed my experience with this quirky game. The setting has many dark undertones with death being a central theme. The reason why I enjoy this game so much is because the characters within the game are so engrossing and the gameplay is fun and unique. One of my favorite aspects of the game how it presents the characters, Termina and the citizens almost seems like living breathing world. This living world of Termina does not compare to other modern open world games like Grand theft Auto 5 but it works well. The characters in Termina run errands, walk around the town, and have more depth and are rich with personality. Many of the characters are touched by death and tragedy and saving them is deeply satisfying because of the darker more mature tone. I don’t want to spoil any of these character moments but the game is filled with somber and touching scenes. The story telling is simple with very little dialog and no voice acting yet is presented in a memorable and captivating fashion. Masks play a key role within the game and it almost becomes a secondary currency as you gain masks for specific purposes and one can lead to another. Most of the masks are gained by helping out the various characters with many story and side quests within the game. Many of the masks give you powers and abilities you don't usually have; for example if you wear bunny mask your character will run quickly like a bunny. The three most important masks within the game are the Zora mask, Goron mask and Deku mask. These masks transform the player into a different race/species with distinct abilities. The deku mask transforms you into a small plant creature, which allows you to enter specific crannies that jet you into the air, which allows you to float for short distances. The Goron mask turns you into a large rock creature that allows you roll around as a ball. Finally the Zora mask transforms you into a medium sized fish creature that allows you to easily swim. When you wear a mask the various characters in the game will treat you differently and have different conversations with the player. Some characters will be rude or friendlier to a specific race. I think the game hits the perfect balance regarding race relations and is a very subtle criticism of racism in general. Multiculturalism can truly save the world of Termina. Can you unite all the races and save the world of Termina in three days? The three-day cycle is a major part of the game and even has a counter that is constantly counting down to the inventible destruction of the Termina by the moon. It's impossible to complete the game within that three-day time frame on your first try. You will need to time travel back to the first day to start the cycle over on several occasions as you attempt to save Termina. When you travel back to the first day the events you have done will be reset, but any weapons or songs you collected will travel with you in the new attempt. When you return to the first day certain disposable items will vanish from your inventory. For example the bow is a weapon that will carry over, but the individual arrows are disposable and will not carry over to the next run. A banker is in the game that allows you to save your money will carry it over regardless of the run. Is this a subtle reference to capitalism and the bankers always finding a way to survive? The economy system within the game is somewhat broken because treasure chests that contain large amounts of rupees (currency) will refill in each run. So you can easily cheat the system and gain large amounts of money without much effort. The three-day system is very interesting in other ways because the various story events will happen again in new runs of the game. At times I question the notion of free will because of this game as the characters do the same thing during the three days and the events unfold exactly the same exact way. If somebody looped my life for three days will I do the same thing again and again?  For example on the second day it will rain in the city of clock town, this will happen every single run of the game and nothing can be done to change it. The three-day element is interwoven into the many side quests as certain story events only happen on specific days and certain times. The game manages all the various side quests and story missions in a guide called the bombers notebook. This notebook system can get in your face at times, but I like the amount of information that is provided to the player and how you can set reminders for yourself. The overall presentation of bombers notebook is very handy and is automatically generated as you play the game. This game is loaded with characters to help with many side quests, and a majority of the side quests are optional yet beneficial to the player. Some side quests weave themselves back into the main story and help fill the gaps in the narrative. The game really pushes you to accomplish all the side quests so you can gain more information and motivations of the many characters. You may have to pick and choose what characters deserve a happy ending, and which don’t deserve your time because you simply don’t have enough time to accomplish everyone’s side quest within the three day cycle. The three days cycle can be micromanaged by the player by the element of time travel. This ability to time travel and manipulate time is a crucial aspect of the game. You can slow down the passage of time, travel into specific hours into the future and as mentioned previously travel back to the first day. You cannot repeat a day; you can only travel back to the first day so you can’t redo the third day or second day without traveling back to the first. This manipulation and control of time is important for several reasons. Slowing down the flow of time can help the player accomplish key aspects of the game by limiting some of the pressure. Even with the ability to slow down the flow of time the clock will continue to count down to the destruction of Termina. Time traveling into the future will help the player accomplish goals and side quests that are dependent on specific time frames. You can time travel to the future in increments of an hour. Playing specific songs with the ocarina of time controls the element of time travel within the game. Your ocarina is a key item within the game and you will learn new songs that will help you save Termina. Playing your ocarina is a simple process of reading the notes on the screen and pressing the corresponding buttons. You can easily view the songs you collected on the bottom screen so playing the songs is a breeze. Regardless how you manage your time you simply don’t have enough and this element of dread causes stress and anxiety to the player. The game will actually show you a apocalyptic video if you fail to save Termina. I really enjoy having this pressure being placed onto the player because it forces you to play the game in a different way and is a tangible consequence for failure. You need manage your time wisely and endless procrastination is simply not an option. I understand some people want to play videogames leisurely and find it difficult to enjoy this game because the pressure to save Termina in three days can be overbearing. I find the time management aspect of the game to exhilarating, fun and unique. The sense of accomplishment is more present because of the limited time and it feels more immersive because of the three-day limitation. Within the game you have many save points all over the world of Termina. Having so many save points does alleviate some of the stress of the game. Compared to other Legend of Zelda games this game has very different gameplay and is a shorter experience. The game has five distinct areas including the main town. Each area has distinct characters to talk to and potentially new enemies to battle. The game has four dungeons to conquer that are mentally challenging and vary dramatically from each other. I found the water temple the most tedious of the four dungeons. This dungeon requires to the player to swim around and change the water height at several locations, and it can become confusing to navigate. Each dungeon has a distinct boss character to defeat and mini bosses to battle. Overall the world of Termina is diverse with many interesting areas to explore and many memorable characters to interact with. It may seem like a small adventure with only four dungeons but the game is dense and never outlasts its welcome. The world of Termina feels lean and tight with no real padding or fat within the game. The game has some key differences from the Nintendo 64 original that I must discuss before wrapping up this review. Swimming as the Zora and rolling as a ball as a Goron are different from the Nintendo 64 version of the game. I think the changes to the gameplay are made for the better and make a more balanced game. The bombers notebook I mentioned before is much more detailed than the Nintendo 64 original. The graphics are vastly improved from the Nintendo 64 original, with many subtle details that give the environments more personality and dramatically improved character models. If you play the game on the New Nintendo 3DS or using a circle pad pro accessory you have full access to use the move the camera. I played about half the game on the original 3DS and half on the NEW 3DS and I enjoyed having camera controls but the default camera controls are completely serviceable. I am slightly disappointed that the extra LZ and RZ shoulder buttons are not used for items on the NEW 3DS; they only mirror the input of the L/R buttons. Regarding the controls I had no problems playing this game, and the use of the touch screen makes inventory management simple and intuitive. The Boss battles have been altered and are different from the original game. The boss character weak points are made more obvious within this game. This change makes the boss battles easier, and sadly makes first major boss is a little too easy now because of this change. I actually appreciate this change because the battles were vague before and this alleviates some of the previous boss battle frustration. This version of the game does add fishing ponds that were not present in Nintendo 64 version. The fishing element is simple and strait forward and fun diversion that adds little to the game. Overall Majora’s Mask 3D is only a refinement of that original game. All that being said I still think this 3D version is the definitive version of the game. After 15 years this game holds up beautifully with tight fun gameplay and characters and scenes that are memorable. The issues I have with the game are so minor that I cannot discount any points. The Legend of Zelda Majora's mask was a wonderful game when it released 15 years ago and it has only become better on the Nintendo 3DS. I might be reading too much into the game but I love how it subtly comments on the ideas of racism, what is free will and the notions of death. I feel this game handles mature themes perfectly yet is appropriate for younger gamers to enjoy too. I really got a wonderful sense of satisfaction replaying the game and reentering and saving the world of Termina. Do not miss this game; it’s truly a bizarre masterpiece and is totally worthy of your time and money.

Final Verdict: 10/10

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Citizens Of Earth 3DS Game Review

Citizens Of Earth 3DS Game Review (Updated)

Review Written By: Adolph Vega

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3D

Citizens of Earth does not have any stereoscopic 3D what so ever. Nintendo does not require all 3DS games to have a stereoscopic 3D graphics. I naturally assume that every 3DS game will have 3D graphics in some fashion, but it's entirely up to the developers to decide, and for this game they decided not to include any 3D graphics.

Final Verdict: NO 3D AVAILABLE 

 

Game:

Citizens of Earth started out as a crowd funded game on kick-starter. That campaign failed to meet its final goal, but game company Altus jumped in and finished the game and published it. Citizens of Earth is a traditional Japanese style turn-based Role Playing Game that plays from a top-down birds eye view prospective. The game feels both fresh and familiar to fans of the genre and has a clean art style that looks nice on the 3DS screen. In Citizens of Earth you play as the Vice President of Earth, and your quest is to discover the truth behind the strange happenings of a local coffee shop. As you play the game you will talk to various characters “citizens” and recruit them into your party to join you on your journey. The game has a huge world to explore and many enemies to combat in turn based battles. The battle system is fairly strait forward turn based system with lots of items, magic abilities, healing abilities and many different offensive and defensive abilities. If you played a Role playing game before this is fairly standard fare. The game lets you recruit different citizens by accomplishing specific quests for them. The cast of characters you can recruit to your party is vast and varied, but only three can battle and level up at one time. Fortunately when you switch to a new citizen they level up quickly. I highly suggest you try out different citizens to see the various pros and cons of each citizen in your group. Picking the citizen to join your team has benefits to the main player during the course of the game. For example if you recruit the used car salesmen you can drive his car around the world map. Sadly this car will disappear after you park and can only be reclaimed in one spot, and the mini game to recruit the car salesmen is frustrating. Other citizens also have other useful abilities and it's in your interest to try to recruit them into your team, but the developers wisely decided not to require that certain citizens to be on your team to finish the game and you can finish the game with the introductory group. If you keep the introductory group it will make certain areas in game more difficult and make battles more tedious because the new citizens give variety to battles in the game. The game is fairly lengthy and can take nearly 20-30 hours to compete the main story. The game can last you longer depending on the amount of citizens you recruit and the amount of side quests you finish so it’s totally dependent on the player on how long this game will last. The game has a very humorous and interesting storyline that I found very entertaining. The story is easily the best feature of the game because it's so well written and contains truly great voice acting. The voice actors within the game know how to deliver funny dialog and clever banter, and each character has a distinct personality and unique voice. Some of the voice actors can sound like clichés but it is never done to ridicule but always for laughs and is light-hearted in nature. The voice acting isn’t a flawless execution because the characters repeat the same voice catchphrases during battle, and other times the voice acting is unreliable with some characters only saying a few words in a conversation and remain silent for the remainder even though they have written dialog. Overall the voice acting is well done and combined with the well written and interesting storyline it makes this is the real highlight of the game. I really enjoyed the interaction between the characters and the story kept me interested from beginning to end. Going back to the characters they have many side quests to accomplish, that can become daunting as you continue to add side quests on your journey. Sometimes you can start a quest by accident and not even know who or what the reason is for the quest. The game does have a nice menu system that organizes your story related quests and side quests, but I still found the large amount of quests overwhelming. This game can have one story quest lead to a side quest that leads to 5 other side quests, and eventually leads to player confusion as you can get confused in what your supposed to do. I also found some of the story missions to be vague and have puzzles that are not clear to the player. I understand the game is supposed to be challenging but many times I wondered around the world not sure where to go or whom to talk to for advancing the story.  The story can advance in several different fashions depending where you go and whom you talk to, so you can have many unclear paths to advance the story. The game does list objectives for your quests from the menu but the game lacks a hint system to help the player. One aspect I enjoyed most about the menu is the ability to save the game quickly from almost any area at any time. The game also has an auto save function that activates after you leave certain areas on the map. Overall the menus within the game are easy to manage and use the 3DS dual screen set-up nicely. The main gameplay is displayed on the top screen and menus and map are displayed on the bottom screen. Sadly the map system within the game is not handled as well as it should be. The game has two maps; a large map and a mini map and they are given to the player to access at any time immediately when starting the adventure. The large map is too big for the 3DS screen resolution and it's hard to make out details. The mini map within the game is strange because of two aspects, the first being that it doesn't fully fit the bottom screen's size. The mini map only uses about a third of the screen size of the bottom screen the rest of the screen is totally wasted. The second mini map issue I have is the yellow story indicator. The yellow indicator on the map shows you where to go to progress the storyline but it’s the same color and shape of the treasure indicator. Often I would try to make progress in the story and find treasure instead and become frustrated. Speaking of treasure, I feel this game is too liberal with treasure and ruins the in-game economy because you never need to buy gear or items from the store because the large amounts of treasures on the map makes going to a store pointless. Going back to the map issues the player cannot zoom in /out and you cannot scroll or move the map at all. When you enter interior areas of the game they have no map, and many times it can be confusing because the interior rooms can look nearly identical to the previous rooms. I really wish the game had a map system that let you fill it out as you played and gave you more options to use and view the map. The issues with the maps are annoying and cause unneeded frustration to the player. After a few hours of gameplay the world opens up and lets you explore anywhere on the map. The map shows enemy placement and are clearly visible as you explore the various environments in the games world. You will go into battle with enemies once someone in your party touches them. The standard enemy battles can become annoying because of many aspects. The first aspect of frustration is that the enemies’ behavior is directed to be either fleeing away or running strait toward the player. This fight or flight enemy behavior is dependent on story elements. Usually I wouldn’t have any problem with this kind of enemy behavior, but it can become very annoying when you are exploring an area and you are thrown into constant combat. The second reason of frustration is the inconsistent nature of the amount of enemies in each given area. Sometimes the environments will be infested with enemies and you will be in non-stop battles, or the opposite and the environments are totally barren of enemies. The game rarely has the fair balance of enemies in any given environment. The third reason for frustration is the areas of the map you traverse is relatively small so you’re more likely to be forced into battle with enemies because you don’t have room to walk around them. I think the size of the characters on screen need to be better scaled to give the player room to explore and avoid enemies if they choose to. One of the reasons you cannot escape battles is because four characters within your party are shown walking at any given time. The player controls the Vice President and the three active party members that follow you, and are always visible on screen as you travel within the game world. The other characters essentially snake behind the Vice President and can be called to charge out and attack an enemy. If you surprise an enemy this can lead to instant kill of the enemy and be rewarded experience points. If one of the enemies walks into your character group and surprises you the battle will be fought with less magic abilities. Sadly I experienced too many accidental battles because one of the team members accidentally hit an enemy that was no fault of my own. This accidental battle aspect, the poor character scale combined with the enemies actively searching for the player can make exploration of the many environments very tedious and infuriating. I did enjoy the various environments within the game and thought it did a great job in making each area of the map district with different enemies and new characters to talk to. The game can be annoying at times but overall I did enjoy my experience until I started encountering the numerous glitches and crashes. Sometimes the glitches can be minor graphical issues in the battle screen or characters becoming stuck walking around parts of the environment. These small glitches are irritating but harmless, unfortunately the glitches don’t end there and the game has a bad habit of abruptly crashing and forced your 3DS to reboot. Thankfully the auto save feature keeps your lost progress to a minimum, but occasionally you may have to retrace your steps because the previous save was a few minutes prior. I can understand if the game crashing was a random fluke, but during the course of this 30-hour adventure this game crashed on me 10 times. Clearly the game crashing wasn’t a fluke and is bad coding. The game even crashed 3 times in a row in the same area, and this area was a required area to advance the story. I was almost ready to give up on the game after it crashed three times in a row in the same spot, but I pushed forward because it wanted to experience the full game before reviewing it. Sadly nearly a month after release and no patches or updates are available for the 3DS version the game. The developer is clearly aware of these issues and hasn’t tried to patch the game, and this is inexcusable. Even if they squashed all the bugs they still need to fix the issues with the map, annoying enemies and obtuse puzzles. If the developer patches the game I may consider patching my review and final score, but at its current state this game is enjoyable yet flawed. This is the kind of game I really wanted to love, but couldn’t because of the various issues that caused more frustration than fun. Citizens of Earth has a compelling story, with great characters and wonderful voice acting but the game is all but ruined buy the many annoying aspects including the numerous glitches, annoying enemy behavior, obtuse puzzles and badly designed map system. 

 Review Update: 

On April 15th 2015 the developers of this game sent out a patch to the game to make the most current version be 1.1.  This update can be found on the Nintendo e-shop and includes the following: 

General Patch Details:

•  Minor bug fixes

•  Crash/stability fixes

•  Reduced encounters in Casino Canyon

•  Added checkpoint in Casino Canyon

•  Added Retro soundtrack

I feel this patch changes enough aspects of the game to  change the Final Score up a point FROM 6/10 TO 7/10 and I am glad the developer has fixed some of the most troublesome issues within the game. Sadly they haven't added stereoscopic 3D graphics or fixed issues I had with the map or enemy AI. I strongly suggest you download the patch from Nintendo's e-shop to get a better gameplay experience. This game is far from perfect but this update has taken a huge step in the right direction and is enough to justify an increase in it's final score.

Final Score: 7/10

©2014 Eden Industries. Produced by ATLUS. Licensed to and published by Atlus U.S.A., Inc.