Demo Review 33: Chronos Twins DX

In solar system Neon, inhabited planet Skyla receives the visit of a powerful evil hell-bent on destroying everything. Each plan attempted by the armed forces results in a failure. After fleeing the planet, the Ancients deduct that this evil character has travelled through time, and that their only chance to beat it is to send one of their warriors in the past. Thus, they build a machine and send Nash, a proud fighter from a race of warriors, back in time to fight the thing.

That’s what we learn in the Introduction to Chronos Twins DX’s demo. The main menu also allows one to change the controls (you can use the Wii remote and Nunchuk, or the Classic Controller, or the GameCube controller). And it’s kind of a pain with the Wii remote and Nunchuk if you ask me; the default control settings had the character attack with B and A, move with the joystick and jump with the C or Z button on the Nunchuk. Kinda problematic, it might take a while to get used to that. In fact, wouldn’t it be simple to just use the Wii remote held horizontally?

In Level 0, we control Nash as he makes his way across a city. He quickly reaches the boss and proves unable to defeat it – Hell, it’s rigged so that you cannot beat it, and it gives Nash a thorough beating. That monster is attacking in two time periods at the same time… Don’t try to make sense of that. On his dying bed, Nash tells his younger brother Nec to fight for the people of Skyla… and many years later, Nec is ready to step into battle with the ability to battle the villain in two different time periods at once. Hence the “Chronos Twins”. One Nec attacks with B, the other attacks with A, and since he exists in two periods at once, this means he can walk on platforms that are in only one of the time periods and not in the other.

After Level 0, we get to try four other levels in this demo. Level 1 is a straightforward level that showcases the dual-screen gimmick. Level 2 has a large monster following behind Nec and the protagonist has to destroy the large rocks falling in his way – in both time periods – while escaping the monster. Level 3 explains how Nec can stop time in one period to solve puzzles, such as pushing blocks in one period to allow the one in the other to jump over tall pillars. And Level 4 is a boss, which you must defeat by taking into account the top screen (where the boss is) and the bottom screen (where there’s two platforms that you must jump on to reach the boss’s weak point).

All in all, this looks like a solid game. However, it’s extremely difficult to keep your attention on both screens, so you may end up falling into traps you never saw coming. Either something hits Nec in the bottom screen while you are looking at the top one, or vice versa. That’s what would happen to me. Still, it’s a really creative concept. I wouldn’t buy it, but the demo was rather fun to try. Besides, very few demos offer so much. Feel free to give it a try… maybe you’ll be better at it than I was.

Just Dance 2014

Check out the (admittedly quite corny) review of Just Dance 3, which was posted way back in December 2013! It’s all in rhyme!

Well, Christmas will be rolling around soon. That means we’re soon gonna be stuffing ourselves on turkey, meat pies and mashed potatoes while watching the millionth adaptation of A Christmas Carol with the entire family. Christmas is one of those holidays where the food is one of the key elements, so a lot of people end up on January 2^nd with a few more pounds than they had before December 25^th. Hence the importance of exercise. You want these extra lipids to fly off? Gotta walk, gotta play sports… gotta dance!

So much color, it's a feast for the eyes.

I never hid it, I’m a fan of Ubisoft’s Just Dance series. In general, I tend to like games that offer a good workout on the Wii. It’s different from… well… everything else. I never felt like I was exercising much with Kirby’s Dream Land. Mario Super Sluggers, however, would tire my arms after two or three baseball matches. Same for the bicycle race in Wii Sports Resort. But that's not a problem; on the contrary, I like to feel like I'm exercising. However, very few – if any – of those games actually require moving the entire body; the arm holding the Wii remote will do most of the work, and in the case of Nunchuk-compatible games, both arms will work about equally. On that aspect, the Kinect Just Dance games had to be a lot more difficult, if only because you also have to move your legs. Call me lazy if you want, but personally, I see nothing wrong with the Wii version being restricted to the movements of the right hand. A lazy person wouldn’t be making 2,000-word posts every week, for your reading pleasure, accompanied by title cards, pictures, bonus articles and videos… like this one…

Okay, okay, Nicolas; focus. Just Dance 2014 is the umpteenth game in the Just Dance series, a series that includes Just Dance 1, 2, 3, 4, Kids 1, Kids 2, Kids 2014, Disney Party 1, Disney Party 2, and all the spin-offs (Michael Jackson, Black Eyed Peas, Broadway, Hip Hop, Smurfs, ABBA) and compilations of levels from previous games (Summer Party, Greatest Hits and Best Of). And in return, it’s being followed by Just Dance 2015 and 2016.

Demo Review 32: BIT.TRIP VOID

And we’re back for another BIT.TRIP game! Will this one be better than the others? The intro shows our pixelly character near two others. The main character (Name: ????) suddenly starts growing. The red circle surrounding him grows as well, while the two other characters suddenly shrink. After a while, the main character tosses the two other characters aside as his red circle fills the screen.

…I don’t think this intro would make sense in any possible way, shape or form, even if one was to subscribe me to a 45-hour class explaining every event leading up to it.

The game that comes next is pretty straightforward; You control a pixel circle with the Nunchuk’s joystick, as black and white dots fly across the screen. You must avoid the white ones and catch the black ones, task that would be simple if there weren’t two crucial details:

-Each time it catches a black pixel, the circle grows, so at some point it gets too big to be able to avoid the numerous white pixels;

-And the screen appears to darken and play with lighting a lot, which often makes it difficult to see all the black squares.

Thankfully, pressing A on the Wii remote will “empty” the circle and create bullets that destroy the white pixels… I think. Look, this game is so abstract, I have no idea what it’s about. All I know is that the levels somehow create music as you catch the black pixels. Well, this IS technically a rhythm game, after all… Though, if the circle gets hit by a white square, it reverts to small size. Can you get a high score? Can you beat every level?

Not a fan of that one. I found myself not liking the whole BIT.TRIP series all that much. I can understand why some people would like it, but it’s too weird for me. I guess it just comes down to personal preference… and I can’t dictate to you what to like and what not to like, so if you want to see by yourself what the game is, download the demo version from the Wii Shop Channel and try it.

I guess it’s too trippy for me. Oh, and there’s still two more of those…

Demo Review 31: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As A Darklord

For this game, only the Wiimote is required. Oh, this looks girly, with hearts everywhere. Even a heart-shaped fortress? Oh my… Is this young girl the “Darklord” the title refers to? Sigh, let’s get this over with. This Darklord wannabe is willing to fight heroes, and everything takes place in her tower. You can use “negative energy” to build floors in the tower (max. 5 at first). Each floor has a trap that instantly attacks any hero that steps in; however, the hero can then attack that trap and move on to the next floor. When a trap is destroyed, the whole floor is destroyed and you need to build a new one on top of the heroes’ location. The heroes come in waves, and this game plays a bit like a reverse Tower Defense game.

…well, Tower Defense it is, except you’re the bad guy, your tower is under attack, so you have to defend it… I think I lost my comparison somewhere in there.

The second level introduces goblins to be placed on every floor, to attack the heroes. It also introduces a table of types; this game has enemies of five types, three of which form a triangle where each is strong against a second and weak against a third (not unlike Grass-Fire-Water from Pokémon), a type that deals the same damage to anything regardless of type, and a last type that doesn’t attack and only heals heroes. You can place up to three enemies on the same floor, but be wary of adventurers burning the steps, as a hero will move right to the next floor if there’s already a battle going on in a floor. Pesky adventurers, can’t even help each other! The second level also introduces Black Mages, another hero class. Well, this IS a Final Fantasy game after all…

The third level introduces the last concepts for this demo; you can buy upgrades for your monsters, to make them more powerful and durable against the heroes, and you can also create support-type floors that will help your forces. In fact, you can even upgrade your tower so that it can have more then 5 floors. This level also introduces a Level 7 hero as the boss, a hero that can use a spell called Slow to make your monsters attack less often. See, both monsters and heroes in this game have a bar that refills after they’ve attacked; and when it’s full, they attack and it empties itself. This defines the attack speed of each character. Spells like Slow will make said bars take more time to refill, causing your goblins to attack less often when they’re hit by the spell. Other status effects such as Haste, Paralyze, Poison and Bravery exist, but we won’t see them here.

By the way, this demo ends after five levels, making it one of the longest demos I’ve played for Demo Reviews. It’s an enjoyable game, but there’s a lot of things to learn before you can be any good at it. Instead of being a straightforward RPG like the main Final Fantasy titles, this is more like a strategy game with an RPG premise. Every human character that appears in the cutscenes is a girl, and they look like adults drawn in a chibi style to resemble kids. That’s really weird. The human adventurers who enter the Darklord’s tower also look like kids… Oh well. The five levels available in the demo still allow the player to test every feature, and that’s exactly what a demo should do, right?

If that’s just what you’d like to try, go ahead.

Demo Review 30: Dive

When the demo starts, we get to choose between Easy, Normal or Hard. Let’s go with Easy for the moment.

The intro tells us of an order of Knights Templar of Spain, who built a monastery for their King in the thirteenth century; sadly, two centuries later, an earthquake sent the whole thing into the sea, its secrets lost possibly forever. …Or are they? That’s when our main character, an intrepid diving archaeologist, comes in, decided to bring it all back to the land, in hopes of making world-changing discoveries!

A simple story for what is basically a diving game. The demo begins around the Medes Islands, and we find how to control the character underwater: to move forward, we need to press and hold the B button on the Wiimote. After which we can start treasure-hunting. The diver moves by following the cursor on the screen. We can then look for shining dots on the seafloor; these are pieces of ancient treasure to be collected; each of them is worth quite a bit of money, and that’s a good thing. You can keep collecting those and amass enough money to upgrade your equipment, whether it’s the diving suit, the flashlight or the oxygen tank.

Talking about the oxygen tank, this is one of the most important features; if you press B twice to boost the diver forward, a bit of oxygen will be taken out. The oxygen normally depletes the longer you spend underwater. Also, getting hit by underwater creatures will cause the diver to struggle and lose a bit of oxygen. Thankfully, some refills can be found down there – but don’t ask me how those things ended up on the sea floor. We can also defend ourselves from the different dangerous sea creatures, such as jellyfish and piranhas, and shoot tranquilizers at them by pressing the A button. After a while, we reach the ruins, and find a dolphin statue worth 2,000 points.

On the menu, we can see the map, and we can also move to different portions of the island to dive for treasure. We can also upgrade the diver’s items, using the money earned by finding treasure. There are also achievements to be collected. However, the demo ends as we enter the second level.

I’ve got to say, this is a fun game. A relaxing one, but a fun one. It takes a moment to get used to the different functions, because the demo only starts explaining them when they become required, such as the tranquilizer dart gun and the flashlight. This demo offers at least ten minutes of gameplay, which is more than I could say for a lot of demos out there. Thankfully, if you do find the dolphin statue, you can already upgrade some of the diver’s tools and keep on playing the first level to find secrets hidden a little deeper. I can’t buy this game for now, but I recommend that you at least try the demo. And if you like it, buy the WiiWare game.