Review 17: Azurik: The Rise Of Perathia (XBOX)

And now, for one of the most underrated games of all time. Azurik was released for the original Xbox as a launch title, and when it was released, it didn't get many good reviews. Most reviewers thought the environment was horrible, the controls were clunky (etc.). However, if you dive deeper into this game, you will find that it's not so bad after all.


Story: 7/10 


The story is a little original, if not cliche. In the land of Perathia, there are six Realms: the Water Realm, the Earth Realm, the Fire Realm, the Air Realm, the Life Realm and the Death Realm. Six corresponding disks bring balance to all of these realms. The Death Disk, though, had been lost a long time ago, but still everything is fine. Guardians protect the land from enemies as well as the disks, keeping the peace.


The story starts when you, a young guardian named Azurik, are training. Another guardian, named Balthazar, challenges you to a fight and nearly kills you. It should be noted here that Balthazar is greedy, and strives for power. However, the Master, Eldwin, stops him. Bitter, Balthazar breaks a wall of the training room and finds the Death Disc. He brings it to his home, and there, the Guardian of the Death Disc possesses him.


Later, Azurik and Eldwin are on top of a tower where the Discs are located. Suddenly, Balthazar, influenced by the Death Guardian, kills Eldwin and breaks all of the disks into pieces, scattering them all over the realm. After this event, the balance of Perathia has been shattered. Now Azurik must locate all of the Disk fragments, stop Balthazar and bring the balance back to Perathia.


I've got to admit, this sounds like something you'd hear in your regular 1995 RPG. However, some bits are original enough, which is why I'm giving it a higher rating.


Gameplay: 9/10


Now onto the gameplay. This is where it gets interesting. Your weapon in this game is the Axiom, a staff which can harness the powers of Earth, Water, Fire and Air, which are each collected at different points in the game. It can also mix these powers to create new elements: Acid, Lava, Whirlwind and a shield are just a few of these things. I think the team was being really creative here, as there are a lot of combinations that can be made with four starting points. 


The Axiom will have to be used a lot, though, as it's a big world out there! The main thing you'll have to be doing in this game is exploring. You can visit all six realms mentioned above, as well as a "hub" where a small town, which seems to be the only living spot for humanoids such as Azurik, is located. But 6 realms means that they're all going to be small, right? Wrong. Every realm save for those of Life and Death have at least 4 separate areas, each with their own style: for example, the Water Realm has an area with an Ice theme, one with a Stormy theme, and 2 with a normal grassy and stony theme. These areas are large in themselves, as well, so it'll take a long, long, long time trying to find all of the Disk Fragments. But I guess that's just part of the challenge, too, and in some ways I actually like it. 


And then there are the enemies. The pesky, pesky enemies. Especially in the Air Realm, where most of the time there isn't much space not to get knocked down, the enemies will be lots of trouble in this game. There are Blaze Sentinels which shoot fire at you, a problem if there are other pesky enemies around you, Harvesters, which come in packs, and Golems, big lugs that take a lot of time to kill. Worse, every time you die, every single enemy regenerates too, and although that may not sound like a problem, trust me, it is. Most times, the enemies swarm up on you, and you'll probably get hit at least once in the scuffle, even if you're a good player. 


Finally, there are the puzzles and mini-games. There are a variety of them in this game, including a mini-game at the beginning where you must move the control stick to put out a fire before parts of it reform, various parts of the game where you must find a few "keys" to unlock new sections of a realm, a puzzle at the end of the game where you must move an elevator to multiple places to get to the final boss, and more. Not all of these are welcome, though; the Elevator puzzle is confusing and would probably take a long time to figure out, and one mini-game at the very end of the Life Realm, in which you use a cannon to try to shoot the cores out of 20 satellites while avoiding yellow trails, is considered by many to be the hardest part of the game. 


All in all, I very much enjoyed the gameplay of Azurik. It's creative, fun, and it'll take a long time before you get through everything, although it could have gone without some of the enemy placements and puzzles.


Graphics: 10/10


This game's graphics were absolutely stunning for its time. Azurik was one of the first game to ever use anti-aliasing, which made sure that the models or environments didn't look strange. On top of that, the Xbox's hardware made the graphics be able to look their finest, even without HD. The water in the Water Realm has the exact same color you would find in a regular lake, and the waves are very realistic as well. In the Ice area of the Water Realm, Azurik even has steam coming out of his mouth! The team did very well in making good graphics especially for the early 2000s, whether they were the environments or the smaller things that made the background all that more appealing.


Music: 9/10 


For the most part, Azurik used composed music directly from an orchestra. Although I don't really listen to that type of music, I have to say, the composers definitely put everything in place. The theme for the Earth Realm is very straightforward and down to earth (no pun intended) like a rock, the song for when you're fighting in the Fire Realm sound intense and random, like fire, one of the Air Realm themes sounds heavenly like clouds, and one of the themes for the stormy part of the water realm sounds unsettled, just like a real storm. Even though I didn't really listen to many of the themes when playing through the game, they still sounded good in the background, and made the game much more enjoyable than if there had been no music at all.


Replay Value: 7/10 


The length of this game has different responses: For some people, such as me, it's good because it means I can keep on playing as long as I want and even if I complete it, I'll still probably be surprised at some other point of playing it again, because I will have forgotten it. For some people, though, they're turned off by the length, and they wouldn't want to have to go through all that trouble just to complete one game. Personally, I think that to reward the players, they should have made a menu for all of the hidden cheat codes in the game (yes, there are some), maybe have made an Endless Battle mode to fight every enemy until you die, or at least have had a "New Game +" type of mode where you started with all of your elements. But that's just me. I don't think most people would be compelled to play this game with the same thing again, mainly because of its length, which is why I'm giving it a lower rating.




Overall: 8/10


There are definitely some things that they could have done better with this game, but when it comes down to it, this game really is great. The gameplay is creative and fun for the most part, the music is good, and the graphics are just stunning. I find it a shame that no sequel has been released yet, but it's probably because of most of the other reviewers who have rated it so low. Well, I'm reviewing this game too, and I have something to say: This game is amazing.

Review 16: Balloon Fight (NES)

Balloon Fight is a game that was released in Japan on January 22, 1985. Featuring an unnamed Balloon Fighter, it has had numerous ports and remakes made for it, including one featuring the character Tingle from The Legend Of Zelda. So what this game all about? Let's find out.




Gameplay: 8/10


There are three modes in this game: 1 Player Mode, 2 Player Mode and Balloon Trip. 1 Player Mode is the main mode, in which you start with three lives. In it, you can use the control pad to go left or right and repeatedly press the A or B buttons to go up. If you stop pressing the button(s), the Balloon Fighter goes down. The point of the game is to pop all of the enemy Balloon Fighter's balloons by bumping into the balloons and then knocking them down, while at the same time not allowing them to pop your two balloons, in which case you will lose a life. It is also possible to lose a life by accidentally falling into water, getting eaten by a fish if you're too close to said water, or getting hit by lightning. 


At the same time, like any other good NES game, there is a points system. Points can be earned by popping enemy balloons, knocking the enemy down, popping the bubbles which appear after the fallen enemy is off the screen, or by popping balloons (without a fighter) in a bonus round, which happens after every 2 stages.


The next mode is the 2 Player Mode. It is exactly the same as the first mode, except a second player can join in for a co-operative game, meaning you can't pop the balloons of the other player. The only thing about these two modes are the controls: When you first get into the air, it's extremely hard to move left or right, and although that changes after a while, it makes stopping hard as well, even if you're trying to flap in the opposite direction.


Finally, the last mode is Balloon Trip. It could be considered as a different game altogether, as the gameplay is very different than the first one: Here, the screen is side-scrolling, and the objective is to collect as many balloons as you can while not falling too deep or touching any of the lightning sparks. You only start off with one life in this mode, making it even more difficult.


All in all, the gameplay of this game is very addictive, and having an extra, completely different mode certainly doesn't hurt it at all.




Graphics: 7/10


The graphics here certainly aren't the best, but they're not too bad either; as in, not as good as the graphics of Super Mario Brothers 3, but better than that of Super Mario Brothers. Not much else to say here.


Music: 6/10


The main problem in this game is that during most of the game, you will not hear any music. Instead, you will hear a bunch of high-pitched noises as you flap around and try to get the enemy, which can be a little annoying at times. To my knowledge, the only background music is the music that plays in the bonus round/Balloon Trip mode, and although it's catchy, it's not enough to give the "soundtrack" a good rating. 


Replay Value: 10/10


This is one of those games that has an addictive quality as soon as you start playing. Somehow, to me popping balloons while not trying to get popped yourself is pretty dang fun, and it makes you want to get as far as you possibly can in the game, which also goes with Balloon Trip. There's just something about it that makes you not want to stop.


Overall: 8/10


Marred only by its lack of a soundtrack and difficult controls, Balloon Fight is a great game that is vastly underrated. It has overall good gameplay, three modes and a great addictive quality, so why not get it? It's available on the Virtual Console for only 500 Wii Points.

Review 15: Mega Man 2 (NES)

Mega Man: Capcom's masterpiece series. The Blue Bomber has been in the gaming industry for more than 20 years now, and it seems that he's far from stopping. The Megaman series, also known as Rockman in Japan, has spawned several spin-off series, cartoons, figurines, and more, and it all came from one small game with very low expectations: Mega Man. That game started off everything we see today. However, it did not sell very well in comparison to some other games. Nonetheless, Capcom decided to make a sequel, and that sequel, Mega Man 2, may just be the reason you see the familiar blue robot today.

Story: 6/10

Actually, basically the only bit of plot in the entire story is that after Mega Man defeated the evil Doctor Wily in the previous game, Wily later counteracted with 8 of his own robots: Metal Man, Quick Man, Flash Man, Crash Man, Air Man, Heat Man, Bubble Man and Wood Man. Of course, Mega Man is able to beat all of them, and makes his way through Wily's Castle, where he defeats Wily again, and Wily begs for forgiveness, upon which Mega Man spares him and returns home.

Although this short plot would have been typical for some NES games, I am downgrading this because even the previous game had more story than this, when it explains Dr. Wily was a colleague of Dr. Light's, the one who created Mega Man, who soon turned bitter and set his efforts on world domination, and re-modified 6 of Light's robots to help him. Here, it just states that Wily built 8 robots to stop Mega Man. This game has the least plot of all the Mega Man games, and even though it didn't have to have a plot, I feel Capcom could have done better.

Gameplay: 9/10

Like every other Mega Man game, the game consists of you choosing a Robot Master's level from a menu without a specific order. Each Robot Master has a different quality: Heat Man is a fire boss and is able to throw flames at you and light himself up, and Flash Man can freeze time while shooting at you so that you can't dodge. The bosses' stages usually have something to do with the boss: Bubble Man's stage has water-based enemies and a section of it is underwater, while Air Man's stage is up high in the clouds with many instant death pits. Of course, at the end of every stage, you must face the Robot Master you chose as the boss. Upon their defeat, you gain their signature weapon.

After the defeat of all 8 Robot Masters, you have to go through Dr. Wily's Castle, which is linear and is composed of 6 stages which have even more bosses at the end. After you beat the last stage, you have beaten the game.

The gameplay of 2 is generally the same as the first one, where you fire your Mega Buster or whatever weapon you've gotten from the Robot Masters at the enemies of the stages while trying to reach the end. However, there were some likable additions, including E-Tanks, a staple of the series, which let you regain all your health, and Items 1, 2 and 3, which let you rise above the air with 3 rising platforms at a time, let you zoom across a stage on a jet sled, and let you ride up walls with a climbing platform, respectively. Because most NES games didn't have saving systems yet, Mega Man 2 also introduced a password system, which continued on 'till the release of Mega Man 8, which finally revealed a save system. 

Graphics: 10/10

The team really made an improvement with the graphics of the game. In the previous game, the graphics were not that impressive. The sprites had almost no shading, and the tiles didn't look that appealing. In this game, however, there are things in the background you probably won't notice unless you look very hard, such as gears and levers in Metal Man's stage, and the stages have all the right colors to support each other, making it look all the more appealing.

Music: 10/10

A lot of the music in this game will be stuck in your head after you play this game. Trust me. For the Robot Masters, there's Metal Man's music, which is upbeat and metallic-sounding, Bubble Man's music, which starts out calm and then comes into a great climax, Heat Man's music, which makes you get the feeling you're in a volcano, and more. 

Then there are the 2 Wily Stage musics, the first of which is fast-paced and complex (not to mention highly praised), and the second one being simpler, but more climactic and suspenseful, really giving you the feeling that you're at the end of the game.

 Finally, there's the boss music, which starts out with a big intro, then dives into a song that gradually goes into lower notes, then loops to right after the intro. Although it is used for every boss fight including the final one, and some people say it gets repetitive after a while, it's still sounds good for boss fights, at least in this game.

--And introducing a new section... REPLAY VALUE!--

Replay Value: 8/10 

This game is fun, no matter how many times you play it. I find it interesting trying to go through all the stages again in different orders and attacking enemies with different weapons every time. In the US release, there are 2 modes, Normal and Difficult, and in a recent release for the iPod and iPhone, Easy is added, so you may want to try those modes out too if you want different levels of challenges.

Overall: 9/10

Despite its lacking plot and things that could have been added that weren't, Mega Man 2 is still a very good game, and may have just set the entire Mega Man franchise for where it is today. You can find it on the Virtual Console for 500 Wii Points, and can buy it on an iPod Touch or iPhone for $2.99 regularly.