Review: Tales of Abyss (3DS)

Tales of the Abyss was ported over to the Nintendo 3DS which was originally for the Playstation 2. I haven't played the PS2 version but from the looks of it, it's a pretty good damn ported version.

You're Luke, a son from the royal family of kimlasca, and he's never stepped one foot out of the manor. Not to mention that he lost all his memories 7 years ago. As he was out training with Master Van a mysterious character by the name of Tear comes out of nowhere and tries to attack Van.
I won't go into the plot anymore to avoid potential spoilers. It'll unfold as you go on, as a typical RPG should.

The battle style is completely different than your typical turned base strategies. It mixes more with a hack and slash style. You only control the person that you're playing as. So you cannot select attacks for your allies that are out in the battle.
It keeps the battles feeling fresh as you can play as your teamates during battles, you can't switch during battle so you'll have to select them before you encounter an enemy. It has a variety of close range and long range characters.

One thing that I dislike about the fact you can't switch during battle is that when the character you're playing as dies you have to sit watching the rest of the battle go on. This is especially annoying when you're in the middle of a boss battle.

You can throw away all of you hatred towards random encounters as the enemies are visible on both the overworld and in the dungeons. You can easily choose wether or not you want to battle. But, level grinding is kind of vital in order to progress without any trouble.

The game's story is kind of lengthy so it will definitely keep you busy.
The overworld has quite abit to explore ranging from dungeons to cities. Later in the game you can even travel by sea.

If you're looking for an RPG on the 3DS, Tales of Abyss is definitely worth the buy. I give Tales of Abyss an 7.5/10.

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Western Dragon Quest Games Trademarked By Square Enix

Square Enix has registered some recent trademarks involving the Dragon Quest series. The trademarked titles are "Luminaries of the Legendary Line" and "The Seeds of Salvation". Could this finally be the western release of the Dragon Quest VII that everyone has been expecting?

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The Misadventures of Link on Nintendo Video

To help keep the anticipation of the upcoming release of A Link Between World's at an all time high Nintendo releases The Misadventures of Link on the Nintendo 3DS application, Nintendo Video.

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One Piece: Romance Dawn Coming To North America

One Piece: Romance Dawn has been announced for North America. The game will be arriving on the Nintendo 3DS on February 11th of next year. You will be able to purchase the game through the Nintendo 3DS eShop or through retailers.

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Sonic Lost World's Demo Impressions (3DS)

Recently Nintendo put out a demo for Sonic Lost Worlds on the Nintendo 3DS eshop prior to their latest Nintendo Direct that happened earlier this week. One of many things mention was this demo and I've found spare time to set back and play what the demo has to offer and so these are my impressions of playing the demo.

The demo only has one available mode to choose from and that is the story mode. It gives you cutscene of Sonic riding ontop of Tails' airplane chasing after eggman for whatever reason and Sonic spots something called the "Lost Hex", according to Tails. The cutscene isn't bad but the quality of it is terrible. It's blurry and just out right a pain to watch. Not to mention the new voice acting. Which I'm not calling bad per say but it's weird not hearing Sonic's original voice. Actually, everyone's original voice actor for that matter is comepletely new. Amy is a thousand times annoying than she previously was just from her new voice which I will not further discuss because of it's brutality it did on my ears.

The first level it gives you is actually decent. Alongside with decent controls and okay visuals. It's pleasantly smooth. The only complaint I have is that it didn't feel fast pace as it should have.

After completing the first level you are rewarded with another beautiful cutscene! Killing your ears with Amy's previously mentioned voice. Once that is all over you're greeted to the game's "overworld". There's nothing to do there so it offers you another level (Windy Hill: Zone 1) to try out. I felt like this one was to allow players to practice jumping. As to the first level (the tutorial) was more about the running mechanic.

It opens up a new level only to tease you about getting the full version of the game. Not allowing you to have any access to it. It pretty much leaves you off with that. Leaving you with only two demo levels you already played through without a proper "thanks for playing the demo" or for not even telling you that the demo is over.

With the game's soundtrack and level design it's without a doubt comparable to Super Mario Galaxy. But saying that does not mean it's as good. It just has alot of similarities to it.

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Pokémon X Review (3DS)

Okay, so I recently played through Pokemon X and after it's been out for a little over a month I can finally say I have seen all it has to offer. This review will be as spoiler free as possible. Nothing from the main plot will be given away. Now let's begin.
Story: You are a young boy/girl who just moved to Vaniville. It starts with you waking up to a fletchling flying in your room. When you go downstairs your mom asks you to go outside and say hi to the neighbors. You are then greeted buy Shauna and Serena. They give you a letter from Professor Sycamore that says you have been invited to go on a pokemon journey. You continue to the next town where you meet a group of friends. They also have the Kalos's three new starters Chespin (grass), Froakie (water), and Fennekin (fire). After getting your first pokemon you go town to town until you reach Lumiose City where you finally meet the great Professor Sycamore. He challenges you to a battle. 

After the battle he offers you one of the starter pokemon from generation one. Your starter options are Bulbasaur (grass), Squirtle (water), and Charmander (fire). When in Lumiose you learn that half of the city's power is out for some odd reason. Soon after you meet the games main villain. (SMALL SPOILER) The villain is Lysandre. They don't refer to him as the bad guy until later, however its strongly hinted. His plot is a good one. He wants to unleash a great weapon to kill all people and pokemon except Team Flare members, Team Flare being the main bad guy team in the game. Team Flare itself felt very unexciting and was always just kind of there never doing much harm. Now I can't go further in the story without spoiling anymore but I can give my thoughts on it. The story was honestly good. A lot of people are saying it's your stereotypical boring lack luster pokemon story but I strongly disagree. I was playing the game for it's story. They also went with a very mature topic for the villain. He wants to kill everyone, yes actually KILL them. As for the rest of the story it's great. There are even hints of romance between you and another character. For the story I give it a 7 out of 10.

Game Play: The game play is absolutely spectacular. For the pokemons first 3D adventure they did a great job. All the controls feel fantastic and battling is great. This installment in the serious adds roller blades as a means of transportation. It's after than running and slower than a bike so it can get you where you need to go and you can still take in the breath taking  environments. To use the roller blades you just use the 3D's built in joy stick. This gives you free 360 degree movement, a first for the handheld pokemon games. The games also have a nice steady difficulty increase. But the games are easy. Not once did I level up my pokemon and I was still at least 5 to 10 levels over everyone else. I never had to challenge a gym leader more than once and the Elite Four was a breeze. My over all thoughts on the game play are a 8.5 out 10. All though it handles like a dream the game is very easy and no challenger will ever pose a real threat to you.

New/ Old Pokemon: This game did not bring many new pokemon to the table, but the 69 brand new ones they did bring are outstanding. Some of my favorites are Delphox, Greninja, Sylveon, and Meowsic. But all of them are great. And for what everyone was excited for Mega Evolution's. This is a new feature to X and Y. Some pokemon were given a new evolution that they can evolve into during a battle with the help of a mega stone. This is great because pokemon like Absol and Mawile are now great additions to your team. And my personal favorite pokemon even got one, that being Gardevoir. The only downfall is that mega stones are hard to come by and if you buy there insanely expensive. But it's well worth it because you get a crazy OP pokemon for a short time. In all honesty I don't have complaints when it comes to the new pokemon in the game. If I had to choose one this it would be all the Pokmon they give you. Pokemon you don't even have to catch. In total I believe there are 7 and I personally aren't crazy about it because I feel forced to use them on my team. None the less I have give it a 10 out of 10.

Post Game and Side quests: In all honesty the game is really lacking in post game and side quests. There are a few side quest but nothing major. And as for post game there is almost nothing you can't do in the main story. Despite this the post game is still very fun because of how easy the online capability's are. Not to mention it's very easy to shiny hunt now, so if you want an awesome team with a shiny pokemon on it you can do just that if you take a day or two to dedicate to it. However I do have high hopes for them releasing DLC for the game. So in the future we could see more added to this wonderful game. This is some what generous but I will give the post game a 7.5 out 10.

Final Thoughts: If I was being totally honest I would have to say that this is definitely the best installment in the franchise. However I never did play the generations 5 titles. I feel this is a step in the right direction for the Pokemon franchise and I'm excited to see what else Gamefreak can bring us. This game was not perfect but still fantastic none the less. My final score on the game is 9 out 10.

(Not regarding the review) Hey guys hope you liked my review. This was my very first one so it may be a bit shaky but I'm sure that they will get better over time. If you did like this review make sure you follow NintenKami on twitter where you can find all of our newest announcements. If you liked my content follow me on twitter @MrUnshyGuy. You can ask me questions of any kind there. A big thanks to my good friend @YoBaka on twitter for allowing me to do this.

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A Link Between Worlds Site Is Now Open

Nintendo has opened the site for The Legend if Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. They have already released brand new gameplay footage and additional information on the dungeons and the items that we will be seeing in the game.

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