Game reviews – Page 37 – Savior Gaming

Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated

Are ya ready kids? Bikini Bottom has been invaded by an army of robots (that totally didn’t come from the Chum Bucket, which is mysteriously locked down.) It’s up to our favorite yellow fry cook and his friends to save the undersea town from the machines that are wreaking havoc.

First, I just got to say I’m currently 31 years old and I still love Spongebob. This game stole my life for a couple weeks. Ultimately, the game is a solid platformer from a bygone era (PS2). Each character offers a different playstyle with different abilities; Sandy was my favorite and Patrick made me want to scream. The game is pretty simple, complete puzzles and get Golden Spatulas to open the next area. While this is the Rehydrated edition, you can tell this is still an old game with some old game problems- the NPCs are stiff, everyone constantly repeats their limited dialogue over and over again, and some of the more ambitious parts are frustrating to get through. Not all the voice actors returned which can be jarring to older fans. In the end, it’s a solid game, better for younger kids but not bad for grown-ups who want a little childhood nostalgia. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Resident Evil (Netflix) trailer 1

Well, I’ll give Netflix this, this seems to have more production value than Welcome to Raccoon City had. In some ways, I like what I see. In others, I don’t like that we’re going into the apocalypse again. If this is based on the games, I couldn’t really tell but I’m curious rather than pissed. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Dead Space Remake (Art Deep Dive 1)

This game looks so damn beautiful but holy shit I just want Dead Space. Why EA didn’t just remaster the trilogy like they did with Mass Effect Legendary Edition I don’t know. Apparently, it’s been revealed the game is set to drop January of 2023. I’m hoping we get an amazing evolution of a horror classic and not a dud ( Resident Evil 3 (2020). May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising Review

Eiyuden Chronicle Rising is a weird game for me. It’s cheap ($15) and is a spin off of a game that isn’t out yet. It introduces you to the world and some of the characters that will be in next year’s Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes.

It actually does a very good job of this, C.J. is a lovable scavenger and her relationship with Garoo who is a kangaroo is great. More than once I laughed at how upset or annoyed he would seem to get at her love of stamp collecting.

Yes I did say stamp collecting. A large part of this game is simply helping rebuild New Nevaeh. While you do this the towns people will reward you with money, experience new tools and stamps. These stamps fill a card that basically show your progress in the game and can be used to get items at the trader, later on some of these items are absolutely amazing so it is worth collecting them, sort of.

I say sort of because the game isn’t really all that hard or long. You only ever get three characters,you can swap between them easily simply by hitting A Y or B depending on who you want to attack with and doing so allows you to use link attacks to cause more damage or solve puzzles. I never found a reason to spend time grinding for levels or materials, simply doing all the missions will set you up nicely.

The town itself however is nice, rebuilding it is simplistic,just gather the materials people ask for and give it to them. They will build the building in a preset location and give you a stamp.

Honestly for $15 the game is nice but a little repetitive. It is a nice introduction however to a world I can’t wait to give deeper into. It is also on GamePass and definitely worth checking out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Orbit.industries PS5 review

As always with these reviews I would like to take a second to say thank you to the nice people over at Klabater and LAB132 for tossing is a copy of this one to review, it is always appreciated.

As many of you know I am a huge fan of Kerbal Space Program,so any chance I get to play with rockets or space stations I will. There are no rockets in this game and no need to worry about orbiting things. This time however all you have to worry about is building the best space station you can with a very intuitive system. simply pick the type of object or connection you want to add and it builds.

Adding to your station is as simple as picking a piece and a place

Another screen allows you to connect what you just build to the stations systems. This screen will also show you exactly how efficient your space station is.

Just connect the lines to the right spot

None of this is to say the game is easy,it is very far from easy. There are decisions to be made depending on your goals or even the campaign you are playing. Can you really afford to build that extra research lab instead of more power? There is a pretty fine line between being efficient enough to do things just quick enough to make it worth it and everything you have built becoming a huge slog.

There isn’t a ton to this game compared to others out there in the surface. When you dig deep and see how things can go from great to catastrophic in a few minutes, or from being a simple trade station simulator to having to terraform a planet it becomes very hard not to recommend this game when you see the price point of $20.(US) the game looks amazing with fabulous views and the sounds are pretty much exactly what one would hope for. A solid 8/10 experience that any fan of space, building, or tycoon fans will enjoy. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Injustice (film)

What happens when Superman, the shining hero of the DC universe loses everything? After Joker pushes him to his breaking point, Superman decides the JLA must take a more brutal stance on crime and peace must be ushered in by any means necessary. The league divides, many doing everything possible to distance themselves from Superman’s extreme regime. Batman and a few others stand against them but can they beat their friend turned foe?

I love the Injustice games so this movie really bummed me the hell out. While I was never huge on the story of the first game, it had some interesting ideas and I felt bad for totalitarian Superman; I didn’t really feel much in the movie. The movie feels really overstuffed which kills the pacing so after a while things just feel like they happen to happen. The movie never reaches the ultimate dystopia of the games and comics and ultimately ends really abruptly. A lot of the characters I wanted to see throw-down were either cut completely or relegated to cameos. The voice acting fell flat mostly but Arrow and Harley stood out. The movie looks pretty nice and I do like the character designs which many are close to the games. My favorite thing was the brutal kills in the movie, made more satisfying by the R rating. In the end, the Injustice movie was a pretty big disappointment I’d recommend skipping, opting out for the much superior games instead. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Crystar Nintendo Switch Review

As always I like to take a minute to give a huge shout out to NIS America for tossing me a review copy of this one and also take a moment to apologize to you guys for this one being a little bit later than usual.

The Switch version of Crystar is simply the newest release of a game that’s already been available on PC and PS4 for a bit already,and unless you simply want a version to play on the go there and really isn’t a big reason to pick this one up. It doesn’t offer much in the way of anything new.

That being said if you haven’t played it this isn’t a bad place to start. Graphically the game does a great job of catching the dark and depressing world Rei finds herself in as she searches for her sister Mirai and her soul that is lost in purgatory. She becomes an executioner of sorts for a couple of demons that give her a contract and promise to give her the power to revive her sister if she does as they need her to do.

The story is pretty straight forward and has no world saving implications really and it does a pretty good job getting Rei’s pain and struggle with depression and sadness across. The battle system however felt repetitive and lackluster to me and even the extra playable characters didn’t do much to change this.

Crystar isn’t a bad game, but it is definitely one you want to pick up on sale. It is a decent 6/10, it’s pretty original but original doesn’t always mean great. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Jurrasic Park (novel)

After being surprised by Jaws (novel) I was really curious how much Spielberg changed for the movie. While I have reviewed the Jurassic Park series and while the movie is pretty much a cultural phenomenon, I’m not going to regurgitate the plot because the general plot is the same. What I’m going to do is basically talk about the differences and while I actually really enjoyed the book for some pretty damn different reasons.

So the book for Jurassic Park, while having a lot of the splendor and wonder of the movie, there is actually a lot of smart ethical questions and corporate evil in the book. In fact, Hammond is actually an eerily evil sociopath that is hell-bent on basically being his own god, no matter who dies in the process. The book never feels preachy about the ethical issues and the science but expertly feels like a grim kind of foreshadowing of how everything goes belly up. Another huge difference is the body count and gore in the book which is definitely past the pg-13 boundary and a lot of characters die in the book that don’t in the movies. The climax is more intense and well, a bit more brutal but also more realistic and fitting. Pretty much the only part of the book I couldn’t stand was Alex, Tim’s now younger sister (in the movie she was the older); she’s annoying and I swear she almost gets her, Timmy, and Grant killed at least half a dozen times in some pretty idiotic ways. Hammond maybe my favorite part of the book, starting as the kindly if not delusional grandpa figure he was in the book to becoming a heartless bastard as the story unfolds. The book is reasonably paced and Crichton had a great way of not talking down to his readers but not dumbing his themes down. In the end, I highly recommend the novel for Jurrasic Park, especially on Audible like I enjoyed it. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Royal Frontier Xbox Series S Review

As always with these things I like to give a huge thanks to Ratalaika Games games first for tossing me a copy of this one to check out. It isn’t often I play a roguelike but when I do they are usually a blast, and a truly turn-based one is a rare treat.

The game starts off explaining that you are tasked with guiding a caravan from one place to another, a new town being set up. There isn’t too much of a story here. Just a barebones to get you moving and it serves that purpose very well.

The combat also is about as basic as it gets, your team of thee characters will take its turn then the enemy will. You start with the typical knight, priest, wizard type but you unlock three more as you go on. The battles are quick but do have a bit of strategy involved. If you go all out with your spells you will quickly find yourself out of mana for future battles, however, if you don’t fight hard enough there won’t be future battles.

The game map itself lets you take one of three paths that you can occasionally switch from one to another. There are various possibilities that can happen from a standard battle to a midlevel boss or random events or even a small town you can choose to recover your mana or hitpoints. At the end of each stage is a boss battle to move on to the next.

There are very few things about this game I don’t enjoy, and the things that do bother me I can not in good conscience complain about at this game’s price point of about $7. It is a little short consisting of only three levels and there are only six characters. There are however an abundance of unlockables to help make each run easier and it will take multiple runs to unlock them all. Fans of turn-based RPGs and roguelikes should definitely pick this one up. I will give this one a 9/10 while pointing out that this is a low-budget game designed for quick fun for a certain demographic, and it nails that exactly.

Moto Roader MC PS4 Review

I wrote about the release of this recently and Ratalaika Games was nice enough to shoot me over a copy to review and as always I am grateful for that.

This is first and foremost a retro racing game. The classic top view flying around the track against the computer or your friends in what looks easy but always ends with someone swearing and bouncing off a wall from first place into 4th because that damn red car shot you with a missile.

Ok sorry flashback into playing this game with my daughter over the weekend aside who always insisted on being the red car,yes I am still salty about losing that race. This game is a ton of fun. The graphics are the perfect mix of an update from the 1992 release making it feel fresh but they aren’t so updated that the nostalgia is lost.

The sound also has the same feeling. They updated it just enough so I don’t feel trapped in the 90’s with outdated sound but they didn’t update it so much that I feel like what I wanted from the game was lost.

Truly this is how you do a retro game. Give me some fresh graphics and sound, but don’t ruin the original things that made it great and that is what we have here. Just a simple racing game with races that take about a minute. You can shoot each other with missiles or toss little grenades out the back.

All in all I can happily say this is a great game and I had a blast playing it with my 15 year old daughter. As far as retro games go this is a 9/10. Plenty of races to enjoy, the ability to change car types mid race (it does seem to be just cosmetic) and even some fun mini games such as soccer. If you like retro games especially racing, great game. Best wishes and may the gaming gods being you glory.