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Pokémon: Leafgreen (GBA)
by Thebaker50
Hi everyone, this is my review of pokemon leaf green for gameboy advanced.
For those of you who didn't have a childhood, the general theme of pokemon is a world where these creatures live, termed pokemon. The pokemon can be caught, and trained by abtly called pokemon trainers, who can use their collected pokemon to battle one ... another, and win trophies and money. There are different types of pokemon, each living in its own habitat, such as insect pokemon (e.g. weedle, caterpie etc) who live in forests, to fish pokemon in lakes and seas, and bird pokemon etc.
Pokemon can evolve into higher pokemon, making them stronger. For example, caterpie can evolve into metapod, and subsequently evolve into a butterfree. To evolve pokemon, they must gain experience and level up by defeating other pokemon in battle.
Different types of pokemon are strong vs other different types. FOr example, Fire is weak vs water, but is strong vs leaf pokemon. There are literally loads of different types that have weaknesses, and strengths.
Moving on to the game. The game is a turn based RPG game, where you play a pokemon trainer from your humble beginnings in pallet town, through your adventures in viriden forest, the darkness of Mt Moon cave, and so forth. You must travel the lands collecting pokemon, training them up, defeating other trainers, and defeating gym owners. When you defeat a gym owner, you gain the gym badge, giving you various advantages in battles.
Furthermore, you face up against team rocket, and underground criminal organisation who abuse pokemon for their own criminal ends. Towards the end you then enter the pokemon championships, and if you have the data transfer cable, then you can even battle or trade pokemon with your friends.
This game these days has a cool retro feel to it, and it really takes me back to when I was younger and used to collect the cards and watch people play this in the school playground (not owning my own gameboy when i was younger, sometimes they would lend me their gameboy and let me train up their pokemon for them).
You have a world of pokemon, and you must also better your rival (who you can name yourself), and collect data for proffessor Oak.
Just a word of mention, this game is essentially the same for pokemon fire red, and water blue, and pokemon yellow, really there are just minor differences between the 3 involving what pokemon can be caught, and minor changes like this.
In summary, if you have a GBA, then you need to get yourself a pokemon game, and for me personally, it would have to be red, green, yellow or blue, because I stopped watching pokemon before all these new ones came in. And anyway, there are plenty of pokemon to choose from the old pokemon, why add more?
The only disadvantage is that retro seems to be cool at the moment, and buying a game can really set you back (hopefully you can either trade someone who still has it, or have one lying around somewhere), as buying on ebay when i looked was around Ł12 plus delivery, which is expensive for what is essentially a 8 year old game on an outdate console.
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Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (GBA)
by WayneKWilkins
Introduction
Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance is regarded as one of the very best Playstation 2 RPG's of all time. Based on the critically acclaimed PC series, Baldurs Gate, the game also saw a port to the Gameboy Advance with significant changes. As a huge fan of the Baldurs gate series, it was only natural that I would some day ... own the GBA version. While the game is decent and it does have some things that are even better than the PS2 version, the game itself feels lacking many of the things that made Baldurs Gate special.
Gameplay
The gameplay itself is brilliant. Players of the original Baldurs Gate games will see the similarities. You move about, can equip weapons and break stuff and you can traverse through brutal dungeons just as with other BG titles. However, the game also has many differences. There is no multiplayer mode, there are no different races or character casts and you are not able to jump which somewhat limits the freedom I felt. The game makes up for these things by making the game much more available and much more in-depth. You can now interact with people in town and in their houses, something which was lacking in the BG:DA PS2 title. To summarize, this is really suited to both Baldurs Gate fans that are willing to accept change and thrive on depth, as well as casual RPG fans looking for a truly awesome RPG world., but please acknowledge that this is a completely different game experience when compared to the PS2 and PC titles.
Graphics and music
The graphics themselves are pretty good considering they are on the GBA handheld console. They are what you would expect and Baldurs Gate actually works quite well using these graphics. The music is also very similar and seems to work well. Baldurs Gate fans will likely not like the change too much, but if you look past the initial feel, you will see a brilliant RPG that works very well with these graphics and music.
Price and is it worth it?
These days, Baldurs Gate games are cult classics more than anything and you can expect to pay top price. This one is no exception. You will be looking to pay at least ten pounds for the cartridge alone, but for the complete game with the manual and box in good condition, expect anywhere from 25 to 50 pounds, perhaps more. Is it worth such a hefty price? Well, the game itself is brilliant, but I personally don't enjoy it as much as the PS2 or PC titles. It is great to have a Baldurs Gate game on the how however for long train or coach journeys. Luckily, I bought the game when it first came out for around 20 pounds. I don't think I would pay 50 for it, but each to their own; it is an awesome RPG and its great to have a handheld version of a Baldurs Gate classic; i'd recommend it if you can get it on the cheap.
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Shaman King: Master of Spirit (GBA)
by sn0zb0z
Story:
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The game is based off the popular anime by the same name. Yoh Asakura is known as a shaman. Someone who can communicate with spirits. A spirit named Amidamaru joins Yoh on a journey to become the Shaman King, an event that only happens every 500 years. You play as Yoh and travel on the journey with your ... friends and spirits to stop Magister's evil plan to bring back Mephias (an ancient Shaman King) and take over the world.
Gameplay:
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To get to each level you follow a path. The paths go in different directions and you have to complete a level to get further along the paths. You can go back and redo levels if you wish, but you have to follow the path so if you want to complete a level you did a while back you have to complete the levels in between to get there which can be rather annoying. Sometimes you only have one choice of what level is next and other times you will have two or even three choices.
The game is a side-scrolling adventure. In each level there are various creatures to fight and platforms to jump to and you must make your way from one side to the other. Some creatures are harder to defeat than others, but most are rather easy. As you go along you collect spirits/guardian ghosts which you can then select as your main spirits to help you defeat enemies.
You can also pick up various items or buy them. For example, a hamburger can be bought for 1000 yen and will increase your health by 120.
The controls are simple, although having said that fight and jump felt the wrong way round to me, but perhaps that's through years of playing Playstation games where those moves are usually the opposite way round. Still there's nothing more annoying than accidentally trying to fight thin air instead of jumping and ending up dying from falling off a platform. There are special moves which you use the R and L buttons for. You can assign spirits to these two buttons and they allow you to do different, more powerful attacks. You are limited to how many times you can do special attacks though.
Audio:
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The audio varies between levels but it is rather repetitive. There is always the option to turn the volume down/off though.
Graphics:
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The characters all look as they do in the show. The background is simple (sky and grass) but it looks fine and there's nothing to distract you. The graphics aren't anything special, but they're good enough and as good as any other Gameboy Advance game.
Price:
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This game varies quite a bit in price. Recently I've seen it selling for around Ł50, but at the time of writing this it is selling from about Ł15 and before the random price rise it was roughly this price. While it's a fairly easy game to find the number of people selling it is limited which is often reflected in the price.
Overall:
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Shaman King is a good game overall. It probably helps if you like Shaman King as otherwise you may find it a bit boring at times, but if you like side-scrolling adventures this is worth playing. Recommended.
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