This game is set in a world where everything is caused by Spirits, the official language is cliché and all names seems to be just a bunch of scrambled letters thrown together. Everyone also dress worse than in Final Fantasy X, and no one seems to have put any care into either the character design or the voice acting.

There are two main characters, Aldo and Reiha, who somehow gets windled up in a nonsensical story involving spirits. That’s about all there is to the story. It’s lucky there’s no minimum amount of characteristics required to call a character a character, otherwise not a single character in the cast would have passed it. Aldo hits things with swords, Reiha hits things with Magic, and one other party member runs after you acting like a moron.

I can stand bad stories if the gameplay are any good, but Twin Age is played the same fashion as Runescape, which essentially means you tap an enemy and they will trade blows until either of the characters involved dies. And with that I’ve covered all there is to the gameplay as well. You tap your way through the entire game, completely unchallenged since all enemies are constantly under-leveled, through dungeon after dungeon consisting entirely of a straight path with some side-tracks scattered along the way. Possibly just to raise the irritation even more all main characters runs extremely slowly, and the loading times just gets on my nerves. This entire game smells of low budget long way, and I couldn’t stand more than a few chapters. I’m gonna play Lunar Knights as soon as I’ve fixed my DS, since that game at least had some sort of quality to it.

It’s not even worth my time making a picture gallery for.

Pikachu, all our most hated annoying yellow mouse from Pokémon… Who doesn’t know him?
Pikachu goes from being useless junk of a Pokémon to being one of the most overpowered characters in SSB64!

Pikachu was initially the annoying yellow mouse who stole the title of Pokémon’s mascot from Clefairy. Unlike Clefairy however, Pikachu is completely useless in the Pokémon games. He is fast, but all other stats are low. His “Pika-Pikaaah!” was cute the first season of the Anime, then just became a nuisance.

Before i unlocked Captain Falcon, i always used Pikachu. Pikapain(which is what I’ll call him from now on, since that’s what James from the Pokémon Anime calls him) is fast, just like in the Pokémon games, but unlike there he’s actually powerful. He has an incredibly fast running speed and aerial movement, few dead angles, and is small and hard to hit.

Pikachu is this game’s absolute aerial god. All his aerial attacks can knock enemies away, and some of them can even paralyze enemies, allowing him to follow up with other attacks. His combo effectiveness isn’t as good as Captain Falcon though. Pikapain also has access to the cheapest trick in the game, which also happens to be one of the most powerful combos as well: Thunderspike! Throw someone up in the air, then use his Down Special to throw them even higher while charging the Smash Gauge about 20%, chain this and you’ll KO most characters in no time at all. This is especially useful on stages with a low Upper Smash Limit(the maximum height possible without getting automatically KO’d).

PIkapain has a great Recovery, the Pokémon Move “Quick Attack”, which allow him to go invincible and perform a long two-stage jump. Because he is light, he will be KO’d pretty fast if you throw him, but will also fall slowly. However, his ability to dodge quickly can make up for his lack of defense.

SCORES:
Ranged Combat: 03 – He only has one projectile, a jolt of electricity that bounces when it hits something and briefly paralyzes on impact, but it travels diagonally downwards, making it hard to aim.
Close Combat: 08 – He’s fairly strong, though lacking in the Defense Department
Ground Effectiveness: 07 – He’s awesome, but better in the air
Aerial Effectiveness: 10 – Beats even Captain Falcon, due to his better Aerial Mobility and Jumping
Combos: 05 – He’s not that good at combos…
Survival: 07 – He can jump well, but can be knocked away easily. As i said, he’s lacking in the defense department…
Coolness: 00 – He’s not one bit cool
Speed: 10 – He’s insanely fast!

Random idea: Make an article series with reviews of characters in the original Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 64(a.k.a. Smash64). Because i have nothing better to do, I’m going to follow that idea, finding no plausible excuse not to.

I’m going to start with my favorite character: Captain Falcon.

Captain Falcon comes from some random failure of a racing game called F-Zero. I’ve never heard of that game, so It’s most likely not worth playing, so Captain Falcon’s Backstory isn’t much to flash with…

Gameplay-wise, Captain Falcon is so powerful It’s almost scary. Falcon has the most powerful attack in all the Super Smash Bros games, Falcon Punch, which gives a huge Forward-directed Knockback effect as well as boosting the damage gauge by a whole 30%. Unfortunately, Falcon Punch is incredibly slow, taking a whole 32 frames to load, so unless you manage to stun a character at a high damage rate you won’t be able to hit anything with it, as it is ridiculously easy to avoid. Falcon is however able to incredibly quickly chain together combo-attacks (I’ve even been able to hold a character in a combo almost 15 seconds!), mainly by using his forward grab-smash to bounce someone up into the air, then using an A+Up attack until the damage meter goes too far to manage this way, then instead jump up into the air, use an aerial A+Up attack to kick the foe overhead backwards, then run along the ground and catch the foe with an aerial A+Forward attack, which makes Falcon jump up into the air and kick an enemy twice, knocking him/her backwards in a huge speed. This combo is hard to master, but if you do you’ll be able to juggle lighter characters like Kirby, Jigglypuff or Pikachu off-screen in a single combo, as well as knocking up the damage-meter of heavier characters like Donkey Kong or Link a huge way. If you’re lucky you could even OHKO medium-weight-fighters like Samus or Fox on certain stages. Now, here comes CF’s biggest problem: He’s a damn aerial god, but can’t jump very far. His Recovery is powerful and can work as an aerial grab(!), and even grab ledges backwards, but doesn’t reach very far. This means he’s pretty easy to KO by using spikes, but that’s pretty much his only real defensive weakness. Another weakness CF has is his lack of projectile(ranged) attacks. He can deal a huge amount of damage in close combat, but Ranged Attackers like Samus, Fox or Ness can dodge his close-combat attacks and blast him with ranged attacks, without CF being able to do anything about it, as he can’t use projectiles nor can he use a Mirror Shield like Fox or Ness to bounce back attacks. Possibly to compensate for this, Falcon can run insanely fast, and runs in his running-mode by default, so you don’t have to double-tap directions to run. Captain Falcon can be unlocked by beating Story Mode in less than 20 Minutes, and then beating him in a Deathmatch as a Challenger will add him to the Character Roster.

SCORES:
Ranged Combat: 00 – No Projectiles, worthless as a ranged fighter
Close Combat: 10 - With a strength like Link, and the defense almost like DK can make him the best Close Combat-character in the game.
Ground Effectivity: 06 – He isn’t weak on the ground, but he’s better in the air
Aerial Effectivity: 09 – The only character who could rival this score is Pikachu
Combos: 10 – Captain Falcon has some of the deadliest combos in the game, and with some training you can keep characters in combos for over 15 Seconds!
Survival: 05 - His Jumping ability is better than Link or DK, but he has a large hitbox and is moderately easy to KO
Coolness: 10 - “Falcooon…. PUUNCH!!”, “HAA!”, etc. CF has the only good voice-acting in the game, and his quotes are really cool. And he looks like a Sci-Fi Spaceman.
Speed: 05 - He’s not very fast, but he’s not very slow either

Strategy…
RPGs…
Are about to…
Get a…
Serious…
Kick in the…
ASS!
– Trailer

[review pros="Great story, incredibly deep gameplay" cons="Hard as hell" score="100"]

What I’m reviewing here isn’t actually Hour of Darkness, but rather the DS port Disgaea DS. There is also a PSP port with the lame name Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness. I couldn’t get my hands on the PlayStation 2 original.

The best description i can come up with to describe this masterpiece is: Take the Final Fantasy Tactics series, make a ten times deeper gameplay, then add an unmissable story and a really deep(but annoying) Job System, and one of the best soundtracks ever. Sadly, they didn’t stop there, but added the requirement to level grind your ass off and the Dark Assembly. Despite those nuisances, this is one of the best SRPGs you’ll ever find. For any console. Ever.

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is not an easy game, no matter how you look at it, it’s not newbie-friendly in any way. It is incredibly complex and long, and just leveling things up is an incredibly complex task. Each character has both their own level, naturally, but also they have levels to measure how skilled they are with a certain weapon, which determinates which abilities they can use and how much bonuses they get from better equipments, the special abilities have levels and even items have levels. The game requires you to experiment with practically everything and a little more, and there’s not a single tutorial in sight. You start the game with just a few classes to use, but by leveling up the base classes you can get access to new classes. These requirements are also hidden, for example if you have a character with 30 Skill Level with Guns, you’ll unlock the “EDF Soldier” tier, which is pretty much the ultimate Gun user tier, and if you have a Red Mage(which uses Fire Magic), a Green Mage(which uses Wind Magic) and a Blue Mage(which uses Ice Magic) in your team all above level 5 you’ll unlock the Star Mage(which uses non-elemental magic), and by leveling the Star Mage up to level 30 You’ll unlock the Prism Mage(which can use both Fire, Ice and Wind magic), and by getting that one to level 50 you can access the Galaxy Mage(which can use all kinds of magic). All of these classes also have different Aptitude Levels for different stats, and Weapon Mastery levels, which determinates how much bonuses in a certain stat the character will get, and how quickly they will master weapons. If this wasn’t complex enough there’s the Reincarnation system, which lets you revert a character to Level 1 in another(or the same) class, while keeping their weapon masteries and some of their abilities, as well as a bonus for every level they had before they reincarnated. This opens for scarily much complex combinations and almost endless customisations. This game also lets you lift and throw allies and enemies, allowing you to cover a much wider area than you normally would, or throw away enemies to buy time. Another unique feature is the Team Combo system. If you attack someone while an ally is standing next to you, you have a certain chance of getting a special combo attack where all allies affected are included to deal massive damage in a single turn. If the Team Combo KOs someone all affected units will also get EXP. It should also be mentioned that the level cap in this game is 9999, for Unit Level, Weapon Mastery and Skill Level. Geo Panels is also an unique feature, which allows you to change special effects on certain colored panels by dropping a Geo Panel Source on them. These effects also stack, so it’s possible to stack effects to create for example invincibility and full healing on all green tiles, while all red tiles will instantly kill anyone standing on them, and all blue tiles will create clones.

The story of the game is incredibly good, and has some of the both funniest dialog, most memorable cast, and most emotional scenes ever found in a game. One of the messages the story is that no one is truly evil, just as no one is entirely good, fittingly symbolised by Angels and Demons.

The story follows the Demon Prince Laharl, who took a “nap” for two years and is trying to take back the title of Overlord of the Netherworld(essentially meaning the ruler of hell), accompanied by his not-so-loyal Vassal Etna who is secretly trying to take the title of Overlord for herself. He is then joined by the Angel Trainee Flonne who came to the Netherworld to assassinate King Krichevskoy on the orders from the High Seraph Lamington(the ruler of the angels), not knowing he died two years prior.
There is also Captain Gordon, Defender of Earth(who is a parody on pretty much every spaceman-superhero in existence), his partner Jennifer and her robot Thursday.
And the most badass character in the entire game: Kurtis, who lost 70% of his body, along with his wife and daughter in a terrorist bombing, and became a cyborg, and started calling himself “the true Defender of Earth”. He dies heroically to save Jennifer’s life, and is then reborn as a Prinny to redeem for his sins.
The most memorable non-playable character in the game is without doubt Vyers, who is also known as “Sassy Demon”, “Dark Adonis” and “Mid-Boss”. The last name is given to him by Laharl, and he hates when everyone keeps calling him Mid-Boss. Mid-Boss is the most comical character in the game, and is heavily hinted to be the reincarnation of King Krichevskoy. He has some of the most memorable lines in the game(Vyers: “But do not foolishly think that i am an ordinary Mid-boss!” Etna: “Hey! you just admitted that you are a Mid-Boss!”), and a great voice-acting(“Well of course! Haaaahahahahahaaaa! Haaaaahahahahahaaa!”). Every time he loses he also either leave the scene wrapped in bandages, or comes up with some lame excuse for not using his full strength(such as stomach cramps, which he obviously doesn’t have).

The story takes over a hundred hours to complete, and when you have, you’ve most likely barely scratched the surface of the game. After that is the unlockable areas, the superbosses and optional characters, and the Item World. The Item World is a special “area” where you jump into an item, say a Sword, then battle your way through a series of Mystery Dungeon-style randomly generated floors filled with enemies. There’s also special “friendly” enemies that you must land the killing blow on yourself to really crack up the stats of the item, and the whole place is crowded with random Geo Panels.

The graphics in this game are beautiful, and they’re not even in 3D! For the conversations, think the Conversation System of Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, and use the hysterical sprites from Custom Robo Arena. All conversation sprites are nicely drawn in Anime-style, and while they are not animated they change between lines of dialog to create a very living and interactive look to it. The In-Battle Graphics are all in 2D/Pseudo-3D, and here the sprites are actually animated. The biggest charm in this is however the ridiculously over-the-top Specia Abilities, which is also voice-acted. For example, you can throw a group of enemies into the sun, cut the dimensions, split in four and blast enemies with a gun several times(from all the clones!), kick an enemy into the air and slash the enemy several times while the enemy is hanging in the air and then finish by kicking the enemy back into the ground. There is barely a single Special Attack that isn’t extremely over-the-top. All of this accompanied by quotes such as “Here i come!!”(Laharl), “Oops, pardon me”(Flonne), “Time for fun!”(Etna), “Prepare yourself… GORDON FINISH!”(Gordon), “Coup de grace”(Jennifer), “You’re too weak!”(Kurtis), “Here goes…”(Cleric), and so on. It is especially fun to see Flonne viciously shooting someone repeatedly in the head, saying “Oops, pardon me”.
The soundtrack is really great, and fits perfectly into the scenery, and includes both sad, aggressive, space-ish and fun themes. I actually have most of the songs in my DS’s MP3 Player Application right now.

TRAILERS:

• DS Trailer

Type: Action-RPG
Publisher: Snowblind Studios, Magic Pockets
System: PlayStation 2, Xbox, Gamecube, GameBoy Advance
Year: 2001(PS2), 2002/2003(XB), 2002/2003(GC), 2004(GBA)
Players: 1-2

[review score="90" pros="great Action-RPG, long playtime, good replayability" cons="no equipment customization, if you leave the chapter you can't return, unbalanced EXP gains"]

This game’s Story makes pretty much no sense at all, but its awesome gameplay elements makes up for that.

The main character(Player 1′s Character if in Multiplayer Mode) is robbed by thieves, and sets out to find and kill those thieves, and then happens to end up saving the world from some dude who isn’t even mentioned until a ghost talks about her on the final floor of the final dungeon. A little like the story of Final Fantasy V, but this time there’s no Gilgamesh, sadly.

The game is spent over three separate worlds, first in the town of Baldurs Gate, then in a dwarven mountain, then finally in a swamp of some sort.

A thing that is a little strange about this game is that if you kill an enemy, its body will be lying on the ground until time’s end and it will not respawn.
That essentially means there’s a very limited amount of EXP in the game, and you pretty much have to kill every enemy you see to get any good levels.

The gameplay is mainly Hack ‘n’ Slash action with RPG elements thrown in, a little like Kingdom Hearts, but in a different style.
You press the %a%-button to attack with your equipped weapon, and you use %x% to use the currently selected Special Ability(“Feat”, not to be confused with Feet).
The characters are preset to Vahn, a Human Archer(uses Bows to shoot from a distance, worthless in 1P mode, but pretty valuable if paired with Kromlech in 2P Mode), Adrianna, an Elven Sorceress(uses Black Magic Spells to blast foes at a distance with huge amounts of magical damage, but dies quickly) and Kromlech, and a Dwarven Fighter(great physical attacker and tank, if you play 1P, this is your character), but those characters can also be customized with different Feats to learn new abilities.
The feats available changes with the character, for example Vahn has several Magical Arrow spells(such as Exploding Arrows, Electric Arrows and Burning Arrows), Adrianna has Black magic Spells, and Kromlech has different kinds of physical attacks with different reaches, such as Tornado which causes him to spin around, hitting every enemy surrounding him, and Bull Rush which causes him to rush forward, damaging and knocking back any foe standing before him.

New feats can be purchased using upgrade points which you receive every time you gain a new level, and better feats usually costs more Upgrade Points.
There is also a very fine balance between power and mana, meaning you must carefully pick what you use when to not completely toast your MP. If you want to clear out an open plain of many enemies you may want to use Meteor Swarm to bombard every enemy on the screen with meteors, however using that in a cave will cause many of the meteors to instead hit the walls or the roofs. On the other hand, Snowblind or Burning Hands will hit in a straight line with DoT-damage.

This game has incredibly good graphics and sound, something that gave it some very good scores on several sites, and the sound isn’t bad either even if the background music is a little boring.

The game deserves a solid 90% Score from me, and it well deserves it. Buy it, and then play the sequel which so far(i haven’t finished it yet) is even better than the original!