Review: Miitopia (3DS) ~ How do you look today?

Official website

A few years ago, I took a look at Tomodachi Life. This summer, Nintendo released a sort of sequel to that game called Miitopia. While I have finished this game a while ago, I wanted to talk about a few other games before I wanted to talk about this one since I wanted to get my thoughts in order. So, before I keep delaying the review of this game endlessly, here we go. Let’s talk about the adventure Miitopia. As usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article in the comment section down below. 

Make your own story, somewhat

So, the story of Miitopia is that an evil lord is stealing people’s faces. You get the task to chase that evil lord and get everybody’s face back. Now, notice that I didn’t say any character names. That’s because you can pick whichever Mii you have on your system to fill in that role.

You can always switch the roles during the game. So, if you want to change the character you picked for the evil lord or the king, you can change that in the menu system. I’m also quite happy about the fact that they added a lot of Mii’s that reference other Nintendo games or pop-culture. Since there are a lot of roles that need to be filled and if your friend circle isn’t that big, you can add those.

The story of this game is decent. I didn’t expect a lot from the story of this game but if you are a veteran RPG-gamer, you will get a: “I have seen this story mechanic before” vibe quite a lot. I have seen it multiple times. It didn’t bother me that much, to be honest, but I can see it being negative for some.

The writing has the potential to be hilarious. Depending on who you pick a character to fill in certain roles, laughs can be had. There are a lot of clichés in the story and repeated events. You will have to save some people multiple times.

The humor in this game is just great. There is a hero cat class and flower class. In converstations, they all behave like they are humanoid cats or humanoid flowers. The charm is big in this one.

To be honest, near the end of the game, I lost interested in the story. I have seen all the random events, all the random blurbs the characters say, unlocked almost every class until the end; I got felt the repetitiveness coming on.

Playing or watching

The game is extremely repetitive. Even in the story, when you leave an area, the same things happen. At the start, characters can have arguments and get jealous, but this happens less and less frequent when the game goes on.

At first, you would think that there is a lot to do in this game. But, the only thing you have to do is manage your crew, where you explore and choose what the main character does in battles. There isn’t anything more.

While playing, you would wish that there is a bit more to do or a bit more that could happen. Since the game isn’t challenging at all for most of the time. There are a few enemies that are too overpowered in my opinion.

This game is a casual game. I’m quite sure that this game isn’t going to interest a lot of hardcore gamers. Well, maybe interest but I doubt they will finish it. The potential for a great game is here. Here are a few things that could have made the game more enjoyable.

One, allow the player to control all the characters in battles or at least one. When the main character isn’t around and you are exploring an area, you have to watch the other characters battle.

Two, get rid of the health banana and MP candy mechanic. For real, this is a mechanic I barely ever used. Due to the magical salt, you get to heal your characters quite easily. I used this mechanic so much I had over 50 of each at the end of the game.

Three, have something else to do besides the constant exploring. Break up the gameplay with something else. You do have a Quiz Master running around but he doesn’t show up enough to have some variation.

Four, I wish there was an “auto-cure” item. Whenever a character gets a status effect, you can put it in the safe zone. In that safe zone, it can’t be harmed but it gets healed after a few turns. This mechanic made a few fights too tense and made me lose a few fights against those OP enemies.

Five, if only the game was less linear. In various areas, the game is too linear and you don’t feel like you are exploring the world.

In this game, you have also a friendship mechanic. When you arrive at the inn after you explored, the relationship between the characters improves when they sleep in the same room. When two teams meet each other, they all start at friendship level 0. While you have at least 5 or more with each team member. I wish there were other ways to improve your friendship level. I could explain this in more details but then I would spoil a lot about the story and I want to keep it as spoiler-free as possible.

One thing that disappointed me a lot is the fact that some mission areas get closed off for you after you have beaten the mission. So, if you want to beat every area to the fullest, explore it before you get sealed off from that area. I feel like I missed out on loot you can only get one time. You also don’t get a warning about this.

The battles, which is the meat of this game, are decent. While some classes are fun to play but they have a few flaws with them. I talked about the safe zone earlier. Another issue is that most of the characters that travel with you as an ally are too weak and you can’t see their health bar.

Every 50 enemies you defeat, you get a reward. In most cases, your salts will be upgraded to have 5 more uses. Speaking about these salts, you have a certain amount of salts you can use each time you explore. When you use one salt, you heal one point. When you are out of them, you have to survive until the end of that exploration. There are a few other salts as well, but I’ll leave those up to you to discover.

Presentation

So, in conclusion, the gameplay is pretty basic and I wish it was a more flesh out than what we got.

Difficulty-wise, this game isn’t too challenging. You can beat this game without any problems. In a matter of fact, I only 2 times in this game. (I’m not counting the times I died at the OP enemies here)

You can get 40 hours out of this game when you want to fully complete it. Otherwise, this game will take you around 30 hours. So, if the gameplay and story are just decent, why should you finish this game?

To be honest, the visual charm and presentation it brings to the table is what kept me going. Visually, this game looks amazing. The atmosphere is extremely well done. The theming of the world is in some cases pure eye candy.

In addition, the soundtrack and sound design are pretty well done. The soundtrack is one I would love to add to my library of soundtracks. Together with the sound effects, I was able to get somewhat immersed into the game.

While the story and gameplay lack the impact to make this game good, the visual presentation is helping a lot. The attention to detail in the animations is just a cherry on the cake. For example, when you run while exploring, the cat will run on all fours. Attention to details folks.

In terms of the controls and the UI, I have to say one thing. They are good. I wouldn’t have changed anything.

So, that’s everything I wanted to say about this game. It’s time for my conclusion and final thoughts.

Conclusion

The bad:

-Repetitive gameplay.

-The gameplay could have been a bit more fleshed out. (Not enough depth)

-The story is predictable.

-The game is a bit too long in my opinion for this type of gameplay.

-The game is too easy for veteran players.

The good:

+ With you filling in the roles of who is which character, the game can be extremely funny.

+ The visual presentation is amazing.

+ This game has a lot of charm to draw players in.

+ An amazing soundtrack.

Final thoughts:

This game is decent. It’s not good nor is it bad. I think the biggest issue of this game is that the gameplay is a bit too repetitive. While the charm helps this game a lot, it isn’t enough.

I got distracted by other games while I was playing this game and finishing it. I haven’t finished the post game, to be honest, nor am I planning to.

A lot of memories are created by playing this game but I wonder if I’ll be able to remember most of them if we are a few years into the future.

The game could have been so much more if it had more depth but we got what we got. So, yeah. So close but no cigar.

Score: 65/100

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First Impression: Coffe Noir (PC) ~ Detective Business Educational Game

Official website

It’s quite clear from the fact that I’m writing a gaming blog that I love games. I also work in a school secretary. Now, I came across this recently translated game that combines both worlds called Coffee Noir. Yes, this is an edutainment game. This game is developed by Doji Educational Innovations, a Poland-based company that specializes in educational and training tools. This game is browser based, so no installs needed. So, I have played this game for a few hours and I’ll describe in this article my thoughts about the game. This is my first impression of this game, which means I haven’t finished the game. As usual for my articles, feel free to write a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.

Solving that crime

First, before I forget to mention, the version I played was the version that is meant for casual gamers. That’s also the version I linked at the start of this article. If you want to know more about the educational side of this game, feel free to visit this website.

In this game, you play as a private detective solving crimes. Your name is Arthur Oliver. You try to solve a disappearance case and you go undercover as a boss of a coffee producer to try and get in contact with the suspects who could have kidnapped your client.

In this game, you will learn a lot about various topics like business management, economics, negotiation and many other skills. The developers created a video with more information about the story and the game, which you can see here.

The original language of the game is Polish and it’s recently translated into English. Due to the high amounts of text, I can forgive some parts of the game not being translated. While I was playing this game, I screenshotted the areas where I still found some Polish and mailed them to the developers. They replied a day later and they said they are going to work on it.

Another issue that I ran into is that in multiple areas the textboxes overflow. What I mean by that is that the text continues outside the UI. It’s a shame since this game looks great visually. I also notified the developers of this issue and they said that they will work on that as well.

The presentation of this game is well done. It didn’t take long for me to find my way in the UI. When I wanted to adjust some sales settings, I had to click on “sales” and I was there. The only thing I couldn’t find easily is an overview page of all my income and expenses. That would be a great tool in this business simulation.

Visually, this game looks great. Most of this game looks like it’s drawn by hand. I like the art style that is used in the game. I sometimes forgot that this game is an educational game and I was enjoying myself and if you can achieve that, you know you are doing a good job.

Something I wasn’t too fond off is the music. Don’t understand me wrong, it’s good music, but there isn’t too much music in the game. And when I heard the same music track for the 6^th time, I got bored with it. So, I muted the music and played my own music in the background. The sound effects in this game weren’t muted, and thankfully so, since they add so much atmosphere to the game.

Still in development

If you visit their IndieGoGo campaign, a campaign they ran in 2016, they said that there is still much in the pipeline for this game. A year after the IndieGoGo campaign we got the English version of this game. Now that it is released, we will get one major new feature in late 2017 and that is voice acting.

That’s something that the version I played lacked. The game sometimes felt boring due to me clicking in some many menus and reading so much text. If there were more voice acting and more animation on screen, this game would be more interesting to casual players. But, we should wait and see before we give our final judgment.

Something I applaud in this game is the fact that the educational parts aren’t forced upon the player. If you want to try your own strategy to finish this game, you are free to try. The game doesn’t stop you with annoying math puzzles you must solve before you can continue. This is how edutainment should be, since this way you teach players about something and they have fun. An example is that when you want to train your employees, you must finish the short test to gain a bonus with that employee. Don’t worry, you get the chance to read through the theory before you take the test. I was also happy that I could access it in negotiations since I could look up terms and theory of things I didn’t know.

Another big plus in this game is the handbook and wiki. In the handbook, you can find many pages with usual information about psychology and other usual topics that can aid you in solving the case. While I studied economics in high school, I don’t know a lot about psychology. And this way I don’t have to look up all the information.

Also, the wiki is quite handy to have nearby. When I forgot how to do something or how something worked in the UI or what something meant, my answer wasn’t too far away in the wiki.

This game also has a tutorial. The tutorial itself is quite long and holds your hand throughout the whole process, it’s highly recommended that you go through with the tutorial since it teaches you the game mechanics. The first time I played this game, didn’t end well. I tested my skills without following the tutorial.

Opinion of a teacher

As I said in the introduction of this article, I work in a school. But I also have some experience in teaching classes. This game would be great to use in an economics class. I wonder if the educational version of this game is different since you could use this game in two very different classes and it would be a shame that teachers didn’t use this game. I can imagine that teachers don’t use this game because, for example, an economics teacher doesn’t want that students have to bother with psychology in the economic classes.

This game isn’t for everybody. If you don’t enjoy mystery games or tycoon games, I would skip this game. If the videos from the developers interest you, give this game a try. This game is rather interesting.

There is a lot of replay value in this game. Since you can tackle the business side of things in some many ways, each playthrough is different from the last. So, no playthrough will be the same. Unless you do it on purpose of course.

Before I wrap up this article, I want to thank Doji Interactive for giving me a free copy of this game to test out. Thank you for putting this game under my attention. I have been playing this game here and there and I have been enjoying myself. When I wrote this article, a lifetime account costs 9,99 USD which is extremely cheap for the content you get in my opinion. Before there is confusion, this isn’t a paid article.

Conclusion

This game has a lot of potentials. When I have more time, I certainly will finish this game. This will most likely happen in my summer break. Most things I missed in this game like voice acting are things on the to-do list of the developer.

So, this game will only keep improving in the future and I can’t wait to see where it goes. If you are interested in mystery games and tycoon games, I would highly recommend checking the official website of this game since it’s a great game in my opinion and I can’t wait how this game is going to evolve.

Before I say goodbye, I should add something. The developers told me that in the coming months, there will be some updates and patches to the game. Another reason to get excited about the future of this game!

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this article. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article on my blog, but until then take care and have a great rest of your day!

First Impression: Fantasy Life (3DS) ~ Strangely Fun.

Nintendo.com entry

I was very surprised that Level5 published a game like this. While I was silently hoping to a sequel of Professor Layton, or a spin-off, they published a game with similar graphical vibe. But don’t let it fool you, the fantasy and the life is quite different in this game. After playing 3-ish hours of it, it’s time to write an article about it since I’m quite enjoying myself. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and or the content of this article. 

Graphically Layton?

Maybe it’s only me, but this game gave me a Professor Layton feeling. At least, on the surface. Possibly the used some assets from the Layton game. But hey, let’s not think about the biggest series this developer created, in this article we are talking about Fantasy Life.

This game must have been a nightmare to develop. Since all the different classes play differently. I’m quite curious if the overall story stays the same in the different classes. Also, the fact that you can change your class in mid game, is just mind-blowing and quite a risky move of Level5. I hope the game stays challenging and doesn’t make the mistake that The Legend Of Zelda – A Link Between Worlds made. That game was also more free then other games, yet the difficulty curve was off.

While the story has some plottwists, I was able to see some coming. But I’m quite sure that to a child or a casual gamer, the plottwists might come more as a surprise. Overall, the writing is excellent. The characters can be a tad bit generic in some cases, but they are written so well that I had a few moments that made me smile, not only as a critic but also as a writer.

Quests

I was on the fence for buying this game. I actually had it pre-ordered but cancelled my pre-order since I lost interest in the game. But now that I gave it a chance, I was quite surprised. The gameplay is nothing what I expected. If you aren’t doing a story quest, you can roam around freely and solve people’s daily needs.

The quest system, while quite fun, isn’t 100% perfect. Sometimes quite important information isn’t in the quest log, the quest log is out of order and you can’t have a map where all the accepted quests are located. The quest logging could have been done better in my opinion. While I’m beating it, I’ll surely try out all features of the quest log. Maybe I’m overlooking some things and bashing it, while it’s not needed at all.

You have three sorts of quests. Each give you a different reward. From dosh (currency) to stars (allow you to grow in your class) and bliss (expand the game.). The different quests yield so many different yet satisfying rewards that I explore the world in quite more depth then I usually would. Then my coin dropped. (Dutch expression for releasing something.) This was totally the designers intention to help you explore the world. It’s quite deep honestly. Apart from some aspects that is.

At the moment of writing, I’m in the magic class. They actually passed on a great oppertunity for the magic combat. When you use fire attacks on forest mobs, they don’t increase the damage. Also, your mana replenishes so slow, it’s painful. And the quite expensive potions only give you 10 mana back. Yup, only 10 mana. And the free water bottles you pick up, give 5. That’s so not enough!

So, the magician is long ranged combat. What I love about this game is that the target system works so nicely. I can easily circle around my enemy while trying to defeat it. If only there was an easier way to switch weapons. It would have been less of a pain when I would have been able to quickly switch to my dagger if my mana ran out.

Gamesystems

In the last section of this article, I want to talk about the overall game. I can’t judge on the box and such, since I own this game thanks to the eShop.

The game controls quite fine. While I sometimes have the impression that they switched some buttons around from similar games, I can easily adjust.

Graphically, this game is just amazing. This game gave my impressions of Professor Layton, while it’s really nothing similar. The look, the animation, color pallet and level design is just really well done. Maybe they should have planned out the shops a bit better. Like the furniture shop closer to the wallpaper and flooring shop. Also, why can’t I sell furniture?  I bought by accident two items when I needed one. -sigh-

Something I would have done differently is the icons on the touch screen. They take up quite a bit of space on the map. While it’s not a big deal, I honestly don’t like various icons on my map. I would have made a bar at the bottom of the touch screen with the buttons on it. That would have been way easier to organize. Speaking about the map mode, it’s quite handy. I can safely say that it helped me out of some tricky situations. It’s clear and you can’t get lost thanks to it. If only you were able to have an overview map. Since if you tap on the map button, you get an overview of the map of the whole game. Thankfully there are buttons to quick travel.

Anyways, I’m nearing my usual article limit. So, it’s time to wrap this article up. I still have quite a lot to talk about, but I will keep that for my review if I beat this game. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I can honestly recommend this game to you. Also, feel free to drop by on a later date! I try to publish an article each week. So, maybe until next week.