Patapon Review

     I've heard Patapon described as a rhythm RTS, but I would disagree with that. It is a rhythm action game in my mind. You command an army, but the way the group obeys your commands all at once makes it feel like you are playing a 2d action game controlled by rhythmic taps of the buttons.

     Patapon is a PSP game made by the developers of the super-cute and mostly fun Loco Roco. It's a fine pedigree to have. This game takes the Loco Roco cute aesthetic, twists it a little, and throws in a lot more game mechanics. The combat really makes it feel like quite a different game, but you can see the influence on the sound, look, and game design quite clearly.

     You play as the god of the Patapons, a down on their luck tribe of warriors whom you reassemble and inspire to religious pilgrimage to seek out Earthend so that they may gaze upon “It.” All the while the Patapons will attempt to exterminate their hated enemies, the Zigotons, and take out the giant monsters that lurk in the wild as they travel. The Patapon have more animations for attack, dodging, and being damaged than screenshots might lead you to believe, and their little “faces” are very expressive. It's a very smooth looking game when you see it in motion.

     A typical mission has you marching across a 2d landscape from left to right. You control an army of up to 18 Patapons in up to 3 squads, plus a flag-bearer. When you encounter enemies, you command the group to attack, dodge, guard, or gather strength for a more powerful attack. You do all of this (including the marching) by pressing a combination of 4 face buttons in time with the beat. Each button represents a drum sound. As you learn more drum sounds and more command songs, you increase the repertoire of orders you can give your army. After you give a 4 beat command, you pause for 4 beats as the Patapons repeat the order and obey it. Then you give another 4 beat command. Repeat ad infinitum for the rest of the game. This sounds like it might get boring but this mechanic is fresh and fun, and the gameplay has enough depth and strategy that you won't really get bored of this great idea.

     Part of the reason for this is that there are three mission types, each requiring a different strategy. Hunting missions have you going after mostly harmless creatures to gather money and supplies that you can later use to make new units. These missions require you to formulate a squad that can sneak up on unsuspecting prey and take it out quickly before it runs away.

     Combat missions have you fighting the Zigotons, an army of, for lack of a better word, people, that look similar to the Patapons and use weapons similar to them. These levels involve fighting big crowds of small enemies and also destroying structures.

     Finally, there are boss battles, which are my favorite. In these you fight one giant creature in a lengthy combat experience. Dodging, blocking, and attacking all need to be used right to avoid or deflect enemy attacks and strike hard enough to stun and weaken the enemy before finally killing it, chopping off its head or nearest body part equivalent, and carting it back to camp for a big celebration, complete with dancing around the fire, drumming, and talking about the quest for “It.”

     Patapons equip weapons (such as bows, spears, axes, clubs, and lances) and armor (mostly cool looking helmets) individually on a preparation screen before you enter any mission. Each unit type uses a different type of weapon and behaves differently given certain commands. The optimize button on this screen will kit everyone out in the strongest gear, although you can micromanage equipment as well if you want. Sometimes I found that switching things around a bit from what the optimize button was recommending was helpful. The weird thing is, the main way to get gear is to pick it up as loot in the combat levels versus the Zigotons. These are the only levels that are not re-playable, meaning equipment is hard to come by at first. By the time you get to the endgame, you'll have plenty of stuff, but for quite a few hours you'll wish you could grind these combat missions to get more gear.

     If you are really accurate for a few beats, or go through ten commands without missing a beat, you will go into fever mode, which makes the Patapons do stuff better. Bow and arrow guys will jump high in the air and shoot three arrows instead of one. Mounted Patapons charge, knocking enemies out of the way. Some troop types don't have a fever power, but have some other trait, such as being able to equip shields and block better than other types when given the block command. You can also perform a miracle while in fever mode, such as making it rain to cool down the desert that is so hot it burns your troops, or summoning a wind to blow your arrows further forward. Miracles are done through a little mini game of repeating strings of beats. You lose fever mode if you screw up a command or are way off beat. Holding it for long periods of time by stringing commands together is key to victory, so you always need to think one command ahead so you don't mess up the rhythm.

     Patapon has a lot of pros going for it. It also has quite a few cons that hold it back. It's a unique experience that looks great, and is fun, but also has some frustrating moments of difficulty and confusion. Some of the confusion is caused by lack of explanation, either of game mechanics or situations or what to do next. For example, I re-played a mission multiple times where you are trying to bust a kidnapped Patapon out of a cage because I didn't realize that the item I equipped was causing fire damage to anything I hit, thus setting the cage on fire and damaging the Patapon inside. So the prisoner died before I could rescue it. I've also heard that people have gotten stuck not knowing what stage they need to replay and do differently in order to progress the story. I personally didn't have a problem with this, but I can see how it could happen since some of the things you need to do are only alluded to in the level descriptions. If you didn't play for a few days and couldn't remember what you were doing, it might take you awhile to figure out what needs to be done in quite a few of the games situations.

    The rhythm mechanics are tight. They reward you for being super accurate by taking you to fever mode more quickly, but still function if you are a little off. At the same time, if you are off beat, they won't work, and that's how it should be. A glowing bar around the screen pulses to the beat, and is a great aid in helping you get those perfect streaks going. Performing a miracle will take you out of fever mode, however, which was a big design mistake in my opinion. There's really no reason to use miracles except in situations where you are forced to since losing fever mode can really change the tide of the battle in your enemies' favor. Many battles are won by staying in fever mode as long as possible, so you'll want to avoid miracles. I don't know why the game would incentivize (spelling) you to avoid using its own mechanics.

     Switching up your squad types to find the best group for each boss and mission type is fun and actually does make a big difference in how your army performs. However, many of the stronger Patapon types you can create by gathering materials from hunting are not allowed to equip armor for some reason. So armor is hard to come by, and then when you are excited because you got some cool armor, you can't equip it onto your best dudes. Also, I'm bitter because a glitch made my troops refuse to pick up an awesome helmet with spider legs all over it. I then saved, not realizing that this item is missable!

     The music is certainly decent, but it's not the amazing soundtrack that I've read about in many other reviews of this game. A rhythm game really benefits from stellar music, which this game doesn't have. Almost every game I've played since playing Patapon has better music than it. I'm not saying it's bad, it just doesn't really stand out.

     I've heard that the mini games that let you get new materials to make new troops (and in some cases weapons) are among the best ever. I totally disagree. They are fun, but not that great. They could be better.

     Boss battles are the big pro of this game. They are fun and engaging, and the most visually exciting. Nothing beats having your army take on a huge T-rex or a giant worm or crazily animated plant monster. Your army will be launching arrows and spears by the hundreds and just barely diving out of the way of fire-breath, head-butts, and tentacle grabs; very exciting. Boss battles are re-playable and each time you go back, the boss is harder. This can get addictive. I spent close to five hours grinding bosses after I beat the game before deciding to call it quits.

      The game is on the longer side. It took me about 17 hours to beat, which is a good length for it. Really getting into the command system takes time, and you wouldn't be able to see all the depth available if this were an 8-10 hour campaign.

     I think the whole experience would have been a lot better with a more traditional leveling and equipment system. I've heard that you can level up your troops in Patapon 2 and 3, and I'd like to try that some day. I probably would have kept going with the boss grinding if I also had levels to grind. Being able to craft weapons and armor and equip them on whoever I wanted would be an improvement too.

     The story is certainly darker and more cohesive than Loco Roco's, although the ending was a little disappointing to me. I wanted a little more depth, and honestly I thought it was going to go deeper based on some of the cues during the game, so I was quite let down at the end, although it wasn't horrible or anything.

     Sorry if this review was a little rambling or not that well written. Patapon was not at all as great as everyone says it is, and I think the way I wrote this review kind of reflects that. I had a lot of fun playing it, but due to its flaws, I was also quite ready to move only a few hours after beating it. It wants you to keep playing it forever, but I wasn't feeling it without a few more features and ideas. The sequels sound like they improve upon the basics introduced in this game, and I hope to play them some day.

     It's a tier 1 mediocre game for me. It's a fresh new idea, and the main mechanic works well, but there are  enough problems and a few things missing that hold it back from greatness. Plenty of fun was had playing, but quite a bit of frustration and wishing for other features made me glad to move on.

Dracula - Undead Awakening Review (PSP/PS3)

     I saw some videos of Dracula - Undead Awakening and I thought it looked interesting, and with Playstation Minis, that's about all you need to know to give one a try since they are so cheap. It's fun for awhile, and before I started playing Minis, it's what I would have expected a good Mini to be. Of course I now know that Minis (like Alien Zombie Death and Velocity) can be stellar games.

     Dracula is a twin-stick shooter, although the PSP doesn't have two sticks, so you'll be shooting by holding down the face buttons in the direction you want to shoot: triangle for up, circle for right, square for left, and cross for down. Diagonals are achieved by mashing two buttons at the same time. For example, to shoot diagonally north-west, you hold down triangle and square at the same time. This sounds a little awkward, but it works well with the exception of when you try to shoot in circles quickly with the machine gun or flamethrower, which can be a little rough on the wrists. The PS3 doesn't let you use two sticks either, you'll still be mashing face buttons when playing on the big screen. You switch weapons by pressing the shoulder buttons to scroll along your collected weapons which are displayed at the bottom of the screen. You'll use these simple controls to run and gun the entire time you're playing since you can (and have to) move while you are shooting.

     And what are you shooting, you might ask? This is a gothic, Victorian time period game (I think), so you play as this guy wearing a cool hat blasting tons and tons of monsters that are under the control of Dracula himself. Giant wolf/rat creatures and mummies are the main baddies that are lining up to get blasted by the thousands (literally), but there are a few others as well, like creepy worms and these bipedal amphibious guys. There are also palette swapped angry versions of most monster types that are faster than their normal counterparts. All of these monsters rush you in huge mobs and attack you if they get close enough, draining your health bar.

     There are three levels and four game modes, which you can mix and match as you please. There's a graveyard, a castle, and a frozen outdoor area. The level determines what enemies you'll face, but not much else. Survival mode (the main mode, in my opinion) has you blasting away at endless and increasingly numerous and angry hordes while periodically giving you a choice of a random bunch of powers. Each time you earn one of these perks, you can press select to pause the game and choose one. Each time you get to pick one out of a list of four that are pulled randomly from all the possible perks. They are pretty cool. There are a lot of them, and picking out the best one for your current situation is fun. There are some that increase your damage or armor in certain situations, some that add to your score, and some that improve weapons, plus many more. My personal favorites include the telekinesis power that makes power-ups, ammo, and weapons slowly creep toward you, and any of the handful that increase your running speed in some way. Getting the right perks will help you go the distance, as you start out facing a lot of enemies and it only gets worse. You'll soon be facing close to 50 on the screen at once with armies more rushing in as each one dies. Despite the high number of on-screen enemies, the game runs without any hiccups and without load times once you get to the title screen.

     Enemies also drop health potions, weapons, ammo, and the occasional random power-up, such as one that freezes time for a bit and one that increases your rate of fire for a few precious seconds. There are a bunch of weapons (I want to say 8+) that range from a pistol to a rifle all the way up to a flamethrower and a rocket launcher. Each one handles differently, and they are all pretty fun to use. .

     After awhile, Dracula will show up and shoot lightning bolts at you. Killing him gets you an omen. A running tally of how many of these items you have picked up is shown on the high score screen, and collecting enough of them will change your portrait and title on said screen. Getting new portraits was my motivation to keep playing for awhile, as I liked the art style of the pictures, especially the grizzled old man one. Dracula can appear multiple times in a round if you are able to survive long enough, so you can potentially pick up multiple omens.

     Super survival mode is... I don't know. I can't tell the difference between this and survival. Maybe it's slightly harder or there are less weapons? Nothing too noticeable though.

     Wave attack mode has you facing set waves of enemies and collecting the gold they drop. When a wave is over, a little shop appears where you can buy weapons, ammo, and health before moving on to the next wave. You also can choose upgrades to your health, damage, reload time, or gold drop amounts in lieu of picking perks. I don't think Dracula appears in this mode, although I didn't play it enough to really confirm that since I was mainly into survival mode.

     Rush mode is really cool. When it starts, you get to pick either a machine gun, flamethrower, or a giant buzz saw as your starting weapon. You then immediately get attacked by a huge horde of monsters as if you were really deep into a survival mode run. These rounds are usually over really fast, but you take out a ridiculous amount of monsters. I just tried it out again to refresh my memory, and I killed about 200 hundred mummies before they killed me... in a 51 second game. Unless I'm mistaken, this mode is the only way to get your hands on that buzz saw, and it's cathartic after a long survival mode run to jump into rush mode with the buzz saw and shred hundreds of enemies in seconds.

     I stuck to survival mode for most of my time with this game so that I could try and see as many portraits as possible. I wish you could earn omens in the other modes some how (maybe you can in wave attack, not sure), as I only really felt an incentive to play survival mode in order to earn more omens. I would have probably played the other modes more if you could earn omens in them too.

     The graphics are pretty cool. The enemies seem to be 2d images with a few frames of animation. I liked the design of most of the monsters and the way the graphics are done gives them a unique look. Dracula himself looks a little weird, like his head is really small or something. The player character also looks a little awkward when he pivots the top half of his body around but keeps walking in the same direction. He can actually pivot 360 degrees at the waist, which is a little scary. The backgrounds look nice, but there's nothing really special about them.

     There are two music tracks in the game. The title screen theme is ok. The song that plays during gameplay is better. It's fast-paced and has a synthesized electric guitar and a death metal voice part that both chime in from time to time. I thought the vocal part (which I can't understand at all) really adds to the atmosphere for some reason, even though it's only 2 seconds long. It would be cool if there was a different song for each stage or mode, but what's there is good.

      I had fun with this game, but I also didn't play it very long. I was motivated to get the first few portraits, but the gameplay didn't compel me to keep going after that and I lost interest after awhile. It's a thrill for a few days, but I was ready to move on after killing Dracula 21 times (along with thousands of his minions). It's a tier 2 mediocre game since what's there is good, but it would need a lot more content or something additional to motivate the player if it were going to be a great game.

Mirror's Edge Pure Time Trials DLC Review (PS3)

 Mirror's Edge was one of my first PS3 games, and remains one of my favorites to this date. It's a first person parkour game, with some hand-to-hand and firearms based fighting thrown in. Since its main focus is free-running, you have much greater control over your character's body than in most other first-person games (which usually focus on shootin'). It successfully pulls off what so many first-person games do poorly: running and jumping mechanics that aren't painfully bad and inaccurate.

     It's an amazing game. It's controls are spectacular; every move you make requires multiple skillful button presses, and pulling off those moves in order to quickly run through a level feels amazing. It's hand-to-hand combat and shooting sequences were fun and different. It's animation of your character from the first person, both visible (like your hand grabbing a ledge) and off screen (like what a wall-run or a roll looks like from your perspective), is near perfect. It's story had a great concept (a near-future where parkour couriers are one of the only ways to get free information circulated due to an oppressive government), but very poor execution. It was the perfect set-up to have you running various courier missions, but instead quickly degenerates into total nonsense.

     It had three basic game modes. Story mode, where you play through set levels and see cutscenes from time to time; speed run mode, where you play the game's story levels while trying to beat a target time; and time trial mode, where you play a smaller chunk of a level while trying to beat a target time and run through all the checkpoints. Speed runs were my favorite. I would go through the level, planning my route, then have to perform it all with few mistakes in order to beat the target time. The longest of these runs is ten minutes, a marathon of shortcuts and correctly timed leaps and bounds. Great stuff.

     The Pure Time Trials DLC, however, consists of 9 new levels for my least favorite mode of Mirror's Edge, the time trials. I had plenty of fun with the main game's time trial levels, but earning the fast times necessary to get your star level up (and earn the accompanying trophy) always eluded me. Watching videos of these time trial levels online, you can see that Mirror's Edge inspires the kind of speed-running nonsense of abusing game mechanics and level designs that you see from time to time if you search for speed runs in other random games. The game even seems to encourage it, especially based on some of the trophies that come with this DLC, which have you pulling off tricky maneuvers well outside the scope of what you would need to complete the story and the speed runs. Some people are obviously very interested in this sort of thing, but practicing the same jump hundreds of times so that I can just barely kick off a wall and shave half a second off my time was not for me. Speed runs had you planning out a route through a level and then executing with little room for mistakes. Time trials are more about saving every possible millisecond by planning out each step and turn to the pixel. While I had fun reaching the one and two star ratings in the time trial levels (you can earn one to three stars, depending on how fast you are), I had no desire to put in the hours and hours it would take me to get to two and three stars on all the levels (I got three three-star ratings, thirteen two-star ratings, and seven one-star ratings in the main game).

     I put off getting the Pure Time Trials for a long time because they were just more of my least favorite part of the game, but luckily, I went into them thinking I would just have fun getting the one star ratings as I got myself a few extra hours of the Mirror's Edge action I hadn't had in a few years. And that's exactly how my experience went. I also had a shadier agenda; using the DLC to complete the hardest part of the platinum trophy, getting my star level up to 50 by getting nine extra stars (one from each of the easiest target times in each of the new levels). I wondered if I was just buying it to finally get that platinum trophy I always drooled over, but I justified it to myself by saying I would have a few hours of fun with it as well, so it was ok. I can sleep at night with that, especially since I had a blast with these new levels.

     The Pure Time Trials levels are drastically different visually from the rest of the game. Mirror's Edge was famous for awhile for it's almost photo-realistic urban environments. The Pure Time Trials, by contrast are very abstract. Each level is floating a mile or two above an ocean surrounded by an endless horizon. Blocks and planes of glass are suspended in mid-air, yet will support your weight. Huge stones with a beautiful chalky texture are everywhere, as are colored blocks with patterns similar to the runner tattoos you see in the story mode. The effect is very beautiful, especially the ocean far below you and the myriads of floating blocks up in the sky that some levels have. A few stages also have a surreal effect where if you stand on a pane of glass you can see a translucent city far below your feet. It was a great idea to go with this abstract aesthetic for these new levels (although I love the city environs of the main game too).

     Here's a quick refresher on the controls, since I like to put the controls in all my reviews. The analog sticks control movement and looking, ala virtually every modern 1^st person console game. Circle will make you quickly look toward your next checkpoint. L1 is jump, climb, vault, wall run, etc. Basically if you ever want to your body to go up, you press L1. L2 is slide, duck, and roll. If you want your body to go down, you press L2. I've always loved the way those two buttons are used. Very elegant. R1 makes you quickly turn around. And you can still use R2 to attack and triangle to attempt a disarm, but you won't be needing to. And just for the sake of completeness, you can normally press square to slow down time and cross to interact with objects, but neither of these are used in time trials, so you won't be pressing them in this DLC (or at least you shouldn't be).

     The nine levels included here encourage/require the use of advanced techniques that you should already know if you've played a lot of the main game including the trickier types of wall running. Nothing too bad though. As you play, however, you'll notice plenty of shortcuts set up for the really advanced players who are willing to put in the practice necessary to pull off near hack-like maneuvers to achieve world record times. Kudos to those people, I admire their videos, but I am not one of them.

     A few standout levels for me include Velocity, which has you running on curved glass walls with nothing but space below you, and the paired levels, Actino and Actino Rise. The first Actino has you approaching a tower, and the second has you climbing that tower. Put them together, and you have a level about as long as one of the shorter speed run levels. Of course you can't play them together, because they are time trials. Humbug. The tower you climb in Actino Rise is breathtakingly tall. Watching the level intro where the camera pans through the environment made me feel like I was watching one of those Imax films where they throw the camera off the grand canyon. After climbing to the top, if you look down at where you started, it's crazy to think that you actually went through all that space to get there. Of course, you should be running and trying to beat your time, not taking in the scenery. This level is the best use of height I have seen in a game. Avoid it if you have vertigo.

     The music, if you would call it that, is very low key. It's mostly almost like faraway humming or slow drumming sounds. They are so low and subtle that you hear every sound effect and every exerted breath that main character Faith takes. It's a nice choice to let the sound effects take precedence over what music is there, and it works very nicely.

     There are six trophies in this game. Four of them are for doing advanced combo maneuvers. I got two of them, but after many tries, I gave up on the other two for the same reasons I don't try to get three star runs. And I swear I did the U-turn one after a million tires, but it didn't pop! The other two are for getting even higher star ratings; 75 and 90(!). These are lofty goals that will take countless hours to achieve, and I wasn't the least bit interested in them.

     Overall, I would have preferred new story style levels to speed-run through, as that is what I really love about Mirror's Edge. But I did enjoy the new look and the new challenge of going through this DLC. I just don't recommend knocking yourself out to get those world-record times unless you are really into that sort of thing. If you are, enjoy, I think you'll have a lot of fun with this.

     The original Mirror's Edge is a Tier 2 Great Game for me. It did something new and did it very well. Taken by itself, the Pure Time Trials fit into the Great Game, Tier 3 category for me. If you take the two together, the game stays in Tier 2, it's just a few hours longer. The new levels were fun, but the whole way that Time Trials are set up seems kind of broken, or at least very much not for me. Cutting every corner possible to get the best time is a favorite past time for me in Wipeout HD or the speed runs of this game, but the Time Trials don't click with me. It may be that because they are such short chunks of the levels, the only possible way to make up time is to practically count pixels. Contrast that with speed runs or timed races in Wipeout HD, where you're in it for the long haul and need a general plan of action to execute. It's a subtle distinction, but it makes all the difference for me. If you are into time trials, I'm sure this DLC pack is a sublime addition to the game, but for me, it's just a few hours of extra fun added to the already great Mirror's Edge experience.

Wizorb Review PS3/PSP

     Wizorb is an Arkanoid/Breakout type game that adds in a fantasy twist. It has a fantasy story seen through some cool retro cutscenes shown at the beginning and end, and a bunch of interesting twists on the block breaking formula. 

     In each of the 5 levels you play as a wizard who turns himself into a ball and then hits himself around to destroy blocks and enemies. You control his magic wand at the bottom of the screen, hitting the ball up the screen as it bounces back off obstacles and enemies and preventing it from slipping by you. If it does get by you, that costs you a life. The game is old school in a lot of ways, from its graphics and music to this life counting mechanic. You get 3 lives to start with, and 3 continues per world, and if you use them all up, you have to start that world over again. The auto-save is very strict in enforcing this, and it's hard to even cheat the auto-save to get around it (more on that later).

     You need to break all of the blocks in a level to advance, as well as take out any enemies that may be wandering around. Enemies typically don't attack you (except for bosses). You just need to hit them a few times to kill them (I feel guilty killing werewolves, their sprite is so cute!). You have a few spells at your command as well. Pressing cross will shoot a fireball out of the wand. Pressing cross while the ball is touching the wand will make it into a magma ball for a few seconds, allowing it to smash through blocks and keep going instead of bouncing off of them after one hit. Square will cause a wind to blow the ball towards the paddle, and pressing square while the ball is touching the wand will slow the ball down and allow you to control it for a few seconds. You can also teleport the ball to anywhere on the screen instead of re-launching it after losing a life.

     All of these spells cost mana, which is one of the things this game does very well. Mana is somewhat scarce. It can fall out of blocks as potions that you can grab with the wand, or you can get it in bonus levels, or buy it in the shops you sometimes find by hitting the ball through doors in the levels, or you can get it by having the ball not hit anything for 8 or so bounces. That's it. It doesn't refill between levels or worlds, and managing it is important. All of the spells are very useful, but the scarce mana stops you from spamming them. It forces you to choose wisely what spells you need to use for the level you are on and how much you want to save up for the next level.

     The spells are kind of hard to use, but in a good way, so pulling off a spell in an effective manner after collecting enough mana is very satisfying. The fireball lets you take out a specific target quickly. The molten ball helps you cut a swath through levels that are very block heavy (such as the cool levels with tons of blocks that form a mosaic picture). The wind spell is great for blowing the ball into hard to reach places. The ball control spell is the go-to spell to slow the ball down when it gets really fast to avoid losing control and has the added bonus of allowing you to guide it into some hard to reach block or enemy. The teleport spell lets you drop the ball into contained areas where it will bounce around for awhile. I used all 5 spells throughout my time with Wizorb instead of defaulting to favorites like you do in so many other games; the repertoire is very useful yet challenging to use.

     There are also a few power-ups, such as added ball damage and a bigger paddle, but after finding that most of these disappeared after you lost a life (which I would do constantly) and seeing that they weren't that useful anyway, I started to ignore them. You have to buy the power-ups in shops. I barely bought any, preferring to save my cash to spend on lives and re-building stuff in the village. A few curses can also pop out of blocks instead of cash or mana. These fall down the screen and if your wand hits them, they affect you for a bit. Some make you slow or shrink your wand. The coolest one is instant death, which destroys the wand in a really cool sort-of burning animation so that next time the ball comes down there is nothing to hit it.

     The 5 worlds each contain 12 levels and a boss fight. Bosses are a really fun highlight. They are big monsters with hit points in levels with no blocks, so you just need to take them out. Their sprites and animations are all great and they directly attack you. I could have gone for more of theses battles.

     In between worlds you can explore a tiny rpg style town and donate the money you earn from each level to re-build buildings that were destroyed there. You can talk to the residents too. This is amusing, but there isn't much to it.

     The basic ball bouncing gameplay is just what you remember from playing other games like this. You can make your wand move faster by holding circle. I found myself holding it a majority of the time. You can also adjust the speed of the wand in the settings (I recommend speed 2). You can aim a bit by hitting the ball off the side of the wand, but it can be quite hard (and frustrating) to try and line up a specific shot. There is a lot of crazy randomness to hitting the ball around.

     My main complaint involves the basic ball hitting mechanics, and the level design. Lining up shots to hit specific blocks in tight spaces is not really that fun or engaging. Using a spell to help you out is fun, but mana is so scarce, you are going to have to hit a lot of hard-to-hit blocks the old fashioned way. This wasn't much of a problem for the first four levels, since I beat them all without running out of continues and was able to move on. I only had to experience the handful of levels that I found annoying once and they were done (there were plenty of fun levels in there too, don't worry). But then I got to the last world.

     World 5, which is visually the most interesting (it has these pillars with blinking eyeballs: awesome!) is the most frustrating. It has tons of really hard shots. And then it has a really hard boss at the end. I used all my continues up the first time around, and then I realized that I would have to do the whole world again. After my second try and death at the last boss, I almost gave up. Playing through the second time was painful. It was both frustrating and boring. Don't get me wrong, the last boss is actually really fun and challenging in a good way, and probably the best part of the game. I just didn't like having to re-play the most upsetting part of the game to get another shot at him. So then I made a scum save by copying my save data onto my PSP at the last boss. But then I beat him without using it! I felt very accomplished in beating the game since the last world was so challenging, but replaying it was not fun.

     I don't know what you could really do to improve it either. It has to be challenging, it's the last level. I think it just goes with the territory of this type of block busting game. It's a simple thing, and it can get boring to try and bust the same blocks up in hard to reach spots. And making the save system more forgiving would just mean that there's no consequences to dying. It would be more fun that way, but also almost without any challenge or tension. I think the game just ran into the limitations of the block busting mechanic of its predecessors. That last boss is worth it though, it was really fun and really hard. It makes me think that maybe the game should have been all about fighting enemies that attack you with the blocks totally removed. I don't know if that would really work though...

     After that, there are a few little secret things to do if you haven't already done them, such as rescuing some elemental children in a side quest (trust me, this is worth doing, the reward you get is awesome!). You can also replay levels to try and get a high enough score to earn a star, which is actually kind of fun in the lower levels. I got the first 3, and I'm tempted to go back and try for the last two. I don't know if I'll ever get around to it though.

     Overall, I had a lot of fun with Wizorb, but it caused me a lot of grief too. There were a few hours spent replaying that last world that were not enjoyable. It's got a lot of stuff going for it, but I have to dock it quite a bit for the pain I felt there. I'm going to say it's a tier 1 mediocre game. The good outweighs the bad, but it would need a little more of a push to be a great game. I recommend it for the boss fights, the cool sprite graphics, and the magic mechanics, but just know that you might get bored with the brick breaking, especially if you have to replay any levels. But hey, maybe you'll beat all the levels in your first try and have a great experience.