Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean
Also known as: Baten Kaitos: Owaranai Tsubasa to Ushinawareta Umi (Japan)
Developer: Monolith Soft
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| 8.5 | 8.5 | ||||||
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Baten Kaitos is a game that I try very hard to like… and it has its moments where I do enjoy it… but oftentimes, I find myself annoyed and wanting to move on to something else. I have three big complaints, and all three are accompanied by compliments. The first complaint is a very common one… the voice acting. Baten Kaitos' voice acting isn't just poorly acted, but the sound quality makes you sometimes wonder where exactly these lines were recorded. The soundtrack of the game is very nice, so to have clear audio for the music, then to hear people talking that sound like they locked themselves in a bathroom, stuck a wet sock in their mouth, and tried to deliver their lines after popping some sleeping pills… well, it just doesn't mesh well. My second complaint is how so much of the environment blends together, sometimes making it very difficult to figure out where paths are or where people are that you may want to talk to. Despite that, the environments are almost always gorgeous and wonderful to look at… I just wish that they could have added a little contrast to some of the outfits of people or paths that you need to take to advance the story, just to make it a little easier to find them. My last complaint is the combat. On one hand, I appreciate and enjoy the unique, card-based fighting. On the other hand, battles, even against non-boss fights, can sometimes feel like they take forever. Also, since the card-based combat is all about the luck of the draw, you may find your party wiped out simply because the card that you needed never got drawn from the deck when you needed it to be. Likewise, you may have an easier-than-usual time when luck goes your way. Anyway, despite my complaints, I do enjoy Baten Kaitos… I just can't help but feel that I'd like it so much more if just those few annoyances got fixed or tweaked.
Review added: 04/02/2025
Baten Kaitos: Owaranai Tsubasa to Ushinawareta Umi
This game is listed on this website under a different name. To access the review, please click here.
Big Mutha Truckers
Also known as: N/A
Developer: Eutechnyx
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| 5.0 | 6.3 | ||||||
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Big Mutha Truckers…isn’t that great, honestly. It tries. It has some interesting aspects, and it’s not nearly as awful as I expected it to be, but it’s just shy of being good. Basically, Big Mutha Truckers takes some aspects from Sega’s 18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker, but attempts to improve upon them by adding additional hazards while driving and the ability to purchase items between races…Unfortunately, those things aren’t able to stop repetition from creeping in. You’ve got 60 days to make as much money as you can by driving cargo to destinations…after just a few trips into those 60 days, the repetition sets in, since you’re almost the same thing over and over. At that point, only the most dedicated will likely continue to play. I actually enjoyed the first few days of racing with Big Mutha Truckers, and I think most others will as well…but it didn’t last. If you plan on sitting through this game for the long haul, just be prepared to do what feels like the same task over and over again for 60 races to get there.
Review added: 08/05/2021
BioHazard 4
This game is listed on this website under a different name. To access the review, please click here.
Bleach GC: Tasogare ni Mamieru Shinigami
Also known as: N/A
Developer: Polygon Magic
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| 7.0 | 7.1 | ||||||
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I don’t watch anime…in fact, I don’t really like anime. I have friends that adore it, and I’m happy that they do, but it just simply isn’t for me. Give me the chaos of anvils dropping on the heads of talking animals found in Looney Tunes over any anime any day. I say that because Bleach is an anime, from my understanding, and I haven’t ever seen anything from it outside of what was found within this game. I feel the need to mention that because I want to stress that if you’re a fan of Bleach, then I’m guessing that you’ll likely enjoy this game more than I did. The game looks gorgeous, and the story mode will likely be a major plus for any fans of the series…but, since I know nothing about Bleach, I don’t know if these scenes are brief recreations of stuff that happened in the anime or brand new stories…but they’re likely to be a plus to fans of the series either way. When the action starts, the fighting is simply average, though. There’s nothing wrong with it…but it’s also not Street Fighter II-level of not wanting to put the controller down. It’s more of a, “I’m glad I played that, but I’m ready to move on to something else” feeling. But anyway, I found Bleach to be a nice-looking, decent game, but fans of the anime may like it a whole lot more than I did.
Review added: 02/09/2021