Purple-Clad Gamer

Super Street Fighter X Revival (Turbo Revival outside of Japan) (GBA, 2001) - Reviewed by Purple-Clad Gamer My copy of Super Street Fighter II X Revival, came straight from Osaka recently. Sorry for the super-huge picture, I took it on an iPad. Before we begin, here's how my reviews work: I rate each category on a scale from 0.0 to 10. Some categories will not be applied if necessary (ex. Level Design in a game like Dr. Mario) Categories: Introduction (not scored) - I start the review. Story - How well the story is written. Gameplay - How well does the game, well, PLAY? Are the controls good? Are the mechanics good? Characters - How well the characters are designed and how good they are as actual characters. Graphics - How well the game looks. Music - How good the game's music is. Difficulty - How well the difficulty is balanced-- is it challenging enough to keep you going? Level Design - How well are levels designed-- are they fun and interesting? Replay Value - Is it worth playing over and over? [Introduction] The first and only handheld release of Super Street Fighter II X: Grand Master Challenge (Japan)/Super Street Fighter II Turbo! How well does the ever-so cirtically-acclaimed game in the series that ISN'T 3rd Strike hold up on the Game Boy Advance? First off, a few disclaimers. 1. I have only played the Arcade and MS-DOS versions of Super Street Fighter II Turbo (as well as the western GBA release), so I might compare it to those games (particularly the western GBA release). 2. I am a CASUAL Street Fighter fan. I love the story and characters and enjoy playing them, but I'm not the biggest fan of tournament play. Sure, it's fun to watch, but I'm a casual fan. 3. I use the names given outside of Japan for these three characters (WW = worldwide): Vega (JP)/Master Bison (WW), Balrog (JP)/Vega (WW), & Mike Bison (JP)/Balrog (WW) [Story] The story in this game is almost nonexistant at its base, but the story plays differently depending on your character of choice. A criminal organization called Shadaloo is ruled by a drug lord named Bison, who is hosting a worldwide fighting tournament called the World Warrior tournament, the same name used by the tournament hosted by Sagat. Your goal is to pick a character, beat up 6 other characters, and the 4 boss characters at the very end. The individual stories the characters go through are only shown through their endings, and many of them are really good, my favorites being the endings of Ryu, Ken, Fei Long, Vega, and Sagat. Considering it's a fighting game from the 90's with many varying endings... 8/10 [Gameplay] 2D Fighting games have been notorious for having a steep learning curve. The key to getting good is to practice. To me, fighting games teach you sportsmanship. They kick your ass to kingdom come if it's your first game, teaching you to appreciate your losses anyway and showing you some great victories if you're dedicated. X/Turbo Revival gives you 4 buttons to work with instead of 6. However, you are able to get the other two inputs customized by combining buttons or making them pressure-sensitive. It's solid for what it is. Not a huge fan of the GBA SP's D-Pad, though. I'm sure I'd probably be singing a different tune about the D-Pad if I was playing on an original model, but I really hate not having a backlit screen. Every character has their own special moves and attributes that make all 17 of them feel unique in their own way. Your entire roster is: Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Guile, Blanka, Dhalsim, Edmond Honda, Zangief, Balrog, Vega, Sagat, Bison, Fei Long, Thunder Hawk, Cammy, Dee Jay, Akuma (unlocked by getting 5,000 VS Points), and Shin Akuma (unlocked by getting 9,999 VS Points) You can accumulate VS Points by playing the various game modes. Getting more VS Points will unlock new things, namely Akuma, Shin Akuma, and an art gallery. The Arcade Mode is your main mode, where you take on 6 opponents, then Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and Bison in that order. However, if you can get to Bison's stage without losing a single round, you can fight Shin Akuma instead (JP version only). There's also another mode where you can play the bonus games as well as other little challenges, a Versus Mode (I'm not sure if it requires a second copy or not, could anyone tell me if you know?) where you can play with a second player, Options, where you can change the difficulty, button inputs, and other things (supposedly you can make the special move inputs easier, but I haven't found out how to make this possible), and a Time Attack mode, where you can do various difficult challenges as fast as you can, such as fighting the 4 Boss Characters in tandem or a 1-on-1 battle with Shin Akuma. The modes are quite fun, but the worldwide release of this port is worse. Its biggest problem is that it has a ton of bugs and glitches compared to the JP release (most notably the Akuma Glitch, where getting to Akuma's stage can permanently mess up your saves and freezes your GBA). Other than that, this stuff is really good! 10/10 [Characters] I'm a pretty big fan of the way the characters look. I don't really know what else to say here. 10/10 [Graphics] For a GBA conversion of an arcade classic, it looks nice. We have some new stage designs, and Revival brings us an edgy artstyle that looks absolutely beautiful! I love this artstyle so much, it makes the characters look so much cooler! In terms of sprites, they use the SNES sprites with some Arcade sprites of the new moves. Akuma's sprites are all from the Arcade mode. This game looks amazing for an arcade game remake for the GBA. 10/10 [Music] Revival's music is great, just get used to the square waves and saw waves, since they're the most common instruments being used. It goes well with the GBA, though. 9.1/10 [Difficulty] Once you learn the basics, Turbo Revival (WW) has a pretty steady difficulty balance that's good for beginners. X Revival (JP) has harder AI, biut it's all in good fun. A lot of the additional challenges can be pretty tough at times, which urge you to keep playing and prevail over your adversaries, whether it be a still car, a Japanese Sumo Wrestler, or a Spanish Ninja. 10/10 [Replay Value] This game has a lot of replay value-- Arcade Mode is always a blast, and the challenges keep you coming to improve your scores and times! At school, whenever I had free time, I began playing this game, either to continue Arcade Mode or do some challenges. It's a ton of fun that keeps me wanting to play more and more! 10/10 [Overall Rating] 9.6/10 If you plan on getting this game, I would strongly suggest you purchase X Revival for less glitches and bugs, but you'll have to fight around the text being in Japanese, some name differences, and harder AI. Turbo Revival is much easier, but is far more prone to bugs and glitches that can fuck up your game permanently. Be careful if you're buying Turbo Revival. X Revival is far safer in comparison, though. If you like Street Fighter or are trying to get into a 2D fighting game, get this game, but if it's the latter, I'd also suggest Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers for SNES, as I'd argue this game is somewhat tougher. But, hey, it's handheld!

I own a physical copy of Awakening and a "bootleg" of Shadow Dragon (which is just the US version with text edited to mimic the PAL version, but I've noticed a few typos in it so I can probably assume it's just modded. I got it off of EBay last year)

I've never been a fan of the 3D playfield. Too tedious for my liking, but I'm sure plenty of people adore it.

Thanks! I definitely prefer Panel de Pon over Tetris Attack, to be honest. Tetris Attack removed a few of the oh-so-glorious Panel de Pon tracks (like Tetris Attack's Stage 12 using Stage 11's music, which kinda pisses me off), and I wasn't a huge fan of the Yoshi's Island reskin. I first got into the series in 2014 with Pokemon Puzzle Challenge on the 3DS VC and I loved it. I ended up getting so addicted to it that I did a ton of research and found out that it's part of the Panel de Pon franchise and found out about the Panel de Pon GB Prototype ROM that was inside the game. I figured out how to access it, and played around with what little was there. Lip's theme really caught my attention and has made me a Panel de Pon fan, since I ended up trying the original Panel de Pon and ended up buying Pokemon Puzzle League just recently.

Thank you for reading! Pokemon Puzzle League is also a really good game (I still have yet to beat it on Very Hard, but again, it's Very Hard mode), I should review it once I complete it.

I wanted to review it because, well, I wanted to share my thoughts and I really enjoy retro games. Is that a problem?

Panel de Pon (SNES, 1995 (JP only) - Reviewed by Purple-Clad Gamer Edit: Sorry if some of the text placement looks weird, I typed this up on notepad beforehand Before we begin, here's how my reviews work: I rate each category on a scale from 0.0 to 10. Some categories will not be applied if necessary (ex. Level Design in a game like Dr. Mario) Categories: Introduction (not scored) - I start the review. Story - How well the story is written. Gameplay - How well does the game, well, PLAY? Are the controls good? Are the mechanics good? Characters - How well the characters are designed and how good they are as actual characters. Graphics - How well the game looks. Music - How good the game's music is. Difficulty - How well the difficulty is balanced-- is it challenging enough to keep you going? Level Design - How well are levels designed-- are they fun and interesting? Replay Value - Is it worth playing over and over? [Introduction] Panel de Pon is a puzzle game released exclusively in Japan in 1995 for the Super Famicom. It's known outside of Japan as "Tetris Attack", giving it a Yoshi's Island reskin, and is known to be a very good game that spawned the Panel de Pon series, which would be known as Puzzle League in the west. [Story] The only story in this game is within the game's 1-Player VS Mode, which might as well be a Story Mode. Panel de Pon's 1-Player VS Mode opens up with the game's mascot, Lip, explaining what's going on. The world has been invaded by monsters of darkness who have used magic to create an endless rainfall, putting the entire world at the brink of flooding. The monsters have also turned all the other faeries into servants of evil. Lip decides to stick up to restore her friends to normal and defeat the monsters within Death Mountain. Considering it's a puzzle game, It's a pretty good premise and has a few surprises at the end. 9.4/10 [Gameplay] Gameplay in Panel de Pon is pretty simple. If you wait on the Title Screen, Lip will show you how to play, and the game even has some built-in tutorials that you can use in the form of the How to Play and How to Improve modes. In Panel de Pon, you play on a grid of squares, each of which can be filled by a panel (hence Panel de Pon). Panels are stacked on top of each other and slowly rise toward the top of the grid, with a new row of panels being added at the bottom. The player must swap panels in horizontal or vertical lines of three or more matching colors by swapping panels horizontally, in increments of two. As matching lines of panels are made, the panels are cleared from the grid and any blocks above them fall into the gaps. Clearing more than three panels in a single swap creates a Combo, while Chains are made when falling panels from one clear cause another clear. Both score extra bonus points, and in multiplayer VS matches, these also send what are called Garbage Blocks to the other player's grid. Garbage Blocks can be transformed into panels by making a panel clear that is touching the Garbage Block. You automatically lose once the panels (and/or Garbage Blocks) touch the top of the grid for too long (only about a second or two). The goal of Panel de Pon depends on the mode. In 1-Player VS Mode, the player controls Lip, the Fairy of Flowers, to fight off the monsters of darkness and return her friends to normal, in the form of 2-Player VS matches with Lip's opponent being controlled by the computer. Lip must confront each of her corrupted friends in the Fairy Worlds, and later the forces of darkness in Death Mountain. The goal is to defeat every opponent-- there are 10 stages on Easy Mode, 11 on Normal Mode, and 12 on Hard and Super Hard Mode. The only way you can fully complete the story is to beat 1-Player VS Mode on Hard or Super Hard. Easy allows you to get a feel for how legitimate matches feel like, with Normal getting tougher, and with Hard and Super Hard being a true test of your Panel de Pon skills. Endless Mode basically serves as a Practice mode, where you can set the speed level and the difficulty. It only ends once you lose or quit. Timed Mode is basically a Score Attack mode, where you try to rack up as many points as you can within 2 minutes. If you love shooting for high scores, you'll like this mode. In Stage Clear Mode, you go through 6 stages with 5 parts each and clear the panels until the white line appears. Once the white line appears, you have to get every panel beneath it. It gets very tense at times and is pretty fun. Lastly, the Puzzle Mode gives you a panel puzzle where you have to clear every panel in a set amount of moves. Panels do not rise in this mode. Panel de Pon's gameplay is extremely smooth and a ton of fun. The gameplay is absolutely perfect for what it does-- it can get pretty tense, especially in 1-Player VS Mode on Hard or Super Hard and Stage Clear. Every mode is always pretty fun (and frustrating at times) but I always get the urge to keep going. 10/10 [Characters] First off, all of the characters look really good and very reminiscent of 90's anime. Every character feels unique in terms of design, and that creates a very good sense of variety by design standards. We don't exactly get much character development in Panel de Pon. The most that we know of the characters (sans the spoilers) is that Lip is cheerful, determined, and helpful. Yeah, granted, it's a puzzle game, so I probably shouldn't be asking for much. Regardless, it works fine given the fact that it's a puzzle game. 9.0/10 [Graphics] For SNES standards, Panel de Pon's art style and spritework are absolutely beautiful. I have nothing but praise for the graphical style used in this game. 10/10 [Music] Panel de Pon's soundtrack is absolutely marvelous. I never get tired of listening to this game's music. In the middle of actual matches, every stage's music is really good, and when you're about to win or lose, that awesome music becomes tense awesome music, and I absolutely adore it. Without spoiling anything, my favorite pieces are Lip's Theme, Elias' Theme, Stage 11's Theme, and most of all, Stage 12's theme. 10/10 [Difficulty] Panel de Pon's difficulty factors on the Game Mode you play and what difficulty you're playing on. In 1-Player VS Mode, Easy and Normal aren't that hard, except for Stage 11 on Normal. I had a pretty tough time with it my first time around. Hard Mode and Super Hard is basically a difficult test of your skills at Panel de Pon. It's tense and it's fun, but you're gonna need to practice... a LOT. Especially for Stage 12. Stage Clear Mode gets really intense towards the end-- I'd compare it to playing 1-Player VS Mode on Hard or Super Hard. Puzzle Mode really makes you think-- you'll likely spend a lot of time playing this mode to fully clear it. I have yet to play 2-Player VS Mode since I don't have any friends who play Panel de Pon, but from what I've seen, matchups like one elitist player and one above-average player-- the elitist can beat the above-average player in seconds, while 2 elitists can go at it for more than 5 minutes. Pretty crazy stuff. In terms of the difficulty's balance, it's a hit-or-miss situation. Puzzle games with a difficulty balance primarily factor on how good the player is, but from my experience with Panel de Pon, I'd say the balance was very suitable. In 1-Player VS Mode, the first 8 stages aren't that hard, but the last 4 can really give you a run for your money, as expected from final areas/levels in games in general. 10/10 [Replay Value] Panel de Pon is bursting at the seams with content. Puzzle Mode will have you playing for a long time trying to solve them all, the 1-Player VS Mode is always fun to play, and there's always the Stage Clear Mode to keep you tense and looking for more. Panel de Pon is a game absolutely worth playing repeatedly-- It's a ton of fun and many other people who have played Tetris Attack and/or Panel de Pon can tell you the same thing. 10/10 [Overall Rating] 9.8/10 Panel de Pon is a beautiful game that should be played by anyone looking to get into puzzle games or is just looking for a really fun game to try out that has a ton of content and replay value. Panel de Pon certainly delivers, and does not disappoint in the slightest.

Gengar Starmie Wobbuffet yeah that's all i got lol

I haven't played FE4 in years. How do people manage to get their units to crazy-high levels and have amazing stats for the next few chapters? I'm about a third of the way through Chapter 1 at the moment. I've used the Arena and cleared it using Sigurd and Quan.

Is correct about Super Mario 64 and wrong about the other two because I haven't gotten very far in either. EDIT: This was written after Gardy's comment and then Rex Glacies' comment appeared.

Is correct about Super Mario 64 and wrong about the other two because I haven't gotten very far in either.

Say "no homo" then leave.

Is not Olivia.

I really only swear when I'm angered or using swear words to describe frustration with something, such as a really hard part of a game (ex. "I can't stand these f*cking Hammer Bros. in World 8-4! They drive me batsh1t insane!"). Otherwise, the most "swearing" I'll do is use the word a55.

I'm really wanting to see a new Ninja Gaiden game now...

Her growths as a Pegasus Knight surprisingly aren't terrible. 25% HP, about 30% in everything else except for Luck and Defense-- Luck being 75% iirc and her Defense being a measly 5%. I didn't use ANY Dracoshields on her and I'm surprised she gained so much defense!!!

Please don't get on me about using the word "canon" here but these pairings are what I consider my personal headcanon, and at the same time I've grown to absolutely adore these pairs and hence they are in fact my favorite pairs. MaMU x Idk, I can see marriage with Miriel, Sully, Tiki, and Cherche being really adorable. Chrom x Olivia (People complain about Chrom and Olivia being a rushed pair! By that logic, Sigurd and Deirdre were an awful pair! That aside this pair is cute imo, the end, dont witchhunt me pls) Frederick x Sumia Virion x Maribelle Stahl x Sully Vaike x Nowi Kellam x Miriel Lon'qu x Panne (I'm moreso interchangeable with Donnel over Lon'qu) Ricken x Cordelia Gaius x Tharja Henry x Lissa Donnel x Cherche (I'm moreso interchangeable with Lon'qu over Donnel)

Alright, thank you. In the middle of Chapter 12 at the moment, and I have to say I'm... extremely surprised. I promoted Abel into a Dracoknight during Chapter 11's preparations menu, so there's that. Radd and Maria got caught up to the rest of my team, and I got Linde (who so far is doing a meh job as a Cleric, but not much I can do there). Speaking of Maria... holy... I can't believe I'm about to say this, but she's one of my BEST units so far (also sorry for the super huge image). EDIT: Maria, I'm so sorry for calling you cannon fodder, this is amazing.

You can double-post as long as you apologise and all. I'm sure the admins won't mind if you're just trying to get info out there. On the other side of the spectrum, I'm in the middle of Chapter 10 and gave a Seraph Robe and Goddess Icon to Maria and took Hauteclere before sending Minerva to death (this was painful for meeeeeeeeeee) Radd is my lowest-leveled character (sans Maria) as a LV7 Cavalier with a pitiful 4 Skill at the moment... ouch. Everyone else is doing pretty well, too. I'm using Bantu as a temporary unit and he's turning out surprisingly really well so far (unfortunately he's not going to be permanent... Oh well. Maybe another playthrough). Abel will be receiving my first Master Seal (it would be Ogma since he's a level higher but I need fliers). Looking forward to Dracoknight Abel! Hopefully Maria won't be too bad to raise... One can hope, right?

Glad to see a few people are interested. Here's how my run is going, even though I haven't been playing it much due to school and other things... That aside, Barst is amazing as a Merc (which is not surprising to me since I go Fighter>Hero for Barst all the time), and I'm keeping Abel as a Cavalier until I can promote him (and at the same time build his Lance Rank. At Chapter 6x and it's already B-Rank!). I'm temporarily using Lena until I get Linde, and she gets the job done. Julian's a bit behind everyone but doing good nonetheless. It's going alright so far, but the run should be pretty... interesting to say the least. Read the original post, by the way.

Likes Muse

Understandable.

Darros in Shadow Dragon. I have no regrets.

I'm liking a lot of these ideas so far. Probably add some bosses and make the board size bigger, maybe even make a few more for variety's sake, but if I were you, I'd base them off of the more famous maps in the franchise such as Marth Embarks (Chapter 1 of Shadow Dragon) and The Verge of History (Prologue of Awakening). Also, some boss characters would be nice, such as Camus, Gharnef, Michalis, Medeus (Earth Dragon form), Reptor, Langbart, Arvis, Julius, Batta, and so on. Maybe for multiplayer battles, bring out some maps from Genealogy of the Holy War and give each player control of a castle, make the objective to seize all castles. Teams without any castles automatically lose. Make boss characters playable as well, just for the sake of pulling all the stops and making it more fun in the process. Also, maybe do something in the manner of the Street Fighter II board game and make the characters cardboard cutouts that attach to plastic pieces and make everyone find cards of their playable characters, and so on. Also, everyone should have access to a Lord, too, and make it so that only the Lord may seize castles in FE4 Maps, and so on. That's all I can really contribute to, hope it helps some!