TazmilyKoala

Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley is an ugly, watered down, and ultimately boring installment in this otherwise mostly great series. After a big step in the right direction with Harvest Moon 3D: A New Beginning there was an even bigger regression with this game. First, the graphics are downright terrible. Who thought giving everyone huge eyes and a chibi design was a good idea? I bet they thought it looked "cute" but all I see is "demonic and desperate". That's not to mention the Lost Valley itself. You'll be spending 2/3's of your time in this desolant waste land of re-used textures and terrible rendering. Until a few hours in, this place is empty. What happened to the varied landscapes and non-ugly characters in A New Beginning? Secondly, when you compare this to other Harvest Moon games, it's flaws become highly apparent. Giving you all farmland and no town to explore is a terrible idea, NPCs are few and far between and are so boring, the 3D landscape makes harvesting and watering plants a needless hassle, I could go on but I'll just say this, it's bad when the first game in the series, an SNES game, has more enjoyment and depth than this full-priced, 3DS game. Lastly, this game is borderline sleep inducing it's so boring! Unlike the highly addictive gameplay of the previous installments, there's no incentive to farm because it's so time consuming and uninteresting. I don't care if I'm broke or if I freeze to death because unlike other installments farming isn't streamlined or interesting. The only positive I can give this game is it isn't a glitchy mess and MIGHT be a better value than say something like FarmVille on the App Store. But even then, that games only costs a few dollars, you might have to pay over fourty dollars for this steaming lump of bile! Don't buy this game, if you want a proper 3DS Harvest Moon experience get A New Beginning or at the very least download a classic Harvest Moon title off the E-Shop's Virtual Console. Even the minimal Harvest Moon Gamebiy games will give you more enjoyment than this.

Tomodachi Life is an odd game to say the least. It has a relaxing feel with a quirky tone. It loves to crack jokes and, I'll admit, I smiled at quite a few of them. The music is ear-bleedingly catchy, you'll be humming the main themes until you die. The visuals are good enough, nothing spectacular but passable. As for gameplay, you populate an island with your Mii characters and watch as they make friends, fall in love, and get into all sorts of wacky antics. For the first few weeks of playing this game, you'll be hooked! Everyday you'll be checking back on your island, expanding it and helping out the locals. But after those precious first few weeks, enjoyment takes a nose dive. Every once in a while you'll see something new and smile, but other than that it's the same thing over and over and over again! After a while, it just loses its charm. One day, you'll set it down and never really play it again. Unlike Animal Crossing, where there's new things to do everyday Tomodachi Life provides you with things to do, and unlocking them and using them the first few times is the fun part. After you've unlocked everything, there's no reason to keep playing. In conclusion, you'll be bored with Tomodachi Life after the first few weeks but I can't deny that charm before then! If your really curious, give Tomodachi Life a look but if you want a deep and expansive life simulation game you won't find it here (If you really want something like that for the 3DS I personally recommend checking out Animal Crossing: New Leaf)

Super Mario Maker is absolutely brilliant! Everyone knows the Italian plumber and his platforming adventures, and now you get your very own cornucopia of infinite Mario fun. Both casual and hardcore gamers of all ages will find something to enjoy here. If your a seasoned platforming expert looking for challenge, you will find it here in boatloads! You can easily sort levels by difficulty and find what best suits your play style. If your a novice just starting out try some easy of normal levels. More of a veteran? Don't worry! Some expert levels will provide even the most hard-boiled gamers with decent challenge. As for the level designing aspect, it's amazing as well. Everything is streamlined and easy to learn so gamers of all ages are welcome! I think it's that broad appeal that gives Super Mario Maker it's undeniable quality. If you like platformers in some capacity, you will find enjoyment in this game. Even if you don't enjoy playing levels, there's millions of levels you still play and share with others easily. If your on the fence about this game, let me assure you, you will find so much to love in Super Mario Maker!

A prime example of a corporate cash-in on a popular franchise, Moshi Monsters: Katsuma Unleashed is an obviously rushed and overall boring game. It's a sidescrolling platformer in which you control Katsuma, a cat-like Moshi Monster. It's basically just watered down Super Mario Bros. with no tight platforming or challenge involved. I get this game is targeted at kids, but I even think they would find it boring. For one, the game has no visual flair, with levels looking much to similar to catch a child's eye. Secondly, the game is needlessly long. And third, your basically doing the same thing every level with no variation, just making small jumps and fighting weak enemies. Even when boss fights feel like they're going to mix things up, they don't. In conclusion, the only people who I think can get any enjoyment out of it is Moshi Monster fans but even then, it's a limited appeal. The best thing this game has to offer is a code included with it for an exclusive Moshi Monster. You'll probably get more enjoyment out of that than you will the actual game.

If you've played an other JRPG, you've played Glory of Heracles. It's plot is boring, battles are fun the first few times but wane in entertainment over time, the battle system brings barely anything original, the game is much longer than it needs to be (JRPG veterans can beat it in about twenty hours, while newcomers may take anywhere from twenty five to thirty hours), and it's soundtrack is forgettable. As for positives, it has great graphics for a 2010 DS game and it may be a good game to introduce reluctant people into the genre. But other than that niche crowd, you will fine little to no enjoyment in Glory of Heracles. And even if you need a game that eases someone into JRPGS, you can do much better than Glory of Heracles, even on the DS. Might I recommend Chrono Trigger's DS remake. In conclusion, Glory of Heracles is a bare bones, standard JRPG with really nothing going for it. But then again, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the game, it plays exactly like you'd expect a JRPG to play. But that right there is a problem. When I score games, I tend to look for what it does differently when compared to other games of the same genre. If you simply do nothing new, then your even worse than a bad game that tried to change up the formula.