First impression: Harvest Moon Tree of Tranquillity (Wii)

After waiting almost a year since this game was meant to have been released in the UK (and for being one of the few reasons to get a Wii) all I can say after 5 days play is it’s about time.

The basic storyline is the same as it has been since thhe beginning of the harvest moon series (you move to a new place to start a new life as a farmer growing crops, raising livestock and hopefully meating the girl of your dreams to marry and have children).
Although this game does take some pointers from magical melody as at the start your heading towards waffle island to start a new life as a farmer after reading a flashy leaflet and after you faint whilst the ship your on went through some rough seas you see a strange woman in your dreams and after a few days on the island you find out that a tree that watched over the island had died and the harvest goddess (the strange woman you see in your dreams) has also vanished so your character takes on the job of reviving the island, the 5 rainbows that had dissapeared after the tree died, bring back the harvest goddess and eventually bring the tree back to life.
The game controls have improved over the Wii conversion of magical melody where you could only use the Wiimote and nunchuck controller here you can also use the classic controller (although you will still have to use the Wiimote for the minigames) which does come in handy for those who tire quickly, although even though I put myself in that group for some strange reason I prefer playing the game using the nunchuk style control system (probably because I got used to it more whilst playing magical melody although that might change once I finally get a classic controller pro imported from Japan).
Whilst most of this game is the same as in every other game in this series the creators have also made merry with the changes which include a end of season flea market where you can buy things that are not normally sold in the shops on the island, being able to travel to the other inhabited islands surrounding waffle island (after you complete certain parts of the game and after you’ve gotten married, had a child and completed all the game you can either go on with the game or get a item from the harvest goddess and then continue playing the game as your child!!! so when they say that this is the biggest harvest moon game ever created for any system they’re not joking (so I’ve only touched the tip of the iceburg).

Whilst Everything else has gotten better the motion controls are still a bit touchy and even though the material requirements for building and improving your property have gone down obtaining that material with the basic tools you are given at the beginning of the game would mean that even the task of chopping down a tree for wood would quickly drain your stamina completely.

Apart from that this has to be the best harvest moon game made for any home console ever.uk

First Impression: Mana Khemia Student Alliance (PSP)

It’s rare for me to get identical games on different consoles to compare the differences but this is an exception to that rule.

Basically Mana Khemia Student Alliance is a portable version of Mana Khemia Alchemists of Al-Revis with a few extra features added on, which are a network mode for 2 player battles (that being 2 players against a monster) and jump start which if installed cerates a 95MB file on the memory stick which is supposed to improve loading times.

But what they give with one hand they take away with the other as they’ve removed the Japanese voices which means that I have to play this version with Flay sounding like a complete burk and the vice-principle having what sounds like a part Scottish part Russian accent (along with what I think is a few others now with no voices at all).

Also even after playing this for a little while I can see that little effort has been made in converting this game to the PSP since the opening video has had the top chopped off it to make it work on the PSP’s wide-screen display instead of re-animating it and the section on the campus map which shows if your in a class or not is now unreadable even when it’s close on the screen.

The worst thing is that even with jump start turned on the game suffers from horrific loading lag even when a battle is started and thus far the only thing in the jump start file is all the voice data which is pretty much pointless since it should’ve contained most of the data relating to battles or some of other components would speed things up a bit.

So to sum things up if you have either the PS2 or the PSP and you only want one version then get the PS2 version, but if you want to have a copy for the go as well then get both since you can try something on the portable version then do it again (or try something else you didn’t do on the portable version) on the PS2 version.

And if you only have one of the consoles then if you have a PS2 then just get that version and don’t bother with the PSP version, but if you only have a PSP and can’t afford a new (or used) PS2 and your not bothered about the loading lag then stick with the PSP version, but in the end if you want the better version then get the PS2 version and if you don’t have the console to play it on then get one.

Review: Magical Witch Punie-chan

When you look at the cover and read the small summary (if you buy this on line) you would probably be wondering why such a cute looking girl is hated so much that a lot of people want her dead, but all that cuteness is just a cover as punie has a darker side which when unleashed will just about abandon her magical abilities in exchange for punishing her opponents with a wide variety of submission holds that will leave her opponent without a single intact bone in their body, and this has made her so many enemies that even her cute animal mascot (who’s head she cracked like an egg), her (shock) younger twin sisters Puyn and Potaru and a plethora of other persons want her to be as dead as a doorstop.

The story focuses on Punie Tanaka who has to spend a year on earth as a test to see if she is good enough to be the successor to the throne to the magical land that her mother and father rule over and if she fails then there’s a list of others who are more then willing to take over succession (mostly by killing of Punie so she can’t succeed her mother for the throne). There’s also a short line of supporting characters including Anego who is the schools gang leader and seems to lead a load of extremely ugly girls but they get their way most of the time (mostly through violence), Tetsuko who is saved by Punie in the very first episode and is a large chested, glasses wearing complete and total train nut, Payatan who is Punie’s cute animal mascot and Pyun and Potaru Tanaka Punie’s younger twin sisters who have their eye’s on Punie’s spot as successor to the throne.

This series is classed as a comedy and it doesn’t fail to impress from the get go with Punie’s mother sending Punie’s bawling father flying back a few feet shortly followed by punie’s magical veggie attack on Anego and her gang when they target her (and on the second wave I was going to chime in with part of a modified version of the pokemon song) and the shocked face of Anego shortly after when Punie suddenly appears whilst her and her gang are trying to shut down a rival curry stand that was being run by Tetsuko who actually is the first person to be on the receiving end of Punie’s other personality but she doesn’t end up on the receiving end of any of punie’s submission holds (thankfully) but Anego and her gang were not since they soon found out the even if they have a charm that is supposed to keep Punie from being able to use her magic it doesn’t stop her from breaking several of their bones with her plethora of submission holds but even then she doesn’t give her younger twin sisters the same treatment when they show their teeth since all they end up with is either a bottom slapping or several other punishments that are more fitting to their age (but I think what she should’ve done is on the first sign of betrayal to send them back home with every bone in their body broken).

But even though this starts on the right note it fails abysmally in the last 3 episodes as even though they kept some humour in with Punie using real cavalry in a mock cavalry battle in episode 7 the rest fails as they seemed to use several references from both alien and the evil dead which was just the death knell for this as a comedy anime and to be honest the people who though of those plot twists should be on the receiving end of punie’s submission holds.

Final words

A good short series but let down by a bad ending

Score

4/10

My world. My way.

Welcome to the world of blighty otaku the blog that will go through the world of anime, manga and video games with my own unique view.

So once I’ve gotten things sorted out I will be posting my views on what get’s my back up in my world along with the odd review and anything I can think of that is either good or bad in my world.