Gamelist Review List Song List Watched Journals Forum IRC Gamelist Song List Review List Forum Articles IRC Log Out Add Game Edit Games Add Reviews Edit Reviews Add Songs Edit Songs Log Out Edit Games Edit Reviews Edit Songs Sign Up Log In My Journal My Game Journals Watched Journals All Journals Journal Settings All Journals About Us Staff FAQ
Castle Paradox
Title Bar
Log In Box
 
______  
[more]
vs. Shadowiii
Frued, eat your heart out.
RedMaverickZero
Download: 22B
V.S.
Shadowiii
Play Time: too many hours and many more minutes
Review # 33 for Shadowiii Frued, eat your heart out.
Them's Fightin' Words
    The "Mr. Triangle" series is an interesting series. Basically the first four are games with shoddy graphics, mediocre gameplay, and an overuse of the "f" word. Since RMZ noted that MTSA5 actually had a plot, I guessed that it might be worth a shot. Unfortunatly, it lived up to what one CP member stated on a thread about the game..."Well, it was an adventure, and it was kinda shi**y."

MTSA5 is indeed a step above the rest of the series, but unfortunatly it isn't nearly in range with RMZ's other material (Halloween Quest comes to mind). Comparing MTSA5 to the rest of the series is like comparing MTSA4 with Magnus. Sure, one is obviously better then the other one, but they still are crappy.

Though I will make a comment now: though the game had a lot of flaws, I actually felt compelled to finish it (after I forced myself to play up to a certain point). Of course, by this time I only had about one more dungeon to go, so...that isn't saying much.
Graphics
    Graphics...are lousy. Certainly a slight improvement from the rest of the Mr. Triangle series, but still nothing to get excited about. The tilemaps are especially bad, blocky and griddy in what has to be only a few colors per square. Many of the battle backdrops and cutscenes are MSPainted, and so are quite a few larger enemies. The only real thing I noticed that was good about them was that, like Halloween Quest and Smokey McGoo...they all fit together. The style was obvious. Unfortunatly, in this case, the style was crappy. The exception was Fenrir's graphics, which looked beautiful but TOTALLY out of place, so much so they actually looked somewhat bad.

Tilemaps are definatly the worst of the bunch. These things are so awful it hurts. Most are either solid blocks of color, or blocks of color with lighter lines going through them (ha ha! Now it looks like sand/grass/water/etc!). A few were decent (like the Sphinx thingy), but overall they were a pain on the eyes. I was thinking of Magnus, and that isn't a good thing to be thinking about.

NPCs were also quite ugly. Though I will admit some were better then others; Tony Timebot and the Creator and the Street Peddler's were good. But some were just so awful they hurt my eyes. The "Arabs" were one pixel bodies (basically stick men) with giant heads and eyes. They didn't even look human. Mr. T was poorly animated in his walking. The 'gators were also quite awful. Overall...they need a lot of work.

Battles are a bit better. Well, some things about them. The characters animate smoothly, and some actually look pretty good (Tony Timebot, that Caveman, and the Creator look decent), but most the rest of the hero graphcis are a bit dull. Chuckrat is an abuse of the "fill" button, to say the least. As for the enemies...again, soem are better then others, but most consist of solid blocks of color (again, "fill" button) and thus look rather shabby. Fenrir's are neato (as usual), but quite out of place. Having a demi-looking Sephiroth hit me with solid colored waves is just...ugh.

Cutscenes are all MSPainted, so don't expect anything beautiful. They are decently animated, however, and the fact that there ARE cutscenes is certainly nice, though not enough to salvage the graphical score.
 
Storyline
    Though this may look like I'm copying JSH, I'd like to split this up into two catagories: story and dialogue.

Story - Well, there IS one. The other MTSA games didn't really have one, besides "kill the creator," so I guess this is a LITTLE better. However, the story is very poorly paced. Basically, you'll know NOTHING about what you are doing through a majority of the game. You want to kill Slither...because. You don't like him. Oh wow, plot development there. He kidnaps some scientist who you need for some reason or another (again, no one really knows why), and..."woah merna", you travel through time for some unknown reason chasing Slither down, beating the crap out of him many times, yet it never really seems to hurt him because he just runs away again. The feeling of a "chase" was nice for a while, but after I totally beat the crap out of the guy who-knows-how-many-times, it got old. The stupidest part is I never get the scientist back after killing/beating up Slither, but when I beat up Slither's submarine, THEN he gives me the guy back. It made the entire chase I'd been doing for the past few hours seem...useless. After that, the story unravels really fast. After the story had been going so slow for the first 3/4 of the game, I guess RMZ wanted use to catch up or something. The actual plot of the story is covered in basically the last 1/4 of the game, and is so compressed that is seems quite forced. Overall, the pacing was WAY off, and it totally messed up the game.

Dialogue - Oh please don't go here with me. This makes Breath of Fire 2 look like Shakespeare. Ok, it isn't that bad, but it is comes pretty close. There are TONS of grammar and spelling errors scattered throughout the game. Not only that, most of the characters don't really have any developent through their dialogue. Dialogue is ment to tell the story, and develop the characters. Basically, in this game, all the dialogue is basically Mr. Triangle swearing at everyone for some irrelevent reason, while someone else tells them to travel somewhere in time. Then, when you get the scientist, he explains everything really fast, and you go back to Mr. Triangle swearing and Chuckrat being pissed that Mr. T calls him "Rat-face." Ugh. The profanity is really really badly overused. Unlike other games with a lot of profanity (Walthrus and I Made Dis for example), there is never a BREAK from the profantiy. Walthrus had Bob and Yuk Deluxe. IMD had that batman scene. MTSA5 is a non-stop swear feast, and it isn't funny. As Iblis stated in a recent review, "You can't just be stupid and expect it to be funny." How very true.
 
Gameplay
    Hmm, gameplay is a bit half-and-half. The game has a lot of elements used in professional games but not used in many OHR games (example: splitting up parties to travel to different times, the many side quests, being able to travel to any time you want at the end...), but the gameplay becomes quite unbalanced. In fact, it seems to get more and more unbalanced as the game progresses. When I complained to RMZ, he suggested I "level up." Well, I got to some insane level (see screenshot), and...the game was still reasonably difficult. While battles are somewhat interesting, with a decent balance of spells and the like, the poor balance later on really messes this up. Also, the fact that no curitive item or spell seems to heal much more then 150...you are basically screwed when it comes to really hard boss battles.

Also, having a limited number of healing items in shops was a nice touch, though it could use some polishing. I didn't have enough curative items early on, than later on (when I almost never used them because they didn't heal enough), there were too many. We needed some Cure2s, dang it.
 
  Battle
    MTSA5 has a nice variety in terms of battle options. Mr. Triangle can either attack or steal (though both do generally the same amount of damage, so I don't know why you wouldn't steal all the time). Chuckrat is a powerful fighter but somewhat slow (and his abilities take WAY too long to activate for the damage dealt. Cheese-sword is nice, but considering the time I have to wait before it goes...I could have attacked all the enemies normally and done more damage). Garygator is a magician who REALLY SUCKS in terms of attack (you though Vivi was weak in FF9? Psssh, Garygator makes him look like Zues.), but has a wide variety of spells. Sadly, he doesn't seem to have very much SP, so you really cant use him until he is a REALLY HIGH level, and by then his magic spells aren't nearly as good as smashing someone with the Z-sabre. Tony Timebot was a great character in terms of balance. He had a decent attack, and he also had time-altering spells which really helped in boss battles. I didn't use the Caveman or Genie much, though I noticed the Caveman was a decent balance of strength and spells, while the Genie was quite weak in both areas. The Creator was basically a faster Chuckrat, which was nice, plus he had good spells (except his fscken mass curitive spell didn't work worth CRAP. Someone fix that bitset before I hang myself).

Overall? A decent variety. Chuckrat goes WAY to slow by the end of the game when compared to the other players, but overall it is a decent selection of spells. Why Mr. Triangle was given spells when the all suck is beyond me. Also, the "ultimate" spells were rather crappy. Ultima wasn't worth the SP cost. In fact, almost ALL the high level spells weren't worth the SP cost (Except maybe "Timestop"). I used that "Starshower" spell through most of the game.
 
  Map Design
    Linear as crap. Oh man, that was something I really hated. The game was TOTALLY linear. In most parts you couldn't even go back to the last place you were. As stated in story, you basically chased Slither down. Yeah, that was it. You didn't bother going back.

Not only that, random encounter rates were WAY too high towards the end. The enemies were REALLY strong then, and they kept showing up ALL THE TIME to kill me Ugh.

Maps sucked. Linear and boring. The Egyption tomb was somewhat better, but the puzzles were still a breeze.
 
  Balance
    Ok, let me set something straight here...

AN IMPOSSIBLE/NEAR IMPOSSIBLE FINAL BOSS IS TOTALLY UNCOOL AND UNFUN.

Yes. The final boss in MTSA5 is pretty much impossible to beat in the current state. Why? First, the Creator's curative spell is screwed up, so you can't heal yourself well AT ALL. Second, the guy has 10,000 hp, and you do probably MAX 150 damage a swipe, whilc he dishes out 500+ damage to your entire party. Plus, as stated above, HEALING ITEMS ARE CRAP, so you CANT BEAT HIM. I was an INSANE LEVEL (60 something I believe) and I STILL COULDNT BEAT HIM. NOt only that, I was bloody rich (remebmer: really high level), and I still couldn't beat the bugger after I'd bought enough potions to cure Aids. I never beat him. No, I am not kidding, I NEVER BEAT HIM. I couldn't even open the RPG file and cheat because it was passworded. Joy.

Now that I've ranted about that awful final boss, I'll make a note as to the balance in the rest of the game: it is lousy. Ok, it isn't lousy through the ENTIRE game. It starts out quite good, actually. Up until the Power Plant I was doing just fine. I leveled up a lot in preperation for bosses, and was able to take them out with some difficulty, and I had to stratigize and such. It was kinda fun.

Then I got to that horrible power plant, and enemies became quite unbalanced. The game generally got WAY to difficult from there. I finally went insane and leveled up like a madman in an attempt to breeze through the game, and it WAS STILL HARD. GAAAAH! Normal enemies are WAY too strong, and bosses are overpowering to say the least. Balance became such an issue the game wasn't even fun anymore. How frustrating.
 
Music
    It's alllll ripped and not placed. You know there is a command in the Map Data that lets you choose what song plays in maps? Yeah, that's basically all the placement you'll hear. Oh yeah, it DOES play a little bossy type theme when you talk to a boss, but that gets old fast.

Music was also ripped from obvious sources. Luckily I decided not to take the game too seriously and so I didn't really care that much, but a few songs really rubbed me the wrong way (the Mario and Pokemon songs especially). Ugh.
 
Enjoyment
    Well, I actually sort of enjoyed it starting out, if you don't count my distaste with the text boxes. I figured that the game's gameplay would generally stay around the same level, and that the dialogue would improve. I mean, the initial gameplay was excellent. The characters were reasonably well balanced between each other and I actually had to THINK for most of the battles. Well, it didn't, and battles got harder and harder until I was frustrated out of my mind. And, even though people WARNED me that the final boss was impossible, I figured that since I was an insane level I would be able to beat him without breaking a sweat. Nope. Still got wasted. That was really frustrating. Considering I went above and beyond the call of duty in terms of leveling up, I'd HOPED that I would actually be able to BEAT THE GAME. But no. I never actually beat it. I'm considering un-passwording it and just reading the ending, but considering how much I sidliked the dialogue I probably won't even bother. Mark this down as a major waste of my time.
 
Final Blows
    What can I say? It's a part of the series, all right. Sure, it is an improvement over the rest of the series, but that's like comparing Legend of Dragoon to Magnus. Sure, one is obviously "better", but they both are crappy games. Well, at least it "lives up" to its name, though that isn't saying much. Honestly, I don't recommend getting it. If you are still thirsting for an RMZ game, get Halloween Quest or McGoo instead. They are miles above this shi**y series.
Even at this INSANE level, I still couldn't beat the final boss. ARRRGGGHHH!!!

Even at this INSANE level, I still couldn't beat the final boss. ARRRGGGHHH!!!
Final Scores
Graphics: 2/10.0
If you've played Halloween Quest you'll know RMZ can do better then this. They are quite below OHR standard, though the fact that there WERE cutscenes was a general improvement. But not enough to kick this score up.
Storyline: 3/10.0
Well, it's got one. But the crappy dialogue and poorly paced story make it...rather difficult to choke down. At least it has quite a bit of originallity in it.
Gameplay: 4.5/10.0
It had a lot of potential, but it failed in the long run. The final boss is probably the worst thing I've ever played. I still haven't beaten that idiot. It started out great, but ended up horribly unbalanced.
Music: 2.5/10.0
I didn't enjoy the music in this game. Enough said.
Enjoyment: 1.5/10.0
Nope, sorry, I didn't have fun. Believe me, I TRIED. But the crappy dialogue, bad graphics, and gameplay that went down the crapper really made me NOT enjoy this game. Oh yeah, the music was lousy too. :P
Overall Grade: D+
Final Thoughts
    "well it was an adventure...and kinda shitty" - Battleblaze.

Never have truer words been spoken.
 


All games, songs, and images © their respective owners.
Terms of Service
©2008 Castle Paradox