Wednesday 17 February 2010

Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner

Gamespot score:6.3(fair)
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my score:7.0
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(+)pros:-monsters are higly customizable,- higher level monsters look very nice,- pretty cool main character,- different party options means different story outcomes,- certain nice environments
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(-)cons:-draggy and uninteresting story,- battle isn't nice to look at and is pretty slow, - early monsters look lame as shit
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gameplay time:30-40 hours(above average)
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Cant complain about this game, but I wont rate games that arent at least a 7 in terms of score to me. This game isnt as nice as i thought it would have been and so are many good looking JRPGs. Sigh... things arent just the same anymore, where almost all JRPGs are good to play. Anyway Im back from my break of chinese new year with a total of $316 obtained from new year money, not too bad if I say so myself, anyway forget about that and time to get to reviewing this wananbe pokemon game.
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Vice is a wandering summoner with a powerful jewel, belonging to a world where monsters work for humans in terms of jewels. If a human has a jewel he/she can summon the monster contained in it. Vice is a wandering summoner in search of an abomination, wild and free powerful monsters that roam the land. The one he is in search of killed his mother, and as one might know it he seeks it for revenge. But due to a string of weird events he is somehow made to enroll in a summoning school, where he must make new comrades to further travel in search of his mother's killer. The story is abit mixed up at first, but it all falls into place. The story itself is very boring, not very, just quite, it just doenst quite make any sense later on.
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Okay besides the lame story , jewel summmoner actually has pretty interesting characters. Vice, our main character is pretty cool, with his ignorant attitude and all its quite nice. There are also other characters, elly, a stuck up girl who always thinks shes better than other cadets, lynn a quiet serious young woman and even the own school headmaster with a commanding personality. The many offered characters with interesting personalities do help spice up gameplay a little bit, with slighty funny conversations they will help lighten the mood. With a fairly interesting play crew the game is at least more entertaining, right?

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Now on to the battle system. The battle system is turn by turn, now I have absolutely no grudge against that, I pretty much love turn by turn RPGs. But this game's turn by turn is quite disappointing. With slow combat and uninteresting battle moves, even many of the higher level monsters dont look well in combat as they do as thier designs. Besides that, the game's earlier stages with thier weak and pathertic looking monsters make battle more of a drag than fun. But the system like pokemon which allows one to use more than one monster in a fight is pretty good, and with the access of the wanabe pokeball gem system, you can "catch" a monster to make it yours, kinda a clone. And just like the original pokemon games having a lower HP monster means easier catch. Deja vu anyone? Well at least leveling up your monsters is pretty nice as you can see them grow and get more power,
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Besides all that there are other points worth pointing out in this game. Such as the nice environments. Though many places are revisted and that there are quite little new maps to explore, the majority of the environments are pretty nice. Temples and towers and dungeon like areas especially, they look pretty detailed and impressive, creative too. Also, the monster creation system allows many different possiblities, thus monster customization is pretty in depth. Amidst all these, storyline dialouge is also different, as you can choose your party members at the game's start, so this game does have a bit in terms of replay value.
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Overall this wanabe pokemon game is pretty innovative. In terms of monsters pokemon does have a larger variety, and in this game there are some repeated designs, so pokemon obviously wins. Other than that this game is your very standard RPG along with some pokemon made adjustments, not all may like this game.

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Happy gaming.