Severed Review

You're walking through the forest when you hear a sound. A voice is heard. Suddenly a creature, a bird with two necks and two mouths, flies down on rock next to you. Welcome to the dark fantasy world of Severed, the latest game from Drinkbox Studios.

In the game you are Sasha, a girl who, with a living sword on her side, goes on a journey to find her missing family and discover why she is in the fantasy land. Throughout her journey she meets several characters, such as the Wanderer, that guide her toward her goal. To find them, she must travel through the world and through various temples and locations to find her family. The story is gripping and very dark, with the characters you meet bringing emotion and terror.

The gameplay revolves around Sasha exploring the world in a first person perspective, solving puzzles, and fighting monsters. The player explores the world to accomplish certain goals, such as finding a ruby a bird stole or making their way through a temple. Throughout the world, Sasha can find secrets either by touching a certain piece of a wall, or following instructions found in books throughout the game. Sasha also gains new abilities throughout the game, such as a medallion the allows her to interact with stones that change night to day and back and a sword upgrade that allows her to break certain types of rock in the over-world and on enemies.

The combat is fluid with it all being player imputed. Wherever the player swipes, Sasha slashes with her sword. Each of the enemies have a certain attack that is charged up, and the player has to learn these tells to block the attack. A special part of the combat is the Focus Mode, which is charged up by doing successful slashes to enemies in combat. If an enemy is defeated during Focus Mode, the player is given an opportunity to sever certain body parts off the monster, such as limbs and eyeballs. These parts can be used for upgrades that improves damage output or defense.

The soundtrack in this game is very good, with haunting melodies while in the over-world. During combat, the music amps up to faster beats and a more rock like tone.

Severed is great. The combat is smooth, the story is engaging and the soundtrack is eerie. At the time of writing this review, I have not finished it but I am looking forward to what comes next. Severed is now available on Playstation Vita, iOS, Wii U, and 3DS.  

Rating: 4.75/5

Mighty Magiswords Premiere Review

After premiering on the CN Anything app, and having numerous shorts, Mighty Magiswords has premiered on Cartoon Network. The original shorts worked well, showing the origins of them gaining some magiswords and even starting their Warriors for Hire business. I found most of the minisodes good, with very few being meh. So the question is, does Mighty Magiswords work well as a series compared  to the shorts? Well yes and no.

Before we get onto the story, lets take about one of the most important parts of any animated show, the animation. Magiswords has a very smooth animation. The colors are bright and colorful, and they pop on the screen. The character designs are also interesting, in a good way. Lastly, the Magiswords (from what has been seen) are creative and are an endless possibility.  

Now onto the two episodes, starting with  "The Mystery of Loch Mess." The episode was ok. It was weak with some of the humor and didn't carry the charm of the minisodes. It also was weak with the opposing "heroes" Witch Way. The one good thing it had was that it fleshed out the area around the kingdom. Now onto "Squirrelled Domination", the second and better of the two. This episode brought the charm and the humor seen in the minisodes. It shined by giving each of the Warriors their own stories, and their own problems to overcome. It also fetchers one on the funniest stories ever told.

Mighty Magiswords has potential. It grew from it's five minute outing to an eleven minute outing, and even though it was a bit rough, it has potential. I'm excited to see where the series can go from here and am looking forward to it.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village Quick Review

        So I just finished part 1 of the Original Professor Layton trilogy and since I don't want to do a full review, I am just going to give quick thoughts on different aspects of the game.
        The game-play consists of searching the environment for clues and solving puzzles. The puzzles are smart, but too many are math based.  The environment searching is fluid.
        The sound and OST is great. The themes add to the mystery and to the feel of the town.
        The story is amazing. The story starts out simple with Professor Layton and Luke trying to discover where the Golden Apple is located. The story quickly evolves into finding a murderer, discovering the cause of kidnappings, and finding the secret of the dark, tall tower located in the center of the village. My one problem was that at the end of the game, many of the mysteries were solved right next to each other, lacking the pacing the benefits mysteries.
        The hand drawn backgrounds are gorgeous. They give life to the world you are in and are always wonderful even though you may had seen it 50 times. The animations are also very beautiful and are very much a highlight of the game.
        Curious Village is a good first game in the series. The story is great, even with its shortcomings. It's game-play and music is solid, even with some frustrating puzzles.  Overall, I liked Curious Village, and am looking forward to to playing the rest of the trilogy.