- qwq -
De lo poco que pude jugar se me hizo muy mediano, el combate no llega a mucho despues de cierto avance.
La historia no me llamo la atencion como para quedarme más y su forma tan fácil y simple de hacer la task y volver se siente muy simple.
Algo que si me gusto fue su diseño, es muy lindo con esa mezcla de 3D y 2D.
Y pq lo deje, pues despues de cierto punto me empezo a crashear sin parar, ya no me sentí con ganas de seguir y el juego no me da ganas de intentar apesar del crasheo constante :/

Apocalypse is somewhat of an expansion of Shin Megami Tensei IV to put it lightly. But reality is it's own beast with a new story, set of characters, etc. It still uses most of the assets of IV as it was planned to be the refined final revision of the title but ended up being bigger than previously intended. It takes place around the Neutral Ending on SMT IV, almost by the end so I recommend you playing that one before going deep into Apocalypse in case you care about the world building.

It does a lot good, and a lot bad as well. Let me clear out the bad first. The story it's-- alright. Main problem comes from the party cast itself. Ever played a Persona title? The modern ones at least? It's almost the same feeling, whereas most SMT games for the most part never center their stories around characters as any Persona game does. So the story pacing takes a hit, stopping at certain moments to center and develop these characters. That would be all fine and dandy, but the story itself doesn't have enough time to develop them like a Persona game would, which gives us an oportunity to see who they really are. Here instead, a glimpse of it is shown but it isn't enough time to make us really want to care about them. Outside of maybe Navarre.

However, this alone doesn't throw the whole game down. If you end up liking the party cast, you'll have a blast since as most JRPGs tend to flesh out as much of the party members as possible. If you don't like them, well. Look, they're not intolerable or anything but don't expect to see big deep character growth in it. Just stick to the already stablished archetypes and run with it, in case you didn't end up liking them. Personally they were just whatever.

For that very reason I choose to side with Dadga, he's interesting and mysterious. Even after all the tries this game had to convince me that the Bonds Route is the way to go. Denied that in hopes to witness a more interesting take on the Neutral Routes and what Dadga really meant by his plan of going beyond everything: Demons, Angels, Deities and even the creator himself [!$#&]. The game gets really good around the endgame, after about 45 hours or so. Won't get in depth into the combat system just in this review or I'll be here forever and because there are already fantastic videos explaining how it works, better than I ever could here.

As for the positives, the story and battles were really good. Boss battles in particular were much better than in base SMT IV if you ask me. The story itself goes way beyond SMT IV. Remember that I said Apocalypse was supossed to be the "Maniax" version of SMT IV? It is similar from going base SMT: Nocturne to SMT: Nocturne Maniax Edition. I can't get into the meaty parts of the story since there are major spoilers of both SMT IV and Apocalypse itself.

I'm not here to sell you on Apocalypse by any means. However, I think it's a very enjoyable title, but it can't be compared to the more centered experience of SMT IV. It's more of a power fantasy trip in the world of SMT IV rather than a title of it's own, like something totally separated from it that you really don't need to take seriously for the most part.

- Bishop!!! -
Con está secuela estoy dividido.
Pq?
Pues pq el juego quito el modo libre por el mapa, los trabajos extra son poco utiles pq ya no se pide dinero para los combates, la mayoria de asesinos se sienten más planos y con poca presentacion.
Y lo que menos me gusto fue la forma de mandar el mensaje sobre la violencia a los jugadores, antes la forma de hacerlo era sutil y uno se daba cuenta sin tener que mirar a Travis gritarlo a los 4 vientos.

Lo que si me gusto fue como mejoro el combate y como cada espada tiene una forma de usarse con ciertos combos.
Los graficos aquí ya se notan muy bien.
Y pues siguen con la crudeza, sangre y violencia tanto que hasta te permite pegarle a kimmy howell y sylvia le dispara a un niño xD.
Igual la musica está buenota 9/10
Ahora hay unas pequeñas secciones donde puedes usar a Henry y a Shinobu(pero se sienten toscos a la hora de jugar, en especial por los saltos de Shinobu)
Por fin pudimos mirar como el Travis la pone y deja de ser todo un Virgo, y ahora solo es un Otaku, trastornado, sucio, grosero y medio degenerado.

- Welcome to the garden of madness -
Recientemente lo compre para PC para rejugarlo. Como juego es muy brutal y ya sin sus controles de Wii se siente mejor.
Algo que me encanta y que siento que ya no hubo tanto como tal en el Nmh 3, fue la comedia y mucha más crudeza en cada pelea y cinematica.

!! Pero como Port si deja mucho a deber, crashea de vez en cuando, se suele congelar en ciertos momentos con acciones simples de botones, ejemplo: al momento de dar el nuevo ranking, despues de vencer al boss 6, si presionas antes de que aparezca la opcion del boton A, el juego se congela y solo queda cerrarlo y volver a pelear.
Tambien, si no agregas Nmh al Nvidia control panel con la opcion de High-performance, el juego se te va a estar quedando congelado constantemente cuando quieras salir de la habitacion del motel.

The next game in this Mario Kart marathon, Mario Kart DS, is actually the first one I had played beforehand and isn't brand new to me. I don't think I ever owned it back in the day, and apparently I still don't seeing as I had to emulate this one, but I remember playing it all the time with friends on the bus. Though, since I never owned it, I always had to use Shy Guy and also never really played the mission mode. That changes now as I got gold on every 150cc cup and did every mission, including the secret one you unlock.

I'm gonna start with my gripes I have. First, I think in terms of how the characters look, this is the weakest in the series. Some of them just look so off and blocky. Mario Kart 64 didn't have this issue obviously because they weren't actual models but this one really does. Some are better than others but, I guess I can cut it a little slack since it's the first portable title in 3D, a chunk of them just look kinda ugly. While the new courses have some really solid picks, some of them are just really forgettable. There are some absolute bangers like Waluigi Pinball, Tik Tok Clock and Airship Fortress. But then there's courses I find to be super bland like Figure 8 Circuit, Yoshi Falls or Desert Hills. Overall, I'd say it's a decent new track line-up but it's hit or miss. The retro track selection though, I found really weak. Half of the courses are from Super Mario Kart and Super Circuit so I just found them boring and then some of the picks from 64 and Double Dash are meh. The last cup does have Banshee Boardwalk and Yoshi Circuit so it was probably my favorite cup, but then it also has an awful course in Choco Island 2 so it's a bit conflicting. Overall, not a great selection of courses between both new and old but again there are some bangers here and there.

In terms of how the game controls, it controls leagues better than the last portable title Super Circuit. Instead of feeling super slippery, it feels way more similar to the newer titles. Only thing is, it has the old speed boost where its dependent on you going left and right on the d-pad rather than holding your drift for as long as possible. If you're used to Wii and beyond, it takes a little getting used to, but once you got it down it's pretty fun.

That's all fine and dandy, racing is fun but not that great in this game. What I remember the most was the battle mode and while I barely played it this time around, I remember absolutely loving it. Considering what Wii and 7 does with their battle modes, this is one of the better ones in the series. The maps are mostly all great and both balloon battle and shine runners were a ton of fun. Again, I'm mostly going off memory but this truly was the most fun aspect of this game at least when I played it as a young lad.

As I said before, I never played missions as a kid, but I can tell you I would've enjoyed them a lot back then. This along with the battle mode really saves DS from it's faults I listed before. None of the other games have something like this so you have a reason to come back to this one for sure. With so many missions, there's bound to be some that aren't the best but most of them were really cool. The fact there were bosses at the end of each level, and almost all of them are really fun, is just icing on the cake when it comes to mission mode. They should really bring this back for Mario Kart 9, would love to see what stuff they could come up with nowadays.

Of the 4 Mario Kart games I've played thus far, this is my favorite. While I didn't think the actual racing aspect was the best due to the course quality, the battle mode and missions make up for it and are THE reason to come back to this one. Been a long while since I played DS, had a ton of nostalgia when playing the battle mode specifically, so I'm very glad I was able to play this one again. Next in the series is the fan favorite Wii, I always liked DS more than Wii but that may change cuz I forgot how good that game's tracks were. Either way, look out for a Mario Kart Wii review coming soon!