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"The Jet Gamer" Game Review: Medieval Games
8 years ago
We continue with our bargain bin games.
Medieval Games
Well, we continue looking through the bargain bin and here we see something that looks interesting. It looks like this might be a game that is all about games that were played in medieval times, which doesn’t sound that bad obviously. However, this also looks like it could be one of those games that pull you in with an interesting concept but throw very little effort into the final product. Is this one of those games, or is this a diamond in the rough?
Gameplay
To describe this games gameplay in a simple manner, it would be that this is essentially the poor man’s Mario Party game. There are three modes, Story, Tournament and Freeplay. Story mode plays like Mario Party in some ways, but with its own twists of course. You run around a board, collecting coins and treasures, which are like stars, while playing mini games. You play mini games whenever you land on the spaces that involve a treasure. If the person that lands on the space wins, they get the treasure, If the other players win, that other player gets coins and blocks the treasure from being gotten. This means that you can keep others from getting treasures, while you work to get your own. It also means that each turn can either be very quick or long, as each player that lands on a treasure spaces, gets a shot at a treasure. There are also many event spaces, which can be good or bad, depending on what comes up. This could be another mini game, for coins or treasures; they could be zipping to other spaces, or even taking or giving coins. So yeah, I hope you enjoy loading a lot, as there is a lot of it in this game. You know how Mario Party sort of has this swift flow to it that makes the turns go faster, and mini games don’t really take that long to get between? Well, here you are going to be stuck loading quite a bit. Skipping text boxes to try and speed it up can be pretty glitch, and it sometimes doesn’t even work all the way. I have no problem with a game taking a little time, but I don’t want to be stuck in the same area for a long time because we constantly have to load more mini games that aren’t quick. Each game as well usually has a monologue that is read out with it as well. You can usually skip these, but if you want little tidbits about the story or things that are going on, you want to read them at least once. Most of the games are short thank goodness though, being between five to ten turns for a round of the game. I can understand why with all the loading and how often you can be playing mini games, even the same ones over and over again in a turn. However, a big downside though is that there are only three boards in the game. After you beat those three boards, you are done with story mode, and there are no more boards to play. The other modes, Tournament and Freeplay are just mini game free play modes. Tournament lets you play three games in a row to see who does the best, and free play is just as it sounds, you can play any game you have unlocked at any time you want. After that, you are done. Yeah, while it is a neat little distraction that is similar to Mario Party with the whole walk around the game board while playing mini games and gathering items, there just isn’t enough of the game to keep you at it for long in my opinion. I can see where they were going, the game just doesn’t have enough is all.
Story
The story of the game isn’t that bad, but it could be better. Surprisingly, while the main scenarios are pretty average at best, there does seem to at least be some mild world building as you play the mini games, as you will run into characters many times, and you learn a little bit about things that may be going on in the background while you are playing the main boards. Really though, the main story Is somewhat average as all three boards revolve around a kingdom and its prince and his love life. The first board is about trying to find him a girl. The second board is he has found a girl, but it’s from a rival kingdom. Then third, you have to save her from a dragon. Yes, all pretty generic, but at least they try and make things not super boring and do at least expand on their world a little bit between and after boards. Really, there is nothing wrong with the story, but as I mentioned above, there is just not enough of it, and you also will end up hearing some of the same tidbits and monologues many times, unless you skip through them. There just needs to be more of the game, and not have it be as repetitive as I sort of feel it is at times.
Graphics
Yeah, this is one of those games that you can tell was made on a bit of a budget. Things look a little pixelly and a bit blurry at times. You can obviously tell what things are supposed to be and everything looks to move okay enough, though not perfectly by any means. Things just don’t look as crisp as they maybe should and really, other than the still story book designs, the rest of the game is a bit unappealing to look at. The boards are nice, but they are just average at best in terms of design and what they look like. Yeah, the graphics are a bit below average when it overall comes to how the characters look, but the nice story stills in story mode and between mini games do at least save the game from being any lower than it is. If the game was full of more of those story stills, I could see this area being a bit better. It is only pulled down due to the not so great look of the 3D characters you see in the game. Other than that, the rest is just okay.
Sound
The sound is alright here. You hear lots of medieval sounds, which you should going with a game of this type. All the voice actors seem to do an okay job, though not the best, at acting out people in that very stereotypical medieval way. If you have ever heard of any type of movie or game that is supposed to take place in this era, you know how they have them talking. It is pretty stereotypical, but at least they don’t sound like they are just reading off a script. The music is almost unknown to my ear, showing how either quiet it was or very unforgettable it was. I can’t say much about it, but you did her the sound effects and voice alright and often enough that you don’t think of them of that out of place. The sound could definitely be a lot worst I must say.
Control
The controls are honestly, that type of motion control that can sort of tick you off sometimes, and other times work very well. There are some games where the motion controls thankfully take a big of a back seat or are minimalistic to where they work. There are other games though where they sort of get in the way. Thankfully, the minimalistic ones tend to be the ones that are in the majority. Those games are normally not that bad, though there can be little annoyances with them. The ones that focus more on the motion controls with aiming can be pretty wildly varied. You know how aiming works on the Wii. It can be very accurate, but also it can be very shaky, even when you are using motion plus or have a steady hand. Over time, motion controls I’ve noticed can be done right, when implemented in a way that doesn’t take over the experience. However, this seems sort of like your average ones, where some work, and others are a bit iffy really.
Replay Value
The replay value here is a bit low mainly due to there not being a very large variety in the game with it being so short. As I mentioned, there are only three boards, and you will get through them rather quickly. After you are done with the boards, you can either just replay them again, or play mini games, as there is nothing extra to really keep you drawn into the game for an extended period of time. While the game isn’t the best out there, if there was more to do, and the loading wasn’t such an annoyance, I really could see this being the cheap alternative to a Mario Party like game. However, just some small things like that really can kill the mood to keep playing over your initial playthrough. If there is very little to offer the player or to motivate him to keep playing some of these same games over and over again, then you have sort of missed the point of this being a party game. While I can see having a group of people to play the game together being not that bad, you are still going to run into the constant waiting and load times that bugged me as I was playing this game. It just needs more content and content that is made easier to playthrough is all.
Overall, Medieval games really is, as I mentioned above, basically the poor man’s Mario Party clone. The game is just average overall, with not much reason to come back to it again due to how short it is and how much it lacks in variety. Everything just seems average or slightly below, but you could actually tell this one was something that people at least tried to do an okay job with. It is obviously a budget title, but I have seen worst. If you don’t have a ton of time on your hand, or if you don’t want to shell out the forty such dollars that usually the price on a Mario Party game, then you might want to try this one out. If you are easily bugged though, or want something that is going to last you for a long while, then spend that money and get the real deal, as this is just a cheap substitute for sure.
Overall, in my opinion at least, I give Medieval Games a six out of ten.
Gameplay: 5
Story: 7
Graphics: 5
Sound: 8
Control: 6
Replay Value: 4
Overall: 6
Medieval Games
Well, we continue looking through the bargain bin and here we see something that looks interesting. It looks like this might be a game that is all about games that were played in medieval times, which doesn’t sound that bad obviously. However, this also looks like it could be one of those games that pull you in with an interesting concept but throw very little effort into the final product. Is this one of those games, or is this a diamond in the rough?
Gameplay
To describe this games gameplay in a simple manner, it would be that this is essentially the poor man’s Mario Party game. There are three modes, Story, Tournament and Freeplay. Story mode plays like Mario Party in some ways, but with its own twists of course. You run around a board, collecting coins and treasures, which are like stars, while playing mini games. You play mini games whenever you land on the spaces that involve a treasure. If the person that lands on the space wins, they get the treasure, If the other players win, that other player gets coins and blocks the treasure from being gotten. This means that you can keep others from getting treasures, while you work to get your own. It also means that each turn can either be very quick or long, as each player that lands on a treasure spaces, gets a shot at a treasure. There are also many event spaces, which can be good or bad, depending on what comes up. This could be another mini game, for coins or treasures; they could be zipping to other spaces, or even taking or giving coins. So yeah, I hope you enjoy loading a lot, as there is a lot of it in this game. You know how Mario Party sort of has this swift flow to it that makes the turns go faster, and mini games don’t really take that long to get between? Well, here you are going to be stuck loading quite a bit. Skipping text boxes to try and speed it up can be pretty glitch, and it sometimes doesn’t even work all the way. I have no problem with a game taking a little time, but I don’t want to be stuck in the same area for a long time because we constantly have to load more mini games that aren’t quick. Each game as well usually has a monologue that is read out with it as well. You can usually skip these, but if you want little tidbits about the story or things that are going on, you want to read them at least once. Most of the games are short thank goodness though, being between five to ten turns for a round of the game. I can understand why with all the loading and how often you can be playing mini games, even the same ones over and over again in a turn. However, a big downside though is that there are only three boards in the game. After you beat those three boards, you are done with story mode, and there are no more boards to play. The other modes, Tournament and Freeplay are just mini game free play modes. Tournament lets you play three games in a row to see who does the best, and free play is just as it sounds, you can play any game you have unlocked at any time you want. After that, you are done. Yeah, while it is a neat little distraction that is similar to Mario Party with the whole walk around the game board while playing mini games and gathering items, there just isn’t enough of the game to keep you at it for long in my opinion. I can see where they were going, the game just doesn’t have enough is all.
Story
The story of the game isn’t that bad, but it could be better. Surprisingly, while the main scenarios are pretty average at best, there does seem to at least be some mild world building as you play the mini games, as you will run into characters many times, and you learn a little bit about things that may be going on in the background while you are playing the main boards. Really though, the main story Is somewhat average as all three boards revolve around a kingdom and its prince and his love life. The first board is about trying to find him a girl. The second board is he has found a girl, but it’s from a rival kingdom. Then third, you have to save her from a dragon. Yes, all pretty generic, but at least they try and make things not super boring and do at least expand on their world a little bit between and after boards. Really, there is nothing wrong with the story, but as I mentioned above, there is just not enough of it, and you also will end up hearing some of the same tidbits and monologues many times, unless you skip through them. There just needs to be more of the game, and not have it be as repetitive as I sort of feel it is at times.
Graphics
Yeah, this is one of those games that you can tell was made on a bit of a budget. Things look a little pixelly and a bit blurry at times. You can obviously tell what things are supposed to be and everything looks to move okay enough, though not perfectly by any means. Things just don’t look as crisp as they maybe should and really, other than the still story book designs, the rest of the game is a bit unappealing to look at. The boards are nice, but they are just average at best in terms of design and what they look like. Yeah, the graphics are a bit below average when it overall comes to how the characters look, but the nice story stills in story mode and between mini games do at least save the game from being any lower than it is. If the game was full of more of those story stills, I could see this area being a bit better. It is only pulled down due to the not so great look of the 3D characters you see in the game. Other than that, the rest is just okay.
Sound
The sound is alright here. You hear lots of medieval sounds, which you should going with a game of this type. All the voice actors seem to do an okay job, though not the best, at acting out people in that very stereotypical medieval way. If you have ever heard of any type of movie or game that is supposed to take place in this era, you know how they have them talking. It is pretty stereotypical, but at least they don’t sound like they are just reading off a script. The music is almost unknown to my ear, showing how either quiet it was or very unforgettable it was. I can’t say much about it, but you did her the sound effects and voice alright and often enough that you don’t think of them of that out of place. The sound could definitely be a lot worst I must say.
Control
The controls are honestly, that type of motion control that can sort of tick you off sometimes, and other times work very well. There are some games where the motion controls thankfully take a big of a back seat or are minimalistic to where they work. There are other games though where they sort of get in the way. Thankfully, the minimalistic ones tend to be the ones that are in the majority. Those games are normally not that bad, though there can be little annoyances with them. The ones that focus more on the motion controls with aiming can be pretty wildly varied. You know how aiming works on the Wii. It can be very accurate, but also it can be very shaky, even when you are using motion plus or have a steady hand. Over time, motion controls I’ve noticed can be done right, when implemented in a way that doesn’t take over the experience. However, this seems sort of like your average ones, where some work, and others are a bit iffy really.
Replay Value
The replay value here is a bit low mainly due to there not being a very large variety in the game with it being so short. As I mentioned, there are only three boards, and you will get through them rather quickly. After you are done with the boards, you can either just replay them again, or play mini games, as there is nothing extra to really keep you drawn into the game for an extended period of time. While the game isn’t the best out there, if there was more to do, and the loading wasn’t such an annoyance, I really could see this being the cheap alternative to a Mario Party like game. However, just some small things like that really can kill the mood to keep playing over your initial playthrough. If there is very little to offer the player or to motivate him to keep playing some of these same games over and over again, then you have sort of missed the point of this being a party game. While I can see having a group of people to play the game together being not that bad, you are still going to run into the constant waiting and load times that bugged me as I was playing this game. It just needs more content and content that is made easier to playthrough is all.
Overall, Medieval games really is, as I mentioned above, basically the poor man’s Mario Party clone. The game is just average overall, with not much reason to come back to it again due to how short it is and how much it lacks in variety. Everything just seems average or slightly below, but you could actually tell this one was something that people at least tried to do an okay job with. It is obviously a budget title, but I have seen worst. If you don’t have a ton of time on your hand, or if you don’t want to shell out the forty such dollars that usually the price on a Mario Party game, then you might want to try this one out. If you are easily bugged though, or want something that is going to last you for a long while, then spend that money and get the real deal, as this is just a cheap substitute for sure.
Overall, in my opinion at least, I give Medieval Games a six out of ten.
Gameplay: 5
Story: 7
Graphics: 5
Sound: 8
Control: 6
Replay Value: 4
Overall: 6
