Players have waited a long time but it seems we will finally be able to receive the final hidden legendary Pokemon Volcanion with the announcement of an official distribution. Volcanion is the star of the latest Pokemon Movie and was revealed by hackers around the time of the Pokemon X & Y release almost 3 years ago. The Volcanion will be distributed through EB Games in Australia and New Zealand from October 10th to October 31st. It can be received on any Pokemon game currently on the 3DS including Pokemon X, Pokemon Y or Pokemon Omega Ruby and Pokemon Alpha Sapphire.
After getting the code from EB Games, players can redeem it in the Mystery Gift function and then visit a Pokemon Center to receive their Volcanion. The first Fire/Water type Pokemon will come at level 70 with the unique move Steam Eruption as well as Hydro Pump, Flamethrower and Explosion. It will be holding the Assault Vest Item. Similar distributions will take place in Europe and America. Make sure to capitalise on this chance to get Volcanion as it is very likely he won’t be available to catch in Pokemon Sun & Moon.
Oranguru is based on an orangutan and is a Normal/Psychic type, lowering it’s weakness to the Fighting type and also giving it a handy Ghost immunity. It can have the abilities Inner Focus or Telepathy. It is the only Pokemon (aside from Smeargle with Sketch) that can learn a very interesting new move called Instruct, which allows the targeted Pokemon to use it’s last used attack instantly which has a lot of potential in double battles. Passimian is exclusive to Pokemon Sun while Oranguru is exclusive to Pokemon Moon.
Fans of Pokemon Amie will be glad to hear the feature is making a full comeback with a bunch of improvements. Now called Pokemon Refresh, Pokemon Amie now gives gameplay benefits such as being able to cure a Pokemon of a status ailment. Players can pat, feed and groom their Pokemon to increase the bond between them.
With Joule having no idea what exactly happened, it is only with the help of her trusted companion bot Mack who is eventually joined by two other special bot types that she must try to find out what happened to the rest of the team that was supposed to be working on the planet and where everything went wrong. While this storyline does seem like it might have potential.
In combat players can also extract the cores of weakened bots through a tug-of-war min-game that if completed successfully rewards the player with a colored core that can be transformed into energy. Alongside the gunplay players will also be able to use Joule’s corebots to perform “lethal” attacks when they have sufficient charge to deal large amounts of damage though most of the time they simply serve as distractions to allow Joule to take on multiple foes at a time.
While the combat system ranges from either too easy to spiking in difficulty, the actual movement mechanics and platforming are a big attraction in ReCore. Joule’s equipment allows her to double jump, dash on the ground or through the air, and make quick climbs on most ledges. The game allows players to use these fluid mechanics to traverse the world in a satisfying fashion most of the time as players will easily learn how to dash through areas, jump, dash, and jump once again all in one sequence. The fact that the platforming feels so well done is a great help considering the grinding and buggy nature of this game.
Out in the field players do nothing more than gather these cores or get into random battles, which can be somewhat useful when it comes to crafting new blueprints and upgrading your companions with new parts, however even this method is frustratingly monotonous as upping various stats requires staring at a bar fill repeatedly and since stat upgrades and new blueprint pieces can only be applied at Joule’s crawler (home base), players will need to deal with another aspect of the game that is frankly terrible.
Combine this with numerous crashes to the main menu, areas where you can clip through the ground repeatedly (with the game resetting you to the same clipping point until you quit out to fix the issue), and numerous places players can explore only to find themselves stuck in the level design and you’ll be wary of venturing too far off the beaten path, though even if you do there is little to find there.
The soundtrack is fairly standard for the genre with a number of fitting pieces of music used throughout the game while the voice acting, for what there is, works well in creating a bond between Joule and her companions who speak only through unintelligible robotic dialogue.
With this legend in mind, five Machina Mages have been summoned from across the globe to Southern Cross city where they must undergo these trials in an effort to save the world. Players take on the role of a bubbly but slightly airheaded Estra, a young Machina Mage from a tiny village who wants to be friendly with the rest of the girls who have been assigned this task. Unfortunately, since legend tells of only one woman being able to restore the planet the last thing on these girls’ minds is co-operation as they wish to put their names down in history.
Sure the majority of the cast feels as if they are simply checking off various tropes when they are introduced and unfortunately they rarely go beyond these simple characteristics but when the whole cast is together they do form a rather interesting group that does its best to keep players around since the actual storyline rarely develops in an interesting fashion and often fades into the background.
The one key aspect where this game stands out is the way it handles the combat system and the Guardians. Guardians appear to be mech like beings that are controlled by the Machina Mages and each Guardian can be customized with different limbs and cores that come with different slots allowing for players to equip them with gems to augment their abilities. Unlike the main characters, the Guardians’ attacks and skills change depending on the arms that they are equipped with and they can be customized any time outside of battle, allowing players to change up their Guardian’s on the fly if they encounter enemies that are being a bit difficult.
Every enemy and character in the game also has various elemental strengths and weaknesses so using Guardian abilities or forms that are strong against certain elements while resistant to others is a good way to power through difficult enemies. While this strategy works well, it rarely comes into play and isn’t nearly as complex as one would expect. I say this primarily because on Normal difficulty the game is incredibly simple to power through without even paying attention to the elemental system. Players can easily find themselves customizing their Guardians into forces to be reckoned with and breezing through standard fights and only getting caught up by the boss fights that raise the difficulty a bit, this means those who are looking for a real challenge will need to go for the harder difficulty setting.
Idea Factory International has released MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death with both the original Japanese voice track as well as their freshly recorded English dub for the game with players being able to swap between the two at any time. The English cast handles their characters quite well and in fact certain characters come off as far more enjoyable sounding in the English dub than in the Japanese version. The soundtrack accompanying the title is fairly impressive as it features a number of unique sounding tracks to explore dungeons and fight to.