Nice, let us know how it is.
I'm gonna pick up one more game tomorrow, but I'm not sure if I should go for a 3DS game or a DS game I missed. I haven't played 999 yet so I might get that.
Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs 3D came in today and I played two stages of it. Given how similar they were, I'm going to take that to mean I've essentially played all of the game. Allow me to talk more about this game than anyone ever should:
The original DS game has a lot of love from me because despite being a shallow, repetitive game it didn't take itself too seriously and had concepts that'd make for a cool game if expanded on.
The 3DS iteration takes a step back in every aspect from what I've played of it. For starters- you get to name your dinosaur. In the DS version I had enough character space for the name "BADASS REX". In this iteration I have just enough room to squeeze out "MRBADASS". Fuckin bogus.
Things continue to feel sour as I move on to customizing the dinosaur's skin. Crazy stripe patterns like stars and flames are nice, but a vast majority of color options are
locked. You unlock these seemingly at random in the game, so theres no real way to customize the dinosaur to one's liking until seemingly a good way into the game.
Next, part of the appeal for me in the DS version was attaching equipment to the dinosaur. There were horns, scales, and claws that could be equipped and they would be visually apparent in the character. While you can still attach things in the 3DS version, as far as I can tell they don't impact the model at all which is a bummer.
But these are all minor quibbles compared to what takes a major step back- the gameplay. The original had a sort of quasi-RPG sim thing going on. You wandered in an overhead map and found other dinosaurs to fight. You kept fighting till every dinosaur in the map was dead, at which point you move onto a new map. In the meantime you had to eat and drink to keep stamina up. Every map also had a hidden fight against a random assortment of objects such as telephone booths, tanks, school houses, and rocket ships. I remember the fights having a funky drawing mechanic during that was kinda interesting.
The 3DS version boils all of this down to its dullest basics. Instead of an explorable map, you go down what is essentially a linear corridor. Along the way you run into things which when destroyed sometime yield equipable items or unlock skin colors. At predetermined points you fight a dinosaur, which so far are all the same exact type per stage (i.e. one stage is all triceratops etc.) The fights make no attempt at being interesting and boil down to "dodge right before enemy attacks, mash B while they are confused". At the end of each stage is a boss dinosaur who only differs by having a different design and twice the health.
I dunno, the original felt engaging despite being the same damn thing over and over because its set up made me feel like I was surviving as this increasingly more badass dinosaur who sometimes punched out double decker buses. The 3DS game feels like a one button fighting game sandwiched between an equally dull dino-themed hallway simulator. Nothing even pretends to be remotely fun.
Despite that, the production values are legitimately really nice. The graphics are pretty decent and everything animates well. The 3D adds nothing to the gameplay, but it looks nice and doesn't hurt my eyes unlike some other Ubisoft releases (fuckin Rayman 3D). Its just too bad it wound up being an even more shallow game than the original and lost most of the crazy in the process.
According to reviews it stays exactly the same throughout with no surprises so I don't think I'm gonna bother to see this one through to the end.
