I'll be honest, as I have absolutely zero interest in the Pokemon Mini, I never thought I'd actually review a game for it. Then Jerrel from Sungrand went and made a damn Silver Falls game for the thing, and because I'm such a huge Silver Falls fan, I'm now morally and ethically obligated to review it. That said, I have to admit that I knew this was coming; I was the first person to back the Kickstarter for it when the campaign launched last year. So how is this Silver Falls homebrew title for the Pokemon Mini? Well, keep in mind that it IS the Pokemon Mini, but within that context, it's really not bad. As usual for the series, the peaceful folks living in Silver Falls are just trying to get through their daily lives unimpeded by bloodthirsty cryptids. Unfortunately for them, monsters have appeared on the nearby North Island. It is up to some of Silver Falls's greatest heroes to clear the island of the monster infestation and make it safe again. You play as Wilma, a wise hunter; Bull, a burly lumberjack; Gold, a friendly carpenter; Hogan, a lively electrician; and Oxa, a starry-eyed dreamer. Setting up camp on North Island, this five-person dream team fights for the safety and security of their friends and family back in Silver Falls. And probably for freedom or something; I bet those cryptids have oil. You start off in the party's camp where you can review their stats, review the camp's stats, see some character dialogue - this doesn't tell a grand narrative epic or anything, but it's some nice drops about the series's lore and the characters' backstories - and have characters perform jobs. Each of these jobs has a positive and a negative effect; your character's job, if successful, may raise your camp's safety but lower its food and possibly even find a useful item. If your characters are in bad shape, though, they may fail the job and have nothing but negative effects. There is a random chance of a monster encounter, affected by your camp's Safety stat, so you may go from job completion straight into a battle. The battle is really the main gameplay; each character has a unique attack and a "power" attack. Combat is turn based and, since it's Pokemon Mini, pretty simplistic, but it's more fun than I expected going into it. Silver Falls: Monsters in North Island is in an early build with future updates already planned. There's currently no sound in this build despite Jerrel's having made an entire soundtrack for the game, but that fix is coming soon. He also plans to add a save feature, improved visuals, more enemies, recruitable pets, mini games, Code Linker connectivity with other Silver Falls games. The current build may be a bit bare bones, but considering that the Pokemon Mini was basically nothing but minigame shovelware, this is a pretty impressive game for some seriously weak hardware. I can only judge it based on what's here at the moment, and that's pretty slim, but the foundation is here for a seriously surprisingly good time, and considering the platform, what's here is honestly a lot better than I expected. My Rating - C |
I'm a teacher.And I like to play video games. I like to collect video games. I like to talk about video games, and I like to write about video games. During the day, I teach high school history; during the night, I spend my spare time gaming. Then I write about it. Archives
May 2024
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