DS #4831: Again (USA)

[DeMoN]

Has there been any comments on how this game is and not about how it's not working? Just wonderin'

There were a few links to other sites' reviews of this game (mostly negative), but if none of us here can play it, then we can't comment on how this game is.

 

[Pablo DS]

Topic about the cracked version here

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[tinymonkeyt]

Okay. So my initial impressions:

Spoiler

1. The feeling is very similar to Hotel Dusk. You even begin at this other hotel. With some 19 year old murder case or w/e. The art isn't the same though. It looks more real than sketched, but still has that same paperflashyness (I don't know what to call that kind of animation -.-).
2. The dialogue is kind of annoying when it's alot between two people. It's kind of slow because it like switches back and forth between their pictures.
3. There's an interesting twist to this game. The screen is like split up into two screens. Both of the same view, but possibly a bit different due to time? Still trying to mess around with this as it is kind of confusing at first. Now I understand why this is called Again! It's kind of an interesting hook though. It DOES want to make me play more because I'm curious what happened/what will happen.
4. The cutscenes are funny :X Just kidding. Only because it looks like its real people acting. Like filmed -.-
5. I don't know if it's just me, but moving around seems a bit laggish? Or more like slow and not very efficient.
6. This isn't as free-exploring as Hotel Dusk. More like dictated by a lot of dialogue and then you get to investigate the crime scene. Kind of like PW..

I'm going to play this a bit more before I make a final judgment. But initial impressions seem pretty decent for a mystery. It does give a lot of the Hotel Dusk-y feeling. For all your whiny pirates out there, I'd suggest giving it a go before complaining about the flash screen. Suck it up.

 

[cewlout]

yeah... it's cracked.... but it has that STUPID annoying splash screen.

It is called "Cracktro". Splash screen wtf? - Buy the game if you don't like "splash screens".

 

[impizkit]

This game got a bad score on IGN. Not worth getting in my opinion.

 

[Gvaz]

Even for free? Wow...

also lol you take paid reviews seriously

 

[impizkit]

Even for free? Wow...

also lol you take paid reviews seriously

Free still takes up space doesnt it? Also, I trust reviews when they are usually worth reading. Im obviously not the only one who looks at them if IGN is still in business.

 

[Gvaz]

So, it takes like 2 minutes to download and I have an 8gb microsd and I have like 2.5tb of space and I need to get more. Space isn't really an issue with me, nor is download speed.

I don't trust reviews mostly because they're wrong often, either giving good scores to bad games (halo and the like) and bad scores to good games.

The only way I'll believe it is by trying it out myself.

I don't need a review to tell me if something sucks, I look it up myself and if i think it looks cool then I'll play it and make my own decision.

 

[impizkit]

To each his own.

 

[Deleted member 158512]

So, it takes like 2 minutes to download and I have an 8gb microsd and I have like 2.5tb of space and I need to get more. Space isn't really an issue with me, nor is download speed.

I don't trust reviews mostly because they're wrong often, either giving good scores to bad games (halo and the like) and bad scores to good games.

The only way I'll believe it is by trying it out myself.

I don't need a review to tell me if something sucks, I look it up myself and if i think it looks cool then I'll play it and make my own decision.

I totally agree with you, but as someone who hates first-person shooters, but likes Halo 1, I wish you wouldn't use Halo as an example of a 'bad game'. I see that all the time and it's like, I know Halo is popular, but that doesn't make it terrible.

But yeah, IGN has had enough unforgivable reviews that there's little reason to read their half-assed garbage.

 

[Gvaz]

Okay, I don't really care if you like X game or not, I was just using it as a placeholder for a subjectively bad game.

It's just kind of stupid really to trust game reviewers who get paid for them, especially when some of them get paid "extra" to make sure they don't give a game too much flak. That's not right, and trusting those kind of people just makes you seem kinda like a sheep and uninformed.

Make your own decisions instead of people making them for you. That's all.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Lol, Gamespot is nothing but bullshit. IGN is leagues better.

I seriously hope you're joking. IGN gave Glory of Heracles a 6/10. IGN is like one of the shittiest online review sites out there. Most of their reviews are pure bullshit. They're scores are only as high as your wallet is big.

And rating games in the view of a pirate is stupid, because in the end anything you're getting is still a bargain. It's free. You can delete it and redownload it whenever. When I review, I do it as a consumer, not a pirate. You have to take into account the whole "bang for your bargain" and other facts, such as not having massive quantities of games available at any time.

 

[Gvaz]

Anyways this is all a bit of a derail, I guess on my part.

Has anyone been playing the game much at all? I can't because of the amount of work due this week, but eh.

 

[ramboo]

download the patched version from suxxors it works nice on akaio rc2

 

[Ritsuki]

Never player Hotel Dusk, but since Ace Attorney serie, I really like investigation games. I'll try this one.

 

[BlueStar]

Don't think you can totally discount reviews, they can give you information about flaws in a game and then you can decide if those flaws would ruin the game for you. In this case the reviewer says that some of the puzzles are unintitive and gives examples so you can decide if he's right or if it's just that they're unintuitive to him and you'd find them OK. From that, if you think "Nope, I couldn't be bothered with such ambiguous puzzles" then it's fair enough to spend your valuble time on getting into a different game rather than playing this one for 3 hours then giving up.

 

[Dragonlord]

Okay, let's give a little review. I've not finished it yet and am only at case number 3 (if you want to call it that way) but I think I can already give some statements about the game itself. So let's get started.

Overview
You are an FBI agent with a particular ability with your mind set on soling a serial killer case from 19 years ago which went unresolved because a murder happened which resembles the first one 19 years ago like the fist on the eye. Your special ability is nothing else but seeing a past version of your current view if you are in a location where it makes sense. While the starting premise is nice the game quickly shows a lot of logic holes and other problems. You are a sort of copy-cat of Mulder from "the x files" which is by itself a bad way to get a game started. While the developers try to shape the characters and give them depth they only achieve it half-way. This game is compared often to Hotel Dusk which is a reasonable comparison. Hotel Dusk had though much deeper characters (and especially more believable ones) than this game has. Your partner is really just a side-kick which annoys you even if the developers did not intend her to be like that. In Jake Hunter you could play the side characters while here she's just he "we are here, you going alone?" type of character. Granted she's supposed to be a newcomer at the forces but she's too cut-board like. In general though the characters are bearable but there had been better character design.

Gameplay
The game plays like a book. You follow the story but interactivity is nearly zero. At all times your side-kick is telling you what to do next which takes away even the slightest detective sense which this game might have had. I never felt so squeezed into a linear story where you can not even blink left and right like in this game. Interactivity only exists in the vision mode where you try to figure out what happened in the past. You do this by probing locations of interest. Some say "where something is different" but that's actually wrong and brings you to one of the most annoying ideas in the game: game over in 4 tries. It's sort of like Phoenix Wright. Probe the wrong location and you get a penalty. Drain the meter and you have to restart. While at the beginning this is not of any problem later on it turns into a nuisance since logic holes and the very rigid trigger-system cause you to restart like 5 times in the worst case until you happen to probe the right trigger. Afterwards its simple in retrospect but that's the big challenge and danger in such games a developer faces that he knows the situation "after" it has been solved often missing the logic holes that can drive players nuts until they figured out what you want from them. This is though not that bad. You do not have to load saves or anything like that. Just skip through the game-over sequence and hit "retry" to start out with full HP where you left of. Raises the question why this HP system has been put in the game to begin with if the only penalty is to waste 10 seconds and then you can start probing again. They should have dropped it altogether as it adds nothing at all. So back to the probing. Once you probe a place you get a hint on what is wrong in the past. This is where the difference comes into play (which also means not everything which is different actually triggers something). You have to recreate the past in the present. Doing so a flashback or "vision" is triggered which looks like a broken night-vision mode playing back a small sequence of the crime. Once you unlocked all visions to be found in the room you can start to trace them as the game calls it. For this you have to tap the sequences in the order they happened. Hitting the wrong on does not any harm. Once you have put order into the visions the fuzzy characters turn real and you see the victim as well as the culprit. That's when one case is solved and you move on to the next. You have to return more than once to the crime scene and playing your trade since the game notoriously requires you to talk to trigger the next steps even if you figured it out a long time back. I for example knew the code for a safe from the time an NPC said the important line but I could not enter it into the safe until I talked to every unimportant character (and getting an "I have no idea") eventually triggering with this a main NPC telling me the code I already knew. But that's a typical disease with this kind of games so it can not be fully held as a negative point against this game in particular. Otherwise what goes for the gameplay it's rather dull especially compared to the likes like Hotel Dusk, Phoenix Wright or Jake Hunter.

Controls
Put simply, then can be damn annoying. Taping the menu works well, not problems there. Often though you have to scroll in lists which get especially larger the trickier a case gets. You can scroll by dragging the scroll knob or by hitting the arrow buttons. Scrolling is a game by itself since the game often fails to properly recognize you dragging. Furthermore hitting the right location on the scroll bar is nigh impossible. So you end up using the arrow keys most of the time. While the menu in general works acceptable the movement in the vision mode is a nuisance. You use the stylus to look around and the buttons (i'm lefty) to move forward as well as looking around. The system is simply put broken beyond funny. Looking around with the stylus is a chore to accomplish. You can only rotate a small amount (45 degrees roughly) before you hit the edge of the screen and you have to restart. Unfortunately this often causes a tap and you start to look at some object you had no interest in. Taping on objects gives you a small information dialog if you are close enough. Often you get told that you are too far away to investigate. Then you have to move like an over-encumbered knight in a heavy armor through the room to the place you are looking for. Side stepping does not exist unless I missed it which would be really helpful to get around those tables which attract you and hook you like magnets. Probing is done by tapping and keeping the stylus pressed on an object. All in all the controls are simple although unresponsive. Rotating should be a lot faster to avoid scrubbing all over the screen multiple times to face where you want.

Graphics
The game orients itself on Hotel Dusk in that it uses a similar cartoon type line effect. In contrary to Hotel Dusk though real actors have been filmed and converted into the cartoon style. A sort of rotoscoping. The effect is though not so great although the idea itself is interesting. One problem is the thick white border around the characters like is used to mark dead bodies on a crime scene. A thin black border would have been a lot better. Also the acting of the actors is often rather embarrassing. What made Hotel Dusk great has been the hand drawn characters with the cartoon line effect. They should have used the same. While not looking too good it's acceptable though. I've seen a lot worse than that. Backgrounds are in general okay. They don't blow you away but they are also not ugly.

Sound / Music
Sound and music in the game is not too memorable. There are a few tunes played and some sound effects. So in general it's repeating quickly but the music at not annoying or irritating while doing so. Other games have a larger range of music which goes on your nerves soon so you want to turn off the speakers. Here this is not the case.

Story
Usually I don't use a special story category but in a game like this it makes sense. The story is not too demanding. I figured out what's going on after the first murderer got revealed while your character is clueless until after the second case. In fact the story is so easy you figure out stuff ahead and then you run around trying to figure out which unimportant person to talk to to trigger what you already know. Logic holes are also part of the show. Especially irritating is why your main character uses the ability only on past crime scene instead of the current ones to prevent further murders. This gives the game a rather artificial touch which is a bummer as the story itself has a bunch of twists so far and is interesting.

Overall
"Gimme a rundown". This line is what your main character loves to utter so your call is my word. If you played Hotel Dusk, Phoenix Wright, Jake Hunter or similar games and you like them you can not do much wrong with this game. Controls and occasional logic holes or trigger-hunting is annoying but the story forgives these short comings. I don't like number scales so let's say the game does not play in the upper league like Hotel Dusk or Phoenix Wright but it's still a good ride if you want to bridge the time until something else comes around. I don't think I would buy the game to play it if I could not get it otherwise so this should give an impression on how good or bad the game is. So overall it's solid but nothing which drops your jaw or causes you to play it again.

 

[The Catboy]

Lol, Gamespot is nothing but bullshit. IGN is leagues better.

I seriously hope you're joking. IGN gave Glory of Heracles a 6/10. IGN is like one of the shittiest online review sites out there. Most of their reviews are pure bullshit. They're scores are only as high as your wallet is big.

And rating games in the view of a pirate is stupid, because in the end anything you're getting is still a bargain. It's free. You can delete it and redownload it whenever. When I review, I do it as a consumer, not a pirate. You have to take into account the whole "bang for your bargain" and other facts, such as not having massive quantities of games available at any time.

In all honesty both Gamespot and IGN are crap. Gamespot is way too picky and harsh when it comes down to reviews and IGN only reviews based off how much you pay them, I never trust online reviews anymore, I trust my own gut feelings now

 

[Klarkykat]

Gamespot are the same as IGN really. Look at their 'review' for smash bros. brawl.

It's not so much a review as a long advertisement.

 

[WiiUBricker]

So I finished this game and don't agree with the bad reviews. I would at least score this game with 8/10.

By the way, I'm bumping this thread because of this: http://gbatemp.net/t300254-finished-again-...-where-is-danny