Overall 7.5 Graphics 9 Sound 7 Addictive 6 Story 8 Depth 6 Difficulty 5
7.2
Review: Bionicle: Maze Of Shadows MisakiMei
Bionicle has been a toy series from 2001 to 2010 by Danish toy brand Lego, which also has been one of the most successful series by Lego so far. The point what made Bionicle so much more successful than other Lego products is, that it was one of the first Lego products which were not the usual brick + brick = building, but more that if one does build together all the "bricks", pieces, however you want to call them, then one gets a robot with different functions, different designs, different heights etc. Bionicle also got several games and 4 movies. This game, entitled Maze Of Shadows, is a game for the Gameboy Advance and is like a continuation for the 2nd Bionicle movie "Legends of Metru Nui". But is this game worth playing it?
Let us start the review by talking about the graphics. For me, the graphics are the best thing about this game. You have a lot of different looking, very detailed monsters which you have to defeat, and also the environment has a lot of details. But sometimes, the environment can look very monotone, because there are not a lot of levels, only 6 very big levels. The protagonists, the Toa Metru, are also resembling because of their appearance and movements, but they also have differences, like their weapons, colors and masks for example. So I would give 9 points for the diverse graphics.
What about the sound? The sound is not the strongest aspect of the game, because a lot of sounds are repeating, like the defeat sound of the enemies, it is always the same sound for every single enemy. The music fits well to the situations, but it can also become a bit annoying because the background music is always played with the same instruments, and it is always a pretty dark background music. So I would give 7 points out of 10 for the sound, because they fit, but also become repetitive.
How addictive is this game? I have to say that this game is not as addictive as other games, because you can not do a lot of things in this game. You can only go through these levels,solve different kind of puzzles and level up the Toa Metru by fighting against the enemies, which are waiting for you during the dungeons. This idea of combining genres like RPG, puzzle and dungeon crawler has potential, but this potential could have been used a lot more. Therefore I would give 6 points out of 10, in the beginning, it can be fun, but it can get boring after a while.
And now we have the story. Well, if you have no clue about Bionicle, if you did not watched the movie(s), then you will have some problems with understanding everything, because there are a lot of words which only the Bionicle fandom uses. If you know something about the Bionicle universe... lucky you, you will understand everything. The game sets after the final battle in the 2nd movie. You get to know that one of the Toa Metru, the blue one, Nokama, got poisoned, and then you met some weird appearance called Karzahni, who cures her from the poison. But therefore, the Toa Metru have to do something for him, so that they are forced to start another trip through whole Metru Nui until they find what Karzahni desires. Sadly, there are not a lot of story cut scenes, but these ones definitely show how it is to work in a team, and which problems can appear. If there would be more story cut scenes, then I would give it a higher rating, but in this way, I will give it 8 points out of 10.
Last but not least, there is the depth of this game. The depth of this game is not that big, because (like I said before) you can not do a lot in this game, except for walking through dungeons, solving puzzles or fighting against monsters. Therefore, all the puzzles are pretty different, because the Toa Metru have different abilities and powers. It is also a pretty short game with just 6 levels, and you can level up the Toa Metru just to level 10, so therefore, I will give 6 points out of 10 for the depth.
The difficulty depends on how well you level the Toa Metru: if you focus on just one Toa, or if you try to avoid as many battles as possible, then you will have a lot of problems in the last level. I bet it is even impossible to win the last battle, if the Toa Metru did not reach the last level until then.
The scores:
Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 7/10
Addictiveness: 6/10
Story: 8/10
Depth: 6/10
Overall: 36/50
7,2/10
So is this game worth playing it? I bet that real Bionicle fans will have a lot of fun playing this game, so I would recommend every Bionicle fan to take a look into this game. I do not know if I should recommend this game to other people, but you can take a look into it, too, if you want, especially fans of dungeon crawlers, puzzles and RPGs. I think it was a nice experience to play this game, but it is not a game that I would play the whole time.
So thank you very much for reading my review, hope you enjoyed and hope you will also read my upcoming reviews :) And if there is anything that I could do better, then please tell me, ok? :D Greetings from Germany,
MisakiMei
Graphics 9 Sound 7 Addictive 6 Story 8 Depth 6 Difficulty 5
Review Rating: 3/5
Submitted: 01-03-15
Review Replies: 2
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