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Cryptract Review

November 21, 2020 by RSS Feed

Cryptract isn’t a title that rolls off the tongue, but that hasn’t stopped the game finding a massive audience in its native Japan, where its full name is Genjuu Keiyaku Cryptract. After four long years, the mobile version of Cryptract has finally arrived in the West. Was it worth the wait?

Cryptract

For the most part, yes. But before we get into the whys and wherefores, here’s the backstory.

Cryptract sees you playing as the ruler of a fantasy kingdom that has been attacked by a mystical creature and its army of minions. You’re left with no choice but to take up arms and send this beast back to the underworld (or wherever it came from).

That means getting into an endless succession of turn-based battles with squads of monsters. There are campaign battles, side missions, a tower, beast battles, and much more, all of it conforming to the same tripartite format.

The combat itself is equally familiar. You can take up to four units into the field, plus a friend - a character borrowed from another player’s army to lend a bit of extra firepower. Each unit has a basic attack and a skill, which can be an attack or something more wholesome, like healing or discovery.

There’s also an auto button, and you’ll spend most of the game with this button activated, since the game’s AI can handle combat perfectly well for the most part.

Instead, you’ll concentrate on strategy - creating the strongest possible party using the best possible combination of units. You can have up to ten parties ready to deploy, all of them suited to different battlefield conditions.

Winning is not just a matter of stuffing your strongest, starriest, most levelled-up units into a party. Each unit also has an elemental attribute, such as wood, fire, and water, and these interact with each other in different ways. Fire beats wood, water beats fire, and so on.

To give yourself a tactical advantage you need to ensure that the party you send into battle has the right combination of elemental attributes to defeat your opponent. As the saying goes, never bring fire to a water fight.

The Good

Cryptract

While it’s not exactly groundbreaking on the gameplay front, Cryptract does what it does very well. The gacha system is fair, there’s always a battle you can win from the huge selection of missions available, and your progress through the campaign always feels steady.

But Cryptract’s undisputed ace card is its well-written and impeccably localized text. The campaign and side missions are all introduced by segments of an unfolding narrative in which characters have inner lives, anxieties, and motivations. You carry these with you into battle.

The side missions in particular add an extra layer to Cryptract, padding out the main story with neat little subplots that exist not to change the course of events by to add color and depth to the gameworld and place your actions in a larger context.

The presentation is in a storybook style, too, with entirely 2D graphics and fairly modest animation Cryptract is about words at least as much as pictures, which is refreshing.

The Bad

Cryptract

There’s relatively little in the way of innovation in the world of fantasy RPGs with gacha mechanics, and Cryptract is no exception to this rule. Over time the game can become grindy, with you having to watch battle after battle in order to earn orbs to summon new units.

Cryptract is better balanced than most, and there’s plenty of fun to be had in tweaking your parties to try and get through a particularly rough mission or beast battle, but grind will get you in the end.

And if you’re a fan of technically impressive 3D RPGs you may find yourself underwhelmed by Cryptract’s deliberately modest presentation.

The verdict

There are plenty of gacha-powered fantasy RPGs to choose from, and in gameplay terms it can be hard to tell them apart. Cryptract makes an effort with a strong sense of narrative and exceptional localization.

It’s a well-balanced RPG, too, thanks no doubt to its years of playtesting in Japan. If you’re on the lookout for a new gacha RPG, Cryptract is a solid prospect. It may look modest, but it’s polished in the right ways.

8.1

OVERALL

Replayability 8

Game Controls 8.2

Graphics 8.4

Sound/Music 8.1

Gameplay 8

FREE

Cryptract

lionsfilm

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StoryCut - Review

November 21, 2020 by RSS Feed

With the popularity of video clips, video editing tools on mobile are not in short supply. Such apps are often swamped with new features, including rich filters, special effects, cute stickers, variable speeds, rough cuts, and even adding recordings. It can often all be a bit much.

In that case, is there a video editing app that is powerful and comprehensive enough to cover all the features provided by existing video editing apps? The answer is – yes, StoryCut is the only video editing app you need on your phone. So if you’re a big fan of clip creation, try StoryCut, which allows you to quickly finish what you want and share it on your desired social media platform.

If you are an amateur, StoryCut also customizes the clip sizes suitable for various social platforms, such as Tik Tok, Instagram, and YouTube - so that you can share the clip with one click after making it. StoryCut has standard editing functions, such as video cut and filters. It’s worth looking at the features in StoryCut that are absent from most editing apps.

PIP

StoryCut - Video Editor &Maker

PIP (picture in picture) allows you to merge images with a video. When we tried to overlay an image of a starry sky with my portrait, we saw an incredible double exposure. Using the green screen matting feature, we placed a video in a Jurassic Park scene, and created a Hollywood-style effect.

Keyframe

StoryCut - Video Editor &Maker

Keyframe is a dominant feature of StoryCut, a feature previously only available in professional clipping tools on the PC. In this feature, you only need to set a few keyframes to make any material move according to the trajectory you set. For example, if you want the object to move in sync with a moving car, you just need to add two keyframes. This feature can even achieve special effects like those seen in science fiction movies.

Effects

StoryCut - Video Editor &Maker

StoryCut offers a vast number of popular effects for short video platforms. Add an old TV frame to the video, or a gold dust effect can give you a dreamlike image. There are also some split-screen effects you can utilise.

Speed

You might think that video speed adjustment is a regular feature - but StoryCut can increase the speed by eight times, with many similar apps only offering half that. We imported a video of some skateboarding and got amazing results after adjusting the speed and combining it with the reverse play function.

Adjust

StoryCut contains 18 fine adjustment parameters, which can make up for the shortage of filters, saving the poorest videos that even filters cannot do anything about. I imported a video taken on a cloudy day with poor lighting, for example, but found that even with a filter, I could not get a nice color. Then I turned on the image quality adjustment. After a series of parameter adjustments, including brightness, sharpness, contrast, saturation enhancement, and color temperature reduction, the video looked brand-new, just like the image quality of a movie, and the clarity was significantly improved.

Very satisfactory results were obtained.

The Good

As detailed above, StoryCut has everything. You can perform every edit imaginable, and the interface is intuitive

enough to allow you to do it in no time at all. It’s entirely conceivable that you could have a video or slideshow with sound effects, cuts, transition, custom audio, double-exposure effects, and picture-in-picture ready in under five minutes.

For the most part, the effects and filters are tasteful and stylish, too, so StoryCut will let you turn out productive, high-quality content at speed. Curious prospective video editors could easily spend hours experimenting with all the tools and functions on offer, some of which are surprisingly advanced.

While tools like Instagram and your phone’s camera software will enable you to apply basic filters and stickers and so on, none of them contains anything like the depth of functionality available in StoryCut. In that sense, the app emphatically earns its place as an advanced, bespoke video tool.

The Bad

StoryCut can recognize voices to generate subtitles. With one tap, you will see subtitles auto-generated from the voices in your clips. For now, this feature is only supported on Android, but we hope the dev team will implement this feature on iOS sooner so users can also enjoy the ease of subtitling that the app provides.

Check out StoryCut via the App Store (and Google Play) and also its official site, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube channels.

Overall

StoryCut is a comprehensive and intuitive video and picture editing app. VIP users will get the most out of it, as long as they don’t mind being subscribers rather than owners, but anyone looking for a richer alternative to Instagram should check it out.

8.3

OVERALL

iPhone Integration 9

Lasting appeal 8.1

User Interface 8

Is engaging 8.2

Does it well 8.3

FREE

StoryCut - Video Editor &Maker

Wenzhou XunChi Digital Technology Co., Ltd.

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MovieMusic Review

November 21, 2020 by RSS Feed

Music is a more powerful storytelling tool than most people realize. It’s the vital seasoning that makes every movie, TV show, advertisement, and internet video meme work how it should, manipulating your emotions in exactly the right way.

MovieMusic | Music For Videos

The problem is, using an existing piece of music involves paying exorbitant fees or drawing on classical pieces that everybody has already heard a trillion times.

MovieMusic aims to solve that problem for you by providing a library of compositions that you can dip into for every conceivable dramatic context.

These tracks, which have been written by a company of jobbing professional composers and performed by a live orchestra, tend to be around a minute long. They fall into 70+ albums, with titles like “Attractive”, “Badness”, “Excitement”, “Light”, “Christmas”, and so on.

The tracks themselves have titles too. In the “Love” album, for instance, you’ll find “Bond”, “Bliss”, “Longing”, “Intimacy”, and more. Each album contains 30 tracks, meaning there are over 2000 in all.

There are a couple of chapters of Orchestral Tools as well - subtle accents to create mood rather than full-blown musical compositions.

The first two tracks in each chapter are free, while the remaining 28 cost 99c a pop. The reason MovieMusic is able to sell its music so cheaply is that the files are restricted to a bitrate of 128kbs, and the tracks are licensed for personal, non-commercial use. So if you’re looking for a cheap way to score your next Hollywood project, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

The Good

MovieMusic | Music For Videos

MovieMusic is simple to use and it works surprisingly well. The Christmas music sounds Christmassy, the Comedy music sounds suitably quirky and upbeat (think Curb Your Enthusiasm), and the Disgusting music, somehow, sounds disgusting.

A bit of imagination is required when it comes to the individual track names, such as “Baking” (“Bright pizzicato helps show off the intricacies of the expert in full flow”), but on the whole MovieMusic provides snippets of music that intuitively belong in their categories and do what they’re supposed to do.

Every single one of the app’s 2000+ tracks is in the same key and tempo, too, so you can in principle blend them into a seamless orchestral score. It’s very clever.

This really helps when navigating the 2000+ tracks, as does the simple preview - or “audition” - facility that lets you listen to each track in full before deciding whether to spend money on it.

It’s also worth mentioning that each track in MovieMusic has three versions: Cinematic (the default), Intimate, and Modern. While the quality levels of the different versions naturally vary according to the track, in general we find that Cinematic is the one to go for.

MovieMusic has a seamlessly simple interface. You just choose a chapter, pick a song, and tap the play icon to listen. Once you buy and download a song you’re given the option of sharing it via iMessage, WhatsApp, Mail, or even opening it in iMovie or another video-editing program. It couldn’t be easier.

The Bad

MovieMusic | Music For Videos

While MovieMusic’s interface is intuitive and easy to use, its presentation is functional rather than enjoyable.

You could argue that the same applies to the music itself. This isn’t a criticism of the compositions, all of which sound polished and professional. But the wall-to-wall orchestral arrangements don’t reflect the breadth and variety of music right now.

There’s a bit of digital percussion overlaid on the tracks in Modern mode, but few other nods to contemporary musical styles. If you’re looking for a traditional sound, it’s perfect. Otherwise, you may struggle to find what you’re looking for - even in the Technology chapter.

Overall

MovieMusic is a slightly odd proposition. While asset libraries are usually for commercial use, this one is just for fun.

But it’s a fun tool that will add a pleasing sheen to your personal and non-commercial YouTube videos. It’s incredibly easy to use, too, and it contains a generous supply of musical morsels.

8.4

OVERALL

User Interface 9

Lasting appeal 8.4

iPhone Integration 8.5

Is engaging 8.1

Does it well 8

FREE

MovieMusic | Music For Videos

Gothic Projects

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Athenion: Tactical CCG Review

November 21, 2020 by RSS Feed

Athenion might not have the pedigree of some other deck-building card games available for mobile, but that shouldn't put you off. This is a game that's packed full of bright ideas, fresh new gameplay modes and enough content that you can lose hours of your life to.

Athenion: Tactical CCG

Battles take place on a 4x4 grid, and see you taking it in turns with your opponent to lay down cards. You draw up to five cards from your deck of forty at the start of every turn.

These are the units you're playing in the fight, and they range from hulking monsters to flighty fairies, from magical trees to fearsome undead dragons.

Your cards have arrows on them that you show you which direction they can attack. You'll also notice a bunch of other numbers on the cards. These let you know the hit points a card has, how powerful its attack is and how many soul points it grants you.

Those soul points let you attack your opponent and they're the key to victory. The first player to lose all of their own hit points is the loser.

There's a lot more going on than that though. For one thing you need to pick from one of six different factions before you even get to the fights.

These factions have different strengths and weaknesses and figuring out which of them best suits the way you want to play is the first step of a pretty long journey.

Different factions have different special moves as well. Some let you link together cards to make them more powerful, others are all about sacrificing weaker units to create pockets of dark magical energy. One lets you build giant rock walls that you can use to protect some of your units or power up others.

There are single-player challenges, regular events and much, much more as well. You're never short of something to do in Athenion, and the pace of the matches lets you get a lot of them in in a single setting.

The Good

Athenion: Tactical CCG

There's a staggering amount of depth to Athenion. It's going to take you a good while to get to grips with the basics and once you've done that there are layers and layers to peel back. Every time you win you'll figure out a new strategy and every time you lose you'll be trying to find a way to right that wrong.

The game looks amazing too. The cards all sport a brilliant anime art-style and you'll want to collect all of them just so you can check them out. The speed of the fights is a massive plus too - they deliver huge chunks of tactical action in the sort of short-blast sessions that are perfect for mobile play.

On top of that there's a brilliant community to the game, and you never have to wait long to find an online battle. There are a number of different modes that let you practice with different decks, take part in intriguing events and fight it out in ranked and casual multiplayer matches.

The Bad

Athenion: Tactical CCG

There's a pretty steep learning curve here, so if you're not in for the long haul then you might be better finding your card-based fun somewhere else. Even when you've got the basics down you've still got a lot to learn and it can be punishing to come up against an opponent who knows more than you do.

There are also a lot of currencies, crafting materials and other rewards to figure out. The game does tell you what they do, but the tutorials are pretty brief and you're left on your own for a lot of the time to try and get to the bottom of things.

Overall

Athenion might not be the easiest game to understand, but once things start clicking it becomes something really rather special. There are some brilliant ideas here and they're woven into a bright tapestry of gorgeous visuals and wonderfully paced mobile play.

It won't be to everyone's taste, and it's fair to say that some players are going to put it down before they've even got to the good bits, but this is one CCG that it's well worth sticking with.

8.2

OVERALL

Replayability 8.1

Game Controls 8.2

Graphics 8.7

Sound/Music 8.2

Gameplay 7.8

FREE

Athenion: Tactical CCG

ZERO-bit Company Limited

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"Ooh, the Claw!" Lives On With Part Time UFO

November 21, 2020 by RSS Feed

Part Time UFO ($3.99) by Hal Laboratory is a charming little arcade game that is sure to win you over with personality and wholesome fun. If you enjoyed other games like Orbia and Trick Shot 2, then you'll enjoy what Part Time UFO brings to the table.

While I've gone through a lot of games during my time here at AppAdvice, I think the ones that have the most charm and personality are my favorites. That's because they stand out from the rest and are rather memorable among all the competition on the App Store. While browsing the App Store for some fresh material, I stumbled on Part Time UFO being featured on the front page. I was intrigued by the visuals and concept of the game, so I had to check it out. Needless to say, I'm not disappointed.

Free

Orbia

JOX Development LLC

$2.99

Trick Shot 2

Jonathan Topf

In terms of visuals, Part Time UFO is delightful with it's Nitrome-like pixel art style. Everything is rendered in 2D but still incredibly detailed. The various character sprites, including your own little UFO alien, are cute and breathe life into the game. Part Time UFO's color palette sports a nice range of bright and vibrant hues that are appealing to the eyes. And the way the costume pieces affect your UFO are just downright adorable. Animations are smooth and fluid on my iPhone 8 Plus with no lag whatsoever. The soundtrack is also whimsical and bustling with character, and the sound effects are a nice touch on top of it all. Overall, Part Time UFO is just lovely with the visual and audio design.

Like other arcade style games out there, Part Time UFO is level-based, but you need to hold a certain number of medals in order to unlock more stages. The game starts off with a farmer transporting a load of oranges when he sees a bright and shiny unidentified object in the distance (you, the UFO alien), and ends up crashing and the cargo is everywhere. The alien shows up, and the farmer gives you a lecture about how you should earn your keep and help him get his oranges back in the truck.

You do so (this is the tutorial), and he ends up paying you, though it's clear you don't know what being paid means. But now that you got the hang of it, you're going around as an alien with a claw arm (think of the claw machine games in arcades) and looking for work through the classifieds. Each job counts as a level, and you can earn up to three medals by completing the secret objectives, which are shown before you start the job. You'll need a certain number of medals to gain access to the next page of jobs, so the objectives aren't just for show.

The controls in Part Time UFO are simple and intuitive, and there are two methods, giving players choice. The default method involves a virtual joystick in the bottom left, which you use to control the UFO's movement. The button in the bottom right allows the claw to be lowered to grab items and let whatever you have go. It's straightforward enough.

The other method lets players enjoy Part Time UFO with just one hand. The setting is in the options, and the one-handed controls are even easier. You move around by swiping your finger, and just tap anywhere on the screen to activate the claw mechanism. Personally, I felt that it's easier to move with the one-handed controls, whereas the joystick felt a tad restrictive and felt slower.

Each job involves a different task, but they all require the use of your awesome claw arms to be successful. For example, the first stage involves getting all of the orange cargo back on the truck. The second stage involves building a structure with straight pillars and a roof. And the third job has you catching a certain number of fish and loading them onto the boat.

There's opportunities to earn up to three medals on each job if you can meet all objectives. By default you earn a medal for completion, but the other two need you to pay attention to what they are and try to do them. Because of this, you may need to replay a stage a few times before you obtain all medals.

Upon completion of each job, your little alien gets paid with precious gold coin. These coins can be spent in the shop for various outfits. Some are just to look fancy, but others have some useful effects that can make jobs easier. But regardless, each new costume makes your hard-working alien cuter than ever before. And while some outfits may seem a bit pricey, you can do jobs over again for quick cash.

Play as a cute UFO with a claw that is ready to do a variety of odd jobs.

The Good

Part Time UFO is a fun and challenging little arcade game that will no doubt delight people of all ages. It's hard to resist such a lovable little alien who just wants to earn his keep on planet Earth, and hey, if you got it (that claw arm, that is), then you should work it! The sound is great, and both control methods work out well and give you choice. There's a lot of jobs to do, and the replay value here is pretty high since you need medals to unlock more jobs and there are useful outfits to obtain.

The Bad

Honestly, there's not really anything bad about this game. It's unique, has an interesting concept and execution, and works out incredibly well. In fact, I wish there were more games like this.

The verdict

I only found Part Time UFO by chance, but I'm so glad I did. The graphics are sweet and enchanting, the sound design is amazing, and the controls are responsive. It does take some practice to master the physics sometimes, but it's still enjoyable. Plus, playing dress up is fun and gives you some useful abilities.

Part Time UFO is available on the App Store as a universal download for your iPhone and iPad for just $3.99. There are no in-app purchases.

9.3

OVERALL

Graphics 10

Replayability 9

Game Controls 9.5

Sound/Music 9

Gameplay 9

$3.99

Part Time UFO

HAL Laboratory, Inc.

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