Bud Redhead: The Time Chase
Bud Redhead: The Time Chase is a 2D side scrolling platformer for the PC. Travel through time and explore four different worlds in the action packed game.
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Developer: Space Ewe Publisher: Space Ewe Release Date: November, 2003 Platforms: PC JustRPG Score: 92% Pros: +Fun platforming style gameplay. +Interesting story line. Cons: -Short in overall length. -Poor graphics. |
Overview
Bud Redhead: The Time Chase Overview
Bud Redhead: The Time Chase is an action packed side scrolling 2D platformer that was developed by husband and wife team Bojan and Irena Urosevic. Play through the story line of Bud’s travels through time in four different worlds as he tries to find the girl he loves, Rachel. This game is very impressive for a two person team of developers that provides fun for gamers of all ages .
Bud Redhead: The Time Chase Screenshots
Bud Redhead: The Time Chase Featured Video
Full Review
Bud Redhead: The Time Chase Review
By, Eric Arevalo
Backdrop
.hack Part 1 Infection (Dot Hack) begins with a bang. Something disastrous happens to your character‘s real world friend, while innocently playing a 20 million-subscriber base, wildly popular online RPG game (MMORPG), The World. To unravel the mystery of your friend’s misfortune, you become an online, ingame rogue hacker, exploring every corner of The World, even some virus-infected ones.
The hero is armed with the special skills of Data Drain and Gate Hack, and some colorful, talented fellow adventurers to fill the two other available party slots. Different adventurers must accompany you depending on the plot‘s development. You have some control over the others in your party, including upgrading them through trades or gifts. You can play only a single class, Twin Blade. Other characters are from different classes, with varied strengths and weaknesses, from a mage type (Wavemaster) to a bully (Heavy Axeman).
Gameplay
Gameplay takes place in three principal areas – towns, fields, and dungeons. Towns house The World’s servers. There, the player can save the game, buy magic scrolls and useful and unique items, store items, buy equipment, and talk and trade with lots of other players in character online. One town has an unusual ranch to check out, a patent homage to an enduring feature of just about every Final Fantasy.
The town’s Chaos Gate provides instant teleportation to a particular wide-open Field, containing monster encounter hotspots, a mystical spring, treasure, and lots of mysterious food. You enter three distinct keywords, some known at the game‘s onset, and others learned through play. Whatever keywords are entered, the difficulty level of the destination is helpfully revealed. This prevents a low-level party from being massacred. Once the keywords are entered, you travel through the Chaos Gate. (You can enter specific keywords learned to continue the plot, do side quests, or do unlimited exploring. Or, you can instruct the Gate to enter random keywords, and take your chances. There‘s also an option to enter any keywords you wish from a word list.) Every Field houses a single Dungeon. The dungeons, where you spend much of the game fighting for your life, are not overly large in size, and always range between three and five average levels.
Many have compared Dot Hack to Phantasy Star Online Episode I and II (PSO) on the Gamecube. Let us gently discredit this. We feel Dot Hack has far better graphics than PSO. The Fields and Dungeons contain many colorful, over stylized backdrops and settings, including weather effects. Dot Hack’s monsters resemble the beautifully-drawn monsters of the later Final Fantasy’s. Dot Hack’s world is gigantic with a seeming infinite number of locations to explore. PSO’s world is relatively small, and plot is threadbare, with meaningless, though fun, side quests, which instill no enthusiasm in the player. Dot Hack’s plot is deep and complex, with each subplot advancing the story just a little bit further. (Remember though, the end of this game in no way comes close to wrapping up the story, to be completed in the three games to be released later this year.) One visual treat, however, was lifted directly from PSO – the cascading rings that accompany the teleportation of characters to and from different areas.
Combat
Dot Hack’s combat engine can best be described as modified real-time. Much like the action-RPG, Kingdom Hearts, button mashing can be effective to beat monsters. Monster combat icons appear as large yellow twirling landmarks. As you approach, the landmark dissolves, monsters come at you big-time, and, undoubtedly, players will feel a healthy adrenaline rush. Some of Dot Hack’s many monsters do not stand around waiting to be pummeled, rather some you need to catch. Dot Hack lets you turn combat almost into a turn-based affair. The player needs only to hit Triangle in the middle of battle to pause the game instantly. From there the player can give orders to the others in the party, anything from healing someone, reviving another, casting a spell, designating a target monster. Without jeopardizing your party from the hailstorm of monster blows, combat becomes a calmer, more strategic, experience. This will help the many action-challenged. Camera angles play a big role in successful combat. You must be facing a monster to do any damage. As in many games, manipulating opposing environmental elements, like fire vs. water, is a key to successful monster combat.
Dot Hack’s cyberspace setting provides a wealth of Wow-inducing outbursts. The Data Drain option in combat is a great example. When a monster’s approaches zero, the player can Data Drain to reduce a horrendous, gigantic steel robot, for example, into a sniveling, puny monster, easily defeated with a single blow. Data Drain always results in a nifty, rare item or essential Virus Cores so you can Gate Hack areas of The World now closed, but needing investigation. One bad side effect – if you defeat, a Data Drained monster, but a single experience point is earned. One REALLY bad side effect – if you Data Drain too often without giving the skill a rest, you may overload and explode. Game Over. In the case of Boss monsters, Data Drain works the same, but what remains is no sniveling puny monster, but a full-blooded slightly less tough monster. All of this makes for interesting and captivating combat, a large part of the game.
Fresh Features
Dot Hack is replete with new and interesting features that kept us riveted.
To start, the entire background and story of a real world gamer becoming a rascal hacker, penetrating deep into a virus-infected online game, is quite novel. Combine this with Dot Hack’s emulating the look and feel of an online game universe. (Message traffic on the web shows many gamers mistakenly believe Dot Hack is a real online MMORPG, along with monthly fees! No real Internet connection is required.)
Just like in the real word, Dot Hack replicates your excitement level when “New” appears before a popular forum or on your email screen. Some of the game involves receiving emails as the plot develops, as well as new, crucial information surfacing on The World’s Board. (Look out for emails challenging you to a strange game of Tag.) The online game world looks very familiar with a bunch of characters wandering around the game’s towns, with the ubiquitous balloon icons talking typical “trash” to each other, even criticizing “newbies“.
Combat grippingly called for surprisingly strategic decision-making to succeed, not related to the usual attack or defend choices. Do you go for experience and upgrade your character or try for some special equipment or a Virus Core, vital to Gate Hacking? The innovative control of other party members became second nature to us after some practice. The game rewards a player taking chances, like entering a Field or Dungeon rated 5 levels above the player’s current level. On the other hand, the game scoffed at players entering areas much lower rated the their current level, by awarding negligible experience points for victory.
Dot Hack takes progress reports to a new level, by slowly unlocking books that contain much in the way of statistics and information. There’s even a monster compendium with tips for defeating them.
Some might complain about the minimal “Save Game” ability, but we thrived on it. You explore a very hostile cyberspace environment without the facility to save. Only in a server-hosting town is saving possible at the local Recorder. We may be a solitary voice in the Wilderness, but we like this throwback to the good old RPG days. Those of you old enough to remember the Wizardry series, may recall those fingernail-biting multi-combat treks back to the Castle just to save the game. In case you’re really stuck deep in a dungeon, a common item will teleport you to the outdoor field, from where you can simply gate back to town from the command menu.
Many pieces of equipment come with distinctive powerful attack, healing, and status skills, essential to combat dominance. The player must tradeoff whether to equip something that will raise defense or offense or something less vigorous that lets you use a powerful skill. Trading is the most successful way to upgrade equipment.
In a first, Dot Hack comes with a 45 minute anime video. This gives some great background on what’s going on in The World, as well as provide clues for completing the game. In a nice twist, voiceovers for game speech can be set for Japanese or English presentation. Listening to the authentic Japanese voices really keeps you glued to the game.
Though some may scoff at what follows as meaningless, we liked the game’s unlocking of some nifty new “toys” to like, some only available when the game is cleared. You can unlock many different background music play lists. Tired of creepy tunes, just switch to something more upbeat, or futuristic. Just like real world gamers, who constantly change their desktop wallpaper, new and different wallpapers are unlocked along the way. Some are concept art of characters, while others are full blown anime renditions of the characters. This makes for great fun, and seems to pump additional energy into the game. As you progress over a dozen special cut scenes or movies will become viewable after defeating the game.
Though Dot Hack’s extras and new wrinkles enhance the RPG game experience, much of the gameplay will ring true to those who enjoy RPG‘s. Expect plenty of exploration in a huge 3D world, frequent monster combat, tons of treasure to earn and discover, upgrading your character’s weapons and armor, and needing to level before tackling pivotal story dungeons. The status screens for the characters and all equipment are well laid out and easy to grasp.
Time for Completion
Game length in hours always concerns many purchasers. A short RPG normally takes a lot of flack, and many online are asking about Dot Hack‘s time for completion. (Some have questioned whether Bandai should have released a single 80 hour game for $50, rather than four 20-hour games for $200 for a single story. This matter is beyond the scope of this review, but our high opinion of this game as a standalone is obvious.) Our experience, playing the plot without doing side quests or extra exploration, is in the 12 to 15-hour range. Players side-questing and extensively exploring, aside from the main plot, can expect to spend 25 hours to complete the game. You can even continue to advance your character, after game completion, to get a jump start on Part 2 due in May. In the next game, your character can be imported from Part 1.
Furthermore, imagine trying to explore every nook and cranny of the fields and dungeons accessible by a large number of 3-word combinations. Doing that would put the game in the 50-hour range, if not more. However, at a certain point, new items dry up, and a single experience point is earned for any defeated monster, no matter how tough.
Shortcomings
While, as is evident above, there is much to recommend in Dot Hack, certain concerns to varying degrees deserve mention.
From the “Why oh why did they leave this out?“ File. Pregame game board traffic and information about the Japanese version released months ago had many salivating for replaying the game in “parody” mode. This mode apparently converted all Dot Hack’s game world characters into satirical comedians. Sorry to say, this highly-anticipated feature is missing from the version released here.
The game requires massive amounts of button pressing. Every item or treasure uncovered from combat victories or exploration (opening chests, searching expired adventure remains, collecting food for Grunty’s, as examples) must be confirmed with a button press. When there could be 50-100 such occurrences in a single dungeon or field, over the course of the game, finger cramps seem inevitable. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance also required lots of bashing for buried treasure and chests, but the items literally flew into your inventory, a much better way to handle this.
The manual is woefully terse and lacking in some crucial information and guidance. While the ingame tutorials fill in many of the gaps, one extremely important gameplay feature is missing from both the manual and tutorials – instructions on control your characters directly during combat.
Final Word
We got a kick out of Dot Hack. The feeling of “just one more dungeon” dominated our lives for the 3 days to completion. The engaging environment held our attention without much effort. The strategic nature of combat, plus the convoluted plot kept us going for hours on end. The constant unlocking of both frivolous and important gameplay features created a “what’s next” anticipation. Now, if I could only read Japanese better, Dot Hack Part 2 is already out in Japan!
Final Grade: B
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Bud Redhead: The Time Chase is an excellent 2D side scrolling jump’n’run platform style game released by independent developer Space Ewe. Independent developers like Space Ewe should be applauded for their efforts and talents especially when they produce games as exciting as Bud Redhead: The Time Chase. The game was developed by husband and wife team Bojan and Irena Urosevic who spent over three years making it. It is similar in style to the classic 2D platform style games such as Super Mario where you stomped on your enemies and collected coins and other fascinating items within each level. You will find that there is much to like within this charming and very colorful game that should appeal to the entire family. |
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| Released near the end of 2003, Bud Redhead: The Time Chase tells the story of Bud’s adventures through time in four different worlds to save Rachel, the girl he loves. Rachel was taken by Feyatta, a galactic criminal that has been kidnapping all types of inhabitants from different worlds across the galaxy for display in a museum. Luckily for Bud who wants to save her, two agents from the Cosmic Federation pursuing Feyatta by the name of Kraz and Zark arrive to aid him. They provide Bud with a way to travel through time and pursue Feyatta as he attempts to get back to his spaceship. Once Bud is transported to his first world in his journey through time, then the fun truly begins. |
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Bud will journey through four different worlds consisting of a Forest, Egypt, a Castle and finally Feyatta’s Spaceship. There are 5 levels within each world plus a boss level at the very end against Feyatta himself for a total of 21 levels. Each level is huge, crafted with care and attention and the game should give most players over 20 hours of gameplay, especially for those players that take the time to find all the exciting hidden areas within each level. Gameplay is simple, as in each level there is an exit portal that you must reach but it will remain closed until you find the required amount of coins that will open it. You will find these coins as well as various colored gems, fruits and other items throughout each level and in the hidden areas. |
| There is a small display at the bottom right of the playing screen that keeps track of how many coins and colored gems you have found in each level. It is a very helpful display because it shows you how many coins you need to open the exit portal. Although you can finish each level when you collect the required amount of coins you can still keep playing a level to find the other coins that remain as well as several types of colored gems that will award bonus points to your score. Yes, everything you do is scored in this game, and, as I accomplished, you may be able to reach an impressive score of over a million points if you do your best to find everything in each level. Once you find every type of colored gem and coin in a level a green arrow will appear beside each item. Be careful not to rush playing through the game as it will become very short for you if you only care about collecting the minimum amount of coins to open the exit portal. To enjoy this game as it was meant to be played you should attempt to find all the coins and all types of colored gems as well as all the hidden areas within each level. I had such an exciting time looking for that one last coin or green, red or blue gem as well as seeing how clever the developers were with the hidden areas. You will have to search everywhere very closely to find where a hidden area may exist. |
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This review would not be complete without mentioning the excellent detail that went into the music as well as the graphics for each of the four worlds. Each world has its own unique theme, music, enemies, challenges and look that separates it from the last world you visited. As you play through the game it becomes clear that the three years were well spent in creating some very beautiful worlds. In the forest area, admire the waterfalls as you move across them, to the look of the castle area that is adorned by fireplaces and statues. The final boss area was also done very well and I appreciated how it was designed. What is also impressive is that before and after each world, there will be a story presented to you in story book fashion that will chronicle Bud’s journey through time as he ventures through each world in pursuit of the criminal Feyatta and of saving his beloved Rachel. Be prepared for a very exciting twist in the story at the end of the game that serves to demonstrate that some time was spent creating the story. |
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| Bud Redhead: The Time Chase is currently available as a download from the official website for $19.95. You can download the entire game which allows you to play the first three levels of the forest world for free. In order to play the rest of the game you need to purchase it which will unlock the entire game that you downloaded. Space Ewe even goes as far as offering you a 30-day Money Back Guarantee if you are not satisfied with the game. This game demonstrates the genuine talents of independent developer Space Ewe and developers Bojan and Irena Urosevic and I wish them success with future games. You have nothing to lose but everything to gain if you allow this game to entertain your family with its exciting gameplay, excellent graphics, soothing music and nice story! |
| Final Grade: 92% |
Screenshots
Bud Redhead: The Time Chase Screenshots
Videos
Bud Redhead: The Time Chase Videos
.Hack//Infection Part 1 Gameplay