barregar wrote:

Linda, congrats on finishing Emerald Tale! I am slowly getting towards the end, hope to get back to it one day.

Coors, what is that new game about? I might get it with the free game code that you and others have posted.

Hi Barre!    It's so great to see you posting!  

Emerald Tale is one of my fav M3 games ever!  I love the way it's 3D, which really upped the difficulty.  I've played it more than once and every now and again will go back and just play a few levels for fun.

I've almost finished the new M3, Legend of Maya.  Well, I think I've almost finished as it just keeps on going and going and going...  However, I'm now building the final things right up on top of the mountain and I think I've only got 1 or 2 things left to build and only a couple left to upgrade to the third level (and in this game when you upgrade a building you really upgrade it - the buildings are a lot bigger and look totally different!).  

At the beginning I thought, ho hum, and hated having to keep playing some levels just to get some bonuses which I needed to finish the level.  But, the more I played, the more I loved the game and will now buy it (I'm playing it with my FunPass over at GH).  

I love the really bright and colourful graphics and the little village you build, as well as watching all the little people wandering around, actually walking up and down the stairs and going through tunnels!  The gameplay also gets more and more challenging the more you play and I think I've just gotten my 8th bonus!  Some boards get really tricky as they get smaller with lots of missing squares and more challenges, like double-blocked squares and barriers that have to be broken.  Also, I've just played Level 178 and only had access to the 2 smallest bonuses - removing one token.

There are also 21 achievements to get, each one with 3 levels (blue, green and gold stars), all acquired as you play the game, none earned by how well you play the game.

I'd definitely recommend it for anyone who loves long, somewhat challenging M3s, although each level isn't all that long (I think 5-10 mins - you get a summary at the end of each level, including how long it took).  I say 'somewhat' challenging as you need the bonuses but with them no level is unplayable - the challenge is in trying to get gold, even using the bonuses.  It's timed but just that you get gold, silver or bronze and if you get gold you get an extra bonus (what you get is always a surprise).  So far I've gotten gold or silver on every level except a couple when I got bronze.  But you're not rushed at all or pressured by a timer.

The only negative that I can see is that you can't replay levels to try and get gold.  Nowhere does it show you whether you got gold, silver or bronze on which levels and you can't choose to replay any levels or even to replay a level once you've finished it to get gold to get the bonus.  I think it's just that the more gold you get the more supplies you get so the quicker you build your village.  I imagine that the game finishes when you've finished building all 20 buildings and upgraded each one twice.

As for the free code, it's also good for CEs.  I got Lost Lands: The Four Horsemen CE with it.  I also used a couple of the other codes as I had a couple of the games on disk and hadn't bought them from BFG so used the codes to get the download version (making it easier to play) as well as a couple of punches.

And, Barre, you know I demo every game and take notes and normally post demo reviews on the other forum.  However, if there's any game you'd like to know about just let me know and I can always give you my opinion here.