Reviews – Page 10 – 🏝 Poptropica Help Blog 🗺

(Warning: This review contains spoilers. If you’re looking for the PHB’s PoptropiCon Island Guide, our full written walkthrough with pictures, click here!)

Hey everyone! Before I start my review, I just want to give a brief explanation for why I haven’t been posting. The reason is because I had so many projects for my Key Club (just recently got elected Treasurer :P). In addition to that, I also went to 2 conventions for Key Club in my state capital. Now that’s over with & the summer is coming, I’ll have a lot more time to post! Anyway, let’s get to the review!

Let me just start by saying that the creators said the episode would release at 2pm EST (which is 1pm CST, 12pm MST, and 11am PST) it released at 1:30pm EST… It set me behind by 30 minutes and pretty much no possible way to get into the Top 10. Unlike Arabian Nights Ep. 2, I found this island very glitchy and hard to play.

Let me give you an example: You know that pink laser shooting down to the ground that never goes up in the Theater? I can glitch through it, and can’t go back on the other side where I came from… so I had to restart the island. This same glitch was also happening in other parts on the island too. There was also other problems I experienced with the island, like:

When I clicked on a something else by accident while the character was talking, it froze.
I moved by accident right when a scene happened (when the characters talk to each other), it glitched out.
The items leaving your inventory when you left an area.
You know at the end of the island where your fighting Omegon and you have to deflect the lasers onto the battery packs on the hands? Well, I didn’t do it in time and the hand squashed me through the floor and I was stuck there… had to restart.

After about 4 hours straight of restarting, I quit on the island for the day and started up again the next day. I ended up finishing the island about 27 hours after the island came out. As I had to keep restarting, I kept a notepad next to me of how many times I restarted & for what reasons.

I restarted 14 times…….14 TIMES!
5 of the restarts was because items left my inventory when I left an area & went to another
4 of the restarts was because I glitched through one of the many pink lasers
2 of the restarts was because I was moving while a scene happened
2 of the restarts was because other small little glitches in the dialog & froze
1 when the hand of Omegon (in the boss battle) squashed me through the floor.

As the glitches & restarts kept piling up… I really got a good look at all the story, graphics & soundtrack. The story was great, I loved the concept of finding armor & weapons to defeat Omegon. I also really liked the part in the storyline where the girl in the basement betrayed us, it felt like I was watching a movie when the flick had a crazy plot twist.

The graphics were exceptional when I did get to see them. The graphics of the laser beam deflections were so cool & the effects that were put into the arrow breaking the glass under Omegon’s chair was crazy awesome. The soundtrack was great, as usual, Jeff Heim does his job very well :P.

This island could have been great in my opinion if it wasn’t so glitchy for me. The story was great, but pretty much every SUI island now has a lot of glitches…

If the Creators want good reviews, they need to put in the effort & time into the island instead of working on merchandise or some promotion to earn some money. I understand you have to earn money to make a living, but for the people to keep playing you need to give them a glitch-free island or they will start to go away…

On a scale of 1 to 10, PoptropiCon Ep.3: Reign of Omegon gets….

PoptropiCon3Samwow5

What do you think of my score? Do you agree with mine? Let me know in the comments! 😀

~SW5~

PHB Review: Mission Atlantis Island

April 3, 2015April 3, 2015 Slippery Raptor

Hey Poptropicans! Slippery here.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a review on an island/episode, and although Mission Atlantis Island has been around for some time, we haven’t reviewed it as a whole yet – until now! (If you need a walkthrough, check out the PHB’s Mission Atlantis guide— complete with pictures!)

Warning: This review contains slight spoilers for the island. 😀

Episode 1: Into the Deep

For me, the episode is average. The episode itself was kind of uncomplicated and it lacks one thing—challenge. The island’s plot did tell that it’ll be simple but I think it needs something more. I can’t seem to find any difficult spots on the island since you only have to take a picture of the given sea creatures then move to the other but I had a bit of fun in this episode. The vastness of the ocean was seen through the visuals and the music accompanied the underwater scenery very well. What got me was the ending—it was nice and made me excited for the next episode.

Episode 2: Fortress of the Deep

The second episode was breathtaking. Curiosity started to get to me since rumors of aliens have spread throughout Poptropica. We didn’t encounter any despicable villains along the way, but some ferocious animals inside the city. It finally had a challenge after the first episode! Solving puzzles, taking footage of glyphs, getting puzzle pieces and aquatic animals made the episode very great. When I finished getting all of the animals in their cages, a couple of questions got to me: Why would it use animals to power up the whole city? Is this really a city?

When I got to the stand where the puzzle is placed, it made me interested on what lay ahead. The music used in this episode was very appropriate for a dark place and an abandoned ancient city. The visuals and animations are really cool, especially for the sea creatures. The ending was quite startling because when the door opened and sucked us in, what would come next was left vague… I thought that we’d be in another dimension, and it made me very inquisitive for the final episode.

Episode 3: Out of the Blue

The episode’s name speaks for itself—unexpected. Let’s start with the soundtrack. The music is so thrilling that you’d probably notice we’re in the climax of the story! Then the visuals are fine even to the details, and the animations were awesome – especially to the Leviathan, Atlantis drones and even the thingamabobs all over the ship. The visuals barely tell that we’re not in Atlantis at all, but in an alien ship!

This episode was the finest of them all. The revelations, the discoveries and everything was just amazing! The challenges were quite hard especially the disc part with the Leviathan. What I loved the most was the ending scene— everyone was amazed at what we’d discovered! Mission Atlantis had a fine ending. 🙂

On a scale of 1 to 10, ~~how would you rate your pain?~~ er, Mission Atlantis gets….

missionatlantis4

What do you think? Do you agree with the score? Let me know in the comments! 😀

Arabian Nights Island, Blast from the Past, Mission Atlantis Island, Monster Carnival Island, PoptropiCon Island, Reviews, Survival Island

2014 Rewind: Poptropica Islands & Big Events!

December 31, 2014February 13, 2024 Slippery Raptor

Hey guys! 2014 is coming to an end, and of course, what better way to wrap up than with a recap of Poptropica over the past year? Here we go!

Part One: Islands

Let’s start off with Poptropica’s islands! This year, 5 islands were released. Poptropica also celebrated the rise of a new episodic island system — instead of full islands, islands were divided into parts called episodes. Also, a couple of classic islands were transformed into SUIs (sound-updated islands): Mythology and Shrink Ray. Now, let’s get into the recap of islands released in 2014!

Monster Carnival Island

After 6 long years, Poptropica’s most awaited island finally showed up in February 2014. SInce Monster Carnival was known as a myth in Poptropica for years, this island has always been the talk of the town for years. Monster Carnival Island was one of the easiest islands this year, and the visuals, music, story and characters were all awesome! I just wish it was a little harder, and that Ringmaster Raven was made a bit more despicable. Anyway, it was a great start to the year!

Survival Island

The second Poptropica island this year came as a surprise for the whole Poptropica community: for the first time ever, an Island would be divided into episodes! The best thing about episodic islands is that it leaves the players wondering what will happen next. Survival Island introduced a brand new Poptropica villain, Myron Van Buren, and the ending was brilliant. The island had awesome visuals, a great story, and excellent music to accompany the story. Last but not the least, the island was really unexpected with MVB and the man hunt because we know it’s Survival — man vs nature! Great job, Creators! What I didn’t like was that our blimp was destroyed. How sad. 😦

Mission Atlantis Island

We’re halfway there! So, what about this island? Well, as players become curious about the lost city of Atlantis, we concluded that this was connected to the aliens from Lunar Colony. Although we had no villain to fight in this island, we discovered the ancient underwater city of Atlantis saw some aquatic animals. At first, I thought this island would be a flop, but it wasn’t so bad towards the end. This underwater adventure was really “out of this world”! Even though this island just had three episodes, the adventure was once-in-a-lifetime.

PoptropiCon Island

This brought a new island theme to Poptropica: fantasy & conventions. The first episode of PoptropiCon was really crazy. Just for a ticket, we had to disguise ourselves, and then find a new way to enter the convention center. The second episode was really awesome (I’d give it a 9/10) – and the ending was quite a twist! The final episode isn’t out yet, but we do know Omegon will attack the convention and it’s up to us (and perhaps the Mighty Action Force) to save the day! The battle will start sometime in 2015, so be ready to hero up! Plus, it was pretty cool that the San Diego Comic Con was happening around the same time as this island’s planning stages.

Arabian Nights Island

The winning idea for the Create Your Dream Island Contest is finally on Poptropica! This island is based on 1001 Nights (also known as Arabian Nights), a famous Arabian literary work of the ancient times. Since the announcement of the winner, players were very excited to see this island. I thought it really reflected the culture and life of Arabs back in the old times – I loved the part where the thief couldn’t get the camel to move, so he fed it a banana! The second episode was even better: the characters, puzzles, music and story were all just amazing. It just makes me wonder, where did the prisoner and Vizier go? Were they really killed? Anyway, I’m very excited to meet the genie in 2015!

That’s it for 2014’s islands! Thanks to the Creators for an awesome year of awesome islands. 🙂

Part Two: Timeline of Big Events

Alright, now for the second half of this 2014 recap – looking back onto the biggest Poptropica (and PHB) events of the year! Without further ado, let’s get right into it.

Poptropica Magazines: Revival

At the end of 2013, we announced that we’d be reviving our popular Poptropica fan magazines, then known as The Poptropican’s 911 (for all your Poptropica emergencies), which ran for a year in 2009-2010. And we delivered on that promise this year, with four issues in the first half of the year and six in the second due to changes in the publication schedule and giving the series a delicious new name: The POPCORN. It’s had a good run, but it’s come to an end – at least for now. You can read the issues any time on the PHB’s Magazines page!

Poptropica Labs

a5704-poplabs In January, Poptropica announced a brand new feature allowing Poptropicans to create islands of their own: Poptropica Labs! This awesome feature was released exclusively to members, but many have agreed that it was awesome. Some players have even called it “Poptropica’s Minecraft with a twist”! You can read HPuterpop’s review of the original Labs here.

New PopTopics Books

scaryMonsters Shortly after the excitement of Labs, Poptropica announced two new PopTopics books! This Poptropica book series explores the real-life facts behind the islands. There were two new PopTopics books — Scary Monsters and Wild West. Scary Monsters (pictured) tackles the myths and legends about the world’s cryptids and creepy creatures like vampires and zombies, while Wild West takes you back to the American frontier with cowboys, horses and bandits!

PHB’s Valentine’s Day Party

valentines2014 The PHB threw a whopping 6 parties this year, and the first of them was on Valentine’s Day! Several PHB authors and many more Poptropicans showed up to spread the love on Valentine’s, and everyone said that it was a lot of fun. Check out the recap here. ❤

Poptropica App on iOS & Android

popapp Finally! Poptropica has gone mobile! In March, Poptropica announced and released the official Poptropica app for the iPad, then for iPhone two months later, in May. There was also a lot of excitement over an elusive iPad/iPhone handheld item. Last but not the least, six long months later, Poptropica was finally made available to Android in November. Everyone can play Poptropica anywhere!

PHB’s 11 Million Hits Party

11m party recap Also in March, the PHB hit the milestone of 11 million views! Of course, being the PHB, we had to have a Poptropica party. Between Multiverse hopping, Doodle Race games, and chatting it up on the PHC, it was a lot of fun – check out the recap! Plus, we also raffled off 11 monstrous prizes – rare costumes from Monster Carnival!

Mysterious Disappearance of Shark Boy

In mid-April, Poptropicans began to notice Shark Boy slowly being alienated from the Poptropica world, and it began with the changing of his name into “Shark Guy”. Reporting our findings here on the PHB led to even more eradication of Shark Boy’s existence. You can read all about it in the PHB article titled Mystery of Shark Boy. You’ll be missed, Sharky. 😦

Poptropica Comics

pop comics In May, Poptropica released a brand new feature — original Poptropica comics starring two mismatched boys named Jorge and Oliver who end up exploring peculiar islands in the world of Poptropica. Poptropica comics are updated daily, but are currently on a hiatus, promising to return again in 2015. Plus, there’s now a Poptropica Comics app!

PHB’s 12 Million Hits Party

phb12mILLION Three months after the last party, the PHB reached 12 million hits. Yay! Of course, the celebration called for another PHC/Poptropica party, and this time, it was joined by the Season 1 Finale Livestream of HPuterpop’s Poptropican Portraits series – a successful drawing series with over 100 Poptropican portraits done this year!

Poptropica Sticker Album

sticker cover Though its cover was created years ago, the Poptropica Sticker Album was only made available in July. This book contains over a thousand stickers, each with their own cool little fact! Awesome, right? You can get it for $11.69 on Amazon or your nearest bookstore (if they stock it) to enjoy the stickers!

PHB’s Sixth Birthday Party

PHB6 recap Another successful year has come to pass for the best, the greatest and the coolest blog ever — the PHB! We celebrated our sixth year with a party (of course) and as always, that involved hanging out on the PHC, jumping around Poptropica’s Multiverse rooms, and sharing music on plug.dj. Here’s to more years to come – long live the PHB!

PHB’s 13 Million Hits Special: Daily Pop Archive

Thirteen million?! Seriously? 13 million alright. Well, we laid off on the partying this time, but we celebrated with some other special things: 1) the PHB finally built up its very own Daily Pop Sneak Peek Archive, with each and every DP sneak peek and caption ever to exist; 2) we surveyed our readers to get to know everyone better; and 3) we gave a shoutout to 13 lucky Poptropica fansites!

Poptropica Land

PopLand_TempImage In August, Poptropica Labs got a major upgrade in the form of Poptropica Land! With an ancient hammer, we had the power to create and destroy our lands at will, and by mining Poptanium, we could unlock more things! It was exclusively released to members at first, but in October, the Creators released Poptropica Land to all with several theme challenges and posted their favorites (including Slanted Fish’s dream home!). In 2015, everyone will get to play the next reincarnation: Poptropica Realms!

Poptropica’s First Music Album

volume1 In September, Poptropica released their first-ever music album! The first volume of this album contains music from different sound-updated islands, but with a unique sound not heard in-game. These MP3s are all instrumental tracks. You can buy the album from Amazon or from the iTunes Store. Rumor has it that Poptropica will have more volumes soon!

Poptropica’s 7th Birthday + PHB Party

Also in September, Poptropica finally turned seven! Yay! Continuing their birthday tradition, Poptropica released a color-changing balloon with the number “7” on it and had their annual balloon scavenger hunt for the seventh year birthday costume – which had no cakes this year. The PHB threw another party to celebrate Poptropica’s seventh year and the 15th birthday of PHB author Samwow5! We inflated our seventh year balloons as we grooved to the songs playing at Sam’s plug.dj station, and it was a blast.

Forgotten Islands for 3DS

forgotten islands 3ds In October, Poptropica’s Forgotten Islands video game was finally made available to the Nintendo 3DS, boasting stereoscopic 3D Poptropica graphics for the first time ever! Forgotten Islands is also available on iOS devices. If you need help or just want to see what the game’s like, check out the PHB’s written walkthough – it’s loaded with pictures!

PHB’s Christmas Party 2014

popchristmas edit Less than two weeks ago, the PHB threw its last party of the year: a fun-filled Poptropica Christmas party! Everyone had a great time hopping between Multiverses, chatting on the PHC, and jiving along to Christmas carols on plug.dj. Check out our recap post – this one even contains a video to encapsulate the goings-on of the PHC, a place where many PHB readers regularly hang out, so go check it out: you might just have fun.

—

That’s it for a wonderful year on Poptropica and the PHB! Next year’s going to be full of surprises and great updates, I’m sure. Are you excited as we are for 2015?

Happy New Year!

-from the PHB. 🙂

Arabian Nights Island, Reviews

PHB Review: Arabian Nights, Ep. 2 – “Lair of Thieves”

December 13, 2014December 14, 2014 Samwow5

arab2 review

Hey guys – it’s been a while since the PHB has done a review of an island/episode, but with the recent release of Arabian Nights, Ep. 2: Lair of Thieves, I thought I’d do one for this episode. So without further ado, here we go! (Warning: This review contains slight spoilers. If you’re looking for the PHB’s Arabian Nights Island Guide, our written walkthrough with pictures, click here!)

Let me just start by saying that this episode was perfectly glitch-free, at least for me – the new SUIs (sound-updated islands) have gotten some bad rep for being very glitchy in the past year or so, but this time, I didn’t have to restart the island a single time, and I managed to place at #10!

samwow5 #10 arab2

Sometimes when an island comes out, it doesn’t show up on my computer until about 30 minutes later. Amazingly, this time, it showed up on my screen before the Creators had even announced it on their blog. That was the one of the small happy moments of a glitch-free day on the island.

Unlike the recent Shrink Ray Island remake, this episode was so fun to play because it wasn’t glitchy at all for me. On parts where I thought it was glitching out, the glitches seemed to fix themselves. It’s a little hard to explain, but at one point, when I got stuck in a wall, all of a sudden I flew up and landed on the next platform. I’ve tried getting out of walls before and it never worked, but that happened when I wasn’t even holding the mouse. I think this was the least glitchy SUI I’ve ever played!

As far as the plot for this episode, I loved it – lurking around, trying to find the right lamp, dying the thieves’ garb black, and making the magic sand bombs, I felt like I was in a spy movie (my favorite type of film!). At the ending, I felt like I was Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade when he has to pick the right cup – the holy grail – and drinks from it, and survives – similarly in this episode, you have a lamp and you need to put it on a Golden Hand altar… I loved the resemblance, and it was quite a twist to see characters destroyed! Overall, this was a great island plot and I applaud the Creators for making this episode the way it was.

Now about the characters – they were very intriguing, and I really enjoyed the thieves’ characters. Their costumes were fantastic, and I especially loved Brutus’s and the master thief’s costumes. The only thing was, the black garb disguise we put on didn’t seem much like the thieves’ garb. Other than that, the Creators did a magnificent job on the costumes and characters.

Finally, let’s talk about the visuals and sounds – wow, the art on the stone pillars, floor, and the lamp scene just… well… blew my mind away. I have to argue that the visual art in this island is the best in the game so far. And the sound effects were spot-on, especially during the last lamp scene! I really loved the soundtrack as well, and at the part where Brutus chases you, the scene felt super intense because of the scary music playing – a great job from Jeff Heim, Poptropica’s music composer.

Overall score: 4.5/5

I really loved everything about this island. It had everything a quality island could ever want. Over the past couple of months, I’ve been thinking that the Creators are going for quantity over quality, but after all the negative reviews, I think the Creators really put a lot of work into making this island episode perfect, and I’m quite impressed.

But I do have a question – how does this episode advance the island’s story forward? I know, I sound crazy, but what did we really accomplish in this episode? Set off a special power and escape? I thought we were supposed to stop the thieves from causing trouble, and it doesn’t seem like we’ve gotten far on that front yet. That being said, though – I do look forward to the final episode in the Arabian Nights trilogy and seeing how the Creators can top this. 😀

PHB Quickie, Reviews, Survival Island

PHB Quickie: Survival (Episode 4) Overview

July 26, 2014July 26, 2014 HPuterpop

Hi Gs,

As the episode we’ve all been waiting for, will it fulfill our wildest dreams or come out tainted? Let’s find out! Do be warned, however– there will be spoilers! You can check out the past overviews here.

survival4Overview

This episode is basically the climax of the story, as we finally meet the main antagonist, find out his motives, and end with a chase scene waiting to happen. For the past three episodes the villain has been unnamed, but now we learn who he is. Myron Van Buren is one of the best villains ever to be on Poptropica in my opinion; as one of the most menacing, best designed, and geniusly scripted characters, he’s earned this rank with high flying colors.

Now, as an animal lover, this episode was just gold for me. I know, it may seem strange considering that most of the animals shown in the episode are dead and hanging on walls — but for me, it’s just awesome to see the giant variety of animals drawn in Poptropica form. I honestly love the Poptropica style, and I’ve always adored when Poptropica had animals.

The episodes just keep getting better, and this one is the best out of the four, no doubt. While most people had no trouble completing it, the writing was still very clever. The premise of sneaking around a game hunter’s house with guards around every corner really creates a suspenseful environment.

As for the singular soundtrack that accompanies the quest, its amazing. While it still holds lots of suspense, it also taps into a jungle like vibe. It all fits in perfectly together and does a wonderful job.

What’s really enjoyable about this episode is the buildup for the end. Van Buren keeps hinting that he is a human hunter, but it always is just passed off as a joke. First instance, when an alligator head budges on the wall, Van Buren says he should “have *his* head, haha!” (referring to his taxidermist). At the end of the episode, it’s revealed that he really is a human hunter. Is that too far for Poptropica?

The side characters — Winston and the chef — are both menacing and original. Perhaps it’s that we’ve been out in the wilderness so long that any other human is a great character? Possibly. :p

Overall, I rank this episode 5 out of 5 stars. It’s witty, clever, suspenseful, and satisfying. I don’t know what they can do in the next episode to top it. 😀 If you’re looking for walkthroughs (both written and video), you can find them here.

-HPuterpop

Category: Reviews

Sam’s Personal Review of PoptropiCon Ep.3