Feel the rage.

Blackwell Trilogy Remastered

2011-12-29T22:50:00.000-08:00

Blackwell Trilogy Remastered
Developer: Wadjet Eye Games
Publisher: Wadjet Eye Games
Adventure - PC
HDD
1 player

After loving Gemini Rue, I picked up the Blackwell Trilogy Remastered from the Indie Royale Xmas Bundle. Like Gemini Rue, it's a point and click adventure game using the same underlying engine. Nevertheless, the games have very distinct feels to them. Whereas Gemini has a gritty detective / bleak scifi vibe to it, the Blackwell series has sarcastic humor and dark undertones. Your primary role is that of a medium, and your partnership with a ghost. It sounds hokey, but it works without being too far-fetched. The good thing is, the game plays out like that of a serious investigation game. It very much feels like what Phoenix Wright or Miles Edgeworth would be like, if it were a traditional PC adventure game, as you have to present "evidence" to get people to talk. Here's my thoughts on each game of the package.

Blackwell Legacy - Beginning of the saga. You get a bit of background story of Rosangela Blackwell that sets up the entire series and what it's about. The scenario is a nice balance of unsettling deaths and light-hearted humor to break up the tension. Solutions to puzzles can be quite varied too.

Blackwell Unbound - Interesting direction, considering the events of Legacy. Unbound introduces a new game mechanic - the ability to switch characters, which opened up a couple of new possibilities. But otherwise, the puzzles were much simpler than Legacy and also more repetitive, so I liked it least as a game. Whereas Legacy leaves you with a wealth of emotions, Unbound's scenario leaves me feeling unsettled.

Blackwell Convergence - No new game mechanics here, and in fact, they simplify the game by doing away with combining notes/clues. Still, there are still puzzles to be solved and connections to tie together. This outing wraps up the package nicely.

I think Phoenix Wright comparison is apt for this series. Like the Ace Attorney stuff, the Blackwell games are heavily focused on plot and characters. It's a great combination and has the same payoffs. Each game is very interesting in of itself. But as you play additional games and see how the characters interact in different situations, it's building an overall story. It's very rewarding to see the progression.

Blackwell games are also short. Each adventure takes about 4-5 hours to complete. I personally love that they're so short. It's probably why I was hooked enough to play them through. If the length bothers you, the best way to think about each Blackwell entry is that they're equivalent to a Phoenix Wright case. It's also priced appropriately. Full price for the Trilogy is $20. Not too shabby for 15 hours worth of games.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed playing Blackwell. While Gemini Rue was really neat for its atmosphere and unpredictable story, Blackwell was more enjoyable as a game. I always love putting pieces of a puzzle together, and the way you combine clues, present evidence, and convince characters to tell you the truth is what makes adventure gaming for me. Combine that with a strong emphasis on character establishment and story continuity and you've got yourself a winner. I love Blackwell for the same reasons I love Phoenix Wright. And despite the medium / ghost stuff in Blackwell, it never gets in the way like the mysticism does in Phoenix Wright. Things don't just magically resolve themselves. You're involved every step of the way. In case you can't tell, I really had a blast.

Gemini Rue

2011-11-22T13:26:00.001-08:00

Gemini Rue
Developer: Joshua Nuernberger
Publisher: Wadjet Eye Games
Adventure - PC
HDD
1 player

Point-and-click adventure games are a relic of old PC gaming. I don't see too many of them still being made, but indie publisher Wadjet Eye Games still believes in them. I picked up Gemini Rue as part of the Indie Royale Launch Bundle a month back. After viewing the trailer, I was intrigued.

The game's initial scene is cold, clinical, and disturbing. A group of scientists have a man called Delta Six bound. Delta Six apparently has tried to escape, and so the scientists wipe the man's memory. Soon after the credits, the scenery changes to something more akin to a gritty detective film. Azriel Odin is an ex-assassin, but he's out to investigate the disappearance of his brother Daniel. And thus the story begins.

As a point-and-click adventure game, there's no real tricks. There are some isolated combat segments which require WASD controls, but the overwhelming majority of the game requires only left and right clicking. A groundbreaking gameplay-driven game, this is not. But if you're after adventure, this has got it.

The game is interesting in that it has two personalities. The game will switch scenes between Azriel the investigator and Delta Six the captive. Playing as Azriel, the scenery is very moody, with the pitter-patter of the rain adding to the melancholy. Everyone you meet seems to be suspicious or desperate, intensifying the desire to figure out what's going on. Playing as Delta Six leaves you feeling uncomfortable and awkward. He's roughed up by his peers. The surroundings are clinical. The atmosphere ends up being just plain creepy.

The control interface and the puzzles themselves could be less clunky, but that's really not the point. What Gemini Rue does so well, is to pull you into its world. Everything is designed to make you feel what the characters are feeling. By the time the plot kicks into gear, and philosophical questions are raised, those things end up as a bonus. The meat and potatoes of the game is the discovery process that the characters, and you the player, engage in. To that end, Gemini Rue is absolutely thrilling all the way through.

TRAUMA

2011-10-15T18:17:00.000-07:00

TRAUMA
Developer: Kristian Majewski
Publisher: Kristian Majewski
Adventure - PC
HDD, 1 Save File
1 player

Continuing with my Indie PC gaming kick, I picked up TRAUMA as part of the Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle. It's a throwback to the old point-and-click adventure games, but with a little bit of a modern twist.

The game begins with a woman awakening in a hospital bed. Her memories are jumbled, first with a recollection of driving and then random bizarre imagery follows. And hence the game begins.

Like all point-and-click adventures, you will use only the mouse. Click on specific locations of the screen and you will either investigate an object or move to a different location. The interface of this game has a photograph theme, where mousing over key spots shows a translucent photo, letting you know you can move. This is extremely helpful so you're not just clicking in random locations. The game also gives you visual indicators when mousing over key objects too.

The twist to it all is that it adds some interactivity, by giving you powers only accessible through mouse movements. For instance, you can move Right just by "drawing" horizontal lines on the screen from left to right. Moving right can just as easily be accomplished simply by clicking on a navigation spot, but this is just one example of the interactivity. There are some abilities you obtain that can only be accessed by drawing with your mouse.

What's really enjoyable about the game is the whole theme of discovery. It's an adventure game, so you're trying to discover what's going on in the story, discover how to progress, discover different paths. But it also includes a collectathon element, where photographs are scattered throughout each scenario. The photographs fill in a little bit of backstory, but they can also teach you some of the mouse maneuvers in the game. Everything works together really well.

I won't say that TRAUMA is game of the year material or anything. But as far as point-and-click adventures go, I rather enjoyed it. It's mysterious and atmospheric, offers some interactivity with the mouse movements, and wraps it all in a package that emphasizes discovery. Oh, and it's pretty short too ( < 3 hours?), which is a plus in my book. Don't think I'd buy it alone, but as part of a bundle, it's a pleasant surprise.

Sol Survivor

2011-10-10T21:56:00.000-07:00

Sol Survivor
Developer: Cadenza Interactive
Publisher: Cadenza Interactive
Tower Defense - PC
HD Backup
1 player, Multiplayer Co-op & Versus

Now that I'm packing a modern PC, I'm experimenting with PC gaming. First order of business, some indie packs from Steam.

I picked up Sol Survivor as part of a Strategy bundle. Turns out each of the 5 games in the bundle is some sort of tower defense variation. Lucky for me, I generally enjoy them. For those of you who aren't familiar with the genre, tower defense games feature maps, where waves of enemies traverse a fixed (or not-so-fixed) path. If the enemy reaches their destination, you lose life. Hit 0, and it's game over. The goal of the game, then, is to build "towers" that attack the enemies and hopefully kill them before they ever reach you. As you destroy enemies, you earn the ability to build more towers or upgrade existing ones. The fun of the genre comes from understanding the specific nuances and special powers of your "towers" and placement of those towers to do the most damage. For instance, most games of the genre will usually have a tower that can slow down the enemy, but does little or no damage. That's a great supplemental strategy to use in conjunction with offensive towers, but not good by itself. So the right blend of towers is required.

That description generally applies to all tower defense games. Sol Survivor is a pretty standard entry to the genre, and as such, makes a good intro. The setting is very sci-fi, with an alien invasion as a backdrop. Instead of towers, you have turrets, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

There are two design decisions that make Sol Survivor distinct. There's an "Orbital Support" system that makes the game more interactive than its peers. In addition to the ability to build turrets, you have an energy bar that you can spend to alter the game. While your turrets are shooting at the enemy, you can click on the Laser Orbital Support, point at the enemy and then hold down the mouse button. A laser beam will follow wherever your cursor is to do additional damage. This is especially handy to finish off foes that weren't killed by your turrets. There are other orbital support options - some enhance the abilities of your turrets by giving bonuses temporarily; some will slow down any enemies within a radius; some will deal direct damage to an enemy like the laser. The orbital support system helps to make the game more action-focused and less passive.

While the Orbital Support is a significant addition, the choice of Officers has an even greater impact on the gameplay. This is the first tower defense game I've played where you don't have access to all the towers in the game. Sol Survivor makes you choose from 10 different officers, each with their own subset of turrets and orbital supports. What this means is that each officer has a different playstyle and strategy to employ. This was my favorite aspect of the game. There are a total of 20 stages in the campaign, but I found myself replaying the same stages with different characters just to get a feel of how the game changes. By limiting the types of turrets you can build and mixing up your orbital support abilities, the developers made the game better as a result of those restrictions. You're forced to make do with what you've got and it gives the game more of a personality.

In addition to the single player campaign, there is also a single player survival mode where unlimited waves of enemies come knocking at your door as well as a co-operative multiplayer experience. I haven't had the opportunity to try the mp game, but according to the videos I've seen, it looks like it works really well. If you're a completionist, there's tons of achievements both in the game and through Steam, that will keep you occupied for many many hours.

Still a generic tower defense game overall, but solid. The addition of orbital support and multiple characters doesn't drastically change the genre, but they sure make things more interesting.

Half-Life 2 Episode Two

2011-09-12T22:57:00.000-07:00

Half-Life 2 Episode Two
Developer: Valve
Publisher: Valve
First Person Shooter - PC
HD Backup
1 player

After four years, I finally played through all the (available) HL2 games! Picking up immediately from where. Episode One left off, you pretty much know what to expect from Episode Two. Thankfully, Half Life 2 Episode Two isn't a carbon copy of HL2 like Episode One was.

Although you have the same weapons and tools available to you, Valve tried to mix up things a little bit by adding a few new enemies and varying the settings. Sure, it does have the same feel of generic action game + occasional light puzzle. But Valve also added some new tricks, like experimenting with collectathon aspects by having you seek out supply caches. There's also a new addition to how you can use your weapons to take down some of the bigger enemies of the game. The result of their efforts pays off. Somewhat.

The biggest problem is that the additions feel a little tacked on. They're too segmented. When you're in the ant hill section, the game plays like such. When you're searching out hidden supplies, that's more or less what you do for that specific section of the game. It lacks integration. You play the game a certain way for only a fixed scene and that's it. Thus despite their best efforts, Episode Two is still pretty mediocre overall.

If you've read any of my write-ups on the series, I never enjoyed any iteration of Half-Life. One might find the setting and story interesting, but the games come out so far apart from each other, I really don't remember what events occurred previously. As far as gameplay, I find the combat scenarios to be pretty dull overall, relying too much on hordes of generic enemies than actual game design. Episode Two does little to change my opinion of the series.

Half Life 2 Episode One

2011-08-27T09:04:00.001-07:00

Half-Life 2 Episode One
Developer: Valve
Publisher: Valve
First Person Shooter - PC
HD Backup
1 player

I never quite understood why Half-Life 2 Episode One is a follow-up to Half-Life 2. The naming convention sounds like it'd be a prequel, but it's actually a direct sequel. Semantics aside, I'm torn.

The game has no surprises. If you've played through Half-Life 2, you know exactly what to expect. The story unfolds in the exact same real-time manner. The enemies are the exact same ones you previously fought. You have the same weapons. And the kicker.... Ep 1 has you in pretty much the exact situations as HL2. I would actually say the game structure is like playing HL2 in reverse. To that end, Ep 1 is the worst kind of sequel. Uninspired. Treads no new ground. Needless existence. As much as I hated HL2, Episode One is an even worse sequel.

But that being said... had Half Life 2 never existed, Episode One would be pretty decent. One could say that Ep 1 is a streamlined version. The pacing is faster. And it removes the awful awful vehicular segments of the previous game. In a lot of ways, it's what Half-Life 2 SHOULD have been.

Thus I'm mixed. I thought Half-Life 2 was probably the worst game I've ever played. In an absolute sense, I think Half-Life 2 Episode One plays a lot tighter and removes the stuff that really made the original drag on. But as a sequel, it's the worst kind. It doesn't try to achieve anything other than more of the same. And even in that regard, it fails because there's no new situations, only a re-presenting what already was.

In the end, I'm not really sure what to think. OK on its own merits, but is the perfect example of what NOT to do in a sequel. Here's hoping that Episode Two will actually push the series forward.

Ghost Trick

2011-06-11T15:21:00.000-07:00

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Adventure - Nintendo DS
1 player

From the creators of the Ace Attorney games comes a new kind of adventure: Ghost Trick. There are marked similarities between the two titles: a detective mystery backdrop, character-driven story and dialog, and plenty of twists and turns to keep you interested.

What Ghost Trick does differently is the gameplay. You begin the game as a newly departed spirit of a nearby corpse. Who are you? How did you die? Why did you die? Those are all questions that the game will answer, in time. But what this means in terms of gameplay is something completely different. As a spirit, you have two powers - tricks, if you will.

1. You can possess objects and interact with them in real time.
2. You can manipulate time to go back to a few minutes prior to someone dying.

You're thrown into the game and thrust into many confusing situations, with no immediate context. But these powers not only give you the opportunity to investigate the scenes you come across, but they also allow you to be able to influence the past to change the present outcome. In a sense, Ghost Trick isn't considerably different from other adventure puzzles where you interact with objects in a manner to solve a problem. But because the action takes place in real-time, the puzzles take on a fresh persona.

Here's an example. You rewind time to 4 minutes before a victim's death. In that rewind, you see an assailant approach the victim, raise a gun and shoot them. Now that you know what happens, how can you change that path? Well, you rewind again and get to work. The goal is to thwart the kill. So you now are moving in-real time, possessing objects, interacting with them, just as in the foreground, the events are playing out. The assailant is still approaching the victim, is still going to pull out a gun, and will squeeze the trigger. Your job is to find a way to prevent the situation, and to consider the timing in which your actions will occur. Manipulating objects too early, and the assailant may still end up killing the victim. Manipulating them too late, the victim remains dead. Because you have to consider logic and timing, the gameplay feels more like an action game than your run-of-the-mill adventure game.

As far as charm, Ghost Trick sports a similar style to the Ace Attorney games where the mood is balanced by both serious moments and light-hearted humor. What's notable about Ghost Trick are the fluid character animations. It's often a treat just to watch how the characters move on the screen, because obvious care and intention was poured out in this area. Characters will have specific animations based on the scene at hand. Gone are the static screens and functional visuals of Ace Attorney. Ghost Trick is out to impress stylistically, and it works.

I like what Ghost Trick set out to do overall. It's a unique adventure game with fun mechanics, a character-driven story, and a lot of personality to boot. I'm glad that this team decided to try something different, rather than make another Ace Attorney game, and it succeeds in its own right. Nevertheless, I found the overall plot to be a bit hokey - much like the worst parts of Ace Attorney, and it never does get as serious as the Ace Attorney games. Some of the plots/subplots of AA shocked and had an emotional impact on me. GT never did. And although GT was definitely more interactive in its gameplay, I personally enjoyed the logic-based gameplay in AA games more.

In the end, I'm glad Ghost Trick exists and it's definitely worth playing as a unique an fun DS title. I just don't know if I'd stick around for a sequel.

9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors

2011-02-03T07:54:00.000-08:00

9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors
Developer: Chunsoft
Publisher: Aksys Games
Adventure - Nintendo DS
1 player

"Wanna play a game?"

Those words are iconic of the SAW film series, and are quite appropriate for 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors too. Both have masterminds who kidnap select groups of people for a forced game with strict rules. Violate them, and the reward is a messy death. Both are gruesome, although 999 mostly describes the details in text rather than explicit visualization. And both have their viewers wondering many questions before finally resolving them at the end.

I had no idea what 999 was until a friend asked me about it. When I saw the trailer, it just seemed like a generic Adventure game. That is... until someone gave me another tidbit: "It's by the guy who did Ever17". Ever17 completely blew me away, and singlehandedly changed my mind about the legitimacy of visual novels. It proved to me that the video game medium could be used for creative storytelling, and in fact, could surpass traditional books in some ways. I was completely captivated by how you only get pieces of the puzzle through various endings, and the final reveal required experiencing each of those pieces first. I knew that 999 would offer a similar experience.

It did. But what surprised me most about 999 wasn't its brilliant E17-ish story structure - it was the fact that it's not a visual novel. 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors is very much an adventure game. You investigate, find items, and solve puzzles. The way it works here is that you end up trapped in rooms as part of the Nonary Game, the game within the game. Scattered throughout the room are items and clues. You can hold one active item at a time while you investigate objects, so if you have a key and then select a locked door, you will be using the key on the door as opposed to just observing the locked door. Items can be combined with other items in your inventory. The actual puzzles in the rooms are actually quite interesting. Many involve math problems or lining things up or even piano playing. I thought there was a pretty good amount of variety to the puzzles and enjoyed how they fit in logically with the structure of the story.

As far as the story goes, it plays out sort of like a scifi murder mystery. People do end up dying. Depending on the types of decisions you make in the game, the story can diverge in different directions. But that's all part of the process. Just like Ever17, if you take a path through the game, then you only see the consequences of that specific path. But it's necessary, because you learn certain things about the overall story by following that story. If you take a different path, the ending could be radically different, yet you would still learn some truths about the overall story. It's this type of story-telling that I think both Ever17 and 999 really excel in.

So this is a game in which you must play multiple times to get the most mileage out of. In fact, you pretty much have to play it multiple times to get ANY mileage out of it. If you're not willing to commit to that, you shouldn't even start. But see it through and you will be rewarded with a one-of-a-kind experience. The game does offer a fast-forward to speed through only the text you've seen before, so that comes in really handy as you do your next playthrough.

Complaints? The first thing anyone notices about the game is that the text speed moves slowly. It's less of an issue later on though, particularly because in subsequent playthroughs, you can fastforward through all of it anyway. And when the text suddenly slows down (due to choosing a new path), the slow scrolling of text can actually be exciting. The other thing that's a plus and a minus is that in replays, text can be fast-forwarded but puzzles can't be. I guess part of that is that there's some important dialog choices you make during puzzle sequences, so you can't just skip past them. But on the upside, you can quickly go through the puzzles since you already know the solutions. And if I'm honest, I liked the story in Ever17 much more. But that's just a personal preference. There's nothing really earth shattering here as far as downsides.

All in all, this game can pretty much be summed up with this: If you love the scenario writer of the similar KID games (Never7, Ever17, Remember11, etc), you'll love 999. If you've never experienced his work, 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors would be a perfect introduction to his style. It's got the same familiar feel and method of storytelling. I am so glad that Aksys translated this game into English, because the people behind it deserve a broader audience. The way they tell the full story through multiple playthroughs is unlike any other video game I've played. Make no mistake. 999 is without question one of the star gems of the DS library. Absolutely recommended.

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Sky

2011-01-14T13:32:00.001-08:00

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Sky
Developer: Level 5
Publisher: Square Enix
RPG - Nintendo DS
1 player / Multiplayer WLAN

Best. Selling. Game. Ever.

I did not intend on playing Dragon Quest IX, but I was convinced otherwise due to its new features. Level 5 took over the helm starting from DQVIII, and introduced some new mechanics that are present here. IX ups the ante with some additional changes, most notably the addition of visible encounters. Since my main issue with V was that it was too similar to IV, I wanted to see if the jump to IX was drastic.

Well... it's not.

The good thing about that is, it feels familiar and excels at the things that Dragon Quest is good at. I personally love the narrative. It takes a Judeo-Christian influenced slant, where you play the role of a Celestrian, which is akin to an angel. In this context, you're specifically a Guardian Angel of a town. So you start the story by doing guardian angel-y type things: You'll overhear conversations of some kind of conflict or problem, and in the typical DQ fashion, you go ahead and try to help people in their distress. It's pretty comical because you also hear banter among the Celestrians, where some of them deride the folly of humans. Anyway, things start out pretty well, as you do good, receive appreciation from humans, and then present that appreciation as an offering to the Creator. But things spiral out of control really quick, as there's an attack on the heavenly realms with hints of betrayal, greed, and vengeance.

The other good thing is that the solid combat remains intact, and is not at all overshadowed by the new mechanics. I understand that VIII introduced this concept, but in IX, your main character has the ability to EGG ON your party members. Doing so costs a turn, but then raises your party member's tension one level, up to a maximum of 4 levels.

Some caveats:

- Benefits of tension at lower levels have little effect
- Doing an action with the "tense" party member makes use of that tension level, and then resets it.
- Raising tension to the max level can fail, costing a turn.

So why would you want to do it? If you successfully ramp up your tension to the max and dish out an attack, it does about 700% of your normal damage. The math still doesn't quite add up because that's 4 turns of your main character using EGG ON, and 4 turns of your other character not doing anything (to prevent tension from resetting). The last ace is that if your other character has the PSYCHE UP skill, then that character can boost their own tension in addition to the main character using EGG ON. So in the best case scenario, you'll have max tension at the end of turn 2, 4 turns altogether, + the 5th to actually attack to do 700% damage. There's a lot of factors involved, but it's definitely another strategic option for boss fights in particular.

The other battle mechanic added is bonus damage. If your party members consecutively attack an opponent, they'll form combos and gain damage bonuses. Let's say that all four members attack an enemy before the enemy has a chance to hit back. Your 1st does 1x damage. Your 2nd does 1.2x. 3rd: 1.5x. 4th: 2x. These damage bonuses also factor into strategy, as sometimes I'll attack with my priest instead of using a needed healing spell, just so that I can continue the combo and do real damage with my warrior. Of course, if your 1st attacks, your 2nd attacks (1.2x), and then the enemy attacks you, your combo is interrupted. Your 3rd member will do normal damage again. Enemies can also combo your party members too. This system adds another layer of depth to consider when you play.

Another interesting thing about this game is how it approaches classes. Your party members can switch to any class they want, but each class has its own level. So if you switch from a level 99 Warrior to a level 1 mage, your stats will plummet. The catch is, although your character stats are entirely tied to the class you currently are, there are some bonuses that carry over. Each class has its own 5 sets of skills that you can upgrade. 4 of these skills are equipment specific, so if you invest your upgrades in sword skills, as long as you use a sword, you will retain those bonuses, making your level 1 sword-wielder far more potent than a regular level 1 character. More importantly, the 5th set of skills for each class contains specialized skills that carry over. For instance, one of the skills acquired through the Sage class allows you to class change at anytime instead of being limited to the one town in the game. Once acquired, you don't have to be a Sage to continue using that skill. Some of these specialized skills also include stat bonuses like +30 Resilience, which will carry over when switching. That's how DQIX handles your character level being equivalent to your class level. As you use different classes and gain their skillsets, your "character" ultimately becomes much better. Spells, on the other hand, are class specific, so you will never be able to cast OOMPH with your Priest.

So far so good. But there's a definite downside to these systems. The benefits of Tension doesn't work unless you have characters that can PSYCHE UP themselves. Otherwise the cost/benefit analysis isn't favorable. But the only way you can get PSYCHE UP is if you upgrade the skillset in the Martial Artist class. That means to make use of this subsystem, you are forced to grind all your characters as a Martial Artist for a time. Since I didn't, that tension system was mostly useless to me. It's not a game-breaker for sure, as you don't have to use Tension to get through the game. But it would be nice if they built it better into the game by just allowing all characters to PSYCHE UP without having to grind for it. It's not a heavy investment to get, thankfully, but you do have to go out of your way to gain access to something that should have been part of the game from the beginning.

Then there's some complaints I have about this game that bugged me about DQV too. As much as I enjoyed the scenario and story in this game, it is entirely main character focused. That means your other party members are throwaway. In fact, your other party members are just hired/created hands and have no identity of their own. They are never referenced when talking to townsfolk, or moving along the plot. They exist merely to give you a party to fight with. Then there's the ability to rotate the screen for towns and dungeons. The DS DQIV remake had view rotation too, but made use of it by having items hidden from the default view. DQIX, on the other hand, is just like the DQV remake where its only use seems to be to make up for the occasionally inadequate camera angle. Disappointing.

But what's most disappointing is how Level 5 tainted things. There's some changes that can have pretty big repercussions. In general, Level 5 made things easier. For one thing, exploration is less interesting, because dungeons are all mapped out for you upon entering. That kinda takes away from the experience. Another thing I'm not sure how I feel about is that when party members die during battle, they still receive experience points. I think I kinda like(?) having to revive party members in other RPGs before the battle's end for them to get their fair share. It's almost like a risk vs reward type of thing. Then there's the visible encounters in this game. They're really handled poorly, because it lacks most of the advantages that visible encounters are supposed to give. In DQIX, enemies will appear on the screen at random, sometimes materializing on top of you. They can spot you, and rush towards you (or away from you if you're overpowered), which is nice. But it's really stupid because they can rush you, causing a battle. But the battle can say "The enemy doesn't notice your presence." What? YOU'RE THE ONE WHO ATTACKED ME! So there's inconsistencies like that, which bug me. But aside from those continuity issues, it's not all that different from random INVISIBLE encounters.

Then there's the technical deficiencies. When you have a party of four, the game can not keep up with it. The framerate stutter can be maddening, especially in towns. What's worse is that battles are now sluggish as well. Gone is the brisk pace of your standard battle, since all of the attacks and spells have to have their own animations in glorious 3D. In a game like this one, where the game structure encourages building up your character through class skills and grinding, these added seconds to every battle become a huge deal.

Finally, I forget if these are specific to DQIX or was always a part of DQ, but two things really bothered me here.

1. The archaic UI has got to go. When you're on the overworld, for instance, and cast ZING on your dead party member. Half the time, it fails. Fair enough. But to recast it, you have to select Cast Magic, scroll down to your caster again, then scroll down to the cast-ee again in order to do it. WHY CAN'T THE STUPID GAME REMEMBER. This might seem like a minor point, but when your ZING fails 8 times in a row, it's tear-your-hair-out frustrating.

2. Something more major is the order of turns in battle. Because of the way combos work in this game, where you get bonuses for successive actions, the order in which your characters take battle actions matters a whole lot. I would have thought that it's determined by a character's Agility statistic, and for the most part it is. Maybe 60% of the time, your party has a predictable order. But the other 40% seems like it's completely random. Your "slow" guy suddenly performs their attack 2nd. Your "fast" guy goes 3rd. This all happens with no rhyme or reason. I don't understand how a turn-based game can work when things like this are completely out of your control.

Dragon Quest IX just has too many flaws. None of them are game-breaking. But when there's an irritation here, and an annoyance there, it does hamper an otherwise enjoyable experience. It's a shame because there's a lot of meat here: hundreds of sub-quests, items to alchemize, secret dungeons to explore, and quite a bit of post-game content. Flaws aside, DQIX is ultimately not a different enough game for me to continue playing the series. Even 4 entries after the last DQ I played, it's too similar that I'd only recommend that a person play one in their lifetime. Just as long as it's not the first one (ugh). I still intend on finishing up the Zenithia trilogy with DQVI, but I cannot wait to retire from this series altogether.

BioShock

2010-12-28T23:57:00.000-08:00

BioShock
Developer: 2K Boston/2K Australia (Irrational Games)
Publisher: 2K Games
First Person Shooter - PS3
1 player

I remember my old roommate being really excited about a game trailer he had seen for this upcoming game called BioShock. It was the first and only time he called me to watch a game trailer. The footage was all FMV, but it showed off water-themed environments, and this hulking menace with a huge drill as an arm. It certainly piqued my roommate's interest. Fast forward to three years ago, when BioShock was finally released to the world to unanimous praise. I didn't (and still don't) have a PC capable of playing it, but I knew I had to try it. Thanks to my succumbing to the current generation of consoles, now I can.

Lauded for its portrayal of an alternate reality, BioShock begins fairly normal. You start the game in the ocean, having just crash landed. There's little explanation for what has just occurred, but you know one thing: you must survive. You come upon a lighthouse. But things are not what they seem. The moment you board a bathysphere, you are brought into an underwater city you had no idea existed. It is modern, technologically-advanced, and is vastly developed. The only problem is, the environment is eerily deserted for the most part. And the life that you do find is quite unexpected...

BioShock is a pseudo-horror First Person Shooter. Just like any FPS, shooting action is a priority. You'll have your assortment of weapons - even different bullet types to fit the occasion. You'll also have an assortment of plasmids, special powers that allow you to do some cool things like freeze an enemy or use telekinesis (think Half-Life gravity gun). There's flexibility in using different plasmids with your standard weapons, as they tend to complement each other.

But BioShock also has elements typically found in the survival horror genre. Since the environments are sparse, most of the storytelling is told in audio logs spread throughout the universe. By listening to them, you can piece together the back-story of all the events. The backdrops of the stages themselves also contribute to the feeling of dread. The first stage, for instance, takes place in a medical clinic. Some of the wards are pretty gruesome, with disfigured bodies and blood spilled all over. It's similar in feel to the horrific scenes in Silent Hill. Creepy stuff.

The thing is, after that first stage, things go downhill fast. A game like this is about the atmosphere, but apart from the medical clinic and maybe one other stage in the game, most of the scenes come off as generic, underwater city or not. The bulk of the game just feels like any other FPS, but quieter. It feels like the game wants to be horror, but is hesitant to take it all the way.

The story? Dreadful. And not because it lacks scares. The plot has its own logic that's equal parts convoluted and just plain ridiculous. Not that the story has to be grand, because I'd just as well have any paper-thin excuse to go out and shoot things. But with all the praise lopped onto BioShock, you'd think it won a Pulitzer.

But the worst sin of all is that BioShock is just plain boring.

First of all, the game is guilty of lacking "design". Sure the stage design is fairly solid, but enemies are haphazardly placed - especially since they respawn randomly. My number one complaint about Western developers is how they focus their talents on the big picture - creating a world. It then becomes up to that world and the player to generate a game. But it just doesn't work for me. In that kind of "design", enemies are merely filler, set up as random obstacles between you and your goal. This contrasts what I play video games for, where every scene is a specific challenge to overcome, and enemies are integral to that experience. Needless to say, BioShock generally follows convention, and comes up short in this area aside from boss fights.

Secondly, there are only five enemies in the game. Five.

Third, you have the ability to hack into machines and locked safes. When you do so manually, it'll bring up a water puzzle, where you must flip and exchange tiles to connect the pipes so that it will flow properly. While it was an amusing diversion initially, by your 10th hack (and 20th and 50th and 100th), you're so annoyed by it that you simply just pay the hack cost so you don't have to do that stupid puzzle anymore.

And that brings us to the totality: BioShock is full of repetitive tasks. You fight the same enemies over and over. You solve the same water puzzles over and over. And if that wasn't bad enough, the game makes you do it for 10 more hours than it should have. The pacing is painfully slow, with no reward.

I'm surprised - Shocked even - that sequels were made of this tepid game. Funny enough, when I last talked to my old roommate, he thought that BioShock sucked too.

Shantae: Risky's Revenge

2010-10-12T08:26:00.000-07:00

Shantae: Risky's Revenge
Developer: Wayforward
Publisher: Nintendo
Action Platformer - DSi Ware
1 player

I never got a chance to play the original Shantae - partly because I never owned a Gameboy Color, and partly because I'm skeptical about western developers taking on the 2D action platformer - a genre that has largely been dominated by the Japanese. But Shantae nevertheless had a cult following and is highly regarded as being a fine contribution to the genre. Developer Wayforward was supposed to release a follow-up on the Gameboy Advance, but because of the length of development and the timing of the GBA's demise, the project was scrapped. It wasn't until the DSi debuted a downloadable network that Wayforward decided to continue and finish the project. Thankfully they did, because this is without question, the quintessential DSi Ware title.

In Risky's Revenge, you take up the role of Shantae, a half-genie. You walk around in a free environment, talking to people you meet, jumping over bottomless pits, and facing off against enemies. Your primary weapon in the game is actually your hair, which is pretty effective at whacking all enemies from start to finish. There are some magic spells that you can purchase too, that expand your arsenal and give you access to projectile attacks, but they drain your magic meter so you can't proceed by magic alone. The structure of the game very much follows the Metroid / Igarushi Castlevania / Haggleman 3 style, where you are given freedom to go anywhere in the game from the get-go, but certain barriers will prevent you from progressing unless you have the right skill.

Here lies one of the more amusing parts. As a half-genie, you can discover powers along the way that allow you to transform. For instance, the very first form is that of a monkey. Because of the monkey's ability to grip walls and climb surfaces, it allows you to scale new heights, giving you access to areas you couldn't go to before. You'll pick up other forms along the way, and upgrades to those forms. So a lot of the fun is seeing what options are open to you at any stage of the game, exploring where you can go, and switching between the different forms to progress. It's apparent that a lot of polish went into level-design, and integrating the different acquired abilities into it.

Did I mention that the game is gorgeous? The visuals are sprite-actular and colorful, just like the best of the SNES era. Shantae's animations are really fluid and there's a lot of personality even in the way she walks around. The backgrounds are also really neat, because of the way you can shift planes. Enemies that are in your plane suddenly become part of the background when you leave that plane, giving a bit of depth to your 2D gaming. The surroundings are pretty detailed besides that too.

The adventure lasted 8 hours for me, which is quite reasonable for a platforming game, especially one that costs $12 retail. It might be the most expensive download on DSi Ware, but believe me, it's the most complete package. I loved the game from start to finish as it's truly one of the finest maze games out there. If there's any complaint to be had, it's that just like Haggleman 3, I'm left wanting more.

Fat Princess

2010-08-13T09:01:00.000-07:00

Fat Princess
Developer: Titan Studios
Publisher: SCEA
Action / Capture the Flag - Playstation 3
1 - 32 players

Fat Princess has gotten a lot of press in the PSN shows like Pulse and Qore. I knew it was an online multiplayer game, but BECAUSE it was an online multiplayer game, didn't think I'd get much mileage out of it. I barely touch my consoles as is. But who could resist a 50% off sale?

The gist of the game is simple:

Capture the enemy princess
Protect/retrieve your princess

All in all, very much like your standard capture the flag game. But there's a twist. Fat Princess so gets its name from one fact: You can stuff the princesses with cake, making them fatter and heavier, and consequently much more difficult to move. You control one of 16 characters on your team, and you are free to change classes similar to a game like Battlefield. The nice thing is, you don't need to die in order to change classes. You just need to pick up a hat of the class you want to change into. Your base generates all of the class types, so you can immediately pick your role there. On the battlefield, you can pick up the hats of fallen allies and enemies. This allows class-changes to be seamless and instantaneous, so you can focus on the action. There's 5-6 standard classes and an additional 3 available via DLC, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Some units are better at front-line combat, while others are better as support.

Fat Princess isn't just action. Unlike a FPS capture the flag, Fat Princess has some RTS elements to it, where you can farm resources to upgrade buildings, ultimately upgrading the units. You can also use resources to construct shortcuts (ladders, bridges, etc) and build barriers to block out the enemy. This aspect gives Fat Princess a little more depth than the standard CTF.

Contrary to what I first believed, there are decent single player options where you play against AI-controlled opponents. There is a brief story mode with different objectives that allow you to understand the different modes and get familiarized with the classes and maps. There's also an arena mode where you pick a class and try to survive through a series of combative challenges. So there's a bit to play around with if you're not as interested in jumping online.

But of course, if you want to play online, it's very easy to jump in. You can host a game and set things up if you want to play a game with specific settings. Or you can just Join a Game and it'll drop you into an existing game going on, where you just replace one of the AI-controlled team members. It all happens automatically, so you don't need to go to any lobbies, or pick a game from a list. And because the game substitutes you in for an AI-team member, if you need to go, you can quit without really disrupting your teammates. It'll just sub an AI teammember back in when you leave. Once an online game is finished, all the human players can vote for the next map. The way the online component was designed makes it incredibly easy to play for just a few minutes or a few hours.

My only complaint about the experience is that the documentation is pretty poor. Yes, the in-game manual gives you some direction into class abilities, upgrading buildings, the available game modes, etc. But many of the finer details are not explained, so even though I've played the game for hours, there are gameplay elements I don't quite understand - particularly with using resources towards upgrades.

Nevertheless, if it's a solid, fast-paced, user-friendly multiplayer game you're after, Fat Princess delivers. Whether you have just a few minutes to spare or want to devote an entire afternoon, you'll be thoroughly entertained.

Half Minute Hero

2010-07-10T08:35:00.000-07:00

Half Minute Hero
Developer: Marvelous Entertainment
Publisher: XSEED Games
RPG / Variety - Playstation Portable
1 player

First thing you need to know is that PSN hosts a decent number of PSP demos, and for the most part, made me NOT want to purchase the full game. Half Minute Hero was the exception. It was quirky, brilliant, and most of all entertaining. I was sold after, well... 30 seconds.

Half Minute Hero isn't really -a- game, and more of a collection of games tied together with an overall storyline. The games themselves are all quite different, but they all have the recurring motif of a 30 second time limit.

Hero 30

This fast-paced RPG is the principle mode. The premise is that an evil lord is casting an apocalyptic spell which requires 30 seconds to complete. So your job as the Hero of the story is to race to defeat the lord.

Just like a "real" RPG, you can purchase items, talk to townsfolk for advice, recruit party members, grind for levels, solve puzzles, and explore dungeons. Of course, these activities are much more basic and streamlined than the typical RPG (battles are largely automatic and average 1.5 seconds, purchasing EQ automatically equips, etc), but the content is there.

That begs the question... how can you do all of that in 30 seconds? For the first few scenarios, it's all a matter of speed and efficiency. You have to figure out how much to fight / level up and balance that with the ticking clock. Luckily time stops when you're in towns, so you can take a breather, talk to citizens, heal and improve your equipment. On the world map, you can make mad-dashes which eliminates random battles for the duration, but costs you HP. So there's a time management aspect to making a beeline to your intended destinations, stopping only to fight when it's necessary, and balancing that with how much HP your hero has.

Later scenarios have the same balancing act, but gives you ways to extend your 30 second time limit. There's a time goddess that will reset the clock to 30:00 at the cost of gold. The catch is that the cost of gold increases everytime you use it, so it becomes economically unfeasible past a certain point. But what it does is present you with larger and more complex game scenarios. In fact, this little game has "achievements" that trigger when you meet certain criteria (2 per scenario) and even multi-branching paths that introduce new scenarios. An amusing touch is that each scenario is considered a game in of itself and has its own set of credits once cleared.

Evil Lord 30

From what I gathered, this "real time strategy" game isn't a particular favorite among players. Although it's billed as a RTS, I actually feel it's more accurately described as a summon action game. Basically it's like an ARPG where your character, the Evil Lord, cannot attack directly, but needs to summon monsters to fight for you. You can summon 3 types of monsters, with rock-paper-scissors affinities. That's where the strategy component comes in.

You can summon as many monsters you want and as often as you want, but the faster you summon them, the weaker they are. The monster strength is determined by the size of your summon circle. Once you summon one monster, it shrinks and then grows over time. As you defeat enemies, you do gain experience points. Once you level, your max summon circle expands, allowing you to make bigger monsters. Get hit by an enemy, and your circle shrinks.

The premise of this game is that the Evil Lord is trying to save his beloved Millenia, who has been turned into a bat. But after 30 seconds, daylight breaks and they are doomed. Just like Hero 30, you can find the Time Goddess and turn back the clock. This is a necessity since later stages are all about throwing you in mazes full of enemies, so you'll need every second you can get.

Princess 30

Princess 30 is absolute silliness. The story is that the King has fallen ill, and the naive Princess ventures outside of the castle in attempts to get help. Naturally, this worries her parents, so they give her a strict 30 second curfew.

The actual gameplay is closest to a shoot-em-up. The screen will autoscroll in a predetermined direction, but you can influence its speed based on the path your princess takes. Surrounding the princess is 30 bodyguards which has a dual purpose: more bodyguards = more offensive strength, but more bodyguards = larger hitbox. Enemies will come from all four directions, so you have directional fire mapped to the buttons. But the essential goal of each stage is to collect a person / item, and then race back to the castle before the 30 second limit runs out. The time-extenders here are red-carpets, which turn the clock back a little for as long as the princess is on it.

Guard 30

As you may have guessed, Guard 30 is a protection game. This time, it's your group that is casting the spell of destruction. A Sage is being targeted by all sorts of monsters, and has asked you to provide protection until the spell of destruction has been cast. So within those 30 seconds, a flood of monsters, demons, and bosses will try to thwart the Sage's plans.

You have a few resources at your disposal that can help. You can choose some one-time use tools before a stage begins. These items range from bombs to barriers. You can also pick up weapons on the field. And foregoing that, you can ram your body into monsters to push them away. Unfortunately, monsters don't "die". They only get knocked out for a few seconds, before they start coming for the Sage again. So you'll have your hands full here.

Unlike the other games, there's no time-extender because you actually want the clock to run out. But since the Sage just stands there chanting the spell, it will often put your group in peril. So another valuable tool is being able to pick up the Sage and relocate. The cost of doing this is that the Sage cannot chant while you're in motion, and so the clock is not progressing. But considering the layout of the stages, you pretty much have to move around to avoid the masses of enemies. Luckily, there's another benefit to moving the Sage around. There are hotspots on most stages which double the speed at which the spell can be cast. So there's another positive incentive to move around.

Overall

The games in Half Minute Hero are all quite distinct. I don't think any of them are bad. Hero 30 has the most meat and is the most fun by far. But there were really good moments in each of the games, where the gameplay elements came together in a entertaining, this-is-awesome way. I know that the gamer community was not as enthusiastic about Dark Lord 30, Princess 30 and Guard 30 and to be fair, they are uneven experiences. There generally isn't a progression of difficulty or complexity, so the challenge and design feels unbalanced. They're also really quick to blast through, compared to Hero 30. But as a whole package, it offers variety, a lot of content, brilliant fun and never takes itself too seriously. It resembles nothing else on the market. This is my favorite PSP game thus far.

Killzone Liberation

2010-07-04T23:00:00.000-07:00

Killzone Liberation
Developer: Guerilla
Publisher: SCEA
Action - Playstation Portable
1 player / 2-6 player Ad-Hoc & Infrastructure

Killzone Liberation was one of the first titles recommended to me when I purchased my PSP. I didn't know much about the KZ series, other than the fact that it was an exclusive that Sony fans praised. Unlike the first-person perspective of the PS3 series, Killzone Liberation took a different path by being presented top-down. I'm always down for a hearty action game, and because of the view, I was looking forward to something that distinguishes itself from the pack.

Indeed, KZL sets itself apart for a few reasons.
- The top-down perspective did make it play very differently than other shooters. For one thing, there's no jumping. You can still crouch behind objects to gain a defensive advantage, but because there isn't much of a vertical axis to the camera, height isn't emphasized much.
- The game is hard. The enemies are pretty accurate with their bullets, and aren't afraid to spray you. The few bosses that are here are also throw-your-PSP-out-the-window hard, which while frustrating, is quite respectable.
- Although there are some segments with allied AI, which I hate, you have some control by being able to designate your partner to specific locations on the screen or to follow you. The great thing is your allied AI partner listens to you, so if you tell them to protect themselves behind a barricade, they will remain there, even if you wander away from their area. You can also command your partner to do certain things, such as setting up bombs and clearing the way. It's nice to be able to exert some control over the computer controlled characters.
- The game shipped incomplete, so you can only receive the final 20% of the game and the ability to play online through DLC. Luckily, the DLC is free, but when I "finished" the game, I thought it was weird that it ended on a cliffhanger. It was then that I learned that the DLC wasn't a bonus, but a fix for what really ought to have been there in the first place.

Ultimately it comes down to whether the game is fun, and I think this is where Killzone Liberation slips. I never got the sense that it was anything more than clinical and generic. There isn't much variety in the types of foes you face. They only come in a handful of flavors. For the most part, I felt that the waves of enemies were only there to keep you occupied, rather than an integral part of the game design. A common scenario is that you'll face 3 enemies. So you kill them, and out comes another wave of the same enemies. It gets repetitive. That's what made the challenge harder to deal with too. It seemed like it was hard for the sake of being hard, and left me with no satisfaction when I overcame those challenges. It was a soul-less experience.

Probably the biggest complaint of mine is the lock-on targeting system. Theoretically you kinda point your character towards an enemy and then your gun is locked onto that individual. Since you don't have the precision of a 1st person shooter, the lock-on certainly helps a game like this. And this totally works when there's one enemy on the screen. Where things go bad is when there are several enemies in the same direction. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get your gun to lock onto specific enemies in these situations. Worse yet, even if you're targeting one enemy, once you knock them to the ground, your auto-aim will then lock on to another enemy. It is extremely annoying when you want to finish off an opponent, but the game sometimes decides to just shift targets on you. And this is where most of the frustration came in. Your auto-aim goes wherever it wants to. Yes, the game is hard, but a large part of that hard is because you are at the mercy of the finicky targeting system. If the mediocrity in design wasn't enough to ruin the game, the lock-on targeting system definitely did.

On paper, Killzone Liberation is a great game. It's intense, fast-paced, challenging, and relentless - all very good things for an action game. It's got a bunch of challenge stages that make it feel very different from the regular campaign mode too - and more content is always a good thing. But no matter what the game offered, I never quite enjoyed playing it. If the rest of the Killzone series is like this, Sony fans can just keep it.

PixelJunk Shooter

2010-05-28T10:20:00.001-07:00

PixelJunk Shooter
Developer: Q Games
Publisher: SCEA
Action - Playstation 3
1-2 players

When I got a PS3, several people recommended that I get all the PixelJunk titles. I'm not entirely sure what the PJ branding indicates, but they seem to be simple 2D games with High Definition visuals. Seems like a fine combination to me. PixelJunk Shooter is the most recent PJ game from Q Games and well... it's a shooter. Sorta.

Although it has bullet dodging and shmup'ing elements, Shooter is more like one of those classic rescue games. Each stage has a certain number of people that you have to fly around and save before the exit is opened. Then you move onto the next stage and you do the same. Although this might seem basic, there's a lot of modern tweaks to make it interesting. The first thing you notice about Shooter is the fluid physics. There are three primary elements you'll encounter: water, lava and oil. All of them have their own attributes to them, but their motion is very realistic in their fluidity. The liquids flow and drip rather than a constant pour, making for some interesting interaction. These fluids are very critical to the game. Lava is a destructive element, and touching it not only harms you, but it can kill people you're trying to save if you don't get to them in time. But lava can be neutralized with water, thus forming molten rock, that you can also use to your advantage or disadvantage.

Therein lies the simplicity, and yet the brilliance of Shooter. You have your classic shooter elements with enemies that try to shoot you down and bosses at the end of each area, but it is ultimately a puzzle game where you have to figure out how to save everyone without losing any of them. Enemy locations, gates you can interact with, the natural flow of lava and water, and various suits your ship can "wear" for special abilities - all of these things are meticulously designed as puzzle tools. And like most modern games, saving people is just a form of collectathon. You don't have to save everyone to move onto the next stage (they could also die, which also accomplishes that goal), but it is far more rewarding to. There are also tons of crystals that you can collect too - many of which are hidden or somewhat obscured until you trigger some events.

I personally loved PixelJunk Shooter more than any other PS3 game I've played. Maybe my love of 2D is hard to quench, but Shooter has that kind of clever gameplay that feels familiar, yet completely fresh. Perhaps more than anything else, that's the kind of game that resonates best with me. Some may complain that the game only has 3 areas (15 stages), but if you actually 100% everything, it'll take some time to get through all of that. Plus, PixelJunk Shooter 2 is already in the works, promising new ideas and a lengthier run-time, so I couldn't be happier.

Syphon Filter Dark Mirror

2010-04-06T08:38:00.000-07:00

Syphon Filter Dark Mirror
Developer: Sony Bend
Publisher: SCEA
Action - Playstation Portable
1 player / 2-8 player Ad-Hoc & Infrastructure

I'll be honest. I've never played Syphon Filter, but I always got the impression that it was a sub-par knockoff of the stealth-action genre that Metal Gear Solid created. But the PSP versions were said to be different. They were said to be good. IGN gave Dark Mirror the 2006 PSP Game of the Year award - a dubious source, I know, but it's worth noting. And since I was craving a shooter at the time, it was reason enough to check it out.

From what I can tell, Syphon Filter Dark Mirror is a 3rd person shooter, with some stealth elements at times. MGS has a higher emphasis on stealth, because it's designed to be able to go through each stage undetected, and that aspect of gameplay is fleshed out better. Instead, SFDM might be more like Goldeneye 007 in that certain parts, you are automatically detected and other parts, you have a choice to use stealth techniques or go with guns blazing. Unlike First-Person Shooters though, there's some elements of climbing, shimmying, grappling, etc that you can do which helps for area exploration.

As an action game, Dark Mirror is competent, and generally varied enough to be entertaining. There's a host of different weapons you can collect and use. There is a decent amount of interactivity with the environments that you can use to your advantage, like the typical oil canisters that explode if you shoot them or activating switches that electricute enemies. Scoped weapons allow you to zoom in and make one-hit-kill headshots, or cripple enemies by shooting their legs. All the necessary ingredients are there, but it feels like it lacks something to make it truly special.

Perhaps the defining feature of the game is its use of goggles. You can equip one of 3 different types of goggles and knowing when and where to use them will be monumental in how you approach a stage. The "EDSU Goggles" generally help you figure out what items you can interact with, and can reveal things that are hidden. The "IR Goggles" help you to sense heat, and thus makes enemies visible even behind solid objects. This is very handy for scouting out the next room before you even open the door. Finally there's Night Vision, which helps to see in dark areas. There's also a flashlight, which doesn't illuminate as well as the NV goggles, and alerts enemies that you're there, so I'm not really sure why it's in the game. At first I found the goggles cumbersome, but once I figured out the nuances, strengths and limitations of each pair, I realize they are pretty integral to the gameplay, particularly if you want to use stealth techniques.

One of the things I had to get used to was its mix of stealth and action. On one hand, I feel Dark Mirror doesn't know what it wants to be. It's ok to give the player a choice on how to approach each situation. But there are segments where the game forces an action sequence, so it is inconsistent. On the other hand, what makes everything work together are the "achievements". I really feel like this is the one area where the game shines brightest. For each stage in the game, there are the same six goals. They require you to do things like get 20 stealth kills, or kill 30 people with headshots, or kill 15 people with a knife. If you're obsessive about this stuff like me, it'll force you to play stages over and over but the upside is that you get to fully understand the design of each stage. It is only then that you come to really appreciate each situation. Particularly for the stealth sections, it's almost like a puzzle to figure out how to kill X number of people without being detected. Fulfilling these goals will net you some unlockable weapons and bonus stages, but for me, fulfilling these goals made the game that much deeper in of itself.

The other major triumph of Dark Mirror is its control scheme. It has historical significance on the PSP because it was a huge step forward for having intuitive controls on the awkward PSP. With the standard configuration, the nub controls movement, the face buttons control your aim, and holding the D-pad brings up a subscreen where you can easily pick an item or weapon with the face buttons. It is a control scheme that would be adopted and become the standard for all such games on the system, including the Metal Gear Solid series. And it works. It feels just as intuitive as a dual analog setup, and the D-pad inventory management allows you quick and easy access to what you need, when you need it.

If you play the game strictly for its story mode, Syphon Filter Dark Mirror is a decent diversion. It has its cool moments, but mostly feels like you're going through the motions. But if you take the time to pursue all of the available goals, you will develop a greater appreciation for what the game has to offer. There's a ton of unlockable content to be had, including 5 bonus stages, early development videos, etc. While I'm convinced that SFDM falls short of brilliance, no one could accuse Sony Bend of skimping out on the details.

Miles Edgeworth Ace Attorney Investigations

2010-03-08T23:42:00.000-08:00

Miles Edgeworth Ace Attorney Investigations
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Adventure - Nintendo DS
1 player

I admit it. I'm a sucker for this game series. Ever since I first heard about it (a courtroom drama video game? really?!), I've been intrigued. Oh sure, the games have had their ups and downs. But through it all, it generally maintained a certain charm. Miles Edgeworth marks a departure from the previous entries, and even has a different title than the other games (Gyakuten Kenji, instead of Gyakuten Saiban). But if this Miles Edgeworth Ace Attorney Investigations is anything to go by, the original Ace Attorney series is officially irrelevant.

Miles Edgeworth somehow kept everything I ever loved about the series, but ditched everything I hated.

Gone are...
- Mysticism (psychic powers, channeling spirits and the like, magatama)
- Gimmicky touch screen garbage (having to simulate forensic work is NOT gameplay)
- Perceive system in Ace Attorney 4 which has no logic whatsover

Still contained within are...
- Distinct (and sometimes outrageous) character personalities
- Using logic to connect evidence to refute / confirm testimonies
- Plot continuity not only between cases, but entire games

Unlike the regular Ace Attorney games, Miles Edgeworth does not take place in a courtroom at all. Instead, the scenarios in this game focus on detective-work and apprehending criminals, but the techniques you use are very similar to what Phoenix Wright uses in court. You still talk to people, convince them into telling you their alibis, and point out problems in their arguments with evidence. So it's still very thought-based. The investigative parts resemble those in Phoenix Wright, but they're much more streamlined. First of all, movement is now done in third-person. You can see your character visually on-screen and move him around. It doesn't make for a huge change, but some might appreciate the increase in interactivity. To alleviate some of the irritations of previous games, Capcom got rid of the clunky navigation between areas by keeping investigations focused. If you're in a room, the game generally won't let you leave until you've gathered everything you need. Phoenix Wright would allow you to wander through 8 different locations, until you trigger an event that lets you get back to court. In Miles Edgeworth, though, the investigations are contained.

If it stopped here, it would already have the best gameplay in the series, but Ace Attorney Investigations adds a couple of new systems that reinforce the concept of making logical connections. The first is aptly named, "Logic". "Evidence" is the physical clues gathered and documented that you use to point out flaws in testimonies, etc. But new to this game are ideas and thoughts. As you find interesting tidbits or things that don't quite make sense, you keep track of your thoughts. At any time, you can connect two thoughts if there's a link, and it can reveal a new truth. It is may be an extension of what's already in place, but it makes for a great addition. Similarly, the second new addition isn't a completely new game system, but rather a twist on what you already do in the game. In a select few situations, you're able to evaluate simulations of past events and point out inconsistencies. The overall end result is a very focused experience of piecing together logic.

The only slight letdown to it all is that it seemed easier to me than the previous games. Part of it is because the main character is so much more competent than either Phoenix or Apollo, and as such, points out hints, whenever you need to present something. But even without those hints, I generally thought that connections between evidence and testimonies were much more obvious than the older games. I suppose it could just mean I've played too many of these games, so that the formula has become predictable.

Still, I hope Miles Edgeworth Ace Attorney Investigations is the future of the brand. It takes all the stuff I liked from the Ace Attorney games, expands on it, and dumps the junk I wasn't crazy about. The eclectic character personalities are still there, with a mix of old faces and several new ones. And the gameplay is by far the most sophisticated of the series. Even though the overall story wasn't as satisfying as some of the previous entries, it was nevertheless a complete joy to play. I want more.

Dark Void Zero

2010-03-01T22:16:00.000-08:00

Dark Void Zero
Developer: Other Ocean
Publisher: Capcom
Action - DSi Ware
1 player

Dark Void Zero is sort of a weird title. Capcom's marketing team calls it an unreleased game from the 80s, that they are releasing at long last on the DSi Ware store. Wikipedia calls it a publicity teaser to generate buzz for Dark Void, a 3D game for the PC, Playstation 3 and XBox360. Whatever it is, people seem to be agreement about one thing: Dark Void Zero is a much better game than Dark Void is.

Dark Void Zero is a NES-inspired action game, and that's a good thing. Visuals and music are decidedly 8-bit, as well as the gameplay. Sorta. Just like Retro Game Challenge, DVZ takes 8-bit conventions, but mixes it up with some modern elements for a slight twist. They don't go overboard with the modernization, and it mostly plays like a classic NES game. And frankly, the result is quite awesome.

You control a character named Rusty, and you're pretty much Earth's last hope. But who cares what the story is about? The game wastes little time and throws you into the action from the get-go. For the most part, this plays like your standard 2D action platformer. You pick up weapons, kill enemies, watch for cannons, jump over chasms, etc. You can fire in 8 directions, which is a definite necessity, given the aggressive nature of the enemies. The level structure is somewhat similar to Metroid in that you have freedom to explore areas, find that you can't proceed initially, grab crucial items, and backtrack to those points once you've found the right item. Luckily it doesn't have any leveling up garbage that plagues modern titles, so it's a pure action game. As a consequence, DVZ offers a decent challenge - quite the surprise for a fogey like me. If you don't utilize your situations right, enemies can easily overwhelm you.

For you collectathon gamers out there, you can search out 100 orbs in each stage and 5 special items for bonus points and extra lives. They're not necessary, but they certainly add a bit of flair to an already solid game.

The twist? You can fly. Scattered throughout the stages are jetpacks that grant you the ability to ascend heights and hover. Considering there are a bunch of aerial enemies and ground hazards, flight is a must. Your 8-way firing ability is even more crucial, as you're trying to position yourself not only to hit enemies, but to avoid colliding into danger. Flight makes the game that much more intense and turns up the action even more. But if you can fly, then what is the point of the platforming? DVZ answers that question with no hesitation.

Dark Void Zero is set up so that there are certain sections of a stage that cannot be traversed just by walking and jumping. But other sections will not allow you to fly. Stages contain antigravity fields that destroy your jetpack, forcing you to walk. So the game walks a fine rope between the two styles of play, and you have to adapt to each style and figure out which is right for each situation. But it succeeds marvelously because of how tight the stage design is. You get the feeling that every situation is very intentional, and all the enemies, barriers, and tools (weapons/powerups) are placed where they are for a purpose. Your goal as a player, then, is to use analyze your options and utilize what's available to overcome whatever scenario is presented. It's brilliant.

With its healthy challenge, two distinct styles of play, and well-designed stages that complement each and integrate both, Dark Void Zero is a surprising gem. It grabbed me from the beginning and was entertaining throughout. Complaints? Personally, I have none, but it should be mentioned that there are only three stages. It probably amounts to about 3-4 hours of trying and retrying to get through the stages. Although that doesn't sound like much in this era of 40-hour games, it's an appropriate length for no-nonsense action games of old. Plus, at 500 points for the download, it's hardly much of an investment. It may be shorter than a lot of games, but for me, it's also that much sweeter.

Suikoden

2010-02-21T10:41:00.000-08:00

Suikoden
Developer: KCET
Publisher: Konami
RPG - Playstation / PSN
1 player

I believe Suikoden may have been Konami's first foray into RPGs, and in several respects, it feels like it. Suikoden isn't particularly noteworthy for its visuals nor does it introduce any revolutionary game mechanics for its time. But that doesn't mean it was without its charms.

The one distinguishing thing about Suikoden is the ability to recruit a ton of characters into your army, with a maximum of 108. This is based off a classic Chinese novel, where there are 108 Stars of Destiny. For a RPG, this ability to recruit is a key component to its gameplay. Although most characters will join you when asked, many will not unless certain criteria are met. Depending on how much of a collectathon-ist you are, you can spend a bit of time traveling the world, looking for items, and having key characters in your group in order to collect them all.

I personally never liked having party choice in RPGs simply because managing them can be a pain. Especially since a lot of party-choice RPGs force certain characters to be in your party for story purposes, if you somehow don't balance all the possible members properly, some games will completely screw you over. Although Suikoden does do that too, the nice thing is that balancing 108 characters isn't needed because it has a sophisticated leveling up system. I don't entirely understand how leveling up works in Suikoden but it seems to give tons more experience points to your underleveled people. So if you have a party of level 50 characters, and then the story forces you to have a level 10 character in your party, your level 10 character will probably be level 47 by the time your other members reach 51. That removes that complaint I usually have about RPGs that don't automatically distribute experience to those not in your immediate party. Managing equipment between the 108 ... well, that can be a little clunky, but nothing game-breaking.

The biggest problem with Suikoden is that it's a bare-bones game. The overworld is pretty sparse, with only a handful of areas of interest. Dungeons are especially straight-forward, with little in the way of branching paths or areas to explore. Almost all of them funnel you towards the boss. While there is some merit in cutting out the extraneous stuff, the result was that I didn't care for any place I visited in the entire game. They were just a means to get to the next story point.

The combat is perhaps the simplest turn based RPG system I've experienced, with little more than Attack as an option. There is magic in this game too, but it doesn't work like other RPGs. Instead, each character can be equipped with a maximum of one spell type. And depending on the makeup of the character and their level, can have a maximum of four spells. The game does not use MP, and instead has a limited number of usage per spell. Once you use your spells, you can no longer use them unless you rest at an inn. What this means in practice is that physical combat takes center stage, and simply commanding ATTACK does not make for an exciting game.

But the game does offer different kinds of combat, depending on the situation. In addition to the standard RPG fights, Suikoden simulates epic battles by using a Dragon Force-like view. You'll see enemy troops on one side of the screen, and yours on the other. Then each side issues a command, troops charge each other, and casualties are recorded. It has a rock-paper-scissors system where offensive charges > archers > magic > offensive charges, but you have some additional tricks up your sleeve. There are also 1v1 battles against major enemies, which follows a similar rock-paper-scissors type of format too.

Where Suikoden really excels is in its narrative. Suikoden has a mature story in that tragedy propels it. This is not a fairy tale story. Neither is it an overdramatic emo story. Instead it's a story about war, duty, friendship (and betrayal), and sacrifice. The cost of the war is high, and many people die along the way. It kind of reminds me of Tales of Phantasia in that regard, where the severity of the events compels me to keep playing. It's interesting to see that despite having a whopping number of characters in your party, there's a reasonable amount of back-story to many of the characters, so they're reasonably fleshed out.

What I also love is the way the plot is told. Suikoden bucks the popular trends at the time and does not use FMV other than the movie that plays before the title screen. Instead, scenes play out using the same 3/4 top-down perspective that the game is normally presented in. The character sprites will animate depending on what's occurring at the time. Characters unsheathe their swords, fall on their knees, embrace, all using real-time sprites. Grandia is the only other game I know that relies heavily on that method.

Overall, Suikoden isn't my kind of game. It has an interesting story, and the characters are spot-on. But on its merits as a game, it's merely passable. There's some neat things, such as the clever leveling-up system that helps to lower level characters catch up to higher level characters, and the different types of battles that provide some variety. But the simplistic nature of the overall game design is hard to connect with. If story is all you want in a video game, then Suikoden is fine. I personally prefer more.

Bayonetta (demo)

2010-02-12T10:44:00.001-08:00

Bayonetta you're mystery
Jerky cutscenes tell a bad story
The camera lags on the battlefield, I can't tell where you are
Bayonetta you're DMC
With your long hair and nudity
Your combos are long, witch time drags on, it's mashing, it's mashing

Assassin's Creed Bloodlines

2010-01-09T09:10:00.000-08:00

Assassin's Creed Bloodlines
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal & Griptonite
Publisher: Ubisoft
Action - Playstation Portable
1 player

Assassin's Creed Bloodlines was released just a week before Assassin's Creed II to present a side story that takes place between the events of the first and second game. I'm told that the game mechanics are also somewhere in between the first and second game. As my first entry into the Assassin's Creed series, I came away with some appreciation of what people enjoyed. Yet, I couldn't shake the feeling that it's not the type of game to appeal to me as a whole.

Let's start with the basics. You assume the role of Altair the assassin. Here the story focuses on his clashes with the Templars in Cyprus. Similar to the main AC games, you will be exploring large cities, climbing buildings, sneaking around and killing as needed. If you manage to get up close to an opponent without being noticed, you can do a quick assassination. If you are detected, you have several combat options as well.

In terms of structure, the game basically has you follow a linear plot line. You are confined to a specific area because of the story, but otherwise you're free to explore the area as needed, move the plot along, or trigger subquests. Bloodlines offers some breaks from the main plot by allowing you to interact with some NPCs scattered throughout. Their tasks generally revolve around making deliveries (generally timed), defending innocent people, and assassinating specific targets. After playing Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars and reinforcing my thoughts with this game, I realize that sandbox gaming bores me. There's an illusion of freedom where you can do a lot of side goals, but ultimately what you actually can do is very limited. Here in this game you can walk and you can kill. Every quest is a some iteration of that.

The exploration aspect of the game is really nicely done though. I imagine that each city in the console/PC Assassin games is one complete entity, but here in Assassin's Creed Bloodlines city areas are sectioned off by districts. Nevertheless, each district has plenty to see, places to climb, and coins to find. Most 3D games with platforming elements have incorporated a form of collect-a-thon and ACB is no different. Here they are coins. Gold and silver coins can be found spread throughout the world. Collecting these coins means more game currency to buy upgrades to Altair's abilities, such as higher damage or more throwing knives. But they also count towards "Accomplishments". Yep, in going with the fads of XBL, there are now Achievements in portable gaming. But what this means is that you have an incentive to explore every nook and cranny of each location. You really get a sense of scale of the environment, as you jump across roof gaps and ascend on vertical towers.

One major downside in this portable version is that while the big city feel is intact, the streets don't feel as lively. Compared to the multitudes of people coming and going in the console versions, usually you'll only see up to 4-5 people on the screen at once here. Where this really comes into play is when you meet other Templars. They show up as a yellow dot on your map, to give you an indicator of when to be more discrete with your actions. But as the game is loading these people into memory as you walk through the city, the Templars seem to appear out of nowhere. You still have enough warning for the most part, but it is a little disorienting and matters a lot when you fight.

The combat is in of itself a high point. It's a very simple system: one button to attack, one button to block. Time the attack correctly and you can chain up to 3 hits. Hold block and hit attack right when the enemy is striking and you'll perform a counter. This timing-based system is very reminiscent of Vagrant Story. It's simple, yet very interactive because of the timing aspects. But where ACB missteps is that each enemy is more or less a carbon copy of the other. They may look different - some with helmets, others hold shields. But the all act alike. That makes the combat really repetitive. For example, once you've attracted attention, all Templars in the area will rush towards you. So then it's just combo combo combo / counter until they're all dead. And because of the memory issue, once you've killed the 4 Templars on your screen, all of a sudden another 3 will instantly warp in. It's really irritating because it disrupts your experience, and you pretty much dispose of all of them in the same way. In a game like this, fighting is supposed to be secondary, because you can assassinate people stealthily and avoid conflict. But in this PSP outing, there are definitely a lot of situations where you are forced to fight.

As a consequence, Assassin's Creed Bloodlines does have a more combat-oriented experience than other games of the series. The major manifestation of this is in boss battles. Unlike the other games, there is a boss to each area that has a health bar. You cannot assassinate bosses in this game. You are forced to fight them. But that's also when the battle system comes to life. The boss patterns are infinitely more interesting than what the regular Templar grunts do, and some of the later ones will present quite a nice challenge. I found myself continuing a bunch of times on certain fights. I just wish the regular encounters were as interesting.

Assassin's Creed Bloodlines is not a bad game at all. I can see glimpses of why people might like it and the main games from the series. There is charm in being dropped in a massive city, getting familiarized with it, exploring it, and taking it all in. The combat too is deeper than I would have thought a game like this would be. But for me, it's less than the sum of its parts. There's not much you can do other than explore and fight the same enemy over and over. That might be fine for some, but the game ultimately left me empty.

DJ Max Portable

2009-12-29T09:57:00.001-08:00

DJ Max Portable
Developer: Pentavision
Publisher: Pentavision
Rhythm - Playstation Portable
1 player

I had bought this game when it first came out about 5 years ago, but never had a PSP to play it on until now. I remember it was pretty hyped on Play-Asia because it was a Korea-only import. I often import Japanese games but this was the first time I'd get one from Korea. They have since re-released this game as DJ Max Portable International with English menus, and released a sequel, 2 expansion games, and finally a US release called DJ Max Fever earlier this year. DJ Max Portable is more or less a Beatmania IIDX clone, but with Korean music rather than Japanese. It also sports a different "controller" setup than IIDX, but the game style is still the same:

Notes drop from the top of the screen and when it crosses a threshold, you time button-presses to that exact moment.

There are a couple of things that is different about IIDX/DJMP compared to most rhythm games. First of all, unlike Guitar Hero where you play the guitar parts of the song, these DJ games actually have you playing all the parts of the song. So you might be doing the steady drum rhythm with one hand, and playing the synth melody with another. In easier modes, one button press will set off a string of notes. In harder modes, you may have to play each one of those notes in that same string. The other thing about these games is that they allow for freestyling. In Guitar Hero / Rock Band, the games actively discourage it because if you don't play the right note, your "health" diminishes and you come closer to a game over. Here in IIDX/DJMP, playing a note that isn't on the screen does not affect you in any way and allows you some freedom in creating your own mix to the song. Of course, you need to also hit the required notes too. But there is some creative expression allowed on top of that.

Also like IIDX, DJ Max Portable sports many of the same types of modes. There's your standard "Arcade"-like mode where you play 4 songs sequentially. Only certain songs will be available at each stage. Clear it, and you'll get an overall score for the scoreboard and a Thank You screen. You'll also get a challenge mode where there are certain themes, such as playing a set of Rock songs. Then there's the Unlimited mode where you can choose from any of the songs available and practice them to your heart's content. Finally there's a Gallery mode where unlockable images and goodies go, as you meet certain goals.

Differences? DJ Max Portable is more newbie-friendly in the timing. Beatmania IIDX has a scoring range of MISS, BAD, GOOD, GREAT, JUST GREAT. The DJMP equivalent to these are MISS, MAX 1, MAX 40, MAX 80, MAX 100. IIDX is very strict and nothing other than perfection will give you a "JUST GREAT". But DJMP gives a larger window to achieve its best timing note, "MAX 100". On top of that, a BAD in IIDX breaks your combo and will hurt your "health". DJMP instead allows for MAX 1's to sustain your combo, and as a result, helps you to survive much longer. In a way, this is a necessary step because the PSP controls are not as tactile and intuitive as the turntable controller for IIDX. But it does make DJMP quite a bit easier. You can fudge some of the notes just by pressing everything, whereas IIDX will just fail you.

DJMP does introduce two new things to the mix. They add hold notes, where you must hit a note and hold it down for the duration as shown on the screen. It's intuitive and adds an interesting element to the mix that IIDX doesn't have (but other Konami rhythm games do have). But the other addition is the rotation of the nub during parts of the song. IIDX has a turntable that you turn, so maybe this is their version. Unfortunately, switching from D-pad notes to nub rotation in mere milliseconds isn't as well integrated as it could have been, and I dread these parts as much as I do the spinning wheels in the Ouendan DS games. Luckily I haven't encountered a lot of these. On the other hand, one positive thing about the PSP is that you can vary the scrolling speed of the notes on-the-fly with the L/R buttons, which is very handy. IIDX veterans know that many songs are actually -easier- when the notes scroll by faster. You can change speed on the fly in IIDX too, but it requires a combination of buttons vs. the more intuitive L/R in DJMP.

Perhaps the biggest difference of all is really the controller interface. I don't think the PSP is ergonomically sound and playing a game with such crazy rhythm patterns are probably recipes for Carpal Tunnel. The button pressing is ultimately not as satisfying as the turntable + 7 key setup of IIDX. Still, for a portable, it's the best approximate you can have. In fact, after playing this game, I lost interest in getting Rock Band Unplugged because it just seems so simple in comparison. DJMP sports a beginner 4-button mode that is similar in control scheme to Rock Band Unplugged. It also sports 6-button and 8-button (originally locked) modes for advance play, with harder patterns and more notes to deal with. The interesting thing is that switching to 6/8 button modes totally requires relearning the game and rewiring your brain to recognize which notes go with which buttons. So there's tons of content available.

The songs themselves are a mix of mostly K-pop with some drum & bass, house, soul and techno thrown in. Personally, I prefer both the variety and the compositions of Beatmania because they have some really talented electronic musicians. I miss the trance and more overall synth emphasis from Konami. The music videos are better in IIDX too. In DJMP, they're generally simplistic, partly because the rhythm game part is placed on top of the video, obscuring the middle 50% of it. In IIDX, the videos are never covered. I'm not sure how many songs there are in total, because I'm still unlocking them as I play. One nicety is that there's not only a video view mode, but there's a soundtrack mode where you can just listen to all the songs through like a digital album.

Overall, DJ Max Portable successfully pulls off the IIDX clone. Nothing can truly replicate the turntable controller of Konami's game, but all the other elements are there. Although DJMP is easier than IIDX, it's not an easy game by any means. I think that having my IIDX experience, I was able to easily blast by a lot of the patterns thrown my way. But this is a game that will definitely have learning curves - first as your brain adjusts to figuring out which note is which button, second to process fast strings of notes, and finally, processing simultaneous notes. But a magical thing happens when you practice. Progress will manifest itself. Songs you couldn't possibly imagine ever beating will become easier over time. And once you've learned to adapt, you can't unlearn it. I've found that even when I don't play IIDX for a year, I can get back into it with relative ease. DJMP is no different. So if you're willing to spend the time to learn it, this is one of the most rewarding rhythm games you'll ever come across.

Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars

2009-12-06T23:37:00.000-08:00

Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars
Developer: Rockstar
Publisher: Rockstar
Action - Nintendo DS
2 Memory Slots
1 player

These days, it's hard to find anyone who hasn't at least heard of Grand Theft Auto. Notorious violence, controversial locked-out sex mini-games, and many an impatient girlfriend guarantee its place in video game history. But is it any good? I vowed to give the series a chance, and it wasn't until the DS game came along, that I final became interested enough to do it. Somehow, the thought of old school GTA with new school GTA innovations appealed to me. So here I am.

You begin the game as Huang Lee, the son of a murdered Triad boss. As you travel to Liberty City, you are nearly killed yourself. Chinatown Wars follows Huang's life in Liberty City, as he seeks answers. You'll end up participating in the drug trade. It's pretty much the only way to make decent money. You'll be sent on missions of sabotage and theft for shady people. You'll be evading cops. A lot. Outrun them. Take them out by crashing them into walls and other vehicles. Hide in secluded areas. That's Chinatown Wars in a nutshell.

I have to hand it to the developers. The game looks and sounds very cool. The action is mostly from an overhead perspective, which makes navigating the huge city a lot more pleasant than it could have been. The overall look has a bit of an edge to it, with cel shaded polygons, and comic book-like cut scenes. There's not a whole lot of spoken dialog - strangers will randomly mumble sentences, usually when disturbed. But the voice samples and sound effects are of high quality. Music is only played during cutscenes and when you're cruising around in a vehicle, mimicing radio music.

What's really interesting about Grand Theft Auto is that Rockstar builds a virtual city. Independent of you, the player, there is traffic, passage of time, and random acts of violence. Cars will stop at stoplights, causing traffic jams. They'll signal before turning. The sun sets, and rises the next day. Occasionally you'll encounter thunderstorms too. Neighborhoods have their own look and feel. Gangs have their own territories, and you'll occasionally see warfare break out. On the flipside, police will also make busts. It feels like a living, breathing city. Even after finishing the game, I still can't say I have Liberty City quite figured out. The scale is massive.

But as fascinating as a video game representation of city life can be, it doesn't make for a good game. Grand Theft Auto gives you two things to do:

- Drive
- Shoot

All of the various missions in the game boil down to just those two tasks. There isn't anything else. Oh sure, driving can be a nice diversion. There's about 20 cars in the game that you can mess around with, each with their own power/acceleration and handling characteristics. And the damage modeling is more realistic than Gran Turismo. But it often feels like you're playing a dumbed down version of Crazy Taxi all the time. Because of the small screen size, the action takes place in the top screen, but the map remains on the bottom screen. It can be disorienting to sneak glances at the map, while you immediately affix your gaze back on the main screen to avoid colliding with cops. Many of the vehicles end up being totally useless. I did find it amusing that the car called "Stallion" was a go-fast car that couldn't maneuver its way through anything. Just like the typical American muscle car.

And the shooting? That's generally worse than the driving. Most of the game is an auto-aim affair, where you barely have to do anything other than press the button. It's completely uninvolving and hard to derive satisfaction from killing anyone. That's not to say that the game is easy. The missions can be quite challenging. But the gun-play combat is sorely lacking. The sole exception are the Molotov cocktails. You actually throw them out by using the touchscreen, and the length and speed of your stylus strokes determine their trajectory. These are easily the best parts of the game.

But touchscreen controls are also some of the worst parts of the game. You use the touchscreen for everything from stealing stationary cars (disarming their alarms), to trading drugs to searching dumpsters. After a while, the touchscreen gimmicks wore a bit thin. There isn't a whole lot of variety to these "minigames", making them more tedious than fun. Even worse, since most of the game uses standard D-pad and face button controls, you pretty much have to keep your stylus between your fingers just in case, making for awkward and cramped hands. The game will often suddenly shift from standard controls to stylus-only controls with no warning at all.

The GTA series generally gets praised for its "sandbox" style of game, where you have the freedom to make of it what you will. True enough, even if you don't follow the game's story missions, you can push drugs indefinitely, loot rival gangs, etch tattoos and fight crime. But for all the touting of freedom, there's still nothing to do but drive and shoot. I was a little disappointed that you can't influence the story in any way. All the missions point you closer to completing the game. If you want to stay loyal to a specific character in the game instead of doing a mission for a rival, you can't progress. GTA CW may be a box, but there ain't much sand in it.

Grand Theft Auto was a game series I wanted to understand. I knew that behind all the senseless killings of innocents, meeting up with hookers (on console versions), and stealing of cars, there was more to be found. But while I marvel at some of the little details Liberty City tries to emulate, I also realize the game contained within is extremely shallow. The shootouts are dull, and the driving can be cumbersome. The constant recycling of these two tasks make the game far more mundane than the controversy has you believe. It lacks solid game mechanics. The dialog wouldn't even impress an 8th grader either. Nevertheless, despite all these shortcomings, I couldn't stop playing it. There's something to be said about a game that keeps you coming back for more, even though the experience leaves you unsatisfied every time. Or maybe there's something to be said about the battered wife within me.

Silent Hill

2009-11-29T20:52:00.000-08:00

Silent Hill
Developer: KCET
Publisher: Konami
Horror - Playstation
Memory Card: Multiple Saves
1 player

Aside from the terrible Resident Evil series, the Japanese really have a knack for horror. Creepy lingering imagery and minimalistic sound are their specialty. Silent Hill is no exception. Sometimes cited as the scariest video game around, I vowed to play through it one day. Does it live up to the hype? Mostly.

The story begins with Harry Mason vacationing in a resort town of Silent Hill with his daughter Cheryl. Right off the bat, creepiness shines through. You start the game following a car accident, stranded and lost. Cheryl is missing, and the town seems deserted, contributing to an unnerving feeling of solitude. If that wasn't bad enough, the heat is really turned up only moments later. Pools of blood and body parts lay strewn throughout the world. I had no idea that Silent Hill would be this gory, but the opening scenes set the stage for the rest of the game. This is unsettling stuff. But Harry's search for his daughter must go on.

The crux of the game involves navigating through this nightmare town for any signs of Cheryl. The town is quite massive, and really gives you a sense of scale about how insignificant your character is. It would be easy to get lost walking around town, except the game keeps the scope relatively simple by blocking off certain pathways. As you traverse different areas, you'll encounter survivors, old newspaper clippings, and other miscellaneous clues to help you figure out your daughter's location and the reason for the town's descent to madness.

Like other games of this genre, you'll be fetch-questing, backtracking, puzzle solving and surviving your way through the game. The survival aspects are somewhat similar to Resident Evil - the limited ammunition, aweful un-involving combat and minimal save points are staples here too. But Silent Hill is much more streamlined. For instance, the combat really isn't any fun at all, but I believe the developers realized that, and made it so you can simply run away from most encounters in the game. There isn't much in the way of enemy variety. It's much less of an action game than RE is, and is much better for that. The puzzles, on the other hand, are a mixed bag. The good ones are among the best in this genre, with some clever word puzzles to decipher. But the bad ones can be way too cryptic or have hints that lead you to over-think what the solutions should be. Overall though, the decision to emphasize more puzzle less "action" is a positive.

The audio and visual direction are to be commended for helping to bring out the horror elements. The game has a generally gritty look to it, especially some of the nightmarish interiors. Grates are broken, glass cabinets are shattered, metal is rusted, and blood is splattered. These are all reminders that something is very wrong. Then there's the music. The soundtrack is very sparse. Sometimes it's an eerie ringing. Other times it's a raging pulsing drum. The music convincingly conveys the mood at every point in the game. It is dreadful. It is ominous. It is terrifying.

But for all Silent Hill's successes at creating and sustaining a mood, its story-telling is its weakest link. Maybe it's because I saw the movie first, and maybe because Silent Hill's story is only subtly hinted at here and expanded upon in other games... but I just felt like the connections were too loose, and the details too fleeting for a lot of the subplots. In the end, it was this aspect that was the least satisfying.

As far as horror games go, Silent Hill does the job adequately. I still have to give the nod to the Fatal Frame series, not only because it's the only series that's actually entertaining to play, but to me, it's scarier too. That's not to say that Silent Hill isn't scary. Silent Hill emphasizes its creepiness primarily through the environments themselves, whereas Fatal Frame has many carefully directed cut scenes. Two different ways of doing things, but both will make you uncomfortable and tense while playing. Silent Hill does come up a bit short in making the narrative fit together with all the eerie imagery. To that end, maybe it's not unlike a typical horror film after all.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x

2009-11-21T12:01:00.000-08:00

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x
Developer: NeverSoft / Treyarch
Publisher: Activision
Extreme Sports / Platformer - XBox
Hard Drive Backup - 3 Saves
1 player

I played the original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater back on Dreamcast way back in the 90s, when it was all the rage. I have to admit. I totally didn't understand it. Controls seemed clumsy, and there seemed to be too many moves with no point. Then the owner of the game showed me how the game was supposed to be played and things were never the same again. Playing this game 10 years later only confirmed my feelings back then: This is the greatest 3D platformer ever.

What most people don't know is that THPS is a 3D platformer disguised as an extreme sports game. It has all the elements of 3D platforming I like, and adds the necessary ingredient missing from most: skill. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x is an Xbox port of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2, but adds 3 additional stages. Visuals are slightly upgraded for the Xbox, but it more or less looks and plays like the Dreamcast version.

Like other 3d platforming games, the game puts you through different stages where exploration is encouraged. The structure is sort of free-form, but there are 5-8 goals per stage. Complete a set number of goals (not necessarily all of them), and the next stage opens up. Each stage is timed, but as long as you fulfill a goal within the time frame, it's counted toward your total. Goals are generally of the following types:

Obtain a certain score
Collect / Find Items
Perform a specific trick

The collecting of items is my favorite part of the game. The brilliance of THPS is that often times you'll see the item that you want - maybe in the distance, maybe way up high. But there's no immediate way to get there. Figuring it out requires exploring the stage to the fullest, and experimenting with what you can interact with in order to reach it. Or sometimes you cannot see the item you want at all, which means it's being concealed somewhere. In stage 1 of THPS2, for instance, you have to grind on the helicopter rotor which triggers it to take off and crash through a window, revealing a secret area. In a lot of ways, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is like a puzzle game. Every stage is a new environment with quirks to discover.

The skill system also keeps things interesting. Being based on extreme sports means that tricks are a major emphasis for scoring. Tricks are pretty easy to initiate, using a direction on the D-pad + one of the face buttons, but executing them requires some delicacy. If you're doing some mid-air trick, you better make sure your skateboard is perpendicular with the ground when you land or else you get docked points for mediocre landings. Even worse, poor landings cause you to fall, making you lose all your points for that trick. Similarly, grinding also requires some precision. If you want to grind, jump and then position yourself in mid-air so that you're aligned with the object you want to grind on. Once you're grinding, you have to maintain your balance, or else you'll fall off. Points are rewarded for pulling off these tricks. The more dangerous the trick, the higher the score. Chain multiple tricks together for multipliers.

Often, performing tricks and exploring a stage go hand-in-hand. There is a secret tape in every stage that is one of the goals. As an example of how to get that secret tape, you may need to perform a couple of tricks to build up speed, launch off a ramp with enough height, land on a set of cables and grind, jump, land on another set of cables and grind until you reach the tape. Doing these kinds of things requires the utmost precision, where a single mistake in a string of maneuvers means failure. That's the sort of thing I love. The game rewards those who master it.

No discussion of THPS is complete without mentioning the gaps. Gaps are optional "discoveries" that are stage-specific. It's hard to explain, but they're basically specific type of tricks such as grinding a particular rail or hopping from one place to another. It's become the series trademark. You'll know when you've triggered a gap, because they're displayed with your tricks and have names like "IT'S COLD OUT HERE" in bold blue font. The game keeps a record of all the gaps you've found for you anal types. They're definitely not required, but they're fun to find, and they contribute to your score multiplier.

If there's any flaw, it's the music. Not that it's bad - most of it rock music, with some hip-hop thrown in. It just plays songs randomly, so you'll be hearing the same stuff in stage 1 as you will at stage 8, so it gets tiresome. They don't even change the music as you play through 2x and 1.

As far as the different games included, THPS2 has larger areas, more goals, and more secrets to discover. It's more challenging too. But the one thing I really like about the original is that there are a few stages that force you in one direction (downhill). That kind of design means that you more or less get one chance to execute what you need to do. I also felt like the overall design (item locations, goals, etc) were better thought out. But 2 definitely offers more of everything, and 1 is so incredibly easy after playing 2. Luckily, with this compilation, you get both, so you don't have to choose. The extra stages are a decent addition, but are quite inferior in quality to the stages in the normal games.

Truly one of the few Western games that I think deserves more recognition than it got. Sure it was popular, but even so, I'm sure it got ignored by a lot of people who couldn't think anything good could come from an extreme sports game. Yet, I can think of no better 3D platformer in existence.

Soul Hackers

2009-10-19T19:15:00.000-07:00

Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers
Developer: R&D1
Publisher: Atlus
RPG - Sega Saturn
Hard Drive Backup - 3 Saves
1 player

My first experience with the long-running Shin Megami Tensei RPG series just happens to be a sequel to one of the spinoffs by the name of Devil Summoner. It's been sitting in my collection for over ten years now and this summer, I was determined to give it a fair shake. Being a spinoff, Soul Hackers take some liberties in the game systems compared to entries in the traditional SMT line. Nevertheless, I've been hearing about the latest title, Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey, and although it sports some additions to the battle system, a lot of the other stuff seems similar to Soul Hackers. So this is a good of a representation as any.

Soul Hackers takes place in a futurustic cyberpunk city, where a mega corporation is piloting its virtual reality world Paradigm-X on the populace. Meanwhile, the main character of the story, and his girl-next-door friend Hitomi are in a hacker group called "Spookies". As they go about their business, a mysterious entity named Redman keeps showing up, and tries to appeal to the main character. Redman seems to know a lot more about the main character than the main character knows about him. Along the way, Redman puts the Main Character in trances and allows him to experience "Vision Quests", the lives of people who have gone before. What do these vision quests have to do with hacking and where does VR fit into all this?

The style of game is similar to what you'd find in other jRPGs. There's a single city, with multiple areas where you can go shopping, talk to people, and enter dungeon-buildings. Consequently, there is also the virtual reality world, Paradigm-X, which is much smaller, and much uglier. The shops in the game will update their inventory as you reach certain story points, so it's rather efficient.

Visually, Soul Hackers is extremely slick. I personally was in love with the entire art direction, visual effects, and atmosphere. One technique that they pulled off really well was transitioning prerendered backgrounds into FMV and back. It's not completely smooth, as the FMV is at a lower resolution, but the overall effect was something that really complemented the unique look of this game. The first person 3D wasn't as nicely looking, I'll have to admit. Still, the look and feel was one of the biggest draws for me.

Soul Hackers retains many of the integral components that make up a Shin Megami Tensei game. The biggest feature that defines SMT is the interaction with demons. Demons are your random encounter opponent in the game, and there are a lot of different types, with their own sets of skills. But they can be convinced to join your party, and fused together to form new and more powerful demons. It's a very interesting concept, and one that has some critical consequences. First off, there's the negotiation. When you encounter a demon in battle, one of your menu options is TALK. A demon will either ask you a question, or will make a comment and ask you your opinion on it. Depending on how you respond and the demon's disposition towards you, the demon will:

Join your party
Ask you another question
Ask you to give it something
Give you something
Respond to your answer
Leave
Leave with all the enemies
Become angry, and their entire party will get a free attack on you

Some of the major influencers of outcome depends not only on your response but whether you have any negotiation booster items equipped, the alignment of your current group (a lawful demon will refuse to join your group if you have a chaotic demon in your active party), the level of your main character, and even the phases of the moon! This adds a unique experience to fighting battles because sometimes you may want to simply recruit a specific monster in order to talk your way out of battles with them in the future. It's a completely valid strategy, and one I've used to get out of some tricky situations.

But it doesn't stop there. Because of the fusion system, recruiting takes on a different meaning than simply adding a body to your lineup. Fusing two demons together generally means that you'll get a superior demon, and often the new demon will take on some special skills from the demons you used to fuse. So that means that even if you could recruit the demon later, the fused version could potentially have more abilities. Unfortunately, it isn't as easy as simply selecting the abilities you want to pass down, so if you want a specific ability on your new demon, you have to attempt to fuse to get the preview demon, and check to see if it's in its list of abilities. That guessing and checking isn't a huge burden, but the interface could have been better improved. I have to admit that I'm not really a fan of fusion in general. It's like the tedious version of the alternative, which is simply to get the end result in the first place. A lot of games are worse because of it, but I suppose that due to the skill inheritence, it has some value in Soul Hackers.

One of the liberties that the Devil Summoner series took is by giving each demon a loyalty rating. In Soul Hackers, each demon has a personality. If you command the demon in battle according to its personality (ie ATTACK with an Violent Type), you build their loyalty. But if you command them to do other things, they might just lose loyalty. You can also give a demon gifts outside of battle to raise loyalty. Once they are maxed out, though, you can command them to do anything and they won't lose loyalty. Whether this is a good or bad subsystem is open to debate, but I'm told it's implemented much much better in Soul Hackers versus the original Devil Summoner. Of course, one of the perks of this loyalty system is that when maxed out, enemies will get some bonuses. The Violent demon will hit harder at max loyalty. Friendly demons will take a hit for you when they're maxed out. For some reason the Crafty demon can be transformed into useful and not-so-useful items at maximum loyalty.

What I find most pleasing about the game isn't this demon stuff, but its core combat. It is similar to the basic setup of Dragon Quest where your actions really do matter. Step into a new area with unfamiliar demons and you could see Game Over easily. Even facing off against previously encountered demons could result in the same fate, if you're not paying attention. Buffs and debuffs matter. Elemental affinities matter. Weapon types matter. As I played more of Soul Hackers, I realized that what I enjoyed about having to exploit weaknesses in FFX was done in SMT first. Perhaps the main difference is that in FFX, you yourself did not really have weaknesses, but here in SMT, your demons most certainly do. Just as you can dominate the enemies you face with the right mix of party members and actions, you can most certainly -be- dominated with the wrong mix of members, or wrong decisions. It's a tough lesson to learn in this game, and one I've had to learn many many times.

Another unique aspect in Soul Hackers that wasn't in pre-Strange Journey SMT titles, is the ability to customize your computer. Here, you can load it up with applications that allow you better negotiating skills with demons, to present a full time minimap on the main screen, to help assist with fusions on-the-go, the ability to save anywhere, stuff like that. There are only six slots, and some of the applications cost more than one slot. There's usually only one or two locations within dungeons, where you can switch out these applications, so you have to choose wisely.

I have to cite some faults though. Being a SMT newbie, I felt as if Soul Hackers was really overwhelming in a lot of ways. When you attempt to fuse demons, you are shown a preview of the new demon and their skills. But all you have is the name of their skill, with no description as to what they do. I'm told that this is because most SMT players are familiar with the abilities, but I don't think it could have hurt Atlus to include descriptions. I had to pretty much fuse, rotate the new demon in my party, and then use the ability in battle in order to see what it actually did. Coincidentally, it is also the only time the game gives you any kind of description at all: when you're about to use it. What's also overwhelming is how many ways you can use demons. You can use demons to fuse up to new demons. You can use demons to upgrade the special demon you're given in early game. You can use Crafty-type demons to transform into items once it hits max loyalty. And mid-game, you can transform demons into weapons as well. I imagine if you are a SMT veteran, you know which demons are good to keep, and which ones would be good as one of these other things. But it's a bit much for a first-timer. I suppose that's my fault for starting with Soul Hackers.

Another thing that's really bad is the battle speed. I played almost the entire game with animation turned off, because battles would take forever. But even with animation off, it's still very sluggish. In addition, it seems odd to complain about this because I otherwise love the battle system, but sometimes I find deaths to be really cheap. You enter a new area and this one enemy casts an insta-kill spell or a stone spell on your main character. Game Over. I'm open to challenges but I question some of these situations. Make no mistake, I died, and I died a lot in this game. Most of the time, it was fair - I made poor decisions. Other times, the game was just plain evil. And what's up with those ridiculous 8 hour long end game dungeons?

But I genuinely do love the artistic direction that Soul Hackers employs. The story and atmosphere was so different from anything I'd played in the past, that I was completely captivated through and through. This is also the first and only RPG I can think of where random encounters actually make sense. And the one feature I love from the battles, aside from its awesome weakness exploitation, is the fact that the game remembers which commands you previously inputted. When you start your turn, your cursor is already on the previous command you did for each character. Not only that, but there's an Auto-Battle feature where "REPEAT" is an option. This is genuinely one of the most user-friendly things I wish would be on every turn based RPG.

Solid and intriguing. I'd love to see how newer versions of Shin Megami Tensei turns things up a notch.

Culdcept DS

2009-09-19T00:50:00.000-07:00

Culdcept DS
Developer: Omiya Soft
Publisher: SEGA
CCG/Board Game - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 1 Save
1 player / 2-4p Nintendo WiFi

Although Culdcept isn't a familiar title to most gamers, it has been growing a faithful fanbase since its original release on the Sega Saturn, and subsequent Playstation port. I was first exposed to the series through the Dreamcast sequel and was completely smitten by its brilliance. A small print run of the PS2 port (of Culdcept II) was the first time that English speakers got the chance to play it. More recently, Culdcept Saga became one of the earlier releases for the XBOX360. Where does that bring us? Back to the beginning.

Culdcept can be best described as Monopoly meets Magic the Gathering. You take turns rolling dice and moving your piece around a board. If you find a vacant space, you can occupy it by summoning a creature. If an enemy lands on it, they pay you a toll. Upgrade your property, and the toll goes up. So the overall structure is very similar to Monopoly. What's unlike Monopoly is that games don't take 12 hours to finish. Although you could win by bankrupting other players, the main objective of each board is reaching a certain mana amount and then "pass Go" to end the game.

The Magic the Gathering part comes in the details. There's deck construction, creature summoning, "sorceries", "instants/interrupts", and even a system comparable to obtaining card packs. You begin the game with a starter pack of 50 cards. But you can gain additional cards just by playing. Regardless of whether you win or lose a match, you will gain new cards. This ensures that even when you've spent an hour on a map, but end up in last place, you wouldn't have wasted your time, because you benefit just from playing the game. I believe you do get more / rarer cards when you win though. All in all, there's over 370 cards contained within. It's important to read and understand all the cards you have and see if there are any card combinations that could maximize to your advantage. The enjoyment comes from creating a workable strategy with the cards you have. It has all the elements of any good Collectable Card Game and that's why I love it so.

What makes the game interesting is the back-and-forth transferring of land. Whereas in Monopoly, you own property until you sell it, here you only own a square on the board if one of your summoned creatures is placed there. Summoning costs gold, and may require other conditions as well. If an opponent lands on your square, they don't immediately pay you the value of the square. They can instead choose to fight your creature by summoning their own creature. That brings up the battle phase where you and your opponent can each play up to 1 skill card from your hand to influence the outcome. Each creature has its own Strength/Hit Point rating, special abilities and casting cost. Skill cards can add bonuses to those stats, or provide additional effects, such as giving attack priority to the defender instead of the attacker. If the attacking player wins the battle, they now become the owner of the square. If the attacking player loses, they pay the toll. So there's an added intensity because the fights make the game much more dynamic.

There's a lot of other components to the game in addition to the basics. For instance, both creatures and land can be neutral or have an element. A water creature on water will gain defensive bonuses. These defensive bonuses will grow when you upgrade the land. Upgrades can be costly, but they're necessary to help you keep possession of your land through the defense bonuses and will drive up the cost of the toll, putting you closer to winning the match. A mismatch of creature element and land element will forfeit all the defense bonuses. So another option is the ability to swap out an existing creature of yours on the board with one from your hand, but it requires some conditions, costs additional gold for summoning the new creature and takes up a turn, which may or may not pay off. That's just scratching the surface of some of the strategic depth in the game.

Since this is the ten year anniversary, Omiya Soft went back to basics for the celebration. Culdcept DS is an enhanced port of the original Saturn game, but with rules from the later games, some new cards, and a rebalancing of the old cards. The developers added in a few extras too, such as art galleries and medals that you get when you achieve certain goals. It pretty much plays exactly like the Culdcept II I have for Dreamcast, but that's a good thing. The DS format is better for this type of game though, because the presentation is simple, the online component costs nothing, and you can play it anywhere. There's a story mode where you face off against 2-3 computer opponents. Of course any story for a board game is pretty silly, and this is no different. But it does give a progressive set of challenges. There's also a versus mode, where you can play against computer or against friends in the area or against random people through Nintendo WiFi. Culdcept is a completely satisfying mesh of board game and CCG that somehow just works.

Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride

2009-08-07T23:00:00.000-07:00

Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride
RPG - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 Saves
1 player / WLAN Knick-Knack Exchange

Dragon Quest IV-VI make up a trilogy, but the starting point of V occurs a bit in the future compared to the events of IV. The games are tied by having the same worldview and history, rather than an immediate continuity. As the first DQ I've played since the first NES game, Chapters of the Chosen was a pleasant surprise. The actual game was solid, with meaningful battle choices, a healthy dose of exploration, a pleasant story, and charming interactions with townsfolk. I was worried that Hand of the Heavenly Bride would be too similar to enjoy, but were my suspicions unfounded?

As expected, when I first started playing DQV, it was a bit disappointing. It's not that the game was bad, but since DQIV did such a good job of everything already, V seemed completely unnecessary. The story is a bit different, focusing on the adventures of one particular person rather than a variety of heroes. This is handled in a different way than most RPGs, because the main hero is completely central, and will diverge paths from other characters he partners with. So the premise is fresh, and is entertaining in its own right. Other than that though, the games are remarkably similar. The only gameplay difference from DQIV -> V is the addition of the ability to recruit monsters and have them as party members. The spells you can choose and even most of the equipment is carry-over, so I was completely convinced that V was the same as IV.

As I played on, it finally hit me. V isn't the same as IV at all. In fact, there are a few areas where V is clearly -worse- than IV.

Most people seem to notice instantly that the musical composition isn't as good as its predecessor. The tunes are less memorable and aren't interesting enough to listen to apart from the game.

Worse than that is that poor continuity in the story. One of the major things in the game is that you have a choice of a marriage partner. Depending on who you marry, I presume people will talk to you differently and events will play out according to your choice, which is quite nifty and helps you feel like you're a part of the game world. What isn't as cool are the huge gaps in dialog-logic, like when my wife goes missing for years on end, and her family never even talks to me about that? It's those gaps that really ruin the otherwise convincing situations these characters are in.

Worser still are the design decisions that handicap the gameplay. One thing that I loved about DQIV DS, and Grandia for that matter, is that you're able to rotate the camera and designers will hide things so that they're only visible from certain angles. In DQIV, some of the mini-medals and other objects were obscured in the default view, but rotating the camera can reveal their presence. The rotating camera felt integrated into the game. Not so with DQV. You can rotate, but there's no point to it all. To be fair, there are some doors and ladders that can only be seen if you rotate the camera, but other than the 2-3x in the game where that occurs, the rotation feature is simply tacked-on. Because of that, I felt as if the exploration of dungeons and towns was far less interesting.

Also the ability to recruit monsters is completely mangled by its sloppy execution. First of all, it has the same problem as other monster-recruiting RPGs. You get a monster, and you have no idea if that monster is actually any good. Just like regular characters, they will gain spells and skills at certain levels. So maybe a monster sucks at low level, but at a certain point, they acquire this one awesome spell. But how do you know? You don't. So you end up grinding that monster and possibly maxing them out to see just how useful/useless they really are. You might level a char up to 30 and find out you've wasted all your time, since their final stats are weak and they lack good abilities. I fail to see how this adds any enjoyment.

Second, the interface to manage your party is clunky. You can only carry 8 characters with you (and use 4 in battle). So you can have your main hero, and 7 monsters if you'd like. Or 5 characters and 3 monsters. Or whatever combination of people/monsters you want. Only problem is... you can only change people in one town in the game. Monsters are similar, although there are about 3 locations in the game where you can swap them in and out. Unless you go to these specific locations, you are stuck with your current cast, and the other characters left behind will not gain any experience.

Finally, the funniest part of all is how you recruit monsters in the first place. It's essentially random! Whereas in SMT games an enemy might talk with you and your response might convince them to join you or in Pokemon, you beat down on an enemy and then toss a pokeball to capture them, here in DQV, you don't do anything. You simply kill enemies and maybe 1 out of 200 enemies you kill might randomly join your party. I've never seen anything so stupid.

Dragon Quest V confirmed my doubts about the series being able to sustain my interest. While I do respect the balanced core gameplay and the lively towns, DQV does nothing to improve on what DQIV already did. In some cases, the design decisions make it a bit worse. I will likely pick up VI just to finish off the trilogy, but I am absolutely convinced that if I never play another DQ ever again, I wouldn't be missing out.

Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard

2009-06-15T08:55:00.000-07:00

Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard
RPG - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 Saves
1 player

I did not want to try this game. I knew that most of my peers were loving the series, but I have never liked 1st person perspective in RPGs, and do not particularly care for the dungeon crawler / survival RPG genre. And when asking someone whether the only thing cool about the game was that you had to draw your own map, the response was: "Yeah!" I thought that was the dumbest thing ever. Little did I know that it, along with the rest of the game, would be strangely compelling.

The structure of the game is similar to most dungeon crawlers. You have but one town and one multi-tiered "dungeon". The dungeon in question is really a labyrinth within a tree, so instead of drab and worn walls, you encounter lush green forests, autumn leaves, cherry blossoms, and other natural scenery. It's in first person, but there's a really nice level of detail to the environments and their vibrant color schemes. Unlike some other dungeon crawlers, the stages here are not randomly generated. The scenarios are specifically designed, which is a huge plus for me. The game is divided into blocks of 5 floors called strata. Each stratum has its own theme, just like you'd expect from a jRPG. For instance, the ice stages have these frozen tiles where if you walk on them, you slide and are forced along the frozen path until you reach normal ground again. It was the first time I experienced something like that in 1st person.

It's hard to keep focused on your surroundings, though, when there are plenty of hostile beings out there. Most of the enemy encounters occur randomly, but an indicator glows red when one is nearby. There are also visible encounters on every floor with boss/mini-boss type enemies called FOEs. FOE battles are generally extremely tough, to the point where you will want to avoid them at all possible costs. When exploring a floor for the first time, the FOEs can often take you out in a single turn. They can be overcome, as you become more powerful later and revisit, but the first time you see them is typically a death sentence. The majority of the FOEs do not even offer any experience when defeated. The only exception are the bosses in each stratum, who are part of the story. For the non-boss FOEs, the overpowering difficulty and lack of experience points (at least in EO2) means that you'll be intentionally planning your routes so as to avoid them. This is actually an interesting approach because it forces you to watch and monitor FOE movements. Depending on the FOE, they do a lot of different things. Some move in a rote pattern. Others will notice your presence and start following you. Some can move through walls. And others are invisible to your map. Their movements are so varied that even walking around is part of EO2's gameplay.

That's not to say the regular random encounters are a cinch. EO2 proves a challenge from the moment you step into the labyrinth. The enemies do more damage than your typical jRPG. The key to it all is how you configure your party. EO2 gives you a lot of choices. You can create your own roster of characters in one of 12 classes. You can arrange your party to include any five of the characters you create. And then when you level up, you get to choose what skills and/or stat bonuses to level up. You only earn one skill point per level. So if you're investing ten of your skill points in a single skill, that means you.re not investing those ten points in other skills. There is a system of constraints at work. That is both a blessing and a curse. While all the skills are useful in some situations, many are not useful in all situations. So the game could make it very playable or very hard for you depending on what you put your skill points in. The game offers a couple of different ways to alleviate this burden. There is the ability to "Rest" your character, which allows you to redistribute all your skill points. It costs 5 levels, but mid-game, 5 levels is a small price to pay to be able to totally redo your character build. The other option is "Retire", in which you trade in your character for a new character at half your current level. The advantage of retiring is that you will receive both stat and skill point bonuses to your new character, which could make up for essentially losing half your levels. These bonuses depend on how high of a level you were when you retired. A level 99 character receives much nicer bonuses than a character retiring at level 30.

The cool thing about the combat is that because of the skill system and your choice of party members, your actions matter a whole lot. You absolutely cannot mow through the game by simplying selecting FIGHT each round. There is a time for that, and EO2 has an auto-fight command for those easier battles. But a lot of the times, you will be up against enemies that want to slaughter you. So using party buffs, enemy debuffs, elemental weaknesses, binding - anything that will give you an advantage, will be an integral part of winning fights. I find it comparable to Dragon Quest, where your options are simple, but they heavily influence outcomes. The other thing that's nice about the battles are the drops. This being a dungeon crawler, the enemy drops are a key element to the game. When defeated, the enemies will randomly/not-so-randomly drop items depending on how you defeat them. For example, defeating an enemy in the first turn may net you a different type of item than if you defeated them in 5 rounds. Or an enemy may only drop an item if you kill them while they're poisoned. Different situations will net different things. It's not the drops themselves that are noteworthy, but how the game builds its structure around them. You will sell the items you get from defeating enemies to the town store, in exchange for money. Then because the shop now has these new materials, new weapons and armor will be available for purchase. It's a really simple and logical system. So it's always a treat to encounter a new type of enemy, because it means a new kind of item, which'll eventually lead to new types of equipment.

What ties all of the dungeon crawling together is a barebones story about a bunch of guilds attempting to reach this shrine in the sky. So you'll get specific missions sanctioned by the city Duke, all with their own monetary rewards. On the side, you'll get optional quests from the city bar, that'll net you rewards as well. Both the missions and quests have you doing a variety of tasks, such as defeating a certain FOE, investigating a subplot, collecting certain items, or further exploration of the floors. I like that there's a linear structure to it all, and that the quests are based on how far in the dungeon you've gotten.

Then we have the mapping. It sounds odd, but being able to draw your own maps on the touchscreen is quite satisfying. In terms of functionality, having an automap feature would be more efficient. But since EO forces you to draw your own maps, this method is far more interactive. The manual method also has some perks to it, by giving you a variety of icons to utilize, different floor tile colors to use as you wish, and notes you can insert into the map for reference. So while it takes a little more work to set up your map, it pays off because it can contain far more information than an automap could ever produce.

I've come to really appreciate Etrian Odyssey in the way it encourages exploration. The mapping feature is great, but it's only part of the story. Enemies, including FOEs, will drop items, leading to extra money and new equipment. You'll want to explore further just so you can experience the new item drops. Quests will have you looking for a special item, so even though you may have mapped out an entire floor, you'll be exploring the floor again to find the quest item. There will be passageways that are accessible only by certain classes, so if they're not in your party, you will have to revisit. There are special character abilities called Force that builds up like a super meter in fighting games. These abilities are extremely powerful when unleashed, but because they build up slowly, will have you staying in the dungeons longer to build them up. There are things here and there that all push you to hold out a little bit longer, go a little bit further, exactly what a survival RPG should do. Etrian Odyssey excels at luring you into a den of wolves with the promise of cotton candy. While the encounters are difficult, all is not lost if your party does end up getting wiped out. One cool trick is that you're able to save your map progress if you die, so it gives you even more incentive for exploring further and further.

But on the flip side, I'm not as fond of the entire skill system, where your choices determine your fate. With only one additional skill point earned per character level, the way you distribute them among all your skills is of utmost importance. You can't simply throw a point into every available skill, because many skills will not even land until you've maxed them out. For example, if your Poison skill is below level 8, you have like < 50% accuracy. That means you don't really know how good or bad a skill is until you've invested 10 levels into it. You don't build levels quickly in the game, so it's a huge investment. Sure the game offers remedies in the form of Rest and Retire, but it reveals that the skill tree is really unbalanced. I also question some of their character balancing decisions. I haven't found a whole lot of use for the Troubadour class, for instance. Atlus apparently removed the two best abilities from this class from the first EO, and as a result, completely crippled it. You also cannot get around the fact that this game is grindy. Because of your limited choices, you can expand your possibilities by making duplicate versions of the same class to diversify your skills. And you can make characters of different classes as well. But unless you rotate your characters into your main party, they will not gain exp. So the only way to maintain level balance is by constantly switching your characters in and out, and grinding until they're at the appropriate level. I much prefer games where exp is distributed to the entire pool of characters. By making you rotate members, it doesn't make the game any more fun. Just more tedious.

Flaws in the skill system aside, what EO does well, it does better than any other game I've played. Every little aspect encourages you to move forward. Even though difficult enemies threaten every step, traps are scattered throughout the floors and the environments are unknown, you will want to progress. The risk vs. reward is exhilarating. For that reason alone, EO2 is the best example of dungeon crawler I've played to date.

Nintendo DSi

2009-04-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

Nintendo DSi
Screen Size: 3.25"
Dimensions: 133mm x 73.9mm x 21.5mm
Weight: 214g
Camera: 0.3 Megapixel (x2)
Photo Quality: 640px x 480px
Inputs: DS games, SD cards

Perhaps the most controversial system launch in modern times, Nintendo answers the questions that no one asked with the DSi. Talking to most people about the system elicits lukewarm responses, or outright anger. The DSi is an "upgrade" to the existing line of dual screen portables that boasts larger screen sizes, the ability to download games and applications off of a new service called DS Ware, 2 cameras, and a SD card slot for storing pictures, music, and DS Ware content. Gone is the GBA hardware slot, which many believe is a crime, and in its place is a bunch of features that actual gamers don't want or need. I sure love controversy, and I've been wanting an excuse to upgrade from the ergonomically painful DS, so here are my thoughts.

Display

The screens are noticeably larger than the old ones. It won't blow anyone away, but they are a nice bonus to the package. Since I didn't own a Lite, the brightness of the display will take a little getting used to. But with five different brightness settings, there's not much worry.

Audio

The speakers are supposed to be much improved this time around, from the DSLite. Although the volume is not loud enough if you wanted to blast your music, the sound comes out pretty clear. One issue I had with the old DS is that at low volumes, there was a lot of distortion, which was one irritation of mine. These issues are gone here. With headphones, the audio comes out pretty nicely as well.

Storage

The slot for SD cards have an interesting design. You have to first swivel the covering, then pull it out a little bit, before inserting the SD card upside down. It snaps in cleanly. The nice thing is that the DSi supports SDHC format, which means as of now, you can have up to 32 GB of storage. That's a huge amount of space. My laptop's harddrive has less storage. One drawback for the DSi is that the DSi cannot plug into your computer in any way. That means if you want to do any file transfers between PC and DSi, you have to have a SD card reader on your PC, remove SD card from DSi, transfer it to the card reader, make your changes, and then put the card back into the DSi. It's inconvenient to have to do it that way, and if you don't already have a reader, you're going to have to buy one.

If you don't want to bother with SD cards, the system comes with 256MB of internal storage.

Once again, these storage solutions are only for photos, music, and DLC for now.

Navigation

In the old DS and DSLite, when you turned on the system, you had 3 options: start up DS game, start up GBA game, or go into system settings. They overhauled the bootup menu so that it's now a horizontal scrolling series of icons that include system settings, camera, starting DS game, music player, etc.

Although some items can be easily navigated with the buttons and D-pad, annoyingly, there are quite a few functions that are touch-screen only.

DSi Shop

From now until October 5, Nintendo is giving away 1000 free DSi Points, if you purchase the system.

I haven't taken advantage of it yet, but I may give Wario Ware Snapped a shot. I did try the DS Ware store for downloading the Opera browser. Unlike the DS/DSLite version, this one is a free download.

The store is organized in several categories, like most popular downloads, downloads searchable by first letter, etc. Then it gives you a brief description of the product, followed by the price in DSi Points. It's not unlike the system used by Microsoft's XBL. Once you download an item, it shows up as an icon in the bootup menu.

I got a chance to fiddle with the Opera browser a little bit. Like the old DS one, it does not support Flash, and sites that use it will cripple and sometimes crash it. But on the plus side, it loads websites much faster than the old browser did. Unfortunately, the browser itself is much simpler with one screen used for navigating the webpage, and the other used for a zoomed-in view.

Cameras

The DSi sports two cameras. The positioning is actually quite clever, with a standard camera, and an internal camera that points back at you for self-portraits. You can switch between the cameras with a button. The major gaffe was only have 0.3 megapixels to work with for both. The pictures look great when displayed on the DS, but transferred to a PC and the picture flaws are glaringly apparent.

On the flipside, I get it. I totally get what Nintendo was aiming at. These gadgets are completely irrelevant to us young adults (or old adults) who have tiny Cybershots and huge hunkering Canon SLRs. What Nintendo has done is brought digital photography to the younger generation. This is pretty evident when you look at the available camera filters on the system. You can add preloaded frames, word bubbles, cat whiskers and ears (thanks to some fancy face-detection tech), coloring, etc. Even though I wouldn't really use these features, I think the wealth of camera options is pretty amazing. It might not be practical to me, but if I were a teen, I'd think it was super-cool.

Example 1 Example 2 Example 3

On the other hand, the cameras may be more crucial than simply taking funny pictures with your teenybopper friends. I've seen videos of Wario Ware Snapped and it uses the face detection features as a method of control. That game tracks your head movements, and your on-screen character reacts accordingly. This opens up a wealth of interactive gaming content, similar to what the Wiimote offers the Wii. Nintendo's Snapped game is just a DLC teaser, but it shows a little bit of the possibilities available to the system. If developers can utilize the camera lens to include motion-detection, can you imagine how amazing a Fatal Frame game could be? I'm really excited at the gameplay possibilities.

Music

The DSi only plays AAC files. It's a mis-step for sure on Nintendo's part. I don't know if they were being cheap or what, but it almost seems backwards for them to offer a music player, but only support a single format that hasn't been universally adopted. I almost think it would have been better to not offer a music player at all.

But after I got over that initial hump, I started to learn more about AACs, and realized they offer better sound quality than mp3, result in smaller file sizes, and require less resources for decoding. So aac is better for players and listeners alike, and totally changed the way I thought about the format. Now I am thinking about ripping all my CDs in aac from now on. But while I've become comfortable with an aac-only player, I still do think it was sheer stupidity (or stubbornness) on Nintendo's part to not support the mp3 standard.

As for the player itself, it recognizes your file folders (up to 7 layers of nesting, in fact!). So you can keep your music organized by artist, by album, all in one folder, however you like. Play options include a host of options like shuffle (folder only), shuffle (all folders, all songs), resume (folder only), resume (song only) etc.

The top screen features the display of the song, showing artist, title, time elapsed, etc. The DSi has support for Japanese tags, which is good for me. There are also a bunch of visualizations available, ranging from standard frequency bars to psychadelic images to Excitebike. The bottom screen has all of the controls, like skip, rewind, play/pause.

The way the DSi handles closing the lid is pretty logical. If you flip it closed, and there are headphones attached, you can continue listening to your songs. If you close it, and there are no headphones attached, ie it's playing audio through speakers, it will enter sleep mode. Unfortunately, Nintendo has not offered any external controls for the music. So if you want to skip a track, you cannot just press L/R. The reason is because L/R is mapped to something else...

Nintendo has added some audio manipulation tools in addition to strict playback. You can add filters like "radio" which adds static and flattens the audio to sound more like mono. My favorite is 8-bit Game which... well... makes your song sound like an 8-bit game. You can also record your own sound effects, and cue up those while a song is playing. And you can change the speed and/or pitch of the song pretty easily with the stylus. But perhaps the most useful of all is the addition of percussion instruments mapped to L and R. While listening to songs, you can tap the L/R buttons to either follow along with the beat or add your own rhythmic freestyle touch. It gives the songs an added layer of interactivity, which can be really cool. L and R are usually different sounds, and you can swap percussion instruments with X/Y, so you have some creative freedom there.

Example 1 Example 2

The only thing about playing music is that it only performs in music player mode. Once you exit, the music stops. That means you cannot listen to music while taking or viewing photos. It also means you can't listen to your music while playing a game.

Odds and Ends

Although Nintendo does not mention this, supposedly some hackers found out that the processor and RAM has been upgraded quite a bit from the DSLite. This could explain why the Opera browser runs so much faster.

Power button functions like modern consoles. That is, you press it, and the system resets. If you want to fully power-down, you have to hold it a few seconds. The advantage of course, is having some sort of reset built-in to the hardware.

The volume used to be handled via a slider in the DS and DSLite. Here, the volume comes in the form of up/down buttons on the side.

Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon

2009-03-04T09:03:00.000-08:00

Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon
SRPG - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 Save
1 player

Funny as it may be, I never played a Fire Emblem game. I missed the entire GBA boat, because I didn't like the fact that only the 2nd and 3rd games were available to an English audience. And I never played the GC/Wii games, because I don't own either system. Luckily, Intelligent Systems thought it was a good idea to remake the very first Fire Emblem, originally on the Famicom. Perfect for someone like me wanting to try out the series.

Intelligent Systems is also very well known for their other strategy series, ____ Wars. I played and enjoyed Advance Wars quite a bit. Although FE could easily be a "RPG" version of Advance Wars, there's quite a few things that make Fire Emblem unique. For one, there is an element of exploration on the grid-based maps. It's not the same type of exploration found in regular RPGs, but there is that sense of mystery. On many of the maps, you'll find shops, towns, and cities. If any of your units enter a town, you'll get some information from the villagers there. Sometimes the information is trivial, and other times, they'll reveal some big hints. If the main character, Marth, enters a city, most of the time, you either acquire an item, or you'll recruit a new character to your party. The only problem is... thieves are able to enter and destroy cities, robbing you of that opportunity. So often times, Marth is racing against the enemy thieves to reach the city first. This definitely adds a new dimension to the standard "destroy the enemy" goals in most RPGs. I see now that FE inspired Yggdra Union in this regard.

Another nicety is the amount of recruiting available. While some games let you go to a tavern and hire/recruit party members for extra help, Fire Emblem integrates the recruiting within the plot. If you're fighting a particular battle, you may be able to acquire new party members by visiting a town with a certain character. There are also times where you're able to recruit an enemy commander if you talk to them with a specific character! There's a logic to it, and it generally involves a relationship with one of the characters. For instance, when you visit a town, the townsperson will say, "I wonder how my brother so-and-so is doing." And if you end up visiting that town with that person, you'll definitely get something out of it. Of course the slight downside to this is that if you don't have a particular character in your present party, you won't be able to gain those benefits. It doesn't bother me, as I consider these interactions a bonus. But there are some anal folk out there that want to be able to do 100% of a game on their playthrough.

As far as the actual tactical gameplay, it's pretty standard stuff. You've got characters in a lot of various classes. FE employs a rock-paper-scissors weapon system with lances > swords > axes > lances. Archers are great against flying creatures. And there are specific weapons that do extra damage against typed units (armored, riders, dragons). Basically there's enough options out there to consider pitting specific units vs opposing units. The weapons in the game have a limited number of uses, which may bother some people. But between the ability to shop for base weapons before battle, being able to find shops on maps with stronger weapons, and acquiring the best weapons through defeating of enemies, the limited nature of weapons never was a problem for me. Plus even with the weaker weapons, you're able to forge bonuses at the armory. I never really utilized forging very much in my playthrough, just because it can be extremely pricey. But if you've got the money, it is a very effective way of obtaining weapon superiority.

One of the things that Fire Emblem is (in?)famous for is perma-death. If any of your characters die, then they don't come back. Ever. I personally kind of like perma-death, because it forces you to be wise in your decision-making. I find that most SRPGs are too easy because it doesn't really matter if a party member dies or not. Them being strict on that helps me to be more careful with how I play. Most players, however, find it to be a frustrating exercise, playing for an hour and then losing a character due to some silly mistake. Don't get me wrong... I get frustrated too. Fire Emblem DS adds several save points within a level to help alleviate the tediousness. I think it's a great feature. I can generally tolerate replaying an hour long level if I made a mistake, but if I keep dying on my replay, things get old really quick. Having the save points reduces the penalty to maybe 15-20 mins of lost time, which is pretty reasonable.

From what I understand, the rock-paper-scissors system and the ability to forge weapons are more recent additions to the Fire Emblem series. So the remake adds these features to the structure of the original game. The remake also sports some slick additions to interface that makes the game easy to work with. For one thing, the game proceeds at a relatively brisk pace. There's no lag time between inputting commands, traversing menus, and executing movement and attacks. You can skip attack animations by hitting the Start button. And you can skip through an entire enemy's turn by hitting Start on the map screen. Another nifty addition is the ability to check an enemy's movement range. You can do that in most SRPGs just by clicking on an enemy unit. But FE DS allows you to select on multiple units to display their combined range, and also the ability to display the range of the entire enemy squad at the press of a button. The game just gives you all the possible options you could want, so you can concentrate on building your strategy.

Thing is... despite all of these positives, I realize that I don't enjoy Fire Emblem. Although I like perma-death, I find that the game is ruined because of the way the game is structured. The only other perma-death game I played is Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together. That one is frustrating, but respectably so. I find that when I lose a unit in that game, I deserved it. But here's the key difference. In TO:LUCT, not only does each unit on the map have their turn based on their speed/agility (WT), but because of the WT system, you have some control over when they go. That is, if you move and attack, your next turn will be later than if you simply Defended. In Fire Emblem, it has the "Your entire party moves during your turn. Then the entire enemy party moves during their turn." structure, which I find really stupid in a SRPG. I find that it actually diminishes strategy, because it makes it that much easier to flank and concentrate-fire on an opponent. And it makes it that much easier for them to do the same.

I feel like when I die in FE, it's not really my fault. Here's a good example: I was in a situation where I was within range of a fastly-approaching enemy. I knew my healer would be a sitting duck, so I formed a wall in front of my healer with my buffest units. A wall should be the best line of defense because it only allows a single point of entry for the opponent (vs an open unit, where it can be surrounded by four enemy units). It should have been the best possible strategy. After I positioned all my units carefully, it was "the enemy turn". The first enemy calvary unit attacked my hero. Did a small amount of damage, and then my hero counterattacked. The counterattack was so strong that the enemy died. Then the 2nd calvary unit attacked the same hero. Counterattack, died. By the time the fourth calvary unit got to that same unit, my hero was at 5hp. So of course, I died. Because my unit was TOO GOOD of a counterattacker. This is precisely what I meant by feeling that when I die it's not even my fault. Most would agree that my choice of a wall was the best defense possible. But because FE has this "your entire group goes, then entire enemy group goes" structure, my unit was better off MISSING the counterattack. I don't know what Intelligent Systems was thinking when they designed FE like that. It's ok when you have disposable units like in Advance Wars. Sacrifice is part of the strategy. But when you have characters that are sometimes important to the plot that can be killed off by such a system, then it ceases to be amusing. I'm not complaining about the difficulty at all. TO:LUCT is arguably more difficult, but I love it. I'm complaining about the inability to control your circumstances, and that's the problem with FE.

Another problem with FE DS in particular is that you're able to acquire too many characters. It's an issue for me personally because if I have a cast of characters to choose a party from, I will try to balance their levels out. Since you have like 30 characters in the game, I try to use my weakest members in the fights, and sometimes that's not feasible. The level difference between my units and the opponent's is too large. And because I divide the possible experience points between all 30 of my units, it means my units are not scaling up to the additional difficulty added by later levels. You can argue that I shouldn't balance my characters, but I've been burned by games in the past that forced you to use specific characters in your party as part of the plot OR make you create several teams at the very end. I could not finish Shining Force III because I -didn't- balance out my exp among all members. Finally, another stupid design decision is to have stats go up at random. That means, when you level up with a character, you could end up upgrading 6 of the 8 available stats. Or if you're unlucky, zero. Yes. Zero. You can level up and not have any changes to your character at all. It is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in an RPG.

Ultimately, Fire Emblem represents a game that I can appreciate only for historical significance. I can see how it introduced a form of exploration to SRPGs and a cool way of adding party members to your roster. I also enjoy some of the modern improvements, especially to user-interface, that came with this Nintendo DS remake. But I have major misgivings about the core combat engine. From what I've been told, modern FE isn't all that much different. Shadow Dragon is my first, and last, Fire Emblem.

Retro Game Challenge

2009-02-28T21:18:00.000-08:00

Retro Game Challenge
Pile of Awesome - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 1 Save
1 player

I lucked out with Retro Game Challenge. I just happened to be around when a couple of people mentioned it in passing. I had never even heard of it before, but knew then that I had to have it. Basically, it's a collection of 80s-style parody games. Being raised as a NES-gamer, I couldn't help but be interested. RGC was originally released in late 2007 as Game Center CX Arino no Chousenjou. Thankfully, XSeed Games decided to bring it over, and they made quite the effort to preserve this labor of love.

The setup is a little odd. Some strange fellow is lousy at playing modern games, but absolutely loves the games he played growing up. So he ends up trapping you and forcing you to undergo his retro gaming challenges. Although not the most epic storyline, it does provide the backdrop for this quirky collection. The great thing is that these games play homage to many of the old classics from the 80s. Cosmic Gate is almost identical to Galaga. Robot Ninja Haggleman closely resembles Ninja Jajamarukun and Ninja Gaiden (NES). Guadia Quest is clearly modeled after the early Dragon Quests. But although these games are very retro in their look and feel, they also incorporate some modern twists. For example, Star Prince is a generic vertical shooter, with the ability to collect power-ups to change your weapon. But Star Prince adds the ability to absorb bullets through a shield mechanic and launch a barrage of fire as a counterattack and collectathon elements by uncovering P-R-I-N-C-E tiles scattered throughout the stage. These games successfully blend the tight design of traditional gameplay with newer mechanics to produce familiarity, yet feels fresh at the same time.

The game is structured as a series of challenges. For the most part, these challenges are fairly easy. They are presented to help you learn the basics of each game, rather than mastery of them. When a challenge is met, the game immediately stops and brings you back to the main story. This initially bugged me - you spend your time getting to a new part of the stage, and then the main game kicks you out. But as you complete the four challenges for a single game, you then earn the right to play that game in "Free Play" mode. So I guess the purpose of the main game is to fulfill challenges, and not necessarily to play each individual game to your own liking. In addition to unlocking "Free Play", you also unlock the next game in the compilation by completing a game's four challenges. The final challenge of RGC requires completion of all the games.

It was the little things that stood out most. The first game you play, Cosmic Gate, is very barebones. Being that the game was "released" in 1984, you get a basic title screen, blocky visuals, basic mechanics, poor grammar, and tinny music. But as you unlock additional games spanning "release dates" from 1986 to 1989, you see a progression of all those things. Haggleman 2 has noticeably better visuals and higher quality music than Haggleman 1. Cinematic cut scenes were introduced. Gameplay concepts are evolved. Ending credits became far more elaborate. Retro Game Challenge accurately portrays the 80s era of gaming. In addition to the 80s-esque games themselves, RGC includes a library of magazines with news, tips & tricks. As a kid growing up with an EGM subscription, it's a really nice touch. What's also interesting is the English localization by XSeed games. The RGC magazine is called "Game Fan" and has editors named "Dave H." and "Dan Sock", which are obvious American game culture references. It's details like these which show that both the Japanese developers and the American localization team delivered the game out of a passion for video games.

As far as the games themselves, there are 8 titles included, although perhaps only 6 unique titles.

- Cosmic Gate is the Galaga clone, with the addition of a power-up that can destroy multiple enemies with a single shot and warp zones.
- Robot Ninja Haggleman 1 & 2 are almost identical games. I guess the best way to describe them are 2d action platformers in a confined space. When you destroy all the enemies in the stage (usually by jumping on them), the boss reveals itself. The twist is that the game has a bunch of doors scattered throughout the stage and if you enter one door, all doors of the same color will open, revealing power-ups, damaging enemies, and possibly revealing the stage boss early. Haggleman 2 has larger stages, harder enemies and upgraded visuals.
-Rally King and Rally King SP are overhead perspective racing games. Being a rally game, drifting is of the essence. If you can drift for 1 full second, you'll trigger a "drift boost" which propels your car in the direction of your drift for a few seconds. It's similar to Mario Kart DS snaking, except you simply drift, not drift from side to side. Unlike Mario Kart, you take damage every time you hit a wall or another car, so if you're wreckless with your driving, it's game over. This causes you to be strategic about your drift boosts, because you're penalized for bumping into objects. Rally King SP is really a remix of Rally King, and not a sequel.
- Star Prince is a vertical scrolling shooter. It's a very solid game, with lots of things to shoot and dodge. Interestingly enough, the waves of enemies change randomly, so replaying the same stage will result in a slightly different experience.
- Guadia Quest is very much a take on Dragon Quest. You have a party of 3 characters with similar spells to those offered in DQ. The "Guadias" are special enemies that you can make a pact with. If you defeat one, they will help assist you in future battles. Unlike a party member, Guadias cannot be directly controlled, and they do not help out every turn. Still, their presence is appreciated because Guadia Quest is a surprisingly thorough adventure. Even though the overworld is limited with only a few dungeons, the game makes the most of it. The dungeons themselves are huge, with many branching paths to explore. There are puzzles, a variety of enemy types, difficult bosses, rare equipment, etc. - basically what you'd come to expect of any standalone J-RPG. It may be old-school, but it's old-school well done. My only gripes with it are that it mirrors retro-RPGing too well. You need to go to a submenu to talk to someone or to look at an object. I'm not entirely sure why that couldn't be done with a single button. And although most items and spells are explained in the manual, some are not, which can be frustrating because modern games have descriptions built into the interface. Another pet peeve of mine is how older RPGs had terrible shop interfaces, where you were basically purchasing items blindly, not knowing if the weapon you're buying is better than the one you're wielding. Almost all modern RPGs show you stats increases/decreases so you can easily make informed buying decisions. Guadia, like most early generation RPGs, does not. Still, despite my quips, I enjoyed Guadia Quest more than most RPGs today.
- Finally Robot Ninja Haggleman 3 marks the end of the collection. It is completely different than Haggleman 1 & 2, resembling Ninja Gaiden (NES) more than anything else. In HM 1 & 2, your main weapon was jumping on enemies to defeat them. Here, it's all about slashing them with a sword. Haggleman 3 also resembles Metroid in the way that certain sections of a stage are inaccessible until you acquire specific items.

All in all, it's a good mix of games and genres. Only the latter two have a save feature that allows you resume right where you left off. The first six games are pick-up-and-play so they don't really need it.

My curiosity was piqued when I first heard about this title. Now that I've got it in my hands, I love Retro Game Challenge even more. As a gamer defined by the 1980s myself, RGC hits all the right notes. It is undeniably a product made by gamers, for gamers. Coincidentally, Game Center CX 2 was released in Japan this past week. Here's hoping that RGC sells well enough to pave the way for RGC2. We need more games like these.

Half Life 2

2009-01-06T20:26:00.000-08:00

Half Life 2
First Person Shooter - PC
HD Backup
1 player

Let's not beat around the bush. Half Life 2 is one of the few games that I hated playing from start to end. I didn't really like Half Life either, but I could respect it for what it did. I cannot say the same thing for Half Life 2. It is so completely artificial, that I honestly can not see why it was as well-received as it was.

Following the events of Half Life, Half Life 2 dumps you in its world as a fugitive right off the bat. Consequently, the bulk of the game is simply you running away. It plays out mostly like your average FPS, with the one exception of the gravity gun. With it, you can point at certain objects and attract them towards you. Once you've got a lock on the object and it's floating in front of you, you can then launch it out. So everyday objects like boxes and metal debris can be used as weapons.

Let's start with the good. When the game started, I was thrust in an entirely unfamiliar environment. The surroundings were drab. The regular folk were nervous. The people in power were bullies. It was one of the rare times in a game where I felt really tense due to the immersion. I didn't entirely know what was going on, but that was the beauty of it. You're not supposed to. You only have that nagging feeling that something is wrong. It's a feeling I would experience again later on. What's not so great is that the other time is at the very last stage of the game.

I'm not entirely sure what kind of game Half Life 2 is. Is it a FPS? I suppose. But the shooting action is probably the worst I've experienced in the genre. You face more or less the same carbon copy enemies throughout the entire game. Moreover, they're generally stupid and weak, which makes me wonder why they exist at all. I was thoroughly bored with pretty much every single shootout in the game. Is it a puzzle game? The first Half Life had some puzzle elements to it. HL2 does as well, however it seems de-emphasized. There were probably a couple of instances where you had to do something more than hitting a switch. Then is it a dialog FPS? Not really. Like the first Half Life, dialog happens in first person view with no cut-scenes, so you're always a part of the game. I'm not entirely sure this is a good way to present dialog, because it's boring to simply stand there waiting for people to finish talking. But what's worse is that Half Life 2's story isn't even worth listening to. It's cookie-cutter generic and could be elaborated in a single paragraph. Half Life 2 doesn't really succeed at anything.

Another major problem is the filler. HL2 has a definite beginning and end. But everything in between is woefully inadequate. The stages themselves seem like a string of half developed ideas with no real direction. Nothing demonstrates this better than the awful vehicle stages included. For most of the first half of the game, you'll be piloting a boat or a buggy. Both of them handle like molasses, and neither of them contribute to the game in any meaningful way. When you get these vehicles, most of the time you only need them to cover the incredibly long stretches of the map that would be way too cumbersome on foot. The other times, you're simply running away. The stage that takes the cake is "We Don't Go To Ravenholm". The entire stage revolves around fighting creepy, crawly things and zombies. It feels way more at home as a B-horror movie than as an integral part of Half Life 2. It just further cements my feelings that HL2 is nothing more than a bunch of bad concepts thrown together. Even the gravity gun seems like an add-on as opposed to an integral part of the game. Sure there are certain segments where the gravity gun is required to progress, or can assist in a given situation. But for 95% of the game, it's completely irrelevant. The bulk of Half Life 2 is hollow.

Rarely have I felt such disdain towards a game. Usually I can see some value in what a game is trying to accomplish, or I could see an audience it might be catered towards. But I simply cannot make sense out of Half Life 2. There are no redeeming qualities. What a complete waste of time.

Portal

2009-01-03T22:46:00.000-08:00

Portal
First Person Puzzle? - PC
HD Backup
1 player

Portal was well-received when it appeared on Valve's Orange Box in 2007. Assuming it was just your average FPS, I didn't pay much attention to it. Recently, for whatever reason, I decided to watch the official trailer for the game... and turns out I was dead wrong. Portal wasn't an average FPS. In fact, it didn't resemble a FPS at all. So piqued was my curiosity, that I upgraded my archaic PC components and bought the Orange Box just to play it. I expected Portal to be good. What I didn't expect is that it would completely blow me away.

Portal is a puzzle game. It looks like a first person shooter. It controls like a first person shooter. But instead of bullets, rockets and lasers, the only gun you get creates portals. Left click for a blue portal, right click for an orange portal. Enter one, and you'll exit from the other. It sounds very simple, but it's completely brilliant. You can open a portal underneath an object to transport it. You can use a long fall into a portal to propel yourself out of the opposite portal. Your tools are simple, but the applications are numerous.

The game is generally set up in a series of stages, with one puzzle after another after another. The complexity of the solutions ramps up as the game goes along. In the later levels, the game includes laser-guided bots that are out to kill you. Since Portal is not an action-game in the normal sense, your only methods of taking out the machines come down to tipping them over from behind or knocking them down with objects, courtesy of an overhead portal. In these sections, it reminds me of stealth games in how you think of ways to get to the enemy undetected. The fact that the game is done in a FPS-style enhances the experience. Portal placement requires precise angles and locations, so the first person perspective is much appreciated. For instance, many of the puzzles require you to simply observe your surroundings to see what you need to do, and what you're capable of doing at any given situation. First-person perspective works best here, because you can quickly and easily get a full view of your environments.

Ingenuous. Surprising. Innovative. Breathtaking. Atmospheric. Captivating. Meticulously designed and beautifully executed. Portal just does everything right. Maybe for the first time in my life, I have nothing to complain about. Portal is perfect.

Tomb Raider The Last Revelation

2008-12-22T21:22:00.000-08:00

Tomb Raider The Last Revelation
Puzzle Platform - Dreamcast
Battery Backup - 10 saves
1 player

The Last Revelation is the fourth game of the series. Tomb Raider II sort of took the title in a different direction, by having more human enemies to shoot and more ordinary settings to interact with. I didn't play much of II, but I distinctly recall a stage set in Venice, where you jumped on balconies and rooftops. The Last Revelation mostly goes back to its roots, with the bulk of the time spent in exotic locales. It feels very ambitious, with interconnecting stages that offer a long adventure for explorers. It's just too bad that when I think of this game, I can't help but utter obscenities. The Last Revelation is the only game reviewed here I have not completed.

Let's get this out of the way. The Last Revelation has some programming glitches that completely ruin the game. I know I said this with my last review of Bionic Commando Elite Forces, but this is much worse. Once you trigger the bug, your game is stuck forever. Worse yet, they are situated towards the end of the game, so if you trigger one of the bugs, and are left without a fresh save, you have only two options: 1) Quit the game, and start over from the beginning. 2) Quit the game, curse its existence, and expose its shoddy quality to any would-be player. Guess which category I'm in? After clocking in about 20 hours, I encountered a puzzle which requires pushing three stone blocks in specific sequences to open up several gates. But if you push the blocks in the wrong order, you almost always trigger a bug that prevents you from resetting the blocks, so you're unable to ever push them again. In fact, even if you push the blocks in the correct sequence, the bug could still occur, thus locking you out of some passageways that are required to finish the stage. I've read that it's been patched for the PC versions, but Playstation and Dreamcast owners are completely out of luck. The only workaround is having multiple save files, and hope that at least one of them doesn't have the bug triggered. Even then, you won't always know immediately that you've triggered the bug. Since I didn't have any uncorrupted saves, I was completely screwed and consequently, gave up playing it.

I did, however, go through most of the game, so I can discuss those items. A friend of mine mentioned that Tomb Raider is best in tombs. Given that developer CORE went further and further away from tomb exploration with TRII and TRIII, it's not as obvious as you might think. The Last Revelation thrusts you into an ancient tomb right from the get-go, and it's better for it. The sense of discovery and wonder from the first game is very much intact. The added bonus is that The Last Revelation ends up being a lot more creepy. Whereas the first TR had booby traps to guard treasures, The Last Revelation adds ancient curses to the mix. The atmosphere is much darker as a result. But, as a nod to the previous games, The Last Revelation still tries its hand at being an action game. There ends up being a fair amount of shooting. In addition to the animals, there are enemy ninjas, soldiers, and automated gun turrets to keep Lara busy.

At its center, The Last Revelation offers much of what the series has always offered. It's focused primarily on discovery and puzzle-solving. The puzzles in this outing generally require more logic than the original. That's one aspect I enjoyed. Many times, your next step may not be obvious, but if you took a moment to observe your surroundings, the answer will become clear. Tomb Raider excels at building subtle clues to the solutions into the environment. For the most part, you just have to pay attention. Many of the stages are connected to one another. This gives the game a less linear feel, as sometimes you'll need to backtrack through a previous stage to access your next destination. The upside is that you can utilize the level boundaries to regain all your health - each time you enter a stage, you start with a full bar. But one thing that is lost from previous games, are the summaries of stage results, such as number of secrets found, how long it took you to complete the stage, etc. Instead, you only have a cumulative count of those statistics. So if you discovered only 40 of the 70 game's secrets, you have no indication of which stages you're missing secrets in.

Other than the horrible QA, there are plenty of other issues that make The Last Revelation a drag to play. The biggest problem of all is that the game is way too dark. Unlike the previous games which had a brightness adjustment in the options menu, it has been removed here. Sure I could adjust my TV brightness for one stupid game. Or maybe the game shouldn't have been designed this way in the first place. The game is so dark, that half of the time all you see is a Lara in pitch darkness. To compensate, Lara can light flares, which emit a small radius of light for 20 seconds. But since they're of such limited quantity, you can't really use them every 20 seconds. Another option is to fire your pistols. When you fire your pistols, it lights up the immediate area around Lara for half a second. Since you have unlimited ammo, it works as a cheap-man's light source. But the area of light is much smaller than the flares, so it's easy to miss item pick-ups and clues to your next location. So what's the other workaround? You have binoculars in your inventory. Luckily, the binoculars have an illuminated view when using them. This is probably the preferred method, because you can always reuse your binoculars. But what this means is that every time you enter an unfamiliar area, you will bring up the Options menu, select Inventory, select the binoculars, then wave the camera around while holding the light button to see what's around you. Then you unequip the binoculars, face a different direction, call up the options menu, select inventory, select binoculars and do it again so you can finally get a good look at what is around you. Remember, observation is -everything- in this game. Making everything ridiculously dark was obviously an intentional decision by the developers. But it's obviously also such a horrible decision, that it makes playing the game a chore. Some other sore spots include rope swinging and motorcycle levels. There are a few segments in the game where you need to swing on one rope, jump off it, and grab onto another rope during your descent. If you're misaligned even a little bit, you will plummet to your death. Turns out... at least one rope jump segment will kill you if you line your trajectory up correctly. You have to be off to the side by a centimeter in order to correctly grab the next rope. What on earth was Core thinking? Core also thought it'd be fun to include a motorcycle to ride. So there are a series of stages in the second half of the game where you are forced to ride a bike around. It's not enough that the motorcycle handles like a pig, and has the turning radius of a plane. No, sirree. The developers thought it would be fun to have Lara pilot a motorcycle IN PITCH DARKNESS. To be fair, the bike has a headlight, and that automatically makes it a little better than the pathetic options Lara has on foot. But it exemplifies exactly what's wrong with the game.

Tomb Raider The Last Revelation tries so hard to be the epic Tomb Raider. It features huge levels that interconnect, unique puzzles to solve, a creepy atmosphere and a dramatic story. The glitch that ultimately ruined the game for me is one thing. But the poor judgment in making the game as dark as possible was already grounds for dismissing this game entirely. I tried to like The Last Revelation. Occasional glimpses of the original Tomb Raider shown through. But ultimately, every positive attribute was obscured by darkness.

Bionic Commando Elite Forces

2008-12-21T21:16:00.000-08:00

Bionic Commando Elite Forces
Action - Gameboy Color
Battery Backup - 3 saves
1 player

Not to be confused with the Gameboy Bionic Commando, the Gameboy Color Elite Forces is the third entry for this series. Capcom hasn't really utilized this property much over the years, until they suddenly revived it by announcing titles for the HD systems out now. So what's a better way to celebrate than to go through the older titles?

Despite being in the same series, Elite Forces has a very different feel than the NES and Gameboy Bionic Commando games. Sure it's still got the same basic elements. You still choose a weapon, accessory, communicator and armor prior to entering stages. You still use your grappling arm to swing across chasms and scale heights. And you still can run into enemy trucks on the map to collect extra lives. But the visuals have changed dramatically. The character designs and backgrounds have been totally transformed to have sort of a cartoon-ish look. To complement the cartoon visuals, the developers gave your character much more fluid animation that's almost as nice as Prince of Persia and Flashback. But the overall effect of the new look is a turnoff for me. The architecture of the buildings and things you can grapple onto aren't very recognizable. It's almost like as if everything is just blobs with different colors. That might seem harsh, but the objects in the game don't really resemble anything. Compared to the detailed visuals of its Gameboy predecessor, Elite Forces is a giant step backwards, animation excluded.

Capcom introduces a couple of new elements to spice things up, but they are of dubious value. Now you can actually choose between two characters. This might sound like a cool option, but the male and female heroes don't seem to differ at all, other than one having longer hair. They both have the same abilities, are the same height and everything. No. I don't get the point either. Another addition to the game is sniping. In a handful of stages, you can interact with specific buildings and initiate a sniper event. The screen will switch to a first-person zoomed view, and you just point the camera around and shoot when an enemy is within the crosshairs. The enemy never notices you even if you miss, so the sniper segments are more about finding enemies with the lousy camera rather than the sniping itself. These sniping sequences aren't particularly interesting, and they break up the flow of the rest of the game.

Luckily, Capcom left the grappling gameplay intact. The Gameboy BC had some really tough segments at the end of the game, but was too easy for the bulk of it. Elite Forces, on the other hand, has you swinging around, letting go, extending your grapple hook at the right time and grabbing another object for the bulk of the game. There are challenging segments from early on, and despite the fluid animation of your character, your grapple arm is plenty responsive and quick. Looking only at this component, Elite Forces might be my favorite of the three games.

But Elite Forces is also riddled with problems that make it my least favorite game overall. First of all, there is a game destroying bug. I've heard it happens whenever you play Elite Forces on GBA or the GB Player. I've heard that it even occurs sometimes when you play it on the GBC! Basically the game will freeze whenever you complete an enemy truck encounter, and start a mission afterwards (ie. all the time). It doesn't matter if you reset the game. The bug will continue to lock-up the game. Someone found an odd workaround that works: Basically, every time you turn on the game, start a New Game, kill yourself until you get Game Over, then you can Load your Saved game without encountering the bug. I'm glad that there is a fix at all - the game is virtually unplayable otherwise - but having to do this trick every time you want to play, gets old.

Some of the other poor design issues do little to alleviate my irritation. Your character sprite is rather huge, and it affects the game a lot. For instance, when you swing around with your grappling arm, it's very easy to crash into enemies because of the sheer size of your character. I've also noticed that when you pull yourself up to a ledge, one of the frames of animation forces you to stand up, even if you're holding down to duck immediately after climbing up. I've been hit by bullets on a few occasions just because the pull-up animation forces me to stand for a split second. And just like the Gameboy Bionic Commando, Elite Forces makes the power reactor segments more difficult by adding more bosses to fight and requiring more shots to destroy the core, compared to the original NES game. But the boss fights here are extremely annoying. It seems as if you are forced to take hits from them, because they move at such a faster speed that they wind up bumping into you and causing you damage. I like that bosses generally have a window of timing in order to damage them, but I really oppose games where I'm forced to take damage no matter what. Finally, the audio is just plain bad. From the horrible quality of the voice and music sampling to the limited tracklist of 3 songs that loop over and over, this is one game that is better with the volume turned all the way off.

For all its fluid animation and spot-on grappling, Bionic Commando Elite Forces manages to bungle some of the simpler aspects of making a video game. Couple that with the game crashing each time you turn on the system, and you've got an unpolished, underdeveloped product. It almost feels unfinished at times. The one saving grace is the core underlying game, using your grappling arm physics to navigate stages, is pretty solid. Still, it's hard to recommend Elite Forces when you could simply be playing the vastly superior Gameboy or NES versions.

Thief

2008-12-16T11:14:00.000-08:00

Thief
First Person Stealth? - PC
Hard Drive
1 player

I've been itching to play a FPS for the longest time, and then I recalled a recommendation from years back. My favorite FPS is Goldeneye007 on the N64, and someone mentioned I might want to look into Thief since I liked the more stealthy aspects of GE007. I guess what I didn't realize was that Thief wasn't so much a shooter at all, with very limited bow & arrow use. Still, the thought of a first person game with stealth mechanics appealed to me so I decided to give it a go. Thief won several gaming awards when it was first released back in 1998, and it's not hard to see why.

As the title suggests, you play the role of a thief. The first stage acts as both a tutorial and the setup for the game's premise. You begin by being trained by a Master of a Thief Society. With that kind of training, you acquire a bit of self-awareness about how adept you are at being hidden. The two primary elements are sight and sound. When you move into the shadows, you will be completely undetected unless an enemy bumps into you. Stepping out into the light will give you various gradients of visibility. In addition to using the dark to cloak you, you have to be careful about sound. As you interact with objects laid around, you may end up dropping an item, which will alert guards to a presence. Your footsteps also play a huge role, with the type of ground you walk on having a huge effect on the loudness. Luckily you can simply walk slower to deafen a lot of the footsteps, but some floor surfaces require more care than others. Since your thief character is pretty mindful of sight and sound, the game gives the player an indicator of how visible and audible you are to the people around you.

The game is structured as a series of missions with particular objectives. An example might be: 1) Find a way to get into the building. 2) Steal the master gem. 3) Loot as much as you can (Min. 500 gold). 4) Get back to the city streets. Occasionally objectives may change or be added as you go through a mission, but it doesn't really alter the game all that much. You still pretty much will pursue whatever the mission objectives say at the time.

What works:

The stealth action is done pretty well. Using the shadows to hide your presence and moving slowly on tiled floors is very intuitive and realistic. Your character cannot take a whole lot of physical damage, so although you could go the brute strength method and fight everyone you meet, chances are that you won't get very far. But there is an option. Similar to MGS, if you manage to sneak up behind enemies undetected, you can take them out with little fuss. In Thief, you can use your sword and hit them from behind and it counts as a backstab. Unfortunately, using your sword leaves blood stains and that alerts guards to a problem. You also have a mace that will knock enemies completely unconscious, so that's a great alternative. In both cases, you have to be mindful to carry the fallen bodies to areas where an enemy won't discover. But sight and sound don't only apply to yourself. You can detect nearby enemies by listening for their footsteps approaching (or departing). So it's neat how your senses are critical to your in-game success.

In addition to being mindful of lighting and the sounds your character makes, you possess some useful tools. My favorite tool is the rope arrow. If you aim and shoot a rope arrow at a wooden or clay surface, a rope will dangle down from it, allowing you to scale heights that were previously inaccessible. This causes you to be observant to your surroundings, and often times you'll be rewarded with the next step of your path, or some optional loot. There are also other tools like water arrows that you can use to douse torches, and thus create more darkness or lockpicks that help you unlock doors. There's a little bit of creativity in using these tools to suit your needs, and that's one of the strongest aspects.

Thief also excels in its exploration aspects. In each stage, you are thrust into a completely unfamiliar environment. It can be tense when you are sneaking around, not knowing where you're headed. There will be times when you are seemingly stuck, and some deliberate observation of your surroundings is necessary. In these aspects, Thief reminds me a lot of Tomb Raider. You really do feel as if you are this character, trying to make it through your unknown surroundings. Thief even has you exploring tombs for loot, so the comparison isn't that far off. Both games have you forming a mental map of your area, that gets more elaborate and focused as you explore and discover. Thief offers that kind of immersive experience.

What doesn't:

This might be a personal complaint, but I often felt as if the level layouts were at times too overwhelming to figure out. The exploration is a positive attribute overall, but sometimes you'll hit a crossroads with several branching pathways, and if you take any of those, it'll lead to more branching pathways. It can be confusing, and with little aid in the form of a map, the game occasionally feels bigger than it should be.

A bigger annoyance comes from the setting. I think Thief would have worked better if it were more focused on thieving from people. Instead, the developers have incorporated tombs, zombies, poison-breathing dinosaurs, demons, balls of fire and lobster men into the mix. It clashes with the realism presented elsewhere in the game, and frankly, it's just plain silly. Tomb Raider works on the mystical level, simply because we think of ancient tombs having booby traps. Plus most of the enemies in Tomb Raider are actually natural (bats, wolves, and male stalkers). Thief has LOBSTER MEN. I can't tell whether Thief wants to present an immersive experience or shove a hokey game in your face. It ends up straddling both sides, and this is probably my biggest problem with the game.

Some other problems occur due to some design decisions. One thing I didn't like is that there's no quicksave or quickload. You have to go to the option screen, select a file, then select save/load. It's a three step process, which is kind of annoying. But more importantly, I think some of the stealth parts are a bit wonky. You are free to play Thief in super stealth mode, trying to be unnoticed by anyone. Or you can try to take people out from the back, still in stealth mode, but you eliminate the opposition. Or you can simply fight people head-to-head. The problem is, if you are detected, the game often treats it as an all-or-nothing situation. An enemy might spot you, raise an alarm, and then the rest of the 50 guards in the stage will be on the lookout for you. In that heightened state of awareness, many of your stealth tricks no longer work. You can't do one-hit knockouts from behind, and even moving quietly seems to provoke them. In MGS, the enemies cool off after maybe two minutes of not detecting you. Here in Thief, once you piss them off, they're pissed off forever, and they tell their buddies to be pissed off too. You could always restart the mission, but it's not always fun when this happens 45 minutes in.

I do think Thief is a clever game for the most part. The stealth aspects are pretty sophisticated, making you aware of your movements and those around you. But its problems are too significant for me to simply ignore. I feel as if the stupid zombie and demonic crap ruins what would otherwise be a solid, focused game. I also enjoyed the actual stage layouts more when it was a mansion to explore, rather than cursed ruins. Perhaps what Thief is, is inconsistent. It has all the right elements to be good. But as an entire package, it falls short of the mark.

Advance Wars

2008-11-22T09:19:00.000-08:00

Advance Wars
Strategy - Gameboy Advance
Battery Backup - 1 Saves
1 player / 2-4 player versus

The world of handhelds is an interesting one. There are some who love portable gaming, and others who absolutely loathe it. I confess to sympathizing with both sides of the spectrum. I enjoy what portable gaming has to offer (2d visuals, ability to play in bed, and usually a quicksave feature), but acknowledge that often times, developers take shortcuts and don't aim to make the best possible product like they do with console games. Developer Intelligent Systems refused to go that route and in 2001, released Advance Wars to the GBA. Although this is a long running series, Advance Wars is the first one to come out in English. Luckily, it was worth the wait.

Advance Wars is a tactical grid-based war game. During your turn, you move individual units around a rectangular map, and attack an enemy if possible. Each unit has ten health, and when reduced to zero, the unit is destroyed. Although the fundamentals are very simple, there's quite a bit of depth to it. First of all, there are a bunch of different units. There are troops, tanks, long distance artillery, ships, planes, and different types of models within those categories. Each unit type has its own strengths, weaknesses, movement and weapon range. For instance, the helicopter can fly a great distance, drop missiles on ground forces, and has moderate success gunning down other helicopters. But they're completely useless against fighter planes and bombers. It's mostly set up like rock-paper-scissors, where units have specific strengths against a particular unit, but may have a severe weakness versus another. In general, the goal of each map is to either defeat all of the opponent's units or to capture their base.

The combat itself is pretty standard for the genre. The most important factors to consider are unit types and health. Because of the rock-paper-scissors hierarchy, it's best to only attack with units that are strong against the enemy's units. Enemies will counterattack after you've dealt damage, so it's usually not beneficial to attack with weaker units. But health is also very important. You inflict twice as much damage at 10 health, than you do at 5 health. One other thing that influences combat is terrain. Depending on where your unit is located, you may get defensive bonuses to offset damage taken. It may seem like there's a lot of variables to keep track of, but the game is very helpful about that. Whenever you initiate an attack, it shows you exactly how much damage you will inflict, so you can plan your moves accordingly. One final item that can turn the tide of battle are the COs (commanding officers). In this game, you select a CO before entering a map, and each CO has a special power in addition to some inherent unit bonuses. Once their special meter is charged up through dealing and receiving damage, you can utilize their special ability. One example of a CO power is Grit's ability to increase all the long-distance units' range for that turn. It can be a game-changer if the enemy isn't prepared for it.

One of the more interesting components of the game is that infantry troops can capture buildings. They'll need at least two turns to capture a neutral or an enemy building, but once they do, the benefits are plentiful. A normal building that you own will heal any units sitting there 2 health per turn. Buildings will boost your defense because of the terrain bonus, so they act as safe havens to retreat to. You can also capture production buildings such as shipdocks, which will allow you to build submarines and ships. You accrue money every turn proportional to the number of buildings under your control, so there's plenty of incentive to capture buildings. Also recall that one possible victory condition is capturing your enemy's headquarters building. With this sort of system implemented, it ensures that you'll want to keep a mixed army of both vehicles and normal infantry.

What impresses most about Advance Wars is the wealth of resources. There are a lot of variables to consider in the game, such as what unit is good vs what, and how far an enemy is able to move. But the game documents all the information you need. Hit one button and you bring up information on a unit such as its weapons, its weaknesses, and its stats. Hit another button, and you'll have a grid representation of the unit's movement capability. The game is just so incredibly user-friendly, and manages to cram all the information in such a small space. But more than just the practical help menus, Advance Wars offers something even greater - a 14 stage tutorial. The game walks you through all of the units and game systems through the tutorial. Each tutorial stage is a real stage with objectives. The only difference is that the tutorial stages are designed so that you get familiar with certain aspects of the game with each new stage. If the entire game were just the Tutorial, Advance Wars would have been a great game. But it doesn't stop there. There's an entirely separate Campaign mode and a War Room of individual challenges for a total of over 50 stages! It's just amazing how much content it offers.

There are a few annoyances though. I can't say I care for the music. It's not bad, but when you have to hear the music loop for the length of a stage (sometimes an hour or more), the best thing I could say is that it's forgettable. Another thing I'm not particular fond of is Fog of War. Advance Wars employs this RTS pillar, yet I don't know if I really like the idea in a turn-based game where precision positioning is of the utmost importance. I suppose in some ways, it makes the battleground more realistic. Luckily, Fog of War is only utilized in a small fraction of the stages. Most of the stages are laid out like a typical wargame, where you'd be able to see all the pieces and possible locations on the map. One other annoyance is the last mission. It's quite a nightmare. The layout of the stage is such that even if you dominate the map, you'll can only make incremental progress towards winning the actual stage. I think it took me roughly 3 hours. Thank goodness for quicksave.

Irritations aside, if strategy games are your cup of tea, Advance Wars is one of the finest examples out there. In many ways, I much prefer this style of tactical play over SRPGs. In a game like this, it may not be optimal to put an infantry unit in front of an enemy tank. Due to the rock-paper-scissors hierarchy, it's just plain suicide. But that's also the beauty of it. It can be a completely valid strategy to sacrifice a unit either as bait, or to prevent enemy movement. In SRPGs, some games implement permanent death so you'd want to keep all your characters alive as long as possible. It's a bit tricky to say which style is more challenging, since SRPGs also have characters that level and improve over time. But I would say that Advance Wars does have more strategic depth simply because sacrifice is integral to tactical planning. The fact that Advance Wars comes full of strategic options and longevity in the stages is quite an achievement. I would have respected it regardless of whether it was on a portable or a console. Nevertheless, despite my glowing compliments, there was a slight disconnect with my actual feelings. I think it's an incredible game, but I don't love it. I finally figured it out. Advance Wars is merely a great take on the strategy war game. No more, no less. It doesn't push the envelope in any way, and that sort of dulls my emotions for it. While that might not matter as much to other people, for me, it's what keeps Advance Wars from reaching excellence.

Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen

2008-10-28T11:41:00.000-07:00

Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen
RPG - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 Saves
1 player / WLAN Town Building

While not the first, Dragon Quest is the influence of what we now recognize as the traditional Japanese RPG. I played the first back in the 80s when it was released. And I hated it. It was completely tedious and dull, so much in fact, that I hadn't played another DQ title since. But because of the cult following, I felt like I should give the series another shot. Enter DQIV. I wasn't really sure what I was expecting going into this DS remake of a NES game, but I definitely developed an appreciation for what the series has to offer.

Dragon Quest IV is actually quite an interesting case study for me. It answers the question: "How would I feel about an RPG that does EVERYTHING right, except for one thing I care about most?" I adore the visual style, with traditional sprites over 3D polygonal rotatable buildings and backgrounds. It reminds me a lot of Grandia's style, and I am completely in love with it. Just like Grandia, the rotating backgrounds makes exploration really fun. In addition to treasure chests, there are plenty of medals to collect, in exchange for rare items. The added bonus of dual screens is very convenient in helping you see what is ahead too. In traditional Enix fashion, the orchestral soundtrack is also very nicely done. And the story? Ok... well... it's as generic cookie cutter fodder as they come (and what RPG isn't?), but I definitely enjoyed the story structure. The game is broken into chapters, hence the title, and makes the plot unfold more like a book, which is neat. One of the series' charms is actually specific to the English localization. Each kingdom has its own style of speech, which adds a lot of personality. One kingdom speaks with a heavy Russian accented English. Another parades its French influences. All of it just adds up to a world brimming with life.

Unfortunately, the best thing I can say about the combat engine is that it's tolerable. It all comes down to this - DQIV's battle mechanics are too simplistic for my tastes. The menu options are tried and true: Fight, Magic, Item, Flee - nothing more, nothing less. It's hard for me to be excited by the limited options, because I really enjoy tactical planning. With DQ, there's little to go on. To its credit, DQIV is the best implementation of this style of gameplay. This is a game in which party buffs and enemy debuffs, in addition to the usual arsenal of attacks and offensive spells, are essential against bosses and even some of the normal enemies. I like that each spell in the game is an integral part of the experience. I also like that DQIV implements enemy groupings so that there is effectively a difference between single-target spells and ones with an area-of-effect. Finally, I'm glad to report that DQIV allows your non-party members to share in experience, circumventing the tedium of rotating members in and out like a lot of other games. DQ may be simple, but at least it offers a focused battle experience. So while other games with similar mechanics drive me mad, Dragon Quest IV manages to be unoffensive.

Maybe that's the key to my overall opinion. DQIV hit all the right notes on everything, except combat. I place such a high value on combat because it is the only aspect of Japanese RPGs that differentiate it from adventure games. It comprises most of the playtime. Hence combat makes or breaks RPGs for me. I couldn't ever say I liked DQIV's combat. Nor could I say I hated it. Dragon Quest IV somehow manages to not offend. In the end, I rather enjoyed the adventure. There's just so much to love. I ultimately wish the fights had more depth to them, but when it comes down to it, I'm eagerly anticipating DQV. Maybe that's all that matters.

Sonic Chronicles

2008-10-24T16:33:00.000-07:00

Sonic Chronicles The Dark Brotherhood
RPG - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 Saves
1 player / WLAN Chao Trading

Any mention of Sonic these days, and you'll be met with sighs and groans. Sega has done a wonderful job of degrading and stomping on this once respected franchise. With such atrocities as Shadow the Hedgehog and to a lesser extent the Sonic Adventure games, the announcement of a Sonic RPG was met with sharp criticism and skepticism. Then Bioware announced they were developing it. Mass confusion followed. Would this be a return to glory, or simply another swing at the equine's corpse? Well, it depends how you look at it.

Bioware has stated that one of their challenges was getting people excited for Sonic's friends again. On that, they're completely correct. Gamers have not really warmed towards Big the Cat, Cream, Rouge the Bat, etc. When interviewed, Bioware stated that they "think [Sonic Chronicles] is going to revitalize the love of Sonic's friends." Uh... not quite. Although they pulled most of the characters from the Sonic universe into this story, the dialog hardly goes beyond their one-dimensional personalities we've seen thus far. But because of the RPG structure, Bioware has successfully made Sonic's friends an integral part of the game. You need to include certain characters to utilize their strengths in party-based combat. You need to use certain characters to use their special abilities on the world map. You didn't expect to fly around with Knuckles looking for randomly generated gems to hiphop music in Sonic Adventure 2. But in Sonic Chronicles, you expect party travel. It fits and makes perfect sense.

Sonic Chronicles is pretty much what you would expect from a "Sonic RPG". It has a hokey story. It has action-y gameplay. It has its own style. And it's got bursts of speed (amidst a few lengthy fights). For a Bioware game, it is strange that the biggest weakness is the dialog. Perhaps they didn't have much freedom with the material, but the story comes off being simplistic and childish. I guess it's a Sonic game after all. Gems are stolen. Sonic and friends have to get them back. Blah blah blah. What was a little odd was how much sci-fi was thrown into the story. There are space ships and laser cannons and aliens - quite a departure from Sonic's early days of animal-controlled robots. Oh wait, I guess it was always a bit sci-fi. Known for their dialog trees, Bioware does little with conversation here. Instead of having multi-branching paths, most of response options are there to clarify and provide additional information rather than affect the story. The only thing I could see was that at one point, Amy Rose came up to me and thanked me for being so nice to her, which I presume she wouldn't do if I had chosen otherwise.

The game operates almost entirely off of stylus controls. Wandering around the overworld simply requires you directing your character with a stylus. Press down on the touchscreen and your character will start heading that same direction. Sometimes you'll encounter objects that you can interact with, such as talking with a NPC, opening a treasure box, or doing a spin-dash through a loop. In these situations, an icon will pop up and you can perform that action with L or R - the only buttons you can utilize in the game. You're holding onto the DS with your other hand anyway, so the L/R shoulders make the perfect action button. Although Sonic has never been stylus-controlled before, it actually manages to feel natural. Just like how most of 2D Sonic is moving in a direction and jumping at key times, Chronicles' movement mirrors that kind of flow. The game also offers quite a bit to explore. There are rings to find and chao to acquire in each world. There are also puzzles which require input from each of your characters to solve. And in true Bioware fashion, you'll be able to trigger quests, and a log is provided to keep track of them and your progress.

Combat, on the other hand, is as non-Sonic as you can get. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. For the most part, the visible encounters, menus and options resemble that of a Japanese RPG. You select commands for party members, and the turns will play out according to Agility/Speed attributes. Instead of magic spells, Sonic and friends have POW moves which require POW Points. When you execute a POW move, you have to do some work. The mechanics resemble Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents where circles will appear on-screen, and you'll have to tap them and follow their motions to a specific timing. On the flip side, your enemies will also perform POW moves that you can defend with the same types of motions. This type of system encourages more interaction in the battles, and I welcome it. True, having this system can slow the game down and force battles to be long. But as a player, I'm now a participant in what would otherwise be a monotonous endeavor. Another interesting aspect of battles are the escape sequences. If you flee from battle, or an enemy does, your party members will begin a side-scrolling running stage. Obstacles and speed-ups will be scattered along the ground to impede or aid your running. Your interact by tapping on characters to make them jump. The running is automatic. This resembles the forced-scrolling stages seen in the Sonic Advance games.

There are definitely some downsides though. Chronicles has the weakest music of any Sonic game. The original Sonic the Hedgehog had amazing tunes. And Naganuma re-imagined Sonic music with his take on Rush. I was not a fan of the Sonic Adventure soundtracks. But in Chronicles, it's so generic and forgettable that I don't even have an opinion. That's even worse, in my book. Also, for some reason, there is lag when pulling up the option menu. You'll face it whenever you want to use an item, equip a Chao for its special abilities, check you quest log or save your game. Another irritation is in the way the game is structured. Sometimes you'll accidentally trigger a story advance, with no way to go back, robbing you of exploration opportunities. Finally, the game manual and in-game help menus are inadequate. There's no documentation anywhere of what the status icons/effects do. Despite finishing the game, I still have no clue what some of the attacks are.

In the end, Sonic Chronicles feels very different from other RPGs I've played. I didn't really care that it wasn't the pinnacle of storytelling or user interface. I didn't care that some of the battles dragged on and on, as I alternated between using POW attacks which broke through enemy defenses, and defending to fill my POW Points back up. I didn't care that the ending was a complete tease. Flawed or not, Sonic Chronicles was completely entertaining to play. It's been a long time since anyone could say that about a Sonic game.

New Super Mario Bros.

2008-08-22T00:20:00.000-07:00

New Super Mario Bros.
Platformer - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 Saves
1 player / 4 player WLAN

The original Super Mario Bros. was always my favorite of the series. Yes, subsequent entries had more variety to the stages, new power ups, and different enemies, but they just didn't resonate with me very well. So when Nintendo set out to make a sequel of the original for the DS, I was ecstatic. That is... until it came out. I absolutely hated it.

Where to begin... Let's start with the stages. Imagine my disappointment when I started up the game, hit a few blocks, jumped on a few goombas, and hit the end flag in about 20 seconds. The original SMB never had such short stages, and it certainly was a lot more challenging. Thankfully, the stages grow in length as the game progresses, but the difficulty level remains pretty easy overall.

The gameplay remains relatively intact. Your main weapon is still your feet. Jumping on enemies will get rid of most of them, including bosses. But this time you have some new jumping tricks. The coolest addition is the wall jump. It allows you to use your surrounding environment to scale higher heights. There is also a Ground Pound attack, in which you jump, and then stomp straight down. This creates a more powerful attack, and can break blocks as well. The style of the game is most reminiscent of the first Super Mario Bros., but you will see heavy influences of Mario 3 and World in the maps and stage design. But the limited musical tracks, classic swimming stages, and lack of flight definitely make it a tribute to the first.

Like the original Super Mario Bros., you've got your Mushroom, your fireball plant, and the invincibility star as power-ups. But this time they've added a Mega Mushroom, Mini Mushroom, and Turtle Shell. The Mega Mushroom lasts temporarily, but increases Mario's size to almost the height of the screen. He's invulnerable in this state, and depending on how much he destroys, he'll get some 1ups out of it too. The Mini Mushroom turns Mario extremely small. In exchange for the risk of a one-hit kill, Mini Mario can enter tiny passageways, run on water, and have floatier jumps. Finally, Shell Mario can hide in his shell to avoid taking hits. In addition, he'll be able to slide around in turtle shell form to attack enemies and hit blocks. The problem with these powerups is that they have limited usage. The Mega Mushroom is not well integrated into the game, and seems to be only useful for grabbing some extra lives. There's no stages that make use of his gigantic size, making it feel like an afterthought. Mini and Shell Mario are both a blessing and a curse. Sometimes the floaty physics of Mini Mario actually make stages much harder, if not impossible, to play. And the problem with Shell Mario is that the shell slide will activate while you're running, so if you're caught unprepared, you could slide right off a ledge. The thing is, although some stage areas are designed with those power-ups in mind, the power-up is often unavailable in that stage or makes it a random drop. That means you will have to replay a previous stage to get the necessary power-up, clear it, and then head back to the stage where you needed the power-up for entry. If you die, you'll have to do it all again. There's a lot of back-and-forth. It creates a tedious loop. Perhaps to alleviate this situation, you're also able to store one power-up on the touchscreen. But often, these power-ups are put into storage by a random drop, so chances are you won't have what you want in inventory. Overall, these new power-ups proved to be more aggravating than delightful.

Another aspect that is totally inexcusable is its save system. Being a portable game, you would think that Nintendo would add some sort of save anywhere feature, such as a temporary quicksave. There is no such thing. Instead, if you want to save, you have to either clear a tower/fort stage, or unlock an optional path on the map screen. When I'm playing on-the-go, I don't have time to dedicate playing 5 stages all at once. The solution according to the manual? Close the DS lid and put it in Sleep Mode. How is that a solution? What if your battery runs out while you're living your real life? What if you happen to forget that your DS is in sleep mode, and you leave it on for 2 weeks without playing? Why all games, especially portable, don't have a temporary quicksave feature is beyond me. If the game simply erases the quicksave after you've loaded it, then the game is just as challenging, but infinitely more convenient. It's ridiculous that NSMB only offers hardsaves in a select few save-points.

But for all that is wrong with the game, I finally "get" it. If you're just trying to beat the game, New Super Mario Bros. is a pretty mediocre experience. But NSMB incorporates a collectathon element, which ends up being its saving grace. Every stage of the game has 3 Star Coins to find. Some of them are out in the open, and may take some work to get. Others are a little more hidden and require logic and deduction to find. They'll test your timing and ability to make precision jumps. They'll also test your resourcefulness in using what the stage offers you. This is where NSMB shines. The design annoyances are still present for the Star Coins, but there are also some really creative locations for them as well. In addition, several stages have more than one exit. Find them, and you'll be able to access new paths on the world map. These new elements make NSMB play more like a puzzle game, and that actually changes the game considerably.

With design mishaps like poorly integrated power-ups, needing to replay previous stages, and lack of a quicksave, New Super Mario Bros. is full of irritation. Play the game to the end and you're likely to be bored by the lack of difficulty. But the inclusion of alternate exits and out-of-the-way coins transform the game into more of a thinking man's platformer. Pursue these extras, and you'll find that the bulk of the challenge lies here. Try as I may, I could hate it no longer. NSMB is flawed, but fun.

Bionic Commando

2008-08-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

Bionic Commando
Action - Gameboy
Password
1 player

Things you can do with a grappling arm:

- Scale new heights
- Swing over chasms
- Stun enemies
- Grab items

While everyone else is playing Bionic Commando Rearmed, I thought about revisiting the classic. Only, my NES is nearly impossible to get working nowadays, even with the "blow trick", and my Bionic Commando cart is MIA. I knew there was a Gameboy Bionic Commando, so I decided to do some research on it to find out if it was worth playing. What I discovered was that 1) There was also another Bionic Commando released for GBC called Elite Forces and 2) The original GB one is a remix of the NES Bionic Commando. Thanks to an Amazon Marketplace seller, I got the chance to experience the GB version for myself.

The game is very much an action platformer, with a twist. Unlike most platformers where you have options like wall jumping and double jumping to reach the next platform, Bionic Commando has no jumping at all. Instead, the gameplay centers around a grappling arm. Oh. You'll need to use plenty of weapons to dispatch of enemies as well, but the star of the show is the arm. You can shoot your grappling arm out horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Latch onto a platform, and you can propel yourself up to it. Latch onto a ceiling, and you can use your grappling arm as a rope to swing across. But the horizontal distance you swing depends on how much your arm is extended. And your arm extension depends on the distance between your character and the object your arm is clinging to. The control demands precision in positioning your character, as well as timing of the grappling arm. Luckily, the controls are very tight and rewarding. The design of the stages is such that you absolutely have to get comfortable utilizing the mechanics of the arm, or you cannot advance. You can choose what stages you want to play on the map. But every time you move, enemies will move as well. If you and an enemy contact, you'll enter an encounter stage where you can pick up some much needed continues.

Being a remix of the NES game, the grappling arm, weapons, armor and radio are mostly identical. The map and stages are also similar to the original as well. Visuals take a noticeable hit - everything is far less detailed. Maybe as a consolation, both the sound quality and musical composition are vastly improved. It also seems as if the action is much more fast paced in this version. But there are some noteable differences. Capcom rebalanced the grenade launcher/rocket launcher so that it's not nearly as powerful as before. In the NES version, taking down the power reactors took 3 hits of the launcher to finish a stage. Not so in the GB version. It takes about 10 hits, which forces you to engage enemies in the power room. This is another area in which the Gameboy differs. The power room encounters in the NES version were relatively uniform. But on the GB, they introduce new bosses in the power room segments. Couple that with the reduced effectiveness of the launcher, and you've got a higher difficulty end encounters. The swinging segments are generally easier on the GB version, except the difficulty ramps up considerably by the end. One major change is that the Albatross vehicle is a boss in the NES version, but is an entire stage in the GB version. It will put your grappling skills to the test. Finally, the last major change is that map encounters with the enemy are now horizontally scrolling action stages. In the NES version, they were vertical scrolling, reminiscent of Ikari Warriors. But in the GB version, its style is more consistent with the rest of the game.

Overall, the Gameboy Bionic Commando recreates the experience of the NES version. Bionic Commando on Gameboy certainly makes some changes - sometimes making the game easier, other times making it harder, and sometimes making it just plain different. Nevertheless, the two versions share the same game mechanics, familiar stages, and essence. But the problem with a remix/remake is that it will inevitably be compared to the original. You expect certain things because the original had them, and when they're not duplicated exactly or at all, it's hard not to be disappointed. And so I find myself conflicted. Bionic Commando GB is unquestionably a good game, and reminds me of exactly what I miss about old school gaming - tight controls and level design that revolves around mastery of the gameplay mechanics. But I can't shake the feeling that something was missing from it all. Maybe what I really want in a Bionic Commando game isn't the swinging, isn't the grappling, but merely a face explosion.

Meccha! Taiko no Tatsujin DS - 7tsu no Shima no Daibouken

2008-08-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

Meccha! Taiko no Tatsujin DS - 7tsu no Shima no Daibouken
Rhythm - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup
1 player / 4 player WLAN

Not much to say really. It's Namco's rhythm game, Taiko no Tatsujin, but on the DS. This is the 2nd Taiko game for the DS, and like the first, it comes with two drumstick stylii to be used for the game. It also comes with a set of stickers. Who can resist free stuff?

The coolest thing about the game is the touchscreen interface. Of course nothing can compare to beating on the taiko prop in the arcades, but tapping the screen with your two stylii drumsticks is pretty intuitive. You can play the game with the normal Dpad/buttons too, but what's the point? The game is similar in style to most other rhythm games. "Notes" will scroll across the screen and when it hits a certain point, you tap the screen to time it exactly. On the DS version, there is a picture of a giant taiko drum on the touchscreen. If the note is red, you hit the drum with your stylus. If the note is blue, you hit a space outside of the drum. There are some special freestyle segments too, where you drum as fast as you can to rack up more points, and some other parts where you're forced to alternate your red and blue hits. All in all, it's a simple system, but it works pretty well.

The songs themselves are a mix of Jpop, classical music, folk songs, anime themes and namco video game music. The game sports a total of 50 songs, which ain't too shabby. And there are several difficulties for each song, so there's plenty of material here.

There's some interesting things about the game's structure. There are a lot of hidden events, akin to achievements. So when you hit certain milestones, you'll get emails, bonuses and congratulation screens. The in-game email system is full of personality. You'll receive messages from the game's cast of characters, each with their own unique writing style. They'll sometimes "attach" rewards, such as clothes for your drum to wear or additional instrument sounds to play with. Definitely the game's audience is more geared towards kids, but it's still very charming. The email system acts as a mark of progress, so it's kinda cool. There's also a story mode in the game that lets you unlock some new songs. It's kind of strange in that they won't let you fight bosses unless you've unlocked the proper clothing and wear them for the encounter. But the story mode has unique challenges to them including:

- Finish song at 100% rating
- Hit notes to damage bosses, as they send obstacles to block your vision of the note charts
- Play vs 3 computer opponents for highest score, as they use powerups and send little creatures to block where you can hit on the drum

Aside from the story mode, the general free play mode lets you play any song at whatever difficulty you want. Included is also a 2x/3x scroll speed option. The one thing I noticed is that compared to a Konami Bemani game, Taiko no Tatsujin is more mainstream-friendly. By that, I mean it's easy. In Bemani games, lots of times you are struggling to even pass a song and that's a big challenge in of itself. When passing that 9 foot song in DDR or 11 rated song in Beatmania IIDX, you feel a great sense of accomplishment. That type of feeling is lost in Taiko no Tatsujin (at least... until you unlock Oni mode). Instead, Taiko has a very lenient system. Even if you are messing up like crazy, chances are that you'll pass it. But there is still challenge to be found in precision. Like other rhythm games, playing for score is a big thing, so while it may be easy to pass a song, it is difficult to get 100% Good notes. So depending on what type of game player you are, the lack of difficulty in passing songs may or may not affect you. Finally there's a multiplayer versus mode, where you can even play 4 players off of one cart. The only drawback is that if you're the only one with the game, you'd be the only one with the two drumstick stylii and your friends would need to find additional props (fingers possibly?) or use the button controls.

Overall, the game works. The touchscreen interface allows for a more tactile experience than simply hitting buttons. Sure it can't match holding real drumsticks on the console and arcade versions, but it's a workable substitute. Plus I'm a sucker for unique accessories like the bundled drumstick stylii. With plenty of different modes offered and a sizeable songlist, Meccha! Taiko no Tatsujin DS is a whole lot of game.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

2008-07-28T10:08:00.000-07:00

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Action Adventure - Nintendo 64
Battery - 3 saves
1 player

If this reads a bit like my take on FFX, it's unintentional. I've always respected the care that went into the Zelda games, particularly the first one. But I never really thought they were any good, aside from the more action-oriented The Adventure of Link. Traditional Zelda was a mixture of action, adventure, and puzzle. The problem is, it did not excel in any of those areas. Simply fusing elements from different genres doesn't really cut it for me. But Ocarina of Time has historical significance. Being the first game to receive a perfect review score in Famitsu, it generated a lot of buzz. Now that I've come around to playing it, I went into it with lots of skepticism. Turns out, Ocarina of Time is so much more better than the old Zelda games that I actually enjoyed it.

Ocarina of Time is the first 3D Zelda, and it's much better for it. First of all, the combat is much deeper than ever before. In 2D Zelda, it was just a simplistic hack 'n slash type of affair. Just point Link in the direction of the enemy and jam on the A-button. Not so in Ocarina. The 3rd dimension allows for consideration of height. Some enemies will be slightly higher or lower than you when they toss projectiles. But to compensate, you have fine control over your shield angle with the analog stick, so you can reflect projectiles wherever you want. The 3rd dimension also allows for more interesting enemy patterns. Some of the enemies have shields and will only lower when they attack you. They'll even do some jumping attacks that do more damage. This could get disorienting in 3D, so Ocarina employs a lock-on system that has influenced 3D action design today (DMC3, ZOE2, etc). While locked on, you now have a lot of evasive maneuvers in the form of a side-stepping, rolling, and hopping backwards, etc. It makes the fighting much more engaging than the older games. One negative aspect is that the controls feel a little bit clunky. The Z-trigger activates lock-on and if there's an enemy in your view, it will snap the camera to them. But the Z-trigger is also the same button for recentering the camera. So sometimes you are trying to do a camera reset so you can see what's ahead of you. But if the game picks up an enemy, it'll snap to them instead, which is not what you want. Some of your commands are available when locked-on, and another set of commands are available when lock is not activated which complicates this matter further. There have been many times in which I want to camera-reset, then roll, to escape an attack. But then the game picks up an enemy in my field of view and then because now it's locked onto the enemy instead of camera reset, I do a jumping attack instead of a roll. The game has an option to change default Z-trigger behavior from LOCK to HOLD, which means lock-on only happens when you hold down Z. But because the option screen is only available before you start up a game, not during a play session, I keep forgetting to change it and am reminded only after I've started the game and become frustrated with the controls. Aside from that, the combat is much improved from the older Zeldas.

One area in which Ocarina of Time really shines is its puzzles. Because of its transition to 3D, Nintendo got very creative with its puzzle design. Many puzzles require using projectiles to trigger events, so the 1st person view when wielding a slingshot, for instance, is very natural and accurate. The game also takes full advantage of height differences of crates and platforms, so box puzzles and minor platforming segments are well integrated. I never thought much of the old Zelda puzzles, but here in Ocarina, I've had to stop and observe my surroundings, consider what's in my inventory, talk to characters for hints, and logically deduce my next step. I've been stumped. But usually, when I figure out the solution, I end up appreciating its cleverness. I'm also glad they kept the "Puzzle solved!" chime from the old Zeldas, as it adds a touch of personality. The puzzles also extend somewhat to towns too. There's just a lot of optional things to do in the game, and some of these tasks require experimentation and thinking, just like the dungeon puzzles. The puzzles are very much the highlight.

Some of the minor things I didn't like were mostly related to the dialog. First of all, the text scrolls at an abnormally slow pace. Your only options are to bear with it, or hit the text fast-forward button, which is so fast that it doesn't allow you to read any of it. The other thing is, the actual dialog is pretty bad too. Girls will add "teehee" at the end of their sentences, there are some awkward transitions from a tragic event that just occurs to a character being immediately super happy afterwards, etc. It just seems childish and not very well thought out. Finally, it does the Dragon Quest thing where the game will ask you to do something? Yes/No. No. "Oh! But you must! Can you do this for me? Yes/No" No. "Oh! But you must! Can you do this for me?" Why do they even give you a dialog option at all if you're forced into a decision anyway? It's really stupid, and Ocarina does this at many points in the game.

Despite the annoyances I have with the dialog and the clunkiness associated with having camera-reset and enemy lock-on be the same button, The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time has much to offer. Its combat system has influenced modern 3D action games. The puzzles are really well done - probably the best of any game I've played yet. And it offers a ton of things to do besides the main quest. I would hardly call Ocarina perfect, but I can definitely see its appeal. It's a well constructed game that ultimately impressed me, despite initial reservations.

Final Fantasy X

2008-07-15T14:06:00.001-07:00

Final Fantasy X
Role Playing Game - Playstation 2
Memory Card - 99 saves
1 player

Final Fantasy and I don't go well together. The first one was great, and actually got me interested in the genre after the original Dragon Warrior bored me to tears. Then I noticed that as I completed IV, V, VI, and IX, not a whole lot had changed. Yes, Square added ATB, job systems, weapon/item customization, melodrama and awful minigames. But they were all built on the same type of basic structure that the original followed. It had the same repetitive, brainless fights it always did. The extent of strategic depth was limited primarily to casting LIT on a water enemy. While other developers were making strides, FF remained essentially faithful to its simple roots. Given that history, I wasn't looking forward to playing FFX at all. Well. Color me surprised.

Final Fantasy X is Square's most progressive FF yet. As far as the actual fights themselves, there's a bunch of new systems. The first is that ATB is out, and a new graphical representation of turns is on display, a la Grandia. It definitely helps in planning out a strategy, because it will show you how many turns you have until an enemy gets a turn. It will also show you the effects on turn order if you use agility effects. In addition, you can swap party members in and out mid-turn. What this means is that if your party member is low on hp, you can swap in a fresh character. More significant than the systems themselves is that Square actually built the entire game around these systems. There are basically six types of attacks you can do - physical, fire, water, lightning, ice, and non-elemental magic. Every single enemy in the game has strengths and weaknesses. For example, one enemy may be weak in fire, but ice heals them, water does 0 damage, lightning does 1/2 damage, physical does normal damage. Every enemy is unique. Equipped items or spells will allow you to see these strengths/weaknesses. Because of this entirely new concept, you will be switching characters in and out, as well as switching weapons and armor mid-battle to maximize your opportunities. You absolutely cannot play FFX with just "Fight", like you could in previous FFs. To also facilitate this strengths/weaknesses concept, you will find stations in towns that will teach you about some of the monsters in the areas. The last thing you want to do is it be face-to-face with a new monster, with no idea what tricks they have up their sleeves. This is a FF where you can easily die, as a lot of monsters have special attacks and counterattacks. Boss battles are also far more interesting than FFs of old. Sometimes bosses will have different body parts, like Grandia, and will do devastating combos if those body parts are allowed to go in sequence. Other times, you will have special options called Trigger commands, that incorporate positioning. It reminds me a lot of Panzer Dragoon Saga in that regard. It's as if Square FINALLY realized how to make combat fun.

A lot of mention usually goes to its Sphere Grid system. When you level up, you don't necessarily gain any stats or skills. A level up merely gives you some traveling power on the grid. Think of it as a boardgame, with multibranching paths. Each character starts in a certain part of the grid that leads to their "natural" path, ie. Yuuna's section has stats and spells that are beneficial for a white mage. But there are junctures where you can leave that path. The advantage of the Sphere Grid is that it allows you to customize a character to your liking. But if you wander around aimlessly, your character could be pretty disadvantaged vs a dedicated path.

Outside of game systems, there's some pretty cool stuff as well. FFX features some of the best puzzles I've encountered in a traditional jRPG. Most of them involve taking a sphere here, inserting it there, push a stone tablet over there, and experimenting with all these things to unlock doors. The best part is they designed these puzzle sequences without any enemies to disrupt you. They are pretty challenging in of themselves, so it's better that they're focused experiences. I also enjoy the attention to detail throughout the game. Townsfolk will walk around, sit down, get back up, and walk in a different direction. The spontaneous behavior of the people brings about a sort of realism and livelihood to the towns. There is a foreign people in the game world, and the way FFX handles their foreign language and your learning of it is really cool too. FFX is also the first FF to feature voice, and there's lots of it. It is somewhat controversial, but I really like its addition. It accentuates dramatic scenes, and makes comedic scenes funnier, infamous laughing scene excluded. But a huge irritation for me is that character lips are not synched with the voice. It causes a disconnect, and I played the game in its original language! It's an unfortunate oversight on Square's part, because they payed attention to other details in the game.

Still, for all that FFX did right, there are many aspects of the game that are worst-in-series. I understand that Final Fantasy has been striving to be the de facto cinematic RPG out there. But FFX really goes overboard. For instance, the first 10 or so hours of the game, you play very little of it. It's all walk here, 5 minute cutscene, walk there 2 minute cutscene, fight a 1 minute battle, watch a 10 minute cutscene. That sort of pretentious crap pissed me off in Kojima games, but FFX is even worse. One time, the game shifted to a cutscene where a character said 2 lines of dialog. Then it switched back to the overworld. Not every piece of dialog deserves its own cutscene, Square. It's like they finally make a FF that's fun to play, but they won't let you play it. It does get better in that regard, but FFX is still saturated with cutscenes overall.

Even though I really like the battle engine, there are some poor design flaws. First of all, unless a party member performs an action in battle, they will not receive exp. So what that means is that you will be trying to fight each enemy, rotating your 7 members in and out so that they can all share the experience. It doesn't make the game any more fun or challenging - simply tedious. But most frustrating of all are the cheap deaths. Sometimes an enemy will ambush you, get first strike, do a special attack that immobilizes all your party members, and then it's game over before you can perform a single action. Once again, this doesn't mean the game is hard. It means it's cheap. If you don't have the right party members or equipment when a battle starts, you could be caught in that situation. Even if you have the right equipment, many defensive options only increase your chances of resisting those attacks but do not guarantee it. So you can still be in a no-opportunity, insta-death situation even if you have proper equipment. It has pissed me off on more than a few occasions, causing me to shelf the game for a time.

Finally, there are some general game problems that also detract from the experience. For one, equipment management is awful. Imagine you can hold up to 200 weapons/armor. The list fills up in the order you obtain them (via purchase, discovery, or enemy drops). There is no auto-sort, but you can manually sort if you'd like. Now imagine you've picked up your 201'st piece of equipment. Do you keep it? Well. First you look at what the weapon offers. Then you look through your list, scrolling down 200 entries to see if the weapon you picked up is better or not than what you have. Now repeat that every time you pick up another piece of equipment. Or what about selling items? How do you know which piece of equipment is crappy enough that you wanna get rid of it? Same thing. Is weapon #25 better than 26-200? You have to manually scroll back and forth through the list to compare your items. It's horribly implemented to the point where I would spend an hour of my time every now and then to manually sort all the items to group them by character. The game is also broken in its customization. You can fuse abilities to weapons/armor, and the summon creatures at the cost of certain items. Problem is... those items are generally only obtainable via Rikku's Steal command or Bribe. If you use Steal, you can only get 1-2 items per fight. Most of the items, especially rare ones, are a lot more accessible via the Bribe command. But even at the very end of the game, to bribe a single enemy, I would lose my entire savings built up in the last 60 hours. It is utterly ridiculous. Oh, there are ways of farming lots of money, by perhaps bribing the right monster and selling the proceeds to bribe some more. But unless you cheat and use a FAQ, no sane person is going to use all their money to bribe a random enemy, get the proceeds and then see if they're worth it to use/sell, document it, then reset the game, reload from save, and repeat for the 500 types of enemies in the game. (I tried it a couple times and then promptly gave up.) The design decisions in the game are baffling.

So in the end, I come away with mixed feelings. Without question, Final Fantasy X is the only FF I really enjoyed playing. The challenging enemies, wealth of strategic combat options, and sphere puzzles all make X stand out from its generic predecessors. But the constant interruptions via cutscenes, poor equipment management, and ridiculously cheap game-overs are absolutely infuriating. Still, I'd much rather play another FFX than another FF I-IX, which says a lot about FFX's progress. Or maybe it says a lot about the others' lack-of.

Guitar Hero On Tour

2008-07-10T19:34:00.000-07:00

Guitar Hero On Tour
Rhythm - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 saves
1 player / 2 player WLAN

With the widespread success of Guitar Hero and Rock Band in the US, it was only a matter of time before someone set their sights on the portable market. Activision & Vicarious Visions became that someone. And the DS became their platform of choice. The story goes that Guitar Hero On Tour was an experiment for Activision. Would they be able to reproduce the console experience on a portable? I'd say: very little. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

First of all, Guitar Hero On Tour comes with a Guitar Grip that fits in the GBA slot. By default, it fits the DSlite, but the package also comes with a converter for DSfat owners like me. The guitar grip is designed to mimic pressing fingers on the fret buttons a la the console guitar controllers, and aside from dropping the 5th button, it works really well. Tactile feel of the buttons is good. The grip also comes with an adjustable velcro strap for your hand, so you can simultaneously hold the DS and play notes at the same time. Although the guitar grip controller allows you to play notes as intuitively as the console versions, there is a major problem. Ergonomics are a sour point. Up until you find a hand position that works comfortably, you will likely be in a lot of pain. Between the fast fingerwork required to play higher level songs, supporting the weight of the DS on the same hand, and angling the DS so that you can actually see the note charts, the game puts a lot of stress on your weaker hand. Immediately after a couple of songs, I felt sharp pains shooting through my left wrist. It's a system of trial and error to find a playable position, and that's a big let down on a game like this.

But things aren't all wrong. The biggest selling point for me was that the game also comes with a pick-stylus. Since the DS has a touchscreen, it's only natural that they utilize it. With a pick in hand, it feels more like real strumming than that silly guitar controller flap. Just stroke the touchscreen with the pick left or right, and it plays the notes you've fingered. It's intuitive and has the right sensitivity. To use the whammy bar for long notes, you simply slide the pick left and right rapidly. Your touchscreen might not like the scratches, but it sure does feel natural. And when you're not using the pick, you just slide it into the guitar grip, where it has its own storage space. It's details like that where you realize that Activision and VV were serious about making a quality product.

The audio and visuals are also very high quality. The game contains 25 songs, and the bulk of them are exclusive to On Tour. The songs are a mix of genres, from Pat Benatar to Nirvana to Santana - mostly from the last decade though. As expected, many of the songs are covers, but I was surprised to hear Maroon 5 blasting from the speakers fully intact. The game sports four difficulties, with Easy being for the truly rhythmless, and Expert for ... well... experts. The song pattens I've gone through in Normal and Hard have been pretty fun, and are pretty much in line with all other RedOctane/Harmonix releases. No complaints there.

The game also offers 2 player modes, assuming you have a friend with the guitar grip. There's competitive play, where you can actually attack your opponent with DS specific options... and the normal co-op from the console versions. I don't know anyone with the game, so I did not get a chance to test out these features.

If the goal of the game is to simply duplicate the feeling of left hand/fret buttons - right hand/strum to rhythm and music, On Tour is a decent attempt. The addition of the pick/touchscreen for the DS actually makes it better than the console versions for the strumming experience. But if the goal of the game is to feel like a guitar player, On Tour falls completely short. Having to balance the DS with your palm while frantically hitting buttons with fingers from the same hand is not the challenge Activision aimed for. In addition, even though Star Power can be activated in three different ways, all the methods interrupt the flow of rocking out, versus the guitar lift in the console versions. Make no mistake. Guitar Hero On Tour is a unique and fun rhythm game that takes full advantage of the DS' capabilities. But it does not at all emulate the feel of performing. For me, it doesn't have to. The cool guitar grip peripheral and being able to strum are reasons enough to warrant its existence. It's a Guitar Hero that offers not a lesser, but a different experience altogether than any of its console counterparts.

Yggdra Union

2008-06-18T00:15:00.001-07:00

Yggdra Union
SRPG - Gameboy Advance
Battery Backup - 3 saves, 1 quicksave
1 player

Developer Sting is one to look out for. The last time they made a game, they created a different interpretation than others in its class. Riviera was that game. And what Riviera did for RPGs, Yggdra Union aims to do with SRPGs.

Like other SRPGs, Yggdra Union has many of the same basics. There's grid movement, the usual rock-paper-scissors unit types (knights, archers, mages, swordsmen, axemen, etc), and stat progression via experience points. In most turn-based combat, a viable strategy is to attack an opponent with multiple units. While the units trade blows, the assumed end result is that the opponent's health is chipped away until one of your units finally kills them. Not so in Yggdra Union. The entire philosophy of combat is completely changed in this title. Here, each turn consists of one or more fights. To damage an opponent, you have to win that fight. That means that in the typical 6-vs-6 fight, if you kill 4 of their soldiers, and they kill all 6 of yours, you are the only one to lose health (morale in Yggdra). It also means that if you attack that enemy on a subsequent turn, you face another 6-vs-6 fight. With this battle system philosophy in place, you should ONLY attack an enemy if you know you will win. Simply throwing all your units at an enemy usually won't work. That means that you absolutely need to take every opportunity to gain an advantage - terrain bonuses, weapon affinity bonuses, aggressive attacks, and card powers.

Wait, card powers? Nope, it's not what you think. There are cards in the game, but there's no deck, and no randomness in drawing cards. Instead, the cards serve 4 purposes:

1. They determine your number of turns. Before each scenario, the game will tell you to choose 4 or 12 or 14 or however many cards Sting thought you would need for the stage. When the battle begins, you choose a card each turn. Once you use that card, you can't use it for the rest of the battle (unless it's a multi-part battle).

2. They determine your movement for the turn. Each card has a number on it indicating how many boxes your units can move on a grid. Some of the more powerful cards allow up to movement 12, which you can split among any or all of your units.

3. They determine your attack power. Each card has another number indicating how well you'll fight with the card and how much morale damage inflicted. This number increases as you win fights.

4. Finally, each card has an ability associated with it. Some of these cards are good in the right context, ie elemental magic, but others are tide-shifters. Use them correctly, and you can turn your attack that was sure to lose, into a win.

This interesting card system is only the beginning of Sting's bag of tricks. Not only are you allowed one card per turn, but you're only allowed one attack per turn. That's where the concept of "unions" come in. If you arrange your squad into specific shapes with respect to your attacker, they form a union and attack the enemy together. Each unit in the union will face off sequentially against the enemy. If the enemy is isolated, they will experience "battle fatigue" and will start each subsequent battle with one less unit. That means if you have a 5-unit union vs 1 enemy, the first fight will be 6-vs-6, the second 6-vs-5, and so on until the fifth fight you will be battling 6-vs-2. Manage your formation units well, and you can easily stack the odds in your favor. But be aware that the enemy can form unions too. Therein lies the core mechanic of the game. Since each stage has a limited number of turns, you have to make the most of your opportunities. Attacking with unions is the quickest way to progress through a scenario, but sometimes it's better to fight as smaller unions or individual units if you risk losing a fight, and hence unit morale. The choice of strategy is up to you.

The last thing to mention are the battles themselves. Once you enter a fight, as I mentioned earlier, usually it's 6 soldiers against 6 enemy soldiers. The fight takes place in real-time, and without any input, they will play out mathematically based on weapon affinities (sword > axe > spears), unit attack strength, land bonuses, etc. It's sort of like Dragon Force's 100-vs-100 battles. But even as you watch the fights play out, you have quite a bit of interaction in the form of an aggression meter. If you drain your aggression meter, your unit will inflict more damage than normal for as long as you drain it. If your unit has any elemental bonuses (ie fire damage), they will added in. If you charge your aggression meter, your unit will be more passive and hence weaker than normal. In addition to charging the meter to go aggro later, if you charge your meter to 100%, you can use your card's ability. Both aggressive tactics and using card abilities can sway the fight in your favor, so interaction with the aggression meter is a huge role. The enemy has a Rage meter that acts in a similar fashion.

That's the entire battle engine in a nutshell. There's so many different elements to it that it's hard to be concise, but it comes together quite nicely. Yggdra Union also has a little bit of interaction outside of the battles too. On each battlefield, there's a grid of possible locations. Sometimes if you stop on a particular square, you'll find a hidden item. Items are also very important because they can boost your unit stats and grant additional abilities. Alternatively, they can be used to heal morale of your units. Units can only equip one item at a time, and items only last for 1 to 3 stages. So item management is a critical planning aspect of the game. That's not all. The battlefield will also contain towns and castles. Sometimes, depending on the character, what items you have in possession, and what time of the day it is, you can obtain items from townsfolk by landing on these icons. Some will give you items freely, while others will only give you an item in exchange for another. Because all of these item discoveries are hidden, they're either a pleasant surprise or a completionist's worst nightmare. In addition, items can also drop from defeated enemies, or can be stolen during battle.

I absolutely love that Sting consistently tries out new ideas. Although the elements vary in their degrees of success, you have to commend a company that will not succumb to laziness and status quo. Here in Yggdra Union, the game systems are actually quite innovative and well implemented. The game is difficult, and - unless you utilize the wealth of items, weapon and elemental affinities, terrain, the aggression meter and card powers, basically everything available to you - Game Overs are not uncommon. That's quite a fresh breath of air compared to the stale "surround and pound" tactics of other SRPGs. There definitely are some design flaws here and there : the in-game tutorial is inadequate, causing confusion early-on; there are no help menus like Riviera; you cannot view enemy units prior to choosing your characters for a stage; battle conditions will change without warning ie. sudden appearance of enemy back-up; questionable pacing; the script has typos and is a bit hokey despite its serious content. But these things do not diminish what Sting has accomplished. Yggdra Union dares to shove past its stagnant peers. It's totally my type of game.

Grandia Xtreme

2008-06-06T20:18:00.000-07:00

Grandia Xtreme
RPG - PS2
Memory Card - 8 save slots
1 player

Do you ever get the feeling that some games were made just for you? The art, the characterization, the gameplay - everything about it seems perfect. Grandia was that game. And Grandia this is not.

Although this is the third game, they chose not to call this Grandia III. If you came expecting it to follow the same conventions as the main series, you'd be in for a shock. What we have here is a blend of RPG and dungeon crawler. Sadly, many of the things I liked about the Grandia series are removed. There is a bare-bones story to give GX a framework. It's hardly as ambitious as the other Grandias, but it's workable. What is a loss is the lack of characterization. There are 8 characters this time, and none of them are ever fleshed out. You never really end up caring for their causes. Grandia has always been character-driven, but Xtreme de-emphasizes that. Grandia also sported really nice locales - dungeons & towns had very unique and imaginative designs. I always looked forward to finding the next place to go because the locations were so creative. In GX, there is a total of two towns. Two. But one of them doesn't even have shops. That's where the dungeon crawler aspects intrude on my enjoyment.

Everything centers on a single town. There you have the only shops and the only save point in the game. Think about that for a moment. That means that even if you've been in a dungeon for two hours (which is minimal for GX), you cannot save your progress until you head back to town. There is no quicksave offered. This is probably GameArts/Enix's idea of pushing the survival aspect of the game. But it ends up being impractical. A quicksave wouldn't compromise their vision of difficulty, but it would make GX a lot more playable. Instead, they limit sessions only to those times where you can dedicate 3 hour blocks to it.

Their attempt to alleviate this is pretty irritating. Scattered throughout dungeons are Geo Points that allow your party to warp back to town. Some Geo Points allow only a one way trip. Others allow you to go back to town, and then warp back. The problem is, everytime you re-enter a dungeon via Geo Point or otherwise, all the enemies respawn. So using the Geo Point allows you to save. But the penalty is you have to wade through another hour or so of fighting again. There are no Geo Points right before a boss.

Ultimately this type of design drags down Grandia's greatest selling point - its battle engine. First, the good. Xtreme has the most sophisticated iteration of it yet. It's still as strategic as the previous entries, where everything plays out in semi-real time. The action pauses everytime it's a party-members turn, but timing and position heavily influence your attack effectiveness. Some interesting changes are all related to your SP attacks. In previous Grandias, everytime you enter a dungeon, you would get HP, MP, and SP. In Xtreme, your SP starts at 0 every time you enter a dungeon. But it builds up with time, and also whenever you hit or get hit. This is nice because it allows you to use your SP attacks frequently, and believe me, you'll need it. In addition to the way it builds up, you're also able to do combination SP attacks. Similar to Chrono Trigger, there are double SP attacks and triple SP attacks. Once you initiate the attack, it needs to wait until all members involved in the attack are ready (ie all members have to have their turn available) before it executes. And finally, you learn SP attacks mid-battle. When you use your SP attacks, you build levels for that attack. When you hit a certain threshold, you'll execute (and thus learn) a new attack. You'll be fighting an enemy and executing an attack in your arsenal, and then suddenly, you'll be doing something completely new and usually more powerful. It's a pleasant surprise, and you'll be able to use the special attack thereafter.

Xtreme also takes skills and mana eggs to the next level. Similar to Final Fantasy IX, you need to equip skills in order to build their levels. Skills range from getting attack bonuses toward certain creatures, to boosting your agility rating to being able to counterattack when hit. Skills play a critical role and can decide life and death. In GX, enemies actually drop skill scrolls, so they are plentiful. The key is in leveling up those skills so that they can be useful. On the magic side, I really did not like how mana eggs were simplified in Grandia II. Luckily, Grandia Xtreme is a step in the right direction. Just like skills, mana eggs are relatively plentiful. But instead of leveling the eggs through fights, eggs are leveled by fusion. Mix a Level 1 Stone Egg with a Level 1 Fire Egg and you create a Level 2 Burst Egg. Mix a Level 2 Burst Egg with a Level 1 Fire Egg and you create a Level 3 Bomb Egg. Each type of egg has its own set of spells, so you may want to keep a lower level egg around for what it can cast. When you fuse eggs, sometimes you get random bonuses such as 1/2 casting cost, extra damage, etc. Conveniently, the game keeps a log of what types of eggs are required to make other eggs.

But as great as these systems are in improving Grandia's gameplay, it's the overall design decisions that bog the game down. There will be times where you will need to leave the dungeon in order to save. And as I said, all the enemies respawn when you go back to where you left off. So you're constantly fighting over and over again. To make matters worse, some bosses are unfair in that if you have the right equipment, you'll do fine. But if you don't, you'll only last a couple of turns. You'll probably know what to do the next time, but that means going through the dungeon again (or Geo Point, if you saved) and fighting an hour or three's worth of battles again.

To top it all off is what I believe to be the game-breaking flaw. Consider this: You can choose your party. Evann has to stay constant, but you can choose 3 of the remaining 8. In certain parts of the story, you are forced to use certain characters. But characters that are not in your party do not gain experience. So if you want to keep your party balanced, you have to go back to town and keep switching characters. If that wasn't bad enough, the enemies are scaled to be at a level around your highest party member. Since Evann is always in your party, he is easily 10 levels above your other party members. That means that although he can fight normal enemies ok, your other members are struggling. Some of them can only hit enemies for 1 point of damage. Sure it keeps the game challenging at all times, but battles end up taking a long time to fight. But when you consider that bosses can also slaughter your underleveled party members, it forces you to level grind. But wait, even the weakest enemies take 5 minutes to fight, and give you minimal experience... and if you eventually level your underpowered members, Evann ends up leveling in the midst of it as well, which makes the enemies more powerful and the whole cycle repeats. Absolutely tedious.

And that's what Grandia Xtreme is. It turned what would otherwise be a great system against the player. Consider this: I've owned Grandia Xtreme since its Japanese launch date. That's 6.5 years before I could finish it. The boredom of going through the same dungeons over and over, as well as the irritation of fighting the same enemies over and over drove me absolutely mad. Many have wondered if Grandia could stand alone on its fun battle mechanics. Grandia Xtreme proves that it cannot.

Earth Defense Force 2

2008-05-29T19:10:00.001-07:00

Simple 2000 Vol. 81: THE Chikyuu Boueigun 2
Action - Playstation 2
Memory Card - 8 slots
2 Players

As part of the SIMPLE 2000 Japanese budget game series, expectations are generally pretty low. But out of nowhere, THE Chikyuu Boueigun (Earth Defense Force/EDF) was released for the PS2, and gamers took notice. First thing you should know: It was developed by Sandlot, who also made Gigantic Drive/Robot Alchemic Drive for the PS2. Also, even if some aspects scream budget, it was a solid game through and through. EDF2 is its bigger and better sequel.

Imagine a massive alien invasion, hostile beings with an expansive mothership, huge hulking robotic machines, and a fleet of space ships that block out the sky. You are pretty much earth's last hope against swarms of incoming aliens. First choose a character, and then pick 2 weapons from an arsenal of 100+ to tackle its assortment of stages. The two characters available each come with their own set of weaponry. The captain is very straight forward, but choose the Pale Wing character, and her flying ability completely changes the way you play.

EDF2 is a pure blastathon. It's a 3rd person shooter with full directional movement. You can jump, roll, and shoot. And you can board vehicles if they're available. While that might sound simplistic, it actually works in the game's favor. The game overwhelms you with a horde of enemies on-screen. You'll be attacked from everywhich direction, to your side, from the back, and even from above. It's not uncommon for there to be 50+ enemies surrounding you. As you can imagine, the action is absolutely intense. While the beginning enemies die in 1-2 hits, later stages feature a flood of enemies that can absorb tons of damage. You need to experiment with the weapons you have, and use the terrain of the stage to make it through.
EDF2 is a game that rewards quick reflexes, precision in making the most of your shots, and strategy for survival.

But the game is hardly perfect. Being a budget title, it lacks visual polish and a great soundtrack. The biggest complaint heard is regarding the framerate. When the screen gets busy and action gets chaotic, the framerate slows to a crawl - sometimes even to 1 fps. The hardware just isn't able to handle everything that's going on. I would argue that it's part of EDF2's charm, because I've never played a game before that attempted to have enemies on this large of a scale. It's so ambitious that the framerate stutter is like a proud reminder. Still, there are some nagging problems. First, the default control is garbage. It is set to auto-aim, which handicaps the game a lot. Not only does it make playing less interactive, but not being able to choose who to shoot can be a game-ender. To alleviate that, you need to set your controls to Technical, where it will function more like a console FPS - one analog stick to move, the other to aim. Second, some of the other default settings are annoying too. Cut scenes are done in real time, but as the camera shifts to focus in on the action, your character is running around blind. It's fixable, via the option screen, but I question these design decisions. While these are seemingly minor, the biggest problem of the game was that it's too long. There are over 70 stages, and not all of them are good. Some stages are really monotonous and simply a repeat of stuff you did before. I would get bored and stop playing for weeks, sometimes months, before picking it back up. The erratic pacing definitely had an effect on my enthusiasm.

Still, what EDF2 does right always won me back. The stages themselves vary in location and objective. Sometimes you'll fight masses of enemies through hills and valleys. Other times, you'll be exploring narrow caves in search of an alien nest. You'll even get to duel against a Godzilla-alike in a crowded city! One neat aspect of the game is that pretty much everything can be destroyed. The skyscraper blocking your aim of the spider monster? Fire some grenades and level it. That bridge the enemies are walking across? Take it down with a rocket. Destruction is fun! But what I loved most of all about EDF2 is that it captures the feeling of an alien invasion. When you see a swarm of enemies all around, it paints a bleak picture, and leaves you terrified. When you see UFOs dropping bombs and wreaking havoc on towns as the citizens flee, there's a sensation of urgency. It is an epic battle for survival. Some of the scenes look like inspired by War of the Worlds. It's just everything you envision an alien invasion to be.

Earth Defense Force 2 is largely regarded as one of the must-have import titles for the PS2. Its fans obsessively praise it, and consider it a mindblowing experience. While I do not share the same enthusiasm (I'd weed out maybe half of the stages), EDF2 is not doubt a good game. There aren't too many third person shooters out there, much less ones that are worth playing. But EDF2 manages to carve a unique identity for itself, and creates a convincing atmosphere. The alien invasion action game is without equal. Did I mention 2 player co-op?

Professor Layton and the Curious Village

2008-05-09T19:07:00.000-07:00

Professor Layton and the Curious Village
Puzzle Adventure - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 saves
1 player

Curious indeed. Known for its classy quasi-artstyle, Professor Layton is a stylus driven adventure game. The premise is that Professor Layton and his assistant are seeking the treasure of a wealthy Baron that has passed on. The Baron issued a public challenge offering the treasure to anyone who could find it. Thus the story begins.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village definitely plays like a traditional adventure game. You navigate through the different parts of town, talk to people and investigate items simply by poking at things with your stylus. But mostly, Layton is a puzzle game. The puzzles are very much what you might find in a brain teaser puzzle book. Among them, they'll test your knowledge of algebra, your spatial abilities, your logic, and even your reading comprehension. There's a bit of variety so it's hard to get bored. That all adds up to a game you can play for long stretches of time, or in short bursts depending on your mood. Since there's over 100 puzzles to rack your brains over, it'll last you a long time regardless.

Some of the nice touches that I enjoyed were some of the puzzle-y mini-games in addition to the normal puzzles you'll find. You'll be collecting items along the way, and even manipulating those items will be a puzzle in of themselves. Many of the puzzles are completely optional. For me, that just gave me more incentive to explore the city and talk to villagers to find them all. But in case you missed any, the game will archive them for you. The puzzles start out pretty easy, but quickly become challenging. Some are downright frustrating. Luckily, the game has a system where you can get up to 3 hints to solve a puzzle. During the exploration segments, you can discover coins to help you purchase these hints. Although the hints won't spell out the answer for you, they can be extremely helpful in determining a solution. The touchscreen itself is also quite an asset. For a lot of the puzzles, you can use your stylus as a "pencil" and write your notes on-screen. It acts very much like scratch paper. Unfortunately, I wish they had allowed that option on all the puzzles, but it is there on most of the math-y ones.

Although the puzzles are definitely a focal point, there are some cool things done for the adventure portions as well. In addition to the collectathon and exploration aspects, one thing that stood out for me was the animated FMV. Even though the DS and PSP are more than capable of doing FMV, I'm so used to seeing static images, so its inclusion is a pleasant surprise. There's a fair amount of animation here to progress the plot. With its unique art and fluid animation, it really complements the game's style very well, as does the British English voice acting. Plus, whenever you continue your game, the game will give you a "Story thus far..." recap of your present situation. There's a lot of nice touches like that.

If you couldn't tell, I found Professor Layton and the Curious Village an enjoyable romp. But despite my positive gushing, I couldn't help but think that Layton did not offer much that a brain teaser book couldn't. The fact that the DS touchscreen mimics scratch paper is a definite plus for gaming purposes, but if its best feature is to emulate 5th century practices, then perhaps all the tech isn't needed. Then again, if you enjoy the exploration offered by adventure games, Layton offers both worlds. And is far more polished than most.

Ryu ga Gotoku

2008-04-08T12:31:00.000-07:00

Ryu ga Gotoku
Action Adventure - Playstation 2
Memory Card - 8 Slots
1 player

SEGA doesn't have the greatest track record since going third party. But Ryu ga Gotoku ("Yakuza" in US) is widely regarded as a return to form. The development team consists of some former members of Smilebit. Comparisons have been drawn to Shenmue, Grand Theft Auto and even RPGs. While there are definitely elements of each, RgG is mostly an attempt at making an interactive Yakuza film.

To that end, SEGA has done a great job. Everything just oozes style, from the trash talking to the stylized character introductions. The story feels very much like what you would see in cinema, with themes of power, ambition, and loyalty. Even in the criminal underworld, there's a code of honor that they abide by. And it's all supported by great voice acting. The graphic violence further adds to the atmosphere. It's what a yakuza film should be like.

That's not all. The attention to detail is amazing. As you walk around town, the environment really looks and feels like Japan. Special attention goes to the background noise of endless chatter around you, pings and pongs of pachinko parlors, store radios, etc. It also replicates Japanese city life with its crowded and noisy busy streets contrasting the quiet, sleezy backroads. Playing RgG brings back memories of my visits to Tokyo. The attention to detail reminds me a lot of Grandia, although RgG is much more realistic. I love it.

Enough about the atmosphere. How does it play? The best way to describe it is Western RPG with beat'em up battles. See, most of the game takes place in a particular city. There, you have the freedom to walk around, trigger events, and start plenty of sub-quests. Since this game has a more adult edge, you can go to host clubs, strip clubs, and massage parlors. But you can also buy groceries, and eat at the local fast food burger joint. As you walk around, you'll get into random and not-so-random encounters with the local thugs. Surprisingly, the fighting is a lot deeper than I would have expected. I'm normally not one to like beat 'em ups, because of their button mashy nature. But in RgG, you're given a lot of freedom to move around, block, and even a timing-based counter system. These defensive options give the game a strategic edge. It's a fun system. What's also fun are the special moves. When your heat meter is full, you can pull off some cool attacks like face-stomping, slamming opponents against a wall or choking an enemy with a golf club. The neat thing is that many of these heat moves will be shown cinematic-style, with a close-up camera and slow-mo. My favorite move is slamming a bicycle on top of a downed opponent, bending the bike, and then jumping on top of the bike while it's still lying on the enemy. Mmm.

With all these positives, the game still manages to fall short of its promise. First of all, the difficulty is pretty unbalanced. In the beginning of the game, you welcome getting into fights because it's a source of income. But by mid-game, you have all the money you'll ever need. The fights themselves are also very unbalanced. While some of the fights will test your skill, most are pathetically easy. It doesn't necessarily get harder as you go along either. In many ways, it gets easier. That just makes it more infuriating as you try to complete the subquests, and BOOM. Encounter. Add in annoying and plentiful load times, and you'll find that combat gets old fast. Sometimes you'll have a 30 second load transition to the fight, a 10 second fight, and then another 15 second load transition back. Depending on where you go, you could be dragged into encounter after encounter. More load times. More easy button mashing. It's like a jRPG gone wrong.

Not only will you get to hate the meaningless fights, but city exploration will test your patience too. Because each "chapter" of the game is potential for new subquests, the gameplay consists of visiting and revisiting every nook and cranny of the city during each of your free roam sessions. How that's supposed to be fun, I'm not sure. It's just another one of those concepts that sounded cool in theory, but when you actually do it in play, isn't what it's cracked out to be.

Despite my complaints, Ryu ga Gotoku is hardly a bad game. If you want to take part in a yakuza film, SEGA has all the bases covered with great characters, a compelling storyline, and a convincing reproduction of Japanese city life. It also has a fun combat system with unexpected depth. But the game is marred by annoying RPG/adventure elements and an overall easy difficulty, that the combat engine is mostly wasted. As a cinematic experience, RgG is great. I simply would like more attention paid to the "game".

Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance

2008-03-21T01:19:00.001-07:00

Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance
Stealth Action - XBox
HD Backup
1 player

From where I stand, MGS2 is the sole reason Sony dominated its rivals. At least from internet fandom, it seemed as if everyone wanted a PS2 simply because MGS2 was being made for it. It was one of the most hyped games ever in the history of gaming. I was never really taken in by Metal Gear Solid, unlike everyone else. Sure it was enjoyable, and for such a mainstream title, it did have interesting scenarios and gameplay mechanics. But I still felt it was too skim on game, and too much cinematic experience. So I was curious as to where MGS2 would go with the franchise.

True to its roots, Metal Gear Solid 2 follows a similar pattern of play to MGS. While you could simply shoot everyone you see, the relative scarcity of ammo and wealth of sneaking abilities would go to waste. Hiding, observing enemy patrol patterns, and sneaking up behind them to hold them up or snap their neck seems to be the more prudent route. But be careful. If you don't drag corpses away, that would tip the enemy off that there's an intruder on the premises and backup is called. The thing about this game is you can play the game however you want. You can go with guns blazing. You can evade all enemies. And you can do a little of both, and everything in between. You're given all the tools, and you can play it as you wish.

To that end, MGS2 feels more focused as a game than MGS. The game consists of two scenarios. One takes place on a Tanker ship. Another takes place 2 years later on a Waste Treatment Plant. Each location envelops you in its surroundings. You get a good sense of the scope of your missions. There's a lot of attention to detail. If you spend the time to study your surroundings in 1st Person view, you can see idol posters, secret passages, and even cockroaches :( Traversing through each situation is quite the task. The bosses put up a lot of fight too. Ultimately MGS2 is more refined, and much more challenging than its predecessor.

There is a lot of criticism leveled at MGS2 because of Raiden. The Tanker scenario plays out in usual fashion. But the Plant scenario features Raiden as the central character, instead of Solid Snake. But I don't really understand the criticisms, because you pretty much play him the same way. Raiden has all the abilities Snake has, except for one critical detail. Snake has an automatic radar so you always have a map and a guide to the enemy's patterns. With Raiden, you need to find computer terminals (Nodes) to download that building's schematics before you get radar. That means that up until you find the Nodes, you have to be more careful of where you go. I actually liked that aspect, because it made me more conscious of my surroundings. It forces you to look in 1st person for a longitudinal view that the camera obscures. It forces you to proceed slower and study what threats exist all around you. The other aspect I found interesting about playing as Raiden is the team dynamic. Although you face many obstacles and enemies along the way, you're not doing it alone. While you're at one task, other characters are at others. Although games have trained us to be the one-man hero, in MGS2, you are only PART of the solution. Tasks that other characters partake in affect you, and vice versa. The mission is bigger than you are.

But for all of that, the game is ... well... kinda boring. I really enjoyed the Tanker scenario, as it showcased all the strengths of this type of game. But the mechanics started to wear thin as I played on. First of all, the bulk of the game takes place in one location. That means there's little variety in the locales as you see the same type of structure over and over and over again. The amount of backtracking in the story ensures you'll be sick of it all. The other major thing is that MGS2 is nothing more than rehashed MGS. You can justify it all you want, but it just feels like Kojima and company said, "Hey, everyone liked our MGS game so let's just do the same thing again with better hardware!" So you have a sniper scene, torture scene, your guided missile through airducts scene... If I wanted to play MGS, I would have. MGS2 relies way too much on nostalgia.

To offset the boredom, MGS2 also offers plenty of irritation. Like MGS, most of the communication in the game is done via codec, some nanotech radio thing. But unlike MGS, codec communication is far more frequent. So you'll be walking around and all of a sudden you'll get a radio buzzer going off. Finish that conversation and a few steps later, you may receive another one. In concept it sounds ok, but its ample execution here frustrates. The Plant scenario in particular doesn't know when to stop with the communication. It interrupts the flow of the game far too frequently for my tastes. Also off-putting is that the codec communication often reminds you that you're playing a game. It'll tell you to "Push the Action button" or "Get into First Person view". To top it off, they'll display video captures of Metal Gear, Metal Gear Solid, or MGS2 footage as a self-tribute. But in the end, all this does is patronize the player and shatter the illusion of immersion they tried to create. As far as gameplay flaws, whenever you are caught by the enemy and trigger a red alert, there's a set amount of time before all the alarms clear, and the enemy stops searching for you. Sometimes you can find a perfect hiding spot that's completely out of view, so the enemy can't spot you. But you still have to sit there for 2 minutes or whatever until the red & yellow alert clears. I know that from a consistency standpoint, they shouldn't reduce the wait time. But it's certainly a nuisance when you know you have your safe haven and yet have to just stand there, doing nothing but watching the seconds count down. Maybe I'm not really much into this stealth thing at all.

Finally, there's the cinematic story. There's a whole cast of characters that are each secretly working towards their own goals. There are conspiracies, betrayals, coverups, blackmail, the whole nine yards. It's all interesting enough, but the story's self-importance is its downfall. Just like the codec communication, there are a lot of cutscenes in the game. Each and every clip screams: "Lookit me! This game is full of awe and wonder!" But the only thing I'm wondering is why Kojima thinks his writing and directing is so amazing. I felt as if every cinematic sequence was pretentious, as if they wanted to be taken seriously... but tried way too hard. The latter parts of the game try to tackle philosophy, sociology and existentialism. Although the themes are decent, they've been done elsewhere, and executed far better.

Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance contains the original Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty, as well as a ton of extras. There's tons of VR missions, game scenarios, supporting storybooks, boss attack mode, etc. If you enjoyed the game, the extra content in Substance offers many additional hours of playtime. I appreciate the wealth of extras included in Substance. But for all its MGS rehashing, irritating design decisions, and contrived cinematics, I didn't enjoy playing Metal Gear Solid 2 very much.

Tomb Raider

2008-03-18T22:18:00.000-07:00

Tomb Raiders
Puzzle Platform - Sega Saturn
Battery Backup - 1 save
1 player

While I've always heard many good things about the original Tomb Raider, I never had a chance to play it. The Saturn version is reputably better of the two console ports, and the "s" in Tomb Raiders indicates the Japanese port. Aside from being disappointed that it's Jp dubbed, I was happy to bypass those humongous US cases.

Being a Saturn 3D title, I was immediately skeptical about its performance. Granted, TR would seem very dated by today's gamers no matter what. The textures are grainy, and pixellation is everywhere. But for its time, Saturn TR is one of the smoothest 3D titles on the system, with little framerate stutter. That leaves the game open to do its thing.

And Tomb Raider's thing is exploration. You play as Lara, searching ancient sites for treasures and artifacts. The locations are very mysterious and really lend themselves to puzzle-platformer mechanics. You get the impression that whoever built these sites did not want anyone to waltz into them and pillage. So there are puzzles to figure out, traps to avoid, and stretches & stretches of silence. The greatest asset to the game is its minimalism. Although the game has music, it is rarely used. There are also very few enemies in the game, and of these, most of them are what you would expect in an abandoned environment - bats and rodents are common occurances. What this means is that for most of the game, you are completely alone, with the sounds of just your footsteps and grunts accentuating that solitude. And it works. I found myself being overwhelmed by the vast unknown environments. I found myself being spooked when a tiger pounced on me after rushing into a new room. I found myself completely feeling what Lara was feeling. TR excels on a psychological level.

But all that would be moot if the game was lacking. Luckily, Tomb Raider has a really good mix of puzzles and platforming. The puzzles range anywhere from moving boxes around to flipping switches to figuring out how to traverse a field of traps without dying. There's quite a bit of variety to them, and the difficulty seems about right. Perhaps one aspect of the game that may not resonate well with people are its tank controls. That leaves Lara at a slight disadvantage in mobility, making combat and efficient movement a little bit cumbersome. But what is gained in the tank controls is its platform jumping precision. Each ledge is carefully designed to be a certain distance away from other ledges. The control scheme offers pinpoint accuracy in jumping distances, so being off by even one step could mean certain death. Every jump is calculated, and it's only achieveable by the tank controls. Loosey-goosey controls would not offer the same level of consistency. You get the impression that every single platform challenge in the game is a carefully crafted scenario.

I had a lot of fun with the game. It felt immersive. It felt challenging. It felt very detailed and meticulously designed. There's tons of secrets to explore and the environments are such that you want to explore. Every solved puzzle actually feels like an accomplishment, as you dig deeper and deeper into the sites. Strangely, the inclusion of other people in the game hampers its focus. It's as if the designers weren't sure if you'd be bored with natural predators and threw in people to fire back at you. The problem with that is it taints the overall feeling of solitude. Whereas stumbling upon a pack of alligators can be creepy, finding human opponents in these ruins come off as an annoyance. Still, the heart of the game is exploration and to that end, this is the best gaming effort I've played.

Ace Attorney Apollo Justice

2008-03-06T23:44:00.000-08:00

Ace Attorney Apollo Justice
Adventure - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 1 save, 1 quicksave
1 player

The latest game in the series, Gyakuten Saiban 4 is the first entry to be made from the ground-up as a Nintendo DS game. I enjoyed the inclusion of DS features in the DS-exclusive case 5 of the first game, so I had high hopes for this one. Unfortunately GS4 not only has the worst gameplay of the entire series, but the plot is so full of holes that the entire game just felt messy.

The new main character that you control is Apollo Justice. Phoenix Wright is definitely still a part of the game, although he has a different role. The first case starts off with a much older Phoenix. Apparently somewhere down the line, he lost his attorney badge. With a promising start like that, you'd think there'd be more to back it up. Thankfully, none of the cases feel like filler. But perhaps that is part of the problem. The thing is, while the first case gives you a lot of questions, and the rest of the game fills in the gaps with answers, the outcome makes less and less sense. First of all, it almost seems like Capcom tried to tie everything together in the most ambitious, but contrived way. I felt the same way about the last case of GS3. But worse than that, when the revelations are made, behaviors are so contrary to the personalities that have been built up, you can't help but to think that the writers missed something.

One thing I'm glad they got rid of was the horrible mysticism of the first 3 games, where Mia would appear out of nowhere and give you the answer when you were stuck. In its stead is "Perceive". Apollo Justice has this power to sense when someone is nervous. Then he can activate "Perceive" and look for any strange habits - perhaps a witness will scratch their nose when they're unsure about something, or they'll look away when they lie. The perceive system, when activated, will analyze a witness' testimony in slow motion. You'll get to zoom in the witness to look for signs of nervousness during key phrases. Find the habit, and call them out on it.

Here's the problem though. It is purely guess and check. Every line of testimony dialog will have 3-4 phrases in it. Not only do you have to be looking at the right place for the nervous habit, but also the right time, when they speak the phrase they're lying about. There is no skill. There is no logic. It is simply a matter of pointing your field of vision at the right zoomed-in location, at the right time. At least with evidence, it's possible to think about and logically deduce testimony contradictions. But Perceive is purely guess and check. Another problem is that it isn't really realistic. If I were lying in a courtroom, and a lawyer said to me, "Wait... I saw you twiddling your fingers. You must be lying!!!", I certainly would not admit to it. Here, many of the witnesses will. There's just too much suspension of disbelief.

And then there's the DS-features. Ema Skye returns from the first game, and she seems to only exist as an opportunity to do stupid forensic tasks. When you need to get a fingerprint, you poke the screen a few times to spread powder, then you blow in the mic to blow the powder away. When you need to compare footprints, you poke the footprint a few times to inject a mold, slide the stylus back and forth to flatten it, then rub it with a stylus, acting as a blow dryer. While these segments are interactive and provide a break from typical j-adventure monotony, the tasks aren't all that enjoyable and just felt thrown-in just because. The only use of the touch screen I liked was a sound mixer you receive in Case 3. It allowed you to play around with equalizer settings to analyze music tracks. That was a creative use and definitely had a role to play in the case itself. But this is an exception rather than the rule.

All in all, Ace Attorney Apollo Justice was still very much like the other games in the series. It has similar humor and tone. Its characters are similarly memorable. It has the same pitfalls. But it adds some new problems as well, due to the gimmicky DS features and poor continuity in the writing. Fans of the series will still enjoy it, but it's still a sloppy Capcom effort.

Grim Grimoire

2008-02-26T01:51:00.000-08:00

Grim Grimoire
Real Time Strategy - Playstation 2
Memory Card - 4 save slots
1 player

I have never really been a fan of Real Time Strategy games. I do not like how speed is of the utmost importance, where the ability to quickly manage groups/abilities with hot keys and fast clicking determines victory... or defeat. I do not like how you can only be attentively involved in one place at one time. In short, I don't enjoy the real time-ness of it. But as soon as I saw the trailer for Vanillaware's Grim Grimoire, I knew I had to have it. It would be very much the typical RTS if it weren't for one thing. The action pauses when you issue commands, "fixing" the very thing I didn't like about RTS. Little did I know that Grim Grimoire would be absoutely amazing all around.

The main character is Lillet Brau, a new student to the Magic Academy. There she meets some interesting folk, and being the new student, doesn't really get beyond introductions. It's all fairly typical anime-type stuff. Then it happens, and the plot is turned up several notches. You get thrown in an escalating crazy story, and nothing initially makes sense. But the mystery is very effective in establishing a connection between the player and Lillet. Events are occuring all around her, and as she learns why, we learn why. Lillet also gets to learn a lot about the other characters, their backgrounds and their motivations as time goes on. It's very rare that video game storytelling appeals to me, but Vanillaware has nailed it with Grim Grimoire.

Then there's the actual game mechanics. In RTS games, you need to build bases, upgrade them for additional skills and bonuses, mine for resources, be prepared to defend your bases, and create armies to destroy the enemy. All of these are present in Grim Grimoire. But there's a few differences. Instead of races, there are four realms of magic - Glamour, Necromancy, Sorcery and Alchemy. But unlike other RTS games, you are not confined to one particular realm. There are still advantages to building upon the same realm, because stat upgrades only apply to creatures within that realm. But Grim Grimoire offers additional flexibility by allowing you to make everything if you can afford it. From the seemingly useless Grimalkin (cannot attack) to the almighty Dragon (has best HP/defense in the game, and an attack that can wipe out an army in seconds), all of the units have a purpose in the game. In fact, the Grimalkin can singlehandedly render a Dragon useless by putting it to sleep.

As suspected, the ability to pause the action when you issue commands is much appreciated. For me, it means I can pause the action, look around the map, and plan what I want to do for that particular moment. Two simultaneous battles going on in different areas? Not a problem. Issue a command, pause the game, move the camera to the other battle, unpause, and issue commands. It is the most control I've seen in a RTS, and that, to me, makes it the most strategic.

Perhaps even more impressive than the gaming mechanics is the game design. Every stage is a meticulously planned scenario. The first several stages are introductory type stuff, where the game walks you through basic tasks. As you complete stages, you gain additional grimoires or upgraded grimoire abilities. Grimoires are books that allow you to summon buildings. So after completing each stage, you have new abilities to look forward to. But it also means that each stage was made with your present abilities in mind. This is taken to the next level with the "Trial Stages", which are bonus stages not related to the main storyline. Some trial stages will allow you to use all 12 grimoires. Others will limit you to two specific ones. It forces you to figure out how to overcome the stages with what you're given.

There are some annoyances with the game, but they are very minor. When you power the game on, the startup time is pretty lengthy. It takes a good minute or more to get to the title screen. Also, the trial stages are unlocked along the way as you play the main story. But they are not in synch with what you've learned in the main game. When I unlocked the first Trial Stage, the only thing I learned how to do was mine for mana. So I tried the Trial Stage, and was overwhelmed by having all grimoires unlocked. I didn't know what any of the units did, so I thought it was weird that they made it the first Trial Stage. But with Grim Grimoire's colorful 2D presentation, whimsical soundtrack, 25 bonus trial stages, and a game that is a pleasure to play, these complaints hardly drag the game down.

Grim Grimoire is without question, the standard for console RTS.

Egg Monster Hero

2008-02-17T20:12:00.000-08:00

Egg Monster Hero
Role Playing Game - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 saves
1 player / 8 player WLAN

For those who have followed the Nintendo DS when it first came out, Egg Monster Hero might sound familiar. Being Square Enix's first DS game, it gathered a bit of attention, no doubt due to it showing up on Nintendo.com's US release list. But it's been several years now and still no translation. That's a shame, because EMH is a pretty interesting game for many reasons.

The story begins with a prince being dumped on a foreign island, in order to train and learn responsibility. Along the way, you'll meet the residents of the island. One of them will even develop some feelings for you... The island houses the Katori Kingdom, and being there envelops you into their war.

Egg Monster Hero was developed by Neverland Co. (Lufia series, Chaos Seed, Lodoss DC, even some involvement in Grandia), whom I have great respect for. In EMH, you walk around in typical jRPG fashion. If you bump into the visible enemies, an encounter is initiated. But they did away with the traditional RPG systems in favor of something only the DS can do: touch & scratch. Your prince and the enemy are on opposite sides of the touchpad screen. Surrounding each of the characters is an army of <= 20 (depending on your health). So in this enclosed arena, you play bumper cars until one of you remain standing. This is done by brushing your character/army in the direction of your opponent. Faster brushing is rewarded by doing heavier damage. The formation of your army can be customized to match your style.

But this game isn't Touch & Scratch Hero. You also have EP (egg points?) to summon an Egg Monster. When you do this, the game switches to a turn-based style of play. A portrait of your Egg Monster is displayed on the touch screen, divided into 9 sections. Touch one of the 9 squares to initiate an attack. Some of the squares will do nothing. Others will unleash massive damage. Enemies are also able to summon Egg Monsters. In that case, you will also need to select which of THEIR nine boxes to attack. Each enemy has at least one weak point. They also have a strong point, where they immediately counterattack. By playing around with your attacks and targeting different points of the enemy, you will become familiar with the ins and outs of the Egg Monsters. But watch out... if your Egg Monster dies, its corresponding Egg is destroyed, meaning you can no longer summon. There are only two places in the game where an Egg can be restored, so use them wisely.

The Egg Monsters are key to the game, because they are much more powerful than your army. When you use an Egg Monster to defeat an enemy, you will actually gain experience points for that Egg. When an Egg is leveled, you gain an additional monster for that Egg (up to 10). There is no leveling for your army, however you will be able to boost your stats by collecting items.

Egg Monster Hero is part of the Square's Hanjuku Hero parody series. As such, EMH has very wacky humor. The dialog choices can be pretty amusing - one of the story items you'll need to find is an Axe to cut wood. But when you come across it, you have a choice of picking it up, ignoring it or JASON. Jason? Think hockey mask serial killer. That's the kind of game EMH is. The style of the game also is meant to mimic a performing arts theater. There is an audience on the bottom screen, and the audience will randomly chatter constantly while you move around on the top screen. Bosses, once defeated, will also join the audience and make comments. It's really quite amusing.

But there are some drawbacks: The touch & scratch battles are just asking to put real scratches on your touch screen. You think Ouendan circles are bad? At least Ouendan doesn't demand heavy scratching every couple minutes. The user interface could also use some work. You can only move with the D-pad, and can only interact with objects with the buttons. That means you'll have to be playing with both hands, with a stylus between your fingers. It's constant switching between regular controls and stylus controls. In addition, the Egg Monster battles all come down to strict trial & error/memorization. There is some logic to the strong attacks and enemy weakpoints, but it is not always apparent.

Egg Monster Hero is great for what it is. It's a unique take on a DS RPG, with some gaming additions not seen before in other jRPGs. There's a lot of Egg Monsters to play with and figure out. Also the scratch battles are a bit more interesting than the usual type of action RPGs where you just jam on the attack button. And the humor here really made me realize that Square is so much better when they don't take themselves seriously. The dialog is definitely a high point. Sometimes the jokes were corny, but it sure beats the pretentious emo stuff they have in their main games. I imagine a lot of the nifty details would be lost on someone who doesn't understand Japanese. If you do, get ready for a fun romp.

Contact

2008-01-31T10:59:00.001-08:00

Contact
Role Playing Game - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 saves
1 player / Multi wifi

"Things you WON'T find in Contact: A dull moment. Normalcy. A guy with spikey hair and/or amnesia. Dramatic monologues. The same battles you've been fighting since the 16 bit era.

Things you WILL find in Contact: Monkeys. Cosmic terrorists. Powerful attack stickers. Fishing. Cooking. Humor. Fun with Nintendo Wi-Fi. Deeper meaning in life. (Results may vary.) Costumes that increase your power and make you more fun to be around."

That is the description on the back of the box. Although the assertions are not entirely incorrect, I'm not sure if I got what I wanted either.

Let's start with "the same battles you've been fighting since the 16 bit era". True to form, Contact isn't like Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy and the like. Instead, it mirrors old western style RPGs like MUDs or whatever where you simply initiate the attack, and every "turn" you'll automatically attack until you or the enemy dies. You could stop your attacking, but then the enemy would just pursue you and hit you all the while. You could bring up a menu screen and use items. Or you can use one of your special attacks/magic spells. That's the extent of the fighting. It's simple, but ... not particularly involving.

How about "Dramatic monologues"? There isn't much of that either, but instead, there's this hokey interaction between the on-screen characters and you, the player. While this has been done before in Panzer Dragoon Saga, it's a bit patronizing here because they constantly talk to you. It's very childish and won't let you forget you're playing a game.

And believe me, "dull moment"s are not in short supply. The overall plot is a simple one: collect all the crystals, so the Professor character can pilot his ship into space. The crystals are spread out on multiple areas, and are guarded by bosses. Shoe string plots don't bother me, but as I mentioned earlier, gameplay is not its strongest suit. The combat is so un-involving that you don't actually do a whole lot in the game. And that's the biggest weakness. You're just moving a character through the motions.

Combine lack of control with tedium and you get the rest of the game. Many of the systems the game has to offer: fishing, cooking, etc is just plain tedious. Leveling up happens in real time. As you get hit, you build up defense and vitality. As you cast water spells, you gain in that affinity. Each stat levels up individually so in a single attack, you could level up two different stats at once. But while often used stats are fairly fluid in their improvement, things like cooking are cumbersome. You can only level up your cooking stat by cooking. You can only use your cooking skill at designated locations. You only have cooking skill when you're in the Chef outfit. You can only change into your Chef outfit on your ship. There's so many limitations that unless you have the right costume at the right time, you end up having to go places twice. Or thrice.

Still, despite all its problems, Contact is not a complete wash. It does have charm in other ways. The presentation is very quirky. Some of it is meant to resemble old terminal stations. When you fire up the game, you interface menus with function keys! The top screen generally has the actions of the Professor and dog in an 8-bit style, while the bottom screen has what you'd expect of DS visuals. There is a later stage that is a tribute to the Famicom too. It's little details like this where you know the developers were having fun with it. Plus the battles weren't 100% mindless. The bigger bosses required some movement on your part, sometimes with a stylus. They are generally better designed than the usual "initiate attack, watch your HP, heal when needed, enemy dead". Plus the game has a TON of sidequests for all the OCD collectathon people.

When it comes right down to it, Contact is not a great game by anyone's standard. I don't even know if it's average. But somehow, I did not mind playing it. Is that success, then? Perhaps. I only know that I could never recommend it.

Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition

2007-12-08T21:50:00.000-08:00

Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition
Stylish Action - Playstation 2
Memory Card - 8 saves
1 player

Delays are temporary, mediocrity is forever.

Probably the only thing I liked about Working Designs is that quote from Vic Ireland. What does that have to do with DMC3? Not a whole lot, actually - other than the part about mediocrity.

Devil May Cry 3's main claim to fame is its combo system. You can equip two weapons and two guns, and there's a lot of flexibility to chain long strings of combos and juggle opponents into oblivion. One button is reserved for your gun attacks and another is for your melee weapon, so it's easy to manage. Also appreciated is the ability to switch to your other weapon/gun on-the-fly with a single button press. Everything is very fluid.

The only problem is that the game doesn't revolve around the combo system. The game IS the combo system.

DMC3 is broken up into stages. Littered throughout the stages are tons of enemies to fight. But the enemies exist only as fodder for you to juggle. They are not very powerful, nor do they require much pattern recognition. The game just surrounds you with enemies and lets you do your stuff. Then there's the half-assed platforming. The combination of loose controls and dramatic camera angle changes make the platforming a chore. Perhaps Capcom chose right by not making platforming a key ingredient in the game. But in the end, the enemies and the stages themselves feel like they're there just to pad the game and hold you over until the boss fights.

But what incredible bosses there are. Easily, the best part of the game, they will have you tearing your hair out in frustration. That's exactly the type of game I like. The bosses are ruthless and have very limited opportunities to strike. The difficulty forces you to utilize every technique from running to chaining combos to double jumping in order to win. It's the only part of the game that feels like you're playing a game.

I do not understand why developers have forgotten how to make a proper game that is engaging throughout. Sure, normal enemies were never on the level of bosses, but the padding in DMC3 is a bit too much. Unless you're the type of person who gets off of watching yourself pull off 30 hit combos on defenseless enemies, the experience is rather empty in between boss fights.

I have not even begun to discuss the other elements that bring DMC3 down like the awful camera that loves to obscure your view so that most of your enemies are off-screen, or the fact that the entire game takes place inside of "rooms", or the pathetic combination of over-the-top cheese and forced melodrama.

Devil May Cry 3 is a one trick pony. But I don't particularly enjoy the trick. The combo flexibility means that instead of mindlessly executing 5-button combinations, you slightly-less-mindlessly execute 20-button combinations. That's hardly my idea of fun, and does little to pass the time between one boss fight and the next. DMC3 is strictly for the ADD crowd.

Final Fantasy V Advance

2007-11-11T09:39:00.000-08:00

Final Fantasy V Advance
RPG - Gameboy Advance
Battery Backup - 4 saves
1 player

I admit. I have a soft spot for the original Final Fantasy. Maybe it's the nostalgia or maybe it's the competition at the time, but it was the game that got me into jRPGs. And that's about all I play now. I loved having a party of characters. That opened up a lot of strategic options not previously available in games like Dragon Quest/Warrior, where you were only a single person. I loved how it offered a bunch of different classes, each very unique in the abilities they had. I loved being able to choose your party members to make your party the way you want to play. It gave you some customization options to cater the game to your playing style. FFV is an evolution of those original ideas. I played the original FFV on Super Famicom and fell in love. Unfortunately, I got sidetracked in the middle of playing it, so I only got about half-way through before the owner took it back. When Square decided to port this game to the GBA, I knew I had to have it. And sure enough, the magic was still there. Final Fantasy V is without a doubt the best FF I've played. But is that enough?

If an epic, well-read storyline is what you're after, look elsewhere. FFV is only slightly more deep than the plot of the first game, meaning it's not very deep at all. It's simply a bare-bones structure to keep the game going. I don't mind it at all. It makes no pretenses about what it is, which is refreshing. Modern RPGs have a lot more dialog and more fleshed out characters. But that doesn't make them any higher quality - just more wordy. Nevertheless, even in its simplicity, FFV does have a hokey script. It's almost embarassing. But thankfully, storyline is not the only thing FFV offers.

The meat of FFV is its class system. When you begin the game, your characters are "Freelancers", meaning no specific class. But as you progress, you'll be able to change any of your characters to any of the available classes by just opening up the status menu. Classes have their own inherent abilities, menu commands, stats, and upgrades. Change a party member to a Thief, and automatically their stats change to emphasize speed & agility. In addition, when traversing the overworld, you're now able to run at double speed and you can detect invisible paths to boot. In fights, your Thief character has an additional option: Steal. So now your thief can steal items instead of attacking an enemy.

While this system is very cool in of itself, FFV takes it a step further. When you win battles, you win your normal EXP which improves your stats. But in addition, you win AP (ability points) that level up the class you're currently using. The Thief, when leveled up, eventually learns Mug - an upgrade of Steal that combines an Attack with Steal. Pretty cool, huh? The kicker of FFV is... many of these abilities can be transferred. Once you've learned Mug, you can switch your class to a White Mage. Now your stats are biased towards magic usage (magic defense up, physical strength down) and you can use White magic to heal party members, etc. But equip the White Mage with the Mug ability, and now you've got a little Thief-flavor too. The possibilities are endless. A Black Mage that can cast Black & White magic. A Blue Mage that learns the opponents' spells, but has a barehanded attack like a Monk. It is this level of customization that separates FFV from other examples in the genre. And it's fun! Experiment with different combinations to try out strategies and see what works best for you.

The only problem is that it's still a Final Fantasy. I like a lot of ideas in FFV, and I found myself really enjoying it. But as I played on, it wasn't enough to overpower the shortcomings of the series. At every turn, it still reeked of FF: the tedium of random battles, the same rehash of a simplistic combat system, the lack of strategic thinking. It's a good take on a generic mundane RPG, but it's a generic mundane RPG nevertheless. So I found myself wavering between having fun and being bored out of my mind all the time. Unfortunately, boredom won out in the later parts of the game.

As far as the GBA conversion goes, I couldn't really tell any deficiencies. There's four new classes for FFVa that the original didn't have, which is a nice bonus. But having maxed out three of them (the fourth is not available until 2nd playthrough), they're really unnecessary, and I personally wouldn't use them in my party. There's also a long bonus dungeon for the OCD type. Nice extras though, for those who dig the game.

So there you have it: The best Final Fantasy is still a Final Fantasy. I cannot wait to play one that's not. FFXII is on my queue.

Beatmania IIDX

2007-11-04T17:52:00.000-08:00

Phoenix Wright Trials & Tribulations / Gyakuten Saiban 3

2007-09-30T11:03:00.000-07:00

Phoenix Wright Trials & Tribulations / Gyakuten Saiban 3
Adventure - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 1 save, 1 quicksave
1 player

The third game in the series is also the best yet. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed with the 2nd game. But this one not only ties up the overall storyline, it also has the best individual cases too.

There are no surprises in terms of gameplay. No new mechanics are introduced here, but you get the psyche-locks and the ability to present people's profiles as evidence from the previous game. The writing is also no surprise, with an interesting script and references to pop culture.

But there are a few differences from Justice for All. For one thing, pacing is much tighter. Justice for All had very long courtroom and investigation sequences that dragged out for all three court dates. In Trials & Tribulations, there are short trials, medium length ones and a long one. The variation is a much needed improvement because the monotony of the second game made it easy to get bored. Also, the cases in this third game are less out there and more in line with real criminal cases. And luckily, this one sports an awesome soundtrack composed by Iwadare Noriyuki of Lunar/Grandia/Growlanser fame. It doesn't have the same catchiness as the first game, but it's probably the most listenable soundtrack of the three.

One thing about the series that shines is the cast, and this one's no different. People from both previous games make appearances here. New ones introduced in Trials & Tribulations are just as memorable, if not more so. In particular, one of the characters is so evil that you couldn't forget even if you wanted to.

But for all I liked about this third outing, the last case left a bad taste in my mouth. Most people feel that the last case of this game is the best in the series. Without treading into spoiler territory, I found it to be the most contrived case of all, with a lot of unnecessary connections, overuse of certain members of the cast, and twists that are very hard to believe. It felt like a forced conclusion to everything, and is the opposite of everything I loved about Case 4, which is definitely my pick of the series.

Nevertheless, the game as a whole exceeds all expectations and is a necessary addition to anyone who has been following the series, or even those who were numbed by the 2nd game. Gyakuten Saiban 4 has a new cast for the most part, so it will be interesting to see what direction the series takes. At the very least, the DS-only features should make the cases more interactive than they have been. I'm looking forward to it.

ICO

2007-05-17T17:00:00.001-07:00

ICO
Adventure - Playstation 2
Memory Card - 10 saves
1 player

It's kind of funny how I played ICO after SotC. Usually I try to play games in the order they were developed, just to see how ideas were evolved. But I ended up owning (and opening) SotC before I did ICO. It's quite alright though, because both games are pretty well made, and different too.

Although the 3D visuals are amazing for the system, what struck me more is the feeling of cohesiveness and scope. I've come to realize that in most games, there are a bunch of levels or rooms all thrown together. Rarely do they all mesh together to form one complete environment. But ICO pulls it off extremely well. Each room flows naturally into the next, and each brick, pipe, accessory, etc. is meticulously placed. The designers had the layout planned to the last detail. And the vastness of the areas truly give ICO a sense of grandeur. The castle is huge, and it feels like it.

The core of the gameplay is very similar to Tomb Raider - basically a 3D puzzle platformer. There's a fluidity to the platforming, the animations, and in being able to grab onto ledges, swing on ropes, and shimmy across pipes. But instead of exploring the castle on your own, you have a partner. The female protagonist is Yorda, and part of the charm of the game is her limited abilities. For example, she cannot go up and down ropes. So the puzzle-solving is in figuring out how to get her to advance to the next part of the castle with you. You'll be flipping switches, making long jumps, moving blocks, throwing bombs, and extending your arm out for Yorda to grab. Just by having Yorda in the game, she herself becomes one of the tools to solving some of the puzzles. It's an interesting twist.

There's a little action in the game as well. During certain segments of the game, shadow creatures start appearing and try to drag Yorda into their black hole nest. Once that happens, it's an automatic game over. But you're able to fight them off, and latch onto Yorda's arm to pull her out of the hole before she becomes completely enveloped. You'll come across several different weapons to dispose of the shadow creatures, but even the weakest weapon is good enough to fend them off. It just takes a bit longer to do so.

The problem with ICO is that it never really becomes all that interesting. The action segments do not really change much. Sure you'll come across shadows that are bigger and stronger, but it does not change the monotony of whacking them over and over and over. Those parts are not difficult either. You get the feeling they're thrown in there just to add a little bit of tension. However, all they've added is tedium. The puzzle parts are also not particularly involving. 98% of the puzzles require no thought whatsoever. They pretty much point and limit you to a single path so you'll end up finding a switch that opens up your next point. I admit that a couple of the puzzles had me completely stumped (more because I thought too much about the puzzle rather than too little), but by far the puzzles are very light. Likewise, the platforming elements also lacked challenge. It only started to get more interesting at the very end, with some parts that required some precision and timing in your jumps. But you really didn't need much skill for the majority of the game.

In the end, I'm not really sure why ICO received such attention. Yeah, it looks and sounds great. And the game really ain't too bad. But the game ain't that great either, and that's the big sticking point. It might be unfair to compare it to Team ICO's next effort, but SotC resonated with me a lot more. Neither is worth replaying. But a run through SotC engaged my mind and reflexes more than ICO ever did. It's that lack of engagement that keeps ICO from greatness. The couch save points are a cute touch, though.

Shadow of the Colossus

2007-04-05T22:08:00.001-07:00

Shadow of the Colossus
Adventure - Playstation 2
Memory Card - 10 saves
1 player

SotC is the followup effort from Team Ico. While it still retains the puzzle-platforming elements (jumping, grabbing, climbing, moving along ledges, etc.) of ICO, SotC forges its own path by concentrating on one thing: Boss fest.

Shadow of the Colossus does away with regular enemies and dungeons and gets right to the point. There are sixteen bosses in the game scattered throughout the game world. The locales and surroundings really convey a sense of isolation, which adds to the mysterious atmosphere. And the map is huge! You could get lost easily and be wandering around for hours. But the game provides a form of guidance... raise your sword in the sunlight and a light will point in the general direction of the next colossus to fight. While that may seem like it's too easy, it's actually just the right amount of guidance, because it shines a straight path to the boss. But because of how the world is laid out, it's not always so straightforward to actually find a colossus.

Once you encounter a boss, fights are not very difficult. But they are challenging. The best part about SotC is that the bosses all require a bit of thinking. Each of them have certain weakpoints. The key to the game is figuring out where those weakpoints are, and how to get to them. They are colossi after all, so they are anywhere between 10 to 50x your size! You'll have to use your brain, whatever items are available to you, your landscape, and the bosses themselves to take them down. In case you get stuck, the game will also drop a clue or two. They're generally helpful enough to get you to think in the right direction, but they're vague enough so as not to give away the solution. I usually don't like hand-holding in games, but this one does it at just the right level. I really enjoy these types of logic-based fights, as it makes every fight unique.

There are also some platforming elements that are similar in style to Ico and Prince of Persia. In the beginning, these elements are pretty minor. But towards the end, you'll really have to master the controls. The situations will force you to do so. All in all it's a game that's all meat, and no filler.

SotC isn't perfect though. The framerate is choppy, as if the PS2 just couldn't handle it. And like many 3D games, the camera can be a nuisance. But while these flaws exist, they hardly made the game unplayable. The game would be the same whether it had a stuttering framerate or ran at a smooth 60 fps. And the camera can be manipulated with the analog stick.

While there may be a couple of technical concerns, Shadow of the Colossus shines everywhere else. I haven't come across any other game like it. There have been puzzle platformers before, but this is the first puzzle boss rush. The way the designers spread the bosses out on a huge living and breathing world completes the package. Although sixteen bosses doesn't sound like a large number, the game is plenty long with the travel time & thinking time. Everything is about exploration - exploring the world to find the next colossus, and exploring the colossus to find its weakpoints. It's a cool concept, and an even cooler game. This is a modern classic.

Phoenix Wright Justice for All

2007-01-21T13:30:00.000-08:00

Phoenix Wright Justice for All / Gyakuten Saiban 2
Adventure - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 1 save, 1 quicksave
1 player

One of the things I love about this series is the continuity of story. GS2 is a direct follow-up to the first game. Events that occured in the original will be referenced here. Characters from the past will return here as well. Every action has a consequence for this game, and games to come. In case you missed it, Gyakuten Saiban is a visual novel where you play the role of a defense attourney. You'll have to do investigations to gather evidence, and then find contradictions in court to win your case. It's a refreshing idea, and Capcom has executed it well. Once GBA games, they have been rereleased for the DS with touch-screen functionality for easier interface. Once again, GS2 DS has both Japanese and English options. Justice for All only has English.

There's not a whole lot to say about GS2. If you've played the first, you know what to expect. Slight differences exist, though. The first game had an exclusive DS-only case. This one does not. Instead, it has four total cases. But the cases are fairly long and still make this a 15-20 hour game. Also, whereas the original generally had 3 days of court proceedings, GS2 keeps them to 2. This might seem like you're getting less, but that's not the case. There are some additions that change up the style of play.

The major addition is "psych-locks". You'll receive an item that allows you to get a sense of a person's heart. If someone is harboring a secret, you're able to see that they have locked their heart away from you. The only way to break the locks are to present them evidence that you already kinda know what they're hiding from you. Then they'll confess with you the truth. What this means is that while the court sessions are shortened, investigation sequences are elongated. You'll also be penalized if you present wrong evidence in unlocking the psych-locks, however if you successfully unlock them all, you can remove penalties. This creates a feeling of tension both inside and outside of the courtroom. I welcome the change, as it makes this second outing feel slightly different from the first.

Another addition to the game is the ability to use people as "evidence". You'll have your normal list of evidence items, but there's also profiles of each character you come in contact with. So that way, you can ask people you meet about other characters. I also enjoyed this addition because it helps to flesh out the characters more. Sometimes the details are important for the case, and other times it's just background information. Either way, it helps the game to feel less rigid.

Overall, I liked the game, but for different reasons than the first. In honesty, I thought the cases themselves were less interesting/more bizarre. Maybe I thought they were less interesting -because- they were more bizarre. It just removes a layer of realism so it's harder to take seriously. Nevertheless, the additions in gameplay were interesting, and I can't wait to see what else they do. Justice for All/GS2 also furthered the running continuity of its world and I can already see that things are set in motion for future titles. GS3 DS couldn't come sooner.

Anubis Zone of the Enders Special Edition

2006-11-17T10:38:00.000-08:00

Anubis Zone of Enders Special Edition
Action - PS2
Memory Card - 5 save slots
1-2 player

I've never played the first ZOE. But maybe that's a good thing, because no one really talked about it aside from the MGS2 demo bundled with it. That all changed with ZOE2. I'm not sure what Kojima changed in the sequel, but people began to take notice. I had the chance to finally play through Anubis ZOE Special Edition. Anubis ZOE is the Japanese name of the title (US: ZOE the 2nd Runner), and the Special Edition refers to the bonus content, extra difficulty levels, extra missions, versus mode, etc that was added to the budget rerelease. This is one cool game! But being a cool game and being a good game are totally different things.

Anubis has some of the slickest visuals I've seen in a game. The CG mecha cut scenes are action-packed and meticulously directed. The actual game visuals are no less impressive, with explosions, laser showers and enemies surrounding you. The craziest weapon in the game forms in real-time around your mecha as you charge it for 20 or so seconds. Everything oozes style.

The actual game ain't too shabby either. It's advertised as high speed mecha action, and that's exactly what it is. You have full freedom to fly in any direction - left analog to position, R2 to dash/fly, and ascend/descend buttons. The controls are fluid and very intuitive. There is a lock-on cursor that directs your attacks to specific enemies, so that your camera is directed toward where the enemies are. This is extremely helpful because fast moving enemies will fly all over the place and you need to be able to locate them quickly if you're taking them down. You're also able to grab objects in the environment - sometimes even enemies - and use them as shields or weapons! It's all very cool. Boss battles play out in clever fashion. Most of them require deciphering patterns and figuring out weaknesses. This is just the way I love my boss fights.

With all these things going for it, what went wrong?

It all comes down to the core of the gameplay. It really isn't particularly interesting. Maybe it's because I haven't played too many 3D action games, but I can't help comparing ZOE2 to Ninja Gaiden Black. I get a similar vibe from both of them. Problem is, ZOE2 is vastly inferior. The action in Anubis is limited mostly to a single attack button. There is a sub-weapon button too, but those aren't usually used in conjunction with your main attack. For ranged combat, your choices are a homing laser or a energy shot. For melee combat, you have a sword that's good for a combo consisting of button mashing the attack button 4x. The gameplay is too simple for its own good. In fact, there's not a whole lot to do in the game aside from button-mash the attack & dash buttons all the way through.

Some other irritations come with the camera. Because of the lock-on system, your camera is always centered on an enemy. It's helpful when you're actively unleashing an offensive attack to kill an enemy. But there were instances where I wished to have my free camera back so I could avoid flying into traps. There are some parts of game where you could get killed by the environment. But if your camera is locked in on an enemy, you're not able to fly correctly. That is, your controller motions only navigate your mech with respect to your enemy. Not with respect to your physical coordinates, so while taking down an enemy, you could end up being crushed by enclosing walls and not see it coming. Another annoyance is when you first start playing the game, there are cut scenes every 10 seconds. I like cut scenes and all but come on! Let me play the game! These little issues aren't game-breakers. Just annoyances.

Still, Anubis Zone of Enders is a well-executed game overall. My main concern is the gameplay isn't all that great. With the lack of depth in the action, there isn't much to do but push the same two buttons over and over again. The bosses are definitely the highlight of the game. I thoroughly enjoyed those battles, and am curious to see how things change on higher difficulties. But even fun boss fights and nice visuals can't save Anubis from being a (well-executed) mediocre experience.

Zero Shisei no Koe/Fatal Frame 3

2006-10-07T14:02:00.000-07:00

Zero: Shisei no Koe
Survival Horror - PS2
Memory Card - 5 save slots
1 player

Here comes the finale to Tecmo's Zero/Fatal Frame series. As a finale, Shisei no Koe brings together both story & gameplay elements from the first two games, while trying to maintain its own identity. To that end, the 3rd entry pulls it off pretty well. But it's in this new identity that the game completely trips over itself.

Rei is the new protagonist for this outing. The story begins with an auto accident that leaves Rei alive, but her fiance, Yuu, dead. As she tries to return to a life of normalcy, on one photographer assignment she sees Yuu and takes a picture. Sure enough, when the photo is developed, he is in it. What's going on here? And why does she find herself in a freaky mansion when she sleeps? Soon her assistant, Miku (heroine of the first game) begins to dream of the same world. When Kei, a friend of Yuu and coincidentally a relative of the twins in the second game, gets involved, then he's dragged into it too. As you can already see, everything seems a little too far-fetched and contrived.

The overall game structure is quite different from the first two games. Since the manor takes place in dreams, you have to sleep in order to visit the nightmare realm. Each day, you'll be in Rei's apartment triggering events so that it'll become evening. Occasionally some of the dream oddities will seep into reality, so even her apartment is not necessarily a safe haven. Sleeping enters you into the dream world, and usually at the start of a new chapter. Finish its objectives, and you'll wake up in reality the next day - sometimes very abruptly. It's very cyclical.

It's the cyclical nature that makes Zero 3 feel like a chore. Whenever you're in Rei's apartment, you make the exact same paths to every location to make sure you haven't missed a new item that has sprung up or a trigger point. It's completely repetitive, and you have to do it every day and night. The feeling isn't much different even when you're in the dream manor. You'll come to see that little thought was given to item locations because 95% of the items are in the same location every night. The game becomes too predictable for its own good.

Related to the respawning items is Shisei no Koe's general lack of difficulty. I've found most of the enemies to be easier than ghosts in the previous two games. But what makes it worse is that you start each dream with 3 medicine bottles, with chance of collecting 7 more each night. So there's no penalty for using medicines since you always get them. If you should happen to run out, you could even leave the dream and come back to have it reset to 3 without having to redo all the events over again. This is the finale! Why are they suddenly being so lenient? There are a couple of ghosts that will give you trouble, but they are almost too hard (cheap?) for their own good.

Then the latter quarter of the game, they have this stupid gimmick where you have to collect these "Purifying Light" candles to keep the main ghost away. The designers probably thought it would create tension, but in a game like this where you may have to figure out your next destination, it creates irritation instead. Why should I be penalized for exploring the mansion the game gives me? Luckily there are enough purifying light items scattered throughout, that you probably won't ever be stuck without it for too long. But if they're readily available, then why have it as a system in the first place? The whole thing just reeks of a last-minute addition.

Despite my barrage of criticism, it's a Zero game so it's still doing something right. The scares are still present, although it's a little less psychological. And the combat is still fun - the best aspects from the previous games made it. I found Crimson Butterfly to be too slow in its battles, so I'm very grateful to see that they made it as fast-paced as the first game, with the technical aspects from the second. You still need to wait for openings, and chain fatal frame opportunities accurately, but without those annoying 5 second reload times. The powerful film is much more sparse this time, so that improvement is much needed.

I found myself liking Zero Shisei no Koe less because it's a good game, and more because it's a Zero game. Throughout the entire time, I did not feel all that connected to it. The combination of lazy repetitive design & jarring transitions from dream world to real world kept me from being immersed in the dream manor. The story did not tie up some of the bigger questions (although, I do know there is an alternate ending at higher difficulty). The framerate stuttered so badly at times, that the action slowed to a crawl. It also lacked variety in enemies. Get 70% through, and you've seen all the ghosts you're going to fight. It just seemed like the game was poorly planned and rushed to market without a clear focus. It's also unfortunate that it wasn't ported to the XBox, because 5.1 audio makes a game like this so much more atmospheric. But if it's of any consolation, they packed a lot of extras (costumes, photo & video galleries, mission mode, etc) into this one.

There was just nothing special about Zero 3 - the first two games one-upped it on pretty much everything. The only exception would be the last boss. Now that was an intense challenge! It's just a shame that the rest of the game couldn't match up.

Rhythm Tengoku

2006-08-24T02:43:00.000-07:00

Rhythm Tengoku
Rhythm - Gameboy Advance
Battery Backup - 1 save
1 player

From the makers of Wario Ware, Inc. comes another quirky compilation. This time it's a collection of rhythm games. Perhaps due to the success of the Brain Training games, Rhythm Tengoku emulates that kind of structure. The game starts out with a preliminary assessment of your rhythm ability. From there, you'll be playing a variety of rhythm minigames. Depending on how well you do, your rhythm ability rating will go up or down.

The minigames themselves are all totally random and quite ... unorthodox. One minigame has these two characters bouncing on a trampoline. Press the buttons according to the rhythm and the trampoliners will turn into foxes. Then back into humans. Then foxes. Yeah. I don't get it either. My favorite minigame is a set of four girls dancing to Ondo music. As the singer sings the lyrics, you just have to clap whenever the word "Pan" is sung. It's very cute and can be quite funny too. Whenever you mess up, the other girls glare at you. Some of the cooler stages are what's called "Remix" stages. Remix stages basically take the last 6 stages and "remix" them into a single minigame. It's pretty awesome in tying all the stages together to test what you've learned.

The way the overall game works is that you play a minigame. If you fail, then you can't move on. Once you pass it, you'll unlock the next minigame. If you do especially well, you'll be awarded a medal for that minigame. Medals help unlock extras in the game, such as bonus stages or options. And finally, as you progress, sometimes a previous minigame will be highlighted with a Perfect Challenge. If you then pass that minigame without any mistakes, you'll earn a Perfect rating on it. One neat extra is the chance to jam with a band as a drum player. You're not graded on your performance, so there's no challenge in it. But it's just a free-form session of just being able to mess around and create your own beats to the songs. It's a great inclusion just for the ability to let loose and be free.

Rhythm Tengoku isn't particularly lengthy, although it does have a plentiful amount of minigames. But there's a lot of replay value in first passing all the stages, then medaling all the stages, and finally getting a perfect on all the stages. I haven't quite accomplished getting 100% perfect, but I'm working on it. The minigames can be pretty challenging, and the timing is far less forgiving than most rhythm games I've played. But that's also what makes Rhythm Tengoku fun. Practice makes perfect.

The Gameboy Advance is pretty much on its last legs. But with games like Rhythm Tengoku, it's going out with a huge bang. This is definitely a treat for rhythm lovers everywhere.

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan

2006-08-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan
Rhythm - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 1 save
1-2 players

Funny thing. Ouendan may be more well known in the West than it is in Japan. In Japan, sales were absolutely dismal, among the worst selling DS games in its library. Yet, on certain internet English gaming boards, Ouendan has gotten a lot of buzz. Its supporters claim it's the best game on the DS. Apparently the buzz must have been something, because Japanese developer INiS is creating an English version from the ground-up just so that it can come out in the West.

The concept is simple. Use your stylus to touch circles on the screen on-beat, follow the paths of those circles, and make spinning motions as fast as you can as directed. It's very similar to most rhythm games where the key is to follow the beat. A score of 300 is given for exact timing. Being slightly off results in a score of 100. A bigger deviation achieves a score of 50. Anything outside of that is a miss. But Ouendan makes this rhythm game its own by utilizing the DS' features. Not only do you have to be on-beat, but you must tap the exact position of the circles on the touch screen. This adds a dimension of accurate positioning on top of accurate timing. Ouendan also features really nice "choreography" in its positioning of its tap circles. It will feel like you're dancing using the stylus. It's in this connection that makes Ouendan stand out in its genre. There's no other game like it.

Presentation is also top-notch, with a total wacky-jappy feel to it. The whole basis of the game stems from a "cheering squad" of men. Each stage has its own story told manga-style. The story usually presents a difficulty, and then in a cry of desperation, they'll call out for this cheering squad. So your rhythmic and choreographed actions will help the male cheerleaders cheer on the scenario character. Playing two players (requires two carts) gives you the option of cooperative play or competitive. Cooperative play just splits the notes between both users. Either way, you'll get an entirely new set of stories specific to multiplayer. It's a neat bonus. As far as the songs, most are famous jRock songs, but there's a little pop and hip hop thrown in there too. Technically the songs are covers, but they tried to find singers that emulate the original material and it works pretty well.

All of this adds up to a package that is unforgettable and irresistable. With several difficulty options and a rank given to you based on overall score, you'll have a blast playing your way through all the stages again and again for improvement. You're not really give anything extra for it, but the game is so fun that you'll want to replay it anyway. Ouendan isn't my favorite DS game - that title still belongs to Daigassou Band Brothers, but it's a definitely a must-buy. It's one of the few games that could only be done on the DS. It's truly a unique experience.

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney

2006-08-22T11:40:00.000-07:00

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney / Gyakuten Saiban Yomigaeru Gyakuten
Adventure - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 1 save, 1 quicksave
1 player

Capcom's Gyakuten Saiban is a series that started out on the GBA and has an enormous following. It's an adventure game in lawyer's clothing. Your role is a defense attourney and not only will you be conducting investigations outside of the courtroom, but you'll have to poke holes into witness testimony in the courtroom to win cases. This DS outing is a port of the first game, with the inclusion of a 5th case specific to the DS. A fourth GyakuSai game will be released soon for the DS as well. An interesting thing to note is that the Japanese version of the DS game comes with an English option, so importers actually get both languages.

But is the game any good? I'd say it depends on whether you could enjoy a text adventure game. You can't get around that structure. Sometimes you'll have the option to examine a crime scene using a point and click interface. Sometimes you'll need to figure out what to show people in order to get them to help you. But by and large, you'll be reading tons of text with little interactivity. If you can get past that, Phoenix Wright is quite an interesting game.

What I like most about it is that there's a logical component. In the courtroom, you are presented with testimonies from witnesses and using only what they say, you have to find ways to disprove their version of events. You'll have to know every piece of evidence you have inside-out and point out contradictions. Many are not immediately obvious, but the clues are there. You just have to pay attention to detail. It's in this logical aspect that differentiates Phoenix Wright from other games of the genre.

What's also great about the game is its continuity of story and depth of characterization. There are 5 total cases here and while they could easily be 5 unconnected court cases in the life of an attourney, Phoenix Wright takes great care in its characters. Characters are affected by outcomes of previous court cases. There are consequences to each case that shape who the main characters become. The characters are not simply static roles, but rather people with their own motivations, their own goals, their own beliefs, and all of these things change as time progresses. Care was also taken in its English translation, which is much appreciated. It's obvious from the references that they did not literally translate the dialog from the Japanese version. All of the important bits, yes, but all the names are changed, and many of the jokes were also changed to read more fluidly. The dialog made me laugh on many an occasion.

The entire time I was playing it, I couldn't put the game down. It's not perfect - the second case was kinda hokey, the game structure is really strict as to when you present evidence to advance the story, there are typos and spelling errors throughout the fifth case, etc - but Phoenix Wright stands out for its use of logic, its great translation, and its realistic portrayal of characters. At about 35 hrs length, it's pretty meaty for an adventure game. I can't wait to see what's next. With that, I couldn't be happier that a port of GyakuSai 2 was recently announced for the English DS audience.

Riviera ~ The Promised Land

2006-08-15T02:01:00.000-07:00

Riviera ~ The Promised Land
RPG - Gameboy Advance
Battery Backup - 3 saves, 1 quicksave
1 player

While developer Sting has experience with RPG-like games, they have never made a traditional jRPG - until Riviera. But for a jRPG, Riviera is as non-traditional as they come. Whether that's a good or bad thing is up for debate. Opinions for Riviera span the spectrum. Some find it incredibly dull and limiting. Others enjoy the streamlined structure and the strategic battles. They will all agree on one thing though. The game is slow. I found it to be all of those things. A mish-mash of different ideas, Riviera tries but succeeds in part.

Let's talk streamlining. Riviera feels almost SRPG-like in structure because of the lack of free movement. In both towns and dungeons, you move one room at a time. In each "room", you can look at the surroundings, interact with objects, talk to people or move to the next room via menus or controller inputs. You do not physically move your character around with the D-pad like other traditional jRPGs. It's more comparable to old games like Deja Vu/Uninvited/Shadowgate. But unlike those games, whenever you investigate objects, it will cost you Trigger Points (TP). If you don't have any TP, you can't open the treasure chests you find or discover any special items. TP is acquired through high scoring battles or clearing a previous chapter with a high score. This adds a cap to what you're able to investigate so you have to weigh your options. But, if you do well in your fights, you'll never really be short of TP. You'll also encounter various QTEs. Chests will have traps on them or you'll need to jump over large gaps or whatever the situation, so you'll be challenged to enter button combinations in a short time interval or to time button-presses to navigate these parts. This just adds some variety to these segments.

The battles also keep with the theme of choosing wisely. Every weapon has a limited number of uses, and you can only carry 15 different items at any given time. This makes those treasure chests you find all the more valuable. But it's not as bad as it sounds. Chests are pretty frequent and enemies will also drop weapons. It's just that the 15-item carrying capacity forces you to balance out your arsenal. What's neat is that although every character can pretty much use every weapon/item, the actual attacks and effects are character-specific. Weapon attacks can be multi-hit, can have elemental properties, can target specific enemies, or can allow you to do an OverDrive attack. Overdrive attacks function much like the special attack meter in Street Fighter. Whenever you hit an enemy, or they hit you, your overdrive meter rises from level 0-3. Overdrive attacks generally dish out more damage and can be fight-winners. They can also vary on how much of the Overdrive meter is required for usage. Since only 3 party members and 4 weapons/items can be selected per battle, this causes you to weigh out what you think is needed for each fight. Luckily, it's not a blind guess because you are given information on the strengths/weaknesses of each enemy during party and item selection. So there's a bit of pre-battle strategy to consider. But it doesn't stop there.

The actual battles themselves are also very strategic. While you're monitoring your own OverDrive bar, your opponent has a Rage bar. It functions very similarly to yours, but there are some differences. The Rage bar is raised whenever you hit the enemy. But the Rage bar drops between turns. Whenever the rage bar is below the Rage level, your opponents will do normal attacks. When it is above the Rage level, they will do special attacks. And if it hits the Max level, they will do their ultimate attacks. A Max attack will drain the Rage bar back to its lowest point. Killing an enemy will raise the rage bar's lowest point, so it may not be possible to drop the Rage bar to zero. In effect, fights become balancing acts where you may opt to heal your fully-healed character in order to waste your turn. Why? Because you want to drop the enemy's Rage bar. Attacking would only piss off the enemies more and bring them closer to unleashing a huge barrage of attacks against you. Or maybe the best strategy would be to attack the enemy with everything you've got and hope they die before they do their Max move. There are many possibilities. It's a unique fighting system, and it's fun too.

Each battle has a place in the story. There are no random battles. I really like that each battle felt like its own challenge, and strayed from the monotony of most RPGs. Leveling up your characters is based on weapon usage. As mentioned earlier, some weapons allow their user to do OverDrive specials. But to obtain these specials in the first place, you must use that weapon with each specific character an X amount of times. When you fulfill that requirement, you not only gain the OverDrive special, but the character also levels up. So using different items is encouraged by this system. To help you with this process, you can enter a Practice battle anytime. The beauty of practice battles is that using weapons/items does not decrease their quantity. So everytime you come across a new weapon or item, you can use practice battles to acquire those OverDrive attacks and level up your characters without fear of wasting resources. It's a neat system, because it protects against level grinding. Your characters can only level up to a specific point determined by the items you collect.

All of this adds up to a very interesting game. You can see that Riviera is based around the concept of limitation. You always make some decisions in the game at the expense of other options. You can't keep all the items you come across. You can't examine every nook and cranny. On the other hand, it does challenge you to make decisions that would benefit your playing style. And in that sense, it works quite well. There is a loss of freedom compared to other games, but the game is built around that. I still would prefer the traditional exploration of jRPGs rather than room-navigation, but it works for what it is. The fights sometimes do get to be cumbersome because of the slow pace, but it's in the strategy that I enjoy Riviera the most. The OverDrive and Rage gauges turn a fairly normal RPG system into an insane see-saw balancing act that you need to make work for you. I haven't even begun to mention the incredible portrait and cutscene art, the interesting puzzles that you actually have to scribble on paper to figure out, the convenience of being able to quicksave even during a battle, or the character-specific endings, but this 20-ish hour adventure has a lot going for it. Riviera probably isn't for everyone, but I cannot wait to see what else Sting has up its sleeve.

Klonoa Empire of Dreams

2006-08-01T16:17:00.000-07:00

Klonoa Empire of Dreams
Puzzle Platformer - Gameboy Advance
Battery Backup - 3 saves
1 player

Platform games have been around for a long time. In fact, it might even be said that platformers are the basis of the modern gaming movement. Super Mario Bros. set the world afire and things haven't been the same since. Platform games are thus called for the primary game mechanic of jumping on "platforms". Sometimes they're stationary. Other times, they move. Most of the time, they're not even platforms but simply ground. Regardless, there's an element of position & timing involved in jumping toward the next required "platform". In a world of me toos and property cash-ins, Namco retains the same basic platforming elements, but forges a new path with Klonoa.

Not to be confused with "Door to Phantomile", the first of the Klonoa games, "Empire of Dreams" is an entirely new game for the GBA. While Door to Phantomile was probably more of a traditional platformer, Empire has a larger emphasis on puzzles. The stages are designed so that more often than not, logic is required to complete. Sure there's the usual elements of enemies and much jumping. But it doesn't end there. You will have to use all the elements around you to reach items, unlock doors, and open passages. There are box puzzles, wind tunnels, enemies that detonate, and switches to utilize. Some of the puzzles are pretty straight forward. Others require taking a step back to analyze what you're given, looking at what you need to accomplish, and then planning your solution accordingly. It's all very clever design and gets progressively more complex as the game goes on.

But that's not to say that the rest of the game is a cakewalk. In fact, there are some sections of the game that require a lot of skill and reflexes to navigate through. For instance, each world has forced scrolling stages mixed in with the stages that are more puzzle-oriented. I played one such stage about 50 times to get a perfect run. Admittedly, most of these sections are completely optional and do not affect being able to finish the game. Nevertheless, I was really impressed by the challenge offered for those who prefer skill-based gameplay. For those of you who accept the challenge of trying to find everything, there's a few extra stages that will really test your platforming and puzzle abilities. Again, it's completely optional, but a nice reward for the patient.

Namco has succeeded in its interpretation of the modern platformer. By infusing it with puzzles to solve, Klonoa Empire of Dreams is quite an intellectual game. It's as if Namco realized that most platform games these days aren't very engaging and sought to change up the formula. With well-designed levels that will test both your dexterity and mental capacity, this has easily become one of best platform games I've played.

Astro Boy Omega Factor

2006-07-26T12:37:00.000-07:00

Tetsuwan Atom: Atom Heart no Himitsu / Astro Boy Omega Factor
Action - Gameboy Advance
Battery Backup - 3 saves
1 player

When it comes to Astro Boy GBA, the critics are unanimous about its praise. Developed by Treasure, it's hard to imagine they'd drop the ball. Most companies try to sell on the license itself. Astro Boy oozes with personality in that department. Not satisfied to simply use the title character, Treasure sought to incorporate characters from all of Osamu Tezuka's works. Maybe they were trying to do a tribute to the late Tezuka. Or maybe they got their chance to do a megacrossover. Whatever the case, they show that even when they're dealing with licensed material, they can make a good game.

This one's all action. You'll punch, kick, dash and laserbeam your way through the entire game. Along the way, you'll meet characters that will allow you to upgrade your stats. Not all of these characters are easily accessible, so a little exploration is required. On top of this, for each attack you land, your special meter will charge. Once it's full, you're able to perform one of three special attacks. You can store up to 3, 10 or 99 specials depending on what difficulty you play. Much of the game is played like a beat 'em up. You'll be able to combo-punch enemies, and kick them into others, even shoot their falling bodies with a laser beam if you'd like. Simple but effective. Other parts of the game play out like a space shooter. You'll be flying around a forced horizontal scrolling screen, shooting enemies, and dodging like mad. It's in this mix of game styles that keeps Astro Boy fresh. Both styles are very well done, and I especially had fun with the shooter bosses.

But in the end, I'm really ho-hum about it.

I've played and finished the game. I've played most of the game on Hard difficulty. And although the game is entertaining, it's not exactly thrilling. I have no doubt in my mind that Astro Boy is well-made. The problem is it's just that. It seems like it strives for little other than being a decent Tezuka tribute. The actual game is nothing special. It's fun, but for beat 'em ups, Treasure has done better. For shooters, they've done better as well. It lacks the creativity and cleverness that Treasure is usually known for. It just seems like they simply wanted to make it playable instead of phenomenal. It's in that, where I find Astro Boy to be a big let down. All in all, I don't think it's a bad game at all. I simply find it... unnecessary.

* Note: I played the Japanese version of the game that only has "Easy" and "Hard" difficulties. I understand the US version is improved not only in adding a "Normal" difficulty, but adds some enemies as well. If the US version is THAT much better, I'd like to play it someday. But I doubt it would change my overall opinion.

Ninja Five-0

2006-07-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

Ninja Five-0
Action - Gameboy Advance
Battery Backup - 1 save
1 player

Also known as Ninja Cop in Europe, although this Hudson-developed Konami-published game was made in Japan, it was never released there and is available only in the West. Strange how that works. But it does work, because Ninja Five-0 is without a doubt one of the crown jewels of the GBA library.

As the name suggests, you control a ninja that's also a cop. That means that in addition to killing bad guys, you'll also be rescuing hostages. Some missions have people you must save before you can clear them. Luckily, that doesn't slow down the pace at all. Armed with a sword and upgradeable shurikens, you'll make quick work of the enemy. But the coolest part of the game is the grappling hook. A mix of Bionic Commando and Umihara Kawase, your grappling hook can grab any wall. You can pull yourself up toward the wall with it, extend it to drop you down further, or swing on it 360 degrees to reach higher ground. Mastering the grappling hook is an absolute necessity, and transforms a standard action game into an awesome one.

The difficulty is also well balanced. It is a challenging game, but not to the point where it's frustrating. A stage might take several tries before you clear it, but that's exactly what I love about it. You'll learn to see the patterns. You'll learn to use the layout of the stage to assist you. It's pure old school feel, and I'm loving it.

But perhaps it's in that old school feel, that I wonder if Ninja Five-0 could be more. Don't get me wrong. It's a very well made game and is a blast to play through. Yet, it doesn't pioneer any new territory and that's where I feel it falls short. The grappling hook is certainly fun and contributes a lot to game design. But it's something we have seen before. What's worse is that level design follows a cookie cutter formula that reminds me of DOOM: kill enemy, get the yellow key, backtrack, open yellow door, break box, get the the red key, backtrack, go through red door, stage clear. It got a bit repetitive and predictable. It's also not very long, with only about 15 or so stages.

Still, despite its shortcomings (which probably sound worse than they actually are), Ninja Five-0 is an excellent game. It's got tons of polish all around, and it's pretty fun to play. For pure 2d action games, it doesn't get much better than this. There's still one thing that confuses me though. Why was this never released in Japan?

Breath of Fire V Dragon Quarter

2006-05-25T15:20:00.000-07:00

Breath of Fire V Dragon Quarter
Role Playing Game - Playstation 2
Memory Card - 1 save, 1 quicksave
1 player

Once in a long while, you come across a game that is so far ahead of the pack that you can't help gush with praise. It aims so high and succeeds so well that you wonder why other games are content on pushing status quo. Breath of Fire V Dragon Quarter is such a game. It is phenomenal, intelligent, challenging, innovative, cleverly designed, and engaging from its FMV intro to Onitsuka Chihiro's "Castle imitation" credits. There aren't enough superlatives to describe it.

Although this is a RPG, I say that loosely. Dragon Quarter takes a completely different direction than the previous 4 Breath of Fire games. It is actually difficult to classify. Most of its structure hails from dungeon crawler design. Just like dungeon crawlers, you'll be challenged to push further and further into the game with few opportunities to save your progress. The emphasis is on survival, and your rewards for doing so is better equipment. Yet, it retains traditional jRPG cues like an overarching story, "towns", and character development. Fights are inspired by SRPGs. It's an ecclectic mix of everything, but is more than the sum of its parts.

The flow of the game is relatively linear. Your end goal is 1000 meters(?) away from the starting point. Getting there requires exploring a series of passageways and areas. All enemies are visible, so you can choose to fight them or avoid them. There will be treasure chests and item boxes along the way to help you in your quest. Some of these can only be opened by special keys obtained by killing all the enemies in an enclosed area. The cool thing is that you can throw things at enemies before encountering them. This is called PETS. If you toss a bomb at them and it hits, they'll be damaged prior to the battle. If you throw meat, you can lure them to you, or away from you. You also can attack them prior to a battle to initiate a battle. This will give your attacking character an extra turn. These are neat systems to keep the game engaging before and within fights.

When you're in a battle, the intensity is turned up even more. Like SRPGs, positioning plays a crucial role. You have to be aware of weapon range, areas of effect, walking distances and things like that. But what's cool is that there is an Action Point system where you can do as much as you want within your turn as long as your Action Points allow. It is reminiscent of Sakura Taisen 3's ARMS system, which was also released around the same time. There are 3 tiers of weapon attacks, each with varying AP values and each mapped to different buttons. You can chain them into a string of attacks. It not only looks cool, but combos get higher attack bonuses too. In addition, any AP remaining from a previous turn is added to your next turn so a valid strategy could be to pass on this turn so that you can do much more on your next. One of the neatest things is how Nina, your spellcaster, can cast magical traps. By placing them on the ground, you can use them to block off routes between the enemy and you. If the enemy wants to get to you, they will have to trigger the trap thus causing them major damage. You also have attacks that could push or pull enemies into traps you place too. Because of all these factors, Dragon Quarter is actually a leap above most strategy games, and a lot more fun too.

In Breath of Fire tradition, one of the cool things that your main character Ryu can do is transform into a dragon. It allows you to do heavily beefed up attacks. But if you could constantly do that, the game would be far too easy. So the designers capped its usage. Specifically, there is a meter called the D-gauge. Everytime you use your dragon powers, your D-gauge goes up. After every turn in dragon form, your gauge goes up. And even when you're in human form, it goes up. When it hits 100, your game is over. Completely finished. You lose. But it's not as bad as it sounds. When you're in human form, the gauge goes up extremely slowly, probably 1% every half an hour. So there's no way you can die from that. But over-reliance on the dragon form during battles can get you killed.

While the survival structure is initially overwhelming, there are game systems that help to alleviate that. The first is PETS, because it allows you to damage & effect enemies prior to a battle, so that the actual battle will be easier. Next is the SOL (Scenario Overlay) system. In essence, the SOL allows you to restart the game from a previous point (ie your save, or start of game). The difference being that SOL allows you to keep your equipment, money, skills, and "party experience" since you last saved. So if you die in a fight that was too hard for you to handle, you could always just SOL instead of a normal restart to make the game easier. It also resets your D-gauge to the last save. The game encourages SOL because certain story sequences occur only when you do it. Using SOL and the dragon powers are not required though. I finished the game pretty much without using either, so you can tailor the game systems to your style of strategy. And although some might not like that there are too few saving opportunities - a common complaint - you can quicksave anywhere (except battles) if you need to take a break.

When you play through the game the first time, there are certain areas that are locked out. But if you decide to replay it, those areas become accessible, depending on your previous game's score, and allow you to face new enemies as well as gain additional abilities and items. It's a nice bonus to an already outstanding game.

Breath of Fire V came out of nowhere. The four games before it are the very definition of generic RPG. But Dragon Quarter strove to not only surpass them, but the genre as a whole. Kudos to Capcom. This is without a doubt, the RPG of its generation.

Vagrant Story

2006-04-21T10:07:00.000-07:00

Vagrant Story
Role Playing Adventure - Playstation
Memory Card - 10 slots (2 required)
1 player

I had been avoiding Vagrant Story for quite some time now. I read a little bit about it, and it didn't seem like my cup of tea. But having played Matsuno's other game Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together, I was impressed by its brilliance and wanted to try his other titles. I'm always up for a game that does things differently. Vagrant Story is definitely that.

The problem is... I was right about the game. I had been avoiding VS because I heard that pre-battle preparation was key. To me. preparation didn't equate to strategy. I want my strategy in the battles, not before them. Vagrant Story has a crazy complex affinity system where your weapons and armor are strong against specific types of weapons (Piercing, Edge, Blunt), specific types of classes (Dragons, Humans, Evil, etc), and specific types of realms (earth, fire, holy, etc). When you fight against Human enemies, you grow stronger against Humans. When enemies of the Earth realm attack you, your armor's defense against Earth grows. This replaces the traditional level up system. Your weapons and armor grow with usage. Every enemy you come across will have specific weaknesses. Maybe an Undead enemy is weak against Edged weapons and the Fire realm. Then the best weapon to use against him is one that is strong in Fire, Edge, and strong against Undead. Chances are, you won't have a weapon that meets all three criteria. In fact, it's very likely that for most battles, you may only meet one or two. You are only allowed 8 weapons in your inventory, so you're constantly compromising. Having the wrong combination against an enemy means you will deal close to zero damage. But if you have the best combination, bosses can go down in a few hits. Most of the time, you will be in the middle.

I am unsure of the intended purpose of this 3-fold affinity system. It seems like it's complex just to be complex. Because of the limited inventory slots, there is no possible way you can prepare for all scenarios. So you just have to make trade offs here and there and hope it's good enough for an enemy. I don't think the system added anything to the game, and in some ways just made it more tedious. If you don't have a weapon that works against a boss, you may actually have to start from square one and go off and build it up. Speaking of unnecessary complexities, Vagrant Story also allows the player to fuse weapons and armor together to make new items. While it's nice to be able to create your own items, the problem is that in execution, you're playing the guess and check game. Line up two items, look at their stats individually, and compare to the stats of the newly created item... if it's not a good match, then cancel... and line up the next pair. Repeat until you've gone through every possible combination. Again... I don't think this added to the game, and like the affinity system, made playing a little more tedious.

Luckily, I was also wrong about Vagrant Story. While battle preparation isn't my favorite type of mechanic, VS also allows for plenty of strategy within the battles. Battles take place in real-time, but action stops whenever you pull up the command menu. You can see Matsuno's experience with TO/FFT because terrain plays a role. You can position yourself so that walls or even other enemies are between you and an incoming threat. Enemies can end up hitting their own men if you position yourself right, and cause an internal brawl. It's very cool to be able to use your surroundings for you. Height also plays a role. The battles are also incredibly engaging because there is a timing system. In a single turn, you can chain multiple attacks together if you time it right. You can theoretically do it infinitely until an enemy dies, but the timing is very precise and there's a few tenths of a second in which you can chain. The same applies for defense. If an enemy attacks you, you can set up different defensive arts that have different effects: heal 50% of the damage, reflect 40% of the damage back to the enemy, or many others. For both chaining and defensive arts, an exclamation point appears briefly at the exact moment when you need to press a button. The drawback is that the more chains and defensive arts you use, the higher your RISK meter goes. RISK lowers your accuracy and raises the damage you sustain from attacks. It's a very cool concept and makes the game that much more thoughful and fun. There were several boss battles where I utilized defensive arts as my primary strategy. There were others where giving myself attack bonuses for an all-out offensive was my best plan. There's so much variety offered in the fight scenarios that I was never bored.

In addition to fighting, Vagrant Story plays very much like a 3D platformer. You explore areas, jump over giant chasms, cling to ledges, hop on blocks, and all that. The control is very good too, which makes the platforming integral and not a half-hearted inclusion. One of the more unique things about Vagrant Story is the nature of its puzzles. Unlike most RPGs where it's go one place, pull a switch here, go to another, pull a switch there, Vagrant Story has single-room puzzles. Usually you'll need to get to higher ground to access a doorway, but there's no immediate way to get there. Scattered on the ground are a variety of blocks that you can arrange and stack toward your goal. There are a bunch of these puzzles scattered throughout the game. Some are pretty straightforward. Others require quite a bit of brainwork to figure out. It's absolutely refreshing to see this in a RPG, and it was one of the most enjoyable aspects.

Vagrant Story is quite an interesting game. There isn't quite anything else like it out there. Between the platforming, block puzzles, and intense battles, I couldn't put it down. Nevertheless, the complexity of some of the systems felt too much like experimentation than thought-out game design. For the equipment affinities, sure I coped with the limitations. But I am not convinced that the system was a good idea to start with. The same can be said about the equipment fusion. Nevertheless despite its weaknesses, I have already started to play it again. That speaks volumes about the quality of what's contained within.