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This blog was brought to you by high amounts of frustration.

By Video_Game_King August 17, 2009 12 Comments

Okami

( Seriously, Capcom?) Seriously? Between this, the crap Dead Rising port, and Resident Evil 4's GameCube controls, I'm starting to think you guys hate the Wii and are trying to add fuel to fanboy fires. I really don't want to hear the tired "GameCube with a motion sensor" crap I've heard (and seen proven wrong before my own eyes) again and again; I want to see you guys make something original, exciting, something that only the Wii c.....wait, I forgot where I was going with this. I remember it somehow leading into a review of Okami, but I can't remember how. Oh, screw it, let's just review the damn thing.

Another new addition is Waka, the magical French Jedi.

Okami, as a lot of you know, is a Zelda-esque action adventure "based" on Japanese mythology. I put "based" in quotations because what major reviewers haven't told you is that it's more like a sequel to the original legend; the game begins with a brief on the legend of Orochi, then spends the rest of the time telling its own tale. I've no idea why reviewers left this out, since I find it to be a good idea. Why can't other cultures do this? Where's the sequel to Faust? Where's my Knights of the Round Table RPG? Why haven't game companies made a game based on Billy the Kid....or more games about cowboys, for that matter? Hell, making a sequel to any of these would mean you could do whatever you want with the original story, just like Okami did. For example, in the original legend, the hero-guy gets the Orochi piss-drunk before slashing his heads off. That part's in Okami, but what Capcom added was a part where you have to put the hero in a dress for some reason. I would assume it's to make him look pretty, but unfortunately (or perhaps, very fortunately) there's no mini-game where you shave off Nagi's beard and chest hair so that he actually looks like a girl.

Another example: there's this character Issun who, in Japanese folklore, was a small samurai kid who eventually married a princess; in Okami, he's still a samurai, but he has also become an artist obsessed with titties. He's so obsessed with titties, it seems to have rubbed off onto the female wolf you control. Oh, Issun, you won't shut up about those titties. Imagine Navi from Ocarina of Time, only instead of yelling, "Hey, wissen" a lot, he yells (aside from what's obvious at the time), "Hey, look at the hot rack on that priestess!" OK, I promise that this is the end of the titty jokes, mainly because I can now effortlessly transition into the Zelda aspect of the game, another thing every reviewer on Earth has prattled on about in their reviews of this game. (I guess I'm the first on the Moon to mention it.) Yes, Okami is very similar to Zelda in many ways, but it's a bit unfair to label it "Zelda with a paint brush", because Okami distinguishes itself from Zelda in various ways, one of them being stat progression.

What happens when Ammy finds out that battles get you no EXP.

In addition to upgrading your health with "sun fragments," you also upgrade your various stats with experience you collect on your journeys. How do you gain this praise? Not by slaying the dreaded Orochi (keep in mind that this is a land where their little girls scare deathbots), but by reviving plants and feeding bears. This would be a decent way of showing how Amaterasu brings prosperity to the land if Capcom just went with it, but they never unleashed the true potential of it. All you do is circle plants and feed animals, only getting into battles at the demon houses scattered throughout the land. The only time you actually feel like you're reviving Nippon is when you revive Guardian Saplings, watch the flowers spread across the land in jubilee, and then see everything inexplicably freeze up. If you'll allow me to go off on a tangent, I just want to say that the graphics are fantastic. It looks/feels like a Japanese epic told through woodcuts, and the cel-shaded graphics effectively highlight both the death brought about by Orochi and the life you restore to the moribund land. OK, back to the gameplay:

It's sort of a shame that Okami doesn't give you incentive to go into combat, because it's kinda decent. There are a variety of enemies to kill, each with their own unique strategies on how to kill them. You also have a plethora of weapons you can use in different ways (except the swords, which you'll never use because they're absolute crap), and a variety of brush techniques you can use against your enemies. That is, if you can get the damn things to work. And we come to the crippling flaw of Okami: the painting, or, more specifically, the motion controls. Every motion you do is so specific, that sometimes the game is confused as to what the hell you're doing. You'll try to make a tree bloom, only for winds to blow away any botanical dreams you've ever had; try drawing a lily pad on water, and you'll just get a circle of water because you didn't close your circle all the way; attempt to summon a burst of wind in the Dig-Dug-esque mini-games, and your partner will run right into a spikey block of time consumption. It doesn't help that the motion controls are extra finicky; for the most part, they're OK, but there are those times when the pointer sticks in place and you flail the controller about, destroying whatever masterpiece you were drawing at the time. Along with your television.

Instead of coming back to life, that tree will be blown away.

So with a control scheme that has the same level of precision as a drunk Bushwald shooting the face off a Fallout 3 mutant from a mile away, you'd think Capcom would make less scenarios that require precision or quickness, right? Well, not only are you wrong, but everything you think is wrong, everything you know is wrong, and everything you do is wrong. Stop tainting the world with your glaring incorrectness. The sad reality is that this game requires both through Quick Time Events. Every now and then, the local swordsman will try to kill things he has no business killing. Not wanting to make him look stupid, you must use your painting finesse to kill the beasts for him. You can see where this is going. You're rarely going to complete a QTE on your first try, and even if you do, there's about 4 more following the one you just completed. Oh, you failed one? Go back to the first one! Nya-ha-ha! Oh, and speaking of multiple attempts, the game has this weird way of forcing you into cutscenes: you watch a cutscene of you talking to somebody, go back to gameplay, and are then forced to talk to that person again to initiate another, very similar cutscene. You can try to leave the area, but either the other character or Issun will bitch at you about how you should listen to things they should have included in their previous speech.

This "cutscene, break, cutscene" trend only seems to happen in the second half of the game, the half where the story goes downhill. After you defeat Orochi the first time (you fight him twice later), the cast of regular characters shrinks down to about four, and of those four, weird things start happening to them. Why, Issun? Why, after being introduced as a wandering artist who wants to learn magic brush techniques, are you now bitching about how you never wanted to be an artist? Why is Waka a good guy now? Why did the woman I just meet get killed by a demon? It all climaxes with an ending that, without spoiling the experience, features a UFO. Keep in mind that Okami is set in feudal Japan circa 700 AD. Now you can see why I personally went to the Capcom headquarters and told everybody there to read their own damn mythology. Unfortunately, what they heard were vitriolic death threats, which explains why I'm typing this from within the walls of my local federal prison. While I'm in here, I've had time to contemplate on the true quality of Okami. Sure, the painting controls are a pile of crap and it can't decide on whether or not it actually wants combat, but hey, at least the story is epic and the graphics are superb. That's something, isn't it?

Plus there's the personal attachments I have to this game. First off, it took me a very long time to beat this game. I got it for Christmas of 08, and it seems that other games and appointments interfered with my Okami time. I'd give it the Longest Game I've Played Award, but I remember games like Seiken Densetus 3 and Fire Emblem 3 taking at least a year for me to beat, even if both of those were out of pure laziness. I'd give it the Longest Game I've Reviewed Here Award, but I have something else planned. No, instead, I'll give it the Susano Award for Severing Ties. You see, this is actually the last game listed back on my old GameSpot account's Now Playing list. I beat the other games long ago, but this one took the most time. And with it, I break my bonds...*slash!*.....Why isn't it severed? Damn it, Issun! I told you, PS2 CONTROLS!!!

Review Synopsis

The story feels a lot like a lost piece of Japanese mythology....until the second half, where French birdmen fly UFOs into the heavens.
The combat is decent, but Okami can't decide if it wants to slash demons or have tea parties with tigers.
Ugh....who thought it'd be a good idea to add motion controls to the painting system?

As long we're on the subject of Japanese video games, I'm sure this video sums up many a person's experiences with JRPGs.

NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits

( Oh my, isn't this interesting?) This blog features two Wii games featuring female goddess protagonists from interesting ancient cultures. What an amazing coincidence *completely non-convincing wink*. Anyway, I downloaded this title mainly because it looked interesting, my Wii was advertising it upon turning it on, and I had a 1000 Wii points lying around after Mega Man 9. Oh, and this is a very recent game that has received very little coverage (from what I could glean), giving me a perfect opportunity to stretch my reviewer muscles.

However, rather than do that, I decided from the start that I'd begin this review by making the obvious comparison to Kid Icarus. Yes, it's like a modern iteration of Icarus, only minus the annoying boss labyrinths. You fly around in ancient Greece, shooting up baddies on your quest to save Icarus? Huh? Yes, instead of actually playing as Icarus, you play as Nyx, the night goddess and great contrast to the other game's protagonist up there. At some point before the start of the game, she decided Icarus was hot, even though he smells like dead bird and hasn't had a proper job in 18 years. The relationship is going swimmingly until Helios catches wind. He can't have Nyx dating a mortal human, oh no! It's against the rules. So, in an attempt to impress Nyx, he sets all of Greece on fire.

Say "hi" to the only boss in the game.

Unfortunately, it seems this somehow launched Icarus onto the sun. Now Nyx must travel through a battered Greece to find her beloved Icarus. At least the game says it's battered; the levels look less like a city that just got destroyed, and more like deliberately designed levels apparently set in the middle of the Gobi Desert. Unfortunately, this is where things started to fall apart for me: the graphics. Like Okami, a lot of the story is told through pictures that look like they actually came from that era, but unlike Okami, the lush, roaming fields have been replaced with bland ruins that are probably nowhere near anything Greek. Where are the dark ocean cliff sides, the vibrant void above the clouds, and all the other things that never appeared in Kid Icarus?

In all honesty, I should probably stop comparing NyxQuest to Kid Icarus; it does its own things to set it apart from the game Nintendo fanboys have a boner for, even if it doesn't fully utilize those things. By things, I mean "the power of the gods", which is weird, since you're playing as a god, made extra weird by the lack of her powers being used anywhere in the game at all. However, you do gain the powers of several other gods, like redirecting wind, shooting your enemies with bolts of lightning, and dragging blocks across deadly sand. Especially dragging blocks. Apparently, the people at Over the Top Games really loved the idea of sand surfing, since a large portion of the game seems to consist of many variations of it. Either that, or they couldn't come up with anything else with the tools at hand.

That's something I find weird about this game, as there's so much potential for creative level design that it never uses. I could imagine things like dragging a fireball as your light through the caves to Hades, summoning thunder on a nearby tree you could surf to a temple, and redirecting the winds to blow down a rock that could open a new path, but apparently, I was the only one who could imagine such scenarios. What NyxQuest does is pedestrian: block surfing, lowering platforms by shooting blocks from underneath them, transporting a fire to a torch, etc. I was very disappointed, as this game felt like it would be full of original ideas, but all my hopes were for naught. Hell, you can't even crush pots with stone blocks! Seriously? You couldn't think of that, obscure German game developers? That's the first thing everybody wants to do when they see fragile objects and things with which to destroy them!

While awesome, this is the only use lightning has in the game.

Yet oddly enough, you can crush yourself with these huge blocks. Don't worry, though, because while this does kill you (only without crushing your guts), you get infinite lives. The only thing keeping you from breezing through the game on a stone surfboard is that you go back to a checkpoint when you die, but even that doesn't matter, because everything you collected/did before dying remains unchanged. So rather than forcing you to redo those trials from before, you can now glide through the room on the wings she never had to begin with. (Go check the Wiki page which I'm not linking, just to be safe.) It feels kinda cheap, mainly because the game is so short, and there isn't much to it. I finished NyxQuest in a day, and when I did finish the game, I found out there was only one boss battle the entire time. And it wasn't the final boss, because there is none. Again, what the hell, four people who made this game? You have an entire mythology of interesting creatures with boss fight potential, and all I get is a crappy Hydra? And after the initial boss fight, he becomes a regular enemy that reacts to lightning the same way any scenario wherein that one game will inevitably be mentioned? What is wrong with you, four German dudes!?

Seriously, you had what could have been a great game that nobody could replicate, but instead, you gave us a generic, 2 hour platformer with several grammar errors. Yea, this was your first game, but the least you could have done was spent a bit more time on it. You know, don't hire a dev team small enough to fit in a Sedan, put more objects into the levels, compose more than 20 minutes of music. These are all basic things you could have done to make the game better. However, I feel that I must give this game the Spent Condom Award for Wasted Potential and end this review...well, on that award, like I should have.

Review Synopsis

So many godly powers and abilities with varied use...
...put to banal use, again and again and again.
Oh, and the levels are desolate and orange, neither in a good way.

12 Comments

A blog that can be labeled as "tempting fate."

By Video_Game_King August 14, 2009 14 Comments

The Guardian Legend

( Oh, how the cruel fates toy with my very existence! ) Before me, they have presented a most unique game. Half of it has been made from my most beloved of genres: role playing games. Yet the other half of this "legend" is made from a most nefarious genre, one that has caused me much ill in past encounters: the shmup. Oh, what should I rule upon this bastardization of nature?! Do I declare it a work of providence, as it was cut from the same mold of the role playing games? Or do I brand it a criminal for being the seed of a genre most foul? What would be the just thing fo....oh, fuck it. It's too hard to speak like this for an entire five paragraphs.

The corners are the only safe areas here. Everything else means death.

To everybody's surprise, the game turned out to be both a piece of crap and a steaming pile of fecal matter. I'd say it's due to the shooter part being dominant, but that's obviously very biased; the real problem is that Irem/Broderbund/Compile/whoever didn't spend enough time fleshing out either aspect. Let's start with the one the game starts with: the shmup aspect. Standard affair, wherein you shoot a lot of things on screen in an attempt to not die. Good luck with that, though, because when I said "a lot," I meant A LOT. At any given time, about 70% of the screen is a death zone. A moving death zone.

If you will, allow me to go off on a tangent. One of the things I dislike about shmups is their hellish difficulty. In fact, I've even invented a name for shooters that take this too far: turbo-pause shooters, because you'll need a turbo-pause button to weave through the bullets. Yes, I know of the existence of bullet hell , but consider this one step below them. I would have classified The Guardian Legend as a turbo-pause shooter, but the screen can be so full of projectiles at any given time, that the sprites flicker between dimensions. So if you do try that turbo-pause stratagem, you'll soon realize that there may be a sinister bullet hiding from you, ready to kill you and all that you love.

"So I got hit once," you say to yourself in an arrogant tone. "So what? It's just one hit, and I have enough HP to withstand it." While you were telling me this, all that extra health joined the enemies in that alternate dimension. See, the enemies (especially bosses) do far more damage than they should be able to do, and you have absolutely no invincibility time. Now your massive bar of health is but a pixel wide, and it's at this point that you notice how much HP the bosses in the game have. On that subject, not all of the bosses are hard (anti-turbo-pause cheapness aside), but the central theme in all these encounters is their length. No matter what weapon you use, these fights are going to take longer to beat than Okami has for me.

Pictured: the best video game ending ever.

Wait, I forgot: you have weapons other than the standard shmup peashooter. About half of them are useless, but the others are well implemented. Each one has their own purpose and requires strategy to use. You use the side lasers to eliminate things on the side, the giant death ball to destroy the first few bosses, and the Enemy Eraser to even the odds. Wait, why am I commenting on the weapons when I should be commenting on the exploration aspect? Oh, right, because it's such an insubstantial portion of the game. Your goal is to blow up the planet, and that requires activating some corridors scattered across said planet. In theory, you have a large world to explore with many secrets to discover and various enemies to kill. However, the reality is that the world is very linear and repetitive. You'll spend your time on NAJU going to whatever area you can access at the time, fighting a boss, exploring, fighting the same boss again, and repeating until you see the ending screen. Speaking of that, given what you have to endure to see it, this is the best ending in all of video games. However, it's still not enough to redeem the crap before it. I'd like to get one last word in by insulting the password system, but this review's running a bit long, so I'll just end it with the Scheherezade Award for a Quality-Destroying Identity Crisis.

Review Synopsis

The shooting aspect is too hard.
The role playing aspect is too easy. And underdeveloped.
Don't expect this to end with a Goldilocks pun, since those are the only two things this game does different from others.

What has happened to you, Cartoon Network? Why are the shows that aren't cartoons advertised as your big shows? Remember the good old days? Remember delightfully screwed up cartoons like this one?:

Left 4 Dead

( This isn't going to end well, I know it.) There's just something about reviewing a popular shooter that screams "disaster." And no, it has nothing to do with the fact that the game in question is about a disaster; my guess is that it's because it's multiplayer focused, and I beat it without once playing any of the multiplayer modes. Some of you have already decided this to be a reason why all my opinions are forever invalid; I see it as a testament to how awesome I am. To those of you in the former category, keep in mind that nobody forced you to read this blog and that there are plenty of echo chambers for you, like Yahtzee :P.

Zoey clearly does not approve of that comment.

OK, enough preemptive defense, now is the time for reviewing. Left 4 Dead is a horror FPS, named either by somebody thinking this was the third sequel to something, or (much more logically) to indicate that this must be played with three other people. As I indicated earlier, Left 4 Dead is a multiplayer shooter wherein you and your friends must escape the zombie apocalypse. You choose from a range of characters varying from old Nam vet to "Average Looking Female Valve Character" and fight your way through an entire of zombies. Eventually, you survive long enough to make it to rescue, and this is where things got a bit weird for me. Every time your characters radio nearby help, they inadvertently summon an entire militia of zombies that you must eliminate. No matter what you do, you have to fight every last one until help arrives. Usually, it takes them ten minutes to arrive, most likely so you can ponder whether it would have been safer to have never called for help at all.

I assume this zombie army is meant to make you feel scared, but I found it hard to feel terrified when I could control exactly when the undead would show up. As I said in the F.E.A.R. 2 blog that nobody read, two major parts of fear are spontaneity and vulnerability, and Left 4 Dead....OK, Left 4 Dead nails them both. Sure, you can take down a zombie with a few bullets, but keep in mind that the previous example used the singular, something this game just doesn't care for. Far more often than not, you'll face off against entire hordes of the undead, and rushing into these groups is a very easy way to join their ranks. Getting through them requires a bit of strategy and teamwork, both things that lead me to believe that the multiplayer mode is fairly decent.

Much like the Internet , a zombie apocalypse brings out the worst in people.

Another thing that led me to this conclusion was the array of tools at your disposal to customize the experience. You can do things like skip cutscenes, change the difficulty, and oust crap players...as long as enough of the other players agree. Not that you'd need to give the boot to crap players, anyway; judging solely by my experiences with Team Fortress 2, Valve shooter communities tend to be populated by level-headed players who understand that the mic can have tactical capabilities outside of shouting phrases like "I fucking pwnd you" and "That was expletive gay." There's also something called an AI director (you kids, and your new-fangled directors. Back in my day, we called them "random number generators" because movies hadn't been invented yet) which is supposed to make sure each experience is unique and different from the last. While I did notice some items or enemies placed differently in separate plays, the general rule of the AI director seems to be "limit ammo and health to safe houses, place enemies every 20 feet."

I also suspect the AI director was added because of the lack of content. This was also a big weakness in Team Fortress 2: you only have four scenarios and a few gameplay modes. That would have been my transition into a criticism of the limited weapon inventory, but here, it 100% works. Valve was obviously going for a tense feeling, and finding out that a lack of shotgun ammo forces you to use your Super Soakers is a reasonable way of establishing that mood. In fact, the only problem I have with it is, wait for it: lack of content! Not counting the dual-wieldable pistols, there are only three other guns, and the one of them (the hunting rifle) is absolutely useless. I like sniping as much as the next guy, but you spend all of your time up close and personal, never in a position to use the damn thing. I tried using it once as a means to get the advantage on a nearby Witch, but even touching a Witch from the next town over is enough to summon her rage upon your idiot face.

Speaking of which (pun not intended, I swear), the one thing that does come in variety is the enemies. Aside from the regular zombies and the "I sound like a fat girl crying" Witches, you have fatties whose guts are filled with zombie love chemicals (why they don't eat these guys is beyond me), normal looking zombies who will pounce on you from a mile away, and Tanks, whose only purpose seems to be to eat up everybody's bullets. OK, so the Tank isn't as good as the others, so what? The enemy variety, when combined with the high enemy count, oddly keeps things fresh and exciting over multiple games. Add in the player-friendly nature of the game and the overall quality, and you will be playing this game multiple times. Yes, I'm aware that this ending is crap, but I couldn't think of any other way besides "give it an award." Oh, wait, I forgot: E. Honda Award for Excellence in Making Obesity Deadlier. Good day.

Review Synopsis

Once again, Valve has given players the tools to create an enjoyable multiplayer experience.
Also once again, they didn't include enough maps, weapons, modes, blah-de-blah-de-blah.
This game has taught me one thing: radios summon legions of the undead.

14 Comments

The Sequel Blog: Part 2: The ReBloggening.

By Video_Game_King August 11, 2009 11 Comments

Bionic Commando

( Everything about this game strikes me as incredibly weird.) Seriously, there is nothing about this game that comes off as normal. The plot, the graphics, the gameplay quirks, even the music comes off as weird! But does this weirdness make it good? On one hand, we have Cocoron being in my Top 10 video games ever. Yet on the other hand....actually, it's in the other hand, because that hand happens to be choking EarthBound as we speak. But on the third, bionic hand, there's Bionic Commando, this quirky game I liked. So where does Bionic Commando fit into all of this? Well, in the bionic hand, along with Bionic Commando.

I can understand if that last exchange confused the hell out of you. Now you know how I feel about the game's story. (Yes, we're going in the order I dictated before.) The

Why aren't these plants dead?

weirdness started when the game explained to me that the Bionic soldiers who saved the world or something were now hated by society. Then society hires one of them to take down some terrorist group in a nuclear hellhole of a city. That's pretty much all I could decipher, and while I wasn't paying much attention, the parts where I was didn't make sense. Why is the woman who hated me a few levels ago now so damn friendly? And why, in a city that just got bombed, am I exploring not only surviving, but thriving FORESTS?!?

Yes, one of the other things I found weird about this game was the presence of forests. It's limited to a few levels in the middle of the game, but I'm still going to complain about it, mainly because it was previously established that the city was nuked. And it's not like Capcom didn't know this; just about everything non-organic (the walkways, the glass ceilings, etc.) is broken, while the trees and rocks are in perfect shape, unaffected by the blue death radiation. Other than that, however, I have no qualms with the graphics, they're pretty good. Sure, the environments tend to use brown liberally, but otherwise, things look pretty good.

Oh, wait, there is one thing that doesn't look that good: the aforementioned blue death radiation. I don't know, but there's something about blue radiation clouds that look and feel weird. I can see why Capcom included them in the game; a city would suggest some sort of open-world aspect, and they needed something to make it the more linear experience they were going for. Sure, it's annoying when they place it where you'd logically go (on a wall or over a building, for example), but otherwise, I have no major problems with it. What I do have a problem with is the water. Unfortunately, that huge bionic arm of yours can't swim and sinks like a rock, a fact which gets VERY annoying in the water filled levels. Hell, it even gets annoying in levels without a lot of water, since your Bionic Commando seems to breath through his knees. Granted, you can zip yourself to safety if you get stuck in the water, but there's usually zero chance of that happening, no matter how hard you try.

Wow, I've gone four paragraphs and haven't even mentioned the whole swinging mechanic. OK, this sort of thing isn't uncommon for me, but regardless, I should kinda stop. Anyway, for such a large feature in the game, the mechanical-arm thing really needs some polishing. I noticed this the first time I started swinging outside the tutorial, only to discover that I can't do a complete 360 around objects. OK, it is possible, but it requires spinning the camera in ways nobody would ever figure out on their own; under normal circumstances, you stop halfway in your swing, like you're hitting an invisible wall. It may sound like I'm just nitpicking the game for not indulging in my fantasies, but when you're making large jumps that require precise timing, one button press can be the difference between making it and remaining stationary for a second before falling into ankle-deep water. And then drowning in it.

However, I still had a lot of fun swinging about like a robotic monkey. I'd just turn on some Panzer Dragoon or Mega Man X and quickly zip through levels, only stopping to fight enemies when it was a necessity. OK, I didn't like the combat as much as Yahtzee did, but at least I can see why other people might like it. You have a variety of weapons and moves with which you can destroy all enemies. There are moves like giant death stomps (weird), flinging yourself at enemies, flinging enemies at enemies, flinging objects at enemies, or just shooting the hell out of them with your non-bionic guns. Not only do you have a variety of moves, but the game actually encourages you to use them in creative ways. There are a metric assload of achievements related to combat, each with their own creative requirements (kite an enemy into the air and kill them in the air, blow up 10 baddies with the same grenade, kite an enemy to create a pinball effect of death).

So why didn't I like it? Well, remember that weird motif I used as the introduction? Well, you can find it here, too. Despite being creative, the achievements are incredibly easy to fulfill. In what little combat I participated in, I was tripping over achievements like I was the Avatar or something, their scores ranging from 5 to 45-bajillion. Also, there's a limited weapon inventory, a-*sigh* I'm not going to insult that concept. It utilizes the "switch out for weapon types" thing I love, but only for one class of weapons, which again, I find extremely weird. Almost as weird as the G.I. Joe coda playing every time you pick up one of the secret collectibles in a level. There, that takes care of everything I mentioned in the introduction. I think you now know how and why this game is so weird to me. Fittingly, I should end it on a weird note (something Bionic Commando apparently couldn't do). So let me end this thing on the G-I JOEEEEEE Award. (I couldn't find the actual "G-I JOEEEEEE" thing from the cartoon, so instead, I linked it to a mustache telling you not to hide in fridges.)

Review Synopsis

Why are there incredibly healthy forests in a city that just got nuked?
Why am I unable to do a 360 around a pole, but I can jump up onto that pole from directly underneath it?
WHY ARE ALL OF THESE ACHIEVEMENTS SO EASY!?

This video could describe just about 90% of sequels in any medium.

Final Fight 3

( I said this in my last blog, but none of you read that, so I feel that I have to repeat myself.) I planned on reviewing this game last blog, but F.E.A.R. 2 beat Final Fight 3 here, and I have a strict "two games only" policy for these blogs. However, that's all in the past, and now I'm here, reviewing Final Fight 3. Odd, because I've always thought of the Final Fight series as one of the most average out there. In fact, the only game more average than your typical Final Fight would be the first Lufia, a game ironically notable only for how average it is. However, it seems Final Fight 3 has moved out of the average area and towards an 8.0.

Haggar and Guy: alienating voters since 1990.

One of the reasons I took off the extra 2 points was because of the story. After the events of Final Fight 2, the Mad Gear gang finally dissolved, bringing peace and prosperity to Metro City once and for all. No, wait, it somehow causes more crime in the city than there was when the Mad Gear gang was running things. I'm surprised the citizens of Metro City hadn't voted out their mayor yet, especially since his only qualifications are "beats the hell out of shoplifters." Anyway, Haggar decides to beat up the criminals terrorizing the city, most likely in an attempt to make people forget what a horrible mayor he is. However, he's not alone! Of course, he still has Guy (most likely to make his conversations seem more Canadian), but also joining him are Lucia and Dean, two characters you'd never hear from ever again after this game.

But at least when you choose from this forgettable cast, you're actually making a choice that affects gameplay (unlike previous games, where the choice was "which muscle-bound idiot would you like to mash the B button to?"). Each character has their own set of moves, fighting game style, that you can pull off whenever you please. While I respect this notion, like the swinging in Bionic Commando, those fighting moves need A LOT of work. The moves themselves are easy to use, but the problem is that you'll never use them. Just kicking enemies works fine, and throwing your enemies turns most encounters into jokes. All you have to do is walk within a foot of your target, and you'll automatically lock your enemy in place, able to throw them in any direction you wish. There's no limit or balance to it, and it can take out groups of enemies with a few blows. The only thing I can think of that actually sort of balances this is that your special move meter fills up slower when using the throw.

However, you'll still be able to use your special move more often than the actual punches. Not that you'd want to do that; this special move requires precise timing and strategy if you want to use it properly. Sure, the special move is harder to use than it should be, but other than that (and the relative ease of getting the energy to use it), I have no problems with it. Yet I still have some major problems with the combat, the worst offender being the complete lack of weapons. Why Capcom decided to not include them (even though they were in the other games) is beyond me, especially since certain enemeis actually use weapons as their main attacks. Beat them all you want, but you still won't get that weapon from their hands. Go ahead, try; you've all the time in the world. What I'm saying is that the timer counts down so slow, that I'd be able to come up with a humorous analogy for it by the time it has counted down one "second." In fact, the only time when the timer was actually low for me was in the final level, and even then, I only died once because of it.

*reads last few paragraphs* One thing I've noticed in my blogs is that I'm often harsher on games than my opinions tend to be. Just look at those last four paragraphs in which I lambasted a game I actually liked. Sure, the combat needs improvement (it seems to be a recurring motif in this blog) and you're given more lives than a cat that just downed an entire phoenix, but I still consider this game the best in the series. Why? Well, as I mentioned, the combat's decent (but not perfect), but there's also the level variety, the awesome music, and the graphics...OK, the graphics haven't improved much, but somehow, they still look better than before. Also, when you comine the multiple characters with the multiple endings, you get more replay value than all three of the previous games combined (FFGuy counts). I'd honor it with multiple awards, but I'm not that studious, so I'll give it the lone Best Bouncing Breast Physics Yet Award. I say this because I played the game as the lesbian-looking character (it was the 90s, I just wanted to be fashionable) and noticed that her idol animation was her bouncing boobs. Keep in mind this only happens when she stands still. Her breasts have minds of their own. They are deadly breasts that must be stopped.

Review Synopsis

Mike Haggar apparently started the trend of "musclebound politicians who are absolute shit at what they do."
The fighting is better than ever, but still in need of some work.
Great graphics and music.

11 Comments

Games that will make you punch people in the street.

By Video_Game_King August 7, 2009 1 Comments

Alien Storm

( By which I mean "beat em ups.") After all, what's the point of all beat em ups? Exactly: jamming a fist into anything on screen. What more could you ask for? Well, in my case, quite a bit. Unfortunately, me and beat em ups have had a sordid past. Sure, there were some fun times in my childhood with Turtles in Time, but things went sour when I realized the gameplay was kinda same-y between games. Hell, my worst game ever is a beat em up! So where does Alien Storm rank? Among the greats like Turtles of Time and The Simpsons, or at the bottom with Cyborg Justice? The answer is "somewhere in the middle, like most of them."

And like most of them, the gameplay consists mostly of mashing "attack," heading right, and repeating this until you see a high score screen. Also like most of them, you get a choice of three characters, but it doesn't make much of a difference. In fact, the only difference I noticed was that your special attack is different. It still destroys all enemies on the screen, but each character does it in their own way, like with air raids or suicide bombings. However, each use of these attacks drains your energy, and once you're out of energy, it's game over. OK, it's not an automatic game over, but trust me, when you run out of energy, you might as well hit the Reset button.

Granted, you can refill your energy with small canisters, but they don't refill enough of it and you rarely see them in the actual beat em up portions of the game. I said "portion" because there are non-beat em up parts of the game, which caught me by surprise. In between beat em up sections, you'll go to some weird light gun thing where you shoot everything in sight, hoping that one of the things you shot was holding an energy or health packet. It's the only reliable way for you to get heatlh, but don't misinterpret that as me insulting it. If anything, these were the best parts of the game; they're frantic, distinctive, and while there is a hint of button mashing, relying on it will send you down the exact same road to game over that running out of energy will.

Like I said, these sections are frantic.

What I'm saying is that either way, you're going to see the Game Over screen at some point. What this means is that the game is hard, and a lot of that is because the game is cheap. Often times, there are more enemies on screen than you can handle, and it's not like they don't know; they'll gang up on you from both sides, and your only defense is a useless roll/dive move that just relocates your body straight into another alien tentacle. So of course, you'll repeatedly die until you run out of lives. On that note, NO EXTRA LIVES. ANYWHERE. CAPS LOCK. I know it's an old school game, but even Ghosts 'n Goblins, in all its cheapness, had extra lives. Alien Storm, however, has no extra lives. What the hell, Sega? Between the lack of extra lives, the scarcity of health and energy, and the fact that suicide counts as a special attack, I'm getting the impression that this game wants the player to die. Interesting....I think I'll give it the Kefka Award for Sadism. That's funny, isn't it?

Review Synopsis

Pedestrian beat em up sections.
Despite not actually using a light gun, the light gun sections are the best part of the game.
Oh, and there are running/shooting sections I forgot to mention. Probably because they don't warrant mentioning.

This is how fucked you are as a species:

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin

( This was originally supposed to be Final Fight 3, but I beat F.E.A.R. 2 first.) I'd change the title, but I'm just too damn lazy. Anyway, as I've done with most Xbox 360 games that aren't mine, I'll explain how I came to play this: I borrowed it and had nothing better to do. OK, I actually could have done a few other things (like get around to beating Okami), but I don't turn down an opportunity to beat a game, no matter how bad. What I just said does not mean F.E.A.R. 2 is a bad game; it's both a good game AND a bad game, depending on how you look at it.

Speaking of looking, there was something odd that I noticed when in the car ride portions: your character's neck is apparently dislocated. I could look all over the place, and is body and shoulders would remain stationary. I struggled to come up with any sort of logical explanation, but I managed to create one: given that the protagonist is also bald and perpetually wearing sunglasses, this must obviously be Vin Diesel after having done something so badass, it snapped his spine into five pieces. However, his badassness does not stop there; his mission, should he choose to accept it (although he can't refuse it, being mute and all) is to stop a psychic teen by the name of Alma from ruling the world. If the prospect of Vin Diesel beating up pregnant teens sounds quirky and weird, prepare for a standard story. It's not bad, but it's not very notable. In fact, the only things I actually noticed about it were that Otacon gained a lot of weight and a G.I. Joe fetish, and the bad guys apparently build their secret labs underneath schools.

So I stopped paying attention to the story about halfway through that paragraph, and focused the rest of my blog on the actual gameplay. Standard shooter fare, you shoot enemies and swipe their weapons, two things you'll do a lot. I have no problem with the shooting sections, they're as enjoyable and properly-challenging as ever; what I do have a problem with is the weapon swiping. You can only hold four weapons at a time, but it's not like Gears 2, where you can only hold one weapon of each type; instead, it's more of a free-for-all, where at least two of your slots are always going to be reserved for whatever the hell the enemies are using. It feels cheap and makes the weapons seem less various than they actually are. Of course, with limited weapon inventory comes the cover system. The unofficial part I've no problem with (I used it quite often), but the "knock over tables" part, while a noble endeavor, comes off as counter-intuitive; I'd often knock over a vending machine with my Vin Diesel manliness, crouch down, and discover that half of my body was still exposed. And then I was shot.

Before any of you start yelling at me, let me say that I liked the shooter parts of the game; what needed improvement, in my opinion, were the survival horror aspects. The two things you need for any horror are spontaneity and vulnerability, and while it certainly has the spontaneity part down, any sense of vulnerability was blown away when I was walking the streets in my ED-209, along with several platoons of soldiers. However, even when you aren't piloting a death walker, enemies go down quite easily. OK, I know I said it was somewhat challenging previously, but it's hard to feel weak or vulnerable when all of your enemies explode like armored ketchup packets.

This is what happens when you fail the Quick Time Events.

Oddly enough, the game at least tries to make you feel vulnerable, but it doesn't do a good job of doing so. For example, you approach a door and see some soldiers frantically run away, only for a monster to devour them. You see another door nearby, and obviously decide that you should go through that one. Oh, wait, the door's locked, meaning you have to go towards the very monster you should avoid. I'm not criticizing the linear nature of the game, I'm criticizing that it's deceptive about it. It may sound minor or petty, but there are definitely enough levels in the game where you'll experience this exact same thing several times. But why the hell am I complaining about this? Games don't have to be scary to be good, just look at most of my Top 20 games. Besides, it's not like the title of this particular game would lead you to believe that it's scary or an....*notices the actual title of the game* Fuck. Then again, I shouldn't have expected the developers to take this seriously. After all, they included this line verbatim, non-fabricated:

One of the characters said:

"You're like free pizza at an animé convention. She can smell you. And she wants to consume you."

OK, to be fair, I only included that line in here because it's so funny. And to be fair again, F.E.A.R. 2 isn't a bad game. Sure, the horror aspect is as fleshed out as a skeleton and there were some instances where the fire button seemed to kill me, but it still had quite a few elements that all good shooters have/should have (decent AI, destroyable levels, etc.). However, there's also the issue of the lack of horror, which I would have ignored if the game didn't have the word "fear" in the title. Hmmm, conflicting ideas. Which one do I go with?....*closes eyes, points finger, spins around, opens eyes* "Decent shooter." OK, fair enough. I guess that means it deserves an award. How about the Me Award in Honor of Pizza Love? No? None of you guys understand that joke? Screw you, I love pizza. That's the joke. Now be angry at me.

Review Synopsis

Something about Vin Diesel fighting naked psychic teens, I can't remember.
The actual shooting parts are good, if a bit nondescript.
The horror parts, however, need a lot of work.

1 Comments

A blog for those who love 2D games.

By Video_Game_King August 4, 2009 43 Comments

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

(Is it possible to hate this game?) Seriously, if you don't like Symphony of the Night, raise your hand, right now. Go ahead, there's no j-*shoots people who raise their hands* That's better. Now for those who weren't...um....killed...byyyyyy.......Dracula's forces, I'll begin my review by saying that I played the Sega Saturn version. What this means is that although there were things like new weapons, areas, and playable characters, I had to experience all of this in Japanese. Keep in mind that I actually had to look up the phrase "watashi wa" on Wikipedia. That should tell you how much Japanese I know.

Fortunately, I've played the game before, so at least I had an idea as to what was going on. It's the late 18th century, and a Belmont has killed Dracula in a manner that doesn't come off as a complete misnomer (because this was the Japanese version). However, four years later, we find out that this particular Belmont (Richter) was absolute crap at his job; not only did he not kill Dracula, but now he's under his control. And as if that wasn't embarrassing enough, Dracula's bastard son must now rescue him. The only thing that could be more embarrasing would be if Richter's girlfriend became horny for this Dracula sp....wait, she does. Pathetic. Anyway, being Dracula's son, Alucard has all the traditional powers of a vampire, like turning into a bat, a....wolf, or...a...poisonous fart? What the hell, am I playing as a vampire or a Wonder Twin?

The weirdness doesn't end there, though; Alucard has to collect the items that give him these powers, bat included. They're scattered throughout the castle in non-linear fashion, kind of like Metroid. So we have plenty of motivation to explore the castle, aside from the fact that it's really fun. It is, I'm not even joking; there were times when I'd just roam Castlevania with total disregard for any goals I had at the time. Granted, I eventually got back to the main quest after a long stint of plundering Dracula's house, but it's not like the game prevented me from dicking around. Instead, like any good Metroidvania game, it gives you a bunch of neat toys and lets you explore to your hearts content.

There's no way to avoid sexual jokes. NO WAY!!!

Oh, that's another thing I liked about the game: large variety of weapons. There are swords, knives, spears, brass knuckles, staves, giant metal balls, and several other weapons. You'd think they all behave the same way, but there's one thing that prevents this from happening: secret fighting game moves. For example, when you do a Hadouken for one weapon, it'll launch itself in a straight line at nearby enemies; do that same Hadouken with another weapon, and you astro-project yourself behind the enemy so you can shove a sword up their ass. Also, they can have different effects on enemies, but that part doesn't matter, since they'll end up dead anyways. On that note, I found most of the bosses were incredibly easy. I'd just whack them a few times and they'd burst into flames before the boss music could even reach 1:00. At first, I attributed it to good weapons, but that excuse became flaccid by the time I hit the second castle.

As should have been obvious before this review, there's a second castle, and guess what? It's upside down. This may sound a cheap way of artificially lengthening the game, but the reality is that while your experiences in the previous castle can help you plunder the inverted bastion, for the most part, it feels like a completely different environment. There are new weapons, power-ups and you can explore completely at your leisure (unlike the first castle, which placed a few limits on your exploration for most of the time). All of this, when combined with the other playable characters and unlockables, mean Symphony of the Night will last a long time.

So why didn't I give the game a perfect 10?....That's a good question, as there aren't any major flaws with the game. Sure, items are harder to use than they should be (go to menu, equip item, go back to game, use item, go back to menu, equip what you had before) and shields are completely useless, but those aren't enough to knock the game down to the 8.8 I gave it. I don't know, I guess it falls into "that" category of games. The subset of video games that have no major flaws or hinderances, but aren't perfect. Prince of Persia, NiGHTS, Dynamite Headdy, Dragon Warrior III, take your pick. They're all the same, in that regard. I should know, I've reviewed them all and given them awards. This game, too, but I'll do it again: Mega Man/Tomb Raider/Sonic Award for Continued Abuse. OK, in all fairness, this one's personal; SOTN used to be in my Top 10 games, but after some thought, it got demoted to #20. Still in the Top 20 games, that's an honor, isn't it? Well, Panzer Dragoon Saga was so awesome in every way, it bumped every game below it down one position. Now Symphony of the Night isn't even in the Top 20. You have to feel sorry for it at this point.

Review Synopsis

Two large castles to plunder!? Take that, Metroid!
Alucard has a variety of weapons and special forms with which he can destroy anything in his way.
New areas, scenario changes, and a playable Maria should be enough reason to import this for your Saturn.

I know it's extremely late for bad economy jokes (jokes about the poor state of the economy, not low quality jokes about the current economic atmosphere), but I'll make one anyway: GM's image is so poor, nobody wants to see it. Not even Capcom.

Mega Man X6

(*sigh*) Do you know how many Mega Man games I've reviewed here, not counting this one? Six. Six Mega Man games, and it's getting harder and harder to recycle the same thing in these blogs. I have no problem playing the games, but as I just said, reviewing them is where things get difficult. Mega Man X6 is no exception. OK, it did surprise me in one place: the story. Imagine my surprise when I started the game and was greeted by Japanese voicework. I thought I accidentally obtained the Japanese version, but no, it was the American version. Can somebody explain this to me, because I couldn't find anything about it anywhere.

Localization issues aside, X6's story is standard fare: it's three weeks after the events of X5, and already shit has hit the fan. Somebody named Gate is promising the same Nazi "Reploids are better than humans" crap that we saw in X4, and X has to stop it again. Also making a return from X4 is, drum roll....Sigma! Yes, despite permanently dying off in X5, he makes a predictable return in the sequel, meaning X sucks worse at his job than Richter could ever hope to. Other than that, there's not much I can say about the story other than "this sentence is a sort of proof of what I mentioned earlier."

I IN FRACTURED ENGLISH SHOUT!

To expand on the previous statement, I cite as evidence the gameplay. It's the usual "pick boss, get weapon, repeat for weakness" thing that they've been doing for years now, that goes without saying. However, unlike several other games in the series (I'm looking at you, Mega Man 4), this game at least tries to make the connections logical, like fire beats ice, ice beats "rain", rain beats anchor...look, I said it tries. That's something Mega Man X6 does a lot: trying new things with mixed success. For example, there's now an experience system. There are certain enemies that, when killed, give off an orb that gives you a certain amount of experience. What do you get from the experience? Actually, I never really figured that out. I'd imagine it's "stronger attacks and more HP" but you still have to collect hearts and armor parts and a third thing that rhymes with the previous two terms.

Oh, and if you don't collect the orb in time, the enemy you just killed comes back to life, with full health. Like another Capcom platformer, Mega Man X6 can be extremely cheap at times. Bosses can spam shots, jumps can be impossible, and enemies can (and often will) regenerate when you leave the screen. That last one may not sound like much, but it gets really annoying when you kill one enemy, get knocked back by the shot of another, and are now fighting two at the same time. Or you could be trying to rescue one of your Reploid friends, but an enemy will possess him and destroy all hopes of getting that cool item (or even recovering HP).

That's another big feature in this game: rescuing your friends. Yea, I know it was also in Mega Man X5, but in X6, things are more fleshed out. Instead of rescuing the occassional refugee, you must now save enough Reploids to fill the bus they probably crashed on their way to the level. When you rescue them, they give you an item and a slight HP boost, and then leave. It's a good feature that makes the game somewhat easier to manage, and the only complaints I have for it can be categorized under other sections, like the aforementioned ball-busting difficulty. Other than that, I don't have anything to say about this game that I haven't said about other Mega Man games. It's hard, you pick a boss, you collect armor, blah blah blah. I'll end this with the Pigmask Award for Lack of Any Individuality.

Review Synopsis

Sigma's back, you have to beat 8 Mavericks, what else is not new?
The new rescue feature is actually fleshed out and put to good use.
I could understand the Japanese voice acting for Symphony of the Night; here, it just confuses me.

43 Comments

Chewy platforming goodness.

By Video_Game_King August 2, 2009 8 Comments

Super Mario Sunshine

(I have caught up with gaming circa 2002.) I know it doesn't sound like much, but whenever I told people that I never played this game, the expression on their face quickly became this. So I eventually got the game, completely oblivious to the last time this sort of thing happened. To those of you dousing your flaming sticks of hatred in gasoline, let me say this first: I liked the game. It's overrated, sure, but like the also-overrated Final Fantasy VII, I enjoyed it anyway.

Don't act like you didn't know it.

The first part of this game I liked was that it admits Mario is part of the mafia. After years of killing Bowser and running various rackets, Mario decides to go on vacation with Peach. However, upon landing at the vacation spot, the locals recognize Mario as the Don of la mafia di funghi and promptly arrest him. However, because the people of Delfino are so stupendously retarded, they sentence him to mere community service. What's more, they give him the F.L.U.D.D., which is basically what happens when a jetpack has babies with a flamethrower. If that sounds too badass to be true, it is; rather than spraying fire or even gasoline, but water. Perhaps I gave the people of Delfino too little credit three sentences ago.

Of course, that's the main feature of Sunshine: the F.L.U.D.D. For the most part, the game uses it really well, allowing you to approach any situation in multiple ways. For example, if you need to spray all the goop off a level, do you run around with the R button held down, or methodically jetpack your way through it all? Do you jump through the level the normal way, or do you blaze through it with the ever-useful "reverse flip, wall jump, jetpack" combo? The obvious choice is the latter, and what should be obvious by now is that both of those examples involve the jetpack. There are other attachments to the thing, it's just that they aren't as good. There's an explosive fart attachment, which is useful but risky to use at times. There's also a turbo boost thing, but I don't see why this is in the game. It doesn't improve your abilities, and I never played a mission where you needed it. Can somebody point me to the part of the game when that becomes useful?

For all the complaints I have/will levy against the F.L.U.D.D., I'd still have it in the game, given what it's like when you don't have it with you. Periodically, Mario will lose his jetpack thing, and he has to do some regular platforming. I have nothing against that, but the execution in Sunshine is just horrible. Part of the problem is that none of the levels have checkpoints; the other, much larger part is that the level designer was apparently Kefka Palazzo. Some of the levels require inhuman levels of precision, and anything less than perfect means death. Oddly enough, anything more than perfect also means death, so unless you have that aforementioned level of precision, you're going to die A LOT. Why, Nintendo? Why did you make these parts of the game not only mandatory, but frustrating beyond belief?

Unfortunately, the frustration doesn't end there; it kinda ends with the blue coins. I didn't have much of a problem with them, despite what everybody else says, but it was annoying to spray an X for a blue coin only to see it appear on the other side of the level. What was the point of that? Was Nintendo at a loss for creative ideas? I doubt it, because there are some pretty cool ideas in this game. Ideas like Yoshi. Remember my E3 blog, where I was in love with the idea of Yoshi in 3D? And you guys told me this game already did it? Well, after playing this game, I can confirm that Yoshi in full 3D is superb. I could list off various reasons why, but there's only one reason I need: he can spray vomit on his foes. Say what you will, like that it's inconsistent or that it has little use in the game, but how can you not love the idea of spraying your enemies with Yoshi puke?

However, there is one thing I didn't like about Yoshi: the fact that 90% of his body is apparently powdered milk. Why does Yoshi dissolve in water (weird, since in his debut, there was a type of Yoshi specifically designed for the water)? And why the hell is he only green when he does dissolve? Where are the Goombas, the Koopas, the horrified Luigis? Why do I get the feeling that this didn't start off as a Mario game? I don't know, I just have this premonition that Nintendo was making another game entirely, but tacked on the Mario thing when they realized that Luigi's Mansion didn't count as a Mario title. However, the feeling remains: this wasn't originally a Mario game. I cite the level themes as evidence: yea, the F.L.U.D.D. is great and everything, but it means that you either make all the levels water themed or fuck things up because you didn't make the levels water themed.

Again, I feel like a lot of you are sticking your pitchforks into your torches to make them seering hot, so let me reiterate: I LIKED THIS GAME. Sure, it has its weak points, but it also had some creative missions, cool boss battles (although not enough of them), and a sex scandal to rock the ages. Actually...that sounds like an awesome line. I'll make note of that for any future reviews. As for this one, I'll give it the Kuja Award for Incredibly Easy Trance Induction and end the whole thing with this.

Review Synopsis

The F.L.U.D.D. is a neat feature which, for the most part, makes the game much better.
You'll die so much in the space platforming levels, you'd think you got Death's teen daughter pregnant.
If you don't love vomiting Yoshi, then you have no heart. Where will you place the X, you Nobody?

This commercial may look stupid, but you don't know how much American funky action it got me back in the day.

Klonoa

(I'm afraid this game brought about a disturbing revelation.) My Wii has Red-Ringed on me. I know that it's an Xbox thing, but I'm using that as a term meaning "to crap your own guts out." My Wii dropped a hint when I tried playing my (used) copy of Sunshine, but it wasn't until this game that the ugly truth dawned upon me. It took quite a few tries before I was able to play this particular game, and I was lucky that this game is incredibly short.

Wow, this is weird. Usually, I open with the story or what I like about the gameplay, but it seems that I've set up the review so that I have to transition straight into the shit. Whatever, I'll just roll with this new style and see where it takes me. Anyway, like I just said, Klonoa is an incredibly short game. I started at around 2 PM yesterday and finished at 11:30, and I'm sure I could've finished much sooner if I did it all in one sitting. There's also very little replay value to be had in the game; I managed to 100% most of the levels on my first try. That brings me to another thing: this game is easy. How easy? Well, in Super Mario Sunshine, I died A LOT in the platforming levels; in Klonoa, I rarely died, and even if I did, the ludicrously high number of lives the game throws at you will make the Game Over screen more of an enigma than the ending screen of Takeshi's Challenge. Speaking of endings, it seems the transition to the Wii kinda screwed up the ending. Yea, it's the same teary-eyed conclusion as in the PS1 version, but.....just look for yourselves.

Of course, by mentioning the ending, I must mention a reviewing stalwart: the storyline. The story follows thusly: you take the role of Klonoa, a cat thing with arms for ears, on a mission to save the Moon Kingdom. Not mine, but a fictional one that's being terrorized by a fictional villain, Ghadius. How will Klonoa stop such a not-real threat? With the help of his friend, of course! He launches his friend (Huepow) at enemies, which inflates them, for some reason. (My guess is that somebody in the programming department misunderstood the phrase "to blow up.") That's pretty much the main gimmick of Klonoa: grabbing your enemies. It's actually put to creative use in this game, from doing multiple grab-jumps to reach a bubble to launching enemies at or away from the screen to hit something in one of those aforementioned locations. Oh, and both of these happen late in the game, so don't get the impression that the creativity takes a nosedive by the time you actually fight Ghadius.

Klonoa knows that this encounter can't end well.

Speaking of creativity, there are a lot of creative things in this game; in addition to "simplistic", I'd use the word "creative" to describe this game. For example, the 2.5D gameplay. Before I actually describe what I like about it, let me say that I don't like how gamers have been using the term "2.5D." While it implies a unique combination of 2D and 3D, you guys usually use it to describe either Paper Mario or Super Smash Bros, both games that could be done on purely 2D system. Klonoa was the first 2.5D game I've played that feels like a proper combination of 2D and 3D; while gameplay is purely limited to a 2D plane, several planes can overlap with each other, and there are often objects placed to the side of these 2D planes that you must interact with...in 3D...sort of. My point is that I loved crap like this.

What I also loved about that battle was that its weakness wasn't given away right before you fought him. Unfortunately, for a lot of the early bosses (and I guess the final boss, sort of), the game blatantly announces how to beat him. "Oh, and Scary Looking Boss Monster, watch out for the soft spot on your head", a recurring villain will announce not to himself. I guess it plays into the easy and simple theme the game was going for, but I'd much rather have the simple part, not the easy part. See, I told you I'd get to the simple part. The controls are basic enough to be mapped to an NES controller, and it doesn't get more complicated than "grab enemy, bounce off them, shoot at enemies." It's easy to just pick up the controller and jump into a session, which makes me see why it was ported to the Wii: you know, that whole "pick up and play" thing Nintendo has been advertising for the past few years. Sure, it may not have motion controls, but regardless, it feels right at home on the Wii...........Damn it, I forgot the award. And that was such a great ending, too. I give it the Ultimecia Award for a Piss Easy Final Boss and order all of you to pretend that I worked that into the previous text, somehow.

Review Synopsis

Shorter than this.
Great use of what it has at its disposal.
The colorful graphics are perfect for the Wii. Even if they do destroy the ending.

8 Comments

I had no idea games could be this short.

By Video_Game_King July 30, 2009 5 Comments

Magic Knight Rayearth

(Remember my Ugly Duckling intro to my Panzer Dragoon Saga review?) Well, there's another reason I used it, and I didn't tell you until now. The reason is because of this game. Back to the story, there's one detail I left out. In between the swan song and becoming the Dreamcast, the four-winged bird-thing involuntarily let out a fart. It wasn't a smelly fart or a loud fart, but the damage was done: it went out on a fart. That fart was Magic Knight Rayearth. As much as Saturn fans don't want to admit, the last Saturn game was not Panzer Dragoon Saga, but Magic Knight Rayearth instead.

To be fair, though, Magic Knight Rayearth isn't that bad of a game, but it doesn't exactly start things on the right foot. It spends at least an entire Simpsons episode (most likely this one) setting up the story of three middle school girls destined to save a magical gumdrop world from an evil sorcerer. That may sound like a somewhat generic storyline, but what separates this from other JRPGs is just how girly it is. A lot of the events concern the girls flirting with recurring male characters or doing non sequitur good deeds but not taking credit for it because that's how truly nice they are! Consider it the opposite of Gears of War 2; whereas that game forced muscle-headed space marines to slice aliens in twain, this one make three girls fight their own periods.

Speaking of fighting, after sitting through 30 minutes of girly plot, I was quite surprised to find that this Magic Knight Rayearth was incredibly different from the SNES version. The first thing I noticed (other than the high amounts of estrogen) was that rather utilizing turn based battles, the Saturn version had much better real time battles. You crawl through dungeons like Zelda, slashing foes with one of three characters. However, you're going to be using Fuu (the shy girl) the most, for several reasons. First, while her friends get stuck with swords and offensive spells, Fuu has a bow and the only healing spell in the game. She can also charge her bow to lock onto multiple enemies, destroying any possible reason you could have for playing as the other two girls.

Aside from the balance issues, though, the combat is OK, but there's not much motivation to actually fight the enemies. You can only hold one item at a time, you're never going to buy anything (becaues of the previous statement), and you level at fixed intervals, so the only reason you have to kill the enemies is because they're in your way. To phrase it a bit more clearly: killing things isn't particularly fun. It's not bad, that's not what I'm saying, but it's not good, either. The only other noteworthy thing I can say is that the boss battles are very easy and all follow the same strategy: switch to Fuu (which I'm guessing is pronounced "F-you", given the previously mentioned super status), release your heat seeking arrows, heal if necessary.

The only boss battles I can think of that don't follow this pattern are the final battles. After our intrepid heroes beat up the villain in his poorly rendered CG castle, he transforms into a giant robot and you have to fight him in Galaga-esque fashion. I had the same confused look about me, but what confused me more was when I went to rescue the Princess, only to find out that SHE WANTS THE HEROES DEAD. THE SAME HEROES SHE SUMMONED. I yelled that out of disbelief. Yea, the game explains it, but I just couldn't dive into a plot hole this big. However, that's not the biggest flaw, oddly enough; the biggest flaw is just how short it is. The world of Cefiro is incredibly small, and while there are hidden items strewn about this estrogen-fueled land, but there's not enough reason to collect them. I realize that the last Saturn game I reviewed was short, but keep in mind it took me a month to beat. Compare that to Magic Knight Rayearth, a game I completed in three days. I don't know what the exact hour count was, but I'm guessing I could have completed it in a single 10 hour time span.

Another thing I noticed: apparently, beavers are awful swimmers.

But if I did rush through it like that (and not like I did here), I probably wouldn't have noticed the little things in the game. Little things like the graphical glitches, the "too anime, even for a JRPG lover" tutorials, or the aforementioned plot hole large enough to swallow the sun. Then again, those probably wouldn't have changed my opinion, which is this for the people too lazy to actually read the review or the synopsis below: it's better than the SNES version, but that's not saying much. It's also much girlier than the SNES version. So girly, it earns the Girliest Game Award.

Review Synopsis

The girliest story in video games since....well, I can't think of anything, so why not "girliest game ever?"
The combat is OK, but needs some balancing.
I finished this in three days.

I've wanted to post this video for quite some time, but never got the opportunity. Here is Keaton Fox with a rock remix:

Rapid Reload

(Ah, that's more like it.) Nothing more manly than shooting stuff. Well, there is one thing more manly...But this game is pretty manly for the fact that it's a shooter. I know what you're thinking: "Rapid Reload has to be the best name for the best light gun game ever." While that's probably true, this Rapid Reload isn't a light gun game; instead, this is a PS1 side scrolling shooter that feels like both Metal Slug and Gunstar Heroes combined into one. In fact, if I were to describe the game in one snippet, it'd be "looks like Metal Slug, plays like Gunstar Heroes."

I might as well start with the latter part of the statement, since my "story first" style of writing doesn't work when you don't know what the hell it's about. As I said, you run around and wantonly shoot things because they look at you funny (or maybe it's because they look funny, I don't know). You have a variety of weapons, but like the aforementioned Magic Knight Rayearth, you're mainly going to use one: the electric-lock-on-death-line. Maybe it's just me, but I rarely used anything other than that weapon, since it locks onto multiple enemies and can be used as a shield. It's like somebody looked at the taser and said, "How can I make it deadlier?" To be fair, though, I'm sure the developers designed the game around these circumstances, since like Metal Slug and Gunstar Heroes, there can be a metric shitload of enemies on screen at any given time.

Obviously, this means the game is hard. However, like Ninja Gaiden II and many JRPGs I've played in Japanese (Mystic Ark, Dragon Quest IV, Thracia 776, etc.), I'm not sure the difficulty is a pure one. For example, while I don't have a problem with the high amount of bullets the bosses release, I do have a problem with this weird clicking noise whenever they do release said bullets. Wait a minute....damn it, wrong note. I meant to say, "I do have a problem when I absorb enough bullets to die." When you die (and you will, that's why I said "when"), you don't just start over in the exact spot; instead, you view a "Game Over, would you like to continue" screen, click yes, and go back to the beginning of the level. OK, there are checkpoints, but you still have to fight through all the enemies again, making it likely you go through all of that crap again.

The weird part is that I didn't play the Japanese version.

"If you're the King, this game shou-". You couldn't finish that statement because I removed your head before you could. For those who can't decipher what the Now-Headless Horseman was getting at, it was that this game isn't too cheap. There is some truth in that statement, there are also some cheap moments in this game, like the "scrolling hole" problem. You know, where you move the screen up, and what was once a platform is now a hole to your death. Yea, this is definitely a game with an old school mindset. It's hard, there are lots of bullets, it controls well, it's just like many other shooters out there. And that's the problem, at least for me. I hate reviewing generic games because this happens: I'm left with nothing to say other than boring platitudes, making for a crap review. Crap reviews like this one. The actual game was fun to play, but Rapid Reload isn't a fun game to review. It would have been better if it was that light gun game I mentioned three paragraphs ago, so I'll give this game the Wasted Potential Award for Not Being a Light Gun Game.

Review Synopsis

The difficulty lives in Ninja Gaiden II territory, which is just between Hardania and the Cheaponesia Badlands.
The gameplay is OK, but doesn't do much to distinguish itself from other shooters.
日本語で終わるのはなぜですか？

5 Comments

Something I never thought possible has just occured.

By Video_Game_King July 28, 2009 10 Comments

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back

(But I'll expand on that idea later.) Right now, I'll focus on the sequel to Crash Bandicoot, which, for some reason, uses Star Wars as the inspiration for its title. Weird, as Cortex Strikes Back has absolutely nothing in common with any of the Star Wars movies; if anything, what it resembles most is the previous Crash Bandicoot. Almost everything this game does was already done in the previous entry. The reason I said "almost" is because, surprisingly, there are some things not blatantly ripped straight from Crash 1, one of them being the story.

"Go out and do my bidding, my sworn enemy."

Unlike the first Crash game, there's more to the story than "let's watch this thing be insane." After being beaten by Crash, Cortex forms a plot to rule the world by making a super-weapon of some kind. However, to fuel this weapon, he needs to collect crystals. Fortunately, Crash is more than willing to help. I am not kidding, Crash is actually insane enough to help Cortex take over the world. OK, it's under the delusion that he's saving the world, but Crash doesn't know that until after the first level, which is notably after he agreed to help Cortex. Yes, he's willing to help the person he fought against in the first game, something the game reminds you of. So why does Crash help the bad guy? The same reason he beat him up in the first game: because he is out of his fucking mind.

So one of the recurring themes, Crash's insanity, has carried over; what about others, like the Donkey Kong Country feel? Well, that's another one of the things that wasn't ripped off, as CSB feels less like a DKC game than its predecessor did. Again, it feels a lot like the first game, almost to the point where they weren't really trying. Does running away from about nine boulders sound familiar? No? What about riding a helpless animal just for the hell of it? Both of these appear several times throughout the game, just in case you didn't catch onto the unoriginality the first time.

Crash 2 also makes some improvements over the original formula, but the majority of them are very minor tweaks. For example, rather than just running through levels, you now have a goal: collect a crystal for the bane of your existence in each level. While that's the idea behind the level design, the reality is that you still blast through levels quickly. Every single crystal you need is hidden in plain sight, so unless you're in a level with multiple paths, there's a good chance you'll get everything you need on your first run. (And even if there multiple paths, you can turn around if you realize you haven't obtained the crystal.) Still, you have to at least respect it, as it gives Crash 2 more structure. That's another change present in this game: more structure. Rather than randomly jumping around three islands, you periodically switch between several level hubs. After completing five levels, you move onto a piss-easy boss fight. Glad to see that hasn't changed.

But guess what has changed? Crash's abilities. Now he has this slide/body smash thing, and surprisingly, it's put to good use. There are several boxes that can only be broken with this move, there are some enemies you can only defeat with this move, and sliding allows you to jump higher somehow. It comes off as more of a central gameplay feature and less of a one-time gimmick. Lack of gimmicks aside, Cortex Strikes Back still feels a lot like the first game in the series, and because of this, it carries over the same flaws, like how you trip over so many lives that the Grim Reaper has to restore the balance. (That was the best I could do.) Then again, Crash was still a fun game, so I guess it's somewhat decent that the sequel changed very little. What to do, what to do.....I know! I'll give it the M. C. Escher Award for Conflicting Perceptions of the Same Thing, and then yell at anybody who dares disagree with me.

Review Synopsis

It's just that: Crash Bandicoot with a 2 on the end.
The hub adds more structure to the experience, even if the crystals don't change crap.
Crash's sister is a mysterious bitch.

This is seriously the most random fucking thing I've seen on the Internet.

Panzer Dragoon Saga

(I'll be the first to admit that I've ripped off Yahtzee in the past.) When? You haven't seen it, but trust me, I've done it. Why am I saying this? Just so people won't accuse me of ripping off his Prince of Persia review when I use the following intro: once upon a time, there were three ducklings. The first one kicked ass left and right, and his name was "PlayStation"; the second was a cute little fatass called the Nintendo 64. And then there was the third one, called Sega Saturn. No matter how hard it tried to impress everyone around it, the poor duckling was simply ignored. It probably didn't help that it had four wings and was hatched a month early, but still, you had to feel sorry for the poor little thing. Fortunately, though, it eventually discovered it was actually a beautiful swan (OK, not beautiful, given the wing-malformation). So as its last act as a duck, it let out a magnificent "screw you" song to every creature in the forest. And then it became the Sega Dreamcast.

Yea, and it was THIS big, I swear!

"What the hell was that about", you're thinking to yourself. Well, that song was Panzer Dragoon Saga, and I've heard the term "swan song" applied to this game quite a bit. I assume the term means "something so great, it makes up for all the crap before it", and if true, then I can see how its use is justified in this case. PDS is a great game that fulfills the potential of not only the Saturn, but also the Panzer Dragoon series. Case in point is the story. One thing I've always thought about the series is that there was potential for a good story, but Sega didn't put it to good use; this all changed with Saga. For example, instead of playing as a Russian serf fighting an empire atop a laser-burping dragon, you play as Edge, a mercenary for the empire....fighting the empire atop a laser burping dragon. What makes him turn sides? Well, on one of his missions, he encounters a mystical hot piece of ass from the Ancient Age. But it seems a dirty man named Craymen plans on using her ass for his own nefarious purposes. Edge, with the aid of his dragon, must now stop Craymen, the Empire, and anybody else from tapping that ass. Already, it has earned Bushwald Sexyface's Seal of Approval, which he designed himself.

OK, in all seriousness, the story is much deeper than that. In fact, it's really, really deep. It achieves levels of symbolism that many games don't even come close to achieving, and the themes range from things like religion, our role on the planet, and destiny. It also establishes complex series of character relations and several plot twists that, while not Shyamalan-worthy, at least manage to shame those of other games. A lot of effort went into making the story great, but at times, the developers seemed a bit too eager with the story. The cutscenes can drag on at times, some of them (including the opening cutscenes) clocking in at about ten minutes. I know it never reaches Metal Gear Solid levels of "when the shitting hell will this cutscene end", but there are still plenty of moments where you find yourself sitting on your ass, waiting for the part of the game where you get to shoot the piss out of huge bugs.

And trust me, you want to get to these battles; they are Panzer Dragoon Saga's strong point. If I could summarize the battle system in one phrase, it'd be "Active Time Battle mixed with a rail shooter." In battle, you can't do anything until you've filled up at least one gauge of a possible three. While you're waiting for them to fill, you dodge enemy attacks in full 3D and semi-real time (attacks either hit you or they don't, sort of). You'd think it would be a nightmarish clusterfuck, but Panzer Dragoon Saga manages to pull it off excellently; it strikes a perfect balance between rail-shooter-twitch gameplay and traditional JRPG combat. Another thing that the battle system balances well is speed and strategy, which I didn't think possible, since I percieve them on opposite sides of the gaming spectrum. Anyway, how does it balance the two? Grades. For each battle, you're graded on your performance and awarded experience/money based on that. So what keeps you from just speeding through each battle? Moving prevents you from charging your gauges, and in some of the more intense battles, you'll have to fly about like it's the final boss of Panzer Dragoon II. (Ironically, I don't recall much movement in the Guardian Dragon boss fight in this game.)

The gaming savvy will notice that final boss I linked is just a boss in this game. Panzer Dragoon Saga pays attention to the little details, and what I previously mentioned is just an example. The other example I have is how atmospheric it is. There are only about two or three towns in the entire game, but the good thing is that they feel like towns. Even in the best RPGs I can name, the towns just feel like very poorly disguised black markets with hotels; in Panzer Dragoon Saga, howerver, I can actually imagine people living in these towns, going about their lives, speaking their weird language. Oh, that's another thing: this game has its own language, and it feels like a language. There seem to be actual words and sentence structure to what they're s....you don't care about this at all, do you? Hey, I thought it was a really cool feature. (See that? Ripped it right from the Uncharted review.)

Shit! That's the Saturn!?

*sigh* I know what you people like. You like graphics, mainly because you're idiots who get easily distracted by shiny objects. To the idiots among you, I say this: Panzer Dragoon Saga has the best graphics out of all the Sega Saturn games. The distinctive art style is still as awesome as ever, obviously, but the game is also presented in not only 3D, but really good 3D. Keep in mind that this is the Sega Saturn, the technological equivalent of taping two toasters together vertically. It also made sure that any FMVs were so rough, you could mistake them for Mr. Itagaki, Panzer Dragoon Saga not excluded. Ignoring that blemish, the CGI in this entry is actually of professional quality, unlike the poorly aged CGI of the games before it. What makes all of this amazing is the complete lack of any load times. You can jump between massive floors of a gargantuan labyrinth in only a few seconds; the time you spend waiting to get anywhere is really short.

And so we come to the crippling flaw of this game: it's short. Very short. The end time on my run was 12 hours, a pathetic amount of time for a shooter, let alone an RPG. What makes it worse is that near the end (but not AT the end, if you catch my drift), the creativity kinda drops a bit. Hell, before the final boss, you have to fight the same mini-boss about four times. It's like they were running out of ideas, a theory supported by the ending kinda ripping off Earthbound. Also, the game is extremely rare. How rare? Well, I was emulating this, and it was hard for me to find a copy of this. Finding regular Saturn games to play illegally is hard enough; now raise that to the power of Panzer Dragoon Saga. Still, though, this is a game that's worth the trip to Egypt (semi-obscure Indy reference). It's a lot like sex with me: you'll probably never have it, and it's not going to last long, but trust me, it's going to be something you remember for the rest of your life. I can't give it an award, since Bushwald sort of did that earlier, so I guess I'll end this with a score. The stupids may rejoice. Again. I give this game a ni.........what.......this....this can't be.....

Review Synopsis

The story is interesting, deep, and very proud of itself.
Holy crap, they somehow managed to make a rail shooter into an RPG!
Wow, this game is short.

Extra fight sequence

(Holy shit, I don't believe it.) This is the first game on Giant Bomb I've given a rating above 9.0! Those of you scanning my games beaten list may notice several other games there that have 9.0s, to which I respond with "Those were GameSpot." Apparently, at some point in the exodus to this site, my standards for what an excellent game is suddenly shot through the roof. Panzer Dragoon Saga, having the obvious advantage of being on a dragon, apparently met those high standards. Considering this is such a rare thing, I decided I'd honor this game by placing it in my Top 10 video games ever. But which one? We will decide this with a fight! First up is:

Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu

Fight!
The challenge is this: is the game in question Fire Emblem 4? Panzer Dragoon Saga is at a terrible disadvantage, as it isn't Fire Emblem 4. Seisen no Keifu, on the other hand, is, so it wins the match.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

3! 2! 1! GO!
I foresee a lot of you declaring the previous round unfair. Fine, smartasses, I'll play along. The next challenge is this: how long will this last you? Again, PDS gets a merciless ass beating. As I mentioned before, the game is embarrassingly short, and what little replay value there is can be squeezed out rather quickly using multiple saves. Compare this to Brawl, a game with so many game modes, unlockables, and extras, that by the time you're finished with it, Nintendo will have released the next Smash Bros already. (Crafty little bastards...) It almost feels unfair, like pitting a little girl against The Incredible Hulk. And the little girl is a Girl Scout who happened to have the worst timing of anybody in her Troop. Regardless, Brawl easily wins.

Conker's Bad Fur Day

Battle!
This is interesting: two under-appreciated early-3D era games that were considered the swan songs of their respective systems. I guess I'll use that as a theme for the next challenge: how good were the games before it (for the entire system, obviously)? The Saturn did have a lot of good titles, but many of them were limited to Japan, so I'm not sure I can count that. The N64, on the other hand, had a lot more non-Japan-only greats that were actually better than what the Saturn was offering. The sole exception is in JRPGs, but again, a lot of the Saturn's classics were Japan only, so Conker's Bad Fur Day wins the battle.

Cocoron

Duel!
Well, automatic point loss for the smug-douche look on Paet's face. Now then, most of you don't know what Cocoron is. OK, I'll be honest: none of you know what Cocoron is, so let me explain: it was a Japan-only platformer for the NES. A big part of it was character customization, so that shall be the challenge: how much can you customize your character? This one is actually fairer than you'd think, as Panzer Dragoon Saga actually has some fleshed out customization options. You can directly customize the stats of your dragon, determine its class, what spells it learns, and what type of gun Edge uses. Seems pretty good, right? What does Cocoron have? *does calculations* Over 3000 possible characters you can create. Again, it seems a bit unfair, but also again, Panzer Dragoon Saga loses.

Terranigma

Destroy!
And here's another late-life religious RPG with a decent plot. Another thing these games have in common is that they both let you fly. The challenge here is, "Which one is more fun to fly?" Obviously, the victor here is Panzer Dragoon Saga. In Terranigma, you only get to fly the plane very late in the game, and it doesn't really feel like flying; it feels more like the airship from FF4, only you can adjust how high off the ground it is. Compare this to Panzer Dragoon Saga, a game built around flight. You have vast environments in which to fly, battles set far above the sky, and flight the destroys Terranigma...in the eye. What I'm saying is that Panzer Dragoon Saga has finally won.

The new order has been determined. Rejoice. For the third time.

10 Comments

Super Heavy Metal Hadouken Edition!

By Video_Game_King July 25, 2009 16 Comments

Guilty Gear

(Wow, it's been a long time since I've reviewed a fighting game.) I mean a REALLY long time. In fact....aside from half of Mazin Saga, I don't think I've reviewed a single fighting game on this site. It's not that I hate them, it's just that I suck at them (but am still capable of liking them). So then why the hell did I play Guilty Gear?......Yea, that's a good question. Why the fuck did I play this game? Can't be the story; despite their insistance, I've never really thought of story as an important thing to this genre (it should mostly be "let's beat each other up"). That said, Guilty Gear's story is similar to other fighters in that regard and more. For example, it contains the three elements required of any fighting game: a mysterious tournament, some evil threat somehow tied to the tournament, and a botched translation.

At least I assume the translation was screwed up; everything about the dialogue/cast is so random, it's hard to tell if any of it was

The Japanese: scaring robots since 1974.

intentional. Here are some non-fabricated character descriptions I found on the move list I was using: "Hobbies: Attempting to understand the language of the flowers." "Dislikes: Bald people." "Favorite Thing: Indestructible Pencil Cases." "Birthplace: Russia." I told you it was random. I'm guessing this amount of randomness was just Arc System's way of making us care about the characters, and if that was the case, then it's like a cherry on top of an already weird cake. The cast includes hair-whipping women, nine foot tall "doctors", and girls who can harness the dark and arcane powers of being Japanese. Despite their weirdness, I found it easy to classify them into two groups: use and don't use. What I'm saying is that the cast of characters isn't very balanced; often times, I found the only way to win a match with the "not use" characters was to mash buttons and hope my pathetic flailing would make my opponent WTF themselves to death.

Holy crap, this is actually coming out much harsher than I intended it to appear. The reality is that I actually liked the game. Despite my hiatus from the genre for at least a year, it was easy for me to kill my opponents with half-circle-forwards and quarter-circle-backs. The only thing I found hard about the controls were pulling off some of the super moves, but I blame that less on the game and more on my fingers being made of ham. Back to the combos, building up combos seems to be this game's twist on the traditional fighting game mold. As I said, it's easy to build up combos, it feels rewarding to do so, and it leads to some very interesting fights. It's not as combo-intesive as something like Killer Instinct, but it's definitely enough to distinguish tihs game from the other googolplex fighters out at the time.

"Wow, a unique atmosphere and easy controls," you might be thinking to yourself. "This is the perfect gift for my friend!" No, it isn't, for several reasons. I'll ignore all the obvious reasons why it isn't, and instead will lunge at the unmentioned reason: it's simply not for beginners. As I said, there are some balance issues with some of the characters, but there are also instant death moves. Do I need to say anything else? INSTANT. DEATH. MOVES. Not just moves that take off a lot of HP; moves that take off ALL your HP. There is a way to avoid it, but it requires button combos you'd only know if you played the game before/had access to GameFAQs. To make things worse, the computers use these instant death moves more often than they should (IE they use it), meaning friendless freaks like myself still have to deal with this crap.

I now realize that, having introduced the previous paragraph by debunking a hypothetical suggestion, I must now answer the following: would I recommend this? Despite the previous four paragraphs of ranting, I'd say yes. Buy this game. It is quirky, fun, and has a kickass metal soundtrack. I'd have gone into more depth about it, but I'm not really the type of person to review music. The most I can say is that one of the characters is actually named for a metal rocker (I think). This can only mean one of two things: either the soundtrack rocks, or this game is another reminder of the prolonged decline of a once-beloved icon of gaming. Given that Axl Low is a mark of the former, I give this game the Best Metal Soundtrack Award. Here to present this award is Metal Man. Excuse me while I search for a video that relates to this blog, somehow.

Review Synopsis

The story makes my brain hurt.
Very easy to control, fun to build up combos.
Not for beginners.

A Shinkuu Shoryuken, brought to us by Homer Simpson.

Fighting Street

(Also known as Street Fighter.) Yes, there's actualy a reason Street Fighter II has that 2 on the end (as opposed some other games): there was a game before it. Why hasn't anybody heard of it? Well, it isn't that good. Before I continue, let me say something that should be very obvious to a lot of old school gamers reading this: I was playing the TurboGrafx-CD version of the game. That should explain a few of the criticisms I will address to this game. OK, that's out of the way? Fine, let's get this out of the way so I can move onto other games that need my attention.

...I retract any previous statements regarding Guilty Gear's translation.

This being a Street Fighter game, you will square off against a wide cast of characters from several locales across the globe. Too bad you can only play as Ryu. To be fair, you also get to play as Ken in the multiplayer mode, but it's a palette swap for Ryu meant for the second player. I know this was a very early entry in the fighting game genre, but the least Capcom could have done was give players a (superficial) choice between the two characters. You do get a choice of starting stage, which is sort of weird. It's kinda like this game was trying to be the opposite of what fighters after it would do.

In fact, I could probably write a one phrase review using that line: the opposite of what fighters after it would do. In fact, let me use the aforementioned Guilty Gear as an example. Let's begin, class. In Guilty Gear, I claimed it was easy to control and pull off super-moves. What does this mean for poor old Fighting Street? Yes, it's hard to pull off your moves. I know I mentioned my pork fingers earlier, but even if I wasn't, I'd still have a hard time pulling off the moves. I'd often find myself doing the right maneuvers with no results whatsoever. It's not like I got them mixed up (like I did in Guilty Gear); each character has only 3 moves, and you only play as one character.

To be fair, though, the pay-off for actually using a move (and watching it connect (more on that later)) is really good. Too good, in fact; all three of the moves at your disposal are deadlier than the looks of Bushwald Sexyface. If you're extremely lucky, you can knock off about 90% of your enemy's life force with a well placed hurricane kick; if you're extremely unlucky (like me), Sagat will end the match in seven seconds without taking a single point of damage. Unlike Guilty Gear, where it was just the characters who were unbalanced, Fighting Street balances things by making the enemies much more powerful than you. Whereas your special moves are enough to destroy a large portion of their heatlh, their regular moves are enough to DESTROY YOU. I imagine this was meant to suck quarters out of you at the arcade (because Capcom is evil), but again, I was playing a home console version. Shouldn't they have used the conversion to fix any flaws that might have been in the original?

In this case, I guess they did, because the overpowered enemies are balanced by shoddy collision detection. I don't need to say much, it's self-explanatory: my kicks would go right through my foes, and my Shoryukens enveloped me in an invisible shield that made me immune to all attacks. *notices something* Is it just me, or is this game trying to balance flaws with other flaws? A weird design philosophy, but what does this mean for the game's strengths? Surprisingly, balance them with flaws. Back to the Guilty Gear lesson plan, I noted that it had a bitchin' metal soundtrack. What does Fighting Street do, class? If you said, "play monkey farts set to the tune of this", then you are wrong. Surprisingly, the music in this game is really good. So then how does it balance this, as I mentioned before? Well, the crap voiceovers. It's a CD game, you have no excuse to utilize Altered Beast talent. I'd blame the original arcade version for it, but weren't games like Star Wars and.....Star Wars giving us semi-clear voice acting YEARS before Fighting Street?

I've the feeling that people are going to type at me in Caps Lock. Before you do, though, keep in mind I'm not anti-Street Fighter. It took a while, but I eventually warmed up to Street Fighter II. I even loved Street Fighter Alpha on the Game Boy Color. Yes, in all its limited glory, I enjoyed that Street Fighter. Not this one, though. This one just isn't that good. Although it is good enough to win the Honorary Royal Moon Award for Honoring Our Glorious Moon Physics. (What I'm saying is that you jump like you're on the moon. I still get the last laugh.)

Review Synopsis

All three of your moves are hard to pull off.
Don't worry, though; they'll knock away 94% of your enemy's life once you use them.
No, wait, worry; the collision detection can screw you over at times.

16 Comments

The return of Bushwald Sexyface.

By Video_Game_King July 22, 2009 16 Comments

Saints Row 2

(This time, he has his eyes set on Saints Row.) Yes, I beat Saints Row 2, and I did it all with the help of Bushwald Sexyface. The game began with Bushwald in jail, heavily wrapped in gauze. I assume both of these were due to Stillwater's strict anti-sexiness laws. Anyway, the bandages were soon taken off, and I was given the option to customize my new plaything, a feature that automatically makes it better than GTA4. (And now I wait...) However, it doesn't end there; you can customize everything about your character, from his voice to his taunts (I chose Ride the Donkey, obviously). It was during this period of character creation that I discovered one important thing: Bushwald looks a helluva lot like The Joker. Not wanting to totally rip off Yahtzee, I combined Bushwald with both The Joker and Sephiroth to form the alter-ego to Sexyface: Sexyroth. He still has a gruff Cockney accent, but his theme song is now One Wanged Angel, and he looks like this:

Wait, where was I going with all this? Oh, right, story. Sexyroth escapes from the prison to a world that has long forgotten his sexiness. It is his goal to reunite the Saints, destroy the less sexy gangs of the city, and conquer Stillwater with guns and more guns. Along the way, he makes many friends and enemies, all of them incredibly screwed up and weird. Part of what makes Saints Row 2 great is how damn creative it can be. One mission can involve making the homeless more homeless, and the next can be about blowing up fish as part of a drug ring overthrow. Linked to this high amount of creativity is the fucked up humor of the game. I'm not a man known for laughing, or indeed expressing any human emotion, but there were plenty of moments in the game where I can imagine myself guffawing. There was that scene where Sexyroth was high out of his mind, the mission where you tatooed nuclear waste to a biker dude, the aforementioned homeless-rehomelessing...

Actually, the funny/creative moments aren't really limited to the story; the game itself has its moments, too, and I'm not just saying that because I was playing as Sexyroth. Yea, I had fun only using swords and explosives (which is more convenient than you'd think), but the insane mini-games and diversions also ate up a lot of my time. Scattered throughout the metropolis are random little mini-games dedicated to one aspect of the game, something they applied to EVERYTHING in the game. There's the usual races and assassinations, but you also get the opportunity to blow everything up in sight, among other things. Things like riding atop people's cars, beating people up as a cop, and sparying shit all about the town like the Great Mighty Poo with a stomach virus. Some of them aren't that good, like the insurance fraud thing, but for the most part they're a fun distraction from the main missions.

Wait, I forgot something: they're essentially mandatory. Breaking the third gaming commandment, you can't do missions unless you have the proper amount of respect. How do you earn this respect? Apparently, not by killing the leader of a rival gang, but by jumping out of planes from the stratosphere. Yea, I don't understand it, either, but I was forced to play mini-games anyway. My beloved mini-games now became mindless chores I had to complete in order to progress the story. As that other guy said in the link, forcing the player to do something (especially in repetition) to advance through the game isn't a good idea. Speaking of which, the missions/strongholds seem to be mostly variants of "go here, kill somebody." There's nothing wrong with killing, but a little variety would help. It'd especially help if the game had auto-save, since I found myself replaying the same missions repeatedly due to freezes and almost-freezes.

This is the guy. Obviously not as tough as he looks.

To be fair, I don't blame Saints Row 2 for the occasional freezing; what I blame it for is the collection of other technical problems I encountered. The frame rate tends to struggle in high-tensity situations, and there are several instances where the game fucks up an animation or something. My perfect example is when I was fighting one of the gang leaders. He had a mini-gun, and I had explosives. I threw a grenade in his general direction, and apparently hit him so hard, he spent the rest of the fight frozen in a T position. OK, he wasn't completely frozen; at random intervals in the fight, he'd spontaneously regenerate in another location in a futile attempt to not die. I'm not kidding, he just stood there like a steroid-infused cheerleader with a death wish.

I'm also not kidding when I say that the cheats in this game are far better than in GTA4. "Oooh, the King cheats, I guess h-gwah." That thing at the end is the sound a person makes when they're choking on their own blood. We all know the first thing everybody did when they got Grand Theft Auto III: go to GameFAQs, print out a list of the cheats, and start flying cars like Peter Pan on a drunk bender. The (numbered) sequel didn't continue this trend; there wasn't that much to it other than the simple cars and weapons. I guess all that unused creativity went towards making the cheats in Saints Row 2 really great. Aside from the usual cars/weapons, you have Alice in Wonderland cheats, a cheat that makes people fall from the sky, and another that makes people rise into the sky. Can your beloved GTA do that?

Some of you may have noticed by now that I've been bashing GTA a lot in this review, and those of you who did will no doubt come to the aid of your beloved Grand Theft Auto. In my defense, though, it was inevitable, kinda like how all the original Silent Hill reviews compared it to RE2. Both of them are good games, it's just that they do different things better than the other. Grand Theft Auto has story and realism, while Saints Row 2 gives you under 20 hours bail out of cars with cruise control on. Still, though, I have to give Saints Row 2 not only the honor of being the better game, but also my Second Highest Rated Game on Giant Bomb Award at 8.9/10. What's my highest rated game on the site? Panzer Dragoon Zwei, of course, beating Saints Row 2 with its 8.9/10. How can that game be higher rated when it has the exact same score? Alphabetical order :P.

Review Synopsis

Tons of inventive mini-games.
I appreciated several of the improvements, like cruise control, check points, and "WHERE THE HELL IS AUTO SAVE!?"
The game can be a bit glitchy at times.

Kind of a badass proof that Super Smash Bros. is a fighting game. I can't directly post it here, so I'll have to link it. Damn Internet commies. On that subject...

Mega Man 4

(Only minus the Internet part.) What, am I the only person who believes Mega Man 4 was just Animal Farm with robots? I'm not just saying this for humor (although that's a big reason), go ahead and play the game/watch the intro yourself. Hell, I can just list off some of the things that make this a Communist games. There's all the working robots rebelling against their human masters, the fact that they're led by a mysterious Russian, that same Russian almost immediately being ousted by a draconian dictator...you know, I'm actually quite surprised you didn't receive your upgrades from a belligerent Winston Churchill.

Like in the previous two games, Dr. Light periodically provides you with a new use to your canine partner, Dynomutt. You get the usual things, like the Rush Coil, Rush Jet, and the especially useless Rush Marine. It kinda worked in Mega Man 3, but there's only one water level in this game, and it hardly warrants the use of a submarine. For better or worse, Mega Man 4 borrows a lot from previous games. For example, all the gameplay. I could say what that consists of, but I feel like I'd be repeating myself; I've played six Mega Man games during my time here, and they all play exactly the same. You pick a boss, fight him, get his weapon, and repeat in a certain order. The problem with this game is that the weaknesses are incredibly tenuous and nonsensical. How the hell am I supposed to believe that toads are weak to power drills? Or that this line of thought isn't considered cheating?

To be fair, though, the core gameplay is still as fun as ever. There's a part of me that enjoys blasting the hell out of mummies and lazy hippos, even if it's exactly the same as the last few games in the series. Also in the spirit of fairness, I feel obligated to tell you that this game introduces some new ideas. For example, this was the first Mega Man games to have secret items hidden in some of the levels. It wasn't many, but apparently it was enough to get Mega Man X infatuated with the idea. Anyway, the items here are the balloon and the wire. The balloon acts like that platform thingy from Mega Man 2, while the wire lets you hang off ceilings and stuff. If you're thinking Bionic Commando, lower your expectations; it has its uses, granted, but it's incredibly limiting and you'll mostly use it when you don't need to.

This was also the first game to give you charge shots (unless you count Heat Man's weapon from two games ago), but like the wire from before, their use is dubious. While it is more powerful than your regular peashooter, your regular peashooter can become more powerful with the turbo button. It allows you to kill regular enemies in less time than it takes to charge the damn thing. I haven't timed that for verification, but trust me, you're better off just holding down the turbo button (that this game provides in non-NES versions, like the one I played for this blog).

I'm well aware that I should never use anything in parentheses to transition into another paragraph, but fuck it, I'm doing it anyway. Moving on, the version I played was the PS1 version, and it was mostly the same as the original. The only differences are a new hint system for the Internet-less and some arranges of the original chiptunes. The arranges vary in quality from pretty good to mediocre. Other than that, this game is exactly the same as it was in 1991, which is to say that it is still the point in the series when things started slipping downhill. So I give it the Sonic the Hedgehog Award for Companies that Abuse Blue Mascots. Kind of a stretch, but I feel justified.

Review Synopsis

Am I the only person who thinks this game is about Commie-bots?
Mostly the same as the other umptillion games in the series.
OK, it does do some things differently, but it doesn't do them right.

16 Comments

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Video_Game_King

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