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Video_Game_King

So is my status going to update soon, or will it pretend that my Twitter account hasn't existed for about a month?

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Anime, the 90s, and utter nonsense: just a typical blog of mine.

The suave, daring, unrivaled King of Video Games. He is on an EROTIC quest to see if lesbians indeed have the goods. BEWARE, the Moon.
The suave, daring, unrivaled King of Video Games. He is on an EROTIC quest to see if lesbians indeed have the goods. BEWARE, the Moon.
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I now find myself in a very strange position. This is, like, the fourth game of its kind that I've played. Cowboy Bebop, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Sailor Moon; I should be an anime expert by now. So why the crap do I know nothing about these shows? Well, because they're never really relevant to the game, oddly enough. Cowboy Bebop was in Japanese, so it gets a pass, and same for Evangelion (although in its case, I doubt language was entirely an issue). Sailor Moon's explained away by the fact that it didn't even bother having a story in the first place. Also, the game meandered about a lot. So what about Ghost in the Shell? Well, in its case, it's hard to give two shits about the story when you're crawling the walls as a dumb-looking spider-tank.

Then again, it may just be hard to give two shits about the story at all. It's the future and people are doing future things, like future terrorism. As an amateur sentient tank (I think; it's never clearly explained), you must fire your guns until all the problems go away. Does this sound interesting? Not really. Unfortunately, from what I could gleam, that's all you get: a simple plot with tons of noise around it, making me question why all this effort was put into telling it. For a chance to see beloved anime characters like Purple Hair Girl and Chief Funny Hair? Unfortunately, you get to know them mostly through voice alone, meaning you don't get to know them at all. So why all the effort into telling such a forgettable story?

Please wait for the light to change before passing through the bullet crossing.
Please wait for the light to change before passing through the bullet crossing.

Well, from what I can tell, it's to sell you on the anime. (A strange goal, given how much knowledge about said universe it assumes you have, but let's just roll with it.) In that case....I guess it works? I know it sounds strange when I just insulted the story, but that's the point: everything else about the anime seems kinda cool. The voice acting's OK, but the real strength lies in the animation. Yes, like any other anime adaptation of the time, Ghost in the Shell is pretty much the anime/movie/anime-movie/whatever-the-helling-crap it is with a game wrapped around it. Unlike, say, Evangelion, that isn't a bad thing in this case. Here, it means you get a crisp art style and a smooth blend of 2D and 3D animation. Or maybe it's just animated that well. Who can say? The only real flaw I can point out is that the video compression is crap, but watch as I punt that excuse out the window because of how good the rest of the game looks. Yes, it looks so good that I completely forget that it doesn't look good. It's paradoxically good looking. Combine a consistently smooth frame rate with high detail environments and you get....

A shooter that takes a while to find its footing. Joy. Wait, I shouldn't say that as an insult. Just take it as a primer like last time. You shoot in this game. Normally, I'd try to dress that description up or elaborate upon it, but I want my description to match the early outings: boring and utilitarian. It's hard to point out anything wrong with Ghost in the Shell at this point, but it's also hard to point out anything right with it. Everything controls well, it's appropriately challenging, the weapons do what they're supposed to do, and that's about it, really. It's only giving you barely enough to keep you going and nothing else. And it's not like the game has much else going for it, at least right now. There's no aiming reticle for this shooting game in which you must aim at things and shoot them, and crawling on walls and ceilings, while fun, is massively disorienting. Gravity is meaningless in a world where you can climb on walls.

Man, that was weird. Maybe I should just tell you what makes this game good. Specifically, it learns from its mistakes. (Except for the last two I mentioned. Those are permanent.) Is the "go here and do something" mentality off-putting? Well, let's throw in a strict time limit to add some tension and meaning. But what about the levels without a time limit? These get fixed too, but this time with a steady flow of enemies to shoot up. Oh, and spinning. Tons and tons of spinning. In fact, I think half the boss battles in the game devolve into this. Not that I'm complaining; what complements shooting action better than spinning? What's that? On rails boat sections? No! Those are terrible and I have no idea how you'd know about those! If anything, the car part's cooler. Wait, what was I talking about? How this game takes a while to remember that it's more than just a vehicle for the anime, and it doesn't do a good job of being that first thing? That certainly sounds familiar, but I want to end on a more positive note. How about I just say "get it for the spinning"? Yea...That feels....right. Get it for the spinning.

Review Synopsis

  • Why do tanks have mouths? The story couldn't be bothered to say.
  • Mostly because it's too busy looking as good as the anime (or as good as you can get on PS1 hardware without becoming anime Dragon's Lair).
  • There's only one way to shoot things, but a billion ways to move around while you're doing so.

I'm pretty sure this is how Hank Hill was actually born.

Still not sure what this has to do with the rest of the blog, though.

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Well would you look at that? I got me some contrast going between these two games. For instance, do you see how Ghost in the Shell is blatantly obvious about its anime roots? Well, the box art for Last Battle (a Fisting the North Star game, if you're curious) isn't even close to the concept of anime, instead choosing to depict an angry, thigh-pocketed grimace breaking a man's neck by kicking slightly above his head. Oh, and do you recall how Ghost in the Shell eventually settled into an enjoyable stream of action? Last Battle opts instead to make punching dudes as completely and utterly boring as humanly possible.

In retrospect, that's an odd choice of words to describe Last Battle, since no human could have written the "story" for this game. In fact, I'm confused as to why I'm using the word "story", even in quotes. " " is a far more fitting moniker. Why so glum about the ? Well, because if you're going to go so far as to put something resembling a in your game, you might as well make sure it makes sense. That's the problem (or, as we'll soon learn, a problem) with Last Battle: I have no idea what's going on. I can't even tell you what the events of the are. All I know is that it begins with a word salad text crawl and continues from there with a series of two-line conversations. Actually, I probably shouldn't be calling them conversations, since I haven't seen one that looks like two people talking. Just look at the disconnect between these two! I'd call it a case of lost in translation, but I'm not even sure how you'd lose so much in a translation. Nothing ever comes together in a cohesive manner to make any damn sense. The chapter intros are cool, though; I have to give the game credit for that. It's the most fun I had with punching in the entire game.

"I am taken utterly aback by these titties."

Would you like to know why that is? Because punching is all this game has. You walk forward, punch enemies, and continue walking forward. You can kick if you're feeling particularly saucy, but that's pretty much the entire game: punching dudes who have been palette swapped with other dudes you've seen before. Absolutely no variation or strategy, and only the slightest hint of challenge (in that enemies will constantly chip away at your health and you only have one life for the whole thing). Do I need to tell you how utterly boring this gets? Last Battle tries to survive a couple of hours on an idea that can only last it a single fucking minute.

I suspect that the developers realized this, though, because they do try to introduce a few new ideas over the course of the game. The problem is that they genuinely don't know what to do in the absence of punching. There are some levels, for instance, without any punching whatsoever. They last only a second. So you go back to punching and eventually discover that this game has a leveling system. Oh boy! What does that do? Imagine Altered Beast, only with less efficient attacks instead of bestiality. Joy. What's left now? Bosses? OK, the idea of fighting somebody until they bubble to death sounds cool, but half the time, the bosses can be cheesed so easily that I wouldn't be surprised if this was the boss theme instead of....I can't even remember. Would you expect me to?

Hold on, I forgot that the game has one more idea up the sleeve it tore off a few seconds ago. Don't worry, it's sort of worth it: maze levels! Let's assume I know what you're thinking, mainly because I doubt you'd be having thoughts about a game you've never played. Anywho: "What's compelling about a goddamn maze level?" (I'm pretending that you like to swear a lot.) "It just sounds like some meandering bullshit that will waste my fucking time." Well, you're completely right about that, you pottymouth, you. But the fun comes in the level design, in that there's actually some level design this time. You can't just walk forward until the level ends. You have to pay attention to your surroundings to make sure you don't walk into fire, and react in time to dodge the boomerang axes being thrown at you. You know, like this was actually a video game or something. Plus these levels give you a physics-defying jump that allow you to get more distance without a running start, so let's consider it a mixed bag, which isn't a good thing for Last Battle. When your best feature is merely average, what the hell does that say about the rest of the game? My guess is "they called it Last Battle because they knew you'd never play this twice".

Review Synopsis

  • Glossolalia: The Game.
  • Last Battle has achieved the impossible: it has made a staple of gaming (IE punching) not fun.
  • And then it did absolutely nothing else.

Since the writing of this blog so long ago, I have confirmed that the game makes about as much sense in its native Japanese, even when you have some working knowledge of Fist of the North Star. Who knew?

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