The Top Shelf: Case Files 176-185: "It's the Great Finale, Charlie Tunoku"

by mento

Welcome to The Top Shelf, a weekly feature wherein I sort through my extensive PS2 collection for the diamonds in the rough. My goal here is to narrow down a library of 185 games to a svelte 44: the number of spaces on my bookshelf set aside for my PS2 collection. That means a whole lot of vetting and a whole lot of science that needs to be done, ten games at a time. Be sure to check out the Ca...

Case File 176: The Collective's The Da Vinci Code

Original Release (WW): 19/05/2006
Not PS2 Exclusive (also out on Xbox and PC)

I could scarcely believe my eyes when I found this at the bottom of what might as well pass for a bargain bin of a PS2 collection. Surely the Jaundiced Bishop (or whoever the antagonist was in that series) slipped this into my stack of PS2 games when I wasn't looking, in order to perseverate some far-reaching conspiracy that threatens to shake the foundations of The Top Shelf this close to the conclusion of its first season. The Da Vinci Code, much like the book itself, is a meandering, pointless and derivative product in the same vein as those CSI licensed games; they're graphic adventure games, more or less, and tend to involve a lot of set-piece detective puzzles that are either linking together bits of evidence or poring over some Mensa-leftovers to find whatever clue the story needs to keep going. I seem to recall some awful stealth and combat elements too in the ten minutes I chose to play the game to satisfy a passing morbid curiosity. I'm sounding like I'm too good for this game, but from what I'm able to recall I suspect everyone's too good for this game.

After careful deliberation I've decided that I'm not going to go ahead and progress this game to the second round. I will, however, honor Audrey Tautou's involvement with the game (via the Tom Hanks movie adaptation on which the game is based) by loading up for the umpteenth time the priceless MBMBAM skit where Justin McElroy pretends to be Amelie, from the movie Amelie. This PS2 disc is gigantique, I am on the edge of it. Eliminated.

Case File 177: tri-Ace's Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria

Original Release (JP): 22/06/2006
PS2 Exclusive!

The first Valkyrie Profile was this stunningly beautiful and melancholy game about a servant of the Norse pantheon taking the souls of the deceased and training them up to be powerful warriors to serve in the armies of Odin in Valhalla when Ragnarok finally arrives. Invariably for each "einherjar", as these spirits were called, you got to see a few scenes that led to their demise and how their subsequent training might or might not incorporate those fatal events in some way, letting them get revenge or closure for their early ends. As the heroine, Lenneth Valkyrie, continued to recruit and train those who had yet to pass on, she began to recall memories of her own mortal life, leading to this complex plot of betrayal and duty as she sought answers while continuing to perform her divine responsibilities. Valkyrie Profile 2 treads some similar roads, switching the focus - if not necessarily the protagonist role - to Lenneth's sister Silmeria (I assume a third game would focus on the last of the three Valkyries, the obstinate Hrist). Instead, the game follows the travails of Alicia: a human princess that looks eerily like Silmeria, in much the same way Lenneth once had a mortal incarnation. Becoming a target that various otherworldly forces either want to eliminate or protect, Alicia is swept up in a coup on her country while these various supernatural forces step in to make her life even more complicated. I've always liked how tri-Ace's series goes the gusto as far as crafting a dense mythology goes, taking the Norse legends it is superficially based on and taking it into some wild metaphysical directions about the nature of the universe. I particularly like that the antagonist is some obsessed stalker genius nerd who essentially mathematically figures out the Byzantine laws behind creation and usurps Odin's throne just to get closer to his object of worship. It switches the script from the usual evil fire/ice giants and Loki to a particularly dangerous and fixated "nice guy" creep, a villain that's a lot easier to comprehend. And then there's everything else too: the wonderful combo-based combat system that has you attack with your four playable characters in any order, the idea being to set up chains that will unlock stronger "soul crush" specials; the music and visuals, while not quite as breathtaking as the pixel art of the original, is still fairly good for the PS2 with a lot of emphasis put on "tactical motion blur" and other effects; the game's sense of humor, which really comes into its own during the optional bonus dungeon as Scottish Terrier-like monsters re-enact scenes from the game with more jokes about panties and how thicc the heroine is; and the dynamic way that the party keeps changing, with various major characters coming and going as the plot demands.

There's a lot I like Valkyrie Profile 2, but there's also a number of ways it falters compared to the original. By having a more straightforward story and diminishing the einherjar cycle aspect, the series loses some of its originality. It also requires the first game (which has become rare) to really understand much of it: though it seems to occur in a time loop of sorts where the events of the first game didn't happen, rather than continues directly after, there's a lot of characters and lore you sort of need to know about if you're going to follow the plot. The sudden appearance of the iconoclastic vampire lord Brahms, for instance, won't be all that impactful to newcomers. I'm going to toss it on my reserves list, then, and let it claw its way onto my shelf. Considered.

Case File 178: Clover's God Hand

Original Release (JP): 14/09/2006
PS2 Exclusive!

Here's where I admit that I've never particularly cared for God Hand, the last game to come out of Clover Studio before Capcom closed it down and then itself entered into its extended hibernation period, only drowsily waking up intermittently to release the occasional Resident Evil re-remake or half-complete Street Fighter sequel. From what I'm observed during the handful of times I've tried to get into God Hand, the game has this Fist of the North Star by way of Yosemite Sam cartoon sensibility, with the protagonist Gene - wielder of the titular limb - working his way through a Western town filled with powerful demons and eccentric bosses that need to be taken down, brawler-style. The game is renowned (and perhaps notorious) for its high level of difficulty and steep learning curve, which probably explains why I keep bouncing off it. The combat is similar to Yakuza's with its crowd control and occasional bursts of brutality, but even more layered and involved, with this whole thing about mapping your preferred combos to the face buttons and using the enemy's weaknesses against them. Every time I try to start the game over, determined to learn its systems and progress further than I did before, something in the back of my mind convinces me not to bother. I suspect it's more than just a difficulty thing or losing one's progress constantly from game overs: the Souls series is just as guilty of this, and yet I found those compelling.

For the sake of all those who list God Hand as one of their all-time PS2 favorites, and there's enough of them out there to give me pause, I will attempt this game one more time for this feature's second round. It's been long enough now that I might have evolved the way I look at games and may have more patience for its mores. Given how quickly I capitulated on Jagged Alliance 2 (another complex and harsh game beloved by many), however, I suspect the end result will still be the same. Definition of insanity and all that. Considered.

Case File 179: Rockstar Vancouver's Canis Canem Edit

Original Release (NA): 17/10/2006
Not PS2 Exclusive (remastered for Wii, 360 and PC as the Scholarship Edition)

Canis Canem Edit, a title so clever and germane that Rockstar had to change it to "Bully" to appease all those scared by Latin, is probably the best Rockstar game I've personally played. Rockstar's in their element when they can let their satire and homage muscles get a full work-out: its why early GTAs, and those of a particular time and place like Vice City and San Andreas, are so good; it's why their one Western, Red Dead Redemption, is beloved by so many; and it's why even deeply divisive games like Max Payne 3 can find an audience who have fallen for the very particular brand of grindhouse atmosphere it's going for, even if it's an entirely different kind of grindhouse atmosphere than the first two exhibited. I've become less attached to Rockstar games as of late, because I suspect at some point that the criticism they received for being the type of developer who only watches movies as research (an issue outlined by Father Ted/Black Books writer Graham Linehan in this clip from Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe) has forced them to try new dramatic storylines distinct from their B-movie comfort zones. Bully was perhaps the last "fun" game they made, as it so perfectly recreates a slightly younger variant of a college campus caper movie of an Animal House bent (or one of its many pulp imitators) from its story of one scrappy newcomer bringing down all the cliques to its incredible 70s-inspired soundtrack. The way that the school's lessons impart new abilities, the way there's no cars to drive (protagonist Jimmy's too young for a learner's permit) but there are lots of bikes and footchases, the way the player can romance a number of different partners or simply mack on a gal (or a certain selection of gents) whenever they're passing by, or the way the game actually deigns to mark its collectibles on its map for the sake of convenience, which is a service every open-world game should perform at some point if not necessarily without the player earning it first. RDR was, for many, the introduction to the exciting idea of Rockstar carrying their movie-reverent approach to open-world games into a genre beyond street hoodlums and gangsters, but for me Bully is and probably always will be the best open-world game they've ever made. Well, until we get a proper college screwball sequel, anyway.

Now despite all this praise, there is the small matter of the exclusivity tilt. The Scholarship Edition is the definitive version of the game, which added useful new classes to attend and other additional content. While I'm happy to display a copy of Bully on any shelf that would have it, I'd probably prefer to stick the Xbox 360 or Wii Scholarship Edition up there instead of the barebones PS2 original. The temptation is to give Vice City and San Andreas this big one-on-one "compare & contrast" blog in the second round and then suddenly declare Bully the winner in a shocking twist, but instead I'm putting Bully in its own spot on my reserves list - I'm loath to eliminate it outright, though I'd prefer to keep this shelf to those PS2 games that don't have bigger and better remakes elsewhere. Considered.

Case File 180: Raven Software's Marvel Ultimate Alliance

Original Release (NA): 24/10/2006
Not PS2 Exclusive (released on pretty much everything)

A few years before the Marvel Cinematic Universe became a thing, Marvel fans were greeted with this gigantic MU crossover brawler (I hesitate to use "RPG") that afforded them a rare non-Capcom fighter opportunity to stick all their favorite Marvel characters together in a team and take on a series of bosses and encounters drawn from several decades of Marvel comics fandom. I'm really only a dilettante when it comes to comic book heroes - I was talking to a friend of mine about our mutual appreciation of the new Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 when she started dropping all these esoteric references that James Gunn had put in there as either Easter eggs or possible sequel destinations, which I probably stupidly nodded along with while adding a Ralph Wiggum-esque "the raccoon's name is Rocket" - but I greatly enjoyed Raven's earlier work with the X-Men Legends action RPGs (I'm a little more familiar with that particular branch of Marvel, having been a fan of the 90s X-Men cartoon) and was anticipating an even bigger and better sequel with all those extra Marvel ringers to invoke. Instead, I was disappointed to find that - for the sake of accessibility - Marvel Ultimate Alliance had scrapped a lot of the RPG progression and customization systems. I might assume this was intended to make the game feel more Arcade-y, like a modern Gauntlet where it was Iron Man blasting the food instead of the elf, rather than a multiplayer action game that required everyone to pause every few minutes so they could sort through their loot and level up (the success of Borderlands and Destiny, I think, are fine examples of modern games that demonstrate that people are still OK with multiplayer action-RPGs having the occasional downtime for micromanagement).

So, Marvel Ultimate Alliance wasn't really what I was looking for after X-Men Legends. Even if I wasn't mostly ambivalent about it, making it a poor candidate for the shelf, there's also the fact that we're well within the Xbox 360 era now and it's likely any multi-platform game is going to look pretty bad on the PS2 in comparison. I might give Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and its sequel, a second chance one of these days (especially if I happen to meet a Marvel fanatic happy to accompany me, and provided they weren't too busy playing Marvel Heroes instead), but it won't be for this feature. Eliminated.

Case File 181: Sega's Yakuza 2

Original Release (JP): 07/12/2006
Not PSN Exclusive (remastered for Wii U and PS3, but only in Japan)

We're down to our final five games now, and they include my second favorite Yakuza game (after 4). Yakuza 2 is an evolution of the series in almost every respect: the game expands from Kiryu's old stomping grounds of Kamurocho (a fictionalized version of Kabukicho, Shinjuku's red light district) to include a couple of districts of Osaka, with its many regional differences to enjoy. The plot expands outwards similarly, incorporating the Kansai "Omi Alliance" as another major Yakuza group that Kiryu must contend with, as well as a new love interest, a whole subplot about a chapter of the Korean mob, and an aged cop known for being a hardcore Yakuza killer that's on Kiryu's tail. But that's only scratching the surface of Yakuza's 2 increasingly insane plot, which includes a climactic duel on top of Kamurocho's monolithic Millennium Tower as a nearby bomb ticks down and a memorable battle where Kiryu has to fight two Bengal tigers simultaneously with his bare hands. The Yakuza series hasn't been quite as insane since (though I've yet to play Yakuza 0, and from what I've heard about that one...) but it definitely marked a point where the series was ready to inject more levity and surrealism into its otherwise serious "honor among thieves" crime dramas. It took a real long time to earn 100% in that game, especially with all the shogi and fixed mahjong games I had to play, but I wouldn't have done it if I wasn't wholly in the game's thrall.

This is probably a foregone conclusion, especially after the painful elimination of the first Yakuza last week, but I'm approving this one. Approved.

Case File 182: SCE Santa Monica's God of War II

Original Release (NA): 13/03/2007
Not PS2 Exclusive (remastered for the God of War Collection for PS3 and Vita)

I'm still not sure where I stand with the God of War franchise, as I await more news on its reboot/sequel in the upcoming E3. There's no mistaking the impact of SCE Santa Monica's very angry demigod as he cuts a bloody swath first through titans and monsters and then through the classical Greek pantheon. The first game was definitely a proof of concept, one that establishes who Kratos is and the types of unlikely trials he overcomes through sheer incensed will, whereas the second is where the series could let its hair down a bit (if Kratos had hair) and really start to futz around with the mythology. Dispossessed of his powers as the titular deity after his destruction of Ares in the previous game, a suddenly mortal Kratos is gutted by Zeus and left to rot in Hades, which he of course immediately escapes. In some ways God of War II feels like a retread of the first, with familiar beats of a cold open where he takes down an enormous creature, an early twist, a painful clawing back from Hades, and a rampage to claim back what it is from the monsters and supercilious gods unwisely choosing to stand in his way. Similar mechanics too: Kratos mostly fights with an upgradeable set of chained blades, like a deadlier set of nunchucks that can also be used to climb walls or pull remote switches, and must also run and platform around solving environmental puzzles to continue. The Devil May Cry influence is striking, but God of War pours on enough comic violence to set itself apart in tone if not in content.

This is the only God of War game in the running. The first was a rental, and while I gave it its due in one of those "honorable mentions" I sometimes add to the end of these entries it's obviously not eligible. While the influence of these games had led to a lot of so-so imitators which more or less took over the AAA space for a time to my regret, I can't really hold that against the well-earned popularity of God of War. However, it's probably not one of my for-sure PS2 favorites, so I'll let it fight for ascension in the reserves list. Considered.

Case File 183: Vanillaware's GrimGrimoire

Original Release (JP): 12/04/2007
PS2 Exclusive!

I know a handful of folk who swear by Vanillaware's beautifully-rendered 2D anime offerings, and include Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Odin Sphere and Dragon's Crown among their favorite games. However, I've only played their first game (this one). GrimGrimoire concerns a new student at a school of magic, Lillet Blan (all the characters are named after alcohol), who discovers shortly after starting her lessons and meeting everyone at the school that she and everyone else is trapped in an infinite time loop perpetrated by one of her fellow students or by one of her teachers. Outwardly, she's the only one who appears to be cognizant that time is looping, and uses that to her advantage to not only track down the culprit but to fast-track her education through the magical arts so that she might stand a fighting chance against whomever the antagonist happens to be. It's a neat idea for a game, essentially restarting the player's progress but keeping their acquired abilities and letting them try different paths and riskier strategies with their ever-advancing capabilities. However, the actual game itself isn't an action RPG - unlike every other Vanillaware game - but a real-time strategy game in the vein of a MOBA or something like Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings: the player needs to create and protect spawners that endlessly produce minion units, and then destroy those belonging to the other side to ensure they have the superior numbers. It's a very frantic and multi-tasking sort of approach to the genre, one that streamlines all the base-building and resource-gathering to an extent but retains the core experience of relying on one's situational awareness and being able to act quickly in a crisis.

I've never cared for RTS games because I find them way too stressful. There's also a lot of repetition involved with critical path-ing your way to the best units as quickly as possible and sending the whole horde after where your enemy is likely to be hiding in the fog of war, or in GrimGrimoire's case rushing around the screen slowly draining the HP bars of enemy spawners while keeping an eye on the mini-map to see how your own are doing. That cycle's never appealed to me and I don't really have the concentration to be adroit at it regardless. That's not to say I don't have an open mind about trying other Vanillaware games; it's just I've never gotten around to playing another one. Eliminated.

Case File 184: Atlus's Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES

Original Release (JP): 19/04/2007
Not PS2 Exclusive (enhanced PSP port)

I'll admit that this final episode of the first round is kind of back-loaded, but I suppose you can blame that on Atlus and their steadfast refusal to adapt to new consoles as quickly as their peers. Persona 3 originally came out around mid-2006, but by the time the updated FES version was released in Japan - which added a whole new post-game bonus episode that I didn't much care for - the original was just coming out in Europe. Seems kind of an odd choice to release both this and its enhanced edition so close together, and well into 2008, but then this is an unusual series. Given the popularity of Personae 3 through 5 (the last of which is definitely high on my wish list) I probably don't need to get into too much detail here: the player and his dormmates find themselves with the rare gift of witnessing a supernatural "midnight hour" which everyone else spends in suspended animation. There are, however, plenty of Shadows lurking around: demons created by the negative unconscious desires of humanity. It's the task of SEES - the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, the club that the protagonist joins early in - to eradicate the Shadows threatening the populace as well as explore the ominous and enormous Tartarus tower that appears during the midnight hour. For those unacquainted with how Shin Megami Tensei games tend to roll, the game drills in early and often the challenge that will be faced by those who don't curate a diverse selection of personae to cover weaknesses and exploit the weaknesses in others. It has a harsh difficulty curve, a harsher fatigue system that limits how much dungeoneering you can do in one session, and an even harsher still ally AI system that frequently wastes turns on Hail Mary status effect spells.

In a handful of ways, I like Persona 3 more than its immediate sequel. The plot has more magnitude behind it, I think the music's better (though given how much of the game is Japanese funk-rap, your mileage may vary), I particularly like how it ends and how it builds up to that end, and there's a lot to be said for how Persona 3 set-up the figurative dominoes that its sequel knocked down with such aplomb. However, it has a few issues, unlike P4 which I regard as nigh-perfect, so I'm going to have to end The Journey of P3 here, and I expect you all to know The Answer to the question "What could possibly be the last game on The Top Shelf?" Eliminated.

Case File 185: Atlus's Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

Original Release (JP): 10/07/2008
Not PS2 Exclusive (enhanced Vita port)

You know that expression, "last but not least"? Well, no truer example exists than Persona 4, which was released in Europe in March 2009: two years after I'd already bought into the next generation of consoles. Persona 4 is the best swansong the PlayStation 2 could've asked for, however: the game not only addresses all the faults of Persona 3 (in particular, the restrictive fatigue system and the self-defeating companion AI) but features an even more agreeable cast of highschool misfits and an engaging criminal mystery plot in the center of the usual supernatural storm. I appreciate how the game is willing to take more chances, from Naoto's gender dysphoria and Kanji's ambiguous sexuality to the way it depicts its various criminal elements as having nuance and hidden sides to them, all of which really helps its cast stand out more than just being a colorful bunch of anime highschool archetypes with some amazing localized dialogue. Something about having a discrete series of dungeons themed to the trapped people they pertain to rather than one giant, seemingly endless tower made of random bric-a-brac was also a wise change, as it meant the game could better relay the progress the player was making and keep them guessing for future locations.

It's been so long since I played either that many of the minor differences between 3 and 4 no longer register, and I'm sure the enhanced remakes both games received for portable systems muddy those comparisons further, but I'm personally far more attached to Persona 4 than I am to 3. I realize that there might be some bias interference here from this very site's Endurance Run feature, which helped to greatly endear the game to many of us, but I can also point to a number of factors to explain that preference, even if half of them are entirely subjective. Persona 4, like Sly 2: Band of Thieves or Dark Chronicle, takes an already great game and perfects it, and I really couldn't ask for anything more from a sequel. It's certainly an ideal game with which to end the inaugural round of The Top Shelf. Approved.

Results

And with that, the first round of The Top Shelf draws to an end. It's definitely been a journey, perhaps one I didn't anticipate would be quite so long even with all the figures in front of me back in January. With the sole exception of my treasured Atari ST home computer, the PlayStation 2 is definitely the console for which I own the biggest collection of games because it came at that rare and precious time in one's life where you have both a disposable income and a lot of time on your hands. More than that, though, the PlayStation 2 was replete with the types of games I was generally into: JRPGs, 3D platformers, survival horror and the burgeoning open-world genre. It was the first time in my life, I think, where I realized I couldn't possibly complete everything that came out, even I were to limit my purchases to genres in my own wheelhouse. It's a concept both sobering and exciting - after all, it meant with an industry this huge that video games were definitely here to stay.

Our final statistics for round one are:

70 out of 185 games will be entering the second round. That won't necessarily mean 70 individual Round Two blogs, however: I've separated that group into "refreshers" (those I've either not played, or will need to play again, which will absolutely have individual blogs), "reserves" (games I can recall well enough that they won't need a refresher), and "battle royales" (two or more games in the same series that will compete for a single shelf space). My current plan is to sort out the reserves list first, ranking them in order of preference, and then go through all the refreshers before ending on the battle royales. Reason being is that some battle royale candidates - like the Onimushas, Makai Kingdom or Vice City - are also on the refresher pile, so I'll need to play them first before I can start comparing them to their predecessors/sequels.
19 games confirmed for the shelf. That total's up by two this week with the inclusion of Yakuza 2 and Persona 4, leaving a nice, round 25 spaces for the rest of the second-rounders to fight over. As I update my list of reserves from the survivors of the second round refreshers and battle royales, I'll be taking the top twenty-five items on that finalized list and moving them to the shelf, consigning the rest to oblivion (or plastic box storage, which might as well be the same thing).

Next week is... well, it's E3. I have a special one-off bonus The Top Shelf planned for next week, and I should also have the first version of the reserves list up by then. Once E3 is over, for the subsequent week and for several months thereafter I'll be putting up the individual second-round blogs, and I'll hopefully be able to continue at the present pace of a new The Top Shelf blog every Tuesday. If there's a game I breeze through or abandon early on - and I suspect a lot of the games in the refresher category will apply here - I might see if I can squeeze out a second or third The Top Shelf for that week. I'd like to see this feature completed by October, for personal reasons.

Until then, thanks for reading so far and I hope I managed to cover most of your PS2 favorites. This first round's been a doozy, and it's been fun delineating exactly how and why each game became part of this collection, and how much (or little) I think about them. Like an overly long chapter of my memoirs that's oddly fixated on PS2 games alone. See you all for a much more focused season of The Top Shelf very soon.

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