Tag Archives: Game Reviews

VGZ Review:Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game

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Well then, it’s time to hit on one of the largest breakout cultural hits. And by that, I mean Scott Pilgrim. Now, I’m not going to discuss the comic, the movie, and how most gamers view this series, as that will be covered by my colleague Zed. However, I am going to give a review of the game that was recently released on PSN, and will soon be released on XBLA.

Now, as for a basic summary of the game, wow. That is literally what I said when I first started playing it. Wow. It’s amazing. The pixel art by Paul Robertson is beyond fantastic, the soundtrack by chiptune artists Amanaguchi is equally stunning. And, most importantly, it’s a very basic, classic, brass tacks beam ‘em up. It plays like a spiritual sequel to River City Ransom, with the use of items as weapons, such as trash cans and empty bottles, to the store system where you eat food to refill health and guts, and increase the stats of your characters.

As you level up, you earn new moves, some are pretty basic like an attack that can hit enemies when they’re down, to a counter move that does massive damage to any enemy, including bosses. Now, several people have said that it was moderate for difficulty, but I will admit that even when playing on the easiest setting, I was soundly getting my ass kicked. You have three lives to start with, though once you lose them all you simply get put back on the map screen. There isn’t any permanent penalty, except losing your progress on that current world.

There are seven worlds in total, with shops in each one for a quick pick-me-up. You can call in Knives Chau, Scott’s ex-girlfriend, as a support character with the L1 button. What she does depends on the character you’re playing as. You can also find her father, Mr. Chau, roaming the world map in a very Hammer Bros from Mario 3 style. Once you defeat him, which is no easy feat, you have a chance to summon him or his wife instead of Knives for a support attack. It’s a nice little addition, I thought. Something extra that was unlockable. Which of course, harkens back to the old days of gaming that most of us know and love.

Speaking of which, the references are heavy. But, not in a sort of in-your-face way. They usually, from me anyhow, elicit a smile and maybe a chuckle. Medusa Head enemies that can knock you off of platforms, the Mario 3 style world map, various sound effects, the way each character exits a world after a boss fight, graffiti on the backgrounds showing mushrooms, even some of the items you can purchase in the stores. Most gamers who started on the NES will notice most of them, as that really seems to be the era that they are pulling them from.

The combat in the game honestly felt a bit slow at first, but after completing the first stage, I had no trouble with it at all. Also, if you feel your character moves slow, buy SPD boosting food. That being said, enemies are sometimes unfair. You can be juggled quite easily, and there is one enemy type that loves nothing more than picking up items and throwing them at you as you try to attack others. So, be prepared for that. Fortunately, you do have a block button, and there are only a handful of attacks in the entire game that you cannot stop. So, it plays like any classic beat ‘em up. If you have experience with Streets of Rage, Final Fight, or any number of Capcom or Data East arcade brawlers, you’ll do fine.

Now, onto replayability. Unfortunately, at this time, the game does not have online play at all. It is only local co-op. They may decide to implement a patch that adds online play, but so far there hasn’t been any mention of it. That being said, there are four characters to play as initially, with two more hidden. At the time of this writing, we don’t know how to unlock the sixth character, or who they even are. Each character has their own unique attacks, and though they have the same descriptions, they look different depending on the character. Each character also gets their own endings, a twist on the comics. It should be noted that the game, the comics, and the movie are all separate. So, while the endings for the game are not in line with the canon comic, they are still enjoyable and fun, and worth obtaining.

So, for those that are looking for a short blurb, here you go. Did you grow up in the 90′s? Did you enjoy beat ‘em ups like Final Fight and Streets of Rage? Are you okay playing such a game solo, or with a couple of friends over at your house? If you answered yes to any or all of these, buy Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game. At the very frugal friendly price of $9.99, I personally found it worth every single last cent. As far as the hype surrounding the game, it was not unwarranted. It is easily one of the best games I own. And I own a lot of games.

Review: DeathSpank (PS3, 360)

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(Note: this is a review of the PS3 version)

You might have heard of a game called Maniac Mansion.  Maybe you’ve even played it.  For me, it’s a significant milestone in gaming because it’s one of the first “humorous” video games that actually succeeded in being funny AND a decent game.  One of it’s co-designers, Ron Gilbert, is the mind behind this latest attempt at videogame humor, DeathSpank.  He certainly has the pedigree to pull it off again, but the bar has been significantly raised since the Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island days, in many ways because of all his work with Lucasarts.  Can DeathSpank and Ron Gilbert pull it off again?

Maniac Mansion, 1987

That Spankin Art

The first thing I noticed when I started up DeathSpank is it’s striking visual style.  The entire game is presented in an isometric point of view that anyone who’s played games like Legend of Zelda, and yes, Diablo will be immediately familiar with.  But any background object and game item is entirely two dimensional, much like the game world that was created in Nintendo’s Paper Mario.  There’s also a constantly rotating cylindrical horizon effect (as found in games like Animal Crossing: Wild World) that makes the game world seem even more like some kind of crazy pop-up book.  Everything is rendered in a colorful, dark lined, very Western cartoonish style that reminded me a little of Psychonauts.  I loved the spindly limbed peanut headed design of the main character, but I have to admit the same big nosed NPCs wore thin after a while (I know, that’s the joke…but still…)

incoming unicorn rape

All together the games art style might be described as Paper-Diablo-Psychonaut-Crossing.  But really, I consider what they’ve created here to be a unique style because it’s a little bit of a disservice to any game to break it into comparative chunks like this.  In all the previews for the game the unique look of the game was highlighted, and it was for good reason, because it’s awesome.

Playin some Spank

What you’ve got in DeathSpank is a more accessible take on the isometric action rpg, aka Diablo.  That is, you wander around the world beating the shit out of fantasy creatures who explode in colorful gushes of money, items, and experience points.  Any weapon you pick up can be assigned to one of the four face buttons, and varying which one you attack with gives you combo bonuses (more damage, Justice points.)  Wailing on enough enemies fills up the Justice meter, which lets you release a powerful attack if you have one of the special “justice weapons” equipped.  My favorite is the cyclone sword attack, a very exploitable move that turns you into a whirling dervish of death.  Actually, I couldn’t help wishing they had just assigned a button to release this special attack because the weapon takes up valuable space in your four slots.  In addition, you can collect runes that let you combine an elemental and justice weapon into a super special attack by pressing both attack buttons.  These attacks are very cool, but for some reason after mashing both buttons my meter would drain and nothing would happen about 1/2 the time so I stopped using them.

Like Diablo, the annoyance of filling up your inventory WAY to quickly remains.  The absence of an off-inventory “storage chest” is palpable, but at least in the inventory screen there is a “grinder” which turns any item into gold.  All of the potions, special attack weapons, magic spells and elemental crossbow bolts will quickly fill up any space available.  I found myself having to maintain 1-2 empty spaces by constantly having to decide what items to grind for at least two thirds of the game.  I really hope the inventory is improved in future chapters because it’s a black mark on the streamlined feel they are obviously trying to create here.  One simple improvement they could make is have separate slots for arrows, potions (quivers, potion bags).

Spankin that Full Ass

The amount of sidequests in this game are staggering, I think I completed about 70 of them.  It’s probably fair to say the meat of the game is the sidequestin.  Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; to the creators credit, even towards the end of the game there are no “write-offs” or “clone quests”, each one felt unique and that there was considerable thought behind them.  That’s actually one of DeathSpank’s greatest strengths: not one second of the game feels half-assed.  This is a well polished, thoughtful game.  Of course, you could argue that it’s easier to achieve this full-assitude with a shorter game such as this (about 8 hours).

On the subject of length, I was fairly satisfied after finishing the game.  If it had cost more than $15, there definitely would have been some complaints.  I wish there was some kind of randomly generated dungeon at the end or something for people that just wanted to mindlessly play through the engine for a while, that would have been sweet.

oh my god its a videogame where you kill zombies, mind blown

Dangers of Humor

Underneath it’s rpg exterior, DeathSpank is primarily a showcase for the designers sense of humor, much like the Sam and Max games are more about the jokes than the pointin and clickin.  I’ve always thought these are dangerous waters for designers to tread.  Humor in games seems like a hit and miss affair, too dependent on the recipient, and too many misses means you’ve got a failure on your hands.   Plus, I’ve always despised parodies of any kind.  I know it’s weird and kind of specific to hate a sub-genre, but there you have it.  My reasons could be a blog entry in themselves, so I won’t elaborate.

Overall, I’m happy to say that DeathSpank works.  It’s enough of it’s own game that it doesn’t come off as a parody.  A few of the jokes actually made me laugh out loud, which is a rare thing in a video game for me (at least, when provoking laughter is the actual intent.)  Of course, sometimes it falls flat, which is to be expected.  But my personal good to bad jokes ratio was definitely in the positive.

One particular flat note was all the voice acting, which wasn’t bad in itself but delivered much too slow for the games pacing.  I found myself skipping almost all of the spoken parts once I read the dialog, which is a shame because they bothered to include it for every single bit of text in the game.   At least they included the option to skip it, which is a godsend.

Summary

Despite the issues I had with the inventory, DeathSpank was blast to play.  It manages to maintain a decent ratio of game to jokes throughout without any low points.  But the highlight of this game was it’s unique visual presentation which honestly made up for any shortcomings for me.  Most people will find the games length to be a bit short at 7-10 hrs, but considering the cost it seemed about right.  I can’t wait for more installations in the series to be released: I haven’t heard anything, but the ending and structure certainly imply there is more to come.

[I bought DeathSpank on the PSN for $15.  After playing it for about 7 hours, I completed 100% of the game, unlocked all the trophies, and butchered 175 chickens.]

VGZ Review: Way of the Samurai 3

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Alright then, it’s time for another review. This time, I’ve chosen a little known title. Well, it’s actually probably known, but not exactly a hot title. The third in the often acclaimed Way of the Samurai series, this title continues the tradition of engrossing stories and true freedom of playthroughs. Literally. After the initial tutorials of how to converse, move around, and fight, you are basically thrown into the world with no direction. At all. Sink or swim. You can fight and kill anyone, help anybody, ignore everybody, in fact, as soon as you start, you can immediately leave the region via the map, and there you go. The game then ends, tally up your score and awards you “Samurai Points.”

Now, why would you do this? Well, accumulating Samurai Points carries over from game to game, and unlocks things such as different outfits and heads for character creation. Also, accumulate enough, and you unlock and entirely new sword style. Which normally, the styles are unlock by acquiring weapons of that style. There are currently over 100 weapons in the game itself, along with three new weapons added by the free DLC. Free DLC also adds three new accessories, which are merely used as decoration, and three new heads and outfits. So, that’s another plus to the game. Free DLC is always nice.

Way of the Samurai 3 is quite engrossing, with an epic tale of two rival clans, either of which you can join if you wish, fighting over control of this small region. Both are greedy, but have different methods of ruling. It honestly does become rather gray, rather than the black and white distinction we are usually force-fed as gamers. Of course, you can choose to join neither, instead waging war on both sides. It’s a good idea to not do that immediately, and wait after a few games. Any items you gain follow you from playthrough to playthrough.

Now, for the combat. This is truly one of the best combat systems I’ve seen, for the realism. Sure, it could be a bit tighter, perhaps not as complicated. But once you get a battle or two under your belt, you feel as if you can take on the world. Which, in this game, you basically can. Swords level up individually, and at the max level of 50, they become unbreakable. Truly, it’s worth the time to level up your favorite sword. And as you use a certain style, it levels up, unlocking additional moves and techniques to use with other weapons that can use said style. It’s a rather deep system, but easy to understand. Grinding out the exp can be a bit frustrating, unless you simply decide to slaughter everyone around. Swords can break, so you must take them to the local blacksmith and pay the outrageous fee to have them repaired. So, as I said, it’s worth it to get a favorite one to 50 so you needn’t worry about that happening as often.

Conversation plays a big part in the game. While not as stylish as Mass Effect, the options and number of conversations you can have with other characters is surprisingly vast, nearly each person literally having a story to tell. Some lead to quests, some are hints to hidden items or possible plot points, and some are just honest casual conversation. Another addition to the series, is a new Partner System. There are several partners to choose from, some helping you in combat, some helping you in other ways. One cooks for you at home, providing food you can carry with you, one keeps your swords sharpened when not in use. Some are so easy to acquire, you have to talk to them, but I can recall one being very complex to get. You can only have one partner at a time, but once you “unlock” a partner, you have to simply talk to them again and “trade out” your current partner. But, I don’t think it’s possible to get every partner in one playthrough. And, I don’t believe you keep them unlocked in multiple playthroughs, but I could be wrong. I honestly never investigated it that far.

Bottom line, I personally find Way of the Samurai 3, a great game. It’s vast, it’s engaging,  and now it should be fairly cheap for a more recent game. But a warning, the game is difficult. It’s not always clear what you can do next, but once you are on a quest line it becomes clear what your options for that story are. If you enjoyed any previous installments in the Way of the Samurai series, buy it. It contains all of what made the previous entries so great, with simply more added. If you enjoy somewhat offbeat games, anything from the samurai era of Japan, or games that give you tons of options, this is also a must-buy title. If a lot of dialogue turns you off, or games that are huge make you feel lost and confused as to what to do next, perhaps you should skip out on it. It would only serve to infuriate you. But for those that buy it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Review: 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)

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Once, there was a great evil in the 8 bit kingdom of Dotnia.  A hero arose, as they often do, and after an epic quest banished it to wherever it is evil goes after it has been smote.  And things were good, for a little while.  But as time moved on, people lost interest in the 8 bit world, and Dotnia was all but forgotten, its tourist attractions falling into disrepair.  So the King declared, let there be 3 Dimensions!!!

This is more or less the background story of From Software’s latest game, 3D Dot Game Heroes (Which I’ll abbreviate to 3DDGH for now on.  What is it with Atlus and the awkward game titles?)  It’s an action/adventure game with a light smattering of RPG that just MIGHT remind you of a similar game released in 1987.

The Legend of Whaaa?

Let’s just get this out of the way.  Homage or not, 3DDGH is as close to the Legend of Zelda as you could probably get without being a carbon copy.  I started to list out all the similarities, but honestly, if you can name any iconic aspect of the original Zelda, it’s in there.  Zelda was a revolutionary game back in the day and was one of the major reasons why consoles succeeded in the first place.   It’s hard to think of a better framework to base a game on.  But the question is, is there enough of a game in 3DDGH beyond the Zelda? As sturdy as it’s Zelda skeleton is, is there enough actual game meat there to actually justify it’s existence?  Hopefully I’ll come to some kind of conclusion on this by the end of the review.

Those beautiful dots

The 3D in 3DDGH comes in the form of tiny colored cubes.  Conceptually, imagine each pixel of an old 8 bit game transformed into a 3 dimensional cube.  When combined with some fairly detailed effect work, this actually looks quite cool.  Every character in the game is made up of hundreds of cubes, and each cube casts it’s own shadow, and on some surfaces, reflection.  And when you kill an enemy, they explode in an orgy of flying cubes and color. It’s a surreal technique that makes objects you’d normally think as 2 dimensional all of a sudden have this solid existence on our plane and I really dug it.

I don’t think they were quite as successful with the water however: if you look at it closely it’s made of tiny cubes like everything else, but they made it so reflective and shiny that all you can really see is this rapidly flickering white surface. It reminded me a little of the “water” in the movie Tron, which might have been what they were going for.  The end result is a water surface that looks totally out of place with the rest of the game.  Fire is also an effect rendered completely outside the whole “cube world” reality, and it doesn’t really fit either.  I’m guessing they tried making a fire effect out of cubes but were unsatisfied with it so just went with a standard game fire effect.

Is that a sword in your pocket, or….

Besides “Hey, this is just like Zelda,” the second most common response you’ll get from people watching you play 3DDGH is something along the effect of “Goddamn, that’s a big sword.”  When fully powered up, the swords in this game are indeed goddamn enormous.  Enormous as in literally reaching from one side of the screen to another.  Combined with a special spin attack you can often sweep the screen clear of enemies in just one swing.  Trips to the blacksmith can increase your swords length, width, girth (just kidding), attack power, and add various effects like beam attacks and piercing (the best skill in the game which lets your sword pass through anything when powered up.)  To balance this out, if you lose even half a bar of health, your sword deflates to a standard size and power.  So basically, From went with the Zelda beam-sword when you have full health concept and ran with it.

Does this break the game?  Not really, because it’s fairly easy to take a hit and lose all that power.  And even so I don’t think it would be possible to break a game like this because it’s really more about having fun with a concept than being a serious balanced work.  That sense of playfulness is key to the experience of 3DDGH, and From pulls it off well.  References and in jokes abound, in fact I’m sure I didn’t get half of the games being referenced to.  Besides Zelda, I caught jokes referring to various Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games, and of course From’s own Demon’s Souls and Front Mission.  Almost every aspect of 3DDGH is a tongue and cheek lip-service to the history of 8 bit gaming.  I would have loved it if there were some kind of glossary or appendix that kept track of it all and enlighten me on some of the more obscure jokes.  But I guess that couldn’t happen without express permission from everyone they are riffing on in the game…and they are probably pushing the limits of copyright as it is.

Putting the extra dot in your hero

While the actual length of the game is quite short, it is definitely helped by all the extra features.  First of all, you’ve got the Hero Creator, which I’ve already talked about at length here: http://vgz.cx/blog/?p=583 .  Then you’ve got 3 types of minigames which are unlocked as you play the game:  Dash Racing, Blockout, and Block Defense.  Dash Racing is a race against the clock where you have to remain in dash mode and not ram into the walls to win.  Blockout is 3DDGH’s version of Breakout, complete with power-ups like multiball and slow motion.  Block Defense is a tower defense game with a few twists: for example, you can actively take place in the defense by attacking enemies your sword, but the longer you stand around doing nothing the more your character “levels up” and gets stronger.  Getting high scores in all of these will get you various rewards in game.  Personally, I found Dash Racing infuriating, so I haven’t played much of that.  Blockout and Block Defense are pretty fun, but I can’t imagine getting the perfect scores on them required for some of the trophy collecting.

There’s also a screenshot feature which I used to take all of the pictures in this review.  There are a few options like changing the camera angle, but you can only use them outside of the dungeons.  I wish more PS3 games had this ability, it doesn’t seem like it would be too hard to implement…the only one that comes to mind is Wipeout HD.

The “Bestiary” is an encyclopedia of the monsters in the game which can be completed by bashing them with a giant book. Each monster requires a different amount of bashes to be logged in the book; the bosses in particular have an insane amount of hits required (the giant octopus takes 70 hits!).

After you finish the game once, there is a new game + mode which lets you keep all your money and small blocks (small blocks are a currency you can trade King Block for various swords.) In addition, there is a FROM new game +, which increases the amount of enemies, damage they dish out, and changes up the kinds of enemies found in each section.  If you feeling particularly masochistic, there is also SPELUNKER mode, which kills you if you are hit once and changes your character into the Spelunker (you can enter this mode by naming your character SPELUNKER.)  Last of all, there are two endings possible depending on if you save the princess by doing certain sidequests.  In a perfect world, From would have included something similar to the Zelda “second quest” with levels that were actually different, it’s really too bad that didn’t happen.

Technical issues: a little bit-picking

Unfortunately, there is noticeable slow down when there is too much stuff going on the screen.  It’s a bit unexpected given the simplicity of the game model: you’d think there’d be memory to spare, but obviously there is more going on under the hood than it seems.  While it’s true a little slow down does take me back to the 8 bit days, I think we could all do without that bit of nostalgia.

I’ve also had the game completely freeze two times: the first time not a big deal, but the second time after about an hour of play and having not saved.  After a brief internet search I’ve found that this issue is fairly common, but nothing in particular seems to set it off.  Would be nice if we could see a patch, but I don’t think there have been enough complaints for them to bother.

Summary

3D Dot Game Heroes feels like a fangame at heart, put together by a team who obviously love the genre and aren’t afraid to have fun with it.  It stands apart from a standard fan game you might find for free on the internet because of  it’s unique visuals, polish, and amount of content.  But still, because of it’s short length and gameplay that is somewhat tedious by modern standards, I would not recommend this to everyone.  It was very smart of Atlus to set a price of $40 in NA, and puzzling that it’s $60 in Europe. (Edit: this is probably because it is being published in Europe by a different company, Southpeak Games)  I would recommend this game at around a 30 dollar price range, which I think it has already dropped to in American Gamestops.

[I bought 3D Dot Game Heroes for $40 at Gamestop.  About 18 hours of gameplay were logged, that not including about 3 hours playing around with the character editor.  I finished the game once, got 23% of the trophies, and am currently in the middle of a new game + (which was interrupted by a unfortunately timed game freeze.)]

Review: Nier (Xbox 360, PS3)

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For the curious:  I believe the game’s title refers to the main character’s name.  There is no direct evidence of this in the game (in fact you name the character yourself, and he is referred to in the manual as “Father”), but I think the official website calls him Nier.  As for it’s roots, in Dutch Nier translates to “kidney”, and in French it is a verb meaning “to deny.”  Considering the personality of the main character, the French translation works pretty well.  In that case, I believe you would pronounce it Nee-eh (silent r), but feel free to correct me, it’s been a very long time since French 101.  Of course, this is assuming the creators didn’t just pick the name because it sounded cool.

Regardless, Nier is an action/rpg hybrid that was released this year for the PS3 and the Xbox 360.  For those of you wondering, there isn’t any significant difference in the game on either console.  However, there were two versions released in Japan, Nier Gestalt for the 360 and Nier Replicant for the PS3.  Replicant features a young spiky haired protagonist trying to save his sister, while Gestalt is an older muscle bound man on an identical quest to save his daughter.  North America is just getting the Nier Gestalt version, simply abbreviated Nier.   More on that later.

As I mentioned before, in Nier you assume control of a grim, heavily muscled and somewhat pug-ugly middle aged man who finds himself alone with his dying daughter in a post-apocalyptic city.  Yes, once more we journey into the post apocalypse.  I’d have to say that by now I’ve accepted it’s part of human nature to be fascinated by it’s own total destruction.

Suddenly, a floating, talking book appears!  Zing!

“Hey, buddy, wanna save your daughter?  I’m not evil or anything.  No horrible consequences, I swear.”

Faustian bargains are made, monsters appear, a brief tutorial on combat controls, and a sad little cookie is split between you and your kid.  Fade to white.

About a thousand years pass!?!?

And you are now the same man, inexplicably relocated to medieval village and dressed in fantasy-game style leather armor.  Your kid is still at death’s door, and the world looks like it going to be devoured by monsters.  Here’s where the game really begins.

L’atmosphère

The first thing that struck me about this game was the incredible atmosphere, which is due for the most part to the music.  It’s an incredible mix of instrumental and vocal tracks that really sets the tone for the game.  For example, when you start the game in the village, a soft, waltz-like melody is heard in the background.  As you approach the town square, you see a woman playing a guitar, and as you get nearer to her, the guitar and haunting vocal parts of the track fade their way into the music.  I just had to stand there for a minute or two to drink it all in.  Here’s the track I’m talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUsS0qnbhtc&feature=relatednier:

I also enjoyed the imaginative enemy designs for both the common cannon fodder and the bosses.  All of the enemies in Nier are beings called “Shades” , which as the name implies are shadow like creatures who seem to be framed by a writhing gold mesh of symbols and shapes.  Boss design ranges from a creature made of spinning cubes that spits Touhou-esque bullet hell fields of magic to an enormous lizard with a shark’s head, hand for a tail, and rows of glowing breasts that shoot beams and disgorge smaller enemies.

Les Commandes

For the most part the controls work well and there should be no surprises for those familiar with 3rd person action games such as Devil May Cry.  One button is a simple weapon swing, which can either be a one handed sword, two handed great sword, or spear (the two handed sword and spear are unlocked mid-game).  Another button is a special attack, which varies depending on what weapon is equipped.  Two of the shoulder buttons are assigned to blocking and a roll/evade move, and the other two are magic attacks, which can be assigned via the main menu.  The d-pad is for short cuts to the weapon and recovery/buff item menus.  Camera control is handled by the right stick, and clicking on it will quickly swing the camera in front of the character.

It all comes together pretty smoothly.  Any awkwardness is balanced out by the fairly forgiving difficulty of the game (I played on Normal).  My main complaint would have to be the magic control.  There is no lock-on, so aiming some of the long range spells depends on rotating your character and hoping it they will hit.  To compensate for this, a few of the spells like Dark Hand and Dark Lance slow down time as you are aiming, but even that doesn’t help because I think they tried to program some kind of auto lock system which actually locks on to empty space half the time.

Speaking of the combat, I loved it’s visceral feel.  Gallons of blood will spurt from enemies (shadows have blood?  I guess so), bodies will fly all over the place, bouncing off floors and walls, and connecting with a weapon really feels like a solid connection, especially with a bigger weapon like the two handed sword.  The magic spells are bombastic and awesome, like Dark Hand, which generates enormous hands of shadows and blood which slam into the enemies, either reducing them to bloody mush or sending them flying across the screen.

The tale of a story

I have to say I really enjoyed the story of Nier, both the tale itself and the unique process in which the game relates the story.  It’s hard to describe what I’m talking about without giving away key parts of the story though.  I’ll just say that the plot involves a man who will do absolutely anything to save his daughter, and what anyone would do to survive or keep the people they love alive.

The main characters are also a key part of this equation; there was obviously an attempt here to break from the jrpg norm a bit.  I was pleasantly surprised to find a protagonist who was not an effeminate teenager who discovers a hidden power that will save the world.  But this was somewhat tempered by the discovery of the two different versions and the obvious attempt to cater to western tastes, which I guess is for huge ugly dudes with wrestler bodies.  The time can not come soon enough for Japanese developers to figure out that trying to make a game for “western tastes” is NOT a recipe for a better game.  In fact, often the opposite.

Nevertheless, I found myself liking all the main characters of Nier, especially the talking book Grimoire Weiss, who serves as your sidekick and general source of derisive comic relief.  Like wondering aloud why the hell the protagonist spends so much time doing pointless sidequests when his daughter is at death’s door.  I even grew found of Kaine, probably the most annoying and stereotypical of your crew.  How many damn times can someone be super dramatically critically wounded then come back to life unscathed in a jrpg?  I think Kaine might be the record holder.

Sidequestin’

The sidequests are definitely the low point of Nier.  At their worst, they are infuriating and pointless.  At their best, they are actually kind of cool and are a nice little distraction from the main story.  An example of a “good” sidequest would be trying to get two characters to sing together at a local tavern.  One of them needs to be drunk on a brew made of rat and lizard tails before she will sing, and after a short collect a thon they sing a cool duet variation of that village theme I was talking about earlier.

For the most part they are “collecting” missions, which I found to be about the opposite of fun because of the insane rarity of drops on some of the required items.  How much time did I spend slaughtering goats because for some reason getting a GOAT HIDE from them is almost impossible?  Answer: WAY too long.  You can often purchase some of stuff required, but often you’ll find yourself spending more to complete the quest than the reward for doing so.

Then there’s the fishing, which isn’t so bad once you get the hang of it but still tedious because once again it often relies on trying to get that “rare drop”.  Actually, I found the worst part of fishing to be having to watch the pixel thin tip of the rod, which will be almost invisible at the right angle.  If you miss it bobbing (and not just bobbing, bobbing at the right level), you miss catching the fish and have to start over, losing your bait.

There’s also a farming subgame, which is marred by the curious game design decision to have the plants grow in real time.  That is, the time on the playstation internal clock.  If you don’t choose to “cheat”, or change the clock settings on your PS3 to make time “pass”, completing those farming subquests will take an insane amount of time and effort.

Upgrading your weapons is unfortunately also dependent on finding those rare items.   More time fighting the same enemies over and over again, trying to figure out who drops what, where to gather what, reloading screens again and again, etc.   After a while I just gave up on upgrading, it didn’t really make a huge difference in the game anyway.  Leveling up my character or just buying new weapons made me far more powerful than going through the laborious upgrade process.

The silver lining is, all this stuff is completely optional.  But the game is pretty damn short if you choose to avoid all this, and you will miss out on the occasional cool quest.

Not enough game

Besides the sidequests my biggest criticism would be that there is simply not enough game in Nier to tell it’s elaborate story.  There is a distinct point in the game where you can tell the developers must have run out of time or money and the gameplay gets more than a little abrupt and you will find yourself traveling through the same areas again and again.  The actual game world that Nier creates is actually quite small, and it shows after extended play.  There are a lot of good, original ideas going here, but just not enough game around them to engross the player.

A good example of this is the Forest of Myth.  It’s supposed to be this town where stories and words have become reality and the people have become lost in their own dreams.  To reflect this, most of the game in this part is actually an old school text adventure.   Sounds like a really cool idea, but in reality the whole Forest of Myth is a tiny area about as big as a room with three poorly rendered people sitting on tree stumps.  Besides three “text adventures”, which are decent and kind of fun, there is absolutely nothing else to it.

New game plus

One last thing I’d like to mention is that Nier has the best use of New Game + I’ve seen in a very long time.  On completion of the game, you given the chance to replay from a climatic mid point with all your weapons, money, items, and experience.  The difference is that now there are additional cutscenes during the boss battles and you can now understand what the shades are saying, which reflect certain important facts revealed to the player at the end of the game.  It puts a whole new light one everything and makes you feel almost like you are playing a different game.  And there is no other way they could have revealed the stuff you find out in new game + without spoiling the game in the first place, so putting it in this kind of context makes perfect sense.  After beating it a second time and getting a different ending, you now have to collect all the weapons and reach the end to see ending c.  And once you reach the end, you are given a very dramatic choice which results in ending c or d.  Choosing ending d results in the craziest, boldest ending I’ve ever experienced in a game.  A younger me would be probably have been a bit pissed off, but the older me was delighted.  Just a word of warning.  Do ending d last.

In summary, Nier is a game with incredible atmosphere and story which benefits from bold, original design choices.  Unfortunately, it also has a quite a few flaws and there simply is not quite enough game to support the story.

The internet is saying I'm a WHAT?!?!?!

Nier (Xbox 360, PS3) : Recommended ***

***I would definitely recommend giving this a try, either as a  rental or a purchase at $35 or less.

[I bought Nier at Kmart for $45.  Have gotten around 73% of the trophies and seen endings a, b, c, and d.  Total playtime was around 40 hours, this includes 2 new game + sessions. After playing the hell out of this game I can honestly say there is only one casual and indirect reference to Kaine possibly being a hermaphrodite]

Review: Monster Hunter Tri (Wii)

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Feel the ground rumbling at your feet in the wake of a dinosaur stampede?  John Williams style music trumpeting in your ears?  Anthropomorphic cats stealing your well-done steaks?  That’s right, you know what time it is.  IT’S MONSTER HUNTING TIME.  Capcom’s long awaited update to the Monster Hunter series has finally come to North America, and it shall be known as Monster Hunter Tri  (Why not 3? Who knows. Didn’t sound epic enough, perhaps.)  Does MHTri have what it takes to satisfy the legions of monster hunter pros looking for their next fix?  How about the newcomers who have never stabbed a velociraptor in the thorax with a steak knife the size of their body?  Is there enough game to justify a purchase if you aren’t already a fan?  Read on and maybe find out.

As for me, I first discovered the series when it was released for the PSP in the form of Monster Hunter Freedom, and have been a monster hunter enthusiast ever since.  Notice I don’t say something like pro, because frankly, I’ve got about average skills at the game, especially considering how much time I’ve sunk into it.  Despite kind of sucking at the actual gameplay, I continue to be utterly immersed by the strange and vibrant world of monster hunter.  More on that later.  I’ve played all 3 PSP games, enjoyed the last entry (Monster Hunter Freedom Unite) the most because of the improvements that continue to be implemented, and never miss the opportunity to get my ass kicked by all high level monsters.

Welcome to the jungle…

For those of you who are new to the world of Monster Hunter, I have to say that MHTri is probably the most accessible game in the series to date.  You start the single player game as a young hunter who has rolled into a small fishing town with nothing but their underwear and the desire to kill dinosaur sized animals.  You are quickly taken up to speed by the village chief, given some money for gear, and walked through a lengthy tutorial process which teaches you the ins and outs of the complex world of monster hunting.  All of the resources to be gathered, mined, or carved from dead monster hides are clearly marked by large icons, as opposed to past games where you just had to know where and what to do.

As you get further into the game more helpful additions are unlocked which are not necessarily new to the series, but have definitely been tweaked since the PSP days.  There is a farm in the village where your cat slaves/farmers will grow resources like herbs, mushrooms, or even insects in bulk for you, cutting down on gathering time.  Fishing boats are waiting at the docks to be sent out on fishing, treasure hunting, or even monster part gathering expeditions.  The fishing boats and farm both cost “resource points” to use however, which are generated by doing helpful things for the village like turning in fish or killing monsters in the nearby Moga Woods.

There’s also a hunting assistant you eventually discover named Cha-Cha, a tiny little masked guy who will follow you around on hunts and perform dances that heal or buff you, gather materials, and attack monsters (though really the little guy is mostly good for distracting them.)  Cha-Cha has his own leveling up system, can gain new abilities which you can manage, and you can make him masks that give him helpful/weird powers.  Like the mask that makes him into a portable rotisserie grill.

Other tweaks this version has received include a Hunter Memo, in which you can drag any material you need for that next weapon or armor.  When you find what you’ve been looking for, the game will give you a little “success” noise to remind you.  Mining and gathering points have also been made a little more generous with those rare ores, and pick axes seem to break a little less often.  The Feline Chef, an NPC which serves you meals that power you up before a battle in various and complicated ways, is now right beside the quest counter, and the game keeps track of which meals do what as you try them out, and his meals give better and better effects as you progress through the game (in the PSP version you had to buy and train the chefs, and keep track of which food combination did what yourself.)

…now bend over.

But despite it’s improved accessibility, Monster Hunter Tri is still a brutally hard game.  You will eventually come against a wall in the form of a monster so hard you will be almost incredulous as to how the designers expect it to be beaten.  Then you study it’s patterns, find out it’s weaknesses, try and forge the best possible arms, armor, and items to help you, get your ass KICKED multiple times, then finally, sweet sweet victory.  And then, onto the next monster as big as a house that uses you as a toothpick.

Part of this difficulty is perfectly understandable, after all this game is all about epic battles against towering creatures.  But it is also due to the controls, which remain a bit of a stumbling block for me even though by now I have gotten used to them.  Not precisely the controls themselves, which I have no problem with, especially now with the 3 different choices of control schemes and the ability to use a classic controller (or the CCPro, which can come bundled with the game.  I don’t have one myself, but have heard nothing but good things about how comfortable it is.)  The problem I have is that the characters themselves still move and fight extremely stiffly and awkwardly, with long exaggerated animations.  The counter argument is of course that this is part of the game, and once you accept it and play accordingly, it becomes quite easy.  But the question still remains, why accept deficiencies in how the game plays as difficulty?   Shouldn’t difficulty be determined by game design, not how hard it is to actually play?

Glub.

The biggest change in MHTri would have to be the ability to go underwater.  All the action under the sea is obviously supposed to be something of a showpiece for the game, and it shows.  The underwater environments are absolutely fantastic both in graphic and sound design. You’ve got murky jungle rivers, ocean trenches gently illuminated by surface light, and sunken underwater ruins hidden in dark caves, just to name a few.  All of the sea life is equally impressive: from the towering Lagiacrus to the Nessie-like herbivores lower down the food chain, all act and animate like they are actually SEA creatures and not just monsters that happen to be in the water.  The larger monsters actually create a current in the water when one of their attacks passes you, which amazed me.  As for the underwater combat itself, it’s as difficult as you might imagine.  The larger melee weapons are much slower, judging if you are close enough for your attack to hit or not is a bit tricky, and if you are near the surface the camera will not show you what is going on underwater.  But at least you never really have to worry about oxygen: there is a meter but you can hold your breath for incredible amounts of time.

Go Online, young hunter.

The fact that playing online is both free and without Nintendo friend codes tends to negate any nitpicking I have.  Here’s the process of playing this game with other people:  Once you load your character, select “City” instead of “Village”.  Then select from 4 choices of server types:  Open, Rookie, Expert, and Recruiting.  Then you choose a server, then gate within the server, then you make or join a room which can hold 4 players.  Each room includes a quest giving hub, various stores, blacksmith, place to eat a meal, weird little cat that will think up room decorations for you if you give it items and spend time in online quests, and more.

I’ve had some lag and disconnection issues but overall it’s a pretty solid system.  Like any online game, your experience is entirely up to the whims of other people.  Once you have the name or online code one of your friends is using in the game, it’s easy to search for them and warp to wherever they are.  As for communication with other players, WiiSpeak is supported as well as usb keyboards.  I can’t comment on the WiiSpeak but my computer keyboard works fine.  Just be warned that you can only type only one very short sentence at a time.  If you don’t have either, using the Wiimote on the screen keyboard is always an option, albeit a slow one almost impossible to use in combat.

So why bother playing online?  The difficulty is ramped up accordingly, but the rewards are greater in money and monster parts.  And there is nothing like fighting an epic monster battle with a great team of hunters.  There is a ranking system which determines which quests you can initiate and participate in.  Each successful quest will give you HR (hunter rank) points in addition to the other rewards.  The online play is commonly used as a post-game for people who have finished the single player because the quests are much more difficult and numerous, but it’s not unusual for people to just jump right into the multiplayer.  Last of all there are the “Event Quests” which offer battles and rewards you can only get online.  For example, the Sandstorm event which just happened recently offered players of all ranks the chance to fight an almost ridiculously epic battle against the living mountain-monster Jhen Mohran.

Monster Hunter 101

Let’s start with our curriculum: http://monsterhunter.wikia.com/wiki/Monster_Hunter_Wiki .  Read it, study it, learn it.  Theres no shame in using guides for this game, in fact there are many aspects you will never be aware of unless you learn them somewhere else.  Much like Demon’s Souls, this is really a game that should come bundled with a guide.

OK.  Now the question before us today is, why do we play Monster Hunter?  What exactly makes it so compelling?

It isn’t the story; it’s almost a tradition in Monster Hunter games to have as little plot as possible.  The town is threatened by monsters.  You must kill them all.  That’s about it.

Is it the endless cycle of killing a monster for it’s parts, making weapons/armor out of those parts, fight monster again?  The collecting / showing off your stuff to others aspect of any game has proven itself to be quite addictive, but personally this kind of thing gets old after a while.

No, what is all about is the pure experience of fighting the monsters.  There are a few video games that come close like Shadow of the Colossus, but there is nothing quite like Monster Hunter when it is at it’s best.  It’s like everything else in the game is a framework to hold those epic hunting experiences.  Incredible graphics, sound, animation, creature AI and design all combine to totally draw you into the reality the team has created.  Despite patterned behavior and attacks it almost feels like the monsters on the screen are real living things.  The brutal difficulty is also part of this equation because as much as Monster Hunter seems like an action RPG it’s really all about strategy.  Studying the monster you want to defeat, being totally engrossed in it’s patterns and environment, then planning your attack.  Again, a lot like Demon’s Souls, you will find yourself playing the exact same stages over and over again, but each play will feel different because of how YOU as the player have evolved, not necessarily stat changes in your character.  Monsters that once made you weep in frustration will seem almost easy when you come back to them, and not just because you got that new Buster Sword.

Carving up some Tri.

As you can probably tell from my glowing descriptions, returning monster hunters should feel right at home with Tri.  However, there are a few criticisms I would bring up.  One is the reduction of weapon types.  Tri does introduce the switch axe, which I have to say is very cool and fun to use.  But,  taken away are the bow, gunlance, twin blades, and hunting horn, which is a shame.  It just doesn’t feel like the variety of weapons is quite up to par with Monster Hunter Freedom Unite.

Graphically the game has been improved from it’s PSP days, despite looking a bit pixelated and washed out if you get to close to anything.  And I was disappointed that even in widescreen mode and with my Wii set properly there are still black bars on either side of the screen. After a little research I’ve found that some Wii games, like Tri, are made in 16:10 widescreen, so they will not quite fit on 16:9 TV.  Is this a huge deal? Not really.  But ever since I’ve had two crappy LCD HD TV’s suffer from “line burn” (permanent line of “burnt” pixels on the border of the black area and the image) I’ve been paranoid about leaving any image that doesn’t fit on the screen for too long.

NOTE:  I’m taking the repair dude at his word that this was really caused those permanent lines to be burned into my HD TV.  The internet seems conflicted and self contradictory about this issue.  The TV in question was a Westinghouse, and after having to exchange it 3 times for various issues Best Buy finally just refunded my money outright and I bought a smaller Sony.   Hopefully this won’t be an issue anymore, but that paranoia remains.

Summary time.

In summation, Monster Hunter Tri is one of the best action/strategy/RPGs available for the Wii to date and there is no better way for a newcomer to be introduced to the series.  But be forewarned that it can be difficult as hell and demands a tremendous amount of time and effort to progress.

Monster Hunter Tri for the Wii : Recommended

[I bought Monster Hunter Tri for $45 from Gamestop.  It came with a $5 "Monster Hunter" Wii points card.  There is also a $55 bundle available that comes with a Classic Controller Pro.  I have spent about 82 hours in total playing it, have reached the 23rd HR level online, and the 5* level quests offline.  Am currently trying to fight a Barioth solo without being turned into cat turds.]

Review: Game & Watch Collection 2 (DS)

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To clarify: this is a review of the Game & Watch Collection 2 that was recently made available as a prize in the Club Nintendo NA store.  As I mentioned in my previous post, it contains 2 ports of the old Game & Watch games Parachute and Octopus.  There’s also a mash up of the two included called Parachute x Octopus.

I actually owned one these old systems at one time, Donkey Kong 2 Game & Watch.  It always felt like the elite of LCD gaming because the action actually moved across two screens!!!  TWO SCREENS!  Alas over the passage of time it was either stolen the last time my apartment got broken into or possibly lost in some box of crap buried deep under sedimentary layers of videogame related debris.

donkey kong + gold trim + dual screens = pure class

Anyway, lets cover each game separately.

Parachute:

Countless dudes are leaping from a single helicopter into shark infested waters.  It’s your job as the guy in a tiny boat to save them.  Why are these lemmings skydiving to their deaths?  I rule out suicide because they bothered to wear parachutes.  Maybe it’s a popular skydiving tour, but no one told them about the sharks.  The sharks in these MOTHERFUCKING waters.

Before starting, I set myself the goal of 100 points for each game.  Sounds reasonable enough, right?  Parachute started smoothly enough, and I quickly noticed the guys on the right side approach the water a hell of a lot faster than the left.  Maybe a trick of perspective.  Or the pilot arranged them by body weight before launch.  You have to constantly watch that damn right side, but once you’ve got that down, its cake.  Except for those times where there’s a dude on the far left AND right and you’ve got to break the sound barrier in your shitty oar powered boat to save both of them.

Mode B introduces a new wrinkle, those weighty dudes on the right side now will get caught in a palm tree and dangle there until a random time elapses.  Then they’ll drop like stones into a sharks mouth.  After a while I got the hang of both modes.  When you reach 200 pts, the game goes a little apeshit and you get an extra man.  There’s also a little fireworks display on the top screen every 10 points.  Overall I enjoyed Parachute, and found the rhythmical action of saving these suicidal dolts almost relaxing.  I also liked the animation of the little guys being chased around the water until they became shark chum.

Parachute High Scores:    Mode A- 336 points.  Mode B – 94 points .   Mode B – lose

Octopus:


Words can describe how profoundly disappointed I am that in fact that you do not control the Octopus in the game Octopus.  What the hell, man.  For some reason I was under the impression that I would be an Octopus in one of these damn games.  Who you actually control is a team of divers who are trying to get a treasure that is in the general vicinity of a very lazy, possibly stoned Octopus.  If one of his randomly growing tentacles touches you with its tip, your diver is drawn into the Octopus’s embrace and strangled (or covered in Octopus kisses).  Three times and game over.  I found this game to be harder than Parachute because of the randomness factor of his tentacles, and the greed factor as you can stand by the treasure box and try and get as many points as you can before a tentacle nabs you.  But then you run the risk of being trapped in a tentacle sandwich.  Game mode B speeds it up a bit and lets puts two tentacles at a time in play, making it easier to get trapped.  It’s also hard to judge when exactly a tentacle tip is going to be in the same area as your little guy.

Octopus High Scores:   Mode A-124  points   Mode B-48 points.   Mode B- failure , again.

Parachute X Octopus:

This is simply a mash of the two modes, each game taking up a screen on the DS.  Again, my dreams were shattered: there were no parachuting Octopii to be found. For the most part it’s you on the top screen in your boat trying to save potential shark food again.  But it will also randomly switch to the bottom screen where what I can only assume is one of the parachuters drops out of the boat and tries to get some of that Octopus gold.  At least this offers a potential solution to why these guys are diving into the ocean,  there’s treasure in them thar waters.  While this game doesn’t really offer anything new, I found myself enjoying it even more than Parachute because the Octopus action breaks up the monotony of saving dudes a little bit.  Game B speeds it up a little, and the skydivers on the right get caught in that damn palm tree again.

Parachute X Octopus High Scores:   Mode A – 132 points   Mode B – 168 points         SUCCESS !!!

It’s difficult to rate this game because in a way you get it for free.  But, it is the most expensive Club Nintendo prize available at 800 points, along with G&W Collection 1 and the Hanafuda Cards.  How much is a Club Nintendo coin worth anyway??  What doth coin??  And I can’t emphasize enough how YOU DON’T GET TO BE AN OCTOPUS, which really subtracted a lot of crucial points from my score.

Game and Watch Collection 2 (DS) – Not Recommended

[Game & Watch Collection 2 was "purchased" at the Club Nintendo NA store for 800 coins.  My condolences to our European readers, but really, you aren't missing much this time.  Both modes of all three games were tried.  The Alarm function continues to baffle any practical application.]

SSJ3 increases his power level in order to review Attack of the Saiyans (DS)

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Oh, hey, I have a job writing blog entries here, don’t I? Here’s a quick review.

Usually when someone asks for a good DBZ game, they’ll usually be referred to either the Budokai games on PS2, the Tenkaichi games on Wii and PS2, or for the handheld gamer, such as myself, they’ll talk about the Legacy of Goku games on GBA or on occasion, Supersonic Warriors (also on GBA). But enough about those games, because this game is easily the best of the bunch, at least to me. That game is Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Saiyans, for the Nintendo Dual Screen computer entertainment system. Or: How to make the longest possible name for a game that can still fit on the box.

PAL box, but the US version looks exactly the same.

Attack of the Saiyans is an RPG by Monolith Soft, makers of other RPGs including the Baten Kaitos series on Gamecube and the Xeno series on the Playstation console family (And soon Wii, if you count Xenoblade). Compared to those games, this one’s a whole lot more traditional, there are no mecha or card battles. Instead, the combat system is more a cross between Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG.

Combat is handled in a highly traditional way; you’ve got 1-3 people fighting against another group of 1-3 people, complete with the dreaded random encounter system. The way it’s presented is how the game won me over; everyone has their moves, whether it be Goku with his Kamehameha, or Yamcha with his Wolf Fang Fist. You can on occasion combine special attacks if your character is ‘sparking’, which is basically another way of saying limit break, for those who played Final Fantasy 7 (or heck, most of the FF series). Defense is handled by timing, if you can time your button push right, you can reduce, and on very odd occasions, nullify damage. The game stays fairly true to DBZ, so no one gets any out of place attacks, which may be a shame for some, but I prefer it to having randomly learned attacks from absolute nothingness.

You'll be seeing a lot of this.

The game is very much a grindy RPG, there are no real puzzles and the ones that do exist are real no brainers. The hardest part about this game is actually just navigating; sometimes it’s very hard to tell where you can walk on the backgrounds, which is a real pain in the you-know-where. The only other thing that’s hard is getting out of dungeons because of the encounter rate. In spite of these flaws, this is an epic DBZ adventure in the palm of your hand.

Japanese version, but you do fight a whole bunch of these guys.

Speaking of DBZ, this game’s storyline might be a bit disappointing for some (namely, those who prefer the later sagas in the series). It goes from the ending of the original Dragonball up to the ending of the saiyan saga where Goku defeats Vegeta and all that good stuff. And yes, the game does hint at the fact that there will be a sequel sometime in the (hopefully near) future where you finally get to go to Namek and fight against that clearly unidentifiable purple guy people are so scared of. That’s not to say that all DBZ fans will be disappointed at this game’s story, because there are actually many references to events that occurred in the original Dragon Ball as well as a secret boss who I will not spoil but I will leave an image of for those who REALLY want to know:

SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO CARE:

http://a248.e.akamai.net/f/248/5462/2h/images.gamezone.com/screens/38/2/62/s38262_nds_86.jpg

/SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO CARE

In terms of graphics… well, the battle visuals are pretty decent and feature some solid animation at times, while the backgrounds have a nice, hand drawn look to them that makes the game more aesthetically presentable. Unfortunately, the overworld sprites are just complete crap. It kinda reminds me of how Tales of Hearts was on DS with its sprites, though the animation in AotS is nowhere near as good. Both games also happen to feature voices in battle.

See some footage here (shows the defensive system and a combination attack): DBZ AOTS footage by MrPlayerism

The translation is probably the only really disappointing aspect of this game. It is very true to the Japanese version, which means no silly one liners such as OVER 9000 or what have you. But that’s what makes it disappointing; it would’ve been great if they had at least made a few inside jokes here and there. The game also uses the Japanese voice cast, which to me, is also disappointing. If you prefer the Japanese version, then please disregard this blurb, but I find it disappointing because I actually really enjoyed the English dub of DBZ, even more so than the Japanese version.

When all is said and done, DBZ: Attack of the Saiyans is a very good game. It may not be all that innovative, and some may be disappointed by the translation, but thanks to a solid presentation, a great combat system, and loads of references to its own source material, it presents a great 20-30 hour adventure through one of the greatest animes around.

Review: Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon (Wii)

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There’s something uniquely depressing about Japanese storytelling.  Not to say that Japanese literature is necessarily a bummer.  What I’m talking about here is the strange merging of  lighthearted wackiness and grim depression that you will find so often in Japanese media.  Imagine the scene from Bambi where his mom died, but the characters are 3 times as cute.  And all his friends die too.  And he sings a song about hope with the ghosts of the recent dead.

Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon (which I will just call Fragile from this point on) illustrates this point perfectly.  It’s a story about absolute loneliness and trying not to give into despair.  Exploring a ruined world and reading the stories of people who know they are about to die.  But at the same time, its about playing hide and seek with ghost girls, making friends with a talking backpack, and being kicked in the ass by a pair of laughing disembodied legs.

You start the game as Seto, a spiky haired little boy who wakes up to find his grandfather is dead and he is utterly alone.  After reading a few depressing last words from the old man, Seto is off to Tokyo Tower to try and find some other human beings.  Almost immediately he discovers a white haired girl dressed in a trash bag (to use Welchnik’s description) singing to the moon.  He offers a helping hand after she falls down like a moe, but she recoils from his touch and runs away.  The rest of the story is Seto’s journey to find the white haired girl and maybe figure out what caused the apocalypse along the way.

Fragile’s strength is the incredible atmosphere the game slowly unveils as the player makes their way through the ruined world.  A combination of visuals, music, and storytelling create a visceral post apocalyptic world that will not fail to invoke emotion (unless you are some kind of unfeeling monster who doesn’t care about robot backpacks).  The story is told both in the events of Seto’s journey and through simple objects he finds in the ruins.  When you bring them back to camp, the last thoughts the owner of the object had are told in short story form.  Eventually you realize these memories are slowly telling the story of the dead world you are exploring.  Reminded me a little of the short stories you can unlock in Lost Odyssey.

Gameplay is primarily exploration, with emphasis on illumination with a  flashlight controlled by the Wii remote.  There are also hostile animals and ghosts which you fight off with sticks and other garbage that slowly progress to things like spears and crossbows as you get further into the game.  A simple RPG formula is running behind all the combat:  damage you take and give out are displayed as numbers, and the more jellyfish ghosts and stray dogs you kill, the stronger and tougher you get.  Your inventory is a small box in which all the items you collect have to fit in a tetris like fashion.  Once it’s full, you have to go back to base camp and put stuff in storage.  Base camp are small fires which you find scattered around the world; there you can save, fiddle around with your inventory, and regain all your health.  There’s also a money/barter system which you use to interact with a chicken headed merchant who will sell you weapons and health items.

It’s the gameplay where things start to go south for Fragile.  Turning your character in combat is unnecessarily slow and awkward, and to make things worse all the enemies seem aware of this and try to get behind you whenever possible.  Your weapons will break, both randomly and often.  This adds a certain level of complexity to the game , but also annoyance.  The tiny inventory box, while upgraded to larger sizes as you play the game, will almost always be filled to the brim with garbage.  Which means more backtracking to the camp fires through respawning enemies.  Your pal the Chicken Head Merchant only shows up at random, so that means he will inevitably come around when you are broke, or not show up when you finally save up enough yen to buy that golf club you’ve been itching to wail on stray dogs with.

Besides the combat and inventory there are also other puzzling gameplay choices.  Many long stretches of game where you do nothing but walk through huge expanses of gray sewer pipe, or climb down ladders that seem to go down to the center of the earth itself.  Minigames that rely way too much on trying to decide how loud the tinny sound coming out of your Wiimote is.  (Watchers of Welchniks stream may remember the poor guy almost brought to man tears of despair while trying to play hide and seek with an invisible ghost.)

The thing is, most of these problems seem to be deliberate choices by the creators rather than oversights.  I can see where they were going with it, but that doesn’t necessarily make it forgivable.  Or does it?  Are games just entertainment, or can they be a medium for storytelling and invoking emotion?  In a perfect world I guess a game can do both.  Fragile doesn’t quite get there.

I’ve always told myself that if I ever reviewed games I’d stay away from the numerical system, which I think has degraded to the point of almost meaninglessness (but that can be ranted about some other time.)    My solution was to simplify and just say if I recommended the game or not.  And with Fragile I’m starting to see the problems I’m going to have with this.

Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon : Recommended *

*I recommend this game if you are the kind of person who is willing to play a game that is slow paced and often aggravating if it pays off with a compelling experience.  And it does.  Also, turn on the subtitles and the Japanese voice track, because the English VA is has an overall lower quality and is filled with awkward pauses.

[I bought Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon for $50 at Gamestop.  It came with a soundtrack CD.  Finished the game after about 14 hours of gameplay, that includes trying to look for all the optional sidestory items.  A small art and movie gallery is unlocked when you finish it.  I still haven't figured out what the point of playing with stray cats is.]

SpyGuy uses all his might to try to review the magic of Clash of Heroes

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To celebrate the HD remake coming to XBLA and PSN later on this year, I thought I’d take a look at my personal DS game of the year before it becomes my personal downloadable game of the year.

As they say, don't judge a book by its cover.

In a world gone mad, Ubisoft actually releases something pretty nice for the Nintendo DS, something that shocked me pretty well. The game is known as Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes, which combines puzzle gameplay with elements from an RPG. While this game may seem like shovelware at first glance (just look at that box, ugh) it’s a very awesome puzzler from Capybara, the people behind Critter Crunch on the PS3.

Where to begin? The story is probably the best bet, since this is technically an RPG. The game revolves around 5 children who are all scattered across some continent. The whole game basically revolves around them getting back together so they can beat some big bad, as is the case with many RPGs. There’s some stuff in there about ancient talismans and ghost people, but honestly, after the very first scene in this game, I highly doubt anyone who plays this game will care in any way, shape, or form about anything that happens in this game.

The gameplay is the star of this little game, it’s a combination of sorts of both Advance Wars and Critter Crunch, but even then, there’s very little resemblance. The game goes something like this, you make a move, usually 3 or more, and then the bad guys make their move, and so on and so forth. While making these moves, you’ll need to create attack formations, which can be done in many ways. The obvious way is to just take a core unit and drop him below (it makes sense when you actually play the game) 2 other matching core units, which will cause them to start charging ala Dragonball Z. Luckily, unlike that particular anime, attacks actually do make their mark now and again. You can also sacrifice units who are blocking the way of other units, so say you have 2 blue guys, a white guy in between, and then another blue guy, you can simply delete the white guy to create a battle formation right there. Making a battle formation like this also gives you another move, so you need to balance between the ways in which you create attack formations to get out the most from your units. Getting multiple attack formations at once or having units line up without your input will also give you extra moves. You’ll also need to defend yourself, and you can do this by making walls. Lining up 3 or more core units of the same type side by side as opposed to top to bottom will create them.

There’s honestly quite a bit to this ‘combat’ system, including levels, unit types, colours, and so on. Unit types basically cover 3 categories, core, elite, and champion units. The core units are the only ones I’ve covered so far, and they’re also the units first introduced to you. The next ones are the elite units, these guys are stronger than the core units, and require more strategy to use. They require you to have 2 core units who are of the same colour below them before they start charging. The final units revealed to you are the champion units. These guys do the most damage by far, but they also require 4 (yes, FOUR) core units below them in a square formation to start charging.

The one element of the battle system that isn’t affected by formations is the spell system. This works pretty similarly to the CO Powers in Advance Wars. Basically, the more damage you dish out and take, the more the spell gauge fills, and once it fills, you get to do a powerful field affecting move that will hopefully turn the tide of battle. The complexity of this battle system means that very rarely will 2 battles play out alike.

A video shows these mechanics far better than any amount of text could, so here’s one, courtesy of nzonechannel: COH Gameplay video

Battles are the meat of the gameplay, and they play out in four different ways. One way is through random encounters (as well as some of the forced story encounters), where you have to destroy the enemy’s health bar before he or she destroys yours. Next come the brain teasers, these require you to set up a battle formation that will destroy all the enemies on the other side. These are very hard and will probably cause you to rip out your hair in rage. Next are boss fights, these have you fight against one very tough monster, who also acts as his own life bar. They also get special field changing moves that you wish you had. Last but not least are what I like to call battle puzzles, these are everything that aren’t the optional brain teasers that require you to do anything other than kill the opposing side.

Brain teaser: ndsgamesru: COH Puzzle 1

One element of battle that definitely needs to be mentioned is the AI. The AI in this game does cheat; it’s an unfortunate fact that all games of this style deal with. However, despite the AI cheating, it’s hard to notice most of the time, and it’ll often make boneheaded decisions that just barely make sense. It’s usually smart enough to give a challenge, though, and that’s the most important thing.

I mentioned colour a few paragraphs ago, and the unfortunate answer is that yes, this game is basically impossible to play if you are colourblind. This is pretty much the game’s biggest flaw besides the lack of any online play. Luckily, you only need one copy of the game to play locally, so that kinda offsets that particular flaw if you know people with a DS. Also luckily, even without online play, this game is still pretty long. It took me about 25 hours to beat the story, and I’m still doing the occasional quick fight here and there.

If you can't see the colour in this shot, you can't play this game.

For the DS, the visuals are well done. Good ol’ chibified sprite art shows itself in full force here, and despite the occasional stutter (as though the DS just can’t handle the game’s awesomeness) it animates very well and has a solid art style. The character portraits look a little off, however; it has that weird westernized anime look, and is pretty inconsistent throughout the game. For reference, to me, the best looking character in the game is probably Fiona, and she still looks pretty silly.

In case it isn't obvious, this girl can control the undead.

The music is also pretty nice too. It ranges from background noise (for puzzles and mechanics demonstrations) to epic (for bosses) to fairly somber (for pretty much everything else). It kinda reminds me of Metroid’s music, in a way, although obviously the 2 games are hardly comparable.

When all is said and done, this is a great game. The gameplay is complicated, but still has that certain addictive quality found in other great puzzlers and strategy games like Puzzle Quest and Advance Wars, and the sprites are well animated. However, the bad story, lack of any online play, as well as the colourblind issue bring this game down a notch or two.