Now Playing: Prince of Persia - The Forgotten Sands(Wii)

 I forgot the Wii could look THIS good.

Same cover, now with an ugly red note.

 Alright, so I popped in the disc, expectations at a medium level.... and the game blew me away just with the intro alone. This game looks like a diamond and plays like butter. No other PoP game has looked this good before, and the framerate is so smooth, at least when compared with the PS2 version. It's games like this that prove just how much potential the Wii really had.

 I played. And played. And played. I logged in about an hour chasing the demon-sand zombie-thing. I love the game, even though it uses motion controls for combat, they work well. Platforming is great and combat is, probably, the best it's ever been in the Prince of Persia franchise.

 I don't wanna jump the gun, but the game is already promising to be among the best Prince of PErsia games yet.

Review #530: Prince of Persia - The Forgotten Sands(PSP)

 Because the PSP is not forgotten.

The prince stands tall in the PSP's elongated box!

 While the PSP proved itself capable of running Warrior Within and Two Thrones, Ubisoft wanted something... less than just port of the Wii version, so what we got was a 2-D sidescroller with 3-D graphics. It's an interesting premise, you get the feeling of the classic PoP, albeit with all the modern obstacles and aesthetics.

 Sometime between Sands of Time and Warrior Within, the Prince finds himself captured by his own father. A fire Djinn knows of a prophecy regarding the Prince's bloodline ending him, so he'll put an end to the family before they end him. The Prince's father locks the Prince in a tower, for his own protection, but another mysterious Djinn appears before the Prince and lends him her power in order to defeat the Djinn. The set-up is pretty interesting, but it's very underdeveloped, you'll not be getting much story with the game, which is kind of a shame since the setup was so promising.

Combat always features 1 or 2 enemies on opposite sides of the screen. Same set-up all the time.

 As the Prince you'll slash your way through enemies, while jumping, climbing, scaling vines, walljumping, wallrunning, jumping from poles and the whole gamut, all in 2-D. They did a great job translating the 3-D Prince's abilities into 2-D, with a very simple control scheme. X jumps, Square slashes and circle rolls, while you also get a ton of context-sensitive abilities. The core moves of the Prince feel great, although you'll have to learn not to be too trigger happy, since the Prince might remember you were tapping X, in a futile effort to make him climb a ledge faster, and thus jump to his death as soon as he climbed the platform.

 The Prince doesn't have access to the dagger of time, but the Djinn lends him time-shifting abilities. Now you have lives, and if you die you restart at the closest checkpoint until they run out, when they do, you'll be transported back to the last fountain you visited, with your entire life stock replenished. It works well, it's fair and it does away with loading times, although I do miss rewinding back time. You control the Prince with the directional pad, while the analog nub is used to switch targets among things that the Djinn can manipulate. While the wisp that represents the djinn stands over an object, or enemy, you can hold R to accelerate it, or L to slow it down. It's a great mechanic, since it affects both platforming and combat.

Armored enemies can heal other enemies. If you obtained the charge attack you can break their armor swiftly.

 Manipulating time is a great mechanic, executed a bit poorly. The puzzles in the game are about quickly figuring out how to affect the environment in order to proceed, so you'll find your self jumping towards a pressurized leak of sand, freezing it in time to use it as a pole, an jump to the next leak and freeze it just before you grab it, rinse and repeat. You'll be freezing sand whirlwinds in order to move them, and then accelerate them to push you upward, slowing down or accelerating moving blades, etc. It's a fantastic idea, and when it works well it's a blast, it just so happens that the Djinn likes to predict, wrongly, what your next target will be. Many times it cost me my life, since maybe I wanted to slow down an incoming spiked log, but the game decided that I wanted to manipulate the sand whirlwind. Some areas were very vexing until I proceeded the way the game wanted me to proceed as opposed to the way I wanted to proceed. Sometimes you'll also be caught unprepared since you were expecting the game to auto-lock on to the upcoming obstacle, but turned out you had to aim at it yourself.

 Unsurprisingly, combat is still the series' weakest point. Firstly, collision detection is a bit wonky, which can make the first boss a major pain in the butt. Secondly, you can affect enemies with time mechanics, and when it works its great, since you can turn a few enemies berserk and have them attack their own allies! But also... sometimes frozen enemies will lose their collision detection, so you can't harm them. A few situations can turn unfair since not every enemy can be jumped over, and there're very few attacks in the the Prince's repertoire. You can unlock a few by spending collected elixir at fountains, but it's better spent on health upgrades. Throughout the game you can unlock three different swords, but each one has a bonus and a drawback. I just equipped the one that made your attacks unblockable at the cost of making you unable to block. But who needs to block if you can just spam square to death? Although it's better if you time it, since your attacks will deal more damage. All in all, passable at best, boring at worst. It would've been nice to have more opportunities to use time manipulation against enemies, like the area in which you can accelerate spiked ceiling tiles to smash your enemies to bits.

For a simple 2-D sidescroller, some stages are rather pretty. Others are quite ugly with muddy textures.

 The Forgotten Sands on the PSP had a lot of promise. It had some fantastic ideas, and while most of the execution was fine, at times it felt like it needed more work. A few levels could've used a bit more polishing, like the infamous rolling boulder sequence in which you've got just the right amount of time to make it through, and a single mistaken button will cost you the entire sequence. A few trap rooms too felt like they were nigh impossible to clear without taking a bit of damage. It's not a bad game to have on the PSP, but it hurts how close they were to making something really fantastic.

 If anything, I'd call this game uneven. Some platforming sections are brilliant, while others falter due to silly technical issues, like the automatic wisp. Combat can be decent, but it grows stale very quickly, since all encounters are basically the same. Some stages look gorgeous and have great level design to match, while others feature ugly looking textures that make some platforms look like part of the background. If you like the Prince, go for it, it's a better alternative than the DS game, but if you don't... approach cautiously.
 6.5 out of 10

Review #529: Digimon World 4

 It's finally over.

So... we gonna ape Shadow the Hedgehog?

 Digimon World is Digimon's flagship series, one that, surprisingly, reinvented itself time and time again. For Digimon World 4 they decided to do away with turn based combat, and instead turned it into a hack-and-slash dungeon crawler, a la Diablo. It worked for The Lord of the Rings, and it would work once again in the future for the Ninja Turtles, so it should've worked fine. But it didn't. Everything that could've gone wrong went wrong,a nd the end result is one of the worst Digimon games ever made.

 The story... is barely even there. You are recruited as a new member of the Digital World defense corps and must protect the Digimon World from an upcoming threat. I think this game is supposed to tie-in with a movie, which would explain it's bad quality, and how little plot there is, assuming players know the plot of the movie. Regardless, if you so want it, you can take up to three other buddies with you. But why would you? The game is awful, don't do that to your friends. That said, the game supposes you are playing with at least one other player, so the difficulty is scaled towards 2-3 players. Playing on your lonesome is a grueling task on the first and latter part of the game, since for whatever reason the difficulty goes way down on the middle parts of the game.

Most useless service in the game. There're very few things that need appraising.

 X can be used to attack, you can use a charge attack, but it's only useful on the first two-fourths of the game, as the last zones have enemies that love to spam projectiles, thus being a sitting duck is asking for punishment. It probably makes more sense in multiplayer, when others can act as decoys. There's also a weak 360 attack by moving the analog in a circle and pressing X, but once again, it becomes useless in the latter part of the game when enemies just rush you relentlessly. Square is used to block, Triangle... is the last button you'll want to press, since it quickly uses your best healing item. That means that when you're only missing health.. it'll prioritize wasting your incredibly rare Recovery discs(Heals HP and MP), so it's usefulness is debatable. Lastly, circle is used to jump, and yes, the game has a few passable, but unnecessary, platforming sections.

 One of the game's worst mechanics comes in the form of items and magic. To use magic you tap L1 and to use items you use R2. Kinda. Y'see, L1 opens up the magic menu, and R1 opens up the item menu, both in-real time. Which makes sense, since it's a multiplayer game, but it's also a hassle since you have to navigate the menus with the directional pad while simultaneously avoiding enemies with the analog stick. Another problem is that using an item or a spell won't automatically close the window, which in the heat of battle, remember that enemies love to rush in, means that you'll accidentally use items or magic you didn't mean to. It doesn't help that if you press L1 or R1 to close the menu won't work until 1-2 seconds have passed since you used the item/spell, which can throw you off. Needless to say, I guarantee that you'll waste items or magic accidentally.

A friend might make the game more tolerable, but he'll hate you for making him play this game.

 The game loves to go out of its way to annoy you. Let's start with loading screens. Loading times are lengthy, and there are tonnes of them. Let's say you found an amazing weapon or armor in a dungeon... you can't equip it right away, you have to return to the hub city(One loading screen), go to the area of the time that has the digi-lab(Another loading screen), talk to the manager(Another loading screen) then equip the item(Another loading screen, I'm not kidding) then return to the previous screen(Another loading screen) and THEN return to the dungeon(Another loading screen). How annoying is that? How about the fact that the Save spot and the Digilab are a loading screen away from the shop, which is a loading screen away from the gateway to the dungeon? Why not have everything on the same screen? Like, jesus man. Don't even let me get started on the dungeons, each 'Area', of which there are four, is made up of 2-3 'large' zones which house a dungeon or so each. If you die, which you will do frequently, you have to walk all the way back to where you died(if you want to recover your money, the only thing you lose upon death, as well as a few XP). This could mean quite a few loading screens. There's no quick travel of any kind, so you'll be retreading a lot of covered ground.

 The 'Technique' system is a bit wonky too. Basically, the more you use a weapon the more you'll level up its technique. There are quite a few of these(Blunt, Bash, Crush, Slash, Stab, Shot are some of them) and you should invest on three kinds of them... mostly because you can take up to three different weapons with you, since you can only equip or unequip things at the hub town. It's wonky because you gain proficiency levels at random, and it might take quite a while before you get your first technique level up. It's a good idea, but quite bad in practice. And unless you raise your proficiency, you won't be able to equip better weapons of its kind, and your attacks will be easier to block by the enemies. Be warned, there're translation errors, so even though the Double Axes say that they require levels in Bash... it actually means Blunt. A ton of Blunt items were translated as Bash. Well done, Bandai!

Stab weapons are unequivocally the best in the game

 The game requires grinding, or else it will kick your butt all the way to Monday. If you don't get lost, you'll arrive at the first boss at level 4, and he will kill you in one hit. ONE HIT. You need to be level 7 to stand at least one. This is why you'll realize that, if you are gonna play solo, you should invest in a Shot weapon, particularly since your magic, which starts off overpowered, will quickly grow obsolete. The middle part of the game is the easiest one since enemies aren't as tough, that said, don't grow too comfortable, since you can still die to dumb stuff, like getting ping-pong between enemies(Just touching them hurts you, and they love to walk into you) or just walking towards you and getting stuck with a wall on your back. It's kinda ridiculous how poorly planned some things were. Also, if you're lucky your digimon will be able to use electricity or fire, in which case you'll need to mod one of your weapons with the other element, since latter dungeons REQUIRES fire and electricity in some form or another in order to clear them, which is completely stupid. And it's not like modding a weapon is so easy, first of all you need to get lucky and find a weapon with an empty slot(Not as simple as it sounds) and THEN you have to find an electricity and a fire chip. Customizing weapons should've been a neat idea, but it turns into a bother if you make it mandatory when a degree of luck is required yo get what you need.

 But hey, Digimon has always had cool monsters, so maybe playing as them is neat, right? You've always had hundreds of hun... nope, you can only pick between Agumon, Veemon, Guilmon and Dorumon(no Gabumon!!!) at first. And then you can unlock about 16 more, which is just pathetic. What's worse, in Normal mode, you'll be able to get two digivolutions(characters) at most... and if yu opt to unlock these mons... you'll be back at level 1. That's right, all that grinding? All for naught, back at level 1 because screw you. At least you keep your Technique levels so you can equip stronger weapons. Except you don't, those go back to level 1 as well. I was kinda excited to play as Wargreymon X, but as soon as I found out I said screw it and didn't even bother unlocking it, the game was wasting enough of my time as is.

I don't even feel sad about not getting to play as my bae Wargreymon.

 And as bad as the game is... it only gets worse. The end of the game is an absolute drag. The final area is filled with Infermon, a Digimon that loves to lower your stats, jumps away every time you try to attack it, clones itself and murders you with missiles from afar. It also murders your framerate once it gets enough clones out there. The game's dungeons are pretty bad, and monotonously lengthy but the final zone of the game takes the piss. It's a poorly made game any way you look at it.

 I'm gonna be frank here... it's a miracle the Digimon franchise survived this game. This is one of those games in which I have a hard time finding anything good about it, but there isn't. Digimon World 4 is bad, avoid it. Better yet, don't avoid it, just find it, buy it and burn it.
 2.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Prince of Persia - The Forgotten Sands(PSP)

 The forgotten Sony handheld.

They could've made unique covers for each version....

 Color me surprised, I knew what expected me in the PSP version of Forgotten Sands, a simple 2-D sidescroller, but it's... really good. Movement and platforming feel great, the combat is... well, it's passable, but it's exactly what I expect out of the franchise by now. The puzzles and time mechanics leave a bit to be desired, although I've only gotten past the first boss so it's not like I've seen everything the game has to offer.

 Still, I'm having fun with the game, although it's a bit tough and not for the right reasons. For instance, during the first boss you have to wait until the entire animation for the pound finishes, if you get to close while the arm is retracting... you'll still get hit, for a ton of damage. It's also hard to let go from memory, so after jumping over enemies I keep tapping X to vault, something the Prince can't do in this game, so I end up getting hit before I remember to press circle to throw instead. Traps and puzzles are kinda punishing too, since they deal a ton of damage for simple mistakes, and you can't rewind time like in the home console games.

Review #528: Digimon Racing

 Shouldn't have left the starting line.

It's not like 2 out of the three Digimon on the cover must be unlocked. Actually, it is like that.

 There's something to be said about Digimon, never stuck to one genre or style for too long, eh! Digimon Racing is the franchise's lone racing game, and there's probably a good reason for that.

 Starting the game, there're two different options: Single Player and Multiplayer, and no, I didn't have anybody to try multiplayer with. Single Player is made up of Championship, Quick Race and Time Trial, y'know, the usual. There're 12 different tracks and 11 different racers(The original eight, Veemon, Guilmon and Agunimon) as well as three different bosses. Bosses are simple stages in which you must get a power-up weapon, wait until the boss uses his attack and falls helpless and then shoot. Rinse and repeat. It's as dumb as it sounds. In what's a bit of a novelty, there're more championship cups than usual, so the 12 tracks are featured in various different combinations, for a total of about 10 cups. In the end it's just an excuse to have you replay the same tracks over and over again, but I think it's not too bad of a gesture.

Go, Patamon, go, escape this terrible game!

 The game looks like Mario Kart Super Circuit, but isn't even half as good. Most of the 12 tracks are fairly forgettable, a criticism you can levy against Super Circuit too, but the few that are memorable... are for all the wrong reasons. Some tracks are downright horrible, in a few you might even get confused... or get the game confused, so that when the Arrow signaling an upcoming curve appears on-screen... it's actually wrong. And don't even let me get started on the cave level, featuring one of the nastiest graphical effects I've ever seen, distracting to the point of being confusing.

 The rest of the game is a fairly standard mascot racer. You race against other 5 racers, and you may pick up power-up boxes that give you a one-time use weapon against your enemies. Power-ups are fairly boring, a blue bubble projectile, a red bubble homing projectile, a thunder that hits everyone, a turbo, a shield... the basics and just the basics. There're no defensive power ups besides the shield, which is rather lame. As for the driving... cars feel extra slippery, and I usually played as balanced characters like Agumon, Agunimon or Guilmon. Other than that, the gameplay is passable.... when the framerate is stable. Y'see, if there're  more than three racers, including you, on screen at the same time... it will chug, and it might cost you a curve if the slowdown hits or stops right as you are taking it!

Greymon deserves better than a bad racing game.

 Not to say that the game lacks anything original, peppered throughout the various different tracks are digital noise tiles. Driving over these will fill a gauge on the left of the screen, once you reach the third tier of the gauge(It defaults on the second tier), you digivolve into your mon's Champion form. While in champion mode you're faster, and if you completely fill the gauge, you gain access to your mon's special move. The button to use your special is the same as the one to use the power up you're carrying, which is kinda annoying in case you were trying to store your special move, as that's the one that you'll use first. Using power ups or your special move takes away some of the gauge, so you could end up digivolving if you are trigger-happy. Taking damage also depletes the gauge, and if you fall below the second gauge you'll devolve into your baby form, becoming very slow, although the gauge automatically refills up to the second tier, so it's just a matter of waiting. Lastly, the game boasts about its car hopping mechanic... which simply means that you can jump on top of an opponent in order to devolve them and make them slower for a little while. Lame.

 Digimon Racing is a very bland game. The driving by itself is just passable, if slightly poor. But what really ruins the game are the bland power-up selection and the bad track design. Even when it's entertaining it doesn't last long. Honestly, there's absolutely no reason to get this game if you can get your hands on Mario Kart Super Circuit, and I don't think Digimon fans have much to look for in a poor mascot racing game.
 3.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Digimon Racing

 Can miss this ride.

That red doggo on the cover? You've to unlock him.

 Alright, I gave it a go and... I don't think I like it too much. I played the Western cup, defeated Omnimon and I'm simply not feeling the game. For starters, the character roster is very disappointing, featuring the 'classic 8' alongside Agunimon, Veemon and Guilmon, the latter three who have to be unlocked.

 I dunno, man. The digivolution mechanics aren't anything to write home about, and power-ups are so lackluster... I'm also not feeling the track designs.

Now Playing: Digimon World 4

 They should've stopped at 3. They should've stopped at 3!!!

It looked so promising...

 I just spent an hour playing this game, dying over and over again, because it's rather hard, and then I got to the boss.... and it one shotted me. I was at full life and it hit me in one hit. One normal hit. This game is horrid.

 Where do I start? How obnoxiously annoying it is to get Digivolutions? The fact that they start you back at level 1? Nah, I didn't get that far yet, so it makes no sense to start there.

 How bout I start with the start of the game, appropriately? Well, first you have to talk to over 10 npcs if you want to learn about the game. But whatever, I know how RPGs work, so I only talked with a few NPCs to learn specifics. After that boring intro you have to set out, alright, you're aching to finally play!... but nope, a tutorial. An unskippable tutorial that doesn't teach you anything special. X attacks, Square blocks. Whoope-doo. And then you make it, finally, into the first world, and get wrecked in second flats.

 But whatever, the game is difficult because it's scaled for four players at the same time, whatever.,,, but why is the game so poorly designed? To do ANYTHING in the game, like changing equipment, you have to talk to NPCs. Because menus are too passe. And why the hell is the store on a separate screen from the guy that lets you change equipment? And why is the gate to the different stages on a THIRD screen? Why? Because they love FORCING you to sit through annoyingly long loading screens. Even changing equipment comes with a loading screen.

 Man, I was gonna digivolve and then grind back to my level. I was gonna do it. But now I know why people don't. This game is boring and it's poorly designed. Easily the worst Digimon game I've ever played. And I played World 2.

Review #527: Le Mans 24 Hours

 The game can last you over 24 hours. Have fun.

CAN A COVER BE ANY LAMER?!... It can. But it's still lame.

 I'm not the biggest racing game fan, as a matter of fact, I don't really like them. But when I play Racers I want them to be very arcade-ish, fast, frenetic and care free. Le Mans 24 Hours is the complete opposite of what I like, this is a simulator racing game that takes itself rather seriously.

 The game has a decent variety of modes. Quick Race, in which you race across any of the 12 tracks(Plus 3 unlockable reverse tracks, for a total of 15), Championship, in which you go through various tracks in succession, Multiplayer, self explanatory, Time Trials, in which you attempt to perform a lap around a track as fast as you can and.... Le Mans. Le Mans can be played in either Petit or Le Mans 2000 tracks, and these are endurance runs: Who can do the most laps under at time limit, usually 24 hours. That sounds nuts... but you can do it, if you wish, the game allows you to save whenever you enter a pit stop so that you can continue playing later on! That said, most people won't really care about it, so you can play Petit Le Mans under 10 minute, 30 minute, 100 minute or 10 hours limit and Le Mans 2000 under 10 minute, 24 minute, 240 minute or the full 24 hours if you wish it. Each category of Le Mans unlocks different cars, so if you're a completionist... well, this is gonna be one long ride.

Considering how old the game is, being originally a Dreamcast game, it looks relatively good.

 Luckily for players like me, the game offers various concessions to make your time easier. You can set transmission to automatic, so that the game automatically shifts gears for you... which also changes R1 into a secondary Gas button and L1 into a secondary break, which is rather comfortable. Furthermore, you can also make it so that the game automatically breaks when near curves, allowing you to take them much more easily. Finally, every single event can be played in Easy, Normal or Hard, and every difficulty has the same unlocks, so if you're not used to Simulators, or don't care about them like me, you can have a rather pleasant time with the game. And, hey, if you are into the nitty gritty of car racing, you can customize your car a bit, like which tires to use, how much fuel to have(Since it seems it slows down you car?) as well as other stuff that I'll admit I had no idea what they meant.

 My biggest issue with the game... is that it's rather dull and drab, at least for people like me. All 12 tracks are... boring, for lack of a better word, and it makes sense, since it aims to replicate real life tracks, which explains why there aren't grand vistas or whatever. And then come the Championships.... Tracks are rather long, and once you get on the last four championships you'll be doing at least 10 laps around the same course. I'll have my fill of every track after 3 laps, 10 is overkill. At least you can save after each race mid-championship, so if needed you can take a break. Also do keep in mind that you can't turn off tire wear or fuel consumption in this mode, so besides racing you'll also have to be ready to get into the Pit in order to refuel or change your tires, because maybe it started raining and you'll do better with tires fit for wet roads. If you love Simulators, there's a lot for you here. For me... there's only endless repetition. It doesn't help that there're very few music tracks in the game, and the game only loads ONE for every race, so if you go to a 24 hours Le Mans.... good luck.

Driving against other cars... doesn't feel very exciting.

 Something that irked me, because it's a pet peeve of mine, is that there's no car damage, so it doesn't matter how many things you collide against, you'll always be looking pristine. I also wasn't a fan of how colliding with walls felt, kinda like... it lacked impact and consequence, probably a byproduct of not having car damage. Smashing against cars feels very lame too.

 All things considered, I can tell that Le Mans 24 Hours is a well made game that has aged well, even if not perfectly. It's kinda neat how there a ton of different cars to unlock, so every time you break a time record, every time you finish a championship, every time you finish a Le Mans... you get new cars. It's very rewarding. Also, the music tracks, while few, are pretty rockin' and unless you're racing on 10+ laps races, they are a great companion to the gameplay. Overall? As someone who is not a fan of the genre... I approve of this game.
 7.0 out of 10

Review #526: Digimon Battle Spirit 2

 The battle spirit never dies.

Agunimon is a certified badass.

 Digimon Battle Spirit was.... it was a game. While the end result was lackluster, very lackluster, they had their hearts in the right place, so maybe with a sequel they'd be able to do their vision justice. Or maybe it's just more of the same.

The game... offers the same exact modes as the previous one, 1P and 2P and that's it. There's a new minigame too, but you won't get much mileage out of it. The biggest change to the game is the character roster... gone are the various 'mons representing different eras of the TV series, now every single character comes from Digimon Frontier, and there're less characters overall! You get the five main protagonists as well as the.... let's call him sixth ranger. There're two bonus unlockable EX versions of Agunimon and Lobomon, which differ from their normal versions on their digivolution, but the unlock requirements are ridiculous... unless you've got another friend, or gameboy advance system, to link them both and have a few 2 Player matches, since these unlock these characters much more easily.

Digivolution, signaled by the bolts over a character, lasts for a short while, but strengthens your super moves.

 The game plays basically exactly the same as the previous one, A jumps and B attacks. You've more attacks this time around, previously you had a special move with B+Up, now you also get B+Down, and some characters get chargeable moves, or neutral hold B moves. As a whole, while it's not much, there're certainly more ways to lay down punishment on your enemies, which is very welcome. Digivolution is much better too, now you fill a gauge as you land hits on your enemies, once full, press A and B together and you'll enter Digivolution mode. This DOES NOT change your base form, but now when you use special moves(Up+B, Down+B, combo enders, aerial Up+B, aerial Down+B) your character will indeed turn into its digivolved form for that particular attack. It's a faster alternative to how it used to be, and now getting to digivolve doesn't mean that your opponent is screwed out of it or automatically lost the match since it isn't as overpowered as it used to be.

 The objective of the game remains the same: Land hits on your opponent so that they drop colored orbs. Whoever collected more orbs when the time runs out wins the match. There's a new element thrown into the matches though, crystals. Now, every now and then your opponent will drop a crystal alongside, or instead of, the colored orbs. Collect five of them and you can press Up+A+B for a super move that makes the opponent drop a TON of orbs. It's definitely a neat addition to the game, even if it's not much of a game changer.

Not much of a fan of Frontier's premise, but the designs are badass.

 As a whole, Battle Spirit 2 is a bit of a mixed bag. The gameplay is much improved from before, but unless you're big on Digimon Frontier... the character roster won't do much for you. If you leave character preferences aside, this is undeniably a better game, and much fairer too, albeit the lack of more recognizable Digimon might be a huge turn off for some, Frontier isn't one of Digimon's most liked series after all.

 Still, even considering that it's a better game... it's still a rather dull one. The lack of modes is a almost a crime, and the fact that you battle the same CPUs in the same order every time you play 1P mode will quickly grow boring. The game could've used a Free Battle mode, in which you could fight CPUs or Players under different rulesets, like a life/stock system as opposed to colored orbs or maybe a king of the hill mode. Something different from the 'collect as many orbs as you can' shtick. At the end of the day, if you like Digimon... there's no much else you can get on the system, but if you need a fighting game fix, there're many better alternatives.
 4.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Le Mans 24 Hours

 Not.... not what I though it'd be.

The cover screams 'low budget', but it actually isn't.

 So... I thought that Le Mans was something more like... a country-wide race or somethin' like that. Turns out it means doing laps on the same track for a grand total of 24 hours. Definitely not what I expected. However.... the game is rather fun, and the soundtrack is bloody phenomenal, so I'm not too peeved.

 The game is more of a sim than an arcade racer, which kinda sucks, but it can accommodate to my tastes, with automatic braking and automatic transmission. IT made taking curves all that much easier, since a Sim is less about tight maneuvering and more about planning how to slow down for curves. Still, with these two options I'm able to enjoy the game and play it more casually, which helps when Racing isn't your favorite genre, particularly the Simulator kind.

Archile's Grab-bag: THREE FOR ONE Edition

 Not a new package... BUT THREE SMALL PACKAGES. SO NEW BLOG ENTRY!

  Three shiny new packages with games. GAMESSSSS

 CoolBoarders 2: I don't know how or why I wound up purchasing Cool Boarders. I've been meaning to play Trick 'n snowboarder, which I haven't found a complete copy yet!, yet wound up purchasing this.

 CoolBoarders 3: That's funny....

 CoolBoarders 4: ...almost as if I wanted to play the entire franchise...

 CoolBoarders 2001(PS & PS2(Not pictured, forgot to take a photo!)): CoolBoarders marathon confirmed.

 Project Snowblind: I don't know much about Project Snowblind except the fact that it was only 2 bucks. 2 bucks. How do you say no to that? You don't.

 Barbarian: Ah! I used to play this terrible fighting game back in the day, and I remember next to nothing about it... but since I kinda wanna get every game I used to play... here it is.

 Le Mans 24 Hours: Something about a 24-hour race piqued my curiosity, so here I am. I'll be playing it soon. Very soon.

 Auto Modellista: First of all, it looks amazing. Secondly, it's made by Capcom. 1+1 = 2, so here we are.

 The Mark of Kri: I played a bit of it when I was younger and I never got the hype for it. It received great reviews and everyone sings its praises all the time, yet... I don't remember it being that good.

 Tomb Raider Chronicles: Fact, when I was younger I played every single Tomb Raider game by Core Design. Even the crappy shareware cash-in 'Artifacts'. Fact, I never finished a single Tomb Raider game. But on the same token, I never spent much time with Chronicles, I gave it a try or two but it didn't click well with me. I think I had fallen out of love with Tomb Raider by then.

Review #525: Samurai Shodown - Warriors Rage

 A sequel to Samurai Shodown 64 Warriors Rage. I don't even...

The Kuki brothers are fantastic successors to the feud between Haohmaru and Genjuro.

 Samurai Shodown is a bit famous in no small part due to it being the first 2-D weapon based fighting game. It was so good that it spawned 6 direct sequels, not counting special re-releases, as well as a 3-D rendition in Samurai Shodown 64. Warriors Rage is a sequel to the sequel of Samurai Shodown 64, a couple of games that never made it outside Arcades... which makes it all the more baffling if you don't know that, since the game's intro starts with a '...20 years later'. 20 years from when? The plot only gets more senseless the more you get into it. And it's pure SNK translation brilliance.

 Booting up the game offers a few different modes: Story, in which you take any one character throughout a ton of battles in order to get an ending, Attack Mode, which is a trial mode which can be used to power up your favorite character, Battle(VS Cpu or player) and a practice mode. The game is made up of 23 characters, but more than half of them are clones or pseudo clones, four of them being useless filler characters that don't even get special moves. As for the characters... this game features some of the best character designs the franchise has ever seen, and most characters are newcomers, Haomaru making an appearance as an old man and Hattori Hanzo's successor being the only familiar faces. During the Story Mode you'll occasionally come across characters interacting via text boxes... and it's glorious, SNK is infamous for their horrible translations, and this is no exception.

Yuda will make no sense unless you've learnt about Samurai Shodown 64. And even then his existence isn't properly explained.

 Gameplay is a mix of old and new. While the game made the jump to 3-D, there's no sidestepping, although the circle button works as a dodge button, in case you don't want to parry or dodge. Attacks come in three varieties, Strong, Weak and Kick and inputting different directions on the D-Pad before pressing an attack button produces Special and Super moves. As per the franchise's standards, combos are not the focus of the game, but rather waiting for openings and profiting from them. This is a slow paced game, so be wary. Many reviewers at the time took issue with it, but I enjoyed the game's pace. The way the life bar works is also relatively interesting, being divided into three segments. Once you lose all your health, it completely recharges but only up to the second tier. Lose all your health and your life bar recharges up to a single tier, lose all your health now and you lose the battle. It's an interesting mechanic, I think.

 One of the game's biggest issues comes from unlocking characters, unlocking all 23 means going through the game with 22 different characters, including the lame filler characters, which are weaker and more limited, moveset wise, than the others. And the problem with Story Mode... is that it's rather lengthy, not helped by the fact that the game loves to pit you on a survival match against up to 5 of these filler characters, back to back, without restoring your health. These take a long time to complete, and there's about two of these on any playthrough. Playing the game was fun, unlocking characters was not.

You'll have grown tired of Oboro's Amazons by the time you're done with the game.

 I loved my time with Warriors Rage. The mechanics are fun, and most characters are fantastic designs, plus, I love it when fighting games get daring enough to ditch old characters and replace them with newer ones. And I can see why reviewers had issues with the game back in the day, Fighters were becoming niche, and they wanted the next flashy, fast paced thing with the ability to string together long combos being the norm.
  8.0 out of 10

Review #524: Digimon Battle Spirit

 Girls just want to have fun and Digimon just want to battle.

Sure, you lil' Guilmon, sure, you do stand a chance.

 There was this weird little handheld called the WonderSwan Color that happened to get a ton of Digimon games, the one in the picture as well, but, as luck would have it, the Battle Spirit series would find a home on the Gameboy Advance as well. These were fighting games of sorts, with the objective being collecting more pellets than the opponent, as opposed to beating the data out of them.

 The game has only two modes 1P and 2P. For obvious reasons I couldn't try 2P, but I got 1P and it's a simple series of one on one battles until you get to the boss. In this game there are no lives or life bars, instead, every time you hit an enemy blue orbs will be knocked out of it, which you must then collect before they disappear in order to score points. The same is true if you get hit, albeit red orbs will be dropped. Either combatant can also pick up the very same orbs they dropped in order prevent the enemy from getting them. It's a weird idea, and one that lends itself to needlessly long bouts, as matches can't be shorter than 90 seconds. Matches take places on relatively large areas, filled with enemy fodder Digimon that exists to try to hit either player, as well as various platforms to hide or escape to in order to get some breathing room.

The final boss is hard until you figure him out, after which he turns into a total pushover.

 The character roster is alright. On your first booting up of the game you'll have access to Guilmon, Terriermon and Renamon, representing Tamers, Veemon and Wormon standing up for 02 and Agumon alongside Gabu... nope, alongside Sukamon being the reps from 01. Yes, Sukamon. Why, I do not know. That said, you can eventually unlock Impmon, the only 'mon without a Digivolution, Lopmon and BlackAgumon from 02 and a third Agumon that gets unlocked alongside a Gabumon, both having the same Omnimon Digivolution. Considering it's a GBA cart, they did a good job of getting main characters to represent their series, although Sukamon's presence is questionable to say the least.

 A button jumps, R button is a taunt and B is used to attack. If you hold up or dash before pressing B you'll get different attacks, and you can used directions and the B button to perform different attacks while on the air. Honestly, it's not a very fun game since the gameplay is relatively limited. The real kicker is that about a minute into the match Culumon will appear on the screen. The CPU always knows where he is, although the camera is so zoomed in on your character that you won't know where he is, the thing is... touching Culumon is what makes you Digivolve for a few seconds time. Whoever gets to digivolve basically wins the match, except the CPU since it's dumb, as every single hit will make the opponent drop 4 orbs, as well as being faster, with better jumps and more range on your attacks, some even having homing properties, all the while becoming invulnerable. It does't matter how much of a lead the winning player's got, if the opponent gets to digivolve and is mildly competent, he'll close the gap and win the match.

Even final-stage 'mons look brilliant.

 The one area of the game that deserves praise is the graphics. Characters were faithfully rendered in this simplified, cartoony style, and they look fantastic. Animation is great too, and they really managed to make each character come to life.... although it would've been nice if characters could've gotten a larger repertoire of moves.

 Digimon Battle Spirit leaves a lot to be desired, but if you're a fan of the franchise it might be an interesting rental(because apparently 'rentals' are still a thing. Because apparently you can still rent GBA games. Sue me.) at least. If what you wanted was a fighting game with multi-leveled arenas, there're better games out there, like the Rave Master GBA game, so if you don't care for the Digimon franchise... then there's nothing here for you.
 4.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Samurai Shodown - Warriors Rage

 The most underrated fighter on the PS1?

As per SNK's standards, character design is top-notch.

 I buckled up and prepared for the worse. Reviews hadn't been kind, and I had played Fatal Fury Wild Ambition, I knew that SNK's early 3-D days hadn't been the best. And so I went into training mode and picked that Kuki guy. Strong slashed caused this weird pause on the game, geeze, it wasn't looking hot.

 And thus I went into Story mode and picked Jin-Emon, because I always like getting the characters I like the least out of the way first. And.... and I started having fun. The game is really good. People complained about the three tiered-life bar being a gimmick, but it's an interesting one! Landing hits feels nice, the action isn't as fast as, say Rival Schools, but it's not as slow as your average Samurai Shodown game either. It's good. It's REALLY good.

 My one complaint the is the length of the Story Mode. The fights drag on and on and on, you even have to face a few opponents twice and, sometimes, 5-man gauntlets. The story mode shouldn't have been so bland.

Review #523: Digimon Rumble Arena 2

 Super Smash Digimon.

Greymon wins every time. Every time!

 Do you remember Digimon Rumble Arena? You probably don't, it was this little 1 on 1 2-D fighting game starring Digimon on the PS1. Well, Bandai took a completely unrelated Digimon game and localized it as a sequel, which is rather fitting since it's sorta similar... even if it's more of a Smash Clone.

 As previously stated this is a Smash Bros. clone, meaning that battles include up to four different combatants, taking place on relatively large, 2-D environments, featuring stage hazards as well as a few power-ups to change the tide of battle in your favor. Although, to be fair, there aren't many different power ups in this game. There're only three different modes: Arcade, a 8-stage ladder where you'll unlock every character, stage and ruleset, VS, in which you can battle up to three other players, CPUs or a mix of both under a decent variety of rules(Basic Timed matches, KO matches, to more bizarre rules like collecting the most digi eggs or capturing Culumon for points.) and lastly a Practice mode.

Digimon on the Wild West. I guess that makes sense.

 There were a few short sighted decisions when it came to designing the game. For instance, you can't have mirror matches since no two player can play as the same Digimon, which is very lame. And for as many quirky rulests that you can play under, there's no way to play in teams, it's always a free for all in here. Your mileage may vary on the character roster, you get all 8 classic Digimon from Adventure 01, but only Veemon represents Adventure 02 and only Guilmon represents Tamers. There're a few Frontier Digimon, the series that was on TV at the time, as well as an unlockable Omnimon and Duskmon from the movie, lastly, we get Black versions of Guilmon, Agumon and Gabumon, each having at least a single different attack from their normal counterparts. Most characters get two Digievolutions, starting on their Rookie form, to their Champion form and then their Mega.. or Ultimate if they didn't have a Mega on their show. Character balance is a bit iffy, particularly since most unlockable characters stay on their Mega form, but you can tinker with handicaps to even the odds.

 First thing to take into account is that like most Smash Clones... it feels a bit cheap. Physics don't feel quite right, as if everything lacked weight. The game isn't the most beautiful thing either, featuring some rather ugly animations. Regardless, you get a normal attack button, with X, that can be couple with different directions to produce different attacks, and a special attack button, Square, that can produce three different special moves. You can also grab enemies with Circle, jump with X or block with R1. Landing hits makes enemies drop digi-eggs which, when collected, increase your digivolution gauge, fill it to the top and you can press R1 to digivolve and get an entirely different moveset. Once you get to your final Digivolution, filling the gauge is done to perform an Ultra attack. Be careful, if you lose a life you drop a digivolution stage back.

Your mileage may vary on the character roster. Hopefully you enjoyed season 01!

 It's not the best Smash clone around nor the best Digimon game out there, but if you enjoy the franchise you'll probably get a kick out of it. It's kinda sad that they decided to focus on adding quirky rulesets that nobody will ever play instead of giving us basics such as team battles or mirror matches, c'mon, everyone wants to have a Palmon VS Palmon VS Palmon VS Palmon! All in all, it's far from perfect, and it fails to get the physics just quite right, but most of the basic gameplay feels relatively well, if a bit low-budget-y.

 6.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Digimon Battle Spirit

 More Digimon!

Poor Guilmon doesn't stand a chance against Mega-level Wargreymon.

 Yeah... there's more Digimon coming up on this blog! Battle Spirit is a game that I played quite a bit on emulators back when I was younger. I don't remember liking it too much, but it was certainly memorable.

 I've already cleared the game with two 'mons, and the game is... alrightish. The character roster is great, the graphics are beautiful and the core game is decent... it's only that whoever gets the Digivolution basically wins the game. It's not even funny. There's also a single single player mode which is just ridiculous.

 Basically, it's got charm, it's got style but it's got no substance.

Review #522: Prince of Persia - The Forgotten Sands(Nintendo DS)

 After these games, Ubisoft did seem to forget about the Prince...

The Prince won't even smile on the DS' cover, despite the kiddy art direction.

 Not content with trying to revive the Prince on home consoles at the time, Ubisoft gave it another go on the DS. For those not in the know, the Prince had had two appearances on the DS before, the misguided Battles of Prince of Persia and The Fallen King. The Forgotten Sands on the DS takes after the latter, a game that was welcomed with very low scores and much scorn, both due to its silly aesthetics and stylus-only controls.

 You play as our beloved Prince, having fallen victim to a cult's ceremony which robbed him of his memories. Luckily, he comes across his blade, which is possessed by a friendly djinn who'll aid the Prince throughout all 40-or so stages. The story is barely present, although it has a few nice pieces of artwork. Sadly, the game's graphics are very... childish, you play as a cute, tiny version of the Prince as he defeats other cutesy enemies while avoiding razor-sharp blades.

Even when swarmed.. the game is relatively easy.

 The game is played entirely with the Stylus, for good and bad. The game feels very automatic as a result, since you just tap and hold to the right or left of the Prince and he'll automatically run there, automatically jumping over any gap on his way, or run on walls when needed. You'll also need to roll, by double tapping on the screen, which barely works when needed, as well as jump from wall to wall, which sometimes the Prince has trouble realizing that you want him to jump from the wall he is clinging to. Controls work about 85% of the time, which frankly is something to be proud about. The developers deserve some praise for managing to cram so many of the Prince's actions onto the stylus, you'll be doing a lot of stylish platforming, like jumping from moving pole to moving pole and then land on a platform and then quickly wall jumping before the ground falls beneath your feet. A lot of the excitement from the console game's parkour segments has been replicated here, which is nothing short of fantastic.

 The game fares a bit worse on the combat department, the game will read your slashes as taps most of the time, which will make you vault over the enemy instead of slashing him. Not that it really matters since combat is so easy, like most of the game. You also get a few Time powers, like slowing down time or rewinding time, but the latter is a bit wonky, to say the least. The game's rewind length is hard to pinpoint, so sometimes it won't be able to go as far back as you need to save yourself. Another time, after rewinding time, it propelled me beyond the stage's bounds, which made me die upon falling back to the ground. It feels very janky, like it needed more polishing. There's also an ungodly amount of waiting, since the game will engage in short, but numerous and unskippable, cutscenes almost every single time that a door closes or you step on a switch, just to show you what has happened... even if the door that closed or opened is directly in front of you. It sounds like a small nit pick, but the frequency of these do add up, making you wait quite a bit of time on the whole.

Razia is like Navi, but not as annoying.

 The game is made up of forty or so levels... but they are very short. You can unlock a secret stage on every chapter, for a total of four bonus stages, by going into the Start menu and... moving the camera towards a.... light source...? You don't even get a sound acknowledging that a new stage has been unlocked, you simply pan the camera to the left, on the stage select, and see if a new red dot has appeared. There's no bonus reward for clearing this, but you can collect more money to spend on upgrades or costumes. Not that you really need it, since money is relatively plentiful.

 The Forgotten Sands on the DS... is not as bad as it could've been. A bit too simple and automatic for my tastes, and the unnecessary, but mandatory, stylus-only control scheme is too imprecise for my tastes, even if it's better than a lot of other games that tried the same gimmick. While the kiddy artstyle is not a good fit for the series... it's not too bad of a game, and there's some fun to be had with it.
 5.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Digimon Rumble Arena 2 & Prince of Persia - Forgotten Sands(DS)

 One prince, two games. Nothing to do with each other though.

Ain't no Digimon without Greymon and Garurumon.

 I know for a fact that I used to play this one when I was younger... yet I've no memory of ever unlocking anyone besides Neemon! Regardless, I've been playing it a bunch and it's decent enough.  It does fall into the same pitfall that many other Smash clones do of having weird physics, which means that moving around, landing hits and jumping feels... weightless. At leas the game is fun to play, even if the roster is a bit lackluster. You get the 8 classic mons, Veemon, Digimon Frontier's Agunimon, fan-favorite Guilmon, black versions of the usual suspects(Agumon, Gabumon and Guilmon) and two digivolutions for each! As well as a few other mons that don't digivolve, like Omnimon and Duskmon. It's a decent roster.

 All in all, it's more fun than it deserves to be.

All versions of Forgotten Sands have the same cover. Am I to devise a sentence for each?!

 If there's one thing I hate it's tacked on stylus or motion controls, so it'd be safe to say that I'd hate this kiddy version of the Prince and it's dumb controls. But I don't. I mean, they are imprecise, yes, and I'm having some trouble with the game registering my attacks or my wall jumps... but it's rather impressive how well they managed to cram the Prince's acrobatics into the game.

 It's surprisingly not bad, you may even call me... impressed.