Now Playing: Zenonia

 Eeeeeeeehhhh....

 I needed a new "pass the time game", since Crimson Gem Saga bored me to tears. and I picked this one. I hate it. Actually, I don't, but collision detection is spotty, movement is spotty and it looks really lame, its mobile roots are undeniable.

 Was the DSi store filled with this kind of ports of mobile games? The last DSDownload game I played(Soul of Darkness) was also mediocre at best. Ah well, not like I'm gonna be focusing much on this one.

Now Playing: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4

 How I missed thee.

 Wow, just wow. It's been ages since I last played a Tony Hawk game, and I decided to start with 4, the one I hold the most memories of(Next time it'll be Underground 2!) and... wow. This is what bliss was like, arcadey gameplay, sublime soundtrack, point-based scoring, it's a game about having fun.

 Well, there's not much else I have to say about it, it's every bit as good as I remember it, and since I'm a bit burned out from the Assassin's Creed series, this'll be a neat timewaster in between Revelation sessions.

Review #125: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

 Muda Muda Muda Muda Muda Muda Muda Muda!!

 Long before we were graced with the great JoJo's Bizarre Adventure All Star Battle, western JoJo fans only had one game to play, Capcom's fighter JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Playing this game, it's easy to tell just how much it inspired All Star Battle mechanics, but does the new game by CyberConnect2 make this one obsolete?

 When you first boot up the game you'll be greeted by Super Story Mode, Arcade Mode, VS Human and Training Modes. Arcade Mode, Vs and Training are pretty much self-explanatory, so I'll delve deeper into the story mode. Incredibly, for a fighting game of its era, "Super Story" is where the main meat of the Single Player content lies. This mode consists of 39 stages, each one depicting each and every battle in the manga. Not only is it a very lengthy mode, there's also a nice amount of variety, y'see, not every stage is a 1 on 1 fight, sometimes you'll get a "press the right direction in time" sequences, there's also a shooter minigame, you might have to fight with a boss as it summons clay dolls or other various conditions. While it does a great job at summing up everything that happens in the story, if you haven't read the manga you might need some further context to piece everything together or understand the situation, the translation itself is rather good, but some lines are a bit off, regardless, when I first played this mode, with no prior knowledge of the series, I got the gist of it pretty well. This mode is also the where you unlock the 4 hidden characters and all the gallery extras, as you'll get graded after each fight. The good news is that after you beat the mode you can replay any stage, and it always keeps you highest rating on every thing that is graded, so maxing out the points per stage is not as hard as it sounds.

 Fighting is very fast-paced, quite like Darkstalkers(A game with which it shares many similarities). Core gameplay is fairly simple, three attack buttons and a "Stand" button. The Stand button, for most of the cast, summons a character's Stand, modifying their normal moveset and sometimes which special moves they have access to as well. If you dig deeper you'll find Rolling through attacks, Tandem attacks with your Stand, programmed attacks(Once again, with your stand) or even separating the Stand from the character. In the hands of competitive players, the game is incredibly fast paced, and unbalanced, but for casual play, it's fairly entertaining and thanks to the easy motions for special and super moves, easy to grasp. The game isn't Arcade Perfect, most Capcom Fighters on the PS1 aren't, but unlike the others, JoJo was made on the CPS III plaque(The very same Street Fighter 3 is on), so it's probably the port that suffered the most. From a gameplay standpoint, the scaling on the sprites is gone, which also makes the distance that you can put between yourself and the opponent smaller. As good as the game looks in motion, a lot of frames got lost in the transition as well, and Stands now only display two colors at most(While in the Arcade they were as colorful as the characters themselves).

 While the game is, technically, a port of the first game, it features all the characters from the second, but to be honest, most of them are simple sprite clones, even if they play differently. You get two Polnareffs(Base and Anubis), three Kakyoins(Kakyoin, New Kakyoin(Wears glasses, and different properties on some of their moves) and... Rubber Soul as Kakyoin), two Dios(Base and Shadow Dio) and two Hol Horses(J.Geil combo and Voing combo). There's plenty of image-based unlockables, and a lot of them seem fairly interesting, but you can't zoom on them, making a couple of the most interesting ones(The design book!) useless. Well, at least each character has its own unique prologue and ending for their Arcade modes!

 While it looks half as good as its Arcade, Dreamcast and HD counterparts, it's still a beautiful game. Sprites are gorgeous, faithfully capturing Araki's knack for poses. The stages are very colorful, with a wide variety of places from the manga. As for the music, while I'm not sure if the tracks featured are suited for a JoJo game, they are really, really good! Voice acting bears a special mentioning, Capcom nailed the voices for each character, something the older OVAs failed to do(But I'm not getting into that).

 As good as the game is by itself, as much fun as I had with it... there's no denying that the PS1 version is the worst port of the game. Sure, Story Mode is really, really nice, but this being a fighting game, you will spend most of your time fighting in Vs mode, and the other versions are just gorgeous, some even featuring other extras to make up for the lack of Story Mode(Like Kid Mode!). As for how it stands against All Star Battle... I think I'd go with ASB. I like the mechanics of this game a little bit more, but if I wanted to play a JoJo game, I'd go straight to ASB, double the amount of characters, a ton of attention to detail, poses are much more faithful, and it's even easier to pick up and play. Despite everything I've said, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure on the PS1 is a great choice... if you don't have access to any of the other ports.
 8.0 out of 10.

Month Overview: June

Games completed in June:
 Samurai Warriors Chronicles                                                                           8.0
 Dark Cloud 2                                                                                                  9.0
 Bleach - Heat the Soul 7                                                                                 7.5
 Vanquish                                                                                                         8.0
 Assassin's Creed                                                                                             6.5
 Assassin's Creed 2                                                                                          9.0
 Assassin's Creed Brotherhood                                                                         7.5

 Taking into account the amount of free time I had this month... it's kinda impressive how much I managed to play, and the latter three were kinda long games. It was a fairly good month, many good and great games, I can't complain!

 Game of June:

 It was a huge game and a huge improvement from Assassin's Creed 1. It was better than Brotherhood, and at the moment, even better than Revelations! I spent a lot of time playing AC II, I found myself trying to find the time to play this one, I loved AC II, that I did, it was a no brainer that it was gonna make it here.

 Runner-up:

 It's sad how Dark Cloud 2 was so easily forgotten by people, you never see it pop up in PS2 "Top X" lists or what have you. Dark Cloud 2 was phenomenal and deserves better, it's surprising how it never made the jump to HD, either in a sequel or a HD Port.

Saturday Quickie: Uncharted - Eye of Indra

 I've had this installed since last year!

 Eye of Indra is a short 4-part motion comic that serves as a prequel to Uncharted 1. While it's supposed to explain the beef between Eddie Raja and Nate... this is actually their second encounter, and their first quarrel is quickly handwaved with "He wanted to screw me, but I beat him to the punch", in other words, the main selling point is kind of a lie. As for the story itself, it jumps between the present, where Nate and Eddie are being tortured, and the past, slowly piecing together what happened before they got caught. The set-up is not as smart as it thinks, and the story itself is rather plain and one of the plans a bit of a stretch(What if the torturing took place in another room?).

 The art is very average, with varying degrees of quality. Nate's face isn't very consistent, and at times he looks more like a gruff, square-jawed action hero than the "everyman" Naughty Dog envisioned. Being a motion comic, they employed some dull looking movements every now and then, nothing particularly exciting. On the flipside, voice acting is a highpoint of the product, with the series' voice actors reprising their roles, even though sometimes the tones used don't match the art very well.

 Uncharted: Eye of Indra feels like a rather short and unexciting 24-36 self-contained comic book, with nothing interesting to look forward to. Fans of the series might even feel disappointed seeing how it's supposed to explain why Eddie and Nate hated each other, but this isn't even supposed to be their first encounter.
 3.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Assassin's Creed - Revelations

 Time to.... finish the fight(That Halo tag-line sure has stuck!)

 Only with a male character could they get away by making him grow old AND making him the lead character. Regardless, first thing you notice: Another graphical upgrade, while ACB's was pretty minor, Revelations looks a whole lot different, Desmond doesn't look like Desmond anymore and his scar is missing!

 Most of the gameplay remains the same, but combat seems to have been tightened a bit with how subweapons operate, and seeing how I'm looting dozens of "Bomb materials" I'm guess this game's gimmick will be bombs. Speaking of the game, the first sequence sure was odd, for an AC game, with the carriage section.

 Obviously it's too early to judge, but it's looking promising, although I'm not looking forward to Altair's memories, who cares about Altair?!

Review #124: Assassin's Creed - Brotherhood

 Another year, another Assassin's Creed. Or maybe another week?

 After Assassin's Creed 2 Ubisoft realized that they had a hit on their hands, so there was only one choice left for them... Milk it as hard as they can. Released about a year after Assassin's Creed 2, does Brotherhood manages to top it or is it just a shameful cash in?

 Both for Desmond and Ezio, the game continues their stories right where we left them off, Desmond and his pals on the run in a van, and Ezio escaping from the vault he had just discovered. Remember the Villa the first game had you funding? Well, as a consequence for letting the Pope live, he retaliates by having his son, Cesare, destroy the villa and murder Ezio's uncle in the process, yes, this is another revenge story for Ezio. For the first time in the series, what little of Desmond's story we get is actually more interesting than Ezio's story, AC 2 did a good job at fleshing out the present-day cast, but AC:B does it even better, by allowing you to exit the Animus at any time, you get new little scenes with Lucy, Rebecca and Shaun every new chapter, plus, you can read their e-mails for further insight into their shenanigans. As for Ezio, many familiar faces return, but Ezio himself doesn't evolve too much and his story relies on many cliched tropes, you'll see the twists coming from a mile away, and the second to last chapter feels very rushed, which takes away some of the punch from outcome.

 Gameplay remains mostly the same, but with some new additions. Firstly, the game now takes place almost entirely in Rome, with a few excursions for some sidequests. It's a bit disappointing seeing how AC 2 had at least three big cities, but Rome does have a lot of variety and is pretty extensive. While it is technically a sidequest, you'll make it your first priority to rid the land of Borgia influence, which is done by assassinating a commanding officer and then climbing the nearby tower adorned by Borgia flags. You must do this in order to open up brotherhood slots and allow for you to renovate neighboring buildings. Remember how you used to spend your money to renovate the villa? This mechanic returns, albeit in a less convenient way. You must now renovate each building individually and you actually have to physically move to its location, rather than talking to an architect. In this way the game can grow a bit tedious, there's a lot of Borgia Towers to burn, and while the location of the officer changes, they all play out the same.

 As for the biggest new mechanic, and the best one, is recruiting assassins for the Brotherhood. By saving citizens from Borgia soldiers, you can then recruit them into your brotherhood, and then serve two purposes: Sending them away on missions or calling them out for help. While sending them away on missions is helpful to your purse, having them help you against a enemy squad is incredibly useful and satisfying, and after you get about 8 Assassins you can use the massively overpowered Arrow Storm that kills every enemy on the vicinity. After this game, abandoning this mechanic would be extremely disappointing. Not only is it an useful and fun mechanic, seeing Assassins fighting alongside Ezio is really cool, and having Ezio work as a sort of... mentor to these Assassins helps further his character.

 Fighting has received a couple of tweaks, now enemies can grab you, just like in AC 1, but you mostly get tools to make your job even easier. After assassinating an enemy, tapping square and moving the analog stick against an enemy will make Ezio instantly assassinate that target, this is called "Kill Streak" and unless an enemy hits you and you don't press counter(While in the murdering animation), it won't break. Killing huge groups of enemies has never been this easy. Another fun tweak is "special attacks", holding the attack button will usually result in Ezio aiming the wrist-gun, although it depends on your weapon, allowing you to use your projectile attacks in conjunction with your melee weapons, without having to switch weapons. Then there's also the kick which allows you to break an enemy's guard. Basically, you got a ton of tools to massacre your enemies with little effort.

 Sadly, a lot of the game is just getting back the stuff that you lost from the second game. There's a couple of new tools, like the incredibly useful parachute and the crossbow(Which is a glorified wrist-gun), and the introduction of heavy-type weapons, but 80% of your tools(Don't quote me on that number) return from AC2. I was also not particularly fond of the pacing, the rate at which new weapons, armors or items are available isn't very consistent or rewarding, the same goes for the rate at which the map opens up and the sidequests pop up, on some chapters you'll be swimming on sidequests and new areas to explore, while others will have nothing, there's a chapter in particular(Memory Sequence 2) that actually blocks off areas you've already been to. It's especially noticeable coming directly from AC2, which had a fairly consistent pace.

 The main story is noticeably shorter than AC2's, but the game offers sidequests in spades. There's 10 feathers to collect, 101 flags(Like AC1!), Glyphs and chests to uncover, coupled with the Assassination, Courtesan and Thief's sidequests. Speaking of sidequests, there's a wide variety of objectives, from Leonardo's War Machines(They managed to include a Tank and a Turret sequence on Assassin's Creed, I'm not even joking) to some interesting ones, like robbing a letter from a courier, fabricating a forgery and placing the forgery on him without him noticing. Then there are the "Virtual Training" challenges that consist on races, finding objects or killstreaks with varying conditions and handicaps. New to this game are "Synchronization Bonuses", by finishing missions(This applies to some side missions as well) while fulfilling certain conditions you will earn a synchronization bonus, maxing the synchronization on each level might unlock some rather funny extras. New to this game as well are the Store Quests, there are about 6 of them which makes them feel like a really annoying afterthought, you simply must collect a certain amount of items(Found on chests or Bandits) and go to a specific store and turn them in for a reward, it would've been nice of the game to tell you sooner about these, as I sold a rather rare one, thinking that these were just to sell at different prices through the different stores, which meant I couldn't get the last purchasable armor pieces(And finishing all the Thieve's Guild missions will stop all Bandit attacks, so no more chances for a random drop).

 Brotherhood is the first game in the series to introduce Multiplayer Mode, which is probably why the main story felt so short, and while it offers three variations... this mode will probably be either hit or miss among the players. I, for instance, didn't find much fun in it, as you must try to assassinate a target while another player hunts you, it has a bit of a slow pace, which is why I didn't like it a whole lot.

 As for the presentation, the character models look noticeably better and Rome is bursting with color and details.... but the amount of screen tearing has increased noticeably, alongside pop in, you'll notice details popping out of nowhere while moving, which is why as a whole, I'd say it's a step back. The music, most of it returns from AC2, and what few tracks are new, are rather forgettable, luckily AC2 had some great music. Voice Acting remains strong for all major characters, but some of the secondary characters are laughable at worst.

 Assassin's Creed 2 was a huge leap from Assassin's Creed 1. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is but a sidestep from AC2, as far as the gameplay is concerned, all the additions are great and fun to use... but make the game even easier than before. It also happens to have a rather wonky pace, a more structured flow to how activities and items became available would've worked wonders.
 7.5 out of 10.