Now Playing: Parasite Eve

 SO GOOD.

 Remember when Japanese heroines didn't need to get their clothes torn, or the camera through their legs to be cool? Parasite Eve 1 and 2 remember, before they sexualized the hell out of Aya Brea in PE 3, but sadly, that seems the only way Japan knows how to roll these days....

 But I digress, I had played PE 2 before, but not PE 1, and I'm pleasantly surprised. I love the game, I love how it looks, I love how it sounds, I love how it plays. The cut-scenes remain impressive to this day, managing to convey creepiness in a very convincing manner, the Rat-morphing transformation is so good it even left me a bit awe struck. The music? Hot damn. But the gameplay is amazing. It reminds me of Quest 64, a game that was panned by critics but which I adore, although I didn't get to use Parasite powers since I feared it could lock me out of the best ending, I seemed to remember something like that, but turns out I was wrong.

 I finished the first day, and I can't way to play the rest, so far, it's awesome. I kept thinking to myself "This is SO good. This is SO good." as I went through the theater and sewers, man, is this game good.

Review #183: Spectral VS Generation

 Yet another PSP fighter falls upon my lap.

 Spectral VS Generation is a 2D one on one fighting game featuring characters from both "Generation" and "Spectral" franchises... of which I'm unacquainted with either. Which also means I'm not invested on the franchises, so I'm looking at the game purely as a fighter and not as a form of fan service.

 There's no real backstory to the game, there's a 4 paragraph intro on the instruction booklet, but it's just fluff for the setting. Each character also has their own ending after finishing Arcade Mode, but I guess they only make sense if you are familiar with the cast. Regardless, as far as modes go, the game covers only the bare essentials: Arcade, VS(Com and Player), Survival and Training. The character roster is made up of 10 unique characters and 2 hidden alternate versions of other characters, while many would scoff at that number, as long as a fighter has at least 8 characters, I'm OK with it, plus, all 10 of them are very different from each other(Even if it seems like all of them have at least one Recca type move), the two secret alternate version also feature different moves, even if most of the animations are shared with their normal counterparts.

 One thing I really likes was how fast the game moves, there's dashing, air dashing and super jumps for movement, and you get four different attacks: Kick, Light, Medium and Heavy. It also has it's own mechanics: Chaos Breaking, by pressing Light and Medium attacks, which is a Guard Break move, but there's also Return Breaking, which is done when your guard is broken with a CB, in which you press Light and Medium attacks just after getting CB'd allowing you to recover from the guard break immediately, rounding up the normal techniques is Chaos Counter, done by pressing Heavy plus Kick, which is a counter move. Then there's Sword Devil Combination, done by pressing Medium plus Heavy, which pops your enemy up into the air, and then pressing a specific button combination unleashes a devastating flurry of attacks. Each character also has a specific special attack that can be turned into a Seal of Time, by pressing Light, Medium and Heavy at the same time during the attack, afterwards your enemy will be slowed down by a short period of time. Lastly, there's Aura Burst, you can set it to Auto or Manual, both have their advantages and disadvantages, for instance, Auto can only be done once per round, while manual gives you unlimited uses, as long as you have gauges, and grants you enhanced defense, guard breaking properties to your normals and maxes your energy gauge. That's a lot of mechanics for a game like this!

 It's pretty clear that the game wasn't shoddily put together, the game is fun to play, and it has a lot of nuances that make it fairly interesting... at a casual level. Y'see, the game can get pretty dang unbalanced, there's a ton of videos online showcasing the huge amount of infinites present in the game, so this is probably not the game to get if you aim to play at a high level. Plus, it was kinda forgotten by time, and it was only released on PS2 and PSP. Which is a shame, since the core gameplay is fairly good, pretty reminiscent of DarkStalkers, but with less monsters and more anime.

 The game is absolutely gorgeous, graphics are very bright and well animated. The style in which the sprites where drawn is very similar to DarkStalkers, something about the coloring and proportions, but the animation isn't quite as wild. All in all, very Capcom-ish, the stages could've used some more livening up, but the characters are great. Music is pretty good, I don't know if it comes from games in the franchise, but considering how good it is, it might as well be!

 This is usually the paragraph where I talk about how the PSP has much better Fighting game offerings... but in this case, I will suggest giving Spectral VS Generation a try. While it lacks modes, characters and better balancing... it also isn't yet another entry in an established IP, and seeing how few original fighting games have come out since the PS2 era... it's very refreshing. And as long as you don't get super competitive about it, the gameplay is rather good!
 6.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Spectral VS Generation

 Name of the year.

 I decided to take a little break from Rengoku 2(It's really good by the by!), so I kinda pop'd this disc(Erm, UMD) into the PSP and gave it a whirl. It's pretty alright, it's kinda fast paced, which I liked, but doesn't even touch DarkStalkers 3 when it comes to Speed(But then again, I play on Turbo...). I didn't bring up DarkStalkers 3 just because, the style they used on the sprites is very DS3-like, very colorful characters, and the animation is pretty similar as well, but not as good.

 The gameplay is pretty fun, at least on a casual level, turns out the game is full of infinites and the such, which explains why this game had no competitive scene. Ah well, it's decent I guess, and the characters look alright-ish, they remind me of Asura's Buster on the Arcades, another Fighter that used similar sprites to the ones in DS 3.

Now Playing: Rengoku II - The Stairway to H.E.A.V.E.N.

 Now THIS is a Sequel.

 Rengoku was way more fun than it deserved to be. Probably thanks to the novelty of customizing an android in crazy ways, the magnum on the head being one of the most iconic pieces(No wonder it's featured in both games' intros!). Rengoku 2 feels like a proper sequel. I just finished the first floor, and already I've seen more objects and more variety in the environments, pretty neat. So far, I've only found the same weapons from the same game... actually, Mars dropped a new weapon, but the game has received a total face lift, and it looks great.

 Another thing that got a face lift was the combat, now you can produce combos by tapping different buttons(Limbs) to attack, it's still not even close to Dynasty Warriors' combo level, but it's appreciated. The first boss, Mars, also featured a completely unique body frame, unlike the first game's bosses, which... I'm not sure how much I like. I mean, it's nice that they made bosses more unique, but something about enemies being JUST like ADAM was very interesting. Which reminds me, Mars was the first game's first boss, and he is back? The opening made it seem as if it continues right where the other game left off... which means that the cycle continues! Adam is taking part of another cycle, climbing the same tower again! Cheap? Yes. Lazy? Definitely. But it also has some kind of charm, maybe how it follows the first game's continuity? I dunno, it kinda makes sense.

 Honestly, Rengoku 2 feels great. I very much doubt the gameplay is gonna change during the course of the seven floors I've left, but it's already a superior game than the first one, even if it feels like a bit of a ... reboot, and since ADAM might be fighting through another cycle, it might as well be one. Rengoku 2 is what Rengoku 1 could've been.

Review #182: Rengoku - The Tower of Purgatory

 Why would you go the Ghosts and Goblins route? Whyyyy!?

 I love hack and slash games. I love Rogue-likes. I love dungeon crawlers. Rengoku is a game that mixes the three genres into a very curious game. It lacks ambition and polish, but it's actually kinda good.

 The Story is fairly weird, but you play as ADAM, a robot, that finds itself inside a Tower, and is compelled to climb to the top. On each floor Adam will meet another sentient robot and share some words, slowly exposing the game's narrative. It's not the most engaging or original of stories, it's not even the kind of story that moves you to push onward, and the dialogues are laughable, but for this kind of game, I think that's alright. Plus, the art direction is amazing, and every time you defeat a boss you unlock a ton of badass concept art, and this art is actually worth it. These androids are hybrids of weapons, such as guns or swords(Some had magnums out of their heads! Heck, some have CANNON HEADS. BADASS.) and some very demonic looking details, the art direction is truly awe inspiring.

 The core gameplay is fairly simple and disappointingly repetitive. You must visit each room of each floor at least once and defeat all the androids in each room. Once all rooms have been visited, a Warp Points opens up allowing you to tackle the next boss and so on for eight floors. All floors look basically the same, the only thing that changes are the colors. The rooms too have nothing distinctive about them, and you'll see many repeated shapes, probably due to the fact that floors are randomly generated on each playthrough. You can grind, if you so wish, by traveling around, as androids will occasionally respawn. There's no puzzles, no intricate level design with multiple floors or objects, just corridors and 4 by 4 rooms with up to three different enemies and sometimes boxes.

 And despite all that, the gameplay manages to pull the game forward. Y'see, you can customize Adam with different body parts(Left Arm, Right Arm, Head, Chest and Legs) and there's a ton of different weapons. You can have a Blade on your arm, a Saw on your head, a cannon on your other arm and a flame thrower on your chest. These weapons are loot, randomly dropped by fallen enemies, ingeniously, the parts they may drop are the parts they were using against you, these robots are just like you, and you grow stronger as you defeat them. The system is gets a lot more involved, you can have up to six slots on each body port, and you can equip as many weapons as you have slots, some weapons occupying a different amount of slots. Plus, you can't switch weapons, ADAM automatically goes to the next weapon after it runs out of ammo/energy, so there's strategy involved in how you want to set-up your setup. Even more interestingly, there's different types of damage(Heat/Quantum/Impact/Bullet and a few others), and using a type to defeat enemies makes it grow stronger, not to mention that you have to keep in mind that weapons over heat, and different weapons over heat at different rates, over heating a weapon means you have to wait until it cools down before you can use that weapon again. It's a very fun and engaging system, I had a blast coming up with a setup that suited my style and trying out new weapons.

 Enemy drops are random, but you can increase your chances by attacking them after they lose all their HP, called "Overkilling", it doesn't guarantee a drop, but it increases the chances, sometimes you might even get more than one drop! All enemies drop "Elixir Skin", and you can sell weapons at Terminals for more Elixir Skin, this currency is used to upgrade the various defensive capabilities of ADAM, as well as buying more weapon slots for your body parts. As fun as customizing ADAM is, the combat system is very simple, if at times sloppy. Movement is done with the digital pad, and you can lock on with the L button, the camera was never much of an issue, as you can set it behind ADAM by tapping the R button. Still, there's no real "combo" system, which makes the combat very plain. Still, the different weapons made is somewhat fun, just don't expect a deep action game. There's not much strategy involved either, I only had to switch my equipment to meet my needs on the last boss, otherwise I had no trouble just going with my custom setup.

 The game is a bit on the easy side, however, it is a bit punishing. On each floor there's a single Terminal, which is the only place where you can save your game, upgrade ADAM or customize him. It will also restore all your HP and ammo. As forgiving as that sounds, every time you enter a new room, all doors will lock, and you won't be able to go back, or forward, until every android has been killed, this is a non-issue if you decide to grind, as the next time you go through a room, you can justa void the androids and head straight for the doors. Regardless, if you die outside of a Boss room, you will lose all your equipped weapons and get dropped back to floor 1. This means that you have to return to the room in question if you want to retrieve your weapons, unless you die on your way, in which case they are gone for good. I was fine with this, except for the fact that you are dropped back to floor 1. You don't even have to explore the floors again, just hit the elevators, which is an annoyance since it's very time consuming due to the load times. They should've just started you back on the floor you died, since there's absolutely NO DANGER what so ever when going up through the floors, which is very puzzling as to why they did it... maybe, originally, they planned for the elevators to be outside the terminals? I don't know, but it's a very poor design choice. Speaking of poor design choices, the game lasts about three hours... but then you have to play the whole game again, just a bit harder, in order to fight the real last boss and earn the ending. I liked the game, but not THAT much.

 I'm gonna be blunt here, the graphics just aren't up to snuff. It's really cool how every equipment piece changes the character's appearance, but when you compare the in-game characters to the artwork, they are just so disappointing. After defeating a boss, and checking the concept art, you'll see just how little resemblance the in-game models have to the fantastic artwork. Plus, the corridors all look the same, with nothing remarkable about them. This is not a good looking game. The soundtrack offers very simple beats, but at least they are very fitting, it's loud, it fits this post-apocalyptic world of fighting robots.

 I had more fun with Rengoku than I should have, the game is definitely more than the sum of its parts. Unpolished combat, bland and repetitive level design, questionable design choices... but the concept behind the game the game shows promise, hopefully Rengoku 2 can do more with it. Rengoku is fun, just nothing worth writing home about.
 6.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Rengoku - The Tower of Purgatory

 It's good. GOOOOOD.

 I love me some Rogue-like games every now and then, and for some reason I was drawn towards Rengoku. For some reason, since I don't really like games where you play as robots. Or animals. Or non-human looking things. But something about it, maybe the fact that this androids look more like demons? I dunno, but something about it made me gravitate towards it.... And after I purchased both Rengoku and Rengoku 2, I learned that both had received a rather... lukewarm reception.

 But fret not, I just defeated the second boss and I'm loving the game. I love the weapons, I love how your character looks, I love equipping different weapons and trying them out, I love having the ability to set-up back weaponry for when my ammo/energy runs out. I am enjoying this game, a lot. I was about to start Parasite Eve 1 actually, but I opted for this one on a whim, and I am most definitely not disappointed.

Review #181: Pursuit Force - Extreme Justice

 Doling out high speed Justice on the street!

 Pursuit Force was nothing short of amazing, which is why I needed to try the sequel. To be honest, there's little I would've changed about Pursuit Force, and I would've been content with the same game over a new coat of paint. bigBIG studios didn't try to reinvent the wheel, but they added and tweaked stuff, but was it for the best?

 The first game's story was a joke, and that was alright, and I praised how the story was never the driving force behind the game, not so this time around. The moment you press X on that "Story" button, you are presented with a cutscene in which the Commander, you, is getting married to Sarah(The first game's sole heroine), but things go awry and the Commander must take flight and capture the escapees. Yes, the story is now a major focus in the game, Story Mode progresses in a very linear manner, you can't replay missions in this mode, and if you get to choose between missions, you only get two choices at most. It certainly is a rather different approach, the story is as cliched as ever, which works on its favor, letting you take part in the most generic of action movies, and I say that in a good way. The story takes pretty predictable and rather dark turns, but they fit so well into the kind of flick it's trying to ape that it's hard to hold it against it.

  Story Mode also saw some changes of which I'm rather fond of. The first game could get rather challenging, enough to make some people complain on the net, so this game lets you pick from three different difficulty settings, which you can change any time you want. I had not major trouble with the first game, and I had an easier time on this one on the default setting, but allowing people lower or increase the difficulty according to their wants or needs is very neat. Story Mode also changed how you earn your upgrades, instead of getting them as you completed sets of missions, you now earn coins after each stage which you can then spend on various upgrades, so you can actually get enhancements that suit how you play, or want to play, over whatever the game wanted to throw your way.

 As for the gameplay itself, there's been a lot of changes, some bad, most good. Firstly, now you keep subweapons you take from captured cards and can switch between weapons with the directional pad, what's more, different weapons have different strengths, some are good against vehicles, some are good against people. The Car segments feel much tighter than before, jumping from car to car is as seamless as before, as is engaging in firefights. Speedboats now handle a bit differently, much looser than before, I'm not sure if it's necessarily worse, but it's different and it took me a little while to get used to it. The on-foot sections saw the most changes, the first game made the most of the PSP limitations, it knew that it shouldn't ask for precision, so it didn't, this game now retooled the aiming system so that by holding the Shooting button you'll deal little damage, but holding the L button allows you to aim with the analog stick, while you strafe with the Square and Circle buttons. I appreciate the idea, now you can even perform headshots, but... aiming with the PSP's analog isn't very precise, I spent more time than I would've wanted trying to aim at a head while taking damage. Melee attacks have also been changed, so that now it tapping R near an enemy will produce a QTE, which I didn't like.

 They also added a new Segment, Sniping, which I felt was pretty OK, the same aiming issues from the on-foot stages are present, but it's in a more... controlled environment, so even if you miss 3-4 shots, it isn't as punishing. Getting back to the good changes, the Pursuit Force is now, actually, a Force, you get 4 different team mates who will aid you in some missions, each having a different specialty, it's a small touch, but it really adds to the game, it's really cool having an ally jumping from car to car alongside you. The Justice Bar also saw some changes, it behaves pretty much as it did on the first game, giving you fire power bonuses while maxed, but you can now spend it to heal yourself at any time, and any amount, it probably helps make the game easier, but just as before, it's in your best interest to fill it and keep it filled for the extra damage. The game boasts a total of 30 missions, and they get longer, tougher and more exciting later in the game, there's some new boss scenarios in which you infiltrate giant vehicles, like planes, trains and a moving fortress, which are really cool.

 Races and Time Trials are gone, in its place are Bounty Mode and Challenge Mode. Bounty Mode allows you to pick any missions and replay it on any of the three(or four...) difficulties to earn stars and spend them in the shop, for things like cheats or Multiplayer characters. Why they don't net you stars on the story mode, when it's the exact same level is beyond me. Challenge Mode has you playing specific segments of each mission while you attempt to complete a challenge, truthfully, these could've very well been implemented on the main game as well. Honestly, these modes felt very throwaway, little thought was put into them, but at least they'll get more mileage from me than the Races and Time Trials. There's also a Multiplayer component, but since you can't play it with CPUS, I couldn't try them, bummer.

 The game looks just as good as the first game, but there's less variety on the environments, for example, no more Snow levels. However, levels now boast a higher level of detail, and more distinctive structures, which I think is a fair trade off. Just as with the first game, it has a very steady frame rate, which I feel is worth praising, particularly on the PSP. The Soundtrack is as good as the first game's, sure, they are not complex beats, not even memorable, but they fit the game and they get you hyped for high-octane action you are about to partake in.

 Pursuit Force 2 made a ton of great enhancements, but it also took some steps back. Luckily, the core gameplay remains more or less the same, hijacking cars while on highspeed vehicle fire fights is as exhilarating as ever, although I really could've done without the QTEs when engaging in melee. I still think the first game is a smidge better, but both games are must haves.
 9.0 out of 10