Review #291: Chocobo Racing

 Square really could do no wrong back then!

 Based off the Chocobo Dungeon series, Chocobo Racing was Squaresoft's attempt at a mascot racing. Mind you, even if you're not interested in Chocobo Dungeon, there's plenty to amuse Final Fantasy fans, from the magic spells to even Squall and Cloud as playable racers! It's an interesting experiment that could've used a little more time in the oven.

 The game offers a 9-Chapter Story Mode that serves as a sort of tutorial, with each chapter introducing a new racer, and a new spell type, to ease you into the game. It's also incredibly tedious since you have to play it 10 times in order to unlock all characters, at least the game lets you turn 'Handicap' on in order to make you faster and help you cruise through this mode. After each full playthrough you are allowed to customize one of the non-secret characters, and the stat points you are awarded depend on how fast you were. There's also Grand Prix, for up to two players, but there's no 'cups' instead playing 4 tracks(Either player selected or random), Time Attack, VS(Which is a strictly 2 racer race) and Relay Race, which I found rather interesting, as you pick 3 different characters and switch every lap! It's a decent amount of modes, and if after going through the story mode 10 times you're stilling feeling up to it, you can finish every course in Grand Prix in order to unlock a faster vehicle class(Think the 50 cc, 100 cc and 150 cc classes in Mario Kart) and then Mirror mode.

 Racer selection is more than decent, there's 8 'basic' characters, and 10 unlockable ones, and 10 different 'abilities'. Abilities are separate from 'spells' and run on a gauge that's constantly refilling as you race. Sadly, some of these are definitely more useful than others, take 'Megaflare', which makes all your rivals spin out, or dash, which grants you a rather long boost. Then there's 'Flap' which allows you to fly... which a few characters do by default, and only allow you to dodge a couple of spells. As for the characters, I don't think they are well balanced. As previously mentioned, some characters fly by default, allowing them to ignore a few spells, and some of the secret characters are joke characters, which are too slow to be able to compete with the others, or even making it through a certain obstacle in one of the tracks.

 The Weapon pick ups work a bit like Diddy Kong Racing. You will find line of orbs spread throughout each track, and picking an orb grants you different spells. You can pick an specific spell by its color, or grab a '?' orb in order to get a random spell. Furthermore, you can carry multiple spells at the same time(Though if someone smashes into you they will steal the last orb you picked), and you can level up a spell up to three times by picking up three straight orbs of the same type.

 The game is also prone to the same pitfall of every single Mascot racer: It's not much fun while playing alone. Playing with friends is fun, but unlocking everything means going through the single player mode. TEN TIMES. And frankly, it seems as if all of them love to gang up on you, as a matter of fact, whenever the CPU Goblin is on the race, forget about storing spells for later use, as it seems like he ONLY steals, by using his ability, orbs from you. After my first time through this mode, I just turned 'handicap' on, in the options menu, and cruised through it, I was not gonna stand through the whole ordeal again. Oh, and by the by, SAVE your custom character after your second time through the mode, otherwise Squall won't challenge you.

 I had fun with the game, but there's too little of it. There's only 10 tracks, and they are not very memorable, sans the Black Wizard one, which is really fun. It also feels like they run out of time, money or both, as it feels somewhat incomplete. Only 9 characters(8 basic ones plus Bahamut) get an ending, and only ten of them(The basic ones, Bahamut and Squall) get character portraits, as a matter of fact, the only time you get a 'Warning, a Challenger approaches'(Like Smash Bros!) is with Squall, the game doesn't even let you know that you unlocked more characters after him, or even how to access them! Which is done by holding different combinations of the shoulder buttons over Squall, in case you were wondering. Heck, you can even unlock Aya Brea... except that 'she' is only a Police Car.

 The game is pretty fun to play, and it offers neat ideas(Carrying spells, enhancing them, abilities) to the genre, but sadly, it's pretty lacking. There's only 10 stages, less than the competition, and even then, they are not very memorable. Still, it's fun for a couple of rounds.
 6.5 out of 10

Review #290: Naruto Shippuden - Ultimate Ninja 4

 Pitiful.

 Before Ultimate Ninja Storm, there was Ultimate Ninja. During the PS2 era there were two brands of Naruto games kinda competing with each other: Clash of the Ninja and Ultimate Ninja, while Clash of the Ninja tried to be more of a traditional fighting game, Ultimate Ninja went for the fanservice.

 Now then, when it comes to fighters, I usually say: 'Story doesn't matter', but this being a licensed game, it kinda does. There's two story modes, Master Mode and Hero Mode. Hero Mode goes through a very condensed version of Naruto's pre timeskip story. It's told mostly through dull anime stills, with the occasional in-game cutscene. It also glances over a lot of details, Naruto and Kiba's fight is skipped entirely, and while Neji and Naruto talk about destiny, before their fight, there's no backstory as to WHY they are talking about, which is hilarious when you consider that they actually make you fight the Sound 5(Well, Tayuya, Kimimaro and Sakon anyways) twice. But in order to access most of the fights in here, you have to play through Master Mode and collect Memory Pieces(Even funnier, the counter bugs out eventually, so even though it says that you have '0 pieces left', you've got more, so you can simply unlock the last Hero Mode nodes with 0 Memory Pieces).

 Master Mode is a disappointing mess. It starts off with a filler substory before starting with the cannon story. At first you'll wonder why they did it... and it's because the 'real' story mode is incredibly short. Y'see, Namco Bandai was so desperate in releasing a Naruto game, that they couldn't even wait for the 'Rescue Gaara' arc to end, so the game starts with Gaara's kidnapping and ends before it finishes, as a matter of fact, it ends after Naruto VS Itachi. The story mode is so bland, that they actually make you fight Kisame FIVE TIMES STRAIGHT in order to make it seem lengthy, and then, right after that fight, you get to fight Itachi THREE TIMES STRAIGHT. And then it ends. Pathetic. Master Mode also offers free-roaming, which is interesting, and a very basic 'combat system' exclusive to this mode, in which you simply mash Circle. Eventually 'random encounters' will become a norm, and they are a drag. They are not challenging, fun or even fun to look at, they are just there to waste your time when going through areas. There's also sidequests if you are willing to endure this torture. The character roster is also disappointing as well, among the grown up Chunin 9, you only get Team Kakashi and Team Guy. There's no adult Sasuke, no adult Kiba, Sai, etc. Very disappointing. But Bandai Namco just couldn't wait for the manga or anime to just advance further, they just had to get this game out.

 For what it's worth, I kinda liked this battle system. It takes place on a 2D plane, excuse me, 2 2D planes, which you can switch at will by tapping up or down twice plus X. While it only uses the circle button for melee attacks, like Ultimate Ninja Storm, this engine is much more entertaining, allowing you to make combos and juggle opponents. Playing this game is surprisingly fun, although it took me a little while to get the hang of it. However, I did not like the mini-games involved in battles, for instance, clashing attacks engages a Rock-Paper-Scissors mini game, and landing a Ultimate Jutsu starts a mini-game in which you and your opponent must press buttons, if you do worse than the enemy, they might even interrupt your move altogether! All these minigames I could've done without.

 A needless cash-in, that's what this game is. Even more disappointing is the fact that Japan and Europe actually got Ultimate Ninja 5, which features the entire grown up Chunin 9 characters, and I'm guessing it concludes the Gaara storyline. At least the fighting is somewhat fun, although I could do without the mini-games. Oh! And the game froze twice on me during Hero Mode, and you can only save your game by exiting the mode and then pressing start, which made it a bit of a drag having to save more frequently just so that I wouldn't have to replay anything in case it froze again. Why not add an option to save while on Hero Mode?
 5.0 out of 10.

Review #289: Extermination

 You got it!

 Extermination was a Survival Horror game released veeeery early during the Playstation 2's lifetime, and it shows. It's also a game that's known for having had Swery 65 as part of the developement team, which is the reason I wanted to play it. That and the fact that you can get it on the cheap.

 The game takes a ton of inspiration from Carpenter's 'The Thing', featuring a parasitic lifeform that can take human hosts and mutate their bodies into gruesome shapes, as well as taking part on snowy zones. You play as Dennis Riley, part of a marine team tasked with exterminating this lifeform, however, things go awry and the plane carrying his team crashes. Separated from the others, now Riley has to rendezvous with the survivors and kill this... thing. The story is a bit hard to take seriously, since the translation is a bit wonky and the voicework is an absolute trainwreck, but it's a cheesy, enjoyable trainwreck. You've also got to take in mind that this was a very early PS2 game, which means that graphically it's aged pretty badly, even the animations are very lackluster. Bonus Trivia: The PAL version of the game features a completely different model for Dennis, as well as a different dub and a different Credits theme song, their loss, as the American credits song is an incredibly cheesy way to end a cheesy game, which is just perfect.

 Something I really liked is that the entire game takes place on this single facility. As you go through the game you'll obtain keycards and other thingies to permit access to different, previously inaccessible zones. Which does mean that there's a bit of backtracking. One thing I liked, is that there's unlimited ammunition, kinda. Spread throughout the facility are a few dispensers that will fully reload your automatic rifle, as many times as you want, and only your automatic rifle. Shotgun, Flamethrower, Grenades and Missiles come in limited supplies though. Speaking of guns, the game features a 'fully customizable rifle', which the game's really proud of as they tout it as a selling point at the back of the game's case, but it's nothing fancy, instead of guns, you equip parts in order to use the rifle as a shotgun, a flamethrower, etc. You can do it on the fly as well, so it's nothing revolutionary or what not.

 Healing supplies also come in limited supplies. Dennis not only has to look out for his health, but for the Infection level. The Infection level usually increases from getting spat at by the enemies, this spit doesn't do damage unless you are completely infected. Getting completely infected will ruin your day; your max health drops to 60, and constantly depletes, and now both water AND enemy spit becomes dangerous. And sure, you can use medikits to heal back(Up to 60 out of 100), but there's only one way to cure the infection: MTS machines. MTS machines are very rare(I think there are about 5 in the entire game) and in order to use them you need the rare MTS Vaccines. Basically, keep out of the green spit's way. I think I found about 15 vaccines, maybe a bit less, and I always had about 5 spares, until I assumed, correctly, that I was near the end of the game and stopped using them so sparingly. There's another very rare type of healing item(That comes in A and B variety) that heals both HP and Infection level(But WON'T cure an infection, only decrease the infection level if not infected), but these are even rarer than the vaccines, and you'll probably want to save'em up for the multi-form last boss, trust me.

 For a Survival Horror hero, Dennis sure is nimble. He can actually jump and climb over certain obstacles, but it's a bit wonky. Y'see, the X button is a context-sensitive button that lets you: Climb over ledges, jump over gaps and roll around enemies. It works about as well as you'd expect, which is very poorly. How many times did I jump to my death wanting to grab a ledge? Or even trying to roll around an enemy, but being near a bottomless pit, Dennis thought that I actually wanted to jump towards my doom, silly Dennis. There's an area near the end of the game where you must jump over hanging boxes, and it was an absolute nightmare getting Dennis to jump where I wanted him to. The camera is also fairly terrible, sometimes it lets you put it behind Dennis' back by tapping L1, but you need to be holding still. Eventually I found out that tapping R1, entering Aiming mode was much better, and it'd also warn me if there was any nearby enemy. Speaking of R1, it autoaims over nearby enemies, but seeing how, unless you want to waste ammo, you should shoot over the glowing green spots, it's fairly useless, which made me default into the R2, first person aiming, to deal with the bigger enemies. All in all, the controls are going to be one of your biggest enemies in this game.

 Extermination was a game I found had some neat ideas, but does little to stand out from the crowd. It's not very scary, and the controls can be a pain in the back sometimes. That said, I found it to be an entertaining, but flawed game, and not very memorable at that.
 6.5 out of 10

Review #288: Nightshade

 Ashes to ashes.

 I can't believe it's been two years since I last played Shinobi on the PS2, a game that earned a place on my PS2 favorites list. Nightshade's got some pretty big shoes to fill, and it succeeds, mostly.

 Taking place an unspecified amount of time after the events of Shinobi, you now play as Hibana, a Ninja under control by the government, as she is tasked with stopping Nakatomi's Ninja and collect all the shards of the broken Akujiki, before more hellspawn are brought into the world. Hibana is one cool Ninja, I swear to god, she and Hotsuma are the coolest Ninjas around. Unlike Hotsuma, however, Hibana is much sassier, spouting one-liners and taunts all the time. And as cool as he look, the game is Japanese... which means that the camera loves to focus on her butt, which is a bit off-putting. Heck, even her standard slash looks really weird, since she has to shake her hips in order to pull it off. That aside, they managed to make Hibana look really cool, and act the part. As for the story, it's pretty shallow, and there's a bit of backstory that is best off learned by reading the instruction booklet... but then again, I don't think that this is a game you want to play for the story.

 The game plays a lot like the previous game. Hibana can slash, double jump, stealth dash, cling to walls, throw Kunai and unleash three different spells by collecting scrolls. But there's been some new additions, firstly, some enemies can block attacks, while other come equipped with armor, both which are dealt with by kicking them with Triangle. Hibana's air-game is a lot stronger than Hotsuma's as well, she can also use an aerial homing kick to close-in on her foes, and there's a new gauge, filled by collecting certain items or killing enemies, that allows for strong charge attacks. And guess what, unlike Hotsuma, Hibana uses a sword forged in the style of the Akujiki, but it's not the Akujiki, which means her life isn't being constantly sapped away!

 I played the entire game on Normal mode, and it's almost as hard as the first one. Almost. Not having to care about the life gauge makes quite a difference, but in its place come new platforming challenges that will require Hibana to use the homing kicks on flying, armored enemies, in order to get across certain chasms. And it has to be the homing kick, since slash attacks will just bounce off armored enemies. The thing is, landing an aerial hit on an enemy resets your jump, stealth dash and homing kick, so you must make it across by exploiting this mechanic. This makes the latter levels, where this becomes a necessity, very challenging, as tapping the wrong button, or aiming at the wrong enemy(And the targeting reticule can sometimes pick the worst targets, and you can only switch targets by tapping R2), or even getting hit mid-jump, can result in you dying. At least the checkpoints are slightly more generous than the first game.

 The game has three unlockable characters(Hotsuma among them, if you have a Shinobi cleared save file, and he can't kick, but his normal slashes break armors and guards!) that play noticeably different from one another, plus, extra costumes for Hibana and another one of the playable characters. There're also Oboro coins hidden on every level, and collecting them nets you access to Survival, Time Attack and Mission Mode levels. There's quite a bit to do and unlock on this game.

 The game falters a bit when it comes to bosses. I felt that some of them were a bit too random on their patterns, making it a gamble when it came to scoring hits and not getting hurt. Maybe I'm just bad at the game though, and that said, I could clear the game on normal, so it's definitely doable. I also felt that sometimes the game had way too many waves of enemies on certain areas, which got a bit tiresome when I just wanted to explore the damn area. I mean, you could always ignore them, but that's not the way I roll.

 While Shinobi is a slightly better game, Nightshade is no slouch. It has some amazing levels to play through, some that will put your platforming to the test. It's a fun game, and a worthy companion to Shinobi.
 8.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Nightshade

 Hibana is one cool Ninja.

 Hibana and Hotsuma are the two coolest Ninja out there. I also like how they are fairly different when it comes to personalities as well, which kinda reflects on their costumes. While Hotsuma was taciturn and a loner, Hibana has a sassy personality, and she wears white and red, because she's cool like that. She also wields two swords, since one sword isn't cool enough.

 As for the game, I'm up to stage 3 and it feels just like Shinobi. It's the same game, albeit, I feel, a bit easier. And Hibana now has to break the defenses of certain enemies with kicks. Also, inverted camera controls that can't be changed, whose idea was it!? Regardless, I'm liking the game, a whole lot, just as I did with Shinobi before it. 

Review #287: Clock Tower 3

 Unintentionally hilarious.

 When one thinks of Clock Tower, one thinks of scary games, some of the earliest horror games created. And then there's Clock Tower 3, which isn't very scary, but it's so wonderfully weird. You can't come to this game expecting a horror game, unless you want to be disappointed, or in my case, weirdly amused.

 The game pits you as Alyssa, a 14 year-old girl who is one day away from her birthday, and receives a letter from her mother telling her to hide. Alyssa, being as smart as she is, decides to come back home, and all kinds of weird stuff starts happening. This is what happened to me, early in the game you come across a man in black, who acts all weird and creepy, it creeped me out, and it made me second guess my steps and what not. I was creeped out! And then... you are sent back in time. I kid you not. And you have to... aid ghosts? But then you are introduced to this big guy and his hammer, as he squashes his first victim, and you are next! YEAH! This is what I wanted, the game finally got scary again. Yeah, this is awesome! Wait... Alyssa, why is your flask glowing? Why is a bow forming out of..... Alyssa, why are you shooting energy arrows? Oh yeah, Magical girls? This game's got'em. And the game only gets more ridiculous from there on. Then comes the next 'Subordinate', and he is introduced as he brutally kills a mother and his son, yeah, this scene is phenomenal and scary, now we are back on trac....why does he attack you by tackling you with his butt!? THE HELL IS THIS!? And the next three Subordinates are Onimusha-Godangantess wannabes. Yeah, this game is ridiculous alright, but it's oddly amusing. Except for Dennis, this guys ruins any scene he is in... although I guess he is part of the game's ridiculous charm. And it's not like the voice acting is bad, but the character models are very facially inexpressive, but everyone moves in very over-the-top fashion, which produces a very bizarre clash. Look, if I haven't made it clear by now, this is not a horror game, as hard as it tries to be, but if you are up for a weird game, with Time-travelling, Magical Girls, Ghosts and a protagonists that is sent flying at high speeds while riding debris and decides to laugh and dance, instead of, y'know, being worried for dear life, this is your game.

 80% of the game is spent exploring the numerous locations for different items in order to solve puzzles. Occasionally you'll be surprised by the level's Subordinate, an Alyssa being an unarmed 14 year old schoolgirls needs to run and hide. There's different ways to deal with these bastards, you can use Holy Water, which can only be refilled at special fountains, to temporarily stun them, or find Hide Spots or one-time use Escape Spots. Escape Spots incapacitate the Subordinate, letting you go along on your merry way, while hide spots may stop working if you use them too frequently, plus, they can't be used while under a Subordinates sight. Eventually you'll learn to complete puzzles while avoiding subordinates though, however, you have to be careful, as the Panic Gauge increases every time they attack you, even if they miss, if it gets too high, Alyssa will enter 'Panic Mode' and any hit will kill her, plus, she becomes harder to control.

 Puzzles are very 'Resident Evil'-ish. Find items to use on other places, find and read files to learn more about what's going on or even obtain clues for a few puzzles. There are also ghosts that can hurt you(Or rather, increase the panic gauge, and kill you if you are hit while panicking), but can be dealt with by specific items and using them on their corpses, it's entirely optional, but they reward you with usables, items that decrease the panic gauge or even make you invisible temporarily, so it's a good idea to 'help' them, plus, they disappear and stop bothering you when you are trying to escape from a Subordinate!

 And then there's the boss battles... After finding out about the Subordinates' previous lives, by reading conveniently placed files about them on the areas the inhabit, you will get to fight them. Alyssa will produce a magic bow, complete with a reused 'transformation' animation before every single fight, like any proper magical girl, and the fight starts. You must outmaneuver them, and hold triangle to charge an arrow and shoot it. Hitting them with fully charged arrows will bind them, making further shots easier(And making it harder, sometimes impossible, for them to reach you, until the chain expires if you fail to keep binding them), and binding them with about 5 arrows will let you unleash an special attack that will most probably kill them. Boss fights are pretty dumb, and Alyssa always auto-aims... although you can't change where she is gonna shoot and you are rooted in place. It's very stiff, and wonky, and in a particular Subordinate fight, the auto-aim is a bit broken and most often than not, Alyssa will aim in-front of her, which makes this particular fight a bit of a pain. Not to say anything about the last boss, who can bind you, and if you are bound by three shots, he can unleash a 10-15 second long instakill attack that you can't skip. Fun. The last boss is incredibly fun, until you figure him out, and then he becomes incredibly tedious, since it may take a while before he goes down, even though you aren't taking any damage at all!

 The game is four hour longs, probably less if you know what you are doing, taking into account that I went into the game completely blind and figured everything out by myself, that's a bit short. Finishing the game unlocks fetish costumes for Alyssa(Since, y'know, the Japanese love to sexualize young girls!) as well as a harder mode.

 Clock Tower 3 is a game that (jump)scared me, that made me laugh, made me think, engaged me and overall entertained me. It's not the game I expected, but I was pleasantly surprised with how weird, and at times 'so-bad-it's-good' moments. I figure that Haunting Ground is probably the game that they really wanted to make, y'know scary and stuff, but Clock Tower 3 is pretty good, provided you aren't expecting spooks.
 7.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Clock Tower 3

 I've mixed feelings about it so far.

 At first, the intro was so good, the creepy man, the creepy mansion. I was creeped out and second guessing my every move during the initial manor segment! I thought that it got the ambiance right... and then it teleported me back in time, and I felt it was a bit... ridiculous? And then I was helping ghosts, and the scare factor disappeared entirely. I was actually a bit disappointed....

 ...Until I entered the creepy Tailor Shop and the first stalker appeared. The setting was spectacular, with broken glass and blood everywhere. And then came that phenomenal cutscene that introduced the Hammer stalker? The game just got scary again!

 Basically, I'm a bit torn. On the one hand, I feel some things are a bit... ridiculous. But when the game gets scary, it gets it right oh so well. I was expecting something a bit more like Haunting Ground, but oh well, I'm only 30 minutes into the game and got into the Concert Hall, so there's still time.