Review #377: Tony Hawk's Underground 2

 Stands tall as the peak of Tony Hawk's games.

 Now this, this what I think about anytime someone brings up Tony Hawk. Fast, simple gameplay, ridiculous goals and a very immature sense of humor. Realism is thrown out the window, this game embraces what's made the Tony Hawk games so good before and delivers what I consider to be the finest in the series.

 There're two main modes to choose from: Story Mode and Classic Mode. Story Mode centers in a contest around the world between Bam Margera and Tony Hawk, with your own custom skater caught in the middle. It's a hilarious, ridiculous, if short, adventure that has you seeking secret skaters and secret vehicles while trashing everything around you. You'll spend time raising the dead, throwing shrimp at lifesavers as well as playing chicken with a stampeding bull. To cal it over the top is an understatement. But hey, maybe, just maybe, you don't enjoy Tony Hawk post THPS3, and that's fine, THUG2's got you covered with Classic Mode, featuring repurposed levels from the Story Mode as well as 7 new levels(Remakes from levels from THPS 1 to 3) as well as the 2-minute, multiple objective structure.

 Story Mode is a blast, you'll never be doing the same thing for too long, and every level lets you skate with four different characters: Your custom skater, a pro, a guest and a vehicle-character. Vehicle Characters come with their own set of wheels, from karts to rocket-propelled wheelchairs, and they control well enough, save maybe Steve-O and his bull. The character creator is fairly robust, so you'll be able to create something to your liking. I found it brilliant how you develop your stats in story mode: By accomplishing feats, like grinding for X amount of seconds, landing X amount of grabs in a single combo, etc. This lets you raise your stats at your own leisure. You could pretty much max your stats on the first level, or you can ignore it and develop it as you accomplish goals. In Classic Mode, however, it's back to finding stat points hidden throughout the levels.

 But what really makes Tony Hawk's Underground 2 my favorite game in the franchise are its levels. There's so much variety, and every level stands out from each other... well, at least as far as Underground 2's exclusive levels go, but hey, the retro-levels selection is pretty good as well. These new original levels feature all sorts of landmarks that make them so memorable and fun to just fool around in. It helps that there's a ton of secret skaters to unlock by completing both classic and story modes in different difficulty settings.

 But maybe you are the creative type? That's just as fine, create-a-park returns as well as create-a-trick, and now you can even create your own goals, with a few types that didn't even make it into the story mode. Basically, if you like to create? The game's got you covered. You like Multiplayer? You're accounted for as well, featuring the classic suspects like HORSE, or even 2-Player free skating. You like Classic Tony Hawk? It's got you covered as well. You like Modern Tony Hawk? Enjoy. There's something for everyone in here.

 I don't know what else to say, I love Underground 2. If I was to complain about it, it'd be about the short length of the Story Mode, since it's what I enjoyed the most. Regardless, if you like Tony Hawk's games, Underground 2 is a no brainer.
 9.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Tony Hawk's Underground 2

 Now this, THIS is MY Tony Hawk.

 Now, I've played my fair share of Tony Hawk games(3, 4, Underground 2, Project 8 and Proving Ground) but this one is easily my favorite. While my knowledge about 1 and 2 is pretty limited to a few vids and 2's demo disc, I'm pretty sure that Neversoft hit their stride, when it came to developing levels, with 4. But Underground 2's levels are just so goddamn good, it houses most of my favorite levels in the entire franchise.

 But I'm getting ahead of myself, there's so much more that makes Underground 2 oh so good. I could mention how this was, at its time, the most advanced, in depth and varied entry yet, but that hold true for every single entry, since each game just fine tuned what worked and piled up even more mechanics. So I might as well mention the fantastic structure that lets the player fulfill goals at their leisure, and man, are these goals fun! They are varied, ridiculous and marred in that immature punk-skater sense of humor, probably some of the best goals in the series yet. But maybe, maybe you don't like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4's goal system, that's just as fine, since Underground 2 also has a Classic Mode, with a few unique levels to itself! There's absolutely no going wrong with THUG2, whether you like classic Tony Hawk or... erm, post-3 Tony Hawk.

 There's a lot more I could mention as to why I love the game, but I'm saving it for the review, needless to say, this game is the perfect example of how Tony Hawk fell when it jumped into the PS3/X360 era. They tried too hard to be more realistic, sacrificing the franchise's  sense of humor. This also seeped into the missions, which became more grounded in reality, more boring and more repetitive. And realistic isn't necessarily bad per se, but when one of your biggest strengths is your over the top ridiculousness... letting go of it was a bad move. Another issue was how lame the new mechanics were, like Nail the Trick, Nail the Grab and Nail the Manual, but they were probably grasping at straws since the games were already loaded with so many mechanics

 But what really killed the games for me... were the new level designs. While, as I mentioned, I feel like Tony Hawk's games' levels hit their sweetspot with 4, even the previous games followed the same school of thought: Theming. Each level had its own theme, which made it fun to skate through. Project 8 and Proving Ground went with realism, and in doing so, skate parks lost their personality and became dull, lifeless and boring... everything a Tony Hawk game isn't.

Review #376: Suikoden 3

 It only took about 60 hours, but the war is over...

 Konami's third installment of their war-focused JRPG series, Suikoden, was also the series' first jump into the PS2 and the world of 3D. Featuring three different heroes, for three different point of views, it was a safe, but successful entrance into the then-next-gen gaming.

 Suikoden 3 starts off marred in political strife between three bands: Zexen, Grasslands and Harmonia, encompassing all the different tribes and civilizations that make up each kingdom. You could say that Suikoden's world is pretty grim, and you'd be right. You're given three different lead characters: Captain Geddoe, Zexen's elite knight Chris and Grassland's Karaya tribe's leader's son, Hugo. Each character has 3 chapter all to themselves, before all narratives fuse together for chapter 4 and 5. Although you are allowed to make a choice after clearing all 9 chapters which will affect on whom the story will focus, and it will lead to a few minor differences on the latter two chapters. The story was alright, it had a few interesting peaks as well as a few dull moments, and sadly, as interesting as some of the character interactions were, they weren't very memorable as a whole.

 Suikoden's main draw is letting the player collect 108 characters for their Headquarters. While not all of them can partake in battles, they will aid you in some way. Be it offereing passive abilities, like healing your characters after each battle, to commodities, like having your own personal shop and blacksmith at your HQ, as well as a few minigames. Gathering every character is a fun enterprise, and it's always fun coming upon the next unique character model to add to your garrison. Two of these, Thomas and Koroku, get a few side-chapters all to themselves. Koroku the dog's is more of a silly diversion, while Thomas has two very grind-heavy chapters that offer a light-hearted look at their happenings while the main cast is dealing with war, corruption and strife. These two chapters can be rather boring, since couple with grinding comes a few points in which you'll be at a loss at what the game expects you to do. When in doubt, go to sleep in Thomas' bed. Also, try not to recruit everyone with the same lead character during the initial 9 chapters, as you could make things unnecessarily hard for the remaining characters!

 There're three different gameplay mechanics in Suikoden. Most of the time it plays like your standard-fare turn-based combat JRPG, you move from town to dungeon to town while happening upon random encounters. You're allowed to take up to six characters with you, as well as a seventh support character, and you issue commands to pairs rather than each individual character. It works well, it's fun. Then there're also 1-on-1 duels which work as silly rock-paper-scissor matches. Can't say I was a fan of those, but at least they aren't too bad. Lastly, there're strategic battles. These are stressful and annoying. The former due to the fact that characters killed in these may die forever, locking you out of the bonus epilogue and the latter since, while you get to move each 4-man throughout the board, battles are fought automatically, so it's up to the AI not to screw up. And they will screw up because they are dumb. Why not let the player issue commands is beyond me.

 Back onto the good stuff: Customization. You can customize every playable character by having them learn skills, and thus tailor them to your playstyle. Characters can also be equipped with up to three different Runes, which translate into magic and/or skills. It all amounts to a rather large degree of control over how your characters will play. And you'd best spend quality time with a bunch of these, as they will have to partake in Strategic Battles, and you don't want them dying, do you? Not only that, Hugo, Geddoe and Chris will split up every now and then during chapter 4 and 5, and they will have to fight their own tough bosses, so they will need their own party members... basically, grinding in this game will be unavoidable.

 I still have a couple of gripes left for me to unload. The smallest one surrounding some characters, y'see, some characters will join your party near the end of Chapter 5 which means that you won't get to use them much. It feels like kind of a waste. Secondly, it's not 'til chapter 4 that you unlock the means to fast travel, and until that happens you'll have to go through every dungeon and town on foot. It's pretty time consuming. Which is why I clocked over 60 hours yet the game felt rather short as a whole! To add insult to injury, when you recruit Vikki you're not told that you gained the ability to use her teleportation if you talk to her back on your HQ. And that means that you'll have to walk all the way back to your HQ anyways!... unless you recruit an optional character that grants you an item with the ability to warp back to HQ. The game should've done a better job explaining this, I did not find out about it 'til Chapter 5 when I was doing the rounds inside HQ.

 Flawed? Definitely. But the political angle and focus on war gives it a rather unique taste among JRPGs. Plus, collecting all 108 characters is rather fun, even if most of them only require you talking to them in order to recruit them. You'll get the most mileage out of it provided you're willing to invest all the time it demands of you. I dunno, it kept me busy the entire month and the fatigue didn't set in 'til the last stretch.
 8.0 out of 10

Progress Report 2017 #1

  Because I don't want the blog to die and I want to write... Progress Reports are back!

 Suikoden 3: My main course at the moment, I'm kinda diggin' the game. I'm gonna finish Geddoe's chapters first, since he doesn't need to recruit anyone, then do Thomas, since he's the one that apparently needs the most recruits, then finish Chris and theeen do Hugo, because he's the character that stroke my fancy the most!

 Shin Megami Tensei IV: I defeated Peliades and crossed to the other part o' town. I love the Shin Megami Tensei games, but IV isn't all that fun. It doesn't help that the presentation is so underwhelming, they could've done better, but they didn't. Heck, even the 2D sprites are a bit lackluster, Medusa looked kinda funky. Anyways, I grew a bit bored of the game, so I decided to take a break with Suikoden 3.

 Corpse Party - Blood Drive: It's terrible, it is. I so want to review this piece of shovelware, but I'd rather finish it first... I'll try to finish it this year, but it's so... boring.

 Resident Evil 6: I plan on picking it up later down 2017, but not anytime soon

 Lord of Arcana: I don't know why I keep this game in my 'Now Playing' list. It's terrible, horrible, yet... I feel kinda dirty not finishing it and shelving it... but the game is not worth my time, anyone's time, so... I dunno.

 Mass Effect 1: Alright, I'm gonna give it another chance.... not anytime soon, but during 2017 for sure.

 Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate: Gotta come back to it! Maybe, maybe after finishing SMT IV.

 Dragon's Dogma - Dark Arisen: Maybe after Mass Effect 1-3. Or after one of 'em if I need a break.

Now playing: Suikoden 3

 It's been a while!

 So I just started Suikoden 3. Why 3? Because it's the one I played... even if only a few minutes. If I manage, I might even play the second one this year... Assuming I can pony up the dough!

 I decided to start with Chris, because why not, and it turns out that she's kinda... evil, and so are her allies! Just saw her raze an entire village because, apparently, that was their only way out of a war. The game seems interesting, although I'm not much of a fan of the automatic 'Strategic Battles'. The Skill Points, to customize your skills, is a more interesting idea though!

 It seems fun, I've high hopes for Suikoden 3.

Month Overview: February 2017

 Tally:
Painkiller - Hell & Damnation 6.0
Tony Hawk's - Proving Ground 6.0
Moon Diver                 2.5
Dillon's Rolling Western           4.0
Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D 8.0

 Sigh, definitely not an exciting month, filled with mediocrity and a few stinkers.

 Game of February 2017:

 The only standout this month was Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D. It should have fixed the game's imprecise controls from the Wii version, since now we have buttons, but somehow, it has its own unique control issues. That aside, this is the same game I loved on the Wii, and it's an ideal game to get on the 3DS IF you haven't played the original.

 Runner-up:

 Painkiller Hell and Damnation gets the edge because it's based on the original Painkiller, it has some of its best levels. It's a shame that this game is more or less a scam, but it's the only way to play PK on the PS3, so I'll take what I can get.

Review #375: Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D

 The Kong returns... now in 3D!

 A few years ago I played and reviewed Donkey Kong Country Returns on the Nintendo Wii, and you could say that I liked it quite a bit. Turns out it had a 3DS port, and seeing how my biggest pet peeve with the initial release were the motion controls, if this game traded them with proper button inputs... it was bound to be brilliant. But alas, it was not meant to be, not exactly.

 Firstly, a brief description of what the game is for the uninitiated: This is a 2.5D platform game styled after the Donkey Kong games of old(Or rather, the SNES era). You jump, and roll-attack your way through the game, but can also come across a barrel holding Diddy Kong, which works as a few extra hits as well as letting you hover for a while with his jetpack. The game is quite challenging, specially if you factor all the collectibles per level. It's pretty good. A lot of care and love went into bringing Donkey Kong back into modern standards, level design is fantastic and almost every level has its own gimmicks, only to be revisited if to offer a new twist on it.

 So, what's new with this version? There's a 'New Mode' which translates as Easy Mode, Donkey Kong can tank three hits instead of three, and Diddy doubles it up to six hits instead of four. There're more and better power ups for you to buy at Cranky's store as well. It will probably let newer players ease themselves into the game, since later in the game, most deaths will come from bottomless pits or 1-hit-kill obstacles, so it's not an absolute cakewalk. The 3D effect works beautifully with this game, one of the very few games I'd actually recommend playing in 3D.

 And then, what matters most, the new control scheme...s. It would've been too smart to let the player pick and choose what buttons does what, but instead, you've got to choose: Either use the analog stick and X/Y to attack and R/L to grab stuff or use the digital pad and L/R to attack and X/Y to grab.... What? I don't get it, you should've been able to indistinctively use either Digital or Analog pad at a whim, y'see, the analog stick is too imprecise for a platformer on a 2D plane, but I also wanted to use X/Y to attack... What a baffling design choice! Attacking felt unresponsive as well, I think that it's because the attack button also works as the ground-slam, so unless you press the button while moving, you won't attack. I dunno, but on more than one occasion I meant to attack but nothing came out, not even the slam. And I know for a fact that it wasn't my buttons' fault, since they work fine with other games. It might also be because the game now runs at 30FPs instead of 60...

 The game also promises a new world with 8 new levels... but you have to collect every KONG letter in every single stage. No thank you. I already played the Wii version, so... no thanks, I'll pass on that, I've more important stuff than forcing myself to replay levels in order to find all the letters. This was a bad, bad design choice as well, why lock the new content behind busy work? Maybe later down the road I might feel compelled to unlock these levels, but right now I've better stuff to do.

 I'd love to be able to say that this is the definitive version of DKCR, I'd love to say that it fixed the unreliability of the motion controls.... but I can't. The new stuff? Locked behind busywork. The new control scheme? It has its own kinks. If you ask me, I'll stick with the original release, but either version will suffice, as both are great versions of the same great game.
 8.0 out of 10