Review #472: Seven Samurai 20XX

 The Seven in the title is very debatable.

A better cover would've had the Seven Samurai reflect on each blade...

 Y'know Seven Samurai, it's a bit of a classic but, for whatever reason, it never got a game... till Seven Samurai 20XX came around. This hack-and-slash game was received to a rather lukewarm criticism and now goes by forgotten by everyone. Except me.

 The story is very, VERY loose retelling of the movie by the same name, so much so that I think the word 'inspired' fits better. Set in a post-apocalyptic future Japan, you play as Natoe(Although everyone pronounces it differently, some call him 'Naoto', some call him 'Nato' and a few called him 'Noto') a youth trained in the way of the samurai who gets himself embroiled alongside six... actually, alongside five other samurai in order to protect a nearby town. Protect them from Humanoids, cyborg like beings that have recently began their assault. The story has ups and downs, but it's mostly an interesting tale. But the real winner here is the art-direction, everything looks amazing, characters are very unique and appealing while the environments are mysterious and enthralling... it's quite a treat for the eyes.

Villains and heroes look nothing short of cool in this game.

 The game is divided into 10 chapters, and every single chapter(Save 3) is a very linear affair, go from point A to point B while smashing robots(I refuse to call them humanoids) over and over again. I can't stress enough just how repetitive it is and just how many enemies you have to defeat. There's no exploration to be had, except for chapter 3, although the game does have six optional bosses, five of them hiding in the game's only open city in chapter 3, and a sixth one hiding in chapter 7. Regardless, there're no puzzles, there's no platforming: There's only fighting.

 So how does Natoe battle? Simple, Square is your attack button, X is your dodge-step and Triangle is your guard. Attacks can be chained infinitely, but you can also pull off 'Just Attacks' which I never really understood how they went off, something about holding a direction an enemy is in and pressing attack at the same time? Doesn't matter since they are simply critical hits. Your dodge step can be used to dodge, duh, but timing it just as you get attacked produces a 'Just dodge' that instantly puts you behind your enemy and restores some of your Nitoh-ryu gauge(More on this later).

See that red-square button? You'll be pressing that button a lot.

 Guarding works in an interesting way, by pressing triangle you'll slowly consume a bit of gauge from your blue bar beneath your health bar, and if you're attacked while this tiny bit is consumed you'll automatically block an attack. Just Guarding is done by, you guessed it, pressing triangle just as you're getting attacked, which parries the attack and completely refills your Nitoh-ryu gauge. Nito-ryu is dual-wielding, by pressing both R1 and L1 at the same time Natoe will grab his other sword and become extra deadly for a short while... but if you time your parries you'll be in this mode forever.

 In a bizarre twist of fate, making Natoe stronger is a matter of sucking. While most games would reward the player for doing well, in SS20XX your Strength, Guard an Nito-ryu gauges are extended by... getting hit a lot, uselessly expending your block gauge and not refilling your Nitoryu gauge with blocks. The worse you do, the more power-up points you'll get after clearing a stage. Idiotic. Throughout the game, fulfilling certain goals will unlock different-looking swords but... you can only equip them after finishing the game. Why? There're also a Survival and Boss Rush modes waiting to be unlocked.

A very brief respite from mashing that square button.

 The game is rather fun to play at times, but it's very basic. There's no hidden depth here, what you do in chapter 1 is what you'll be doing all the way till the end of this 5 hour ride. There're no new moves to be earned, no unlockable characters, no different weapon styles, nothing, everything you have in chapter 0 is everything you'll have in chapter 10.

 Still, the game's biggest flaw is its squandered potential. You have this seven fantastic-looking different characters and... you only play as Natoe. These other Samurai barely get any screen-time doing cool stuff either, its mostly talking or spitting excuses as to why they can't go with you. You've also got this fighting system that works well as a base, but the devs didn't go out of their way to do unique or interesting stuff with it, instead, they just called it a day.

 I can understand why critics where so harsh back in the day, it was 2004-release, Devil May Cry was a thing, standards had been set... and while the game doesn't do anything particularly bad there're so many other games that do what this game does even better. There's also the fact that even Dynasty Warriors manages to be less repetitive thanks to an engine that lets the player create combos with juggles and what not. Seven Samurai 20XX is a decent time waster, but nothing more.

 6.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Seven Samurai 20XX

 It's hard going into this after playing Devil May Cry 3....

 So I played the first chapter and... it's not very bueno?

 Firstly, the good:
 I adore the concept of a character that wields a sword but has a two-sword super mode, that's actually kinda cool. The animations is kinda cool too. Kinda. It's weird, moving around is kinda clunky, and performing the steps and somersaults feel heavy, but the attacking animations are kinda smooth. The guard system is kinda original, since it lasts for a few seconds.

 The bad:
 It's SOOOOOOO bland. Like, the first chapter had me pressing the square button, going from fight to fight to fight to fight and nothing else. The combat isn't every deep or engaging, you just tap that square button, with the occasional step or guard. No new moves to earn, no nuttin'.

 So... it's alrightish.

Review #471: Dragon Ball Z - Ultimate Battle 22

 Dragon Ball Z - Ultimate bad game 22.

It's actually called Ultimate 27. Kinda

 The good news? It's not the worst Dragon Ball Z I've ever played, it's actually playable. The bad news? It's still bad. Welcome to Ultimate Battle 22, or Ultimate Battle 27 if you input the code, a Dragon Ball fighting game released on the PS1 featuring 22(Or 27) characters from the series duking it out on a 2-D plane.

 The game offers an Arcade ladder('VS Cpu', that has you fighting all 22 opponents), VS Player, a Tournament Mode and a Build Up mode(make your character stronger), and that's pretty much it. Ultimate Battle takes after the Super Butoden games, and let me let you in a little secret... the Butoden series wasn't very good in the first place. You've got a punch button, a kick button, an energy attack button and triangle that lets you fly. You can charge lost energy by holding any of the three attack buttons, which takes a few seconds before it actually goes off. There're combos, special moves and energy-consuming super moves all done by different directional inputs.

Even Hercule wishes he wasn't in the game.

 The game feels very floaty and fighting isn't much fun. It's all too easy to get a grab instead of a punch when pressing square while near an opponent, and the game's engine doesn't leave much room for creativity when it comes to chaining your attacks. It's basic, bland and lifeless.

 But a mundane game I could do with, if only it didn't look so bad. To the game's credit, they tried making the sprites look like anime cut-outs, and they nailed it, but the animation is horrible and the sprites look very out of place, like the characters don't quite belong on the backgrounds. They are pretty inconsistent too, Recoome looks as if he's been shrunk so his head is tiny in comparison to others, while 18's head is enormous. And what about SSJ3 Goku's horrible walk cycle? The game, as a whole, looks horrible. On the flip-side, the music is pretty good... but a lot of it doesn't fit a Fighting game, like Dabura's theme or Mirai Trunks'.

What's up with Goku's leg?

 The icing on the cake is that they removed a bit of stuff from the Japanese version, namely the pre-fight conversations... luckily, nothing of value was lost and having them in the game wouldn't have changed a thing about its quality. Also, they named Gogeta 'Vegeto', I swear to god...

 Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Battle 22 is bad, alright? It's not the worst Dragon Ball Z game ever, which is a very depressing statement to make, and is, in fact, quite playable. But it's simply bland and rather lackluster, why would you ever want to play it? Morbid curiosity?
3.0 out of 10

Review #470: Dragon Ball Z - Idainaru Dragon Ball Densetsu / Dragon Ball Z Legends

 Two wrongs don't make a right, but between all three PS1 DB games, this is the only good one.

 It was pretty funny when Capcom decided to prank all American player by making the Normal difficulty of Devil May Cry 3 the equivalent of Hard from the Japanese release, but trust me, they got nothing on Bandai. Y'see, once Dragon Ball Z caught wind outside Japan it was time to bring the games, so what did they do? They localized the two horrid, terrible, awful nigh unplayable games but left the best one, the good one, behind. Good one, Bandai.

 It's hard to place Idainaru Dragon Ball Densetsu under a genre, but let's call it a fighting game. A 3-on-3 open-arena fighting game of sorts. You get a Story Mode, that covers the entire Dragon Ball story from the Saiyan Saga to the Buu Saga in 8 brief chapters, a VS CPU and VS Player mode and an unlockable Special Battle mode, which tasks you with defeating specific teams while using specific characters. It's a nice selection of modes and characters, although Tien and Yamucha are mysteriously missing, most relevant characters are here. In this game you, and up to two other CPU allies, do battle against 3 other opponents(Who can be helmed by another player too) on big open-ended, but simple looking, arenas while moving on a 2-D plane.

 So how do you play this game? Pretty simple, you hold Up on the dpad to go towards you opponent and you hold Down to retreat. It sounds weird, but trust me, it works beautifully. Circle is used to produce simple punches, but using direction(Up, Down, Left, Right) will produce different power-launchers that can be chain together(Unless your opponent counterattacks), as well as combos(Double tapping towards your opponent) or circular assaults by doing half-circle motions. The Square button produces weak ki blasts and Triangle is used to charge Ki or dash. And you need to charge Ki since everything consumes Ki, punching and shooting, and if you run out you'll be defenseless for a few valuable seconds. Lastly R1 and R2 is used to switch between your characters and L1 and L2 to switch which enemy you want to target.

 Landing hits doesn't actually do damage but instead pushes the 'Power Balance' gauge towards your advantage. Fill the gauge with your color(Blue or Red) and your character will perform a super move that will actually do damage. Do this 3-4 times to defeat a single character. It sounds weird, but it's pretty fun. It also means that battles can take a while since a 'round' can last a long, long while you push-and-pull the power balance, and then you have to do this quite a few times to finally kill of an opponent for good. As for the characters, all characters are basically the same, save for their super attacks and even then the difference is negligible, a few might need 3 supers to take down an enemy and others 4, not much difference, now is it?

 All things considered, the game should not be considered a 'competitive fighting game', sure, there's fighting, but 1 on 1 duels are pretty lame and lack strategy, you just try to get in the first hit and perform combos, while the victim tries to counter-attack when the power-launchers come. And when battles have more than two combatants, well, the CPU takes control of every other character, so any skill goes out the window and luck factors in. It's a fun fighting game, but it can't and shouldn't be taken seriously.

 Dragon Ball Z - Idainaru Dragon Ball Densetsu is a game that managed to capture Dragon Ball Z's action perfectly while remaining constricted to the limitations of the Playstation 1. Not only is it a fantastic Dragon Ball Z game, it's a great game period, and one that's pretty unique in what it does, there's no other game quite like it, and what it does, it does with aplomb.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #469: Devil May Cry 3 - Dante's Awakening Special Edition(PS2)

 Jackpot!

The Story is pretty silly, but every single cutscene is made of cool and badass.

 I don't know what I was smoking when I scored Devil May Cry 3 a 9.0 last year, because after playing it a second time... This game is amazing. I don't need to go over the game's basics again, since everything I said back in 2016 still holds true today, so I'll just gush over the game for a couple of paragraphs.

 First of all, the combat has never been this good before, and I could argue even after it. Dante's one versatile dude, being able to carry two weapons, out of six, before each mission, each with its own unique moveset, and you can even equip him with one out of 6 different styles which do anything from granting you more defensive options to more offensive options. The combat feels so good, creating combos is easy and intuitive and you can do all sort of shenanigans by switching weapons mid-combo or even bringing your guns into the mix.

Dante can't get a day's rest since everything is out to get him, even ghostly steeds.

 And then you unlock Vergil, who has his own unique three weapons, and brings all three of them for each mission, as well as his own unique 'Gun', energy swords, that have a few different uses and work nothing like any of Dante's guns, not to mention that Vergil gets his own style, the DarkSlayer, which can be used both offensively and defensively. While Vergil gets the same levels as Dante, a better choice than having half a game that's a repeat of the game's first half like, y'know, Devil May Cry 4, his adventure is over sooner since there're no cutscenes(Well, there're a two) and Vergil is a bit of a powerhouse.

 Devil May Cry 3 is easily, easily a Playstation 2 classic and a seminal game in the hack-and-slash genre. This is how you make an action game.
 10 out of 10

Now Playing: Devil May Cry 3 - Dante's Awakening Special Edition(PS2)

 And now, for the finale...

I played the rest, now comes the best.

 Well, since I've replayed 1 and 2 might as well replay the entire trilogy, right? The game's as tough as always and as fun as always, there ain't much else left to say. Maybe the fact that they got the best things about DMC 1 and DMC 2, removed all the the flaws, and blended them together into this fantastic little disc.

 I'm up to stage 5 and I've literally nothing bad to say about the game, it's easily, easily one of PS2's finest.

Review #468: Devil May Cry 2(PS2)

 Twice the discs, twice the disappointment.

Now with two discs, two characters and a shorter game!

 And thus, one year later, here I am replaying Devil May Cry 2 and, much like I did with my Devil May Cry re-review, I won't be repeating my words but rather commenting on what has change since I last played it.

 For starters, the game comes in two unlabeled discs, so there's no way to know that 'Disc 1' is Dante's disc and 'Disc 2' is Lucia's disc. Most of what I said remains true, both characters are near identical, weapons might as well be identical, the environments are too large for this kind of game, the movesets are pretty limited when compared to the previous game and the game lasts 2:30 hours for each character, which is kinda lame considering both discs share a lot of stages.

 If the game gets something right is its coolness.

 Regardless, I didn't find the game as boring as I did last year, actually, I thought it was a nice breather after finishing Devil May Cry 1! One thing fans are fixated on hating is how the game created new enemies and bosses designed to be taken care of with the guns, but I liked it. In the previous game guns were pretty much useless save a few situational bosses or the Shadow enemies that required you to use your guns, but now there're moments in which guns are a better alternative to swords and vice-versa. That said, they could've done a better job with it's since bosses like the chopper are pretty boring, all you have to do is hold the square button and tap the dodge button every now and then. It's a good idea, but poorly implemented.

 And you can't deny all this game did for the series. It introduced a dodge button, about time, and gave us the 'Bloody Palace' mode. And what about all the new nifty thingies like wall running or maintaining, but not increasing, your combo rank with guns? It also let you switch guns on the fly, although not swords, for whatever reason. I think the problem with the game is that they wanted to make a more adventure-like game, thus the speedier and floatier movement, making guns something you have to use, larger environments... but they were trying to keep the game faithful to the first game too, thus why there's so much squandered potential.

Guns get more prominence and use in this game.

 Y'know, I'm gonna bump up the score 0.5 points. Yes, there're boring segments, and yes, there're clashing gameplay elements that don't mesh very well and yes, there're two characters that are pretty much the same, with pretty much the same stages and weapons that are pretty much the same... but I had fun playing the game. It's a more 'turn off your brain' affair that focuses on being stylish, looking cool and letting the player look cool... but without depth. It's easily the weakest game in the franchise, but it has its good moments.
 6.5 out of 10