Review #509: Crimson Tears

 Tears will be shed... but for many different reasons.

The cover might've worked if the characters weren't unknowns.

 Do y'remember Dream Factory, per chance? They were involved in Ergheiz, Tobal and The Bouncer. While Ergheiz and Tobal were fighting games, they also had a rogue-like RPG submode, remember? It kinda played like a beat'em, like The Bouncer. Well, Dream Factory collaborated with Spike to create a full game out of their tried and tired formula. Welcome to Crimson Tears, a beat'em up/rogue-like RPG fusion.

 The story... was way too weird and way too uninteresting for me to care. You play as any of three ridiculous looking cyborgs('Mutanoids' in the game), Amber, the leader that sports a glorified swimsuit, Kadie, a quirky blonde girlie girl that looks like any other fanservicey Japanese female character design and Tokio, a dude that's wearing a tank-to two sizes too small. And they collaborate to bring down other stripperific-looking androids. Character design is awful, the story is unintelligible Japanese mumbo jumbo that tries to appear deep but is just nonsense. You will not be playing this game for its story.

Character design is trash, but the game is worth it I swear.

 Luckily, the gameplay is pretty darn good. Square punches and X kicks, while triangle performs a super move that makes the Heat gauge rise(More on this later), circle shoots your equipped gun, L1 can be used to perform a short hop backwards, that seems useless until you realize that you're invincible throughout the entire animation and R1 can be used to block. The combat is amazing, making combos feels very organic and landing hits feels very satisfying. Different enemies have widely different attacks and tells, as well as some will react differently to different moves, so you can't just juggle every enemy with the same combo. It's a fantastic beat'em up engine. Now, add to this the fact that all three characters have very different movesets, even when they can equip the same weapon. Oh, weapons, there're swords, knives, claws and gloves and every character has different equipment. Tokio can only equip two-handed swords or gloves but is the only one that can equip a few exclusive guns. Amber can equip a knife, two knives, one handed swords or even two one-handed swords, as well as gloves. Lastly, Kadie is the only character that can equip claws, but she can also use one-handed swords and two-handed swords. And remember, even though Kadie and Tokio can use two-handed swords, they wield them in different ways. All this variety makes it rather disappointing that the game doesn't have a two-player co-op mode.

 Alright, so if the game is SO good, why did it fell through the cracks? Why doesn't more people know about this game? Well.... because this is also a roguelike game. There're eight dungeons, as well as a secret ninth in which you can unlock Retro Capcom costumes(Like Amber in Chun-li's clothes or Tokio in Ryu's), and they are all randomized squared areas with no personality. You go from room to room, searching for keycards to open up the teleporter to the next floor. I will admit that dungeons have very different themes, and each theme has a few exclusive pieces which in and of itself already makes it less repetitive than Persona 3's dungeons but still makes progression a bit rigid. You aren't waiting to play a new setpiece, nor will you get exciting moments like, say, an explosion altering the stage.... it's just square room after square room after square room after square room. 

Characters have the personality of a brick and less development than a rock.

 Then there's the difficulty: The game is hard, man! The first boss will easily kick your butt until you get comfortable with the controls. And as soon as you think you've got it, the game will throw blue-demon dogs at you, that steal your hard-earned items with a single bite and then escape. And then you're thrown into a massive 10-floor dungeon with two bosses. And all throughout the game you'll have to deal with Heat. Your character is an android, and as time passes he or she will overheat. Certain actions, like blocking, Super Moves or evading make it rise even faster and once it fills... you'll become extra strong and extra fast... as you defense gets halved and you'll start losing health constantly. Eventually, the Overheat status can go away... but it will leave you with less than 10% of your total health. There're items to reduce the heat gauge, but you can only carry up to 5 items of each, in an inventory that can only hold 24 items. 

 Alright, so just try to hoard and purchase as many coolant items as you can. Fair enough, but you also need to carry spoils from fallen enemies to upgrade your items. And you also need to carry your weapons. One will not suffice because weapons break with usage... and when you get hit, and if they do, they're gone for good. Items grow stronger the more you use them, but the more you use them the more they break. And there're only two ways to fix them: Be lucky and have them level up when you defeat an enemy... or run back to town and fix them for a fee. So: You need to carry multiple weapons, you need to carry coolants to keep your temperature in check, you also need to carry healing items, you also need to carry scavenge, you also need to be careful that your weapons don't break or get stolen. You can probably see how this game can get pretty hard.

The unlockable Capcom costumes are pretty rad.

 Did I mention that if you die you lose everything? You can also try to rescue your fallen character with one of the other two remaining characters, in which case you'll get to rescue your items as well. It's a tough game. But there's another thing that makes it even harder: The camera. You can't rotate it, so you will get attacked by enemies that you can see. You will fall into traps, like explosive mines, because there was no way that you could've seen them. The camera is the most annoying recurring enemy that you'll face in the game, so get ready to get hurt by stuff you couldn't even see coming.

 I kinda loved Crimson Tears. I'm used to playing rogue-likes and I kinda like them every now and then. The beat'em up mechanics are just brilliant, dealing with the various enemy types was a blast and the animation helped make every blow hurt. That said... this not a game for everyone, and not everyone will get as much mileage from it as I did. You need to be ready to deal with odds against you, with a camera that works against you and to stress over how little you've got left until you overheat and you're all outta coolants. It's a tough game, a game that won't reward your progress but where the fighting is the reward in and of itself as you take down enemies with combos of your own creation.

 8.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Crimson Tears

 Do androids dream of electric sheep?

Attack of the floating heads.

 Maybe I can squeeze one more game before New Year's Eve? Maybe. So what is Crimson Tears? It's a bizarre rogue-like/beat'em up fusion that's actually kinda fun. I already finished the first stage. I think the combat works well, but I hate the fact that weapons break, and the overheat mechanic seems a bit unnecessary.

 The graphics in the game look particularly good, but I can't say I enjoy Japanese oversexualized character designs, there's only so much I can take before I stop taking it seriously. To be fair, the male characters are wearing ridiculous clothes too, but to the same stripperific degree. The story seems a bit dumb too.

 In summation, I'm liking the combat a lot, but character design is awful.

Review #508: Road Trip

 Who said road trips where cheap?

The cover shows you everything that you should expect out of the game.

 Road Trip is not your average racing game, for instance, it's actually part of a longlived series of games called ChoroQ, of which about less than half of its games ever made it outside Japan. These games are based on a popular Japanese line of toy cars, so forget about realism.

 The main mode of the game is Story mode, but there's a 'Quick Race' option, to race in any of 8 tracks with a randomly pre-picked car against random cars as well as a 2 player mode with a few more options. Believe it or not, 'Adventure' is the main dish in this game, a single player mode in which you travel from town to town, performing in races and solving sidequests. This is not your average racing game.

You can even customize your car's speedometer. 

 In the game's world there're no humans, instead it's populated by sentient cars. The President wants to retire and in order to select his replacement he is holding a Grand Prix, so you, being a go-getter, decide to partake in it. But it's not that simple, first you must travel the world and place 6th or higher on six C rank races so that you can get a B-license, then get 6th or higher on the nine B rank races so that you can proceed to A-rank, and finally, after clearing all nine A-rank tracks in 6th or higher, participate in the Grand Prix.

 The story mode is pretty darn great since not only do you have your main goal of winning the Grand Prix, but you've also got a whole slew of side-activities. There're 100 stamps to get, which is done by fulfilling sidequests, simple things like talking to a certain car or a few more involved tasks, like rescuing a kidnapped car by waiting until nighttime and pushing a secret switch behind a bouncer. Some stamps also require collecthatons, like finding all hidden gems or getting every possible NPC into your very own town. There're 100 ChoroQ coins to collect, minigames to find and then there's the customization element. You can buy parts for your car, both cosmetics and inner parts that enhance your performance. As a matter of fact, and to the game's detriment, you'll need to constantly upgrade your car to stand a chance of beating every race. Either that, or do a simple sidequest in Payapaya Island about finding someone's wife that nets you the Jet Propeller, with this you can exchange a bit of fuel, by tapping or holding R2, to activate it and get insane speed. Proper use of the Jet propeller can make races much, much easier.

The racing part of the game is the worst part about the entire game....

 The cosmetic side of things is simple but endearing, there're many different rims and bodies to alter your car, and you can paint your car with a surprisingly robust RGB color dial. As for the other upgrades, these are a bit more in-depth, since, for example, off-road tracks may call for a different set of tires than the ones you've been using for wet pavement. Which sounds great since it adds a bit of strategy to the game, but there's a little big problem: Cash. Earning cash in the game is either tedious or hard. The first thing you can do is try to place high on races, which when you start out nets you up to 800 coins. After a while you can get two team-members and if they place 1-6th they'll also net you money. You can also equip a billboard on top of your car and promote something for a flat rate per kilometer. Eventually you'll realize that your safest bet is to do the first race of whichever rank you are in over and over again, since your CPU allies won't have too much trouble. Oh, and you should also buy parts for them. And then you have to race a bit so that they get used to the new parts. All in all, pretty boring. Worst part about it? You need to outfit your CPUs too since the Grand Prix is a Team effort and the result depends on both you and the CPUs' ranking.

 It's kinda sad how the most boring aspect of the game has to do with the racing, because the adventuring in the game is pretty much fantastic. You're free to explore the world of Road Trip at your leisure. There's a dumb fuel mechanic, but it refills every time you enter a house, and if it runs out you can simply press start and warp to whichever town you want. Regardless, the many different landscapes, the different themed towns and the day-and-night cycle make for a very engaging game, and you can't help but feel like you are in a tiny adventure as you cross bridges, highways and what not. Call me crazy, but the game would've benefited from making the races a sidequest rather than the main goal, or at least giving the player more avenues to make money in order to upgrade and customize your car. For instance, watching your city grow, as you recruit NPCs, is a much more rewarding endeavor.

....but the adventuring is fantastic.

 My final problem with the game were its controls, turning doesn't... doesn't work very well. Even after trying different steering wheels it never felt anything but stiff, only... slightly less stiff. The game could've benefited with drifting mechanics or something to make curves easier to handle. Ironically, for as tough as it is to steer, eventually your car will slide around as if driving through ice. The physics in the game are a bit janky too, your car may sometimes behave a bit weirdly once it hits the air, and the collision between cars feels off, there's no push-and-pull as you collide with another car side-by-side, you both simply kinda stick together. The latter might be intentional as you're supposed to be playing as toy cars... but that doesn't explain why colliding against walls only stops you dead on your tracks.

 The funny thing about Road Trip is that it's a racing game where the Racing part of the game is easily its weakest aspect. And I think the developers knew it which is why you only need to reach the sixth place in every race to qualify. Regardless, the real strength of the game lies in how well it manages to portray what the title of the game promises: A Road trip. An adventure on wheels that takes you from a Urban city, to a feudal Japanese-esque city, to a Casino city in the desert, to... other places that it's best not to spoil. So, it might not succeed at what the developers actually intended to accomplish, but it does succeed in providing a very interesting adventure game... featuring cars.
 8.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Road Trip

 Not the Road Trip I wanted.

That's a pretty good cover.

 Road Trip is a game I've been looking forwards to ever since I heard that it was a racing adventure game, something that I've been wanting to play since I sunk my fangs in Outrun 2006. But the game has been... a bit disappointing. It controls like butt. Seriously, turning the cars is very stiff, even more so than GTA III, which makes the experience a bit excruciating.

 As for the 'Adventure' part of the game, it feels a bit overwhelming. You're thrust in the middle of a city and you're free to basically do whatever you want. There're sidequests, parts to buy, cars to meet and races to partake in. But everything is so... so 'figure it out by yourself, kthxbye'. I dunno, back when I was younger I think I would've like all this freedom, but now I've grow fonder of structure, I would've preferred something like Pokemon 'Go to this city and challenge the race, now go to this other city, etc etc'. For instance, now I grew invested in the Fuji city sidequest about rescuing a kidnapped girlcar, so first I had to wait until it was night time, which was pretty boring, and then I got up to the praying box and... I think I'm missing the ability to jump? I don't know if it will be possible to jump at will, but the only thing that looks like the switch I was told about is a rope I can't reach. So I don't know what I'm missing, but I do know that waiting until it was nighttime was an absolute waste of my time.

 What deserves praise is the customization element. There're loads of part waiting to be bought, cosmetic and otherwise, and the paint customization is pretty neat. I'm riding a Yellow-and-Red tiny car with red rims that looks amazing. Amazing I tell you! Also, I don't think I'll be finishing this game before New Year's Eve, so this'll probably be the first game I finish in 2018.

Review #507: God of War II

 Our favorite angry psychopath is back.

Welcome to die. That quote never falls out of style.

 God of War 1 was pretty flippin' good, and y'know what they say, why fix what ain't broken? And that's the mantra they went with with this game, few things have changed... for good or bad.

 Remember how the first game closed with the narration saying that Kratos would go on to live as the God of War for ever? Well, scrap that, because after being betrayed by the God of Olympus he now finds himself stripped off his godly powers and his life... until a new benefactor joins the scene: Visit the sisters of fate and change your fate by going back in time and taking the Blade of Olympus, the sword that Zeus used to slay the Titans and that now holds Kratos' godly powers, for himself and exact your bloody vengeance upon Zeus. The story is much more straightforward than before, which isn't necessarily bad, but it has a few interesting turns of events. I guess everyone know by now that the game ends on a very nasty cliffhanger, so nasty that God of War 3 picks up exactly where this one left off.

A lot of cyclops were harmed during the making of this game.

 The brunt of the game remains the same as the first game: Weak slash and strong slash attacks, dodging by tilting the right analog stick, blocking and parrying, defeat enemies to collect red orbs to spend on upgrading your weapons and stats, etc. Most of Kratos' moves are exactly the same as they were in the first game, although he gains a few new ones, which, honestly, I didn't really use since the returning attacks are so good. Kratos still has access to magic, albeit his four spells are now different... although you still have a projectile spell and a petrifying spell, so you'll be right at home here. Pressing both analog sticks gave you Rage of the Gods, but now you have Rage of the Titans, which is basically the same: You are invulnerable and stronger for a short while.There're still QTE finishers if you decide to off enemies with grab attacks, as well as mandatory QTEs to finish almost every boss battle. Same ol', same ol'. It worked great the first time around and it still does. To the game's credit, the combat feels a bit tighter and smoother

 The previous game gave you an alternate weapon which was pretty neat... but now you get three! The Hammer, the Spear of Destiny and the Blade of Olympus, which you get on the very last boss so you'll probably only get to use it during a New Game+. Each weapon has their own moveset and style, which is pretty cool. Something that the game does very well is how it handles rewards: You'll get a new move or a new weapon pretty frequently, which helps keep the player engaged. You'll get the ability to slow down time when close to Fates' statues, which helps in combat and to solve puzzles, you'll get the ability to glide as well as the ability to reflect projectiles. Remember how the Medusas would try to petrify you? Now you can reflect their gaze and turn tables around. Yes, there're no truly groundbreaking additions to the game, but these few new abilities do add some spice to the game.

The Cerberus returns, but they are not as tough as they used to be.

 The previous game masterfully mixed combat with puzzle solving, so that you were never doing the same things for a long while and this game is no exception. The puzzles are easier than before, and I'm pretty sure that there's more battling than puzzles, but this game introduced a few boss battles that are actually puzzle bosses and are defeated by figuring out how to defeat them, rather than mashing square and triangle. I preferred the usual hack-and-slash bosses, but the few new puzzle-bosses add a new twist to the game. Beating the game also unlocks challenge arenas, just like the first game, which require both brawn and brawls.

 And now it's time for a few nitpicks: You can't turn on subtitles, which sucks. Beating the game let's you use different costumes, if you unlock them, but there's a few caveats, namely, they alter your stats. Want to use the Hydra armor? Tough luck, now you get more defense but less attack power. The God of War armor looks cool, right? Well, it makes you stronger and sturdier which might not be what you want. In my opinion, costumes are better if they are just cosmetics.

That's just the first boss. The game is every bit the visual spectacle that the first game was.

 God of War 2 is a fantastic game, but only a little teeny tiny bit better than the first game. A lot of fluff was added to make exploration more diverse: Gliding with your newfound wings, reflecting projectiles to open up doors, stopping time.... but that's all it really is: Fluff. The new additions to the combat are neat too, the new weapons are dope, even if I favored the Blades of Athena most of the time and getting to reflect projectiles in combat added a fun new twist to it.... but, but the game would've been almost just as good without them, because the game is better for it. The thing is... this was probably the safest way to go about making a sequel, since God of War 1 was already fantastic and changing things just for the sake of change rarely works well. As it stands, God of War II did what it had to do really well.
 9.0 out of 10

Now Playing: God of War II

 Bigger, badder, better and... balder.

Yup, a couple of years of rest didn't help, he's still angry.

 God of War 1 was pretty good, wasn't it? God of War II immediately sets out to outclass it with an epic starting level. Remember the Hydra? That was small potatoes, now you are fighting a giant colossus. And it's epic. QTEs return, I still hate them. Kratos' basic moveset also returns, which is kinda lame since he will keep the same moves throughout most of his games, and you'll have to unlock them level by level in each.

 Regardless, somehow they managed to make this game feel even smoother than God of War 1, and that game was butter-smooth. Something about how landing hits and the animation flow makes it all feel heavy, but smooth... you have to play it to truly appreciate it.

 I've only played the very first stage and I'm liking it a lot. If I remember correctly I liked this game a lot more than the first one when I first played it, but I'll keep my expectations in check... despite how good this first level felt.

Review #506: Grand Theft Auto III

 One for the history books.

Classic. That's what this cover says.

 Even if you don't play videogames you've heard of Grand Theft Auto, and we've GTA III to thank for that, the game that catapulted the series into the mainstream and became a trendsetter, to an even grander degree than Street Fighter II. For all intents and purposes, GTA III is an undeniable classic, but has it gone out of style?

 The game pits you as the mute, and then unnamed, Claude who gets betrayed, does the time... or some of it, since he gets away after the police vehicle transporting him gets assaulted. Thus begins Claude's story of taking jobs from the mob and the Yakuza until he gets to have his sweet revenge. The story is much less present than in future games, and while you can tell that a few characters, like Asuka, have very distinct and engaging personalities and quirks it's not as pronounced as it would be in future games. There're a few interesting characters waiting to be met, but you might be left wanting to learn more of them.

Claude be rolling, they be hatin'.

 While not the first sandbox game ever, this one is the one that set the standard. You're left to your own devices on a wide, open city. A random passerby looks at you funny? Kill him. Fancy a ride? Steal it. Fancy doing paramedic missions? Steal an ambulance and bring wounded people to the hospital. But be careful, cause too much mayhem and the police will be on your tail, ready to catch you, rid you of your weapons and forcing you to pay the bail. And once you tire of all of this, just run to the nearest named NPC and complete missions, from tailing people, murdering people, performing in races, stealing cars and what have you. There's a nice variety of missions to partake in and you'll never be doing the same things for too long, since they like putting twists here and there.

 Most of the missions involve driving and can be finished without stepping out of the driver's seat, and that's for the best since the shooting is clunky to say the least. You must get withing a certain distance of the enemy and hold R1 to aim at them, and then hope that your bullets travel in the right way towards their target. Some weapons will root you to the ground, while others let you shoot while running. Regardless, most firefights feel as if it depends on luck whether you get hit or not. Dying or getting arrested means losing all your weapons and ammo too, so you might as well just reload your savefile, lest you want to scavenge and spend money on weapons all over again. But don't get too attached to your supplies, the final mission takes away all your coveted guns and ammo. Lame!

The construction site is one of Liberty City's few memorable places.

 Mind you, while driving has aged better than gunning, it has aged nonetheless. Cars feel stiff to turn, yet will easily slip if it rains. They also seem very fragile and will spin out when bumping tiny obstacles. You have almost no control of the camera, you have to hold L2 to look to the left, R2 to look to the right and hold both to look behind you, but you don't get all 360 degrees of camera control. It's even worse on foot, since you can only look behind you by holding R3. To say that the camera sucks is an understatement. The cherry on top is that there's no big map of the Liberty City, you only get the mini-map... which is lacking icons for Pay 'n Sprays(Shops to fix your car or change your car's paintjob and thus elude the police) and Ammunation(Gun shops) which is pretty lackluster. Lacking a big map hurts the most though, some missions are tougher because you aren't too sure of where you're going to.

 Another issue is Liberty City itself: It's boring. The city is made up of a lot of grays and dull-looking buildings and architecture. It's a boring city that lacks color or memorable landmarks. Both issues are addressed in subsequent games, mind you, but it's hard not to notice just how dull GTA III's city is in comparison to future games' cities. Another problem are the gangs, you'll make enemies in the city and they're deadly, it gets so annoying that combing the city for stuff that you're missing, any of the 100 hidden packages or the optional telephone missions, becomes a hassle since there's always someone on your tail, and some gangs are downright deadly with their firepower. It also gets annoying since in this game the police will only target you, and if you fire back and there's a cop nearby, well, the cop will join the gang in taking you down. Fun.

The Police Department is a good place to stock up on shotgun ammo.

 All things considered, the game has held up relatively well. The controls while clunky are serviceable, and you can get used to them. You won't like how guns work, but you can get used to them. But even then, the missions in the game are pretty fun, and it's always interesting seeing what comes next. That said, while the game can still be fun to this day, there's something that can't be denied: Every single GTA game that came afterwards blows this one completely out of the water, to the point that there's almost no reason to return to this rendition of Liberty City unless you're interested in GTA's 3D roots. And that's the problem: Future games improved too much upon it, fixing what didn't work and polishing what did.
6.5 out of 10