Review #542: The King of Fighters Collection - The Orochi Saga

 A bundle of fighting game nostalgia.

Stylish... the way KoF ought to be!

 Welcome to The Orochi Saga, a collection of five different games: King of Fighters 94, 95, 96, 97 and fan-favorite 98. As with other SNK collections, these are Arcade Ports with very few bells and whistles, the standard bonus art, as well as 'challenges' and bonus arranged music.

 A thing to keep in mind is that, being arcade ports, the difficulty can be rather high, even on the easiest setting. Continuing doesn't even grant you the 'Service' SNK games were known for! Modes are also very lacking, each game has only Arcade, VS Player and a new, somewhat limited, training mode. 'Challenges' are played on KoF 98 and they are silly stuff, like not being able to see the enemies' life bars. The games run relatively well, although the initial loading times are rather lengthy, luckily there's very little in-game loading, the worst culprit being '97. Lastly, controls feel a bit unresponsive on a few games, since they require very precise inputs, you can't just do the shoryuken motion with Right, Down, Down-Right, Right+Punch, you gotta end it exactly at down-right.

Fatal Fury veterans reunite on the battlefield.

 '94  was the very first King of Fighters(Well, technically, Fatal Fury was the first one) and it introduced the staple 3 vs 3 team matches. There's no arrange team so you gotta play as pre-selected teams. Your energy bar fills very slowly when you get hit, so you have to charge it by holding down a couple of buttons, and there's also a dodge move and a knock back move. Seeing these old sprites has its charm, but 94 is not a game you'll spend much time on.

 '95 is pretty much more of the same, but now you can select any three characters and play as a custom team. It also introduced Iori Yagami, the series break-out character. If you liked '94 you'll like '95 even more.

 Poor Sports-Team, only two appearances in over 10 games! And you can own both of them with this disc!

 '96 was the series's first major face-lift. Sure, a lot of sprites were redrawn in '95, but not as many. Sprites are much better, and characters look more badass than ever before... except Benimaru, who lost his neck. The dodge move turned into a dodge. All things considered, '96 was a great game, a great roster and an overarching story that began in 95 and promised to continue the next year...

 '97 shakes things up, now you can play in either Advance or Extra Mode. Extra mode plays pretty much like previous games, but Advance gives you a more streamlined energy gauge, one that charges as you hit and get hit. Since energy stocks are a thing now, you can be more strategic with your team, you may want a character to build up energy stocks for other to use. I liked 97 a ton, and it looked like the series was only improving.

Yamazaki's crazy streak continues in King of Fighters.

 '98 is the final game in the disc, and is one of the most beloved KoF games. Can't say I share the sentiment, since my heart belongs to the NESTS saga, and even Ash's saga was more entertaining that the Orochi one. Regardless, this is a Dream game, it plays just like '97 but brings back almost every playable character from previous years. Honestly, there're better versions of 98 available, even on the PS2, but this is probably the more affordable one. Although this version comes with a nasty but tolerable, audio bug in which the announcer will say 'winner' or 'perfect', depending on how the last round ending, when announcing the start of a new round.

 Orochi Saga was... something I didn't expect to like as much as I did. I didn't care much about KoF until K' brought the NESTS saga, but these first games were quite enjoyable, if to a lesser degree than what is to come. Minor shortcomings aside, this is a great collection to own if you're a fan of King of Fighters.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #541: Ape Escape 2

 Worth going bananas for.

Just a taste of what's to come!

 Ape Escape is one of Sony's most untapped franchises, heck, look at the box, this one was published by Ubisoft instead of Sony themselves, and it's one of the few games that we actually got overseas. What is Ape Escape? They are platform games with a twist, or two, firstly, the collectibles are monkeys and secondly, the games make extensive use of both analog sticks.

 Jimmy, the protagonist, messes up which causes Specter, the evil albino monkey, to regain power and thus empower and control other monkeys, 300 in all. Now the monkeys are going bananas all over the world and it's up to Jimmy to catch them all again. To say that the game doesn't take itself seriously is an understatement, heck, monkeys can be found wearing the most ridiculous costumes and doing ridiculous stuff. Nothing was laugh-out-loud funny, but it's endearing nonetheless.

Stages are beautiful and fun to explore. You'll have to use your gadgets in order to clear them.

 The game is divided into 20 or so small stages, and each one has a its own amount of monkeys to catch. You don't need to catch every monkey in order to proceed, but you do need to collect every monkey in order to fight the true final boss and unlock Spike, Ape Escape 1's protagonist, as a playable character. He plays just like Jimmy but has no cutscenes and has access to all gadgets from the get-go. One tiny issue I had is that the game forces you out of a stage as soon as you captured the minimum amount of monkeys required to proceed, as a completionist like myself this was a bit annoying since it meant having to return to the stage and retread old ground. And just wait until you find out that you are not really done, defeating the (fake)final boss unlocks the final gadget... and 1-2 monkeys on every previous stage, so I did every stage about 3 times. Heck, sometimes stages have monkeys that can't be caught since you haven't gotten the right gadget yet! The game is a blast so I didn't mind it too much, but it would've been nice being able to exit the stage whenever I felt like.

 Controls are fairly intuitive, the left analog stick moves Jimmy around and the right analog stick uses your equipped gadget. The net, used to catch monkeys, works just like the energy baton: move the right analog stick wherever you want to attack. You spin the right analog stick in order to use the gyro copter or the running wheel, or you tilt backwards in order to use the bananarang, etc. There're about 10 gadgets, and they can be put on any face button for quick access. Sadly, as you can tell, there're many more gadgets than buttons, so expect to return to the gadget equip screen fairly often. It's just a button press away, Select, but I can see it annoying a few people. Lastly, R1 and R2 jump, L1 is used to position the camera behind you, L2 goes into first person and pressing both analog sticks lets Jimmy crawl on the ground, for stealth purposes or dodging.

Bonus character Spike plays just like Jimmy but has his own voice clips.

 Since both analog sticks are used for gameplay the camera can be a bit finicky, but the L1 button works well enough most of the time. The camera during boss battles can be worse though, since it's easy to lose focus on a few bosses. Regardless, during normal gameplay you can manage just fine with the L1 button.

 Peppered through every stage, and hidden inside enemies, are coins which can be collected and spent on a Gatcha machine in order to unlock a huge plethora of extras, including three minigames. It's way more addictive than it has any right to be.

Stealth is not mandatory, but you might skip on the monkeys' shenanigans if you alert them.

 Ape Escape 2 is one of the finest platform games on the PS2. The gameplay is great fun, thanks to its fun mechanics as well as great level design. It's a bit on the easy side, but there's a lot of monkeys to collect, a lot of stages to traverse and a lot of silly extras to unlock.
 9.0 out of 10

Now Playing: inFamous - Second Son & Ape Escape 2

 Second son, third game.

 So... I just meant to install this game, but turns out there was no install so I kinda started playing it...
 My very first impression was... not good. I got control of Delsin and quickly found out that Water kills you instantly, which I thought was lame. Then I discovered that Delsin couldn't climb quite as efficiently as Cole, which was also disappointing.

 But I kept on playing, I'm up to the part in which you rescue the bus full of people and I'm enjoying the game a lot. It's very smooth, and I just hope that traversing the environment is as fun as it was on the previous games.

 I'm rather fond of Delsin too, I heard he was an unlikable protagonist... but nothing he's don was particularly douchebaggy, instead he's acting as I'd expect a trouble-child would after obtaining powers. I'm loving his banter with his brother!

The game is great, but the cover isn't very descriptive...

 Well, since the Uruguayan customs suck and every time a package gets retained it means they will handle it like garbage... I'm rushing Ape Escape 2 since I want to make sure the disc is OK, considering the box got crushed and the splinters scratched the disc.

 I'm somewhere near the end of the game, I kinda binged through the game, and I'm adoring it. I remember liking this game a lot back when I was younger, but right now I'm loving every second. As a matter of fact I'm catching every single monkey. I love this game.

Review #540: Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 - Road to Boruto

 Naruto's most disappointing Storm yet.

Hideous cover. Should've kept the old one.

 CyberConnect 2 is a company that usually gets a lot of flak for being lazy and... this game isn't helping their case. A disappointing game bundled with its disappointing DLC, Ultimate Ninja Storm is anything but a fitting end to the series that promised so much.

 Well, Story mode has changed a bit, now being split in an episode-based Story Mode and an Adventure Mode that takes place after the story. The Story mode follows the final parts of Naruto's story, which sees Naruto fighting deities and finally reuniting with Sasuke. Story mode had usually been a highlight in the franchise but they managed to ruin it. About 3/4ths of the story is told through ugly anime stills, usually featuring off-model characters, instead of the beautiful 3-D cutscenes CC2 was known for. It's incredibly offputting and cheap, and they only stopped using them because the anime hadn't gone that far into the manga. Losing the ability to freely roam around is also missed, this episode structure feels very disjointed. As for the adventure mode, there're three chapters, one for Naruto, one for Shikamaru and a final one for Gaara, they are silly scenarios that will barely hold your interest, but they have various sidequests and things to do, so there's no shortage of content here... it's a shame most of it is rather dull and repetitive, 'Go find X thing for me', 'Pick up Y things' or win simple fights. Boruto gets his own Story Mode which is a return to form for the series, featuring Adventure Mode's free roam as well as the gorgeous cutscenes from story mode, it's a shame Boruto's movie, the story it covers, isn't very interesting. Rounding up the package are the usual VS and online VS modes you've come to expect.

The particle effects are much nicer, but it doesn't look all that much better than it used to.

 If story mode wasn't disappointing enough, the character roster sure is. There're only 13 new characters, mostly made up of new forms of Naruto, Sasuke, Obito and Madara. They have different animations and models, true, but being just new forms makes them rather dull. What's most disappointing is how many characters we're missing, like the mist swordsmen or a few reanimated enemies, many which already had character models and animations from Ultimate Storm 3. Road to Boruto is even MORE disappointing, there're many enemies with animations and movesets that are simply unplayable, instead we get a total of THREE Borutos(Which share a lot of moves), TWO Saradas(Which share a ton of moves) and new versions of adult Naruto and Sasuke... which are reused character models that share some animations with their previous versions. All of that and not a single playable Boruto villain. To call the character roster underwhelming is an understatement. At least the game includes the Sound Ninja DLC, which should've been part of the roster since the first game. To add insult to injury, 90% of the DLC costumes, thankfully also included, return from Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 and quite a few costumes remain Story mode exclusive. Cyber Connect 2? More like Cutting Corners 2 much.

 Gameplay is basically the same as usual, but with a few novelties. The system from Revolution is gone, thankfully, so now you can Awaken or use Ultimate Justsu at will. A good new addition is that you can customize which Jutsu and Ultimate Jutsu to use with a few characters, which should've been a great idea but is very limiting, for instance, Minato can't use Reanimated Minato's awakening or ultimate jutsu, which sucks since reanimated characters are ugly, but Reanimated Minato can use any of Minato's skills(Sans awakening). That's a great idea executed halfway decently. A good addition is tagging, by using the right analog stick you can switch between any of up to three characters, all of them sharing a single life bar. Lastly, there's chakra counter, by shortening, for a short while, your maximum chakra you can repel any attack directed your way, if you time it right. There're some framerate issues here and there, but it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be. Still, this game looks almost exactly as it looked on the PS3, the particles are better, and still only runs at a barely stable 30 fps. What the hell? Take away tagging and this game could've perfectly run on a PS3. So the money didn't go into making new characters, didn't go into a decent story mode and didn't go into enhancing production values, so where was it spent? Only CyberConnect 2 knows.

Road to Boruto's DLC is one of the most lackluster DLCs I've ever seen.

 If you've been playing the series sporadically, skipping a game here and there, or if this is your first Ultimate Ninja Storm game, you might think it's a very good game. But us who have been here since the start(Or Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 in my case) know just how badly CyberConnect2 cut corners with this one. This game was gonna bring closure to the franchise, this was supposed to be the best Naruto game, the ULTIMATE Ultimate Ninja Storm. But CyberConnect 2 managed to disappoint and tried to demonstrate why so many people call them lazy.
 6.0 out of 10

Review #539: Samurai Shodown Anthology

 A history lesson of 2-D Samurai.

The art is absolutely badass.

 Samurai Shodown's one of the most famous and unknown fighting games around. It's unknown because not many people know about it, surprisingly, and the fact that the latter titles in the series were bland dug its grave even deeper, but it's also famous because those of us that love fighting games recognize it as the first 2-D fighting game in which characters almost exclusively employ weapons.

 Anthology is quite the package, featuring almost the entirety of the series' 2-D run with Samurai Shodown I, II, III, IV, V and VI. Not only are you getting fantastic arcade perfect renditions of all six games, you also get a few bells and whistles like art galleries and the amazing color-edit mode, with which you can edit a character's color palette! The cherry on top is getting to see how the series evolved, changed and, eventually, started to decline. 

It's amazing how great the series looks by the sixth installment.

 Samurai Shodown 1 is very dated by today's standards, featuring stiff movement and somewhat ugly sprites. There's two slash buttons and two kick buttons, and pressing both buttons of either type produces a strong version, for a total of 6 different basic moves. There're also special moves that you can perform by inputting different directions on the directional pad. Samurai Shodwown is, unlike other fighters, centered around landing hits and looking for openings as opposed to trying to link together long combos. As it stands, the game isn't particularly bad, but every other game leaves it in the dust.

 Samurai Shodown 2 is a huge improvement, sprites are pretty and the game feels much more smooth. It also introduces super moves that you can perform when you are in Rage Mode. It's aged much better than the previous game and remains quite playable to this day.

The sixth game has a handful of new characters... and they are quite good designs.

 The game looked better before, but as of Samurai Shodown III it's gorgeous. Every sprite has been beautifully redrawn, and this is the style that subsequent games will follow. III introduces SLASH and BUST versions of every character, basically, each character gets two different movesets, some characters being more pronounced than others. Controls have been changed, now there're three different types of slashes(Weak, Medium and Strong) as well as a single kick button. Samurai Shodown III feels great t play, and in my opinion, is one of the better games in this anthology.

 Samurai Shodown IV is more of the same, but III was so good that this is a good thing. The character roster has seen some changes, quite a few characters are gone... but a handful of new ones are introduces, including Kazuki Kazama, my favorite character in the franchise. These last two games would be the peak of the franchise, because...

Over 40 playable characters, trust me, there's fun to be had even if you prefer the older games.

 Samurai Shodown V comes next, and... it's not pretty. Well, it looks pretty, but the end result isn't. Firstly, this is the original release of V, which is lacking blood effects and fatalities, something that would be addressed in V Special, which sadly is missing from this anthology. Controls have changed again, we've lost the dedicated Strong slash button, which sucks since now you have to resort to using both slash buttons again, and instead got a 'special' button that works as a jumping dodge. What a lame addition. Slash/Bust versions of each characters are gone. On the plus side, I enjoyed the new characters like Enja and Suija, as well as Nobuhiro Watsuki's original designs. V is not a bad game, but it's not a step in the right direction.

 Finally there's Samurai Shodown VI and your mileage may vary on this one. This is a dream game that pits all characters in a festival, so no blood effects or fatalities. Every single character that was ever playable in the series returns, and if he hasn't been seen since the second game he also gets a brand new sprite. All returning sprites have been brightened up a bit, making for a far more cheerful game. Controls are back to the III-IV, which is a huge plus. Sadly, the game feels a tad slow, and while I love having all these many characters I can't shake off the feeling of wanting to be playing III or IV instead. VI was a good game to end the series on, but not the best it's been.

CPU-Enja is quite the bastard, he can shave off a half of your health bar in a single combo.

 If you've ever enjoyed a Samurai Shodown game, or if you've a passing interest in the series, this disc comes highly recommended. You get the entire(mostly) history of the numbered series in one tight, neat package. That said, be warned that the first four games are VERY difficult, even on the easiest difficulty setting. These ports are arcade-perfect, so they mimic that quarter-muncher, unfair difficulty. Still, every game has a dedicated practice mode and a Versus 2P mode, so you can get your kicks there.

 8.0 out of 10

Review #538: Uncharted 4 - A Thief's End

 Drake returns... both of them.

Don't cry because it's over, be happy that it didn't end like Dexter.

 Of course Sony wasn't going to just let Uncharted run its course on the PS3, so they brought their moneymaker onto the PS4... and it's glorious. Naughty Dog once again brought their A game in order to prove that if someone can make the most out of Sony's hardware it's them.

 Picking off a few years after Uncharted 3, Nathan and ELena have been married for a while now, leading a normal, mundane life. That is until Naughty Dog decides to alter Uncharted's canon once again, turns out that Nathan had a long-lost brother that he thought was dead, who also taught him how to use the Rope tool, a tool which he gets just use in this game and this game only. But that's OK, we should be used to Uncharted's flimsy plot-devices since the writing is as sharp as ever. The story is very interesting all the way throughout, and the franchise's staple conversations are kept in and are as good as ever. That said, you shouldn't come into Uncharted 4 expecting an fresh, original story because that's never been Uncharted's style, this is an action movie-style plot through and through, with most plot twists being unsurprising or predictable... but at least they are well written, so it's fun seeing everything unravel.

A lot of familiar faces return to send off Uncharted as we knew it.

 Not much has changed, for good or bad. Nathan and his AI-controlled buddies are as nimble and athletic as ever, being able to climb, cling onto or vault on various surfaces and objects. There'll be a lot of climbing and parkouring around, as per usual, and this game introduces a rope into your move repertoire. L1 can be used to throw your rope towards designated poles or objects in order to swing around... or climb up or down the rope. Heck, sometimes you'll have to tie objects with your rope and then pull them towards you. The rope is more than just a gimmick and made for some fun new platforming sections.

 Another change is the addition of bigger areas, which, as a consequence, also meant the addition of vehicles. There're a few instances in the game in which you'll have to traverse long distances by car or boat. These control well, and I admit that there were some very entertaining puzzles involving the car's winch, but I don't think I'm a fan of these open areas. The game works better when it's a linear adventure, these vehicle sections felt like they made the narrative fall into a lull. Sure, you can explore and find secret collectibles, but... why bother? Rewards aren't tangible, hell, the reward in Uncharted is to follow the story, not to go out of your way for little trinkets. Still, I appreciate the idea of bigger areas, I just think they don't fit the game very well.

It's not even funny how great the game looks.

 Combat has changed even less, in close quarters Nate can punch, dodge or mash triangle when he falls victim to a grab. Gunplay is pretty much exactly the same as before, so there's nothing to add on that front. If anything, I felt shootouts were much fairer than in previous games, presumably because normal enemies aren't as much of damage sponges as they used to be. Plus, stealth works better here than in any other Uncharted game, with the addition of tall grass in order to hide... or hide bodies with stealth kills.

 As a whole, the game manages to capture most of the action and excitement that made the series so special but... the bar has simply been raised TOO high by previous games. Shootouts, chases, escaping falling buildings are all very exciting, and the phenomenal graphics makes everything look amazing but it's missing such unique, epic set-pieces as the train battle from Uncharted 2 or the sinking ship from Uncharted 3. I didn't feel as if I was doing anything that I hadn't done in a previous Uncharted game, even if it looked better than ever before.

Everything is better with aerial punches.

 Uncharted 4 is everything it needed to be and everything it should've been for Uncharted's first foray into the PS4. It's also a fitting end to the franchise that basically defined the PS3. I think we should all take a moment to appreciate just how much the franchise has evolved from that crappy little PS3 game that had imprecise controls, unfair combat and stupid QTEs to the brilliant bar-setter it became.

 9.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Tomb Raider & Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 - Road to Boruto

 A beauty and a beast.

She's got a big pair of guns.

 I'm loving what little I've played so far, and this can't be nostalgia speaking since I never played much of this one! I first started with Tomb Raider 2 and got all the way up to the Last Revelation before I finally came across TR 1... and it was a DOS game that was having trouble running on my then-modern PC. And when I finally got it running it looked like garbage, so it never manage to arrest my attention.
 But I got to the third level already and I'm enjoying it quite a bit, despite its clunky controls. It's fun, environments are interesting and the game manages to rope you into the adventure quite strongly

Ugh, what an ugly cover.

 What a disappointment. I'm about 25% through the Story Mode and... I can't help but feel like this is the laziest game CC2 has ever made. The story is, at least so far, told through horrible anime stills, a lot that feature characters looking off-model. As for new characters, there's mostly new forms of Naruto, Sasuke, Obito and Madara, while we are still missing a bunch of characters like the mist swordsmen. As a matter of fact, just like Ultimate ninja Storm 3, this game has a ton of unplayable NPCs that should've been playable. The Road to Boruto additions are even worse, who needed 2 Saradas and three Borutos? Give me the villains, please.
 This is a horrible way to end the series.