Game #1095: Risk of Rain 2

It's raining spacemen, halleluiah, it's raining spacemen!

 Risk of Rain 2 is yet another indie roguelite, in this case, it's a third-person shooter-thing in which you must go from world to world by activating various portals. It's also one of the very few game that uses the touch pad on the Switch's screen... even if only to navigate menus.

 The first thing that should be said... is that the game is incomplete. The game inside the cart is incomplete. Sure, they have added about two new characters, a proper ending and final boss as well as artifacts through free patches, but the game shipped incomplete, no two ways about it. Mind you, I'll also mention that I played the game unpatched, as I always do, and I came out quite satisfied with what is on the cart, but having features advertised as 'coming soon' left a bitter taste on my mouth.

 In the game you play as any of 7 character classes, each character being very unique, having 3 offensive skills and a defensive skill, all of them running on a cooldown timer, although the basic attack can be used indefinitely. The objective of the game is simple: Grow stronger, activate the portals and get to the Obelisk. It's a constant battle through time, as the game gets harder and harder the longer you play, so it's in your best interest to find the portal quickly, activate it, defeat the boss and get to the next planet. But not too quickly, you'll want to murder as many of the endlessly spawning enemy as you can, for not only do you level up, but you'll want to open chests to find various items that will grant you various perks and buffs, like barriers, healing, missiles and even equipment that takes your X button slot, granting you a fifth ability. And finding duplicate items isn't even a negative, since effects can stack growing stronger and stronger. And did I mention the items appear ON your character? They end up looking so goofy!

 The game is a bit small in scope, there are about 7-8 different worlds/biomes, and they are pretty small. The maps themselves never change, but the placement of the chests, their contents and the teleporter always changes, and which boss you get when you activate the teleporter is somewhat random too. I found the teleporter a bit hard to find sometimes, which I think was addressed with one of the patches. I suggest giving the game a few chances and starting on the easy difficulty. When I first tried out the game... I hated it. I didn't understand it, I activated the portal, a huge boss spawned and murdered me. I didn't understand anything, probably didn't even understand the controls. Months later, specifically now, I tried it again and I liked it. And I kept playing over and over and over again, the game definitely sank its teeth in me.

 I think it's a bit of a mistake to hide characters behind somewhat obscure unlock conditions. At first you only have the Warrior, which is fine, and before you unlock anyone else, he is pretty. Then I unlocked the Huntress, which was made unlocked by default in a future patch, and.... I hated her, I did, I found her super awkward to use.... until I got a few worlds in and I understood how to play her, I didn't like her as much as the warrior, but she wasn't half bad, and I got my first game clear with her, unlocking the Mercenary. The Mercenary is the game's single melee class, and he sucked.... until I got a few worlds in and I fell in love with him, absolutely my favorite class, he grows stronger the more on-kill effect items you get on him. The thing is, every character is incredibly unique, in both how the traverse the environment and play, which is why I feel the game should come with more characters unlocked by default, or make them simpler to unlock, because I feel players would get so much more enjoyment out of the game if the could find their favorite class faster and easier.

 The game can be played in multiplayer, which I bet is amazing, but online only. And, almost as if to make up for the fact that the game shipped incomplete, this release includes the original Risk of Rain. It's basically the same game but in 2-D. A lot of enemies, items and characters originated here, in their pixelated glory, and I got a kick out of seeing the same exact gameplay but in 2-D, it works really well this way too! I found RoR 2 to be more fun, but RoR 1 is definitely worth a look, if anything, it almost feels like a demake, at least if you play RoR 2 first like I did!

 I'm not happy that Risk of Rain 2 released incomplete, but, BUT, thankfully what is on the cart is really fun and the rest of the game came out as free updates. As far as my taste goes, I didn't find it as fun as Dead Cells, but it's a good way to pass some time, just try not to get hooked while on your workvshift.

 8.0

Game #1094: Rampage - Total Destruction

  Total destruction of a franchise.

 Can you totally murder a franchise is most of the games in said franchise were awful to begin with? Rampage: Total Destruction tries to answer that question with astounding effort. First and foremost, I was actually looking forward to this game. I watched video reviews trashing it, but thought that the game looked decent, like something I could like. I was wrong.

 Like with previous games in the series, it's all about leveling a city as a giant monster, but now in pseudo-3D. Y'see, the game is still played on a bi-dimensional plane, however, now there's depth to the playing feel, so you can move into the foreground or background. The game does little to take advantage of this, there are a few buildings hidden behind others, but very few and they add nothing to the game. Bizarrely, there are invisible walls to the left and right of the map, as previous games would just loop the stage, as if it was a circular plane or something, which made the gameplay flow a little better.

 The game offers 30 monsters, although you've to unlock over 20 of them, and unlocking them is kinda somewhat random, as they may appear inside building windows, and hopefully you notice them or catch them before you destroy the building. All 30 characters are skin-swaps. a few have a few more unique-looking 3-D models, but for all intents and purposes, every character plays the same, they simply have different stats. You can unlock four different super moves, shared between all characters, by fulfilling special goals on each stage, which... is something, I guess? The game also offers Arcade versions of the first Rampate and World Tour. Being Arcade ports means no picking your character. Lame!

 So... there's so much wrong with the game I don't even know where to start. Let's go with the problems that the series has carried since the very first game: The core gameplay is super repetitive by nature and the game's premise quickly groes old. The game has like 50 3-minute long stages, but you've seen everything the game has to offer by the third stage. There are a few unique-looking buildings on every city, but they add absolutely nothing to the gameplay.

 As for what this game does even worse.... The controls. Climbing buildings is super awkward. Previous games played entirely in 2-D, so it was easy, you simply moved towards the side of a building and if you pressed Up on the d-pad you'd climb it. Easy, simple. In this game, it takes a while for the game to decide if you are trying to climb it or awkwardly walk towards it because reasons. You can also climb them from the front, but same issue. And some low buildings you can't even climb for whatever reason, forcing you to jump on them just to annoy you.

 This third dimension only makes things more awkward, it's hard to aim your punches and kicks towards enemies, even picking up people to eat can be a hassle. But the worst part about it? While climbing a building it's hard to aim at which window you want to hit, which can make it hard to grab items before they disappear, including unlockable monsters. The whole damage system is weird, sometimes you won't understand why the building went down so quickly, other times you'll wonder why it's not coming down since you basically broke every darn window. It makes no sense and it's super annoying. In previous games it was super easy to tell why a building was still standing.

 By city 5 the game becomes unfairly hard. Everything and everyone is out to murder you, with carpet bombings happening very frequently to the player's annoyance, making a boring game annoyingly boring. Add to that how slow the game feels and... yeah, it's not much fun.

 The Rampage series doesn't have very good games, and it has aged like milk, but this particular entry in the series is atrocious. It may look fine, it did to me, but once you play it you'll quickly realize how poorly it plays and how boring it really is. Like really, the best way to play Rampage is not to play it at all, but if you absolutely must, one of the home releases of World Tour is the one to get.

 2.0

Game #1093: Heart of Darkness

  A story about a boy and his dog... and murderous black shadows that will eat him alive. E for Everyone.

 How Heart of Darkness managed to score an E rating is one of history's most mysterious mysteries, as this is a 2-D sidescroller in which a very young kid gets murdered over and over and over again by gruesome monsters. Most of the time, the only things that will be left of him will be his shoe or his cap. This is a children's game.

 This is one of those cinematic 2-D platformers like Prince of Persia or Out of this World, which place emphasis on methodical platforming, taking your time to proceed... when allowed, while solving trial-and-error puzzles to proceed. There's a difficulty selection in the options menu, I suggest you dial it down to easy, because the game can be frustrating. At least you get infinite lives. And the game is super short, say, 2 hours give or take.

 There are two things that Andy is able to do at all times: Jump and Run, and depending on when you are in the game, you'll either be able to defend yourself with an electric gun or energy balls. As you go through the game, you'll be presented with multiple puzzles and obstacles that you must clear in the right order and quick reflexes unless you want to be burned to death, fall to your death, get eaten alive or the such. It's incredibly trial and error, you will die, a lot, each time, hopefully, learning a little bit more about the puzzle and inching closer to the solution. The checkpoint system is not very consistent, sometimes it's very generous, other times you'll have to go through rather long stretches of obstacles before the game decides you deserve one, and... it can be very annoying when you retry the same section over 10 times trying to get every detail right.

 And the fact that controls are stiff and a bit unresponsive doesn't help. For example, the Energy blasts have an alternate, life-giving property, with the Triangle button. Sometimes the triangle button will shoot your basic green pellet instead just because. Sometimes when jumping out of a walk or a run, it may not come out when you want it to, if the jump comes up at all, and you may have a bit of trouble convincing Andy to go down the ladder instead of crouching. It's not too awful, and most cinematic platformers like this one carry the same baggage. 

 Yeah, the game hasn't aged very well... but it's one of the games I used to play on PC back when I was younger, so I have some nostalgia for it. I think its world and presentation are fantastic, mind you, the game looks very rough by today's standards, but I feel like the cutscenes have a lot of heart, as they wanted to make it very cinematic, and I think they succeeded. The plot is quite interesting too, and it has a few fun twists here and there.

 It's a bit clunky, and it's definitely not for everyone, but I feel like Heart of Darkness is a game that everyone should experience at least once. It has a few interesting ideas that I feel are worth putting up with its shortcomings. 

 6.0

Game #1092: Wade Hixton's Counter Punch

  Now this is a proper counter punch to Punch-Out

 Well, my time with Punch King was miserable, so my expectations were quite low before I played Wade Hixton's Counter Punch. Heck, screenshots make it look ugly, with those vectorized sprites you'd find in a PC game from the 90s. But color me surprised, this is probably one of the best games on the system, and that's coming from someone who doesn't like boxing games or Punch-Out

 The presentation, man, the presentation. Even if you're not a fan of the art-direction, the moment you see the game in motion... the animation is great, the characters are very well animated, considering their short frame-count, and the sprites are huge. It feels as if you are playing a cartoon, and it's probably one of the best looking Gameboy Advance games. The game has a single mode: Story Mode, which has Wade's car breaking down and him boxing people just because. There's a brief intro before each fight to add flavor to each character, as well as a briefer scene after you win or lose the fight. The first opponent is always the same, but after you beat him the town opens up, and you can select various locales and take on the rest of the boxers in a more open-ended order. Some, like Min Mel, only opens up after you defeat the first three, and the next bosses unlock in order, but still, you can tackle the first three in any order. You can also accept side missions, such as 'don't get hit' to get extra money, money which you can use to unlock new super moves. That said, the game is rather brief, there are 7-8 total bosses, and maybe to add some filler, super moves can be expensive, so you are encouraged to fight your enemies again to amass money. There's no difficulty option, which means if you are awful, like me, you'll have to get good if you want to proceed. But the game is so much fun that learning the enemies was fun.

 Just like Punch King, this is a Punch-Out clone. You play as a transparent Wade Hixton, with the camera locked behind him, and you have to sway left or right to avoid incoming attacks. The rule of thumb is that right punches are dodged to the left, and left punches are dodged to the right, but enemies have all sorts of special moves that require specific ways to dodge them. A and B are your punches, which can be low punches if coupled with down on the D-Pad. There's a stamina gauge, but it will ONLY go down if your attacks are blocked or dodged, so there's no penalty for attacking the enemy, unlike the much inferior Punch King. Landing hits without getting hit raises your super meter, which allows you to use super moves. Quite clearly, this is not your average boxing game, it's about learning an enemy's tells in order to properly avoid damage and counter-attack.

 Brilliant presentation, responsive and smooth controls as well as a whole lot of soul makes this game quite a treat. You can tell that the people that worked in this game cared about it, and it shows. There's not much content in the game, and I'm guessing that the game's budget was a bit on the lower end, but the game is a top-notch Punch-out clone, and, if you ask me, it might even be better.

 8.0

Game #1091: Punch King

  More like Punch Drunk.

 I don't quite remember if I covered Punch-Out for the Wii in this blog, I think I did, but let me get one thing straight... I'm awful at these third-person reflex-based boxing games, and Punch King won't buckle that trend. It's a Punch out clone, and I'm bad at it, which might taint my experience with the game.

 First of all, I want to praise the modes in this game, which is more than I expected. There's an Arcade Mode that actually features a bit of plot, which adds some flavor to the game, even if it's super basic and just translates to a few bits of dialogue here and there. That said, you only get three continues, so if you are awful like me... good luck getting past the second boxer. There's a Survival mode in which you must take down as many random opponents as you can on one life bar, and then there's a VS mode. The game has about 12 different enemy boxers, all of them are either racial stereotypes(Some bordering on racist), some are Punch-Out knock offs and others are both. The Boxers' portraits are a bit ugly, but the sprites are quite decent, a bit too cartoony and undetailed, for their large size, but overall, quite serviceable, and at least they aren't ugly digitized sprites, like the GBA is so infamous for.

 The game is a Punch-out clone, basically, L and R are used to dodge left and right, A and B are right and left punches, couple them with Back on the d-Pad for body blows or Up for hooks. Landing hits without getting hit raises your Star power, once full you get infinite stamina. And you want infinite stamina, because you run out oh so very quickly. Bosses can be cheesed by punching them, and that's why this mechanic exists, so that you must relent at some point and dodge, dodge and dodge in order to build it up. It's super boring. It recharges super slowly too.

 Just like Punch-Out, and I can't stop mentioning that game because it's such a carbon copy, the whole game is about dodging to the right when a left punch comes in, and to the right when a punch comes from the right, so you'll have to learn your enemy's tells in order to properly dodge the incoming attack. Bosses have at least one super move that has special properties that you'll need to learn how to avoid too. There are two key problems with the gameplay. First of all, the controls feel sluggish and unresponsive at times, but even worse... the timing for your dodges is kinda iffy. And the latter complaint is one I found many other people share, so it's not just me being bad. That said, unresponsive controls plus iffy timing make for a rather annoying experience.

 I wish I could praise the game, but... I just didn't have fun with it. I like the fact that it's a Punch-Out clone 'cause there aren't enough of those, but it simply isn't good enough. I'll give it this, they tried, and I feel that with just a little extra polish to iron out the controls could've made it a decent alternative.

 4.0

Game #1090: The Suffering

  It couldn't be something pleasant like 'The Blissfulness', now could it?

 The Suffering is one of those games that gets brought up every blue moon, since it's a game that many remember in one way or another and enjoyed at the time but didn't have the lasting impact to become a mainstay in horror game conversation. Which is a shame, because it's really good!

 The game just barely edges into survival horror territory because of your limited inventory space, but for all intents and purposes, it's more of a horror-themed third person shooter. You play as a mysterious convict who just moved into a new penitentiary on an Island, under the accusation of murdering his own family. Whether he did or not is up to your actions throughout the game, but that is the least of your worries since things quickly go awry and all manner of grotesque creatures invade the prison, which in a very convenient twist of fate, also allows you a chance at escaping the prison and its nasty new inhabitants.

 You'll spend most of your time shooting at enemies with either dual pistols, a tommy gun or a shotgun... a couple more weapons if you can find them. You can also throw molotvs and dynamite sticks, as well as transform into a monster yourself, when the gauge is full, if you need an extra bit of help. What makes this game edge the survival horror category is that you can carry a limited amount of healing items and ammo, so you'll be leaving supplies behind if you can't carry them while also having to be careful not you run out of supplies. I played the game on the normal difficulty setting and it was just right, forcing me not to rely on just one weapon, and I never even came close to running out of healing supplies. The auto-aiming is decent enough, but you can toggle first person mode at any moment, heck, you could play the entire game in first-person if you so chose, but I feel like Torque moves slower in that perspective.

 There are a few puzzles here and there, and most are quite easy to figure out, although a few others.... are a bit too obscure. In one segment you have to push a vending machine over a great so that the sprinklers in the room will... flood the ground... in order to put out a fire... yeah, it doesn't make much sense, but that's the way it goes. I guess I had to rely on a FAQ once or twice.

 I had much more fun with The Suffering than I thought I would. The gameplay is solid complimented by great monster and level design that keeps you constantly invested in Torque's adventure.  There are a few wonky puzzles here and there, but they don't detract from the game too much, as the shooting and art design have aged fairly gracefully, the former quite probably thanks to how simple it is. It's a decent choice for a Halloween opening course.

 8.0

Game #1089: Sonic Advance 3

  One last spin jump.

 I've been reading a lot about how Sonic Advance 3 has cheap level design and how it's the weakest of the series and.... are the labels of my SA 2 and SA3 carts switched? Because every criticism leveled against SA 3, SA 2 did but worse.

 For this entry, they went a bit wild with the gameplay, adding a new Tag System. Now, you must play as a pair of characters, the CPU taking over your partner and.... just getting hit over and over again. All characters return, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Cream and Amy, the latter three needing to be unlocked by playing as Sonic. There are two elements to the tag system: Tag actions, which are performed by holding down R and specific abilities. Tag actions are universal, whenever Tails is your partner, holding down R will have him carry you and fly, Knuckles will glide with you on top of him, etc. Where it gets interesting is in how your main character's abilities change depending on his or her partner. For instance, Knuckle's basic two-hit combo turns into SA 1's uppercut if paired with Tails. Sonic only has access to the just-defense move with Knuckles as his partner, and can only perform the homing attack with Cream as his partner. You could argue that this is a bit limiting, but I'd argue that it offers more ways to play the game.

 The basic flow of the game has changed too. Now each world is comprised of three stages and a boss, and while there's one world less, for a total of 8, overall, there are more stages than in SA2. Each world has a mini-hub that you must traverse to pick every stage and... it's something I didn't really like. These mini-hubs are boring and feel more like a chore that gets in the way of your progress than anything else.

 Now, as for the level design... I'll give SA2 this, the good levels in that game(1, 2, 3, 4 and 7) are better designed than any level in SA3, because Sonic Advance 3's levels do come with some of the bullshit that plagued SA 2's worst levels(5 and 6). That said, none of the levels in this game are as atrocious as SA2 as its worst, so I'd say this game is much more consistent. Even when I died to bullshit, such as ramps that threw me directly onto spikes or bumpers that led me directly into enemies... it never felt hopeless. I'd just retry the stage a few more times and be done with it, because no stage here is as bad as Sky Canyon. The unfairness level is manageable from beginning to end, which is more than I can say about SA2.

 It's not the grand finale I was expecting for the series, and I admire some of the changes they implemented with the tag system. That said, yeah, there's a fair amount of unfair and almost unavoidable obstacles, since you can't see them coming quickly enough, everywhere which makes the game a bit less fun than it could've been. Honestly, I don't think I'll be revisiting the Sonic Advance Trilogy anytime soon, but at least two out of the three games were decent, and I believe SA 3's tag system makes for an engaging mechanic that the previous two games can't match.

 6.0

Game #1088: Sonic Advance 2

  So this is what it feels like to be DarksydePhil.

 I have fun memories of the Sonic Advance series during my emulation days, back when I was younger, so I've been looking forwards to playing these games. Sonic Advance 1 hasn't aged the best, but it's still a decent game, and when I first popped in Sonic Advance 2... man, it was amazing, it was exactly like SA1 but better. But there's a reason there's such a large gap of time between  my entry on the first game and this one... and that's because after the first few stages the game became an annoying chore, to the point that I absolutely despise this game and I can't believe it received so many high scores back in the day. Thankfully, I managed to find some modern video reviews that hated the game as much as I did, so I'm not alone here.

 First impressions are great, the graphics got overhauled and the sprites look even better than before. The game is faster, and you get a lot of new moves, like a ground pound and a homing attack with Sonic. It's also easier to go faster, and there's a new fifth character, Cream the Rabbit. That said, every character that isn't Sonic must be unlocked and can only be unlocked by playing as Sonic. For some reason they toyed around with the B button attacks, for example, Knuckle's has a two-hit combo, instead of three hits, and Sonic's B now propels him forward a little bit. Since this is a game built on speed, these melee attacks are useless and serve no purpose.

 As I said before, the first half of the game is really fun. Stages are large and have a ton of alternate routes and the bullshit is kept to a minimum. Then comes Sky Canyon. I was stuck here for the longest time, at first because you're never told about the game's new mechanic, Boost-tricks. When you enter boost, while on air, you gain a new set of moves with the R button, and you NEED to use the R-Up air jump to proceed if you don't want to die. And even after you learn that, this level is just poorly designed, lots of bottomless pits and routes that shoot you or direct you towards your death or enemies you just couldn't possibly see coming, and even if you did see coming, if you try to homing-attack them you'll be the one losing rings. The next three stages after this one are just as bad, with routes that seem to lead only to your death and springs and grinds that shoot you directly into pits, spikes or enemies. Supposedly they say that this game brought a new meaning to 'hold right to win', but that only holds true for the first four stages, as the next two are poorly designed garbage. Stage 7 is well designed too, and Stage 8 is just a boss rush. But those two stages from hell ruin the game.

 These two levels are so bad I felt as if I was Darksyde Phil. All the time I was crying and whining about how there was no way to know that was coming up, which is true in this case, and all sorts of excuses, which in this game are actually valid complains. So, if anything, now I know how DSP feels when he plays videogames. And, unlike him, I definitely pressed jump.

 Characters have jumping abilities, like before. Tails can fly for a little while, Cream can fly for a longer time, Sonic has a homing attack and Knuckles glides, as for Rose... I don't know since I couldn't be bothered to unlock her. Thing is... unless you initiate the jump, you won't be able to use these abilities. A lot of times your character will automatically jump off the grind rail or ramp you were running on, and in those cases you can't use your abilities, severely limiting what you can do on air, and it's hard to initiate those jumps since you move so fast. Heck, when jumping off springs you can't use these abilities either. Until you understand this, it feels like the controls are stiff and not responsive. And once you understand it... it feels so limiting.

 Boss fights are automatic scrollers, so you're constantly running to the right. These makes boss fights cumbersome and a bit more annoying than they should. What's worse, trying to pull off any jumping ability(Flight, Glide, Homing Attack, whatever Rose does) will kill your momentum, sliding you to the left, so there's only one way and one way only to tackle these bosses no matter who you are playing as. LAME. And by the by, if you die it's back to the start of the zone, so if you get to a boss after going through one of the annoying stages... it's back to the first zone. Good luck, have fun. Bosses, as a whole, feel rather gimmicky and based a bit on luck, so they weren't much fun. And what about boss 7? You're never told that you can shift gravity pressing up and down, as it's not a mechanic anywhere else in the game. The previous stages did play with gravity, but you had to go through signs, so it makes no sense and until you figure out that you can actually do this you won't be able to beat the boss.

 It's funny, because it's often been said that 3-D Sonic killed the series, while the 2-D Advance series kept it alive. The 3-D Sonic games I've been playing, sans Lost World, have been satisfactory, but this game? It's one of the most poorly designed games I've played. After the halfway point of the game, the level design goes down the gutter, as it doesn't play well with the speeds you are supposed to reach or the size of the screen. Since the poor level design got me stuck on the latter stages of the game.... I spent more time with the awful half of the game, which means my experience with the game was dreadful. And that blows, because 70% of the game is REALLY good, but it's also really easy so you'll clear it in no time, and that 30% percent left is were I spent most of my time with... which is why in this particular case, the small but awful part of the game overweighs the best parts about it. What can I say, I absolutely despise Sonic Advance 2, even though I feel that the new mechanics and the first half of the game are actually superior to Sonic Advance 1, the other half of the game just kills it dead thrice over. I hope Sonic Advance 3 can redeem the series.

 3.0

Game #1087: No More Heroes 2 - Desperate Struggle(Switch)

  We still have some heroes left.

 For the longest time I've held the belief that No More Heroes and No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle were equally good, but while NMH1 had more personality and style, NMH2 had better gameplay. Well, after going through both games back to back... let's just say that my opinion has changed a bit.

 Well, for starters, NMH2 was probably one of the best looking Switch games at the time. On the surface it shares the same cell-shaded style as the original game, however, character models have been polished to a sheen, and they added a ton of fancy wavy effects to hair and clothes which look phenomenal, considering the technology it was running on. The overworld was axed completely, now you move from location to location through a list, and while you could argue the overworld added little to the original game... I think it did add to the overall appeal of the original game. Travis looks cooler, and dare I say cuter than before, which goes against what Travis meant to represent in the original game. And while I really like this new set of bosses, most of them aren't as memorable as the ones in the original game. Plus, the whole climbing from the 10th rank up to the first did add an extra layer of spice into the setting, in this game you start at rank 51.... and quickly get to jump between ranks, so you forget what rank most bosses were meant to have, so the ranking has no value and no weight.

 A lot has changed, no more entry fees before each fight, so money only goes into cosmetics, beam katanas and upgrades, which is great change, and the minigames were changed, now we get 8 8-bit minigames to grind money with. Most of these games are honestly fun... however... Prices quickly grow astronomical, so you'll have to replay this simple, repetitive minigames over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. What started out as fun and creative quickly became boring and annoying. Using the Asteroid Trash exploit is the best way to make money, and even then it's a chore. Pray you don't get the store bug. More on that later. At least in the original game you had assassination missions which were shorter and more fun since you got to battle enemies using the normal gameplay.

 On the other hand, combat is much better. You get a total of four beam katanas, and you can change them at will. Sadly, you can't change mid-combo, having to stay put in order to swap blades, but each beam katana feels very different. The Peony is a slow, orange beam Katana that covers very wide arcs with its swings, ideal for mobs. The Blood Berry is a very strong blade, albeit average in other regards. The Tsubaki mkIII is not as strong as it was in the first game, but it's incredibly fast. And lastly, the Rose Nasty, which is the best all-around blade in the game. It's also a blade/knife dual wield combo that looks really badass. Now you can also combo into melee attacks from blade attacks, heck, melee attacks get combos too. There's also a new super move you can trigger by filling the ecstasy gauge, which is done by landing attacks and not getting hit. All in all, combat feels better than before, with attacks flowing much more smoothly and feeling much faster than the previous game did. While switching beam katanas doesn't offer much depth, I still like having the ability to do it.

 Before the game released, being able to play as Shinobu and Henry was one of its most touted features and... they wasted it. You get to play as Henry for a grand total of a single boss fight, not even a proper level, while Shinobu gets two levels and two bosses. I'm not gonna lie, both characters feel a bit sloppy, and it's kind of a slap in the face how bad platforming with Shinobu is considering you absolutely have to do some platforming with her, but I would've liked to be able to play as both characters for more time. Both Shinobu and Henry were really cool, and it feels like they phoned in their sections just to be able to include 'Play as other characters' as a bullet point. Still, something about both characters' animations make me think that they probably didn't spend much time, or had much time, developing them.

 The worst part about this game is how bugged the store is. Sometimes, items you purchased won't count as purchased, other times they'll show up in the store again. Protip: If the new clothes don't show up on Travis when you purchased them then they don't count as purchased, EVEN though they took your money away. Pathetic. Sometimes, you'll even lose stuff you actually purchased, at least in the original Wii release.

 Well... I still think No More Heroes 2 is better than III, but only by veeeeeeeeery little. While the game does fall apart in some areas, thankfully it mostly has to do with the optional content. And the main element of the game, the combat, is definitely better than NMH 1's. The plot and enemy set is not as memorable as the ones in 1 and III, but, c'mon, this game does have a few standouts like Skelter Helter, Margaret, Captain Vladimir and Matt Helms, so it's not like the game is lacking memorable bosses.... it's just the the other games feature an EVEN more memorable set of characters. 

 8.5

Game #1086: BloodRayne

  This vampire doesn't suck.

 Ah, BloodRayne, now this is a game I used to play a lot back when I was younger. The game looked amazing, things such as being able to sever cloth, even if in pre-selected areas, felt so next-gen, as well as the way in which this very same cloth would sway as you walked under it, as well as the huge amount of vampire-y stuff Rayne could pull off made for a bloody good time for a kid that enjoyed horror.

 This is a third-person shooter hybrid thing. Guns are part of Rayne's arsenal to be sure, and she can dual wield different set of weapons as well as shoot at two different targets at the same time, which was super cool back then. However, Rayne's repertoire of abilities goes beyond that, she has two blades on her wrists which she can use in conjunction with kicks to shred her enemies to bits. You can also use a hook to bring down enemies to your level for an easy feed, because you can feed on enemies to replenish your health.... while using their body as a bullet shield. You can even shoot while feeding. Hit enough enemies with your melee attacks and you'll fill your Rage gauge, which you can then use to turn super powerful, increasing your strength, durability and limb-tearing potential for a short while. It's super satisfying.

 Playing the game is pretty darn fun because the game does a great job at making you feel like an overpowered vampire. Not only do you have all these different tools, but the control scheme is easy to get used to and Rayne is very responsive to your inputs.

 Most of the game is pretty straightforward, find and kill certain targets or get to a certain spot. You can turn on vamp-vision to highlight where your objective is in order to aid you. That said, I'd lie if I claimed I didn't get stumped a few times. The game is not exceedingly hard, but a few times it can be tough to figure out ho to proceed. Heck, the final boss is unfairly hard, both to figure out and to actually defeat, heck, I wasn't able to.

 There's a funny PS2 bug, where upon reaching the game's third act a cutscene plays out... and the game freezes. Even the guide I consulted every now and then suggested to watch the cutscene, restart your PS2 and then skip the cutscene!

 I'm happy to report that BloodRayne holds up really well nowadays. Yeah, sure female characters are dressed in very exploitative late 90's early 00's designs, but Rayne is just the right amount of sexy without reaching cringe levels, plus, she's a vampire and vampires are supposed to be sexy and seductive, so it kinda fits. When all's said and done, I definitely think BloodRayne is a great game, and I had a blast revisiting this one.

 8.5

Game #1085: Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga

  Luigi really gets no respect, huh?

 Mario RPG birthed Paper Mario, which in turn, birthed Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, another RPG game featuring Mario, and interestingly enough, just like Paper Mario's combat system borrow a lot from Mario RPG while moving the plot into an entirely different direction, so does Mario & Luigi in regards to its antecessors. 

 As with any other Mario RPG I've played before the story isn't really something worth writing about, keeping things light-hearted and with no real character development to speak of. That said, this game's setting REALLY won me over, as the entire game is set in world in which its inhabitants are sentient BEANS. Like, Coffee beans. You'll be battling evil beans and interacting with good beans, even a fat queen bean lady or the tiny bean kids or the fabulous bean prince. I really liked this new world we get to visit, and the amazing spritework really brings everything to life, as the graphics are very colorful and well animated, with special mentioning having to go towards how expressive some of the facial animations are! Oh, and I also liked the game sense of humor.... which relies on making fun of Luigi from the very beginning!

 The Mario RPG series have always done interesting things with their combat systems in order to keep player invested in its turn-based battles, and this game is no exception. To make things simple, Mario is tied to the A button and Luigi to the B button, which is pure genius, and you'll actively take part in offensive and defensive actions. As you go through the game each brother will gain access to three main forms of attack: Jump, Hammer and Hand. Jump is the most basic attack and you must press jump right before hitting an enemy for bonus damage, jumps won't work on some enemies, mostly of the spiky variety. For the hammer, the in-game explanation is worthless, just press the A/B button as soon as you see Mario and Luigi shake, else the attack will fail. Hand is much easier to use, just press the button as soon as you see the fire(Mario) or thunder(Luigi) sphere fully charged, these latter two can be tricky since some enemies absorb fire or thunder.... but they take extra damage from the opposite element. As for defense, you'll have to figure out if the attack is coming towards Mario or Luigi. A symbol on the left of the screen will tell you if your defense will be jumping or using the hammer, and thus you must time the method of defense alongside the incoming attack, and if you're really good, instead of evading the incoming attack, you'll actually perform a counterattack. There are also super moves that involve both brothers and pressing the correct button at the right time.

 This combat system is a double edged sword. On one hand, combat is very fun, it really is, but on the other hand... it can drag on for a bit too long and every fight can last longer than it should. The game lasts about 15 hours, but the final dungeon felt like a drag because combat against basic enemies was so slow, both in pacing and in how much damage some of these enemies could tank. And maybe I just suck, but the game could get a bit challenging at times because there are no Inns to restore your health and BP(MP).. at least until you realize that the game throws a ton of healing items your way, for free. Plus, be careful where you wander off, as trying to explore BEFORE the equipment shop opens up will spell DEATH for you, and if you haven't saved in a while.... good grief.

 Speaking of a double-edged sword, exploration too has its ups and downs. On the plus side, jumping, hammering and hand powers help you explore the environment, alongside a unique jumping ability... depending on how you align the brothers. With Mario in the lead, Luigi can use a spring-jump to reach high players, he can use the Electricity to move sidesways or backwards(By 'sticking' himself to Mario) or use the Hammer on Mario to shrink him down. Press Start and now Luigi is in the lead, so now Mario can use the spin-jump to travel the air, use fire to burn Luigi's butt and having him dash forwards or use the hammer on Luigi to stake him underground.

 Sounds fun, right? And it can be, at first, but you'll be using the same abilities to retread old ground every time you move from place to place, which quickly goes from fun and engaging to boring and repetitive. Plus, there are too many tools, you have to cycle between Jump, Special Jump, Hammer and Hand with both L and R buttons depending on the brother, plus, switching which brother is in the lead is done with the Start button instead of select, which his super confusing, so you'll be accidentally opening the menu tons of times.

 Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is an interesting case, because every element that makes the game fun and unique... also brings it down in some form or manner. Fun combat that keeps the player engaged... also can make combat feel slow paced and boring. Having to interact with the environment to explore it makes it fun to find new places and find its secrets... until you have to backtrack and have to cycle between tools and putting the right brother in the lead without opening the menu. If you were to ask me, the highs absolutely overweigh the lows, but your mileage may vary. Still, gameplay aside, I feel like the Bean Bean Kingdom is a very interesting new setting for Mario to explore, and all the slights against Luigi were quite funny, sorry green Mario.

 8.5 

Game #1084: Jaws Unleashed

  Is this The Room of licensed videogames?

 Well, I wanted to sneak in a few more horror games in September, so I went for Jaws Unleashed but it seems like they either turned the license into a comedy or they made an unintentionally funny game, I'm still not quite sure what they were aiming for.

 You play as Jaws, the Shark, and it's your mission to... umm, ruin the town Mayor's reputation and eat people I guess. The game is made up of 11 short missions, but in between missions you are free to explore the Open Seas and take on side missions, if you want some extra points to beef up your stats.

 What makes the game so unintentionally(Or was it intentional?) funny is how ridiculous it can get. Heck, the very first mission tasks you with grabbing a scientist, with your JAWS, and before you eat him or snap him in two, you have to carry his body next to a card reader to use his ID card and open a door. Other times you'll have to grab exploding barrels and SHOOT THEM towards boats. You can also perform tricks, such as juggling people with your tail whips, or even unlock new techniques such as a twirling aerial tackle. And the first boss? An Orca. You are a Shark fighting an Orca. And giant enemy Octopuses, this game's got them. It's ridiculous, for good or bad.

 Sadly, it's a bit janky. The camera can be a mess and actively fight you, and since you are a big, thick shark, moving around can be imprecise. The minefield mission is an absolute pain in the rear. Heck, a lot of missions were downright annoying because it can be so hard to figure out how the game expects you to proceed. What to break or how to break it. One time I was trying to get into a room and the door wouldn't budge, so I checked a guide.... It said so tackle it three times. I had already tackled it three times and it didn't open, but I did it again and it did. There was no special noise, not sign that I was actually dealing damage to the door. It's silly what a poor job the game does at telling you what to do.

 Jaws Unleashed is more of a novelty than anything else, it's very clunky, some missions are poorly designed and it's hard to tell if it was supposed to be a tribute or a parody of the license, however, this mix of things is also what makes the game a bit of a meme, which is and of itself, makes it worth a look, doesn't it?

 4.5

Game #1083: No More Heroes(Switch)

  It's called fashionably late.

 You could say that No More Heroes holds a special place in my heart, as it's the game that introduced me to the one and only, Suda51, and, by proxy, it'd end up introducing me to David Lynch and his wondrous movies. I've since played the game a few more times, for example, during a Suda51 marathon I pulled off one day or the PS3 port. To prepare us for NMHIII, NMH 1 re-released on the Switch, so I took the opportunity to play the game after going through III, giving me an interesting new context to compare this game with.

 Sooo, No More Heroes is a rather simple hack-and-slash game, at least if you look at it from the surface. Grasshopper has never had the biggest budgets, so they compensate with style what it lacks in substance. You get a very interesting narrative told in a very unique way, with a super interesting cast of characters and bosses, even bosses that barely get any scenes are memorable, as well as very stylish and satisfying combat. Few games have ever matched the utter gratification you get after swinging a Wiimote/Joycon when executing enemy.

 Well, first the good news... it's a port of the Wii original and not the PS3 remake. Unlike those other versions, this port targets 60 FPS and runs very smoothly, even the overworld. There are dips here and there, yes, but for the most part, it's buttery smooth. It's also got super short loading times, you can barely play with the Star icon during the loading screens.

 The bad news... there are some graphical bugs here and there, sometimes building textures just glitch out, and Travis' glasses disappear when trying out clothes. Not a bad tradeoff, is it? I feel like some voice lines don't play as often as they should(Like the 'MY SPLEEEEN" line), but I can't say for sure. All in all, not a bad trade off, eh? The performance is so good that these small issues aren't that big of a deal, that said... due to licensing issues, the track 'Heavenly Star' is not here, which sucks, it sucks a lot as it was one of the most memorable songs in the original release... but, if we are being honest, it's not such a big deal considering it only played inside buildings. But still, I miss that song.

 Combat was as fun as I remembered it. High and Low slashes are your bread and butter, and this time around I find myself relying on grappling very little, but they are there to shake thinks up by punching and kicking your enemies until you stun them. Darkside Step is a vital part of the combat, if you press left or right before getting hit, time will slow down allowing you to land some free hits. It feels really good to land these, particularly because if you don't you'll take damage! And of course, executions, when you land the final attack on an enemy, the screen will freeze and you'll get to either use the right analog stick or use motion controls to perform a final slash, that ends with the enemy shooting out blood and money everywhere. It feels SO good.

 That said, there's a bit that hasn't aged well, and that's paying fees before each stage. In order to challenge a boss and his or her stage, you must first pony up some money. The money you get after fighting a boss simply isn't enough, so you'll have to partake on side activities. First you have to complete a silly, simple minigame such as collecting coconuts, catching scorpions, filling cars with fuel... yeah, they are silly, but you only have to do them once, as every boss unlocks a new activity, and every activity unlocks new assassination side missions which are much more fun as they involve actual combat. The thing is... if you're regularly purchasing new clothes, upgrading Travis' stats or buying new beam katanas... you'll have to stop at some point and replay assassination missions in order to grind for money. Even if you don't spend money on anything, at some point you will have to grind for money.

 Look, the combat is really fun, and by the end of the game, mission 18 is rather fun because you get 3 minutes to chop down a ton of enemies... but if you play this mission about 10 times(The final Beam Katana upgrade is super expensive) it will eventually get old. Plus, the game has an open world, and you have to drive from the agency to the mission to the agency again, so it does take some time. Thankfully, mission 18 lies next to the Agency, so it even saves you time that way.

 No More Heroes is still a fantastic game, however, it's not a game for everyone. The dialogue and characters will simply be a bit too weird for some people, the gameplay won't be polished enough for others... but if you like your games weird you'll find something truly special here.

 9.0

Game #1082: Hellblade - Senua's Sacrifice

  I keep calling it Hellua!

 After Heavenly Sword there was only one realm left to conquer, Hell, and thus came Ninja Theory's Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, there attempt at an AA game, a game that feels like a AAA release but running on a smaller budget.

 Hellblade definitely doesn't feel like NT's previous releases, the camera is set closely behind the player, battles are slow-paced and never take to the skies, the dialogue has very little swearing and doesn't feel like it's trying so hard to be edgy... yeah, it's a very different game, which caught me a bit by surprise. While it looks like a hack-and-slash game, and combat does play part in the game, I'd say it only takes up about 30% of the whole game, the rest being made up of walking and puzzle solving.\

 The developers investigated about psychosis, consulting with people that suffer the condition as well as specialists in order to theme the game around it, and they managed to craft a truly harrowing experience. All throughout the game you'll be hearing different voices, some hushing, some shouting, talking about what you're doing or what Senua is or should be feeling. Tied to the grey, although sometimes lush, desolate and very bleak environments, as well as the medieval art-design makes for a very unsettling atmosphere.

 Combat is simple: Strong and weak attacks, a dodge, a block and the ability to slow down time after dodging and landing a few hits. While the camera is fairly close to Senua, voices will warn you about incoming attacks so you can attempt to roll out of the way. It's not very deep, and while it's not super exciting, there's a palpable sense of weight to your attacks, so fighting feels rather satisfying.

 Most puzzles are super simple, consisting on having to find figures hiding on the environment. The game clues you in with floating symbols when you are close to one, so it's not as hard to find them as it sounds.

  Hellblade was a fairly interesting experience, that's for sure, and I think it's an experiment that paid off for Ninja Theory. They tried something different, they tackled a subject that I don't think was ever explored before in a videogame and the results speak for themselves. That said, considering the story this game told... I don't think a direct sequel is the right choice for this brand.

 7.5

Game #1081: Power Rangers Battle for the Grid - Super Edition(Playstation 4)

  So this is like the Power Ranger counterpart to the Switch's Sentai? No?

 Well, I decided to get Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid - Super Edition on Playstation 4 too, and... it's the same game. Sharper graphics, slighly less loading, but it's the same game. Since the game has such a simplified control scheme, the PS4 joystick isn't even such a major advantage over the Switch's Joycons. And... yeah, not much else to say. Oh, and this is totally a Halloween-appropriate game. Playing dress-up, yo!

 7.5

Game #1080: Power Rangers Battle for the Grid - Super Edition(Switch)

 Enough Red Rangers to make up an entire squad.

 I've covered a lot of Battle for the Grid before, so I'll focus on what I haven't and what's new with Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid - Super Edition. This, maybe, final release includes all three seasons of DLC plus pre-order bonus on the cart, which is about time, as the game has had two other physical releases, either missing stuff or having stuff on vouchers.

 The new characters are: The purple Gekiranger(ADORE), Scorpina and the red female Shinkenger. Since Shinkenger and Gekiranger are my favorite sentai series, you can probably guess that I love the new characters. There's also Ryu and Chun-li as rangers, and they look amazing. They also play quite different, with directional inputs for special moves! Ryu gets a helmetless costume, why doesn't Chun-Li get one too? What gives?

 These five new characters have Story-Modes that are more unique than the previous characters had... and I hated them. They go on for way too long, featuring way more than just 8 fights, and they switch your two team mates around, which I hated since I wanted to play with specific characters.

 There were a few changes, now the Zords get their own gauges and you can preform counter attacks with them, they feel weaker than before too, although harder to block. This change works pretty well I think. You can now change the AI settings... but it's worthless, as the AI seems pretty darn random, even on easy they'll perform super lengthy, almost-touch of death combos.

 What hasn't changed: No more modes. And only two colors per character, the secondary costume almost always being black, with red and grey details, making for monotonous and boring recolors. Chun-Li gets the best alternate color, since the blue disappears completely.

 If Battle for the Grid ends like this... I'd be content. It's been a good run. It could've been better, but I'm happy with the end result.

 7.5

Game #1079: The King of Fighters XIV - Ultimate Edition

  Two words, one name: Rock Howard.    

 It was only last month when I finally played KoF XIV, but I had purchased that game years ago and never got around to playing it.... only to find out The King of Fighters XIV: Ultimate Edition was releasing this year! Well, it's what you'd expect, same game but with all the DLC on the disc... which is pretty cool if, like me, Rock Howard is your favorite fighting game character ever. Ever.

 So, what's on the disc? 8 new characters, for a total of 58, and hear me out, these are fantastic picks. For starters, three of my all time favorite fighting game characters ever: Rock Howard, Blue Mary and Vanessa. Then there's Whip, which I really like, as well as Yamazaki, a fan favorite, a new fighter that was very interesting, Oswald, who is as suave as he was in IX and... Heidern, who I guess must have at least one fan. 10 characters get DLC costumes and... frankly, I couldn't care less. I guess some people might care about highschool Kyo and Iori, but... nah, I like it when my characters move forward.

 There's some new stuff which I think was added through patches, namely, a few new stages and now each character has a total of 6 color palettes, not bad! The graphics were slightly improved too, but nothing earth-shattering.

 Your save-file doesn't carry over from the original game, but the bosses are unlocked from the start, so you'll only lose your gallery items.

 I'm not gonna lie, the new added content is enough to make me bump up the score by 0.5. Not only in lieu of getting to play as my favorite fighting game character again, but I really do think the added characters are great additions to the roster. Plus, this disc includes all the patches that added more colors, stages and even better graphics to the game, making it a worthy replacement for the original release.

 8.5

Game #1078: No More Heroes III

  Seems there was one more hero left.

 It's finally here, No More Heroes III has released at last and I couldn't be happier. Since Suda 51 is my favorite game director, my expectations were high and my hype was higher, but I had a ton of faith in Suda, and he delivered on most fronts. They removed a few features I really liked about previous outings, they had some... interesting design choices, but thankfully it's pure Suda.

 Well, I guess I'll start with the visuals. Where it matters the most. namely the battles, the game targets 60 fps and it feels super smooth. On the other hand, the overworld is back and... it's not pretty. I think it runs even worse than it did on the original NMH 1 on Wii, which is frankly rather disappointing. The game has a few more Islands besides Santa Destroy, and some have some very ugly graphical glitches and bugs too, which is frankly shameful. And, look, they added more stuff to do, there are many side missions and collectibles to be found on this overworld, but overall, it's still barren, it's still dead and it still performs poorly. I'll say more, since NMH1's overworld had less to do, you didn't have to put up with its technical issues as much as you do with this one. Still, thankfully, the overworld is not the focus of the game, and I'll stress this again, where it matters the most, it runs beautifully.

 Something that cut me off-guard a bit was that this game has lengthier cutscenes than previous games in the series, something that I heartily welcome. The main villain is introduced from the very first cutscene, and we get to see him interacting with the other 9 aliens Travis must defeat, so it paints a very interesting and complete picture of who Jean Baptiste VI(FU) is and makes getting to fight him even more satisfying. Travis gets as many epic one liners as he always did, and Robin Atkin Downes delivers yet another astounding performance. The new set of villains are no slouches, obviously, not every villain is a hit, but there's a lot of memorable new enemies for Travis to fight, and FU might be the best villain the series has had yet.

 The game does nothing to catch new players up to speed and even expects you to have played the side-game, Travis Strikes Back, so quite clearly this game was made FOR the fans. There are a lot of references to No More Heroes 1 and 2, and I'd say that at some points it felt a bit too gratuitous. Grasshopper is not a big developer and these moments weren't featured in trailers, so it's not like Suda was trying to appeal to Nostalgia to sell more copies, but still....  And don't get me wrong, I loved the plot, it's definitely Suda at his finest, I just think he might've went a bit overboard with NMH 1 references. Suda's writing style is definitely not for everyone, but if you're into his stuff, this one delivers in spades. That said, I think the JRPG parody went on for too long.

 Well, now onto the gameplay.... firstly, they cut back on customization a lot. In NMH 1 and 2 you could change Travis' jacket, shirt, pants, belt and gloves, here you can only change his jacket and shirt. At first, only two 'jackets' even let you change his shirt, the basic costume and the jacketless costume, then you get three different outfits, which... thanks, I guess? The next three jackets, two of them being RED, like the basic jacket, because they are the jackets from NMH 1 and 2 and the other one being Travis Strikes Back's purple jacket. Basically, customizing Travis' clothes sucks. It's so disappointing, because buying new clothes after every boss fight was always a treat.

 But even worse, you don't get new beam katanas. Really? Really? It's not like you can't upgrade Travis, there is an upgrade system, but getting new beam katanas with their unique properties or animations was another great element of the previous games, but it's been axed completely. Lame. 

 Know what's even worse? There are no stages. The formula is thus: Fight up to five 'designated' battles against a few enemies, deposit the entry fee and then fight the boss. Once you beat him or her, fight on the next designated battles, rinse and repeat. I think I know why they did it, they probably couldn't get stages to run at a decent framerate since the Switch struggle so much with Unreal Engine 4. To make up for this, even the most basic of enemies can take quite a beating, and boss fights can be really lengthy which I actually liked.

 High and low combat stances have been completely removed, now you have a single weak attack combo and a strong attack combo. Landing hits without getting hit will raise your tension level, and it can go up to level three, the higher your tension level, the lengthier, quicker and stronger your combos get. I think it's a fun mechanic. You can create chips and equip up to three of them on Travis in order to raise some of his stats, and this time around you get four chip powers: Slow Enemy, Projectile peltering, Telekinesis and, the best one, a super powerful drop kick. Each of these skills will help Travis lay the smackdown on his enemies, and they run on a timed cooldown. The darkside step returns, basically, dodging at the last possible moment will reward you with slowing down enemies for a short while, letting you go slash-happy. When an enemy is about to die, the game rewards you with a finisher slash, performed with motion controls or the right analog stick, and these are as satisfying as always. Of course, after every kill you get rewarded with slots, and if you are lucky you'll get special temporary boons.

 Of course, landing attacks and blocking attacks depletes your Beam Katana's battery, so finding a window of opportunity to recharge it is part of every battle.... or, if you pummel an enemy enough, you might stun them, and performing a wrestling grab on a stunned enemy will completely recharge your battery because why not. Melee attacks are gone... but does it really matter? The new chips are a much more fun addition.

 Since there are no stages, even basic enemies are stronger than you'd expect, so battles as a whole are a bit tougher than before. If you die, be it on a boss or on a side mission or designated battle, when you retry a roulette will spin and it will restart the battle with a bonus... most of the time. It could be 1.5X attack power, heck, you might even get revived on the spot... or, very rarely, you'll get nothing or you'll have to restart with a depleted battery gauge!

 The game has two different currencies, one is used to purchase upgrades at the lab and the other one is used to buy support items, craft chips and pay fees before each boss battle. To be fair, I always had money to spare and never had to replay missions for money, but then again, I tackled every side mission I came across. Speaking of side-missions, the mini-map is useless, as there's no way to tell if you have already beaten a certain mission or not. Besides battling, there are a ton of mini-games, like unclogging toilets, mining for ore or cutting grass. They are 100% optional, and they weren't too awful.

 While it's probably my least liked numbered No More Heroes game I still had a blast with the game. I mean, it would've been easier to go the NMH2 route and just give us more of the same, but they tried something quite different and they still managed to land on their feet. It's a shame customizations and beam katanas got axed completely, and while I'd still prefer to have proper stages I didn't dislike the new focus on making battles lengthier, and thus, more impactful. As with every other Grasshopper game, what it lacks in depth and finesse it makes up for in style. And I'll tell ya this, this game is way more memorable than most of the games that are being released lately.

 8.5

Game #1077: [Prototype]

  So... less than a beta?

 Man, [Prototype] brings back some memories! While I never owned the game, I used to play it at a fiend's during one of the busiest and most fun summers of my life, where I was still unemployed and I'd go out pretty much every single day, be it weekly or the weekend, and I even had to choose between plans most days since I didn't want to mix friend groups. Fun times, fun times. Oh, and it counts as horror because the protagonist gets infected with a virus that lets him turn his body into fleshy weapons, and you must fight fully mutated monsters.

 [Prototype] released close to inFamous, which was interesting since both games were third-person open-world super-hero affairs, and both games are very different while sharing a similar premise. While inFamous 2 reigns supreme, I do believe this game is better than the first inFamous, as they get so much right...

 Namely, the game is built around freedom and fun. Alex Mercer is sort of like Venom in that he can turn his body into black, fleshy apendages, and thus you get various 'weapon' style. You have a whip like power, Gauntlet powers, increased-muscle mass power or the badass Sword power. Every power/weapon has its own combos, performed with Square and Triangle, as well as their own uses, so it pays to switch things up... at least until you get the Sword power, which is pretty much good at everything. Eventually you'll also be able to turn your powers into a coat of armor that looks badass and barely impacts your movement. There are two types of enemies: Military and other fleshy-mutants, and they'll fight each other too if they come into contact. Heck, you can steal Military weaponry, tanks and even airplanes to fight either. As you can see, when it comes to combat there's a lot you can do, and I didn't even delve into your Devastator attacks, extremely powerful super moves you can unlock. And this is what I mean by freedom, the game gives you a ton of options in how to lay havoc to your enemies. And while you have regenerative health, sometimes it's much quicker to just grab an enemy and CONSUME him for delicious health points.

 But combat is but one part of the Prototype equation, they also nailed movement. Holding R2 will make Alex dash and parkour over every obstacle that comes his way, and if the obstacle happens to be a building... he'll just climb it while running! You can jump incredible heights with the X button, or hold it down to perform even taller jumps. Double tap X while holding down R2 while on the air and you'll break into a swift glide, and if it's too slow, you can just press R2 to perform an air dash. Movement makes exploring the city SO much fun, I don't think I ever saw value in unlocking movement upgrades in a game before, but here it adds so much and makes the game even more fun. As per most Open-World game, there are hidden useless orbs spread throughout the city, and I spent so much time looking for them, because they gave an XP bonus, letting me get even more abilities, and I was having fun just moving around the city. And there are a LOT of upgrades to buy, so every XP point helps. That said, the one issue with movement... is that they made moving around so quick and efficient... that trying to move into an exact place or spot can be a pain in the butt, which will only be an issue on some race time missions.

 Side-Missions in the game are of the 'activity' variety, as every mission with any sort of dialogue is part of the main story. These activities range from races in which you must go from place to place, slaughtering X amount of enemies with X weapon, performing a jump trying to land on a certain spot, having to consume enemies, having to sneak into military bases(Since you can transform into enemies you consume), etc... Sadly, on the last third of the game the repetition set in and I started skipping these missions, since I was tired of doing the same things over and over again. Thankfully, they are optional.

 I loved my time with [Prototype], it's easy to see that the developers put 'fun' at the forefront of the game's design, as it's not the game with the deepest or most interesting narrative out there, or even the one with the deepest combat system, but instead, you are presented with a ton of different tools you can use to just lose yourself and live your anti-hero fantasies.

 9.0

Game #1076: Damnation

 Well, I'll be damned....

 I'm a lover of all things horror, and as such I always begin my Halloween celebrations on September, something I haven't properly reflected on this blog of mine. That changes now. I'll sneak in a few games with horror elements here and there to start things up before October, started with Damnation, a scarily bad third-person shooter that features steampunk pseudo-zombies. 

 Well, I'll start with the art direction... it's really good, for the most part. Female characters looked straight out of the 90's with their focus on sex appeal, but on the whole, they look really damn cool, sure, sexy first, but cool. Except for the native, Yakecan, she looks dumb. The main character is a bit boring, but makes for a barely decent steampunk cowboy, and he sorta looks like Jean Claude Van Damme at his prime. Enemy designs fare much better, and the steam-powered guns are pretty neat. Something that really caught my eye is how poorly directed the cutscenes are, as they jump from scene to scene very quickly, making every cutscene feel like a trailer rather than, well, a proper cutscene. Even the dialogue is jumpy, at least they get to the point quickly I guess.

 Well, the game is as basic a third-person shooter as it gets. The only gimmick is that you can hold down a button for a few seconds to have every enemy highlighted in red, even through walls... as long as you hold still. There's no cover system, just crouch and hope for the best and the melee attacks are downright useless, they are hard to aim and they deal very little damage, so don't even bother. You are joined by useless AI partners on every stage, buuut you can also play in local co-op through split-screen, which is pretty cool I'll give them that.

 Something that really hurt my overall enjoyment with the game is that enemies barely react to getting shot, which is very unhelpful as it's hard to tell if your shots are landing, and it's also very unsatisfying to play. But hey, if you shoot from far enough, the AI won't even realize it's getting shot. Overall, the game itself is very unsatisfying, the basics work but they lack pizzazz, and the game does nothing to add excitement to the shootouts. While the weaponry looks cool there's not enough audio-visual feedback to match their designs, so something that looks so cool ends up feeling boring.

 There are some light parkour-ish elements, such as climbing ledges, wall jumps are similar things to what you'd find in Uncharted but without the exciting set-pieces. There were a few decent moments here and there, like shooting a rock with a giant cannon to have it crash down on top of the very same gun you shot at it with, but they are very rare. The game has a few bike sections, but as with everything else in the game... it's not fun. The speed is there, I think, but for some reason they failed to make it exciting in any way. It's also a bit hard to maneuver. 

 Bugs, the game has them too. Sometimes, both enemies and allies will just spawn and stay lying on their backs on the ground. They will still shoot at you, but they are smaller targets. Sometimes enemies will get stuck trying to climb a ledge and one time, when I got a trophy, the game froze for a few seconds, I was about to restart the PS3, but it fixed itself. Somehow.

 Damnation is one of the blandest third-person shooters around, and it has nothing memorable about it... except a few of the funny glitches I came across. It's a shame, because the setting and art-direction showed some promise, but they failed to capitalize on it delivering a very uninspired end product.

 4.0

Game #1075: Heavenly Sword

  What's their next game gonna be called? Hell Blade? Oh, wait...

 I can't say I ever cared much about Heavenly Sword. I love hack-and-slash games, most things I heard about it were positive, and Nariko, the main character, even made it into Playstation Battle All-Stars, and yet... I never cared about it. For whatever reason, my interest was sparked a few weeks ago, so it was finally time to try this PS3 exclusive, and all I can say is that it didn't feel much like heaven.

 Something I found super interesting is that now that I've played HS I can find a lot of its DNA inside their DmC reboot. Donte taunts his enemies much like Nariko did, although somehow dialogue feels much cringier here. Boche, the main villain, feels like a sillier version of Mundus, I could find a few parallelisms in their dialogue and mannerisms, they also each have a woman-monster lover that they treat like garbage, and one of the bosses in each game is their respective deformed kid. Said kids even kinda look alike, even if Mundus' Spawn is a giant deformity while Boche's son looks more human. Kai is an unbearably dumb version of DmC's Kat. Oh, and even gameplay, in DmC you could change between Heaven and Hell weapons by holding L1 or R1, well, Nariko gets Ranged(L1) and Power(R1), and each style is tied to a color, either blue or orange. In many ways, this sort of feels like a prototype of what DmC would be like. It even runs like a prototype.

 I'll start with the story I guess. DmC got a lot of criticism over its characters, dialogue and story, but I actually enjoyed all three. Not so with Heavenly Sword. The dialogue is very cringe inducing at times, and the way characters animate during cutscenes can be off-putting to say the least. At times it's hard to tell if the game is trying to be funny or if it's being unintentionally funny, like the first time we see the main villain reunion, characters talk in weird ways and they behave so... oddly with each other. Their interactions are so weird, were they trying to be funny? I don't know. When Nariko starts taunting the female boss, Whiplash, it felt so awkward and forced... Like, Jesus, the story itself isn't awful, but the dialogue can be pretty bad. There's a ton of tonal whiplash, heh, too as you can get silly scenes right after moments that were supposed to be serious. Boshe, the main villain, does have some interesting mannerisms, so he was a bit interesting throughout the first half of the game... but he became too cheesy and silly throughout the second half. Kai, the catgirl, ruined every scene she was in.

 Whatever, who cares about the story in an action game, right? You pop in the disc, the intro cutscenes play and... ooh boy, it's Nariko on a giant battlefield getting surrounded by hundreds of enemies, YEAH! THIS IS AWESOM-.... and then you notice how the framerate drops into the small 20s. And the framerate is never steady, it's always dropping frames left and right, to the point I'm not sure if some animations are just choppy or if the framerate made them look that way. The game just never runs very smoothly, which was pretty lame.

 In combat you get a strong and weak attack that can be chained together, and you can dodge with the right analog stick. Enemies will attack in three ways, orange Power attacks, which means you must hold R1 to block, blue Speed attacks, which means you have to press nothing to block and ranged attacks which are countered by attacking with the L1(Range) modifier. You can counter attacks by pressing triangle the moment you block an attack. It's not a bad system, and swapping styles mid-combo is pretty cool, however, I feel as though I blocked attacks I shouldn't have a lot of the time. For instance, I'm sure I was holding down R1 yet I blocked incoming speed attacks. At least it errs in the player's favor! You can unlock more moves by performing well in battle, as you'll get rewarded with either more moves or art pieces.

 Just like Onechanbara before it, the game is no depth just style. Later in the game it grinds to a halt, as enemies start blocking absolutely everything, so now you have to wait for them to attack one by one and counter their attacks. Either that or keep mashing hoping one of your attacks gets through and opens them up. Either way, boring. The thing about combat is that it has no depth... and it's style is not enough. Some of Nariko's attacks look cool, they do, but the framerate does them no justice, so it's not very fun. For as shallow as Onechanbara was, at least the framerate was stable. Oh, and it has QTEs, if you miss a button prompt the enemy boss will recover a ridiculous amount of health. Screw that!

 There's also a surprisingly large amount of shooting gallery segments. These are just plain boring. You can hold down the shoot button for a first-person, unwieldy six-axis aiming... or you can turn-off aftertouch in the options menu and just use the left analog stick like a normal person. Either way, these are boring. The game is super linear too, so no unlockables for straying off the beaten path.

 If I had to choose between Nariko and her glorified bikini slaying enemies in sub-30 fps or murdering enemies in a stable framerate and a silly bikini... I'd go with Onechanbara. No, really, I felt this game to be really bland. The story is hard to take seriously most of the time and the combat just isn't good enough, particularly taking into account how poorly the game runs. However, considering how much they fixed everything for DmC... I wouldn't mind seeing Nariko return, I think with a decent redesign and a more defined personality she could work really well.

 5.0